Category Archives: I Like To Watch

Slap My Face Like A Drum

After finding out about Physical 100, I lost a good two weeks of my life lusting after unattainable men.

I’ve come to realize that a variety of body types are sexy to me, but I really took an interest in finding out which sports — and what types of training — these folks do.

Particularly the hottest of the hotties. I found about four or five hunks that I plan on Instagram-stalking for a couple of weeks until I forget about them entirely by mid-May. Right on schedule.

To my surprise — and mild horror — I realized I had no idea that MMA fighters were lethally sexy. I’ve never been that into abs and pectorals — not as a primary requirement, I should say. But I promptly began lusting in my heart after watching these guys grapple and run and flex and do all sorts of strength-related stuff.

I was the living embodiment of an In Living Color: Men On … Sports sketch. I was wilting internally as I thought about the streennnnnth of these MMA men.

I Googled a couple of them, admired their rippling muscles, and then reminded myself that most MMA fighters are probably headed directly toward another big abbreviatory battle: CTE.

UFCTE? Yikes. Yiiiiiiiikes.

I realized that I would be worried about my hypothetical boyfriend’s health all of the time. I would worry about the injuries and the long-term effects on his health. I would be too afraid to get into a long-term relationship with an MMA player, even though I suppose a ships-in-the-night situation is still on the table. 🤫

But just as I was about to quit searching for information on CTE and MMA fighters, I found out about the Power Slap League.

Now, I’m the same woman who said I would rather play two sets of jai alai without a helmet than to play two minutes of pickleball. But … why?

The whole damn thing is a mess. The head injuries. The poor compensation. The lack of recognition. The limited cross-over potential. The poor compensation.

And circling back to earlier themes, it’s not even that sexy.

😬

Woman Marries Cat

Here are some notes I made about an imaginary rom-com. This is my attempt at coming up with a believably unbelievable premise for a film:

• A woman marries a tuxedo cat because he’s already wearing a tux. This is an excellent method for saving money — and she posts about it on her Financial Management TikTok account. Or her Financial Management YouTube channel. Or both, because she’s all about cross-platform monetization.

• She does it for publicity. She hopes to meet and marry a millionaire — a local millionaire? A well-known animal-loving celebrity? (Must figure this angle out.)

• She ultimately falls in love with a magazine editor who can’t decide whether the article should be called “Cat marries woman” or “Woman marries cat” — but since the film is called Woman Marries Cat, we’ll probably go with that one.

If anyone wants to turn this into a film, then I’ll gladly accept an executive producer credit. TIA.

Elitism

I’m not an “intellectual” in the strict sense — I hate Greek mythology and I absolutely can’t stand when people drop Latin phrases into non-legal or non-medical conversations.

I like to read, but I don’t like to be smug about what I have or haven’t read. (The only thing I’m willing to be smug about is that I absolutely despise Edmund Spenser. I wish I could do to him what Twain threatened to do to Austen, shin bone and all.)

I’m certainly not an elite. I spent the first four years of my life living beside a railroad track — so the phrase wrong side of the tracks is more familiar to me than Ivory Tower, even though I have been degree’d up. I’m credentialed, I guess, but I feel like the same little girl who stood out in the yard, waving to the train conductors, begging them to honk the bellowing horn. They always did, from what I remember — and those are fond memories.

Before I digressed, I was saying that I’m not an elite. I go back and forth between two tabs on my phone — the New Yorker and r/datingoverthirty. I look at the first one when I want to make myself upset over not having written the Great American Short Story Collection, and I look at the second when I want to remind myself that being 29 and unmarried is okay, because nearly every single person is either lonely or messed up. Or both.

All of that’s to say that I balance my high-brow interests with my low-brow interests, and that I often realize that my low-brow interests are more relevant to my own tastes, my own behavior, my own lived experiences.

I will never write the Great American anything, because I enjoy reading more about literary gossip — and the bad behavior of writers — than I would enjoy trying to emulate their work. Similarly, I’ve yet to find someone I want to marry — but I feel like that’s more within my reach, and that it isn’t an elitist aspiration to find a partner.

