Jolie Kerr: You know? Usually I don’t support the anti-moon agenda put forth by this’n here website, but I do think it was awfully cruel of the universe to deliver unto us a full moon in convergence with our first full weekend of Drynuary, so I’ll bellow a hearty I DESPISE YOU, MOON in solidarity with our Alcoholic Overlords.

Right then, with that out of the way, we’ve just made it through our first, and arguably most challenging, sober weekend. Last week you said something I loved about how Drynuary is both a challenge and a gift—a truth which hits you square in the gut the first weekend out of the gate, does it not? I mean, how many times can you ask yourself, “Okay but now what?"

John: Right? The first few days have the benefit of novelty to propel you forward. Yo! Check me out! Not drinking! Weekdays are filled with commuting and work and parenting and all of the things that make you drink in the first place, but at least you’ve got a routine to attend to and distract you. Then the weekend checks in with its stupid face promising fun and free time and sports, most of which is best accompanied by a beer. This is when you start recognizing where you are in the Kübler-Ross model. Which stage was horniness?

Jolie: Stages 1-5, based on a scientific study of one. But I’m sure I’m not the only one substituting sex for drinking. Also sugar, but we can get to that later because it’s time to talk about the “gift" part of things, which for me has really been found in the substitute activities.

Last Saturday, as you know because you live here, was ridiculously beautiful in New York. The perfect day for outdoor drinking, except that it’s Drynuary, so nope, no dice. I had a couple of dumb little errands to run; normally I would have jumped on the subway and hustled through the shopping so I could meet up with friends for several hundred glasses of wine, but instead I decided to take advantage of the weather. I treated myself to an iced coffee from Dunkin' Donuts (you can take the girl out of Boston, but you can’t take the Masshole out of the girl), put a whole bunch of Phish on Spotify (you can take the girl out of boarding school, but you can’t take the trustafarian out of the girl), and twirled through the city having one of those great New York days where you wander from neighborhood to neighborhood people-watching and just checking some things out. Of course, it’s me, so the things I was “checking out" included a vintage clothing shop for ideas on boot storage and a leather daddy emporium where I inquired about the proper care and cleaning of strap-on harnesses. A Clean Person’s work is never done, John.

After a few hours, my feetsies were starting to hurt and I was a little peckish, so I came home, made a cup of tea, fixed a cheese plate and relaxed with an episode of "Sons of Anarchy." It was perfectly lovely, truly. (Lest you think I’m avoiding human contact in the name of not drinking, I can assure you that I’m out and about! Or in and about, as the case may be. On Friday, I entertained in the home, cooked a big dinner—the chicken piccata called for wine, and I didn’t even flinch! Though if I’m being honest, I had a couple of half cup servings in the freezer, so it’s not like I cracked a bottle and then resisted its siren call or anything—and after the meal, we made crack brownies together when normally I’d be pouring another glass of wine or a bourbon. See what I mean about the sugar?)

John: It’s ALL about the coping mechanisms. I went to Queens, for Pete’s sake. Queens! For ethnic food, of course. Barbecue is ethnic food, right? They don’t have a liquor license yet, so: soft landing! How did they know I was coming?

You’ve got the right approach: cowering in your apartment all of Drynuary will drive you mad. Or worse, to drink. It’s like Steve McQueen being in the cooler without the baseball. The smugness factor alone of drinking cranberry juice on a Saturday night out ensures that we can survive behind enemy lines.

Here’s where I’ll share my Drynuary’s Little Helper. I enjoy bubble water on a regular basis, and I’m one of those jerks who orders “sparkling" while the rest of the table wants “New York tap." I like burping! So much so that we now make our own seltzer at home. I’m always ready for a slapstick Three Stooges scene, so it has made Drynuary just a bit more tolerable. There’s enough citrus in my fridge to keep the British Navy scurvy-free, so I’ve always got a glass of custom club soda with a wedge of lemon/lime/orange within reach. My trusty sidekick. I call him Bubbles.

Oh, and it’s very environmentally friendly since we don’t buy plastic bottles of the stuff, ensuring that we don’t get kicked out of Brooklyn for exceeding the strict Neighborhood Carbon Footprint and Condescension Act of 2008. Drynuary: For A Greener Tomorrow(™).

Jolie: I love soda water in a wholly unnatural way. Like, to the point where about five years ago I had to cold turkey it on the seltzer front for about 6 months to kick the habit before I burped myself into a bone density problem. But yes, mocktails are crucial to surviving Drynuary. Jill mentioned that she’s been experimenting to great effect with pineapple, grapefruit, cranberry, etc. juices mixed with seltzer; I shared with her my “mix OJ and soda water, serve in a flute, close your eyes and pretend it’s a mimosa" trick, which also works well with peach juice for a mock Bellini. And now, if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go apologize to the Italian side of my family for using the words “mock Bellini" because dear God who am I???

And! While we’re on the topic of mocktails, I had a personal victory this Drynuary that I would like to share with the class: last year I said that I couldn’t imagine going to a bar and not drinking, but this go-round I made it happen. Cranberry and seltzer, bellied right up to the bar with my laptop while I worked on the cleaning column. It wasn’t even a thing really.

But I fear we’re making this sound too easy, so let me ask you this: have you come close to breaking? If so, what was the trigger?

John: I think the trigger was waking up on January 2nd. Or Alex Balk constantly posting studies on how booze is good for you.

