Thursday, November 29

At Atlanta -3.5 New Orleans

Actual great game
on the NFL Network!
I’ll take that half point. PICK: SAINTS

Sunday, December 2

At Chicago — 3.5 Seattle

My heart says Seahawks
but my heart doesn’t really
make any money. PICK: BEARS

At Green Bay -8 Minnesota

Green Bay should play
angry after getting beat
down, but I like points. PICK: VIKINGS

San Francisco -7 At St. Louis

Last time these guys tied.
Which Niners’ quarterback will
get crushed by Rams’ rush? PICK: RAMS

At NY Jets -4.5 Arizona

Things are so bad for
the Jets that something has to
go their way for once. PICK: JETS

Carolina -3 At Kansas City

Only the crazy fans
of Kansas City can lift
Chiefs team to a push. PICK: CHIEFS

At Detroit -4.5 Indianapolis

Lions coach will find
some other new arcane way
to lose at football. PICK: COLTS

At Buffalo -5.5 Jacksonville

Chad Henne is my
new fantasy quarterback.
Yes, I’m in last place. PICK: JAGS

New England -7.5 At Miami

Pats usually choke a
game to the Dolphins yearly.
But I love Brady. PICK: PATS

Houston -6 At Tennessee

Schaub recovering
nicely from getting a stray
cleat to his red zone. PICK: TEXANS

At Denver -7 Tampa Bay

In the thin air of
Mile High Stadium pirates
get blown away. Arrr! PICK: BRONCOS

At Baltimore -8 Pittsburgh

Without Big Ben at
QB the Steelers are less
fun than Whitney’s show. PICK: STEELERS

At Oakland PK Cleveland

Browns haven’t had a road
win since Will and Grace were
secretly banging. PICK: BROWNS

Cincinnati -2.5 At San Diego

The Chargers are what
I think about to help me
stop an erection. PICK: BENGALS

At Dallas -10 Philadelphia

Neither team deserves
to be in games broadcast on
national TV. PICK: EAGLES

Monday, December 3

NY Giants -2.5 At Washington

The Pistol Offense
starring Griffin and Morris
stun sleeping Giants. PICK REDSKINS

Last week’s Haiku Picks went 9–6–1. That’s 82–91–4 for the season. Closing the gap!

Jim Behrle tweets at @behrle for your possible amusement.

“For more than 1000 years, people believed that hyenas were hermaphrodites, since female hyenas have long, fully-erectile pseudopenises that mimic male genitalia. Seeing a hyena play the role of mom while sporting what looks like a penis would bewilder even an astute naturalist. Not only do female hyenas look like males, they are also the more aggressive and socially dominant sex, exhibiting aggression more than three times more often than male hyenas do.”
 — There’s a lot of hyena genitalia on display in the above video, and some graphic usage thereof. But if that kind of thing doesn’t bother you (or, hey, if that kind of thing is precisely what you’d like to look at as your eat your lunch at your desk today — I dunno?) watch and learn about one of the more fascinating creatures of the African savanna. And then read this similarly informative study of how female aggression plays into the hyenas’hierarchical social order.

‘Breaking Dawn — Part 2’: A Trampera Has Ended

by Natasha Vargas-Cooper and Mary HK Choi

After a long captivity, Mary HK Choi was liberated from the Rihanna plane, and now she and Natasha Vargas-Cooper are here to render verdict on the final installment of the Twilight series. Read the previous chat for Breaking Dawn here.

Natasha: I feel like this movie was essentially about outerwear?

Mary: I have so many opinions about the clothes.

Natasha: It was like a Nordstrom winter sale. NOT NEIMAN MARCUS.

Mary: Agreed. It was Burlington Coat Factory. BCF Holiday Sale for frenz and famz.

Natasha: This was definitely more of a coda to the series than an actual ending.

Mary: True, though I would approve of a Twi-sitcom. BUT in that show, we would have to 86 Edward because that whole relationship stopped being sexy. Especially since Bella can clearly handle shit now.

Natasha: I am super compelled by super vamp Bella adapting to life around undeads.

Mary: LIKE, she is such a bad bitch now with her ENORMO Latisse lashes. She’s more watchable now.

Natasha: Bella hunting in her high slit dress and pompy hair. Bella bitching out JakeWolf over the name ‘NESSY.’ BOSS.

Mary: She is mega bobble-headed on the big-hair, skinny tip though.

Natasha: We are dealing pageant hair. TEXAS PAGEANT AND I LOVVVVVEEE IT.

Mary: Full glitz.

Natasha: I’m pleased about her ARC as a CHARACTER.

Mary: I mean, she does dress a little 90s with the lean jackets but agreed GOOD arc.

