I can tell a victory has been achieved because when I used to get my nails done, the women would say "SO SHORT! YOU BITE!" and then make their friends gather around, and they'd gossip with each other and laugh. Now, when I get my nails done, the manicurists just say "short."

NORM

Yesterday in Whole Foods Union Square, after Bikram Yoga, buying yuppie groceries such as basil, fiber pills, polenta, et al., I was rung up by a guy named Tyrell who is a filmmaker and told me I look like a filmmaker. When I told him I wasn't and I work at a desk, he looked disgusted and said, "I was wrong about you. You look like an artist turned into a norm." I've told this story to many of my close friends and will now share it with the internet because it's scary-accurate and I think I need to make a life change, like writing more, or a facial tattoo.

Top Five Bodily Cleansing Functions
1. Nose Clearance: there is nothing I love more, bodily function-wise, than making myself sneeze. When I was little I used to get caught picking my nose constantly. Things don't change - emptying your nose of snot and crust is incredible.
2. Q-Tipping: I Q-Tip three times a day minimum. It is great. Right after I shower, to get out the water ... when I wake up and my ears have that "thick" feeling ... Q-Tipping is like yawning; whenever you think about it you feel a physical desire to do so.
3. Urination/Defecation: If only for the intense anxiety and intenser relief that accompanies them. I'm a girl who drinks a lot of beverages; I'm a girl that pees a lot. Finally getting into the stall in Starbucks after you've pretended you're a customer and after a five-person line feels awesome.
However, this does not mean I will casually riff on "poop" with you. What kind of girl do you think I am?
4. Puking: OK here me out. Puking is disgusting. But, see #3. Puking is on here because it's a relief, because it's kind of funny, and because I'm running out of bodily functions I like.
5. Nail Biting: Does this count? Probably not. That's why it's not higher on the list. But I love it nonetheless.


Top Five Favorite Parts Of My Cleansing Regime
1. Shampoo/Conditioner: Golden retriever puppies are thought to be the cutest because they're the cutest; shampooing and conditioning is the most important because it's the most important. I use awesome shampoo and conditioner that makes my hair really soft and shiny but sometimes I use a thickly salt-based shampoo to add volume and you can try solid shampoo to help the environment and what about that hair treatment too? and blah blah. If you do it right you don't even need Frizz-Ease.
2. Exfoliation: "What's exfoliation?" Stop living in the past! Exfoliation is awesome and it makes your skin brighter and your face and body softer and it's gritty and weird and basically the "bubble tea" of cleansing as far as weird textural juxtaposition is concerned.
3. Face Masks: This is something I do every day that I probably shouldn't do every day. Face masks turn your face a weird color and flake everywhere and make everything soft and tight and clean.
4. Moisturizer: The lighter the better.
5. Generous Amounts Of Soap: Using too much soap is decadent and awesome, like a gigantic squirt of Dr. Baumer's liquid-type soap or overlathering with a bar.

The Worst Of Both:
1. Coughing: pointless.
2. Farting/Menstruation: while you can make some funny "jokes" about them, the mental stress they provide is in no way worth the humor. I'd rather a world without fart jokes where people never farted; I'd rather never a Judy Blume reference than running out and frantically buying Tampax Pearls.
3. Haircuts: very important but way stressful. Haircutters never do what you tell them to do and you never like it until at least five days after.

At Work #2 I have to use a large butcher knife, to cut blocks of soap. Lately I've been having reoccurring dreams - well, not even dreams, but visions - at night of cutting off my own right point finger on the job.

Ladies and gentlemen, let this be known as "foreshadowing."

Also, ladies and gentlemen, happy Chanuka/Chanukah/Chanukka/Chanukkah/Hanuka/Hanukah/Hanukka/Hanukkah.

Had to record the only good comeback I've ever had:

The other day I was on my way to work at one of my part-time jobs, a skin care store in Cambridge. (Discretion tells me not to list easily Google-able things about your job on blogs anymore.) I ran into A., this standard Harvard archetype - brisk walker, loud talker - I know.

A: So, what are you up to?
MJR: I'm on my way to work.
A: Oh, working in a skin care store, that's really going to help you out in the world of comedy writing. Very Onion-y.
MJR: Well, it does teach me that you have an oily T-zone.

ZING!