Honestly, the biggest temptation has been my traditional post-hockey beers. A bottle of Canada Dry doesn’t seem to do the trick after a game, even if it’s geographically relevant. It’s called beer league hockey for a reason. (Mostly because we suck.)

Other than that, I miss having a nice glass of wine with a good meal. And a martini before a steak. And a Rusty Nail afterwards. I solve that by eating more cereal for dinner.

I was really diligent—and by diligent, I mean in the context of my final evening under the demon spell of likker—about stowing the Bloody Mary Bar after New Year’s Day so that I wouldn’t have to face it in the cold, cruel light of day right out of the gate. There are a couple of beers and bottles of wine in the fridge that mock me, but it’s a balancing act between being cavalier in the face of a PBR tallboy behind the yogurt and licking your lips lasciviously eying the open bottle of rye inexplicably sitting on the coffee table. Temptation is temptation, but there’s no point in drawing blood.

Shall we go to the leaderboard?

Week Two

Alcohol Consumed (units)
Jolie: 0
John: 0

Days Without Booze
Jolie: 12
John:11 (start January 2nd every year)

Disposition
Jolie: Cheery!
John: Determined, steely-eyed

Irritability (scale of 0-10)
Jolie: 2
John: 3

Outlook
Jolie: Waiting for the mood to set in.
John: Suspicious. Something funny is happening with time.

Shakes
Jolie: Do you think we should swap this out for something else since we’re past the detox stage? Are we past the detox stage? Where am I? Who are you? Why am I so thirsty?
John: Yeah, let’s swap this one out. Something relating to how healthy we feel? Is grinding your teeth healthy?

Smugness (scale of 0-10)
Jolie: 3, inching up
John: 4, “Oh, I don’t own a television."

Sounder Sleeping
Jolie: Not as much as Week 1; I had an anxiety dream that involved drinking a glass of red wine at brunch with Paula Deen, which I had about ⅔ of before realizing that it was Drynuary and I was in big trouble. Which is crazy because God red wine at brunch?? Perish the thought.
John: Definitely going to bed earlier. Dreams are more vivid, weirder.

Substitute Activities
Jolie: Cooking. Writing. Twirling. Sexing.
John: Teaching my daughter how to say “Cheers!" with her sippy cup. And MY sippy cup.

John: The Smugmeter is inching up!

Jolie: A little bit, yes! But sobriety is apparently making me as soft as a grape (sniffle, miss u every day grape juice, old friend) because I didn’t take on so much as a disapproving tone when Jack told me that he’s interpreted Drynuary to mean “Sober Weekdays (But With Lots Of Pot) And Moderate Drinking On The Weekends January." I’m slipping.

John: That’s a Drynuary Fail! He’s out, confiscate his name tag, let the shunning begin. By the way, let’s check in with the ultimate arbiter of taste and trends—Twitter—to see how our movement is doing “out there":

The thing about trying to make "Bon L'(h)iver" a thing for "Drynuary" is that you don't say "Bon L'hiver" in French this is just making me m

— Sugartits (@distract_a_bee) January 8, 2012

John: [sound of gears grinding] Well, duh! You say “Bon Iver." (Hums “still alive for you, love" to self.) #PeopleUnclearOnTheConcept

Jolie: She should shut up and have a drink.

So! How are we doing, gang? “Tell us in the etc.!"

Jolie Kerr is sugar high.
John Oreis high and dry.

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53 comments

Emily: Hey, remember back in the day when I came to you with the idea of a store that would sell ebook versions of our very favorite books of all time, like an independent bookstore but online, one that would give people an alternative to buying ebooks from megacorporations?

Ruth: Oh, yes, like it was a few months ago!

Emily: I'm just reminiscing about that time!

Ruth: Neither of us I think have been people who 'always wanted to' start our own company. That was like literally last on my list of Dream Occupations.

Emily: Really? I always sort of knew I would eventually have to.

Ruth: Yeah, no.

Emily: I was, like, dreading it.

Ruth: Well this is why we are a good partnership I think. You are more of a risktaker, and you have a lot of ideas, and you also are quick to move on if something isn't working. Whereas I am more cautious, tend to overthink, tend to want to wait and see. Left to my own devices I would still be banging my head against doors that will not open.

Emily: So alone you wouldn't have done it. And alone, I would have done it in a rushed and thoughtless way.

Ruth: (That's a mixed metaphor I guess, about the doors.)

Emily: (Not if you open doors with your head normally?) When I first told you about the idea, were you into it immediately?

Ruth: Oh yeah.

Emily: That was a cool moment, actually, I remember it like it was six months ago

Ruth: I had been thinking about similar things, like, how is it possible for an indie bookstore to sell ebooks. And I had come up with "a kiosk" and also never in a million years would have thought of doing it myself. But when you were like, "I want to do this and I want you to be my COO" I was like oh, duh, of course!

Emily: Ok, so, we've been working on having our ebook store/subscription/club for half a year and we've been open since October, so it's silly to talk about this like we're hoary old veterans of working together. But it feels like we are because we have worked together, and that's how we met. And the stuff we're doing for the store is the same stuff we talk about all the time anyway, except formalized.

Ruth: Yes. Another reason why this felt so NBD, I think, is that we've already been coworkers. I know what you're like in an office and what your work ethic is like and all that stuff. And we've also lived together. So we've sort of seen it all, from each other, good and bad.