Natasha: Also enjoy the hard 90s narrative of Hand that Rocks The Cradle vibe. Bella as the yuppie mom who will PROTECT HER FAMILY FROM ALL THREATS NATURAL/SUPERNATURAL.

Mary: Whoa. Yuppie mom is right. Moncler size 0 mom. Fendi purse. Pucci rain boots. Kinda Euro but only kinda.

Natasha: I enjoyed watching Bella turn fierce alpha, sexual, and screamy. So at least this is something that changed (AHEM: KATNISS). Like, we started with awky, lonely, lip bit-y, ghosty Kstew.

Mary: Yes. Palsy face.

Natasha: Also, on a purely “I Read Design Blogs All Day” tip, I enjoyed in indulging in the dream of fantasy wood wedding to COZY FORKS COTTAGE where you bone all the time amid modern rusted décor.

Mary: LOL. Kinkade cottage porn.

Natasha: FEEL IT. PUMPKIN-SCENTED SEX ROMP

Mary: Here’s my thing on new Bella, tho.

Natasha: Be real.

Mary: New Bella is kiiiiiinda a basic bitch.

Natasha: OMG, TRUTH!

Mary: All pumpkin spice everything.

Natasha: She’s version 1.0.

Mary: Like, she’s SO 2013 Land Rover. AND UGH, so her powers are self-restraint and shielding others? #THXMOM

Natasha: Would you like to have shielding power? ’Cause I’d feel sort of let down?

Mary: NO WAY. Toooootal garbage power.

Natasha: Though in the end, proved to be a TRILL POWER.

Mary: Sure but uuuuuugh protection? LIKE, I want manipulating elements or projecting agony or ice. GIMME ICE.

Natasha: This is why Edward felt superfluous. Like, YOU GOT YOUR SHIELD, YOU GOT YOUR DEER, YOU GOOD.

Mary: Ahahahha. YOU STR8. Ugh. Edward is so #dadjeans. Also, he is the worst with kids? Why so absentee dad? It’s, like, thank god for TAY!

Natasha: Yes and like, I’m not sure why he’s still so glum and making that stank face all the time?

Mary: Speaking of stank face, what was Renesmee’s Polar Express CG horror uncanny valley E-trade baby Super Bowl ad face? WHAT THE SHIT?

Natasha: I MEAN LOL FOREVER.

Mary: SO MANY LOLS in the movie theater.

Natasha: I feel like that was some Deep Cut Stephenie Meyer’s detail that was not needed visually. But can I just tell you when all the global vampires assembled via It’s a Small World After All meeting. I felt a fangirl equivalent to watching the Avengers team up!

Mary: Oh God, I didn’t read the book, so, like, I was like UGH SMURF VILLAGE booooooooooooooooooring.

Natasha: VAMPIRE STYLES FROM AROUND THE WORLD.

Mary: The Irish girl one had denim shorts from American Eagle Outfitters. I’m just saying.

Natasha: Yes, one was more ridic than then next!!! But so like how a 13-year-old girl would style these people?

Mary: YES. SEE: THE AMAZON.

Natasha: SMIZE IS HER POWER, SMILING WITH HER EYES. So the first 40 minutes were basically book porn. Like, this is not for general audiences, we are just going to luxuriate in the coven of Undead Décor. Totally slow and stupid for any one who isn’t totally into gobbling up said details (which includes me and my now graduating high-school-aged army).

Mary: #tribe. It felt like a movie that started halfway in. So like, even with the BELLA THE VAMPIRE REVEAL, it felt tired to me. Like, watching her sparkle wasn’t this big enough THING.

Natasha: NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR SKIN RAINBOW.

Mary: DUDE. Honestly, it felt like a Fathom Event. Like, when did we all decide to watch an episode of a soap together all at the same time? (or a week after everyone else AHEM).

Natasha: YES

Natasha: Also the main conflict that started the second half of the movie could have been solved with a text to the Volturi: “this baby came from human vag, end total war, see u at Eurovision — luv the cullenz.”

Mary: AHAHAHHA. Totally.

Natasha: Thank GOD Michael Sheen and the rest of the dadbro vampires showed up.

Mary: But *SPOILER ALERT* that fake out-ending was soooooooooooooo satisfying. I can’t believe that it was so garbage town to be a fake out.

Natasha: I loved the battle scene. Which is something I have never said about a movie.

Mary: I LOVED the battle. The choreography was solid. Pacing and blocking = great. The vampire heads popping off like Barbie doll heads!!!

Natasha: I enjoyed the super power face-off.

Mary: That’s the thing, compared to the others, it felt like Captain Planet where Bella’s power was “heart.”

Natasha: WANK.

Mary: I wish they all fell into the magma, though.

