Back in 1999, I turned eighteen and hopped on the body piercing bandwagon. It resulted in ten piercings, six of which I still had today. Friends and strangers understandably assumed I’d gotten my clit or labia pierced, namely because I was known for making idiotic decisions and I was stupidly skewering myself with metal. "No way," I’d reply. "God made that part of me perfect." I understood the desire to adorn certain parts. I’ve had my nipples pierced not once, but twice. The idea of having a needle put down there, though? Only if it was medically necessary. And even then, I’d have to be sedated.

I bring this up to illustrate the fact that I don’t personally subscribe to much by way of external enhancement of my genitals, other than grooming habits that might be considered severe in some circles. But other than that, I like to leave that part of me alone. After all, I wouldn’t want to fuck with it since it works pretty well without any additional bells and whistles.

Vaginas are complex and often fickle. As women, we’re forced to deal with an onslaught of fish mongering jokes and references to Summer’s Eve commercials in school. (Or maybe that was just on Long Island. Represent.) While I might shrug off a lot of the more angry tirades of the grrl power sect, I will agree that – in general – girls are societally forced to take on a mantle of shame when it comes to their vaginas. Case in point: I am not using the word "va-jay-jay" or "hooha," no matter how tempting it might be. I still feel that vagina is a bit harsh, that it has an icky connotation. But no amount of Swarovski crystals or puffy paint on my mons pubis is going to change that.

As a woman who has dated both genders, I consider myself a bit of an authority on genitals. A connoisseur, if you will. I’m not going to say that the vag is a supermodel orifice. It isn’t. But it’s like the Tina Fey of organs: quirky, brilliant, hilarious, and actually quite cute. I argue that penises, while awkward and comedic in their own right, lack the same sort of personality. Could you imagine a cock surrounded by rhinestones? Or, to keep it in line with gender binaries, intentional three-day stubble? I was going to suggest intentional bike grease stains, but then this becomes a whole other post entirely. Men don’t feel the need to embellish their members, and I suspect that part of the reason why is because they’ve never seen a need to. Women have been forced to fear the reaction to their most sacred parts, and I’m assuming that’s the reason why some have decided to pay money to have something bizarre and bewildering done to their bits. Ladies, if you want to make it more appealing, why not simply tape a photograph of a pizza down there? Or a cupcake? Something mouth-watering might be more apropos, as opposed to sparkly moonbeams or airbrushed insects. 

This wholly ridiculous need to garnish the dish comes with a hefty pricetag. Coloring your pubic hair is one of the most reasonable options, costing $14.99 from Betty. (It’s marked down from $19.99.) Betty specializes in "color for the hair down there," and they offer colors from aqua to ruby red, along with stencils ($7.99) and "Alphabetty" crystals ($2.99) in the shape of, you guessed it, letters. Other stenciling kits, available from companies like the amusingly named Designer Jungles, cost anywhere from $65 to $4.99 and allow you to do the landscaping yourself. Going to the pros is going to cost you more, with the average cost of a bikini wax being between $30 and $100, depending on what you have done.

Twattooing – or temporary twa…tattooing, since there are people who actually get inked by their honeypot – is quite a bit steeper. This asinine airbrushing of accents costs $115, which includes the price of the requisite Brazilian wax. Also called "vattooing," these designs last seven days if you don’t rub ‘em up against anything. Which seems pretty stupid ’cause isn’t that the point? It’s also astutely been pointed out that this rules out masturbation. If you notice one of your female coworkers suddenly acting high-strung, maybe she ponied up for some pigment, only to find that she couldn’t participate in any finger-painting on her own.

Want your labia to feel like they’re in a dance recital? Get vajazzled. The application of crystals over a newly-waxed pubic area was made famous by Jennifer Love-Hewitt on some stupid nighttime talk show. I am not linking to her admission of a bejeweled bikini line, because she finishes it with a coup de grace: a demure little raising of the eyebrows to signify that lunacy is somehow sexy. It is not. But if you want to make oral sex even more humiliating for your partner, you have two options. One, get a Brazilian wax at a salon that offers this stupid service. It will cost anywhere from $25, plus the cost of the wax, to $120 for everything. You can also buy the crystal designs for between $15 and $25, but then you have to make sure you apply it to a clean slate. You could also splurge for the $25 "breast + vajazzle combo," where you get jewels for your ‘gina as well as stones for your sweater-puppies. The main vajazzling website also offers "wholesale vajazzling," which makes it sound like a nice way of saying they will add some sparkle to a vagina so cavernous it could be an Ikea storeroom.

While writing about the method and cost of vajazzling might make my mind rot a little, reading the list of "5 Reasons to Vajazzle" was enough to make me want to vomit into my underwear drawer. See below:

"5 Reasons to Vajazzle

1. Celebrate a girls night out
2. The look on your man’s face when you show off your vajazzle to him
3. Make the other ladies at the beach or pool jealous
4. Reward yourself for all your hard work
5. Get over your ex-boyfriend"

Personally, being vajazzled would fill me with shame and make me want to hide. It’s an act that would make me want to join a convent and refer to my ex as "the last person who will ever date me." But who am I to judge? I’m covered in tattoos, have glorified barbecue skewers through my nipples, and remove all of my pubic hair more regularly than I wash my socks. Although I can’t quite make peace with vaginal embellishment or vajazzling, I might just get on board for Clitter.

These days, vibrators are sold at Walmart. Stores that hock sex toys are featured in the news. Shows like Sex and the City have featured devices like the Rabbit, resulting in skyrocketing sales and more cheerful ladies. Toys are no longer taboo, which is good, because I think that public recognition of sexuality can only be a good thing. But whenever something once considered sassy goes mainstream, there’s usually a boomerang effect by way of consumerism. Which is to say that, even in this economy, there are vibrators that cost more than one month’s rent. I have seen them. On the Internet as well as in a glass case, mere inches away from my grubby paws. I don’t find them impressive. They certainly don’t induce female hysteria.

To me, the Jimmyjane "luxe" line looks like the Ed Hardy tee-shirt of vibrators. It’s probably the etchings, or maybe the pretentious copy and obnoxious cost. The Ultimate Members six pack is $1,650 and looks like an adorable little rainbow from a distance, until you notice that they’ve been emblazoned with portraits of glorified ravers. Each is etched with an artist’s representation of kids from the London nightclub scene that look like stills from a Gorillaz video. Their Little Steel Tonight Eternity ($2,000) features an etching of lyrics written by that guy from the Eurythmics and 28 "stone cut" black diamonds. My sweet dreams are not made of that. The Little Platinum comes in two different varieties ($395 or $445), one that’s simply motorized metal, and the other that’s etched with a heart and a scroll. The Little Gold, which is currently on sale for only $158, or $375 for the limited edition, is made of 24K gold, but looks pretty much the same as their other models, only this one is covered in karats. The last luxe Jimmyjane that I’ve seen is the Eternity, which is a lot like the Little Steel Tonight Eternity, only without that whole weird Eurythmics thing. This vibrator looks like something that only belongs in Paris Hilton’s vaginal canal, and I don’t mean that in a good way. It’s 24K gold with a circle of diamonds around the tip, totaling .66 carats. My pussy might be priceless, but I am not putting rocks near it. Nuh-uh. Besides, with a $2,750 price tag for gold, or a $3,250 price tag for platinum, it seems more than a little ridiculous. For $3.99 and the cost of some bubble bath I can have the same sort of fun with the lights off in my tub, since Jimmyjane’s draw seems to be the fact that their toys are waterproof and quiet. (Note: I have never used a Jimmyjane vibrator, but any toy I’ve bought that was labeled as "quiet" was only comparing itself to a Def Leppard concert or a construction zone.) They also come with a rechargeable motor, which makes it seem more like a lawnmower than an intimacy device.

I’m not going to completely skewer Jimmyjane’s product line. Their Form 2, which looks like a cartoon tooth, seems particularly awesome, and I’ve had the pleasure of fiddling with it in Babeland’s store. It’s also waterproof, rechargeable, flexible, and under $200, which seems like a steal compared to those other ones. Also, the company’s founder, Ethan Imboden, is a skateboarding designer who blogs for Huffington Post. And he’s hot. So although his company’s vibrators will never see my secret cabinet, good for him for making sex toys that are fancy enough to be written about in fashion magazines and sold for the same price as a home entertainment center.