Emily: Like, nothing's changed in our friendship except we spend slightly even more time together and we have to schedule "fun" interactions now to make sure they happen. Um, like a married couple with a toddler. And the toddler is our business.

Ruth: OMG yes. We totally have to have date nights. And ignore the "kid."

Emily: Make a rule of not talking about the "kid." Gross, but i think it's really important to both our friendship and the business, cause it reminds us that the ideas we have in our fun conversations are the point of our business. I mean, the best part of doing this has been watching you handle difficult stuff and feeling very proud of you. I remember we had a meeting and a few minutes in it wasn't going well and you turned it around and just blew everyone's socks off, and I realized I couldn't do this without you. I mean not that I'd really had any illusions on that score. But you know, i'm strongwilled and bossy and have a hard time delegating and I tend to feel like "oh, I'll just do it myself." And it was a moment when I knew that wasn't going to be an option anymore.

Ruth: The best parts for me have been like, whenever I feel mired in day-to-day stuff and worried that stuff just sucks. Those tend to be the days when you are like, 'I think we should do THIS' and it's like a gamechanger. And everything is exciting again. Or when i'm like "Wah! How to fix this!" and you are like, "That's not even a problem, moving on!' We are both good at handholding with each other, which is obviously important. Especially at the beginning, when things really seemed impossible.... there was never a day when BOTH of us were like, we can't do this.

Emily: Yeah, it's important that we never both want to give up simultaneously.

Ruth: I mean both of us in general are people who stubbornly cannot give up. Which is good and bad but in this case mostly good.

Emily: So yay, everything is perfect! Except obviously there are still some tiny minor hurdles we have to overcome.

Ruth: Of course, hurdles.

Emily: The only downside of being in business with your best friend is that you can't go to your best friend and complain about work.

Ruth: That is true. There really is no getting around that.

Emily: I am too exhausted even to complain right now! Not to whine, but we have been working really hard. And there is no end in sight

Ruth: We are our own terrible bosses now. Which is better by far than having a terrible boss. (LOL thinking about Lonely Island song, "Like a BOSS.")

Emily: That song really takes a turn.

Ruth: Yeah, things get dark.

Emily: I want to make a playlist about being a boss.

Ruth: So many good songs.

Emily: Primarily "I'm Bossy." Any Bruce Springsteen song also qualifies. Well I am really excited by the prospect of being a boss. Being totally freelance is cool in some ways. I realized about myself (and maybe you did too?! I don't know, this must be the one thing we've never talked about) that I don't want to just sit at a desk by myself and write novels, like, that is not my idea of Dream Job either. I think for some people that would really be the ultimate. I mean I want to do it SOMETIMES but doing it all the time exclusively would make me really The Shining really fast. My favorite part of our project is brainstorming stuff, figuring out solutions with you that I wouldn't be able to figure out myself. And I even sort of like having meetings. I had missed meetings. I know that's kind of pathetic.

Ruth: I am laughing at you.

Emily: Staff meetings at the yoga studio don't sate my meetings cravings.

Ruth: I mean, I feel like I'm making this sound like LOLZ FUN ALL THE TIME.

Emily: Well, obviously it's not fun to like kill yourself with no concrete hope of a payday anywhere in sight.

Ruth: But I love that our job legitimately is talking about books we love enough to sell. Those are fun conversations.

Emily: Right but explaining what our business is over and over was only fun the first 500 or so times. Now it's beginning to pall and we still have to do it every day, a lot, for the forseeable future.

Ruth: Yes.

Emily: Oh and we always procrastinate about writing about our books? But that is supposedly "the fun part"? I guess it's hard because we love these books so much and want to do them justice.

Ruth: Yeah, and it's not fun realizing that the reason people aren't selling books you love is that they're legitimately ridiculously hard to sell.

Emily: Ha! Well and also realizing that books, e- or not, are a tough business. I mean, it would be different if we were both REALLY PASSIONATE about sparkle werewolf holocaust-survivor baseball 9/11 novels.

Ruth: Yeah, it's that thing where you know something intellectually but it takes real experiential first hand knowledge for it to really make sense. I've worked in publishing for my entire adult life and you've published two books and that realization is still hard and painful.

Emily: I'm sure indie booksellers find us adorable and maddening and are like "told ya."

Ruth: Yeah. It's not that we didn't "know?" But now we *know.*

Emily: Ha! well, we haven't really even begun, though. I still think we are in the like very very beginning um of our story. Like we are not even to the half title. We are still on the copyright page.

Ruth: Are you gonna keep this metaphor going?

Emily: Till the last endpaper, you bet.

Ruth: We are still in the acknowledgments, unless you are one of those writers who put them at the end.

Emily: Why would anyone put them at the beginning? Also you know what, I think they're gross and I'm never having them again. I'm having a dedication and that's it.

Ruth: Some people do? I dunno. But what if you get a MACARTHUR FELLOWSHIP. It would be RUDE not to thank them.

Emily: Acknowledgments are one of those things that people think have been around forever but are actually a modern and bad invention. I think if you get some fellowships they make you sign something that you'll mention them in your acks. Maybe they even mandate the phrasing. "The Corporation of Yaddo."

Ruth: Horrifying.

Emily: I am going to keep maintaining that all that jazz is for wusses. Until I get one.