Natasha: True. When Edward was going down into that earth crack I was like: LEGIT. This got dark and real (LOL): Do it Bella, live your single mom life in your fuck cottage with Jacob in the backyard.

Mary: YES, GIRL. DO YOU.

Natasha: WHICH IS MAD TRAGIC FOR ME (this is NATASHA’S CHARACTER ARC) because originally Edward was my whole reason.

Natasha: We were always team Edward. And yet, here we are: ROOTING FOR THE DEATH OF EDWARD.

Mary: Because it’s that we’re truly team Bella?

Natasha: Team Bella.

Mary: This whole thing felt like Edward’s being set up to die and it would be ill and I would be sad but also, like, RESPECT. Like in the end, he gave birth to her, at least, the bad-ass version of her and she got his juju. So BYE, Ed.

Natasha: But this brings us back to the ultimate problem with Bella: basic bitch, basic dreams.

Mary: Basic knee-length office dress.

Natasha: JanSport bag.

Mary: Like bougie basic. Which is worse?

Natasha: Like West Elm mark down?

Mary: Design Within Reach Annual Sale; floor sample.

Natasha: Ooof. I can’t. But it’s true.

Mary: And you know what? He’s basic too. That weird ass 3x hoodie he wore.

Natasha: OMG.

Mary: Truuuuuuue colors. Everyone got SO casual, I thought for sure that meant he was gonna die.

Natasha: Like the Russians showed up in full Wild One Leather Flare.

Mary: YES. AND SPAWN CAPES.

Natasha: And the Irish even wore their traditional um, cable knit things and this bro pops in like some 8th grade sk8ter???

Mary: DAD JEANS IN HIS SOUL. It was SO skateboarding is not a crime

Natasha: It was Stussy. But here is my favorite part: there is some Javier Bardem’d-looking bro in this movie who they found in New Orleans and who ended up with plastic surgery nightmare voltage queen? YOU KNOW WHO I’M TALKING ABOUT?

Mary: WAIT, THE GUYLINER GUY?

Natasha: Yes. Several things about him: he was throwback to 1994 interview with the vamp new Orleans gay wierdo vamp vibe. Like MISS YOU VAMPIRES 1.0.

Mary: OH YES. RICE.

Natasha: RICE VAMPS.

Mary: HOLY SHIT.

Natasha: Swamp Vamps.

Mary: Hate to say it BUT I want all new Anne Rice.

Natasha: I AM WITH YOU.

Mary: Sexy, gender-bendy delicious.

Natasha: 400 PERCENT.

Mary: Lean and older. None of this 90s babies getting famous shit. GURL: FASSBENDRICE.

Natasha: ::screaming:::. Just want dudes in their late 30s biting other dudes in their late 30s. KIRSTEN DUNST IS ALSO ALLOWED.

Mary: I WILL ALLOW IT.

Natasha: So I loved guyliner bro for the nostalgia of what Vampires used to mean in this country. This is also why Michael Sheen saved the movie. I need the Brits in my American vampire movies, NOT IN MY HISTORICAL DRAMAS. Like that old world, out-of-work theater actor who is slumming it with some fangs.

Mary: THESPIAN SHIT.

Natasha: $$$

Mary: Tom Ford to consult.

Natasha: I hope that, now that Youngs have zombies, they will give vampires to the olders and we can go back to broody Rice vamps WHO DO NOT SPARKLE BUT DO POSSIBLY ENGAGE IN SODOMY?

Mary: YES, SODOMY! Oh man. I need BDSM vamps.

Natasha: Right??

Mary: Real talk. Fifty Shades needs more bloodplay.

Natasha: On the hetero side of things, did you notice how each vampire had a lifelong boyf?

Mary: UGH YES except the blonde spinsters of Denali.

Natasha: It’s basically a M.A.S.H. note from Stephanie Meyers. Boyfriend for life = life solved.

Mary: But you know what’s real fucked, solving life for me was always the mansion. And clothes, cars, bags, shoes, foods. It was always about STUFF and then stunting on haters. That was always the fantasy.

Natasha: Mine was living like Samantha Jones ☹

Mary: Damn.

Natasha: TO CONCLUDE: Do we have profound statements on the Twilight franchise?

Mary: WOULD SUBSCRIBE to stream a Twi show on Netfix. Edward is boring. Bella is boring and shops at Intermix. Charlie got himself a nice lady. Would watch them if they had a cooking show or similar. Taylor is muy pedo.

Natasha: I would like to conclude by saying, at the risk of sounding like an American Studies grad student, that I will always defend this franchise for its earnestness and its warrior-like journey for a boyfriend and a decent cottage.

Mary: AHAHAHAHAHAHHA. #basic.

Natasha: I would also still like to have sex with Bella’s father. BDSM IS COOL BECAUSE HE IS A COP.

