Please welcome our new sex blogger, After Hours. A variety of perspectives on sex will be explored under this alias. This time, we’re not fumbling the anonymity.

Though it’s my third year at Columbia, it’s only my first being here and being single. My high school relationship ended over the summer, and I’ve spent the start of the semester navigating those unfamiliar waters of courtship and seduction at this university. There have been missteps, of course, so I’m here to share what I’ve learned so far with all those other newly single girls, freshly heartbroken and healed of those overly serious adolescent relationships. I know there are a lot of you. So if you find yourself going home with someone for the first time since your breakup, here are things to bear in mind.

1. Don’t mention your ex (too much).
While it’s probably good to mention your general situation, e.g., “I just got out of a serious relationship,” don’t dwell on your ex. It can be a mood killer and will make it patently obvious that this is a rebound. For instance, don’t say, “Your chest hair reminds me of my ex.” Even if it’s true.

2. Turn your phone on silent.
So it’s been a few weeks since you’ve heard from your ex, and he’s the last person you’d expect to call you right now. But somehow, somehow, he can sense what’s going on, and you’re in some guy’s bed and your phone starts to vibrate loudly. (You wouldn’t believe how loud it actually is.) It’s your ex, calling you at 3:30 in the morning. You ignore the call, but it keeps on ringing. Then the texts start. “I miss you,” they say. “I’m lonely.” Maybe you’re tempted to pick up his call, to say that you miss him too, that you are lonely too, that maybe you two should just give it another shot. But take it from me: that can wait for the morning. Turn your phone on silent so your night of hedonism can go uninterrupted.
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For my column this week, I thought I’d post the essay I submitted to the New York Times Modern Love College Essay contest. The prompt was to write a personal essay that reflects on the romantic habits and trends of our generation. So here I am, standing nude in front of all of you. I hope I have expressed my feelings and experiences well and that you will take something away from what I have written.

Photo courtesy of Found Magazine

I watch the romantic undulations of my friends and my generation from the outside looking in. In the age of Facebook romance and random weekend hookups, I’m a member of what is—at least on the surface—an old fashioned relationship. What used to be the status quo now seems almost unconventional: we’ve been together more than two years and there is no real end in sight. I’ve been told that, at 20, I’m too young to be in a serious relationship. My mother points out that she didn’t settle down until she was far older than I.

Being in love has its downsides. I have no juicy tidbits to exchange for stories of my friends’ weekend rendezvous, only the same anecdotes of conjugal bliss. And I get lonely. My beau is in school 500 miles away, a distance only slightly eased by my free night and weekend minutes.

Søren Kierkegaard wrote about two types of love: the thumping heart limerence of romantic love, and the comfortable, worn-in conjugal love that happens over time. The two, I’ve learned, can exist simultaneously. There’s nowhere I’m more at home than lying in my boyfriend’s arms or eating Sunday brunch with him over the Times at the food co-op we frequent. But the excitement I feel when I see him for the first time in a month and the way neither of us can sleep the night before, our racing hearts too loud to be ignored, is unmistakably romantic.
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Yes, I’ve fallen in love with them so much that I am taking time out of my studying for my two consecutive (I’m not kidding! 12-1:05 and then 1:10-2:25!) exams (for which I am royally screwed) to post about them (betcha didn’t think I could fit that many non-sequiturs into a single sentence!). I’ve been intending to research them for ages, but after finding–or rather, not finding–a dearth of information on the Internet, I bookmarked them on Pandora and left it at that.

They’re called the The Peanut Butter Conspiracy and they were a late 1960s psychedelic California band with a cult following. The song for which I initially fell head over heels is called Free off their album “Spreading From the Ashes,” which I am buying–a rare event for such a dedicated music pirate. Oh yeah. Listen to those harmonies. Tell me they don’t OWN the wall of sound.

As for the supposed dearth–it’s not so bad as I thought. You just have to get the right Google search terms. On a side note, apparently Jimmy Buffet has a song called The Peanut Butter Conspiracy but I didn’t want to get near those sites to see if it was a tribute.

Well, dear readers, go forth and conquer. The internet is waiting, those midterms will wait.

American politics is a dog and pony show of the lowest order. Despite the worldwide coverage our presidential elections generate, the attention is hardly deserved. It’s not rocket science; it’s not even political science.

The high-minded among us would like the democratic process to be a contest of ideologies fought in the halls of power. Instead, a presidential campaign is a bare-knuncle brawl between two beauty queens with enornous sums of cash and a legion of expensive stylists. Are you smarter than a 5th Grader? If so, try to tone it down. All that fancy policy talk won’t fly at the Iowa State Fair or Koop’s Frozen Custard.

How do I know? I worked on the frontlines of the 2004 presidential race in Seattle, Washington. Seattle is the most educated city in the United States, where more than 25 percent of residents have at least a bachelors degree. It’s also one of the bluest enclaves on the West Coast. In spite of these fact I heard an unimaginable litany of irrational, inarticulate reasons why people were voting for George W. Bush and why they couldn’t stand John Kerry. Ideas had nothing to do with it.

Pop quiz: how did the Kennedy clan first make its money? If you answered bootlegging and other questionable activities, you are a winner. While we love the notion of Camelot or the image of John F. Kennedy Jr. saluting his father’s casket, the reality of our politician’s private lives is something different entirely. We should be distrustful of any person who claims to want to lead us, but instead we follow politicians like sunflowers in the early morning light.