Ruth: Well, of course, that's the way.

Ruth: I would like to 'implicitly' answer the question of how we do not kill each other.

Emily: Ha!

Ruth: I think it was great that we opened our store the same month we made a deal to do yoga every day! It probably really helped.

Emily: This is awkward but you know when I was at your house drinking tea and talking about books yesterday?

Ruth: Yup.

Emily: I actually released a slow-working poison bomb so you should die in like 10...9...8... Goodbye sweet Ruth. Anyway, yoga for sure has helped. It also helped us have a thing we did together that wasn't this.

Ruth: We are such hippies. "Drinking tea" was just mentioned three lines ago. IT WAS HERBAL.

Emily: It was herba—whoa.

Ruth: Okay. This is one of the benefits of doing a project with a friend.

Emily: If you ever misplace your brain they could just replace it with mine and no one would know the diff.

Ruth: Something like that.

Emily: (We do have like huge major fundamental differences in taste and cultural background and personality, I hasten to say.)

Ruth: But people would be like, 'why can't you figure out the tip anymore?"

Emily: Exactly.

Ruth: (Sorry to out you as a non-math person.)

Emily: I don't think that's a secret. I have problems saying some numbers aloud. Like, anything over 1,000, I get confused about how to say it. I don't know how open we should be about this.

Ruth: Don't say anything more, you will lose crediblity as a Business Woman.

Emily: I have gotten SLIGHTLY better at keeping numbers in my brain. Actually reading contracts, that kind of thing. I don't just think "Ruth will take care of it." I think "I should baseline know what Ruth is doing so I can explain it if need be."

Ruth: I mean this is obvious but so much of making a success of anything is communication and we have had years and years to work on that together already. (HIPPIES.)

Emily: But being in business has really put it to the test. It's been hard for me. I have had to really check myself. You're probably like "that was you checking yourself?!"

Ruth: I know you are trying. I can see you trying.

Emily: Thank you for acknowledging my struggle. But yeah, oh, you know, another thing that comes to mind is that we have both experienced what it's like to have an amazing boss. And we have also both experienced having less-amazing bosses.

Ruth: Right! We've both had some really good mentors.

Emily: Gay dudes primarily. I definitely have "what would X do" in mind when I make decisions.

Ruth: I think more like "how would X act." Carry himself, etc.

Emily: I hope when we have employees, cause we will, I will be like a gay dude dream boss to them
"How would X respond to this email."

Ruth: "How would X work this room."

Emily: "How would X end this conversation gracefully."

Ruth: "How would I respond to this email on X's behalf."

Emily: "How would X weasel out of this pointless obligation"; "How would X defuse this potential fight."

Ruth: "How would X imply that someone is being incredibly stupid without actually using the words 'incredibly stupid.'"

Emily: EXACTLY.

Ruth: I remember at the beginning being really obsessed with getting our agreement with each other done... and that was because of X. And i'm glad I did, because now if we have a big fight, we have rules in place that were made when we were feeling fair towards one another.

Emily: To be really earnest for a sec, I want to be in a position someday where I am a mentor like that. That is super important to me. And I know I have to curb my natural tendencies towards impatience and also, paradoxically, over-niceness to get there. That girl thing of "Oh no, it's fine, really" when actually it's not and you just sit on it and seethe and eventually it blows up.

Ruth: Right.

Emily: Um, is one the loneliest number?

Ruth: I have never worked 'alone' really. I have always worked in really super loud, peopled, heavily-social environments! But I also write and that is very lonely. This is a nice middle ground. Once we have an intern it will be like our family is perfect! But the intern would probably feel left out of our mind-reading/long-running inside jokes.

Emily: We should get two. Like cats, so they can keep each other company.

Ruth: Then they could make fun of us to each other. "Look at them going to yoga AGAIN."

Emily: They can't have a twitter though. We will draw the line there.

Ruth: "Her kombucha SMELLS."

Emily: I mean, it's kombucha, what did they expect?

As of this writing, Emily and Ruth are still in business. In other news, sponsored posts are purely editorial content that we are pleased to have presented by a participating sponsor; advertisers do not produce the content. This post is brought to you by Serve by American Express. Sign up now and receive $10 credit towards your first use.

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5 comments

Mary: I mean... CAN YOU EVEN? Because I maybe cannot. I went to a midnight showing on Court Street in Brooklyn with all of the Eighties babies. And we all DIED.

Natasha: !!!!!!!

Mary: We were STARING at each other like we weren't COMPLETE strangers.

Mary: Let's begin with the wedding as this movie does... QUE CELLO.

Natasha: This is the wedding every young girl pictures, right?

Mary: Yes. Outside. With all those plants I can't name.

Natasha: Let me just say, I SWOONED.

Mary: OH IDK what this swoonage refers to because ME TOO 360.

Natasha: The dress??

Mary: WELL. There are TWO dresses.

Natasha: Right. Important!

Mary: One was the nightmare monster shitshow fake-out dress.

Natasha: The Korean Karaoke video wedding dress.

Mary: It basically made her look like a naked virgin child bride.

Natasha: And all those rose petals a la American Beauty Horror Story.

Mary: And the enormo skirt.

Natasha: The wonky ass hair.

Mary: All that stiff-ass boning. With all those fucking duchess satin GATHERS. VOM.

Natasha: What about freakshow Edward?