Mary: Duh. All said: I would do it again, though.

Natasha: Me too.

Mary HK Choi and Natasha Vargas-Cooper will be there for the coming Twilight reboots.

Have you been following the recent travails of New York Times art critic Ken Johnson? It is probably coming soon, for an unhappy non-resolution, to a public editor near you. The long and short of it is that there is a petition calling for his head, or at least an ear. In short, he’s gone in against “identity-based” art shows — exhibitions of ladies and the black folks and what have you — as an “evil whose necessity would disappear in a more equitable world.” (This is exceedingly contrary to the position held by his colleague Holland Cotter, who has often supported this sort of exhibition.) Here is a very good summary and assessment of what has gone down.

And then everyone took their complaints to Facebook, for better or worse. (“The discussions were in turn heated, articulate, rancorous, illuminating and all kinds of internet crazy pants.”) In a sense, Johnson’s point is a weird relative to Arlene Croce’s “victim art is unreviewable” argument. But less hideous: Johnson is often talking through the lens of the art market — about fame, about the canon, and about what’s expensive and valued by the hideous collector class — which doesn’t give much of a damn about identity politics, or people’s lives, and which does single out women and black and gay artists in an explicit way. I get the complaints about how a white critic is working from a white newspaper to speak to white people. But I also appreciate him addressing this stuff in his work. Still, here’s a good point: “Attempting to introduce white visitors to art they find irrelevant isn’t a flaw… but rather an inversion of the normal state of attempting to introduce black visitors to art they find irrelevant.” Unfortunately, there was less thoughtful criticism.

Like the headline “Times Critic Caught in This Week’s Witch Hunt,” which is bizarrely attached to a fairly thoughtful piece. Fortunately, this can all be resolved on Facebook, where now a really boring conference is being planned that will SETTLE EVERYTHING…

Great talk you guys. See you there! Kidding. Would actually rather be dead.

One last note:

For many Americans who thought it was okay to stop “following the political news” for at least a few weeks after the election, the controversy over “Susan Rice” has been very confusing. Didn’t we just have a lady named “Secretary of State Rice,” as secretary of state? Then what’s the big deal? That particular glass ceiling is shattered, right? Why does John McCain keep trying to turn back the clock, to when he was young?

Throughout modern history, the popular consciousness has been regularly baffled and confused by stars who share the same surname. The 1990s, for example, are perhaps best remembered as a time of great confusion for the millions who would tune in each weeknight hoping to see their favorite outlaw country performer anchor ABC’s World News Tonight. Join us for a photographic tour of America’s most confusing last names.

It all started with an innocent mistake: One Ms. Anderson was supposed to audition for the role of FBI heartthrob Fox Mulder’s busty sidekick, and the other was auditioning as the tough-as-nails lifeguard coroner in a sleazy beach town with too many secrets.

These two celebrity name sharers even kind of look like each other. But do they both have “sex addiction”?

The original “Brat Pack,” the McCarthy twins brought laughs and insanity to every role … including the role of life!

These two famous Twains caused a lot of confusion on GED exams during the “grunge era” of the 1990s. “Never the Twain shall meet” was proven true in the case of this star-crossed pair. Or was it? (It is rumored that Samuel Clemens was sent into the future by his friend Tesla, who fronted a hair-metal band of the same name in the 1980s.)

It may be a fun parlor game to speculate on the shared family backgrounds of our nation’s best-loved entertainers, but sometimes the confusion can lead to tragic consequences. Luckily, no one was killed when this U.S. Airways flight crew confused the Hudson River with VIP Kate Hudson.

Is Andre 3000 Better At Rap Than Biggie Was?

I have long been a proponent of the idea that the Notorious B.I.G. is the best rapper of all-time. (This after having long been a proponent of the idea that Rakim was the best rapper of all-time. I have been proponentizing for a long time. I am very, very old.) But I am starting to consider a different idea. Is Andre 3000 the best rapper of all-time? I think he might be! The body of work he amassed with his partner Big Boi across the six OutKast albums that came out between 1994 and 2006 already made for a strong case — Andre expanded the breadth of rap-lyric subject matter with stunning, beautiful rhymes about alienation, sadness, race, class, confounding expectations, retreating from fame, untraditional masculinity, family, parenthood, love, remorse and regret. (Biggie only released two proper albums before he was killed. But prolificness doesn’t matter as much in this kind of discussion as does consistency and brilliance and the heights of artistic achievement. Quality trumps quantity.)

