Just let me lick him. Just once!

Scott Foley is going gray and my body was not ready for these feelings.

UNF.

Sometimes Netflix requires too much effort.

Jesus, Netflix, YES, I am still watching Scandal. Didn’t you INVENT the binge watch? Let me hide from humanity in peace. I don’t feel like moving my arm to find the damn remote — what am I, a triathlete?

Judgy bitch.

At the very least, the palate of my vagina is cleansed.

I accidentally saw something fucking AWFUL in Facebook’s “trending” news sidebar, and felt pretty close to either crying or throwing up at my desk.

I took a few minutes to breathe, then went online in pursuit of a palate cleanser. I put #Scandal on Netflix out of habit, just for background noise to finish out the workday, but didn’t realize which episode I’d left off at.

Y’all? Never underestimate the healing power of Marcus and Mellie bangin’ on a desk. 

(The other thing will likely still roam the halls of my brain for a couple days, but #MellieBelly does help.)

 

“Last Night a TV Saved My Life”

BRB, have to go marry this woman:

“I’ve got this shit called FEELINGS and they are the goddamn worst…Feelings are fundamentally UNFAIR and TERRIBLE. Something happens to you, totally outside your control, and then you just have to feel BAD for god knows how long? Don’t get it, don’t like it.”

YUP. In the past few years, I’ve taken breaks from/avoided my stupid feelings by mainlining Scandal (multiple times), Grey’s Anatomy, Gilmore Girls, Breaking Bad, and Jane the Virgin, along with repeated viewings of standup comedy specials and comfort movies.

Not sure if that’s a SIGN of depression or a coping mechanism for it, or both, or just totally normal behavior for the age we live in, but…screw it, it does help.

Via Ravishly:

My new career as a stripper: It’s handled.

So I searched Amazon for “petite satin pajamas” and…

Damn. That’s a mighty bold interpretation, Amazon.

I wanted Olivia Pope, not Olivia POLE.

The Elusive Self-Esteem Boost and a Therapeutic Three-fer

If you’ve never had a day where you look in the mirror and think, “GodDAMN, I look good,” I highly recommend it.

Spring and summer clothes and weather really are my wheelhouse. I’ll also be buying more of this new makeup (aptly made by Tarte) and thanking the gods of hair for blessing my rolled-outta-bed coif today.

Sometimes a plan just comes together, and today it did, in the form of my unplanned FINE ass.

“Give it up, boys and girls. Admit it. I look GOOD!” (Don’t judge me, Bette is my jam.)

P.S. I went to therapy tonight, and one of the first things she said to me, unprompted, was, “You look wonderful!” So there you go, y’all — my cuteness is verified by a licensed professional. (My brain went full Cady-Heron-in-the-black-dress: “I KNOW, right?!”)

P.P.S. Tonight’s agenda: Therapy, takeout food, and Scandal. So basically a therapeutic three-fer.

Slut Shame and the Blame Game

I had scheduled a date. I was going to meet an OkCupid person. We were going to go to a Philly taproom I’ve wanted to go to for years but never had time/company. They have fried PB&J, and I KNOW y’all don’t think I’m above eating the HELL out of that on a first date.

Yeah… I can’t. I started thinking about our conversations, the number of red flags I’d been letting pass because they were “just little things” that made me go “Hmm…” But when considered together, they make me really uncomfortable. I have a bad vibe I didn’t get from the initial OkC messaging, but have had for the past few days of texting. I told friends about less than half of those “little things,” and they told me to cancel, and cancel NOW.

But something in my brain felt guilty, like I should meet him because I said I would, because I said we’d at least be friends, because I flirted, because I took the flirting further than I should have, because I am a sexually frustrated attention whore, and because what did I expect would happen when I behaved that way?

Sound advice from a friend: “Don’t help them think only with their dicks until you’ve at least seen their face.”

On occasion it seems a self-proclaimed male “feminist” bloviating that, “Women should be able to express their sexuality without fear of being judged!” translates to, “I’m going to make demands on your time and behavior, and treat you like you owe me something, even when you’re sick, or busy, or clearly don’t want to.” I guess I’m only free to express it when the whoring works in your favor?

But I am legitimately concerned, all bad Spidey Sense, and fuck that. I’m not gonna get axe murdered just so everyone at my funeral can remember me as NICE. (My friends wouldn’t — they’d be like, “GAWD, how was she such an accommodating asshole when her asshole never actually accommodated anyone?!” My mom would probably be proud I died polite, though… [Ahem. Too dark?])

Anyway. I should’ve known when I found myself telling him we had to go out Monday because I was “busy” on Thursday — busy watching Scandal, but busy nonetheless.

It’s possible I have more feelings than one normal person should, like maybe I evolved wrong, or missed a meeting. Because I shouldn’t be blaming myself for being “slutty” here. (“Well, yeah, I feel like he’s overstepping my boundaries, but how would he know I even HAD boundaries?”) And if I’m actually worried about my safety (not a TON, but…a little), I REALLY shouldn’t feel bad about either just saying “no” or blocking his number.

My orgasm: “It’s handled.”

I would like this to happen to me in the very near future.

I can’t figure out how to embed it because everything (read: ABC) is dumb, but here: This is a scene from last night’s episode of Scandal, and I am coveting the experience HARD.

I’m just gonna send the guy this video like it’s office training material. Except the office is my body, and “You bettah WORK.” (Ahem. I apologize for that.)

