Dating Tips from Someone who Has Never Read Jane Eyre

1. The guy you are seeing probably does not have a maniac wife hidden in his attic.
2. Hooking up with the guardian of the kid you are nannying for is not a complicated situation.
3. Odd scratchings at night outside your bedroom door are a sign that your crush is thinking about you.
4. Always be yourself.

CRYSTAL STUFF

How do I get into crystal stuff? I know it’s something I want to get into. It seems that people into low-key crystal stuff are generally a little more content or have some things figured out. But I want to know, how do I get into it? The woman at the bookstore with the dream catchers and wind chimes and menstrual calendars seems to be into crystal stuff, and she is serene as all get out. She even has some crystals. They’re in a little velvet case next to the cash register. And she gets all prickly when I get too close to them, like, yeah right, I’m really gonna steal your merchandise (although it would be incredibly easy to do). But if I were to actually buy a crystal, would that constitute being into crystal stuff? Because I’m not sure how I would use it or what I would do with it—put it on my dresser? Put it in the bath? Casually toss it to people when they come over as if it’s that interwoven into my life? The point is, I’d never be sure if I was using it right. Like, what if I put it on top of my DVD player and that somehow messed with its intrinsic healing properties or something? What if a crystal expert came over and saw that I’d stuck it in a high top? Then what? This all leads me back to the same initial question: How in the hell do I get into crystal stuff? 

SPEED DATING THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTS

George Washington
I can tell immediately that this guy has integrity out the yang. Not handsome, exactly, more like kind of sexily creaky with dignity. “So,” I say, “What do you like to do in your free time?” He stares off into the distance and grips his hat. “Valley Forge is on the verge of collapse,” he says. “My men need food, water, shoes, ammunition. I’m afraid we won’t last the winter.” “Speaking of firepower,” I say, trying to lift the mood. “Here come the Cajun curly fries.” He polishes a silver button.

Thomas Jefferson
The first thing this guy does is pull out some kind of wooden contraption. I can tell he wants me to ask him about it. “What’s that?” I say. “Oh this?” he says. “It’s only a device I perfected which allows you to make a copy of what you’re writing through two interconnected pencils.” I have no idea where to go from there. We sit in awkward silence and then start talking at the same time. “Are you on Twitter?” I say. “Has anyone in your family had the pox?” he says.

James Madison
“They call me the little apple-john” he says jovially upon sitting down. I don’t know what he means but I try to take the baton. “Ha, that’s neat,” I say. “They used to call me the pole hound. I mean, it was a college thing. I took an exotic dancing class, you know, as kind of a female empowerment thing? Well, I also took a self defense class so I guess I was really, I don’t know, exploring different facets of....” I trail off. He looks hassled and glances at his time piece.

Ulysses S. Grant
He has a craggy face and is kind of seething with masculinity. I am at once repulsed by and attracted to his sweaty beard. I can also tell that he’s a tad drunk. We sit there and I’m not sure if it’s a comfortable silence or not. Finally he takes a heavy silver pistol out of his jacket, gently puts it on the table, sighs a world weary sigh and says, “Ere but I go once more into the burning field.” “Me too,” I say. “I mean, me neither.” He looks at me a certain way. “Do you like ceramics?” I say, trying to quickly change the subject. “You know, curio?” “What?” he says. “What?” I say.

John F. Kennedy
Swoon. Okay, stop the presses. This is more like it. There’s just something so powerful and suave yet boyish about him and he smells like tobacco and cedar and peppermint and...I can’t help noticing that he’s not paying very much attention to me but rather eyeing our blonde waitress. I try to distract him. “Let’s play a game,” I say. “You tell me the first thing that came to mind when you saw me.” “What?” he says. “It’s like word association,” I say, giggling. “Like if I point to myself—” “Bluestocking,” he says.

Thomas Jefferson
It’s really late. I’m tired, and a little discouraged, and so I decide to leave. To my surprise, on my way out, I see Jefferson lingering at the bar, hypnotized by a margarita machine. I sit down with him and this time we actually get to talking. I go ahead and dazzle him with a limited history of Nintendo. He tells me how to preserve ice in the winter. I explain the philosophy behind pruning my Netflix cue. He takes apart a ball point pen. Before I know it we’re leaving together. Back at my place I light some candles and we get down to ratifying some stuff, if you catch my drift.