Remember on “Return of the ‘G’,” from 1997’s Aquemeni album, when Andre rebuked, “Them niggas that think you’re soft/And say, ‘Y’all be gospel rappin’…’/But they be steady clappin’ when you talk about bitchin’ and switchin’ and hoes and clothes and weed/Let’s talk about time travellin’/Rhyme javelin/Something mind-unravellin’/Get down…”

That’s about as good as rap gets. That’s about as good as any lyrics get. That’s about as good, I would argue, as any writing gets. Did you ever read Robert Stone’s short story “Helping?” It was published in The New Yorker in 1987. (Here it is: subscription required) It’s about an alcoholic Vietnam vet named Elliot who falls off the wagon after fifteen months of sobriety and it is awesome and devastating. The man’s wife Grace is a child services lawyer who just lost a case in which she was trying to remove a child from the care of his abusive parents. The child’s father calls Elliot’s house and threatens violence. Both men are drunk, but Elliot remains calm.

“Do you keep a journal?” Elliot asked the man on the phone. “What’s your hat size?”

“Maybe you think I can’t get to you,” The man said. “But I can get to you, man. I don’t care who you are. I’ll get to you. The brothers will get to you.”

“Well, there’s no need to go to California. You know where we live.”

“For God’s sake,” Grace said.

“Fuckin’ right,” the man on the telephone said. “Fuckin’ right I know.”

“Come on over,” Elliot said.

“How’s that?” the man on the phone asked.

“I said come on over. We’ll talk about space travel. Comets and stuff. Astral projection. The moons of Jupiter.”

I don’t know whether or not Andre read that story before writing “Return of the ‘G’,” but it’s pretty much the same thing. And equally awesome. And it rhymes.

(Of course, Biggie spun some jaw-dropping stories with his lyrics, too. I think his most impressive work might be the song, “I Got a Story to Tell,” from 1997’s Life After Death — told from the perspective of a thug who’s having sex with the girlfriend of a professional basketball player. The basketball player comes home when the thug is at his house, necessitating some quick thinking. “I’m like, ‘Bitch, you better talk to him/Before the fist put a spark to him/Fuck around, shit get dark to him/Put a paw through him/Lose a major part to him/Arm, leg…’”)

They are both so great, Andre and Biggie. (Robert Stone, too.) Similarly great, I think. Imbued with a feel for language rare among writers of any genre. But Andre has the advantage of still being alive. And over the past decade, he has developed a new method of burnishing his legend. Around the turn of the century, feeling creatively restrained, he began expressing himself through different modes — singing, guitar playing, acting. Taking time off from OutKast, recording less, working sporadically. But seemingly just to keep his chops up, has invested himself in stealing Busta Rhymes’s title of all-time show-stealingest guest rapper. He has succeeded at this. As his verse on T.I.’s new song “Sorry” attests. (Andre comes in at the 3:18 mark.)

Man, that’s good fast rapping! (Which he says he doesn’t even like doing!) And then when he switches up and slows it down and changes his tone and gets reflective and directly addresses Big Boi?! All confessional and contrite about retreating from fame again, he apologizes for the way his ambivalence may have slowed his partner’s career. But he gives sound reasoning. “Why do we try so hard to be stars?” he says. “Just to dodge comets?”

He’s a bright star, all right. Outshining pretty much everyone else in the sky.

Even Biggie? Do you think? Could it be?

The longer Andre raps at such a high level, the more prolificness does start to come into consideration. At a certain point, the quality of their work being relatively equal (as I think it is), the sheer volume of Andre’s has to tip the scale, right?

It’s a particularly apt time to be thinking about this question, because the young Los Angeles rapper Kendrick Lamar recently released the most widely hailed rap album of the year, good kid, m.A.A.d. city. Kendrick Lamar is very, very good at rapping. (Though I think his album is not as good those released this year by Killer Mike or El-P or even Lamar’s friend and partner in Top Dawg Entertainment’s Black Hippy collective, Schoolboy Q. Schoolboy’s album, Habits & Contradictions is basically hard-nosed gangsta rap rhymed over Portishead beats. If that sounds good to you — and it should — you should check it out. I have been listening to it a lot since it came out in January, and I can’t stop.) And Kendrick’s intricate, confessional style betrays a huge debt to Andre 3000’s. There’s no one he sounds more like. Which is not at all a bad thing. Who could blame anyone for rapping like Andre 3000? Andre 3000 might well be the best rapper of all time.

“I’ve never been a big fan of electric lights. I have cat eyes. I emit enough light out of my body.”
 — Self-taught architect SunRay Kelley, on the principles that guide the design of the homestead he’s built in the woods in Sedro-Woolley, Washington. Kelley smokes enough pot to describe the time when he accidentally cut open his forehead with a chainsaw as, “Not the most pleasant experience.” His work reminds the Times’ Michael Tortorello of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin. I think it’s more like if Andy Goldsworthy was let loose in The Shire. Either way, here are pictures of it, which belong on the wonderful Cabin Porn website soon, and Kelley is fun to read about — a real-live Mr. Natural.

