Answers, Part2

kaidavis asked: “What’s the one bit of advice you’d give to ‘7-years younger luomat’?”

w.o.w. Ok then, so this just got kicked up a notch. As you may or may not know, The Boy (our son) will turn 7 in May. Which would be nerve-wracking enough, but it was actually our second pregnancy, which is a long story that I won’t go into here. But 7-years-ago-me would probably like to know “He’s healthy, and he’s awesome. You don’t suck completely as a parent.” BUT I was also in the middle of a huge existential crisis of “Is This What I Want To Do With The Rest Of My Life?” with regards to my job around that same time [answer: “yes, just not where I was 7 years ago”] so if I had to sum it all up, I think I’d like to tell 7-years-ago-me: “It All Turns Out OK”

Come to think of it, that’s probably the message I would send Past Me at any point in the past.

daniellei asked: “Who was your first kiss and do you still talk to them?”

I like how you said “them” I guess to imply that you were ok with it being either a girl or a boy, or, I guess, a group of people. But as a good Irish Catholic boy, my first kiss was from the girl next door. Ok, she was technically 4 houses down, but still.

Do I still talk to her? No, she’s dead.

To me. Turns out she was a bit of a loon. Or horribly emotionally manipulative. Or she cheated on me with some other guy but I didn’t believe my best friend when he told me despite the fact that I had known him as long as I’d been alive and he’d never lied to me before and who had on at least one occasion prevented me from getting my ass whupped.

On the other hand, damn, we were teenagers, so, should we really be holding grudges? Besides, what I did to her mouth that first time would qualify as “manslaughter” or at the very least “assault with a deathly unskilled weapon”. You know that hugely exaggerated “This person is a bad kisser” pantomime that people do when they pretend that they’re being orally attacked by an octopus with 2 arms and 6 tongues? Yeah, imagine that, then double it.

Plus, she later provided me with the exquisite and indescribable joy that comes to every red-blooded heterosexual male when he first manages to free a pair of live, human breasts from a bra. So let’s call it even.

What was the question? Oh, right. No, we’re not still in touch. Except in her dreams. OH BURN! (Or, “nightmares”, because of the kissing thing, but that’s not nearly as funny. Plus, I got better. I swear!)

mayjah asked “Cake or pie?”

aHA! You nearly tricked me there. I thought you were going to ask “Cake or death?” so I was all ready to yell out “cake” before they ran out. But this is a much trickier question.

The only pie I like is apple pie, and the only cake I really like is chocolate cake, or, in a pinch, some kind of non-chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

So, are we talking about cherry pie vs chocolate cake or apple pie vs pound cake (which TOTALLY IS NOT REAL CAKE because it DOESN’T HAVE ANY FUCKING FROSTING ON IT and it therefore A LIE and DOES NOT COUNT) or (shudder) rhubarb pie (which is the worst flavor pie other than anal leakage pie) vs carrot cake (which, despite sounding like something I wouldn’t like isn’t all that bad)?

Is the cake my mother’s triple chocolate cake? Because I will totally stab everyone in the eye with my fork so they can’t see that she made it so I can have it to myself. Or is it that awful German-chocolate cake which looks like normal chocolate cake but tastes somehow different and I don’t like it, or that chocolate cake that they put cherries in, because I fucking hate cherries, and would rather have coffee cake, which I love, despite the fact that I don’t drink coffee, because it’s fucking cake you can eat for breakfast, so we’ll excuse the whole lack of frosting thing, because it’s covered in fuckall cinnamon.

Damn, now I want cake.

So I guess cake wins, but if it’s not chocolate, I’m going to be really pissed off if I find out there was apple pie.

p.s. - no one asked, but what that kid did to that apple pie in that “American Pie” movie? He should have had his dick cut off and shoved down his throat for that. Fucking pie rapist. Why not just rape Betsy Ross and baseball while you’re at it, you sick demento.

frageelaytwit asked “Favorite character from The Wire & why?”

Wow. Well, first there’s Cedric Daniels’ naked body. The man is fit. And don’t tell me it doesn’t count as a character, I mean, that thing got more screen time than Clay Davis. And can you say “Supporting Role”? Just ask that lawyer chick he was banging all over the place.{note to self, edit this paragraph out before posting}

The Wire isn’t really about heroes, is it? So it’s hard to really identify with any of them.

McNulty, drunk, obsessive, womanizing, and even when he’s not, you get the sense that it’s still under the surface there. And the lying?

Marlo? Strong, determined, focused, rich, and hard to catch.

The character I liked the most? Absolutely Bubbles. I still find myself wondering, “I wonder if Bubbles has stayed clean? Has he been going to meetings? Is his sister still treating him well” and then I think “Oh, right, TV show. Haha, I know.”

My favorite character though, without a real question, is Omar.

I know, it’s not original, but come on now.

You’re telling a story about rival gangs, and you’ve got an independent third party who steals from whoever he wants, seemingly just to prove that he can?

A guy so fierce and well known that he can just walk down the street and everyone yells out “Omar comin’” and drop their drugs out of a window when he’s dressed in nothing but a bathrobe?

A character with a huge facial scar that is never explained in the entire series?

A man so determined by loyalty that he will not give up on defending the honor of his fallen loved ones even at the risk of his own life?

A guy who can survive an assassination attempt by pulling some Spider-man shit out of a tall window and still get over on the “bad” guys?

Oh, and just to make sure that none of the stereotypes fit, he’s also openly gay?

That man is a character.

There’s no saying of another character “He’s like (guy from another show) only (slight variation)?”

McNulty? Brilliant cop with a defect (drinking, problem with superiors, etc) Lester? Wiser, more experienced cop who shows the younger kids the ropes Kima, Carver, Herc? Rookies who learn, to different degrees.

Now it’s unfair to suggest you can adequately summarize any of the characters in one sentence, but damn, you can’t even pretend to describe Omar in one sentence.

There’s no simile for Omar.

Omar’s Omar.

He’s a character for the fucking ages, he is.