by Matthew J.X. Malady

People drop things on the Internet and run all the time. So we have to ask. In this edition, comedy writer (and interim Hairpin editor!) Michelle Markowitz tells us more about contemporary dating communications etiquette.

Swingers, 2014. (Addendum: none of my advice to guy friends has ever actually worked)

 — @michmarkowitz

Michelle! So what happened here?

One of my guy friends was telling me about a girl that he was going to ask out. He was asking if he should text her to ask when she could talk on the phone, thinking that if the phone call went well, he would ask her out. I’m not a huge fan of this for a couple reasons. I know our generation prefers to schedule phone calls, and there’s nothing more jarring than your phone ringing unexpectedly from someone called “Dan, patchy beard, Crown Heights??” but I think it’s better to just text to set up a first date. Plus, the pre-date phone call is tricky because aside from our parents, we are all so out of practice with actually talking on the phone to other human beings, much less trying to impress them with our easy going nature and love of John Candy’s early works (anyone else? just me?).

I think it’s much better to just text asking a girl out right away. We all like whiskey! How bad could it be?

But if you’ve been out several times, I personally (and many of my late millennial/Gen Y cohorts) love phone calls as part of early courtship. It’s like making out in cars or eating a lot of carbs — it’s sweet and brings back memories of something we used to love doing. Unfortunately, the guys of our generation would rather do anything other than talk on the phone — but still, on the whole, these are amazing times we live in.

My friend ended up texting the girl asking when they could talk, and they talked the next day for 20 minutes, and he said it was “just alright, I dunno?” They are hanging out this week, I believe. I asked if he’s ever had an amazing first phone call with someone he barely knew, and he said he had, but it never resulted in an equally amazing first date. Ultimately no one really knows what they are doing, but we all act as if we do to somehow seem like we have control over something really ephemeral.

That said, there is nothing I enjoy more than giving advice and setting people up (which somehow has never resulted in an actual loving human relationship, but has resulted in several tepid dates!).

What other invaluable dating advice gems have you doled out via text/gchat/etc?

Let’s see, if there’s any chance you want to hang out with a person again, you have to text the next morning/early afternoon at the latest. After any first date you are somewhat excited about, as soon as you finish recapping the night to your friends (“He said he’s into hiking and the outdoors, but I think we could work through it?”) they immediately ask if he’s texted yet.

Just do the industry standard desperately grasping for an inside joke from the night before text. Adorable! I think it’s cute even to do the “had a great time/[joke referencing something obscure from the night]/hope you got home ok” text that night, but I personally like that sort of thing.

Other advice: If you actually like a girl, just text her first before you do a ton of tweets the next morning. Fav her stuff. RT her if you’re really smitten. Try not to like other women’s beach Instagrams. Walk the line, etc. Make solid plans. Ask her how her day is going. The usual.

Lesson learned (if any)?

Almost a hundred percent of advice you give over gchat/text/brunch will never actually be listened to. But we’ll all keep giving it, and trying to figure it all out, cause you know.

Just one more thing.

Guys of New York: You’re killing us with all the tote bags this summer. Love you, though.

Matthew J.X. Malady is a writer and editor in New York.

The Times has published its third or so major piece on the part-time and gig economy in nearly as many weeks — this one focussed on those employed by apps, commonly known as members of the “sharing economy.” Predictably, the founder of a car-sharing marketplace that will be crushed by Uber, called RelayRides, describes it as “transformational.” And yet:

“On average, you’re going to make $7 per favor,” [Kelsey Cruse] Cruse explained, using the company’s euphemism for a delivery. “If you are running two favors in an hour, that’s $14 an hour. It’s pretty awesome.” She hadn’t yet racked up enough “favors” to earn that much consistently. So far that week, she had worked about 20 hours and earned $179 — the company minimum.

…

[Jennifer Guidry] recognizes that her current routine may not be sustainable. Between 10 a.m. on Saturday and 5 a.m. on Sunday, she had earned about $263. But that had required working marathon hours and running a sleep deficit.

Transformational and awesome.

Photo by stratman

“Martin Smith does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.” — A disclosure, standard for its publication, on a story titled “The world’s weirdest creature finds descendants in cuddly velvet worms,” about ‘[a] 500-million-year-old ‘worm with legs.’”

“Monday morning Dollar General announced a bid to acquire competitor Family Dollar Stores for $9.7 billion, or $78.50 per share. The proposal includes a $2.26 per share premium over Family Dollar’s closing price on Friday. More significantly the offer is $4 higher per share than the $8.5 billion merger deal with Dollar Tree Family Dollar agreed to last month.”

by Jake Gallagher

9:46 AM Friday, August 15th — Teens waiting for Miley Cyrus, Greenwich Hotel

Length: Twenty-four teenagers
Weather: 65 and partly cloudy
Crowd: Twenty-two girls and two boys; could have easily have been mistaken for an American Eagle casting call
Mood: Just happy to basking in the wake of the Cyrus!!!
Wait Time: As long as Miley wants you to wait
Lingering Question: How long has it been since we passed peak twerk?