Mary: A 100% white satin tux and tails? GARBAGE.

Natasha: I thought we had lost the whole movie when the rose petals showed up. Because the Cullens have taste, you know (minus Peter Facinelli’s wig)? You can tell by their bone chillingly austere hyper Modern Danish Pacific Northwest MANSION OF DEATH.

Mary: Uh huh. #nofuckingway #nuhuh #banjeeshit Of course it was a fakeout. Now, the REAL dress.

Natasha: THEEEEE DRESSSSS. You mean the one I have been sketching in my dreams since I could menstruate?

Mary: ME TOO and you know I can haz menses since from the way back machine.

Mary: Did your theater lose their goddamned minds?

Natasha: YES, OF COURSE. I never wanted it to end. Seriously it could have been 3 hours of 'FOUND FOOTAGE' of the Swan/Cullen wedding.

Mary: It was a super elegant dress. The lace panel in the back with hundreds of covered satin buttons.

Natasha: The lace panel almost down to her flat ass killed me! I want a back that long : (

Mary: It was coccyx cleavage.

Natasha: Soft shoulder.

Mary: FUCK a strong shoulder on a wedding dress. It's so cokey Wall Street eighties.

Natasha: She looked lovely.

Mary: I feel like even Bella haters can't even front.

Natasha: I have become a total Kristen Stewart partisan. Like, I support her.

Mary: Oh, go on.

Natasha: I think this bitch is trying her HARDDDDDESSST to give Bella Swan some depth, hesitation, anxiety. She's up there acting her 90-pound body up into something semi-substantial, So respect.

Mary: I've always loved her in interviews, even if they are a fair bit palsied at times.

Natasha: And I am not sexually threatened by her because her face is kind of lopsided? Because FUCK A SYMMETRICAL STATUE FACE.

Mary: Yes, golden ratios can go fist themselves.

Natasha: And so when she cries and sniffles, half of her face goes off to another movie screen in a theater across the street to another screening.

Mary: A theater with no stadium seating.

Natasha: You know who the hottest person at the wedding was though? CHARLIE SWAN.

Mary: SO HOT IN A TUX. OMG. With an old fashioned bowtie.

Natasha: WITH HIS MOOOOSTACHE AND COP HANDS!!!

Mary: Total cop hands: calloused, intuitive yet still warm.

Natasha: STOP IT, IM GOING TO BREAK THE BED.

Mary: You could light a match off of them jawns.

Natasha: We need to address how HYSTERICALLY pale they made Edward Sparkles McDead look for this installment.

Mary: He was POWDERED. He looked like funnel cake.

Natasha: Undead funnel cake.

Mary: BUT. He looked so happy. He was waiting a HUNDRED years to be with her!

Natasha: I cried?

Mary: I'm so glad you told me that because ME TOO! I was ALL by myself and I wept!

Natasha: This is Twilight at its best: no irony, pure girl fantasy. The wedding was pitch perfect.

Mary: There's so much wrong with it but pitch weren't it.

Natasha: NOW. THE HONEYMOON. BREAKING DAWN = BREAKING HYMEN.

Mary: BREAKING HEADBOARD.

Natasha: UNNFFFF.

Mary: BUSTING PILLOWS AND WOMBS INTO SMITHEREEEEEEENS.

Natasha: FINALLY.

Mary: The TERROR SEX.

Natasha: Can we talk about it FOREVER?

Mary: HAWT like Judy Blume Forever #teamralph.

Natasha: ALTHOUGH those bruises that Edward freaks out about giving Bella were pretty junior varsity! That's like any Wednesday, not a HONEYMOON.

Mary: HA! Remember when we just learned SO MUCH about you?

Natasha: It ain't love unless there’s traction.

Mary: Do you have a rolling pin and a scythe in your bedside table?

Natasha: No comment. I’m upset that I have been waiting five long years to see those alabaster abs flex on top of virgo Bella AND YET....

Mary: He was just wading into the ocean. It was just hella English.

Natasha: I found his whole “NEVER AGAIN" post first bonage PERPLEXING.

Mary: He’s a prude. If I was Bella I would have pitched an ill fit. Like COME ON. “GIVE IT."

Natasha: Side question: can you even menstruate around a vampire? Should she have brought a Hannibal Lecter mask with her Tampax?

Mary: I totally wondered when we cut to her Tampax Pearl if Edward even knew what tampons were, cause he’s Ol’ Timey.

Natasha: You know that bro collected menstrual belts all during the 19th Century.

Mary: Then Bella gets pregnant which NO. I am not on board. AT ALL.

Natasha: TELL ME WHY.

Mary: I mean, seriously, it's so punishment that she'd have a blood sucker in the baby cave after THOSE TWO TIMES and then Jesus motherfucking Christ that entire half of the movie where she's like Karen Carpenter's THINSPO? GTFOH.

Natasha: I’m usually down with WW2 iconography (see Harry Potter 6 review) in my young adult books to movie franchise BUT THIS WAS TOOOOOOOOOO.

Mary: SO TOOOO. It was SO goddamned gnarly. Drinking blood out of polystyrene cups like so much Orange Julius, Bella.

Natasha: TOO.

Natasha: OK, DON’T THINK ABOUT THIS TOO HARD but why do you think Bella wanted to keep the damn parasite?