If Scott Foley ever grabbed my hair and put his mouth on that part of my neck, we wouldn’t have even made it into the apartment — I would have just pulled up the dress and ridden him like we were in the Hallway Tour de France. And I’m not ashamed to admit that watching him do…THAT to Olivia, even just for a tragically fleeting moment, produced an actual tingle. Kerry Washington gives great sex face.

Don’t judge me, we all have our deal. Mine just happens to involve being occasionally slapped on the ass with a fashionable leather glove by a trained assassin. Whatevs.

#Scandal #TGIT #TeamJake

Guest Book Review: I will always say YES to Shonda Rhimes.

Disclosure: I am a Shonda Rhimes fan (duh): Meredith, Addison, Olivia, Annalise. You name, I worship.

So it really should come as no surprise that I loved her first book, Year of Yes. I loved it on spec, really. Shondaland disciples understand. (Juju be with you. And also with you.) But I was still excited that it met and exceeded my expectations. It was great to read about SHONDA, not just to see her peppered into little bits of her characters.

As you may infer from the title, Rhimes dedicated a year to saying “yes” to things outside her introverted writer comfort zone: giving the commencement speech at her alma mater (Dartmouth, NBD); losing more than 100 pounds; making self-care a priority; saying “no” when necessary; accepting praise — as a woman especially — with a “thank you” and no attempt to negate or downplay your achievements. (Have y’all seen that Inside Amy Schumer thing? You should. We all should. And then we should all knock that shit off.)

Really the best thing I can say about the book is: it made me feel better. I hesitate to use the word “inspirational,” because UGH. But it was. It helped me during a tough time (specifically, the week I happened to be reading it, my brain was not being especially kind to me). But the book still made me laugh so hard my lady-belly ached. I had to put it down multiple times to laugh it out. On at least one page, Rhimes had me brimming with weepy tears, then cry-laughing two paragraphs later. It’s one of those comforting books that made me feel like things are actually pretty OK — I am a badass lady and I shall “power pose like Wonder Woman,” and if you don’t like it, you can just step right off.

I actually bought a LivingSocial deal for an audiobook site just so I could have Shonda Storytime. Maybe her “badassery” can infiltrate me via hypnosis osmosis while I sleep.

Her reflections on Mommy Wars were insightful and hilarious, even though I don’t have children. Standing up at a PTA meeting and shouting “Are you fucking kidding me?!” when they demanded homemade desserts instead of store-bought? Hero. But it also made me think about how I speak to my friends who are mothers, and to consider again the way women address and judge each other. (By the end of that chapter, you too will be all, “Whitney Houston. Curling iron. Solidarity.” Just trust me.)

My favorite chapter was the one about her weight loss, how food is amazing and DOES make you feel better, because it’s delicious but also because it’s a lovely, numbing spackle for your internal wounds. Oh, Shonda — you had me at “Cheesecake will always taste like love.”

My new favorite expression — and get ready, because you’ll see me use it in the future — is “veal practice.”

“Did I tell you what veal practice is?” asks Rhimes. “Oh! Veal practice involved me lying very still on the sofa trying as hard as I could to mimic the life of a veal. While eating veal. I wish I were kidding. It. Was. Magic.”

Veal practice, people. It’s gonna be a thing.

2015 was actually my own Year of Yes — a year that brought me Amy Poehler’s Yes Please, Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy, Matthew Quick’s Silver Linings Playbook, and finally Year of Yes, the icing on the therapeutic cake (but only metaphorical cake because I try not to use cake as therapy anymore).

Rhimes’ book is, in essence, about deciding to stop living your life being small — meek, numb, detached. Going through the motions, doing only what you have to, not being present, not feeling joy. Sleeping, basically…hardly even living. I struggle every day NOT to live that way, but she’s right — sometimes it really is easier, so I can’t say I always succeed.

It was as if this year the book gods had bestowed upon me the exact books I needed to get my shy ass off the couch and out to an aerial yoga with a Creative Ladies’ Club full of women I didn’t know, to an oral sex class or a burlesque workshop, and to really deal with my family issues and these romantic ensnarements I can’t escape — Olivia Pope ahoy, y’all. (I suspect I won’t get past them until I find my own Jake Ballard, though, so I think I just have to wait that out. Plus, Liv totally screwed up that Jake thing. I mean, honestly — Jake taught you how to shoot, danced to Stevie Wonder with you, fingered you on a tropical beach, and brought you Gettysburger. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT, OLIVIA? You want “Olitz,” seriously? Fitz is a giant bitch-baby with an overly emotive forehead. Vermont is cold, and jam sucks — Jake shakes like jelly. For the love of God, Liv, go STAND IN THE SUN!!!!!!)

*pant* *pant* *pant*

I sense I have too many feelings about this.

So. You go get yourself a copy of Year of Yes.

And I? I will go enjoy some veal practice.

#YearOfYes

*At my request (pleading, really), the lovely people at Simon & Schuster send me a copy of Year of Yes for my review.

Busta Shonda Rhimes

Worth revisiting as I wrap up my Shonda Rhimes book review:

“You don’t get to call me a whore. You chose Addison. I’m all glued back together now. I make no apologies for how I chose to repair what YOU broke.”

This construct really evolved by the time it got to Olivia Pope: “I am not a toy you can play with when you’re bored or lonely or horny. If you want me, EARN me!”

Goddamn right, ladies. Testify.

(BTW, this is not a one-sided notion. I certainly hope I’ve earned the men I’ve had relationships with and have never taken them for granted. Ha ha, GRANTed… See what I did there?)