7:06 PM Saturday, August 9th — St. Vincent concert at Celebrate Brooklyn!, Prospect Park

Length: Two-and-a-half snaking miles
Weather: 82 and partly cloudy
Crowd: Ten thousand blasé Brooklynites and an infinite sea of groans
Mood: Utter disbelief
Wait Time: Anywhere from two to five hours
Lingering Question: If time is money, what’s the cost of free?

8:55 AM Thursday, August 14th — Apple Store, Prince and Greene, pre-opening

Length: Three people
Weather: 63 and sunny
Crowd: Two men, dressed coincidentally in complementary blue outfits, and one woman absentmindedly flipping through the Daily News just out of frame
Mood: Analog agitation from digital dilemmas
Wait Time: Five minutes
Lingering Question: What exactly does Apple do with all of those shattered iPhone screens?

Jake Gallagher is a writer for A Continuous Lean and other places.

★★★ Dark, rippling clouds overspread the city. The trees tossed. Then rain streaked the balcony doors and the sun came out. People walked under umbrellas in the sunshine, casting umbrella-shadows on the wet pavement by the square. Then the sun and rain were gone again and it was chilly, surprisingly so. A sport jacket, pulled on at the last minute for appearance and in case of air conditioning, was an unseasonable necessity. In the middle of a panel discussion, inside a covered-over courtyard, rain lashed the roof so violently that faces peered upward at the sound. The noise moderated a bit and then surged back, again and again, like the first blast of a storm repeating. Water clattered down the galvanized drainpipes, now indoors and flanking the stage. It was a long time before it subsided. The chill was deeper than any European climate control; a couple of people wrapped their bodies in the blankets that had been left folded on the backs of the chairs. Outside, the rain was dripping. Walking in it was possible, looking warily at the sky, letting a scowl be one’s umbrella, affirming one’s basic consent to be rained on — this much, and no more, as if an admonitory look would warn off any escalation. Nevertheless it did escalate, gently, until the balconies stacked overhead began to provide noticeable islands of shelter. Finally it stopped again, and light from the west lavished attention on all the details that the builders had lavished their attention on. Bright things gleamed on the dark dome of the basilica. The illuminated city posed dramatically under the heavy gray sky, and then the darkness gave up and fell apart into silvery shreds on blue.

Based on this short story from a few years ago, a portrait of a certain strain of human bitterness. (Via)

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Fucking Ass in the 19TH Century

or doing it with a sheep could land you in jail.

A penis was required to get you
on the books. Girl and girl was beyond

unspeakable. Legally, it didn’t exist.

Debates ensued: was penetration enough
or did one have to come? Didn’t matter

if it was man on man or woman or child

but the hole you found yourself stuck in
and whether or not someone would

report it. No mention of gay, straight or bi

in any of the books. Looking back, the laws
seemed fairly clear: a white man fucking

a black woman was fine as long as it was in

her pussy. But catching a black man
doing it to a white woman was beyond

the pale, didn’t matter what body part was

used. Age didn’t matter. Or whose bed
you shared. Just be mindful of where you put

that prick, what century you find yourself

living in. All through my teens, I never knew
what sodomy was exactly. Did it involve

the mouth? Was it anything other than

non-procreative ennui? — a gilded book’s
uncut pages left under a shroud of dust.

Timothy Liu is the author of nine books of poems, including the forthcoming Don’t Go Back to Sleep (Saturnalia Books). He lives in Manhattan with his husband.

You will find more poems here. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.

I pulled out my first gray hair today at 9:32 a.m. It wasn’t the first gray hair I’ve had, just the first one I’ve pulled out. I didn’t pull it out with a sense of purpose; it just came out with the rest of its classmates. No one tells you — well, no one told me, until I’d already noticed — that after you have a baby, all that lustrous, glorious pregnancy hair sheds quickly, replaced by your former, less exciting and less beautiful hair.

I examined this gray hair momentarily. (Time is of the essence, I only have a moment.) I deemed it not much coarser than my regular hair, and looked up at myself in the mirror. There was the wrinkle in the middle of my forehead, just like my mother’s, which appeared when I was around twenty and only shows itself when I am thinking.

Am I thinking? Is this wrinkle deeper?

I looked at myself and realized that my hair was longer now than it’s been in at least twenty years. Twenty years ago I was seventeen. I’m thirty-six. No, thirty-seven. I forgot to get a haircut for a year.