Another "ultra-luxe" line of toys are by Lelo. They include the Lelo Olga, which looks like a futuristic weapon for a robot police officer. Shaped like a car door handle, it will set you back $790 for gold, or $390 for the silver model. It would probably cost just as much to rig a time machine and zoom to the future, where you can befriend a cyborg cop to lend you his metal billyclub. Whether or not it vibrates won’t matter, as the Lelo Olga isn’t a machine, but simply a piece of metal. Lelo Yva, however, is a gilded vibrator. For $1,500 for gold, or $1,300 for silver, you can have a "splashproof" and rechargeable vibrator made out of the same stuff as jewelry. Not to confine it to the ladies, Lelo has a toy named Earl. Also plated in precious metal, it’s accompanied by a set of cufflinks. (Not kidding.) For $590 for silver and $990 for gold, he’d best be wearing those cufflinks to work the next morning to pay off the credit card bill.

For the record, Lelo isn’t simply a producer of glitzy personal pleasure tools. They’re a great Swedish company with a line of vibrators and toys that are perfectly suited for people who don’t want to put a smutty Tiffany’s purchase in their orifices. Even though they’re a bit out of my price range, the Nea has been on my wish list for a while now. My birthday just passed. Hint, hint.

Other than Jimmyjane and Lelo’s bank-breaking extravagances, an Australian jeweler was rumored to be designing a million-dollar vibrator just last year. Colin Burn has already created a $38,000 platinum dildo set with 400 pave diamonds and a handle made from a rare native wood. (Heh.) He also has a cheaper model, a diamond-studded dildo peppered with diamonds and crowned with a pearl that retails for $8,000. Who buys this shit? Really. I want to know what possesses somebody to shove something made of diamonds into their most tender bits. Or maybe that’s the point, something precious for something precious. Either way, I find these ostentatious implements to be a bit of a turn off. I’m a jeans-and-tee-shirt type of gal. I’m picky about a handful of things: my bed, books, the company I keep. The thought of putting something expensive in a situation that is, by nature, messy and unpredictable just sounds like some sort of scam created by an insurance company. No thank you.

But since I can’t solve this mystery myself, and because I don’t think I’m going to get a chance to see what 24K gold feels like inside of my body, I wrote to the manufacturers and retailers to find out the answer to the question why? Why would anyone buy something like this? What prompts a company to sell sex toys made out of such costly materials? And have they experienced any sort of backlash during economic times when most people find themselves struggling just to be able to take someone out on a date that may or may not lead to the use of a sex toy? Even though sex toy sales are still soaring one can’t help but wonder if these luxurious playthings are just a misunderstood version of a stimulus package, or an inadvertent slap in the face (and other parts) to the downtrodden.

I’m still waiting to hear back, and if I do, I’ll post whatever sort of gold nuggets come from my interaction with the makers of invaluable implements. I don’t know about you, but $38,000 is enough for me to live off of for a year. My vagina will be just as happy with a battery operated piece of low-grade plastic. Hell, if I’m really feeling like treating her to an expensive night out, maybe I’ll just take a roll of quarters down to the laundromat and sit on an industrial dryer.

Suspicion of online dating isn’t new territory for me. I’ve always been fascinated with the way that the Internet has impacted our most intimate moments, and in my curiosity I’ve poked a stick at everything from chat-room sex to mail-order brides. I’ve even written about the cyber-romance industry before, but I haven’t had the unfortunate distinction of being an actual guinea pig in the proverbial labratory. Now I’m single, and although I feel more inclined to undergo elective surgery than get involved with a stranger and run the risk of going through a breakup again, I have to recognize that one day I may want to go on a date. I’m not in school anymore, and I work from home. How on earth does a sober single lady meet somebody in this town? Oddly enough, the Internet seems like the most viable option.

I’m an aesthetically-obsessed, overly-judgmental prick. Those are my good qualities. So it can be assumed that I approach the prospect of "meeting the love of my life" via computer with the same trepidation as I would taking a soak in a piranha-filled bathtub. I can say with a great amount of authority that the computer isn’t the most reflective device when it comes to a person’s physical attributes. I can show you two pictures of yours truly (or you can just Google search on your own time) where I look like a late-era Brando with a hair-piece and Ani DiFranco hit in the face with a lead pipe. While I may have a bevy of self-esteem issues to wade through in the inevitable years of therapy that await me, I do know that I am not nearly as ugly as those two computer-search-optimized photos. Alas.

So online profile pictures? I assume they’re as representative of their subjects as boxed mac ‘n cheese is representative of Italian food. And the personal revelations the sites have you provide? Please. The only one I put stock in is the inquiry as to whether or not you like cats, and I’ll only believe you if you say you don’t. My cynicism is founded in reality, and not just the reality of new-found singledom. Statistics show that men lie the most about how much money they make, how tall they are, and their age. Ladies predictably fib about physical stats like weight and how old they are. Aside from the details of deception, there’s the fact that one out of ten users is a scammer. Want more scary numbers? One out of ten sex offenders reportedly employs online dating sites to meet people. Less frightening, but still sad, one out of ten site users leave within the first three months. Already I feel like I’m potentially speed dating Max Cady.

I also have to say that the fairer sex is responsible for giving online hookups such a seedy reputation: one out of three women who meet guys online have sex the first time they meet. What’s worse? Four out of five of these women don’t use protection. Those are numbers that send me screaming from the screen.

Among the choices of sites I could scope there are some that boast love (eHarmony, Match), a number that imply fun (OkCupid, Nerve), a few that have faith (JDate, ChristianSingles), a couple that want to ruin/save marriages (AshleyMadison), and a smattering that have a pretty specific purpose that I won’t get into here (Manhunt). What I’m trying to say is that if you want a freckled, 6’0" mountain biker to shack up with for the weekend, you can find her. If you want a Korean, vegan, classical guitarist to date for the long haul, he’s there. If it’s one dirty night or one for life, you just need to figure out which site is right for you. Of course, if you’re like me, what you want changes minute by minute. Also, if you’re like me, you’re not going to pay a penny to peruse these digital dating displays. On average, an online dating consumer spends $239 per year. To me, that’s nearly $240 dollars too many. After all, walking down the street and making bedroom eyes is an activity you can partake in for free.

But I might be the only person on Earth who feels this way. Online dating is a 1.049 billion dollar industry. It trumps porn. In fact, the porn industry has pointed the finger at Internet dating as the reason why they’ve suffered a $74 million dollar decline. Searching for the one has amounted to the largest segment of "paid content" on the Internet, even more than seeing people make friction.

Of course this forces me to wonder, who spends money on this? I mean, I have social anxiety, but even if I reach a point where swapping spit with strangers is an option, I don’t have $239 bones to drop on potential suitors behind a computer screen. Out of my friends, I know only one or two who’d have the spare change to toss into the online dating cup. (Ironically, their financial and career successes have rendered them man magnets and total babe bait.) When trying to figure out who is spending dough on dating sites, I should have realized that it would have to be people who are just old enough to be doomed to fail in the bar scene, but who are at the prime age for sportscars and Viagra. Out of 80 million babyboomers, nearly 30% are single and testing the web waters. Aside from the ‘boomers flocking to the field, men outnumber women, with 52.4% of site users being male and 47.6% being female. If you have two X chromosomes and live in New York, online dating makes sense, as men outnumber us to a much greater degree in the concrete jungle.

If I needed any other reasons to feel skeptical about clicking for love, there are many. Sites have encountered problems where profiles are online for months, sometimes even years, without the user logging in. There are the predictable financial issues, too. Members can sign up for free or low-cost trial memberships, only to be charged automatically and without warning at the end of the trial. And, lastly, it sucks to be a girl. Statistics have shown that, online, men rate women’s attractiveness according to a normally distributed bell-curve, while women rate nearly 80% of men as below-average attractiveness. This can be summed up in one statement: women are discerning to the point of being picky. Which shoots us in the foot if we’re truly looking for a soul mate, doesn’t it?

The truth is, I’m not really enticed by online dating simply because it goes against my pathetically romantic nature. I’d like to believe that I may meet that perfect person – the one who laughs at my jokes and enjoys long walks in the city, spankings, getting up early, and Medjool dates – and that I’ll do it in person. I don’t believe that I’ll find them in the comfort of my home. That just seems too…convenient. Even the best online dating story I know involved a little bit of difficulty. A male friend of mine was contacted by a girl on Nerve.com, only he’d just had two bad dating experiences. He politely told her he wasn’t in the headspace to go out, but he thanked her anyway. About a month or two later, he was looking on Craigslist’s personals and read an add that was devoid of a picture. He was intrigued by the description, and thought that the lady sounded nice. He wrote to her and she responded, sending a photograph. It was the same girl he’d previously rejected. They’re getting married in three weeks, and I’ll be right there watching. Although it was life-changing for him, I don’t believe that it would work for me. My little heart might just be too tired after three years with a person who I still consider my best-friend. But maybe I’ll try it. After all, it’s a lot like human window shopping, and I don’t ever have to commit to buy.

