...

“I was deposited on to the streets of New York, restored to the mainstream of life. I took several steps down the sidewalk when something happened. It was not guilt that froze me; I had taught myself never to feel guilt. It wasn't the fear of death; I had taught myself to think of death as a friend. It was not the thought of being unloved that froze me; I had taught myself to do without love. What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction.”

—Howard W. Campbell Jr., in “Mother Night,” the film adapted from the novel by Kurt Vonnegut

The President of Turkemenistan

is named

Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov.

And...

he is a dentist.

"The Sworn Virgins of Albania"

This was sent to me from The New York Times by Ladyfriend, and I am transfixed:

Albanian Custom Fades: Woman as Family Man

By DAN BILEFSKY

KRUJE, Albania — Pashe Keqi recalled the day nearly 60 years ago when she decided to become a man. She chopped off her long black curls, traded in her dress for her father’s baggy trousers, armed herself with a hunting rifle and vowed to forsake marriage, children and sex.

For centuries, in the closed-off and conservative society of rural northern Albania, swapping genders was considered a practical solution for a family with a shortage of men. Her father was killed in a blood feud, and there was no male heir. By custom, Ms. Keqi, now 78, took a vow of lifetime virginity. She lived as a man, the new patriarch, with all the swagger and trappings of male authority — including the obligation to avenge her father’s death...

Here's the rest.

And from the fantastic slideshow by Johan Spanner:

“Qamile Stema said she would die a virgin. Had she married, she joked, it would have been to a traditional Albanian woman. ‘I guess you could say I was partly a woman and partly a man, but of course I never did everything a man does,’ she said. ‘I liked my life as a man. I have no regrets.’”

The Best Question I’ve Been Asked in a Long Time

I am irritated with certain colleagues today. So I sat down in my badass badassiest Eastern European colleague’s office.

“I am incredibly irritated by everyone in the offices to your left,” I said.

“Would you like me to beat them up?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I would. First This Annoying One and then That Annoying One.”

“Do you think This Annoying One bruises like a peach?” she asked, one eyebrow cocked.

Yes, I told her. Yes, I do. He most definitely bruises like a peach.

Mysteries Lie Within

The Welder's stairwell.



A large amount of huge hidden honeybees are in this photo.

New York, I Love You/Zeppelins Were Cool

I Should Have Said, “The Pursuit of…”

My Fake Boyfriend: Variety is the spice of life.

McBickle: Okay, cliché.

My Fake Boyfriend: I realize that.

McBickle: Satiety is the vice of life.

My Fake Boyfriend: It’s not a story. It’s a convo.

McBickle: Huh?

My Fake Boyfriend: I lke oure.

McBickle: Huh?

My Fake Boyfriend: Yours is good. Sounds like Oscar Wilde.

To that I say, “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

A Perfect Day and a Penis

“Look to your right,” My Fake Boyfriend said to me.

And there he was.

This Russian man, who looked like a more toned, more bald Vladimir Putin. Specifically, there was this Russian man’s penis:

Hours went by and MFB, Mza and I played like seals in the waves, enduring crabs that mechanically nipped at our toes and sun that blasted off the top four layers of our skin.

It was amazing. Sigh. A beautiful, peaceful day with friends on a checkered sheet on a New York City beach. There were no plastic bags in the water; there were no shouting children. There were no cigarette nubs or douchebags throwing beer bottles.

And then MFB turns to me again later and says, “Why does that guy always have to be in my line of sight?”

And there he was again, the fellow in the photo above, strutting around in his black Speedo like Putin in Queens. But I can’t say he detracted from our peaceful dozy lazing. He just likely monitored it from a small recording device tucked up in the crevice of his tiny (really very tiny) bathing suit. A square nib of a chip shoved somewhere up between his testicles and his thigh. Something so miniscule packed into a place so entirely laminated by spandex that there was very much a possibility that, between his being everywhere and his suit being so tight, we would be able to see its outlines.

Occasionally, People Are Wonderful

I got a note this morning from a source on a story I did for a major paper a couple years ago. The basic gist of the story was that a nonprofit organization was forced to suddenly shut down after decades. It seems a lawyer saw my story and formed a committee to get the place up and running again, which I had no idea about. So here’s part of my source’s note, which actually just made me cry.

“I just wanted to tell you how grateful I am to you for writing that article and getting it published. Truly, none of this would have been possible without the exposure that the article brought. The revival of [the organization] is, in large part, thanks to you! So whenever you are feeling frustrated or jaded about your journalism career, remember that, through your work, you truly made a huge difference in the lives of hundreds of New Yorkers.”

Yeah, but thank you. Thank you for letting me be a part of that, and for telling me all this. Thank you for being someone who says such warm things to someone else. You remind me that there is a quiet but strong connection that threads us all together, and this makes me love the world a little bit more today.

How It’s All Going to End

McBickle: BTW, Man with a Pocket Square had an interesting theory: that you never see women in short skirts with big dogs, only short skirts and small dogs, long skirts and big dogs. And I said, “But I wear short skirts and would only have a big dog.”

He said: “Yes. Yes you would.”

Mza: You would! So true.

McBickle: Ha

Mza: Wow.

McBickle: Man with a Pocket Square is an observant boy.

Mza: You would have a medium-sized dog, and wear a terry onesie.

McBickle: And then I’d live in Bburg. And then I’d kill myself.

~

Other musings from the mind of Mza, who hates Jonathan Schwartz as much as I do:

Mza: “ 'His voice makes me want to throw a Pimm’s Cup at a piano player.' Totes. You serve indignation like a good bartender."

And you, Mza, serve compliments like diamond-crusted caviar on a platinum platter. Or some kind of metal. Maybe just an alloy of sorts. Tin. A tin platter.