Mary: Uh, because Stephenie Meyer is a nightmare? Because it has finger nails? IDK. The propaganda shit was a little out of control. I mean who the fuck knows why she was SO willing to die for the space alien?

Natasha: Is this where Twi-haters have a point about the weird conservatism? Absolute bio-determinism? The baby over fetus vibe Stephenie puts out?

Mary: FUCK YES. The pregnancy looked too costly for her to be down with. Personally, I have never been at that place where you're so over yourself that you're down with that but like, Bella, she didn’t never even skipped a beat and I think that's fucking irresponsible.

Natasha: Edward was not down with it though, even if it was for selfish reasons. His protests were ~*sEexXy*~*.

Mary: No doubt but still I wish some of the hesitation came from Bella.

Natasha: It’s at this point in the movie where we lose Edward and Jacob totes steals the show.

Mary: Holy shit, Bella keeps playing the threesome with Edward and Jacob like a maestro.

Natasha: The female fantasy thrives! You can stomp all over these bros and they will just be like I WILL DIE 4 U/LEAVE MY PACK 4 U/MOVE FROM HAWAII FOR U.

Mary: How can she act SO happy? And SO relieved when Jacob shows up? SO manipulative.

Natasha: Strongly agree.

Mary: It's UNPOSSIBLE. Seriously you're going to make your dudes in cahoots to make you happy. Holy fuck it's STILL the crazy G move. ODALISQUE.

Natasha: I think Tay-Tay Lautner’s acting lessons have paid off the most. “HERE TO KEEP U WARM, GUUUUUURL."

Mary: Bella was like “bbbbrrrr I’m cold” because she’s so rexi with her eight-inch circumference inner thigh! Tay was definitely toasty.

Natasha: So. THE BIRTHING OF 'RENESMEE.'

Mary: Portmanteau FAIL! Holy fucking Christ. I can’t EVEN. Not even by a spine shattering stretch.

Natasha: Can I just say.....well done?

Mary: Definitely, regardless of the motivation, BULLY. This is the first movie in the franchise where I felt it was a horror flick

Natasha: YES, EXACTLY, and motivation aside, I DO kinda dig the parasite, killing you from inside, leaving you looking like a spoon with your big ass head and nothing body, all bone and blood wasted on the table.

Mary: Oh absolutely. "Real talk."

Natasha: Cause this shit is like "Teen Mom" times six.

Natasha: Like, ok, well, I get there's concern about the conservative overtones but I loved that the pregnancy was portrayed as something terrifying that baffles you and the people around you and is a high stakes affair.

Mary: SOMETHING THAT COULD KILL YOU.

Natasha: EXACTLY.

Mary: That would just EAT your insides.

Natasha: THAT LITERALLY TAKES YOUR LIFE.

Mary: And BREAK you.

Natasha: Because after you have a kid and LIFE BELONGS TO SOMETHING ELSE.

Mary: Something that KEEPS trying to kill itself!

Natasha: You are no longer Bella Swan running a Thinspo blog about Fangbanging down by that reservation....

Mary: You're a husk of loose skin and lank hair.

Natasha: Yes.

Mary: Fetus vs. Baby.

Natasha: So I don’t know if it was meant to be meta4orical, or it was by accident (likely) but I did appreaysh the notion that LIFE AS YOU KNOW IT ENDS NOW (for better or for worse). So I dug the Cullen’s anti-life stance.

Natasha: I have a logistical question, though. Why did Edward have blood across his mouth after the vampire baby popped out?

Mary: Oh honey, really?

Natasha: :(

Mary: HE BIT THROUGH THE UMBILICAL CHORD.

Natasha: AHHH!! I LOVE THIS FRANCHISE SOOOOO MUCH.

Mary: And then bit her a big ass C section.

Natasha: WHAT A MAN!

Mary: A mighty good man. #YESHEIS

Natasha: How were you feeling after the birth of the Mini Pale One?

Mary: Panic. I was SO upset. He kept biting her like a feral animal trying to get some shit pumping and he was so freaked and he just kept gnawing at a bitch and cryin’.

Natasha: This was when we finally felt that full throttle Cullen love.

Mary: When Jacob flops outside and bawls in front of Seth and Leah? With ragged sobs and Edward CHOMPING on her shins?

Natasha: It was so sad and intense and amazing because THATS WHAT IT SHOULD ALWAYS FEEL LIKE RIGHT?

Mary: As much as I want the thre of them to bone. Watching Edward and Jacob think she was dying, I mean.... Isn’t that better than fucking?

Natasha: YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Natasha: God, what are we going to do when this series ends?

Mary: Duh. #HUNGERGAMES.

Mary HK Choi and Natasha Vargas-Cooper will see you on November 16, 2012 for Part 2, but first also on March 23, 2012, when we find out how hungry the games really are.

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Choire Sicha: oh COME ON.

Eric Spiegelman: jksdhfklasdjhfas.

Choire Sicha: "He has long wanted to make this film about heroic Jews"

Eric Spiegelman: ... to lure us into the theater so he can burn it.

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Choire Sicha: Tom Scocca, as you have written a book called Beijing Welcomes You: Unveiling the Capital City of the Future, which is brand new and good and also a book I have read, you are the only expert on China.* (*That I personally know.) Is this a great week for China or what?