The Cast of 'Saturday Night Grains'

Chris Barley
Kristen Wheat
Quinoa-n Thompson
Fred Amaranth
Rice-el Dratch
Rye-a Rudolph
Amy Bulgher
Cheri Oat-eri
Will Farro
Spelt Meyers
Semolina Garofalo
Millet Shannon
Dana Corny

Some Things Are Private

If you’re asking me, have I ever hooked up with a girl, the answer is yes. If you’re asking, have I ever hooked up with a ghost, the answer is none of your damn business.

PREVIOUSLY ON... JERSEY SHORE (A Transcript)

SITUATION
She was feelin’ me the whole time.

SAMMI
Really.

SITUATION
Yeah -

SAMMI
Cause I was fuckin’ feelin’ Ronnie too.

RONNIE laughs.

SITUATION
Yeah, you was feelin’ me, you was holdin’ my hand the whole time at the boardwalk, what was that?

SAMMI flips off THE SITUATION with both middle fingers.

SITUATION
You’re fuckin’ me half the night and you’re fuckin’ my boy the other half the night?

RONNIE
Me and Sammi are pretty much together at this point. It just feels right, it just like it clicks.

SAMMI
Yes, I have sex, like, hello. You’re gonna have sex if you’re into somebody.

RONNIE
We smushed.

PAULY D
(referring to J-Woww)
She won’t even remember her boyfriend’s name when she gets done with me.

J-WOWW
(on the phone with her boyfriend)
I’m, like, sucking up my pride right now and apologizing - (To us.) At the end of the day I just realized, like, how much Tom means to me. I honestly would like, give up anything to have Tom in my life.

USURPED

My place on the family fridge had been usurped by my little brother which is fine, I mean, not that I care that mom and dad think his picture of a medieval guy riding up to a castle rendered in watercolor and totally out of proportion is better than my giraffe laughing in the sun rendered in crayon, because I don’t. I know that my giraffe laughing in the sun is really good and that mom and dad probably just didn’t see the subtleties, such as how laid back he is, and isn’t life just one lazy steel pan drum beat, and hey look there’s a giraffe on the fridge, laughing in the sun, and duh, giraffes aren’t supposed to laugh so therein lies the humor, and why can’t they absorb enough of that to reduce some of their adult grade silence at dinner?
But I’m always getting usurped by something. Like my brother’s medieval guy riding up to the castle, again, totally out of proportion, and also kind of dark and ominous and probably portending his future as a high school shooter. But if it’s not that then it’s that my sister finally got contacts. And everyone’s like, oh, Amy, you look like such a beautiful young woman. And I’m like, really? Cause to me she looks like that same bathroom hogging, tangle-haired banshee who throws all of those shrieky sleepovers which, mind you, I have never been invited to. And woe becomes the man who tries to sneak into one to take a gander at Mia Gusterson’s inner knee, because should he be found out, trying to pose as a perfectly reasonable lump under a blanket, no amount of nonchalant walking away will stem the blood curdling cries that will issue after him, or the reign of tired disapproval from mom.
But everyone is all like, Amy, you’re really growing up, and I’m still like, really? Because I don’t think that growing up is distinctive to the female of the species, other reluctant attendants of this household are growing up, as is evidenced by the obvious cultural acumen needed to render a vaguely Caribbean, definitely really wise, very cool giraffe laughing in the sun, with nods towards childhood whimsy, which is why I chose to use my adorably off-kilter kid hand when drawing said picture, instead of my precise drawing hand, currently being diverted and mostly employed in the learning of cursive.
Because I know just how efficiently an off-kilter kid drawing can warm the cockles of a tax doing, over extended married couple, and curry a relieved and life appreciating glint in their eye. I’ve been doing it my whole life! Every little long day for eight endless years. I’ve been cranking them out and serving them up. A dog chasing a cat. And palm tree lifting weights. A stick figure family in a canoe. An ant looking at an ant under a magnifying glass, only to see that that ant is also looking at an ant under a magnifying glass, ad infinitum. And then the penultimate—a giraffe laughing in the sun with a generally kind of gritty warmth and ripening joy, only to be usurped by my brother and his medieval guy walking up to a castle, at which point my drawing was demoted to the badlands of the lower half of the fridge, where nothing dwells except for a coffee stain and a smudgy veterinarian’s appointment magnet.
And there my drawing will stay, until I finally figure out a way to usurp the usurper with the ultimate drawing. One with the most mom and dad placating, wonky kid wizardry as to have ever descended upon this weary household, and which is already taking shape in my mind as this: a cat tailor, tailoring a dress for a mouse, with Thomas Jefferson in the background. Goodnight.

Reasons Why I Love My Cat, No. 429

His scratchy li'l tongue.

Things You Needn't Update Us About On Facebook, No. 3,419

Your sesame allergy.