I don’t mean to step on any toes here, but my generation has redefined the concept of "hard work." I was raised to believe that I was a unique little snowflake. Nearly everyone in my elementary school class was "gifted," talented at something, their path to success laid out for them by eager parents and an educational system that assured them that there was room at the top for all of us. Our paths were clear: do well in elementary school so you know how to do well in junior high, do well in junior high so that you can do well in high-school (or go to a good high school, if private school was an option,) do really well in high-school while playing sports and pursuing a wide range of non-academic activities so that you could be accepted into a good college. Once I got out of college, I was baffled. Now what?

Some of my friends went on to medical school or law programs, others investigated what sort of Masters degrees they’d like to pursue, but, really, I noticed a fair amount of the sheen being tarnished pretty quickly in the eyes of my fellow students. As soon as it was up to us to shoulder the burden and responsibility of actually going to work, that’s when things got weird. For myself, I knew I wanted to write, but I knew that I probably couldn’t make money doing it. I was too cheap to go into debt for a Masters, and I knew I’d be shitty at teaching. I decided to try to work in the industry that I’d studied in school: screenwriting. I mean, it was on my degree, right? That meant that I was supposed to do it. I worked in Los Angeles for a bit, and then said, "Fuck it, I’ll make it in New York." That old sense of entitlement and optimism was back in full force. Why work in LA, a city I hated, when I could move back to the town I loved? I left a good job to go after my so-called dream in a town of my choosing. That’s the first piece of evidence against me.

In the old days, like, the sixties and seventies, when my parents were around my age, you wouldn’t leave a good job just because you didn’t like part of it. At least this is what I hear from my dad and his pals. You’d work. It was called work because it wasn’t fun, and if you weren’t any good at it, you’d keep trying until you got better. Not everyone was going to win first place, there weren’t enough trophies to go around. But if you stuck it out, and really put in some "sweat equity" (old-guy speak for "hard work," or possibly an endocrine condition,) you’d secure a place in the company and maybe win the respect of your peers or your old man. It wasn’t about being the best, it was about doing well and making a living. It certainly wasn’t about enjoying yourself, or pursuing your “calling.” I know plenty of older people who are damn good at their jobs and hate them. Or rather, they would much prefer doing something else other than working all day. And while I pat myself on the back for eschewing the traditional way that people make a living – like, you know, having a job – those people who work hard at jobs that they don’t necessarily like are the ones who have some retirement saved up, who don’t wonder where their next paycheck is coming from. They are the people I know who have kids who are thriving. If I had a kid at this point I’d probably have to nurse him or her until they were in junior high. And I’d probably drink my own breast milk to save money, too. And then blog about it.

I don’t know what brought about this rant. There are many of my friends who are professionals doing things that they love. (They are mainly comedy writers and TV producers.) I also know several truly hardworking young men and women who buck the trend that I’m describing. But a large number of my acquaintances get checks from their parents to cover the rent every month while they sit around, not working and figure out what to "do with themselves." They want an occupation that makes them happy. They want to find a greater purpose and make sense of what it is they were put on this earth to do. Forty years ago, the only people who said shit like that were beat up in parking lots. They were treated like losers, called slurs like "soft." They couldn’t get laid, let alone get married. These days, whining is pretty much standard. We’re always looking for an easier way. Though I don’t want to make sweeping generalizations or alienate anyone, I constantly hear complaints. (Usually coming from my own mouth.) Perhaps it’s a case of grass-is-always-greener. While I’m certainly glad I wasn’t alive in the seventies, I imagine that, back then, people took pride in doing their job – any job – whether or not it made them happy, or aligned with their special talent that Mrs. Jones told them they had back in the second grade.

What’s worse is that I’ve noticed that people seem to equate giving their opinion with taking action. Just look at this blog. Years ago, if twenty-somethings in my parents’ generation had wanted to tell the world how they felt about work, they’d save it for family gatherings or, in my mom’s case, they’d start writing in a journal after too many glasses of pinot grigio. There was no voluminous public forum for telling the world how shitty your Wednesday was. Nobody cared. What’s more, everyone kind of knew and accepted that nobody cared. Generation Y, as we’re called, is convinced that everyone wants to know what we’re thinking. Twitter, Facebook status updates, blogs, all of these nifty advances in technology are mainly used to perpetually shout to the world that we’re here, we’re special, and we matter. I really believe that my parents’ generation would have turned around to the first person randomly telling the world what they were doing in 140 characters or less and said, "Why do you think we care?" We’re so busy expressing our individuality, we’re not actually doing anything. It’s the idea that someone will notice us that matters. As a generation, we’re more focused on being heard or standing out than, say, manual labor. I’m not the only one who has noticed this, either. A line in a USA Today article sums it up well, "…[T]he "millennial" generation (also known as Gen Y), who were born since the early 1980s and were raised in the glow and glare of their parents’ omnipresent cameras. While experts say it’s natural for humans to seek attention, these young people revel in it."

And I do. I really do. That’s why every time I get a comment on this blog it makes me feel like I got a promotion. Every retweet, every direct message, every mention in the Interether is my version of corporate excellence. Now, if we were all paid a nickel each time we posted to Twitter, maybe this would make sense. But instead it’s the ego gratification that has taken the place of a raise. And some people believe that their perceived success on these platforms is the virtual equivalent of a job well done. It’s because we were all raised geared for these accolades. Because we are special. Because Mrs. Jones and our parents told us so. As Paul Harvey, an assistant professor of management at the University of New Hampshire explained about those of us who are actually working "real" jobs, "Basically entitlement involves having an inflated view of oneself, and managers are finding that younger employees are often very resistant to anything that doesn’t involve praise and rewards." And according to this, that means that our adult brains are still believing the same tripe we were fed in grade school.

This sense of entitlement I feel that my generation has is overwhelming. It’s to the point that we’ve actually be dubbed "the entitlement generation." It makes me scared for our kids and, in a weird way, for my future. After all, I know far more people like myself: creative types who have gone off on their own to make a living doing something that suits them. I don’t consider writing to be a particularly strong pursuit, even though it requires a fair share of (wholly enjoyable) hard work, long hours, and figurative elbow grease. It doesn’t put hair on my chest or make me feel like I contribute to the greater whole of society. It isn’t something that warrants complaining about. So I certainly don’t see my future, older self snorting at some little kid’s comment about not wanting to do their chores, and retorting with, "You don’t know what it means to work." Because I don’t think I know what it means to work. And I fear that most of my generation doesn’t know either.

A few weeks later I received an email stating that I’d won something from Toiluxe. Years of hard drinking has left my brain as functional as a leopard print taser MP3 player, so of course I didn’t remember what the hell this meant. Was it beauty products? Had someone signed me up for something? Was I being spammed?

No, no. I won. I won a customized toilet seat. Excuse me, I won a customized TRENT REZNOR TOILET SEAT. A Nine Inch Nails toilet seat specifically. But I won it. And that’s how I was put in touch with Stephanie.

Although I work as a freelance copywriter, that doesn’t mean that I’m easy to deal with. You’d think that with the countless hours spent batting emails back and forth with clients, the awkward conference calls, and the incessant (but welcome) hours spent editing, I’d know how to be the best client ever! But no. I am not relaxed. I am not leaned back. I am wholly neurotic and indecisive. I’m a nightmare to work for. But Stephanie chose me! So it was kind of her own fault.

We selected the appropriate image sizes for Trent. There were many to choose from, of course. I wanted something old school, none of this muscular, short-haired Trent that is clean, sober, and married. I wanted the Reznor of the 1990s: stringy black hair, synthetic fabrics over his genitals, and very, very mad. I also wanted the cover of that classic 1994 Nine Inch Nails album, the downward spiral. Why? Because that’s a fucking hilarious phrase to put atop a toilet seat, that’s why. Stephanie was stoked to comply. I sent her images of my bathroom and toilet so that she’d get a feel for where her art would be going. Another interesting side note: the toilet seat in this apartment has been busted since we moved in. One of the clasps was broken, which left it halfway functional. In the dead of night, when taking a sleepy pee, the inadvertent move of an errant buttcheek would send the seat lurching to one side, threatening to topple me onto the floor or into my watery piss. Trent’s sleek seat would offer some welcome stability for my nighttime urinary adventures.

A week and a half after my cyber discussion with Stephanie, my Trent Reznor toilet seat arrived.

To say I was ecstatic would be like saying Tiger Woods likes extramarital making out. There are little black jewels on it, encircling Trent and the downward spiral cover. It’s black with burgundy marbling, to match the marble of my tile floor. And, just because no part of this seat was left unembellished, when you lift it there is a small NIN logo in black and red. It is the perfect latrine, and has inspired me to frame that vintage tour poster and put it up above the loo. (Sorry, Simon.) After five months of toilet seat inferiority, my apartment is complete!

I marveled at my seat, at the fine craftsmanship and detail. How did Stephanie learn that this was a talent of hers? What sort of a woman crafted such an incredible work of art for the only room that sees me naked more frequently than my bedroom? 