“In virtually every instance, the idea that the Republican Party is ‘too white’ is dropped with almost no discussion of what exactly that means. The phrase is being pinned like a scarlet ‘W’ on anyone who didn’t vote for the Democrats’ nominee. It’s a you-know-what-we-mean denunciation. Its only meaning is racial…. The Democrats’ insistence on pandering to political categories is a dead end for the country. Rather than spinning their own Rubik’s Cube of race, gender and ethnicity, Republicans should start growing their share of the electorate by doing a better job of telling people how to succeed in the American melting pot, a wonderful organizing idea now mocked as a ‘myth’ by progressive Democrats. No one can beat the Democrats at the politics of social division.”
 — The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger drops some hard truth about how American politics works.

Public Enemy plays at Irving Plaza, every small literary website does a benefit for Stephen Elliott’s film, a Nico Muhly premiere at the debut recital by the rather incredible soprano Jennifer Zetlan at Alice Tully Hall, Sarah Schulman and Vijay Prashad talk Palestine at McNally Jackson, Maura Johnston and pals talk about the Polaris Prize at Housing Works!

Appearing here Wednesdays, Turning The Screw provides existential crisis counseling for the faint of heart. “Snausages for your mopey inner mongrel!”

Dear Polly,

I am writing to you with what I believe to be the number 1 question on every twenty-something’s mind: Will I ever find love? Let me detail this.

I am in my early twenties and my longest relationship lasted 8 months, and the guy was two-timing me for the last month or two of it (I was 19; he was 31). I’ve only been in one relationship that I genuinely believed would last, and even culminate in marriage, and that one only lasted four months. Otherwise, I’ve had very short stories, usually with partners I wasn’t awfully excited about. This is probably very banal, but I feel like most people my age have been in at least one serious long-term relationship.

I’ve always been the nerdy tomboy, tough and smart and bookish. I am a weird mix of shy/socially awkward and outspoken and very political, and have seen more than most people my age have (civil war in west Africa, revolution in North Africa). I have also had a strange upbringing — I was raised bilingual, between divorced parents, and shuttled between exotic locales and education systems. I know my outspokenness and no-bullshit approach, as well as my being a smart grad student in a selective program, might put men off. I also have a snarky, slightly judgmental sense of humor, which often makes me “one of the guys.” I’m not beautiful, but pretty cute, and am great in bed! This all sure sounds very narcissistic, but isn’t that what existential crises are for?

Mostly, I feel like I tend to scare people off. Maybe I get too emotional, maybe I’m too intense… I’ve had a couple of friends drop me like a hot potato when I was going through depressive phases (I’ve had OCD for over a decade now), and I think I get sort of over-attached to people in my life. All I know is, several people who professed to love me (whether romantically or not) have gone off me very suddenly and distanced themselves from me, while reassuring me I haven’t done anything wrong — which also means there’s nothing I can do about it! I’m scared this all reflects on the sort of person I am, and means I tend to make people around me miserable. I’m scared it means no one will ever love me for an extended period. I do have a few longtime friends, but some of my most intense relationships fell apart so fast I don’t know how any of this can last.

How can I assess if the problem is me? How can I fix it? I want to be the sort of person people are glad to have in their lives, not one they flee from. Please advise.

Sincerely,

Fear and Self-Loathing in NYC

Dear FASLINYC,

As you go through life, I want you to remember one thing: Most people are total chickenshits. They’re afraid of intensity, they’re afraid of hard questions, they’re afraid of emotions, they’re afraid of the truth. You look most people in the eye and say something genuine, they cringe and cough and change the subject. You make a complex but frank observation about the world around you, they act like you just vomited into your hands. You mention a problem without sugaring it over with optimistic cliches, they titter and back away slowly.

Unfortunately, when you’re young, it’s easy to stumble into microcosms where telling the truth is like taking off your pants in a crowded room. Many of the exotic youthful mini-ecosystems out there are dependent on elaborate games of make-believe. In these sorts of bubble worlds, your heavy proclamations will be treated as toxic. You will be viewed as a contaminant. Even those subcultures that appear to embrace intensity, hard questions and emotions are populated mostly by twitchy, intellectualizing scaredy-cats.

Because you’re a sensitive, intense person at heart, you’ve had to make some adjustments to tolerate these microclimates. Vulnerability has yielded to snarky, judgmental jokes. Open-hearted conversations have been abandoned for bluster. Honesty has been replaced with performance pieces. You are tough. You are one of the guys. You are great in bed.

In other words, you’ve packaged yourself as well as you possibly can to appeal to men who are essentially different from you. You’re marketing yourself to the wrong demographic.

