Thirteen things I learned from Cosmo, part quatre

I’m in San Francisco today, sitting through lots of boring lectures about hospital administration or something. I don’t know. I guess I’ll know on Thursday. In any case, I’ve promised you a Cosmo Thirteen, and who am I to disappoint my readers? Here ya go, folks, thanks to the magic of pre-scheduled posting! But I won’t be commenting until late tomorrow evening. (That also means I won’t be able to give you any linky lurve. Sorry!)

The November 2006 issue of Cosmo decorates our supermarket shelves, and you know what that means: time for me to learn a few things about men, women, and the war between the sexes.

1. Paris Hilton has a new “fragrance” — Heiress — and it doesn’t smell like the hindquarters of a cat in heat!

But, you know, I’m just assuming here. They don’t call this stuff eau de toilette for nothin’.

Elsewhere on the odor front: not to be outdone by La Hilton, Britney Spears has her own fragrance — Curious. As in, What’s that smell, dear? Well . . . isn’t that curious.

2. This woman is clueless:

“I had plans to meet up with a guy I had just started seeing and went to a bar with girlfriends beforehand. We shared a seared tuna appetizer and drinks. Later, I headed to the guy’s house. I was a little tipsy, and as soon as he opened the door, I jumped his bones. I wasn’t planning on spending the night because we weren’t sleeping together yet, but we were both so exhausted, we just cuddled and fell asleep. A few hours later, I woke up feeling sick and couldn’t make it to the bathroom, so I vomited in his hamper. When I tried to crawl back in bed, he made an excuse about having to work early and offered to drive me home. I never heard from him again.”

This gal thinks her crime was throwing up in the hamper. My take is, this guy got the willies because he thinks she has a drinking problem. She concludes:

“The next day, my friends said they’d all been sick too. I guess it was the tuna.”

You go on telling yourself that, darling.

Eleven more below the cut!

3. This must be the odor issue. To be a Bold Babe, you ought to use heavy floral scents. “Tuberose, orchid, gardenia, and jasmine make a big lasting impression,” says Dalton. “They’re typically more pungent than other flowers.”

Let’s recap:

D: What’s that smell, dear?

K: Tuberose.

D: I hope it’s not catching.

I’m so square. I like Karen to smell like Karen.

4. Just because I’ve never heard of a particular sex move doesn’t mean it’s worth hearing.

Cosmo’s 14 Sex Moves You’ve Never Heard Of includes touching a guy’s package with unusual items, putting food on your body (oh, isn’t that unusual!), penis bondage with scrunchies, and blow jobs with mint — who would have thought of that!

But the capper is Cosmo’s idea of a Naughty Pearl Necklace:

Pick up a 36-inch fake strand (this trick will ruin the real deal) and wear it all day so your body warms up the balls.

Wait — you’re talking about an actual necklace? Boring! Boring even if you wrap it around the guy’s wad, which is the sum total of this innovation.

To prove my point (just cuz you ain’t heard of it, doesn’t make it worthwhile), here’s my #15:

15. The Pacific Northwest Slimer

Let yellow banana slugs crawl up and down his package. In addition to the novel sensation, they’ll leave a thick, clingy trail of slime. You’ll have to suck extra-hard for hours to get him clean. He’ll love it!

5. I always knew divorce had to be better. Every issue of Cosmo has a truly worthwhile article. This month’s Cosmo, the must-read is Jennifer Benjamin’s “How Your Parents’ Split Shapes Your Love Life.” Here’s what caught my eye (listen up, Sis):

Good news: “If your parents got along fairly peacefully before and after the divorce and the transition wasn’t too stressful, you’re better off than people who grew up with married parents who fought frequently,” says [pyschologist Elizabeth S.] Thayer.

So much for “staying together for the family.”

“I want a divorce!” my mother would shout. I used to run for the yellow pages.

6. I’m a pack animal. Caren Osten Gerszberg’s “The Scary Truth about Guys in Groups” tries to be this issue’s must-read, but I smell a lot of blanket generalizations here. “Clearly, not all gang rapists are deep-dyed bad guys.” Huh? WTF? I’m sorry, but a rapist is a rapist, and if he’s doing it in a gang it’s every bit as bad, if not worse.

I’m no pack animal, but maybe that’s to be expected from the litter runt. I do mascot very well, though. Or water boy.