Stephanie Ziobro grew up in Western Massachusetts, in the town of Wilbraham, aka the home of Friendly’s ice cream. Her childhood was filled with typical suburban pastimes. "There wasn’t a lot to do there, so I spent my time making up games, like throwing Barbies up in a tree and then trying to knock them down with a baseball. I’d also bring my tape deck outside and do dance performances in the front yard for the neighborhood."

These days she lives and occasionally dances in Boston, which opened the first mail route to New York in 1672, which might be why my seat arrived so expeditiously. Long ago, she was a practicing massage therapist looking for a way to supplement her income. She applied for an office assistant position, which I’ve often referred to as the easiest way to ruin the life you should be living. After five years she was a Quality Assurance Manager at a telecommunications/webinar company. She’d reached her limit. "I had developed all kinds of skills I really didn’t want, and the idea of having an "office career" was smothering me," she recalls. In October 2009, she quit to focus on her art full time.

She spends her days making toilet seats and engaging in odd-jobs, including graphic design and photo shoots. Like myself, she’s still looking for another way to keep her pockets a millimeter further from emaciated. "I’ve been trying to find an easy "throw-away" job to supplement my income, like a restaurant hostess or a check-out girl at Whole Foods, but I keep being told that I’m way over-qualified for something like that and that I’ll probably get bored and quit. Which is pretty much true." She’s lucky enough to have a supportive husband, who helps her as she lives her self-declared "starving artist’s dream." To return the favor, she brings him lunch at work every day and tries to cook an actual meal every evening. "I like to think of myself as the June Cleaver from Hell," Stephanie says. "Because I’m not really very good at any of those things."

But how did her life go down the crapper? (Kidding! It’s a toilet seat joke!) Her first attempt at customizing a seat came as a result of a housewarming party for a friend. She needed to bring something, but her pal already had everything that she needed. "I wanted to come up with something good," she recalls. "Something that wouldn’t be stashed in a box after a three-month appearance." The first thing that came to mind, and coincidentally something that couldn’t be duplicated, was a customized, decorative toilet seat. In the years that have followed she’s done many, including El Seato Bandito, the Virgin Mary, Birth of Venus, and Gone with the Wind.

"I really enjoy making pulpy, girlie things and anything with a religious theme. I have The Last Supper on my personal toilet," she says. Her first commissioned seat was from a woman with a very specific request: a "portly, old-timey woman, surrounded by cats and cupcakes." It took a day or so for Stephanie to brainstorm the perfect design, but she came up with one that was flawless, to the point that she wishes she had a second bathroom where she could install one of her very own.

Her process has evolved over the years. She originally would set up her wares in the living room, on her coffee table. She would be designing two seats at once, with a "really cheesy B-style slasher flick" on in the background to keep her company. She would paint, decoupage, and glue, all while witnessing some admittedly horrible films. Today she’s taken it outside. "My process now is drastically different, but it allows me to be much more productive during the drying times," she explains. She power-sands the seats out on her porch, then takes them into the basement to paint. She’s able to use the basement, "thanks to my very awesome landlords. They’ve actually purchased three of my seats as gifts for their relatives, as well as for themselves." While her seats dry, she sits on the couch and battles with her cat as she begins the next stage of decoration. "The second he hears scissors cutting something he’ll run and jump on my lap, because he wants to catch the little pieces of paper and eat them." Once the seats are no longer wet, she retreats to her office/studio. Having the extra space allows her to work on two or more seats at once. I can’t imagine how many asses she’s thrilled with the kind of work she does. Simply awesome.

More facts about Stephanie:
She has two cats and a husband.
Cheese is her favorite food. She keeps one or two string cheeses on her at all times.
She likes Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream a lot, too. But that’s tougher to keep on her at all times.
She complains a lot. (So do I.)
She has an admittedly odd affection for nuns.
She has an Amazon subscription for Nicorette gum.
She crochets. 
She does graphic design, including customized movie posters. 
She’s become addicted to Facebook, so every time she logs in she does twelve push-ups and twenty-five crunches "to at least make it healthy."

If you’re interested in getting a custom toilet seat of your own, check out Toiluxe’s Etsy page, or click on Stephanie’s website and see some of what she’s up to. As for me, I’m going to have to start masturbating in the bathroom.

That said, I don’t run. After competing at State level as a sprinter in high-school, running is the only activity I won’t indulge in, similar to golf. But living with someone who just got bitten by the running bug, it’s hard not to get twitchy. There are the conversations about pronating, the debate about whether or not to buy running shoes, the endless stream of running documentaries and shows like Eddie Izzard’s Marathon Man, not to mention the glow and endorphin high that I get to witness every evening when he gets back to the apartment. It’s hard not to be jealous. And, as is the case with the two of us on most things, competitive. So I put on my sneakers and got to work.

Part of the draw of participating in an activity that only requires legs is the fact that it can be done anywhere and for cheap. The fitness manufacturing industry in this country nets $3 billion a year, with the top five companies in the field accounting for over 50% of the revenue. This means that whoever sold your gym the rowing machine you’re sweating on is rolling in enough money to make a river of solid gold. And just in case you don’t have a gym membership, look down. The US athletic shoe market alone is a $13 billion-per-year monolith, selling more than 350 million pairs of kicks annually. Those are some well-heeled numbers, considering that the first rubber sole sneaker to be produced hit the market as recently as 1917. Those shoes were canvas-topped, rubber-bottomed, foot-friendly pioneers known as Keds. Yes, those Keds. You can thank the U.S. Rubber Company for dreaming up the stealthily-named sneaks back in 1892. Twenty-five years after the first brainstorm, they entered the market, now, nearly a hundred years later, they are what I pair my khaki shorts with, for a sexy summer look that screams "preppy lesbian hooker." 

Before Keds there were plimsolls. Rubber-soled, but crude as hell, these puppies had no right foot or left foot. Considering the way that fashion is going, I expect American Apparel to begin marketing plimsolls – along with bustles and bonnets – by next spring. Seriously. I mean, bloomers are back.

Running is also cool because it’s one of the few things man has always done. Though it probably began for a reason other than wanting to look hot in skinny jeans. Like to escape being eaten. Or to catch something like a wild beast made out of tempeh. Pheidippides, otherwise known as That Greek Dude Who Started the Marathon, ran 150 miles in two days in order to request help from Sparta after the Persians descended upon Marathon. (The place in Greece, not the town in Florida or the race.) Then he ran 25 more miles from the battlefield to Athens to announce the Greek victory over the Persians. When he got there he shouted a single Greek word, Νενικήκαμεν, which translates into "We won!" and then he died from exhaustion. Inspiring.

While the idea of a marathon sickens me (I get exhausted watching the news coverage of the races,) I think that there’s something to be said for partaking in an activity that wasn’t invented in some laboratory/gymnasium in order to sell sweat-wicking shorts or special shoes. Pharaohs and other rich men in ancient Egypt used to have runners who’d sprint out ahead of their brigade to announce how important their masters were, and ancient Greeks took self-congratulations to the extreme, allowing the winner of a race to erect a statue of himself in the middle of his city. He’d write his name, the event or events that he’d won, and a short quote at the base of it, probably something like, "Eat my dust." In Sparta, both men and women were commanded to run in order to maintain their strength and agility.

All of this trivia aside, running has a few physiological and psychological benefits that tiny copywriters looking for work could use. Running increases muscle mass, which will make our bedroom tussles that much more interesting. It also improves cardiovascular health, which might quell the dizzy spells I suffer from when on conference calls with clients. Consistent running regiments have been associated with an increase of HDL levels, which reduces the risk of heart disease. (Yet another nasty health issue that runs in my family, along with enough cancer to fill out the horoscope in every women’s interest magazine since the dawn of print.) Probably the most exciting physical boon of running is that it can slow or reverse the effects of aging. I’m starting to see some crows feet creep below the corner of my eyes. I’m hoping that if I log a few more miles they’ll disappear like I’m starring in an Oil of Olay commercial. Of course running also can lead to weight loss, which isn’t exactly something that two people living on a tight budget need. But, hey, if we wind up looking like mid-90s Calvin Klein models, at least we won’t take up much room on the subway. And I suppose we could always just buy two fixed gears and declare ourselves hipster royalty.

Psychologically, running has been used as a method to combat depression and addiction. As an alcoholic, I can say that the "runner’s high" that people report feeling does exist and it is pretty awesome. Granted, for me it happens after I finish, when I realize that I can finally stop running.