But first, permit me a quick digression: Proclaiming yourself great in bed is like announcing that you can eat the hell out of a pizza, or that you can cuddle a puppy like nobody’s business. “I really, really love sex,” some women will announce in mixed company. (Fascinating! You know what I love? Breathing oxygen. I just can’t get enough of the stuff!) Newsflash: Everyone likes fucking. Priding yourself on your uncanny ability to get men off is not going to reap many rewards in this life. Here’s one handy rule of thumb: If Ke$ha can do it, it probably doesn’t make you all that unique.

But, in a world of chickenshits, it’s tempting to pull out all of your biggest weapons and fire them at the sky. It’s tempting to shock people and throw your head back and cackle, even if some people roll their eyes and back away. Fuck those people! You’re a feisty woman who does what she likes, so there!

The problem is, you’re scaring away nice people (along with the scaredy-cats), and you’re attracting guys who like show-offy blowjob queens who never talk about their feelings. Men like that will always scram the second you act like a real human being with ideas and emotions. You can feel haunted by this idea that you’re too intense, too smart, too experienced, too nuts. But you’re not too anything. You are unique and complicated and sharp and that makes you more than just cute.

As you can see, it’s going to be very challenging for me not to write about this until my fingers fall off. Please save us both some time and buy my stupid book. It’s all about building elaborate defense mechanisms, and then taking them apart, piece by piece, in order to become a happier person. Read “A Tree Falls In The Forest” first, which details my very rational decision, as a teenager, to become a swaggery know-it-all who would never be hurt by other people’s criticisms and rejections (and, uh, healthy observations).

Don’t follow that path. The world doesn’t need another swaggery chickenshit. Before you start trying to figure out how to fix yourself so that men will love you, you need to take an honest look at how you behave to everyone — friends, family, love interests, everyone. Look closely at the difference between your “performing” self and the real you, the one you’re afraid no one will ever love. You need to drop your act and accept yourself for who you actually are. Let your vulnerability guide you, not your toughness. You’ve already let your toughness guide you, and all it’s found for you are cowards. Cowards love toughness. They’re hoping you’re tougher than they are. Fuck them. Seriously. When you lead with vulnerability, you find strength. I don’t mean passive resignation, I just mean honesty, fallibility, openness. Accepting your flaws with grace — that’s real confidence. Bluster is for scaredy-cats.

I know you think that you need true love right now. But that’s the last thing you need. Be patient. You’ll have all the love you need eventually, believe me. What you need right now is female friends. I know they can be difficult, and suspicious of someone like you, who’s judgmental and likes lots of attention. Practice listening and being present. Admit your flaws and mistakes. Trying to be tougher, better, cuter, smarter, more exceptional — these things won’t help you one bit. You stand out enough without trying so hard.

Keep in mind, most people in this life don’t want that much. They want small talk over dry cereal. They want hello, how are you, goodbye, nice to see you. They want a movie, or a nap, or a hamburger. Eight years ago, I was tired and unshowered and I was fishing through my filthy purse for some scrap of paper with my new crush’s phone number on it. Just as I started fretting over the fact that my new crush was sure to discover, eventually, that I was the kind of greasy, disorganized sack of shit who has to fish through a filthy purse just to find his stupid phone number, I pulled out a crumpled-up old fortune that said “You will be deeply loved.”

I wish I could give you that fortune right now. That crush is now my (disorganized, sack of shit) husband. We’re both sort of weird and damaged in our own ways, but we get along great, and he has never, ever said I was too much — too intense, too emotional, too pensive — even though everyone else on the planet seems to think so. Some people are chickenshits, but other people are very brave. Hold onto the brave ones and be good to them and don’t give up on them. That means you have to be brave, too. Forget the flinchy losers and scaredy-cats. You will not be too much for some courageous soul. You will be deeply loved.

Polly

Dear Polly,

I have a problem that is more or less the epitome of a Tiny Violins Problem. So much so that I feel guilty for being conflicted about it, and I have trouble discussing it with others.

My family is pretty well off financially, so I have lived a comfortable life. I have done well academically and currently have a comfortable if uninspiring job in a field for which I have tepid enthusiasm. My grandmother is very caring and generous to everyone in the family. Ever since I graduated from college, she has offered to pay for any graduate degree(s) I wished to obtain. I am very grateful for her offer, but I have not yet committed to going to grad school yet because I do not know exactly what I want to pursue.

The uncomfortable part is that she reminds me of this almost every time I see her, as do my parents. My grandmother has stressed that I should take advantage of her offer “while she is still around” because along with wanting to further my education, she sees paying for tuition as an efficient part of estate planning, as the money would not be taxed as heavily as it would be if it was gifted or inherited after she passed. Even though it is an uncomfortable and dark topic to me, I agree with her, and want to take her up on the offer eventually. Of course, I have no exact way of knowing how long she will be around given her age. I feel awful saying that, as if it is some sort of macabre deadline on the horizon.