Tom Scocca: If you set aside the fact that all the American debt China owns is turning into junk bonds, then, yes, it's a happy time for the People's Republic. London, which did not have the foresight to strangle Twitter and Facebook, is being torn apart by riots, only a year before it is supposed to host the Olympics. The 50 Cent Army of China's government-backed Internet commenters is apparently having a parade to celebrate.

Choire: Today the "Wen Wei Paper" (sort of "News of the World" but with extra party cronyism) seems to be loudly saying that the U.S. owes every Chinese citizen 5700 yuan. (That would be $886.) Is this true? Do we???

Tom: Seems plausible. I've still got a few hundred yuan kicking around my desk drawer. That may turn out to be my most prudent investment holding.

Choire: You're an entry-level currency trader! Right, so not only is China making fun of our "downgrade," they are also making fun of the current "lawlessness" of London. Now, obviously, you were there in Beijing before the last Olympics. Were there chavs looting all the time?

Tom: There most emphatically were not. There was one person who stabbed an American to death at the Drum Tower, an event that was ascribed to insanity and quickly buried in the press, thanks to a total lack of information. And there was some sort of protester or streaker at the closing ceremony, likewise crazy, according to the best (only) available information. And the Free Tibet people climbed a flagpole early on. But beyond that, it was Harmonious Society 24/7. What's more: after the stabbing, they outlawed the sale of all kitchen knives throughout the city. We went to the newly opened upscale-kitchen-implements store, where they had like all the All-Clad equivalent cookware and silicone basting brushes a First World cook could hope to see, to get poultry shears to cut up food for the growing child, and the sharp-objects section had been swept clean.

Choire: That's the kind of harmony that countries like England and the U.S. have a hard time making happen. For instance, mandating alternate driving days with even and odd license plate numbers, as China did. But it seems to me that there is a very China-specific relationship to law and order. Let me quote from your book!

My first trip to the inner sanctum was for a press conference on forestry. On the way, we hit a traffic jam on the Second Ring. The left lane had closed to regular traffic, as one of the reserved Olympics lanes, and through some sort of traffic-engineering algebra, half as many private cars driving in two-thirds as many lanes worked out to much worse traffic than usual. When he saw me looking at my watch, the cabbie began fighting his way around the traffic, tapping his horn with his thumb. To keep demonstrating his concern, he continued tooting along the Third Ring when we got there, even though there was no Olympic lane and the traffic was fine.

"The Olympic things are only convenient for the Olympics," I said, in a flash of Mandarin competence. "For everyone else, they're annoying." The driver clapped a hand over his mouth and held it there theatrically. Then he put it back on the steering wheel. "Understand?" he said.

Choire: In America and in London, we'd just be loudly and grandly beefing about such things.

Tom: Would we really, though?

Choire: Hmm! Well we do not make jokes in airports, true.

Tom: Four years before those Olympics, you and I had the pleasure of seeing the Republican National Convention in New York, did we not?

Choire: I recall it well! Okay, I recall it hazily.

Tom: It might have been more memorable if the mayor had not locked up a few hundred would-be protesters before the whole event began.

Choire: Yes, the preemptive and illegal incarceration! That was not very "American." In which 1800 people were arrested, almost all of whom had charges dropped. (And charges of "resisting arrest" were fabricated.) Lawsuits, etc. Much, much more.

Tom: So these major made-for-TV events share a certain logic, all around the world.

Choire: And I can't imagine that London will be any less "vigilant," given that it is a near-total surveillance society, and that the 7/7 bombings were only six years ago.

Tom: Yes. The West sold China a lot of facial-recognition and crowd-behavior-processing surveillance software to help guarantee a peaceful Olympics.

Choire: That's nice of us! And in fact, you write, China also had designated protest zones: "During the games, an official announced, there would be official protest zones in three city parks. Reporters huddled up afterward to figure out where the third of the parks, World Park, which nobody had heard of, was located–halfway out to Hebei Province, it seemed. But the other two, Purple Bamboo Park and the Altar of the Sun Park, weren't bad."

Tom: Yes. And then the people who applied to use them were arrested.

Choire: Well that does have a certain logic.

Tom: It does. It is tidy. Ultimately, the I.O.C. endorsed that logic.

Choire: The IOC takes the Olympics max seriously. As a "China Expert," you have been doing things like TV and radio all over the fine United States of America. What sort of questions do you get asked? Are they… dumb?

Tom: Not at all.

Choire: I am shocked.

Tom: Many of the questions exist in a realm beyond "smart" or "dumb"; they are simply the questions that are out there being asked: "Is China really going to surpass the United States?"

Choire: Is China going to surpass the United States?

Tom: In what? Total surface area? We're tied, basically, depending on some tricky issues about how to count bodies of water.

Choire: Haha.

Tom: Population? China is already far ahead. Money? We're still ahead, there. There were, in fact, echoes of this in the Olympic medal count.

Choire: Oh right. There was much to-do.

Tom: China won! Also the United States won. China won 51 gold medals to the United States' 36. The United States won 110 medals to China's 100.

Choire: That's a lot of medals. And everyone gets to go home happy!

Tom: Yes. The Olympics doesn't specify how many "points" a medal is worth. If gold-silver-bronze gets scored 3-2-1, the United States gets more Medal Points and is the Olympic Winner.

Choire: USA! USA!

Tom: If it gets scored 5-3-1, China gets more Medal Points. 中国, 加油!