Professional runners generally don’t make a very good living, but they often get their gear for free. Distance runners make as little as freelance copywriters, and what’s worse, unlike building a portfolio, once they reach a certain level of professional success, their earnings are completely contingent upon whether or not they can stay that good. One of the highest salaries for distance runners that I could find a record of was for Dathan Ritzenhein, who is a twenty-seven year old, Nike-sponsored long distance badass who makes roughly $250,000 a year. Other than that, if you’re looking to break into the world of professional running, you need a good agent, a good story, and tremendously good competition times. Even those don’t guarantee you a salary. I read about one young man named Todd Reeser,  who apparently was doing very well around 2000 and 2001. Even though he was well beyond college age, he was living at home with his mother just to get by. His manager, John Luther, said that Todd had lived off of 5K (money, not distance) a year for several years just to try to dedicate all of his time, energy, and focus into being a professional long distance runner. Luther said, "He’s lived the life of a pauper, like most distance runners, and has been at or below the poverty line for several years. His mother’s helped him out tremendously, and we have a couple of corporate sponsors for him. Hopefully after his performances this fall, he’ll get a nice shoe contract." That was in November, 2000. I couldn’t find a scrap of documentation about Todd – no race times, injury information, nothing – dated beyond early 2001. I wonder where he is now and what he’s up to, though it kind of frightens me to think too hard about it.

Of course, Simon and I don’t want to be professional runners. We want to be the kind who might just go for a mile and a half jaunt during a downpour after eating way too much Ethiopian food and vegan ice cream. (No joke. This actually occurred last Thursday.) And although I can’t say whether or not we’ll stick with this current workout plan, it is fun to read about running and to see what our bodies can do. We also bicker a lot less when we’re physically exhausted. Perhaps this will all end in an Hamilton-Burr-esque deul, only with the two of us sprinting to the death. Unlike that fateful stand-off, I just hope that if it does take place, it doesn’t go down in Jersey.

To follow our suffering, you can check out our profiles on RunKeeper or Daily Mile. Both contain the same pathetic information about how pitifully we’re clomping along. If you’re a runner with an iPhone, RunKeeper is a nifty application that allows you to log and track your workouts. It also lets you see your stats without having to fiddle with the iPhone controls. I like the Daily Mile website better, mainly because it looks like another bubbly, cheerful social networking outlet, only one that broadcasts how much pain my calves are in.

Simon’s RunKeeper profile & Ainsley’s RunKeeper profile

Simon’s Daily Mile profile & Ainsley’s Daily Mile profile

Also, probably the best running-related blog on the ‘net is Feet Meet Street. Even if you’re a three-toed, couch-dwelling sloth, Nitmos’ writing will make you crack up. And probably inspire you to never leave a supine position again. 

Simon would also like for me to state that he tried to read Murakami’s book on running, "but it’s terrible and I hope his body of work gets dropped in a volcano."

During this recession, we’ve seen the number of underemployed people rise to staggering numbers, up to 20.3% of the workforce. Many people have taken the opportunity to spend their time collecting unemployment and bettering themselves. Personally I know of a former hedge fund manager who is now a personal trainer, a restaurant manager who became a sous chef, and an administrative assistant who got certified to teach pilates. Self-employment is rising at about 4.5% annually. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the economic shitstorm has led to a new enlightenment, but it’s certainly flooded the market with a glut of Jacks of all trades, like freelance writers and yoga instructors. I’ve written about my somewhat tumultuous love affair with yoga before. It isn’t a stretch to say that since the financial implosion, yoga teacher trainings are carpeted with the mats of former office staff who wish to become zen and make a buck helping others. In 2004 alone, Americans dished out $2.95 billion on yoga classes and related apparel, equipment, and retreats. People who can use money as toilet paper – Steve Jobs, Christy Turlington, Madonna, Sting, and the like – are avid yogis. I can’t imagine the hourly rate of their gurus.

So what is my truth? To pursue a side career in yoga while still copywriting? Or to say the Sanskrit word for no and opt for a July full of late nights and lazy days? (As lazy as you can get hustling for clients from a hammock.)

My mother always used to advise me to have "something to fall back on." Usually she used this term when pressuring me to apply to law school, or to keep my job as a legal assistant. Her theory was that if writing didn’t work out, I needed to have something to make money. Mind you, this was well in advance of me writing for a living, back when it was just a pipe dream that I yammered about incessantly. I followed her advice a little too judiciously, attending bartending school, obtaining a food handling certification, even getting accepted into grad school but refusing to go. Twice. I wonder how much my own fear and doubts have inspired me to suffer through different jobs in the past, supposed "safe bets" that could potentially insure more money, a stable future, something to do in case what I truly want to do doesn’t work out. Sure, these decisions were financially motivated in part. But I think that self-worth also played a role. I liked "being" a legal assistant. I liked the impression that it gave.

We live in a society where what we do is who we are. My friends are lawyers, personal assistants, hedge fund managers, graphic designers. They have tiny scraps of paper with their names and titles emblazoned on them that they hand out to every new person they meet. They talk about work as though it is the skeleton for their whole life. And, certainly, a few of my friends in question have always been passionate about the paths they’ve chosen, but more often than not, their jobs are just a means to an end, something that they fell into. Over time, their job has become part-and-parcel with their identity, and not the other way around. These days, if you have a job, you’re holding onto it for dear life. It’s no wonder that being an employee – any kind of employee – has become synonymous with having a modicum of success, adulthood, self-sufficiency. I’ve always written, therefore doing it for a living isn’t really more than just being myself and hoping to make a buck off of it. It isn’t an impressive title, and it surely doesn’t come with a fancy benefits package. It won’t impress anyone into sleeping with me, or garner envy at my high-school reunion. Perhaps being a copywriting yoga teacher would be a more lucrative and awe-inspiring title to put after my sans-serif moniker. It would at least theoretically require divorcing myself entirely from this way of thinking and my ego. But, really, is it more that I require making money off of what I love? Can’t I just be content to enjoy a hobby, or is it impossible for me to embrace something without the option of monetizing it? It might be a horrible thing to admit about myself, but until I can make a so-called living, part of me doesn’t believe that I deserve to be happy, even for an hour when I’m stretching myself to the point of nearly being able to give myself cunnilingus.

When presented with "quick fixes" for the financial quagmire I’m in, I have to look at my motivation before anything else. It’s important to ask myself why I would pursue certain things, and to prioritize what I want. I’m still applying for part-time administrative jobs. Why? Because they are easy and would give me a little money to throw towards certain things like a functioning vacuum and my phone bill, while still affording me time to write. I peek around at odd jobs like dominatrix gigs because I think they would give me some fuel for the writing fire, while also potentially assuaging the aforementioned vacuum issue. Why would I become a yoga teacher? Because it feels like something more stable than banking entirely on my desire to write for a living? Is it? Moreover, I think it’s important to question if you really should apply for a particular job before you do so. There’s a clerk at Duane Reade who makes it clear that she’s rather be undergoing a urinary catheterization than bagging my body lotion. Everything about her radiates job hate. Meanwhile, there’s a tall drink of water who works at my favorite coffee shop who is all sunshine and giggles as he steams the milk and serves the scones. (He might be high. But he also seems to be in a really good mood while on the clock.)

If I were to give up a month of my summer to become yet another cog in the wheel of the  yoga business, would it be worth it? Maybe, if I made some cash. But the truth is, I would have to drop a chunk of change on even obtaining this potential certification, without any knowledge of when, where, or if I will be hired. Furthermore, I suck at instruction and I am a little like Howie Mandel when it comes to touching strangers. The idea of having to lay my palms on top of someone’s sweaty feet, or needing to wrap my arms around a furry man with a few spare tires in order to adjust his downward aching dog, is enough to make me need an antiemetic. Ultimately, I don’t think I would be of service to my students. Just because I enjoy something and like to talk about it a lot doesn’t mean that I’d be a prime candidate to coach a human being from a supine position into a handstand.

The allure of pursuing a different career makes sense if your pockets are more empty than a bottle of vodka around a Lohan. There’s the hope that the new endeavor will be more fruitful than your current situation. There’s the rush of adrenaline and quasi-ambition that comes when you take on a new project. There’s also that sexy feeling of having an additional, unchallenged title that can be woven into conversation or printed on business cards. Novelty is fleeting, however. Perhaps it’s generational, but I think the most zen thing I can do is continue to write. If I opt out of om-ing my summer away, I can dedicate more time to writing my book proposal, hustling for new Ministry of Imagery clients, and penning articles for sites and publications that could possibly net more exposure. And while that might not come with the squeaky-clean feeling of a fresh start and a new beginning, sometimes just continuing to struggle in the face of desperation is the most promising job opportunity of all.

UNRELATED TO ANYTHING: If you haven’t seen any press regarding Glenn and Henry Forever, you absolutely must take a look. Glenn Danzig and Henry Rollins as lovers in a comic book. How can it be bad?