Now I feel like I have to either decide on a career path and graduate degree RIGHT NOW (I’m in my mid 20s and have no idea what to pursue), or just get a graduate degree just to get one (MBA/JD?), or not get a graduate degree and disappoint my family by essentially refusing free education. I have asked others for advice, and the responses have fallen into three categories:

1. “Just get any degree, IT’S FREE!”
2. “Grad schools is worthless, keep working.”
3. “That is not a real problem.”

I guess I am just wondering if I should feel so conflicted, guilty, and depressed about this whole situation. If you have any advice or insight it would be greatly appreciated.
(Un)Justly Conflicted

Dear Conflicted,

I can understand why you feel conflicted and guilty and weird. Everyone is pressuring you to make a decision that you don’t feel ready to make, and they won’t shut up about it. It would be easiest for me to say, “Just relax, you’re young. Tell your parents and your grandmother ‘Thank you very much, now leave me the fuck alone.’”

But look, the three people I know who are the happiest with their careers are the three people with the most years of education. My sister (a surgeon), my friend Steve (another doctor) and my husband (a professor). I love being a writer and I can’t imagine doing anything else, but after 15 years of writing professionally, I still feel like I’m just starting out in my field every morning. My husband, on the other hand, has tenure, a pension, administrators who do shit for him, and speaking gigs across the seven seas. He’s basically treated like royalty (when he’s not at home, that is). My sister is somewhere above royalty. She belongs in Bespin City with Lando Calrissian, among the clouds. Compared to them, I’m like some dirty peasant woman, mucking about in the mud in a Monty Python sketch.

Remember how I told the girl with the trust fund that she should save her money and enjoy it when she’s middle-aged? Graduate degrees are like that. Status seems like a ridiculous thing when you’re young — and it is, of course. But being treated like a child when you’re 42 years old isn’t all that fun either. That’s what happens to people who have no discernible career status — they’re demeaned, like small children. Fine if you’re young and hot and still look good sneering in your biker boots, not quite as good when you’re pissed off and exhausted and your knees ache.

When you’re young, you always hear potential grad students and med students lamenting how long they’ll be making next to nothing, or working their asses off in med school. But then when you’re just a tiny bit older (32?), it’s the people with the flat-lining careers who are saying, “Fuck, I could’ve had an MD or a PhD or an MFA by now, like my fucking royal friends over there, eating their roasted pheasants and holding forth to fawning servile youth and such.”

That said, my husband (sound the trumpets!) says that people who apply to and enter PhD programs without knowing why they’re doing it are not only severely annoying to him personally (sound the trumpets!), but they tend to reach a point in their studies (while writing their dissertations, perchance?) where they have to know why the fuck they’re working so hard. If they don’t have an answer to that, they end up quitting.

If I were you, I would tell your grandmother that you really want to take her up on her offer, but you’d like to talk through your options with a therapist first. Maybe she’ll offer to spring for it, maybe she’ll just roll her eyes at you. You should do it either way. Give yourself two months to research all of the possibilities, read as much as you can online, talk to people who have similar degrees, look into careers that interest you that don’t require degrees, and hash out all of that information with your therapist. Yes, I know you’re not in the mood for this. You owe it to yourself to do it anyway. If at the end of that process you’re not remotely interested in pursuing a degree, then tell your parents and your grandmother that you have to put the decision off for one full year, and you don’t want to talk about it in the meantime. You have to try to explain, gently, that while you’re incredibly grateful for the offer, it is stressful to visit with them when they put the screws to you about your future the entire time. They’ll be less likely to harass you once they see that you’re thinking about it and working hard to come to a decision.

Sure, you’ll feel freaked out and depressed during your decision-making period. The more information you gather about any career path, the less it will appeal to you. That’s what making a decision looks like, especially when you’re young and you don’t actually want to study or work or have a career in the first place. I hated trying to decide what to do with my life when I was in my twenties. HATED it. The mere thought of it depressed me to no end.

But this one giant decision doesn’t really get easier as the years float by. If you can’t do any of the stuff I suggest here, at least work hard to get a job that gives you some insight into a field that might, eventually, interest you. Because life is really fucking short, and you shouldn’t waste your time doing something that doesn’t feel exciting and worthwhile. That goes for all the rest of you whippersnappers out there, too. Aim high and pick something that might really make you happy. You’ll be glad you did.

Polly

What are you running from? Write to Polly and find out!

Previously: Ask Polly: Should I Make The First Move?

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl’s existential advice columnist. She’s also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Photo by Mark Crossfield.