There are two “elitist” hills I will Green Boots myself on. The first is that I don’t enjoy the show Friends. I don’t haaate it, although I understand why other people do. But I feel like the Venn diagram between “people who think Friends is the funniest TV show ever” and “people who liked playing Chubby Bunny at church youth retreats” is probably close to a circle.

I think it’s perfectly wonderful to watch that show, if you really enjoy it, because it isn’t hurting anybody. It’s a harmless show — but it’s also a toothless show. And that’s its biggest sin.

The second “elitist” hill I’ve climbed involves reality TV. As a teenager, I hated Jersey Shore, because I thought it was shallow. Guess what? It is shallow. That’s the whole point.

Most of the MTV reality shows know that they’re shallow. I don’t mind reality shows that understand and actively embrace how depthless they are. The reality TV shows I can’t stand are programs like The Bachelor, where finding love — something that should be sincere or fun — is trivialized in the form of competitive dates. The idea of competitive dating is bonkers.

That being said, dating is inherently competitive—to a certain degree. All of the eligible singles in your area are also looking to find someone, and while that doesn’t mean that everyone else is your direct competitor, it usually means that you have to find a way to make yourself seem like the Most Appealing Bachelor(ette). You want your partner to feel like they won a prize.

At the end of the day, I still have more in common with the people who watch Friends and The Bachelor. I would much rather listen to them talk about relationship journeys than to listen to anything about The Faerie Queene or dawn with her rose-red fingers.

Life is too short to be (too) pretentious. Sometimes, you have to eat ice cream for dinner — just because that’s what’s available, or just because that’s what all your friends are having.

Af-Flix-ion

Me: I’m looking for a documentary about —

Netflix: Got it, friend! 😎

Me: … okay. The documentary doesn’t involve crime or celebrities, right?

Netflix: Uhhhh. Let me look again.

Me: I’m just looking for something about, like, an obscure moment in history, or a scandal in a competition, or a person who makes cool sculptures, or the rise and fall of KMart, or —

Netflix: Yeah. We don’t do stuff like that. We have Kaled Over: Death of A Vegan Pizza Heiress and Load€d: The Big ₩ild Bit¢oin $tory.

Netflix: Take it or leave it.

He’s A Bad Man, Savannah

I debated whether or not I should post about this — in part because it’s inconsequential, in part because it’s not about Mayville, and in part because I didn’t really know if I could use the right words to write a non-NSFW post about it.

But I’m going to try my best. So …

Sometimes, there’s not a lot to do around here. The best way to stay entertained is to read a book. When there aren’t any books that hold my interest — assigning the blame to the books and not myself, you see! — I’ll turn to television. I started watching Connect on Hulu this month, just because I didn’t give it any attention when it first came out, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

For those who might not be aware, Connect is a horror-meets-murder-mystery-meets-thriller-type of show. It falls under the KDrama umbrella — sort of — but it’s directed by a Japanese filmmaker and it has the pacing of a Hollywood-y/Hulu-y psychological thriller.

It’s … alright. I personally think it’s more corny than scary, but that’s just one silly person’s opinion. And now that I’ve given you my opinion, and a few background details, I can finally say what I really wanted to say. And it’s this:

Giiiiiirrrrrl. When she went over to the serial killer’s condo, and she told him she was going to ride him like a buckin’ bronco, she should have known right then and there that something major was wrong with him. Why? Because he immediately went straight to the main course — and he didn’t even try to make her give him some [redacted] first.

That man was a cold, cruel mess. And he had a nasty, dated, odd-looking hair cut. I don’t really understand why she was soooo into that man. But the actor playing the villain is find as he’ll in real life, so … she clearly saw something in him. Mostly his appearance, but still.

There’s also that I-can-fix-him appeal. That was probably irresistible, considering that his insides are just as bad worse than his outsides. Aside from that goofy-ass haircut, his outsides are quite nice. Mmmmmm-mmmmmm-mmmmmmmmmm!