Of course, this might be silly, considering that "you all" is my dad and the occasional spam-bot who posts a comment about a Kardashian sex tape or Anna Kournikova naked.

If you, or someone you  know, is launching a website, developing an iPhone app, promoting a product, or looking for professional bios, please send them our way. Though our absolutely out-of-date website doesn’t reflect it, our client list is pretty impressive, and our work is diverse, so if you’re interested just send me an email (AinsleyDrew at the gmail one) and we’ll get down to brass tacks. Or Usain Bolts. Or whatever the saying is.

Oh, and you can always, always donate. Donations are so awesome, they make me cry rainbow jimmies.

And now onto something else that’s got some rainbow jimmies: motherfucking birthday cake.

It’s approximately three months, two weeks, and three days until my birthday. Usually around this time I start envisioning the Birthdays That Will Never Be. When I was younger these involved elaborate princess parties that would delight all of my classmates and make me the talk of the elementary school block-built town. Of course, my birthday is in early August, when most kids are in summer camp or sweat shops or wherever normal kids go during the warmer months. Needless to say, I didn’t get many successful birthday parties that didn’t solely involve my family for company.

As I got older, and started hitting the sauce, I would get too drunk to really enjoy my birthday as a single day, so I’d celebrate for about a week. This usually involved bars, making out with friends, and uncomfortable dancing. None of these birthdays are truly memorable, both because nothing truly exciting ever happened, and also because I can’t remember a lot of them.

I’ve learned that my dearth of birthday parties has little bearing on whether or not I can throw a decent party of my own. I organized and booked everything for a domestic partnership celebration that included monogrammed pumpkin decorations (real pumpkins, mind you) and a DJ that played old school cumbias and gangster rap. Then, for Simon’s 30th, I decided to throw a surprise party, which required sneaking into his phone, stealing all of his contacts’ numbers, and texting/emailing as many as I could asking for them to show up on my lawn in Portland. I also had to find someone who could barbecue. Of course it wound up being the hottest day of that year, and Simon wasn’t surprised because we’d had a row where I tearfully had to explain why I was being such a pain in the ass and nagging him to renege on a DJ gig scheduled for the night of his birthday, but it was an awesome party. As an antisocial, alcohol-shunning, uninvited only child, you wouldn’t think I’d have the skills to make the party people say, "Hip-hop hooray!" or whatever, but it seems that I do.

This is because I am good at research and organization, not because I actually understand people. I know that, in a party situation, human beings require snacks and substances to make them feel strong, brave, and sexy (this can be Kettle One or Kombucha) and that music is usually a welcome distraction from the inevitable awkward pauses in conversation that people have when they’re introducing themselves and/or drunk. I like decorations, and figuring out how to tailor an evening in conjunction with a particular person’s tastes. I believe that inside of me there is a fabulous, coordinated, sequin-covered gay man screaming to get out from behind the a shell of a rhythmless, style-impaired, lesbian-haired spaz.

Party planners on average make a hell of a lot more than I do. According to recent numbers (recent being last month), the average base salary for an event planner in the U.S. is between $47K and $64K per year. The term "event planner" pretty broad, though, and includes more than just making sure you get the correct stripper to jump out of the appropriate cake. It can encompass planning a traditional wedding to choreographing a corporate affair in a dull hotel off the highway. The hours can be arduous, the demands can be steep ("Those aren’t magenta napkins!") and, if you work in a large catering or event company, it can be really stressful to communicate amongst your team at any given hour. The upside is that event planning on the whole is a $500 billion dollar international industry. There’s a demand, for sure. But before you go ahead buying a Filofax and deciding to spend the rest of your life color coordinating goodie bags, consider the fact that investing in your own event planning business requires a fairly sizable chunk of capital and a whole kaboodle of connections. Got money to burn and still tickled at the thought of being yelled at by bridezillas or suffering through another Sweet 16? You can get certified as a floral designer, wedding planner, or event planner by taking courses, but that might not be the best way to jam your foot in the door. As with many of these creative-based industries, experience trumps education. Work your way up through the ranks. Find party planning companies and professionals near you and beg to be their ribbon cutter, their stick pin provider, their lackey. You’ll get more opportunities and knowledge that way, and by slogging through the grunt work you’ll really see if you want to do the planning, or if you were getting the thought of attending a party confused with creating one.

I may not toss aside copywriting for a chance to make some couple’s day of their dreams come true, but I’ll still fantasize about the celebration of my dwindling twenties. For this years Imaginary Birthday I want to do something truly awesome. And that’s where I got the idea to have a fundraising birthday. A study came out last week about the diagnostic criteria for eating disorders being too narrow, that a lot of men and women who were suffering from ED were diagnosed with the way-too-fuzzy "Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified" label that often is misconstrued to mean "Eating Disorder, Not Really a Big Deal." Basically I’m beginning to believe that there isn’t enough help out there for people who want to get well, and that the mental health and medical communities are both acting like that dude at the end of The Blair Witch Project about the whole thing. Since this cause fascinates me, I figure why not throw a fundraiser and donate the money to an organization like the National Eating Disorder Association? But this wouldn’t be a boring old fundraiser devoid of a raucous, drunken crowd and people taking their clothes off. It is my birthday after all. I’ve decided to call this imaginary party "Let them eat cake." I’m not sure if I can get a Major Donor on board with this, even if I try to solicit celebrities or organizations that have been known to contribute to the cause like CosmoGirl!,Sugar Publishing, FEAST, or that chick  from The Sopranos. I know that if I don’t get some sort of sponsorship, though, this party will quickly become me and three friends in my apartment watching House.

For the party to be fun for anyone other than my sober ass, it would have to take place in a bar or a other liquor-friendly location. This would be the tricky part. Where on earth, let alone in New York, would there be a space willing to rent itself out for cheap-to-free in order for some eating disorder birthday bash? Whatever. Let’s imagine there’s some friendly bar owner who had a sister who struggled with bulimia, or who just likes doing nice things. They agree to open up their space for the night, allowing my friends and their friends to get drunk and support their business. But where there’s booze, there should be food. Unless I jump a delivery guy from Gobo or Mamoun’s, I’d need to find a way for them to donate food. Maybe there are restaurants in Manhattan who’d fork over a platter or two of their specialty, all in the name of eliminating ED. After all, eating disorders have gotta threaten their bottom-line. Of course I’d need to hit up bakeries, cupcakes would be half the battle. You can’t have a semi-functioning make-believe birthday party without (vegan) cupcakes.

Okay, now we have a bar filled with people getting hammered and eating snacks, this wouldn’t be complete without awkward dancing. After tear-filled begging and possibly the promise of unlimited bags of Skittles, my pal Eliel or Simon would be more than capable to get the throngs of people burning shoe-sole rubber to choice beats. For additional entertainment I’d ask one of my friends who’s in a the b-boy crew to invite his friends and bust a move. Maybe I could even plead with bands like Astrid Pierce or Belikos and get them to lend their ministrations to the mix. Just no whiny folk music, though, and no emo. Fundraiser or not, I don’t want anybody to go and drown themselves in a bathtub filled with orange juice on my birthday.

What fundraiser isn’t complete without an auction? How about a Hot Girl/Hot Guy on a Bike for a good cause? The crowd can bid on a few hot guys and girls for an hour-long bike tour of any part of the New York Metro area, possibly along with lunch. All the proceeds would be pooled at the end of the night and the National Organization of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Eating Disorders, the Renfrew Center, or a related organization or recovery center would get a tiny donation from me and a bunch of hoodlums who like to dance and eat sweets. It really would be a rad birthday if people came out and forked over the $10 or so that would be the entry fee. Of course, this is probably one long daydream that will never come to fruition, but I figured it’d be worth sharing. I’m open to any ideas. Perhaps a co-ed naked bubble fight for charity? Happy Birthday to me, indeed.

While attempting to research how much certain birthday standards cost (a clown for $70-$140 an hour?!) I tripped into some trivia regarding birthday celebrations across other cultures. There was a particularly bizarre repetition of the union between physical torment and birthdays. I vaguely remember something about birthday punches or spankings, maybe a birthday party that involved a paddle, but that could have just been college. In the U.K. and Ireland, as well as in the U.S. although I’ve never seen it, there’s this thing called "The Bumps," where family and friends – from the description – basically try to dislocate the birthday kid’s shoulders. They apparently toss the celebrant up and down by the arms, hitting the ground once for every year they’ve been alive, plus once more for luck. From my point of view, this would have either made me feel very good about not having birthday parties or would have made me lie about my age until I was too big to be three.

