We all share vices

You know what is humbling?! Perusing the ads on Craigslist (I know I know I promised I would stop internet dating but…when you are too lazy to get dressed up and all you want to do is sit in your apt and eat Ben and Jerry’s because you are too tired from partying and working during the week…old habits die hard) and stumbling upon someone who looks familiar. And I read the ad, Latino mid 40s, 5’4, saying how lonely he is. It reminds me of someone who I know...but I can't put my finger on it…and I scroll down to see the picture...

Oh my God!! This explains everything!

It is my Stats professor!

No wonder why he gives so much HW!

See, sexual frustration, the root cause of people causing misery to other people.

It gave a whole new meaning to the class when I went today, knowing that he shares the same vices that I do…craigslist personal ads. Worst comes to worst, maybe he’ll trade a sucky-suck for an A? He did say that he is lonely.

I’ve been trying to figure it out, ever since I moved into this apartment, I have had the worst dandruff problem that I have ever had in my life. It’s gotten so bad that I have to leave my hair pinned up in a quasi-messy bun so that I don’t have little flakes drop onto my black sweater encased shoulders. This definitely creates a problem at work, where my nervous habit involves me scratching my head…yes, I know, I look very monkey-like, especially since I have this dumb looking face ½ the time because I am so bored/shitty at collecting receipts and following up on media buys. So here you have me, hunched over my desk, worried look on my face, and scratching my head as a mini-blizzard falls upon my shoulders.

Interestingly, the dandruff subsides over the weekend—could this just be another reason for me to quit my hellish job?! Or maybe it is my cursed apt, with the really bad chi that is causing this?!

And to top it all off, I ran out of deodorant this morning. I didn’t think it was going to be too bad, I mean, I have gone to work w/o deodorant before. However, the heat was turned up to ‘Arabian Desert’ at the office and I was wearing a sweater and a scarf, trying in vain to hide my hide the stain left over from last week's dinner... So I began to sweat.

I smelled something a little funky, while sweating and I leaned over and caught a whiff. Shit, it was my armpits smelling. However, unconvinced for some sick reason, I kept leaning over and checking my armpits. I knew I smelled the first time around, but for some reason the whiff of my armpit didn’t convince me the first time, nor the second time, nor even the fifth time. So here you have me, no clean clothes, having to wear a febreezed sweater with stains from my dinner last week on it (it was Monday and I dropped off ALL of my clothes to the nice Chinese launderer), sniffing at my armpits continuously at my desk, and since I am nervous that I smell, scratching my dandruffy scalp.

I know HR is going to have a field day with me when I am up for my 6 month review.
“Shannon, in addition to your jumpiness, your moodiness, and your inability to keep track of receipts and do simple mathematics, we noticed that you don’t keep hygiene in the highest regard.”

My 6 month review is at the end of January.

On less self-deprecating news, my Halloween costume makes me look like a sex Godess and I am so excited for this weekend, since I have a few of my MoHos coming up. At first I wanted to be a sexy can-can girl, and you know Halloween is the only time where prudes and the sexually mis-adventerous like myself could dress up like a slut, and have it be perfectly ok. So in my sick sick world, where I like to live in a dream that I have cultivated, I wanted to capture the old school sluttiness of those sexy Moulin Rouge dancers. The glamour that moves like Moulin Rouge and the Mr. Brightside video tried to capture. I wanted part of it. Sexy yet fun. How cute!

How not me…come on, when have I ever not pushed the envelope and been happy with what everyone else has? Or been happy acting like a sorority girl?! There is a reason why I never went to SMU. (Southern Methodist Univeristy, the waspy trustafarian southern belle school).

As I donned my corset (uhm, big boobs even bigger…), my short petticoat, my fishnet thigh highs, and my stilettos, I realized that I looked like something else besides a Moulin Rouge girl. With the ad of a prop, I would have a costume that I would be proud of, a costume that expressed a lost side of me. Fuck the sweet Moulin Rouge girl... I got a paddle instead of a boa. A leather paddle. My alter ego Mistress Shannon, that has been on hiatus since the Harvard Debauchery party in 2000, is making an appearance. Last time I wielded a whip, I had a lot of fun, I wonder what the paddle will bring.

I can’t explain what came over me as I slid into my Halloween costume and held the paddle. The costume unleashed this part of me that I forgot existed, this part that owns her sexuality, that used to take boys and throw them against walls in bars…

“Have you met my friend discipline? You look like you could use a little bit of him in your life!” was my mantra at the Harvard Debauchery party. Boys against the wall, me pulling their hair, telling them to thank me for each smack with the whip. I almost won that night, if it wasn’t for girls who pooled their money together well, and also if I didn’t spend ½ the night making out with some boy in the broom closet. But I almost won. And Mistress Shannon is making her appearance NYC Halloween 2005 and wanting a repeat of my appearance at Debauchery.

And of course being all excited about my Halloween costume, I had to wear it around the apartment the day I got it. Without any curtains, as John had called for Chinese delivery. As I am prancing around the apartment, his food arrives.

I decide to answer the door dressed up as Mistress Shannon, wielding my leather paddle. The poor Chinese man had the most confused look, trying not to laugh, but also trying not slightly frightened. He timidly took the tip, then scurried down the stairs.

I am thinking this could be a great rouse for my landlord. Next time he wants to stop by unexpectedly/come by at an off time (like 9pm), I should be wearing my corset, with my paddle in my hand, John on all 4s. I answer the door and tell the landlord that he stopped by at a bad time because John has been naughty…