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So I thought to counter-balance that negative Nancy hit list post, I’d share a heartwarming story about a ditzy blonde and a former Soviet Union nation.

And here I was, thinking the U.S. had good taste when I found out ye good ole Americans snubbed our favorite down home Goldie Locks. I am shocked and appalled that Jessica Simpson’s new movie, “Blonde Amtition” went straight to DVD, except for making like five bucks at the handful of Texan theaters it was shown at. However, my first reaction to this devastating news was HOLD OUT FOR THE UKRAINIANS, JESSICA! Not all hope is lost!

And boy was I right! This shit opened #1 and made $253,008 at the box office its opening weekend. The Box Office Mojo tried to explain this miraculous windfall, saying, “The former Soviet nations have a sweet tooth for straight-up comedies. When these comedies have big name celebrities like Jessica Simpson’s, that’s all that’s needed to sell the movie. Russian and Ukrainian audiences have an even bigger urge for escapism than Americans. So, films like “Blonde Ambition” will gross more than “No Country for Old Men.”‘

Hot damn. The Ukrainian department of Tourism but be shitting itself right now. “Escape to the Ukraine! The land that nobody wants to live in!” Seriously, that really insults the Ukrainian I.Q..  At least compare “Blonde Ambition” to a movie that wasn’t Oscar-nominated to make it a fair comparison. Also, they should not advertise that they’ll buy anything or you know Paris Hilton is going to build herself a Polly Pocket palace up in there and sell some more perfume and a translated autobiography and they’ll regret every having announced their love of awful C-list movies.  Also, I’m no geography expert, but isn’t the Ukraine pretty damn close to Russia, aka the land that invented Vodka?!  Cross the border for some escapism, guys!  It’s what underage American kids do!

Internship applications for the summer are either long past due or have quickly encroaching deadlines and I’m stuck applying for things I don’t truly want to do. Aside from the artist fellowship for which I’m throwing in my name and my 10-15 labeled slides, there’s nothing I’ve found that I really want to spend my summer doing. Nothing that could make me enough money to pay rent for four months, that is. My struggle to find a good summer job seems to foreshadow–more than a little–the trouble I will have in the future carving out a meaningful career for myself.

The more I think about it, the more I realize I want to be an artist. Not a painter or a sculpture, not the starving artist type scraping by with two day jobs and an exhibit hanging in a local coffeeshop. (The art hanging here was shockingly bad, but I am consistently impressed by the work of local artists hanging here, far away as it is.)
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Ok, so I’ve been procrastinating tonight by pondering what is the appropriate, politically correct response to seeing the picture of Gary Coleman and his new 22-year-old wife, Shannon Price. I’ve got to ask the question we’re all thinking but are afraid to say—WHAT THE FUCK?! Why does she want to hit that every night? Even Gary doesn’t get it. In their Inside Edition interview, Shannon says she doesn’t want to be known as Gary Coleman’s wife. And instead of being offended by this, Coleman says, “I wouldn’t want that in a million years. I wouldn’t want you to be known as Gary Coleman’s wife!” Ahh, true love…Now I understand why they have kept their marriage a secret since August. That and the longer you wait, the more money OK Magazine gives you for your wedding pictures.

Actually, come to think of it, I don’t know what he sees in her either. Oh wait! Yes I do—she is his first relationship! That poor, horny, 40-year-old virgin. And just like Steve Carell, Gary’s love muffin is an expert internet bargain shopper. About his Molly Ringwald knockoff, Gary says, “She’s a great e-Bayer. She’s a fabulous e-Bayer! I hope she gets famous for that.” If I had an online dating profile, that’s the only description I would have of myself in it.

But seriously, the man wasn’t kidding; she is freaking talented. This ain’t no run of the mill gold-digger. This bitch made $400,000 on an autographed pair of Coleman’s navy blue, size 12XL-Regular Gap Kids sweatpants on her favorite website.

I shall end with one last thought to leave you writhing in suspense. Gary Coleman Sex Tape E-Bay Auction. Keep an eye out for it. It’s going to be a nasty one, too—Gary’s got a temper. Mrs. Coleman described a fight in which he actually managed to lift a fax machine and heave it at her, saying, “He lets his anger conquer him sometimes…He throws things around, and sometimes he throws it in my direction.” They are totally the new Fuffy-fuffy and Brigitte Neilson. Stranger and stranger love…Should we put them in the future rehab or psych ward file? Sorry, that joke is never going to get old.

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, the celebration of love, relationships, and greeting card sales. Restaurants and shops have been gearing up for February fourteenth for a while now, ready for busy sales and happy couples. But singles are likely dreading the holiday more than the coupled are anticipating it. A wikipedia-verified philosophy exists denouncing the holiday as over-commercialized and straying from the original sentiment. The really depressing suicidal persons forum alt.suicide.holiday (originally formed to discuss the correlation between holidays and suicide rates) has a manifesto with (hopefully?) tongue-in-cheek suggestions about firebombing Hallmark stores and declaring the day Day of Hate. (Warning: wandering around on alt.suicide.holiday is really, really upsetting.)

Why do we have to be so passionate about Valentine’s Day–whether in favor or against it? Holidays do seem to inspire extensive ranges of emotion, even among non-practitioners. How else to explain December 25th’s power to inspire hordes of Jews to go to the movies and eat Chinese food? For those who would choose to skip February 14th, it’s not easy to forget the cultural force that prompts all matter of surfaces to be covered with hearts and cupids. Read the rest of this entry »