In Canada and the U.S. birthday punches are doled out in similar fashion, because there’s nothing like your jealous classmates smacking you around after they’ve sat through the clown and gift accumulation ceremony. In Brazil, Hungary, Argentina, and Italy the celebrant has their earlobes yanked, in Hungary they do this while saying some sort of rhyme about living so long that your ears touch your ankles. Well, if you keep pulling them, maybe that’s possible. Israeli children are lifted on a chair for their birthday, which I assume is somehow similar to the Hava Nagila. In Venezuela they don’t mess around with punches or chair games. They simply shove the person’s face into the cake, which might be where we get the expression “birthday bash.”

Recently I’ve been so uninspired I’ve thought of shutting down Jerk Ethic, scrapping the bullshit Twitter, deleting Like It (which is in such a state of neglect that I think my computer would actually scream out a "Hallelujah!" if I did so,) and resigning myself to a life of quietude, loneliness, and social networking abstinence. Where I used to approach updating Jerk Ethic with a brain-itching giddiness, I now look at it like a dentist’s appointment. A dentist located in Cleveland,  in an office that only plays a bluegrass Creed tribute album on the speakers, and who has professional arm-wrestlers as assistants. In lieu of Friday night drinking binges, it has become my new way to ruin my Saturday morning.

Why is this? According to some sites, blog writers inevitably run out of steam. Symptoms? Less frequent posts and posting about the blog itself. (Guilty as charged.) I rail against this on two fronts: one, I actually got half-way through a post about a different topic and, two, this post will tie into what started me writing it in the first place. Namely the reason why I’m uninspired. I think it might have to do with work. I’m not going to stop the navel-gazing exercise that is blogging. Even if I have to look at it as a weekly appointment for a word processing root canal, I’ll do it. The trick seems to be finding something to write about that’s inspiring – which is a sentence that makes me want to tattoo "GRANOLA" on my forehead. In papyrus font.

After a few years of working together, Simon and I have developed a rhythm. We work nearly six days a week, and we’re still hunting for more clients. Currently we’re busy, really busy. It’s fantastic. When we look back on those months where we almost got evicted, or split a can of beans for a meal, it’s humbling and kinda odd to see that we’re still financially struggling, but we’re also up to our eyeballs in work. A lot of these projects are labor intensive, they require frequent phone calls, emails, redrafts. They’re a big deal, both to those clients who have hired us, and to ourselves. We take pride in our work. We stress about it. Often we can be seen out on a Friday night, engaging in what looks like it can only be the Worst Date Ever: both of us either on our mobile devices or scribbling in our notepads, completely ignoring the other person and our beverages. We talk about work so much that it’s become a new rule that after five, we don’t. I love being busy, but at the end of the day, I feel like my brain is made of spiders. I want to stare at something pretty and eventually fall asleep.

Simon is slightly different. He paces his workday with frequent breaks to gorge on images, his meditation object of choice. He’ll pore over countless jpegs and URLS, assaulting his eyes until he goes back to the blinking cursor. This works for him in two ways, he’s able to let his gray matter take a cigarette break and he’s also finding fodder for Stare Hard, his uber-awesome image blog. I’m not so lucky. Born from a workaholic and an obsessive compulsive, I have trouble with the notion of "breaks." Though medical science proves that breaks are good for the neurological components of memory blah blah blah big words doctor stuff, I don’t care. You know what’s good for the brain? Working and making money. Fun, and the rabbit hole of the Innerwebs, can wait.

So when it comes time to leave my workday of writing for my hobby of writing, it’s safe to say that after two years my right cerebral cortex is no longer fooled. I’m uninspired, writing for fun feels like a chore. An unpaid, thankless gig. Actual work, with its promise of a paycheck and occasional creative "Eureka!" moments, is sometimes much more fun. It’s also as ego gratifying as a one-night-stand where she actually calls you when a client is truly grateful and wowed by what you’ve done. Write a blog and you might get a comment. Chances are it’s from somebody you slept with. Or a spammer. (Thanks, guys.)

A little over a week ago I saw Henry Rollins at a place here in New York that’s now called The Fillmore, but used to be called Irving Plaza. Back when I was a scrappy little alterna-teen I saw Live play there and my friend Danny got kicked in the face while moshing. His mom was pissed and we were both grounded. I also saw Rollins Band perform around that time, I guess it was ’94 or ’95. The show was at Roseland Ballroom, and security put me under the police line because I was so small they thought I would get crushed (total bummer, until I realized that they were probably right and I was now one inch away from being backstage.) Rollins’ show that night changed my life, and although one could argue that I was fourteen and my life changed every time I put on the radio, I still remember it in a way that impacts the way I write. There was something about seeing a man so focused on what he was doing, his intensity was nothing short of petrifying. I remember he was whipping the mic cord around as he performed and the lashes he inflicted on himself caused huge red welts to form. I was thinking to myself, "Jesus Christ, this guy is going to kill someone. He is going to jump off stage and kill someone because that’s what his art makes him do." I read nearly all of his books, starting with Get in the Van and reading each release from 2.13.61 that came after. I wanted to find a way to hone in on writing the way that Henry Rollins did on performing. I compared my preteen years to his work with Black Flag, but that once I got to college I’d be the finely-tuned machine that he’d become in his solo career. I’d search and destroy with my words.

Of course we all know how the story goes, I got to college and drank and fucked and graduated, got a decent nine-to-five job, and wrote on the side. My dreams of being the most hardcore writer who ever lived fell behind priorities like paying rent and finding a nice girl to call a wife. Eventually, after drinking myself to ineptitude, I lost both. I started doing slam poetry, the single most narcissistic exercise in writing, other than blogging. (To keep the Rollins comparison going, if pure art is like a Rollins show, slam poetry is like a Blink 182 poster being sold at Hot Topic.) After going sober and hooking up with Simon, I got my shit together again. My priorities reorganized, writing became key. Although I didn’t strip my life down to only the most basic necessities like Mr. Rollins supposedly does, I keep my life simple. I don’t drink, I eat clean, I try to get eight hours of sleep a night, and I exercise. I keep my body in the best, most healthy shape in order to keep my mind as uncluttered as possible. I always try to keep moving forward when it comes to work and creativity, I think that’s what led me to write this post, I feel stagnant, and I’m not going to lie about it. I believe that my total indifference to the topics I’m approaching shines through. I’m like a bad stripper, she’s doing all the motions with dead eyes.

The Rollins show I saw most recently was his Frequent Flyer Tour, a spoken word gig where he takes on topics ranging from visiting Sri Lanka to Sarah Palin’s stand-up comedy to Bad Brains. I’m not sure if all the shows are similar, I suppose they must have some common structure, but the two hours came across more like a conversation with a friend who stopped into town for a night and wanted to catch up over coffee. Although we’re nearly fifteen years removed from that night where I saw the man clad in nothing more than black gym shorts, barefoot, screaming until the muscles in his neck were like ropes, he still held the same intensity. I was still captivated, as were much of the crowd. I wondered if Henry Rollins had found the secret. Of course, he could have tried to continue performing musically. It would have been fine, he would have sold possibly just as many tickets. But I remember when I saw Depeche Mode in 2000 or 2001, in a huge arena. It was the most soul-crushing moment for my youth. The guys were old. They moved with less pep, more caution. Dave Gahan was still able to belt ‘em out, but his voice was creakier. The age I had tried to deny when I looked in the mirror every morning was being confirmed by my idols on stage. Henry Rollins thankfully seemed to realize that hopping around onstage in gym attire at fifty might be fun, but in order to keep both his creativity and relevance in top form, it’s better to adapt. Hence the spoken word tour. And my awareness that in order to keep myself from going stale, I have to figure out a new approach. I’m just not sure what it is yet.

Early on in this blog, I wrote to a bunch of people I respected, asking them how they stayed engaged in writing from personal experience. I was looking for clues how to prevent exactly what I’m feeling now. The majority of the more famous individuals I tried to contact didn’t write back, understandably. But I unexpectedly received a response from Henry Rollins. He wrote, "I keep changing the environment so the writing stays alive. That’s the attempt anyway." It’s time for me to step outside my comfort zone and listen.

The more I do yoga, the more I realize that I’m the worst kind of student. Passionate, but opinionated. Selectively learned. Obstinate. Judgmental. Somewhat inflexible and occasionally flatulent.

I love yoga. There’s something about stretching that much that makes my body feel the way it’s supposed to. When I wake up in the morning, my joints remind me that I’m not eighteen. From marching up and down five flights of stairs with an overweight dog carried in a satchel, my lower back and thighs are often sore and tight. I’ve developed a nasty habit of clenching my jaw since I moved back to New York. I am nervous by nature, afraid of my shadow and bees, distrusting of humans and wound tighter than a spool of fishing twine. I needed to find something to stop me from developing a bleeding ulcer before the age of thirty. After months of Simon begging me to go to a yoga class, a year ago I did, though I grumbled and gritted my teeth all the way there. It didn’t help that the teacher played Jimmy Buffett at top volume, or that the room of that particular class on Long Island was filled with what appeared to be the female occupants of a convalescent home. I stopped growling ten minutes into the practice and started feeling better. My sarcastic comments when it was over didn’t erase the fact that my body wanted to do it again, and soon. So I found my Margaritaville-loathing self signing up for another class two days later. I’ve practiced regularly ever since.