Choire: One of my favorite parts in the book is the press honcho lady for the Beijing Olympics talking about China's place in the world. Sort of viewing China as like, the world's younger adopted sibling, complete with the usual resentments and hurt feelings, and then getting all this attention. She said:

"The world is like a village and there are some rich residents, for example the United States, the UK, Germany, and China is... a poor villager, a poor villager in that village. And the Olympic Games is like a party, and many rich residents hosted these nice parties for the whole village, but China had never had a chance to do so, because China is not developed so well and has so many children, so many people to feed. And later China grew and the economy is better, and finally the rich residents said, 'OK, now we can ask China to host this party for us,' and China is very happy to have this opportunity, and we ask all the neighbors and all these relatives to come to help. We built a bigger house and we planted all the grasses and some people say, 'You are using chopsticks, and we are not used to it,' so we bought knives and forks, and we have also learned these languages, foreign languages, that our neighbors use... and we prepared many nice food and we welcome, we sincerely welcome all these villagers to come, but when they come they ignore all the nice things, the nice food that we put out, put on the table. They go to the... restroom, they go to the garbage bins, and they ignore all these nice preparations that we had put up...."

Tom: Yes. Why are we so negative all the time? So it's always diverting when China gets to flip the script, as it has this week, and deplore the Americans' reckless and incompetent government and the Britons' seething unhappiness and societal instability.

Choire: I have to say this is a great time for me to be rereading this book because America really is tearing itself apart in silly ways, like a teenager at its first therapy session, and North London is pretty much actually tearing itself apart. And China is like "mmm hmmmm."

Tom: China is like a very un-fuzzy therapist. It has absolutely no sympathy for our good intentions. "We are glad to see that you, too, appreciate the value of indefinite detention and torture in preserving your national security." "Surely you won't begrudge us the chance to use the same tools you do, to promote our own national interests."

Choire: Boris Johnson and Mike Bloomberg share this one world one dream!

Tom: Exactly. That was one of the central themes of this book, the more I watched the New Beijing present itself to the world. This belief that the spread of prosperity brings liberalization with it — well, does it? The notion that staging an Olympics makes you a member of the community of Good Nations is one small facet of this larger Pollyanna-internationalist ideology (or religion).

Choire: Right. SEE YOU IN LONDON!

Tom: Quite so. The Security State — now that's a value that all sorts of different governments can get behind.

Choire: And finally, on more meta questions: have you, now that you're an Author, found any way to deal with the problem of public readings?

Tom: Which... aspect of the problem?

Choire: Well, for the reader himself, maybe.

Tom: Standing up and reading the book in public is maybe less frightening than the prospect of other people reading the book in private.

Choire: Oh, I'd never thought of that! Great, new phobias for all.

Tom: At least you can hear the people chuckling or see them sneaking out the door.

Choire: Oof. But you can't see them throwing the book across the room at home.

Tom: Or reading it over and over and laughing out loud. You just do not know.

Choire: Not that your book is anything but engrossing and thrilling! "A VERY GOOD BOOK," says the Washington Post! Could a review be more concrete? Is the book good? Yes. How good? VERY.

Tom: And the Post shared lots of quotes, which is nice. If you enjoyed the text in this review, you can buy 100,000 more words of it!

Choire: Gosh that's a lot of words.

Tom: Beijing is a big city! But an endlessly diverting one. So maybe I was trying to be mimetic. I'll ask my publisher to add a scratch-and-sniff smog sample to the next printing. So everybody please hurry up and buy out this printing!

Choire: That would be incredibly… tasty?

Tom: But it is a very good book even without any interactive olfactory element. One odd thing about being an Author is that I find myself being less self-deprecatory than usual.

Choire: Oh! That's interesting. I always thought publishing a book would send a reasonable person into a deep shame spiral.

Tom: The shame spiral is maybe a bit of a luxury. I mean, we'd all love to be the early Jesus and Mary Chain, turning our backs on the audience, making 20 minutes of terrorizing feedback, and then skulking away. Or maybe the first-person plural is inaccurate there.

Choire: Ha! Well many of us would like to be that.

Tom: "Whatever! I wrote this. Like it, don't, fine with me, fuck you." But while a book is NOT AT ALL LIKE A BABY — I know this — one does feel responsible toward it, and protective.

Choire: Right. Babies are more expensive.

Tom: I did spend years working on this thing. And a publishing house got behind it, and many talented and rigorous editors and proofreaders went over the text, and the designer made a really great cover.

Choire: A REALLY GREAT COVER.

Tom: So being like, "Oh gosh, so awkward, no big deal, it's just some stuff I typed" — that feels a little cheap and bogus. I'd be kind of a jackass if I'd taken the money and spent this amount of time and I decided to be too shy or self-protective or whatever to say that I think it's good and I want people to buy it. I'm a writer, not a salesperson, but there isn't any more writing to be done on the book. And there is selling.

Tom: So, dear readers of The Awl, if you have gone this far through this dialogue, please do buy and read my book: BEIJING WELCOMES YOU: UNVEILING THE CAPITAL CITY OF THE FUTURE.

Choire: Well-played. Yes, as we said: the book tour goes to Brooklyn tonight! At 7 p.m. at the PowerHouse Arena, 37 Main Street, in Dumbo. Then tomorrow, August 10, at Politics & Prose, the party goes to Washington D.C., also at 7 p.m.

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