I heard the baby stir. (My moment was up.) I left the bathroom, went into her room, and was greeted by her smiling face. It was 9:36 a.m. Right on schedule.

Two and a half hours later, she was sleeping again and I needed to scan my passport. My unused passport, issued last August, when I was two months pregnant. My hair was at least six or seven inches shorter, my face a little thinner. “Wow, I do not look happy in this photo,” I thought to myself. “Are there any photos where I look happy?”

Five days after my passport was issued, my brother-in-law got married. There’s a photo of me with friends. I look happy. So happy. It’s only half of my face, but the unseen half was smiling too.

At 1:08 p.m. today, I turned away from my daughter for a moment. She was happily sitting, playing on her blanket. When I turned back I saw something I rarely see: her sitting up, looking away. She was rummaging through a box of toys, unable to choose one. This was unimaginable even three weeks ago. One month ago, she’d never tasted anything but milk, and now she’d eat anything I gave her (kale and lentils not included). Two months ago, she couldn’t roll over. Three months ago, she was barely awake for more than an hour at a time. Four months ago, she was Girl, Interrupted in a straightjacket sixteen hours a day. Five months ago, a worm. Six months ago, a dream and a disquiet.

I have gray hairs, long gray hairs. The longest hairs in twenty years. I don’t even know what day it is, or how old I am most of the time. Someone mentioned that I had a birthday in June today and I thought, “Yes, that did happen… I guess.” Last week, I thought it was 2013, and yesterday, that it was July. I am thirty-seven years old. I’m older than I’ve ever been.

I’m feeling younger every day.

Every one begins the same way. The sound of the baby stirring on a monitor. I ask, “What time is it?” and the answer is always the same, within a small margin of error.

7:00 a.m.

I don’t know what day or month or year it is, but I know what time it is. I don’t wear a watch, but I can estimate within five minutes or so the hour.

Zelda wakes up at 7:00 a.m. She eats every three hours. She sleeps every two in the morning, every three in the afternoon. Her naps last approximately one half hour during which I shower (morning), eat (nap two), and read Twitter (nap three). Some days now nap three doesn’t even happen. We play the rest of the day. Hours pass like they’re centuries sometimes. We have fun but it’s on a predictable plane of existence. She gets a bath at 6:30 p.m. I read to her at 7:15 p.m. She goes to sleep at 7:30 p.m.

I have a calendar which, for the first time in my life, I not only use but I have memorized. Not the date or the day or the year. Each moment.

My mother once told me that when I was little, I asked her how many sleeps there were until Christmas, and how smart she thought that was. I didn’t know the days of the week or understand the concept of the calendar, but I could count it out by the breaks in the day for sleep. This is how I live now.

At 7:30 p.m. each night, Zelda goes to bed, and doesn’t wake up for roughly eleven-and-a-half hours. She’s been doing this since she was nine weeks old (sorry, mom brag), so I can go nuts from the hours of 7:30 to 11 p.m. (If I go to bed much later, I will not be happy). I read (try to), watch TV without looking at the clock (try to). I smoke cigarettes with some guilt (I try not to) but mostly with relish.

I only check the monitor every half hour or hour now. Zelda is reliable, predictable, punctual. I miss her, so I look at the day’s photos. I occasionally think about creeping in to watch her sleep. Sometimes I do.

Every day is the same. There are no Fridays. No weekends. It is glorious and tedious at the same time.

Until this February, I couldn’t have told you what time of day it was after I woke up. Hours flew by in which I worked, worked, worked. Work that I enjoyed, but that could consume me for days or weeks. I didn’t know the time but I knew the date. I knew it was Wednesday.

Twenty years ago, when my hair was much longer, but about to be shorter, I would have laughed to think that I could ever be this reliable. This aware. This in the moment.

The next moment is predictable, but anything could happen. Any moment now, my daughter will stand up. She’ll eat kale and spit it out in horror. She’ll say “hello.” All of these things will be world events. I count my moments in Zelda time. I am always looking at the clock in my head, for the person who depends on me for life, who likes me more than it ever seemed possible someone could like me.

One day, she’ll say “hello.”

I’ll say “hello” back. And I’ll know what time it is.

It’s 8:41 p.m. Zelda is asleep. She is a hundred and eighty-four days old.

It’s Wednesday. (Josh read this and pointed out that it’s Thursday. Perfect.)

It’s 2014 and I am thirty-seven years old. Thirteen thousand, five hundred and sixty-seven days old.

Is my wrinkle deeper?

In nineteen minutes it will be 9:00 p.m. I only have a moment.

Laura June was, most recently, the features editor of The Verge.

The first track on a languid but powerful mixtape from Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins. The whole thing is streaming here; the title track and “Healer” are two highlights among many. (Via Fader)