The differences in my mood, personality, and body were duly noted by those closest to me after I started taking classes. Even though I rolled my eyes and hissed about it being a bougie activity for lonely housewives, I would come home calmer, less frantic, gloating because I was able to perch on my elbows or stand on my head. Of course, in the boudoir, it helped that I could suddenly rest my calves behind my ears or balance on my forearms. Or do both simultaneously. What didn’t help is that I suddenly knew all the lyrics to License to Chill.

The studio I began practicing at on Long Island was like a girl cult. It was awesome. The teachers were hilarious, attractive, and – apart from their taste in music  – exceptionally good. Although they talked a lot about chakra alignment and guided meditation, they also swore, cracked dirty jokes, and drove SUVs. I imagined that they were contradictions like myself, people who wanted to find inner peace and sexy biceps, but who weren’t altogether able to eschew the temptations of modern western living, like reality TV and burritos. I felt at home there, even if it took me a while to be able to touch my nose to my knee. Once I moved into the city and started attending classes at the nearby gym, I traded the quasi-temple ambiance of my old studio for a gymnasium-style room with plank wood floors and all-around mirrors. Gone were my beautiful, lavender-scented lady teachers, instead there were (still adorable) gay men in basketball shorts. I hoped that my quest for a new, New York City studio would lead me to a quiet sanctuary filled with flexible, buxom yoginis willing to bend me into a pretzel and turn me into one of them. I dreamed of supplementing my copywriting income with karma by becoming a yoga teacher. I was convinced that I’d find a new place to call om. (Ugh. The pun gods are going to smite me.)

At the gym, the room is usually filled with blond MILFs flapping their Botoxed jaws on their cellphones, or hippie-dippie NYU students in pajamas. With my tattoos and awkward haircut I look like I’m enrolled in some New Age "meditate away the gay" camp. Not to mention that years of doing athletics has left me automatically competitive. There’s nothing less relaxing then some five foot tall, scowling troll trying to reach her foot "better" than you, especially when you’ve opened class by chanting for peace to the universe and all things. But I have a reasonable gym membership, and it’s cheaper to go to the classes hosted in the club’s basement than to get a separate membership to a yoga studio. After two months of trying to suffer through classes where my awkward self faced off against me, duel-style, in the full-length mirror, I decided I should maybe try some local studios. After all, what was the worst that could happen?

My first exploration in a studio outside of my gym in Manhattan led me to a large yoga "institute" about a ten minute walk from my house. For $17 I would be walked through the basics of Hatha yoga, a style that’s slightly different from the Vinyasa and Ashtanga that I was used to. (For non-yoga people, Ashtanga is a more traditional series of poses that doesn’t vary, it’s disciplined, intense, and hurty. I love it. The other favorite of mine, Vinyasa, is "flow" yoga, the kind that’s wicked popular, though not as trendy as Bikram, aka "hot" yoga. I don’t to hot yoga. It would only have a purpose for me if I were training to be a ninja in a country without air conditioning, or looking to drop a weight class for the wrestling team.)

After paying my dues with a woman who seemed more pissed off than at peace, I took the stairs to the "Lavender Room," where my class was to be held. After taking an uncomfortable pee in a locker-room filled with women getting dressed to go to work, I entered the quiet, nearly empty room. There was a single candle and two pictures, one of a man in orange with a long, gray beard, and one of the Dali Lama. Soon the room filled up, and from the crowd I could tell this wouldn’t be a different style than I was used to. Everyone was over the age of fifty, and everyone was in sweatpants. My workout clothes, while not pricey, were more suited for a Nike ad, while everyone else seemed better dressed for a night at home in front of an Everybody Loves Raymond marathon.

The teacher was blond, older, and wore what looked like an all-white aesthetician’s uniform. She led us through very few poses that involved movement, instead opting to lead a never-ending group chant and walk us through meditations on the body, the self, and some other stuff that I fell asleep during. This was one very expensive nap. I left there edgy because I hadn’t been able to really stretch and sweat a little (to build up heat, or "tapas." No, not Spanish appetizers, the Sanskrit word for heat.) Basically this was yoga I would recommend for my legally blind, emphysemic grandmother. I know that’s not exactly the most zen thing to say, but for the amount of research I put into trying to find a new studio, and the amount of money it cost for me to enter that purple room, my chakras were knocked even further out of alignment.

I should let it be known, I really don’t like chanting. It feels like cultural appropriation, and I’ve never been good at call-and-response exercises, as was evidenced by my blessedly brief high-school cheerleading career.

Another studio that sounded good was Om, which is up by my alma mater on Broadway, near The Strand bookstore. On my way there I got a little turned-around, as there’s another yoga studio across the street and up a block. Eventually I made it into the right building, onto the correct elevator, where I felt really awkward standing with people who obviously were in the middle of their workday, coming in from a cigarette break. They got out two floors below my destination, and when the doors opened it was like I was transported to another world. The dimly lit, spacious lobby area totally radiated that crunchy granola, New Age goodness that I’d been looking for. I paid $28 for an introductory package of two classes, which, while way more money than I’d wanted to spend, seemed like an okay deal. There’s a reason why yoga in America has become more closely associated with wealthy suburban housewives than its traditional hippie roots.

The class was taught by a woman who commanded all thirty or so students with a passionate and intelligent series of insights that ranged from basic anatomy to humorous visualizations. Although it wasn’t as challenging as I’d hoped, that was my own fault for choosing a "basics 2" class as opposed to an "open" or "intermediate" session. I thought the space was beautiful, almost cavernous, and fellow students were friendly and non-intimidating. The music was also a marked improvement, I caught tracks by Beirut on the speakers at one point, which instantly improved my mood. There was even a smoking hot, tattooed student studying for her teacher training who sat in the back and quietly observed. It felt like a community, which was what I was missing. But for nearly $20 per session, along with either a $6 cab ride or a lengthy walk, Om might be more of an occasional luxury than a daily sanctuary. Which bums me out.

Of course, the fact that they have a teacher training program is a big draw. I had been signed up to attend one on Long Island, but my mother’s death and subsequent house sale left me short on time and even more short on focus. I’m not sure if becoming a teacher is something I should do, either. I’m slightly dyslexic when it comes to right and left, which would be a bit of a hindrance to my ability to get people to follow directions. I also hate chanting, like I said, and would have difficulty opening the class with an "om" or closing it with a "shanti." My musical taste is also a bit out of touch with most of my other teachers, except for one woman named Stephanie who played The Cure, Puscifer, and Sigur Rós, and who made every class feel like an exploration in awesome. Differences aside, teaching could be a way to make peace with my wallet…in theory.

On average, a yoga instructor makes about 35K a year, less than a well-educated public school teacher. Private lessons can be somewhat lucrative, with a cost of anywhere from $110-$250 per hour and a half, with all of that going straight into the teacher’s pocket. Of course, the area you live in, and how many studios/health clubs you get gigs at greatly impact your earnings. Specializations, like prenatal yoga or yoga for kids, can make you more of a hot commodity, but they also come with a price. Even preliminary teacher training certification courses run into the thousands. It’s a lot to spend only to be entering a field where a profit isn’t guaranteed. Moreover, though it should surprise no one, you don’t get health insurance as a yoga instructor. Not exactly a comforting fact, when you think of all the inversions and arm balances that can go wrong.

Ever since the economy tanked, it seems as though yoga classes are packed. People who are unemployed are flocking to the mats, hoping to find a little solace. As that teacher Stephanie once said to me, "The economy sucks, so business is booming. People feel shitty, they do yoga. Or they feel shitty and they drink." (She moonlighted as a bartender. That’s my kind of yogi.) Although yoga is reported to have done well during the recession, that doesn’t mean that teachers are necessarily meditating atop cushions made of cash. A New York Times article followed a Manhattan teacher as she tried to stay afloat. She had specializations up the wazoo, both prenatal and children’s yoga certifications, yet as of last year she was on food stamps and struggling to keep a roof over her head, and the head of her six year old son. Scary.

I admit to being a sardonic, cynical bitch. I admit to paradoxically viewing yoga as an upper-class white woman activity while also looking at it as a lifeline. I’m drawn to it, I adore it, and I wish I had the talent, cash, and time to get certified and share this gift that I love so much. I’m not sure if I expect my personality or outlook to change while practicing something that boasts bolstering inner-peace and acceptance, but I know that if it can work to make this batshit-crazy, neurotic twenty-something chill out even a little bit, it must be good for everyone.