7. The 20s were “arguably [my] most enjoyable, carefree adult years.” Not! Between the breakup with my high school girlfriend and Karen’s early years of illness, I did indeed have a couple of carefree years. No, wait. I was angsting over getting into med school. And trying to keep up my GPA at Berkeley. And sweating my first year of med school . . . aaaieee! Gah! No more!

Last night, I read a bit of my diary from age 20/21. It left me feeling poisoned.

I ain’t never going back.

8. I have an inner sex kitten. From “Get in Touch with Your Inner Sex Kitten”:

Sexy-Girl Secret 1: THEY DON’T BASH THEIR BODS–OR OTHERS’

Almost everybody has something about their appearance they wish they could change. [It’s true. I wish I could push all my back hair up onto my head. Wouldn’t that be neat?] .. . . But women who overflow with allure resist talking trash about themselves.

I think I’m okay here. I don’t bash my bod, or other guys’ bods, no matter how big their man-titties.

Sexy-Girl Secret 2: THEY FLAUNT THEIR HOTTEST ASSETS

Babes with tons of body pride are never shy about highlighting what’s great about their figures–from donning booty-hugging pants to a cleavage-baring V-neck.

Booty-hugging pants: check. I’ll skip the cleavage-baring, thank you.

Sexy-Girl Secret 3: THEY ENJOY THE PLEASURE THEIR BODIES BRING

Um. What guy doesn’t?

Sexy-Girl Secret 4: THEY FAKE IT TILL THEY FEEL IT

Looking like a sex goddess under your clothes by wearing va-voomy lingerie or getting a Brazilian can increase your confidence a half-dozen notches . . .

I knew I should have gotten that Brazilian.

Onward to Cosmo’s special 59-page section on MEN, wherein I discover, OMFG, I’m not a man. Or at least, not a typical one.

9. I am not one of The Hottest Guys in the U.S. I checked Oregon (not me) then California (not me). How about Texas? I spent some time in Texas.

Not me.

And all of these dudes wax their chests. I think a REAL man should be comfortable in fur, don’t you? But I’ll tell you a story. Last time I got my hair cut, I noticed “body waxing” on the menu and asked my dude (barber? Stylist? Dresser? Eff it, the guy just shaves it all off. He’s not styling anything), “How much would it cost to get my back waxed?”

“Time and materials,” he said. “It tends to run forty to sixty dollars.”

He waved over one of the gals who does waxing. “Bridget, how much to wax Dr. Hoffman’s back?”

She took one look at my arms and did the math. “Eighty dollars. Minimum.”

10. How Karen totally screwed up. In “The Best Places to Meet a Guy,” I discovered you have to meet guys at the Apple store, the gym, a Fortune 500 company, a political rally, sports bar on Monday night, volleyball league, or a rock-climbing center.

Stupid Karen. She met me in P-Chem lab at Berkeley.

11. I want to know (almost) everything about my woman. “Things Guys Just Don’t Want to Know About You” covers lots of oddball things — apparently, I don’t want to know your weaknesses, how tired you are, that your hair is different, or your choice of feminine hygiene product.

Truth? Over the years, I’ve only encountered two shiveringly effective turn-offs.

1. I don’t want to know that you are an uber-bitch to your current boyfriend. I don’t care if you’re breaking up and I don’t care if he’s a jerk. When I look at him, I see me three dates from now.

2. I don’t want to know that you pull the hair out of your head and eat it. Even if you are nervous . . . eeew.

12. Just what I needed, 10 sex revelations that don’t apply to me — “Secret Shockers,” this article calls ’em. Well, actually, some of these do apply to me, but you’ll have to buy the magazine to find out which ones: 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 10. And NO, damn it, 6 is not me. I can’t believe you would think that for even a moment. Some people.

13. I don’t fall in love like a normal guy. Here’s how Cosmo defines the “normal male” process of falling in love:

1. He sees you, he wants you (physical attraction)

2. He tries to win you over (infatuation with expenditure of effort)

3. He pulls a freak-out (can’t say the L-word, can’t commit)

4. He settles into life as a twosome (you’ve got him, girls)

But I know me very well by now. Here’s my four-step program:

1. He knows you, he wants you (attraction to sense of humor, personality, mind)

2. He tries to win you over (yeah, Cosmo got #2 right)

3. He tells you he loves you and dammit you had better love him, too (yup, I’ve always been the first to say the word)

4. There is no #4, because at #1, he has already settled into life as a twosome.

Yeah, I’m pretty effin weird.

thursday thirteen

D.