BOOBIES

I spent this afternoon with my two dearest, oldest friends. In high school we were each a blonde, green-eyed, youngest-sister-of-two-older-brothers. Now we are still friends, but I am a brunette. This is not the only difference; both of them are new mothers to infant sons, while I am a new mother to infantile male urges. Everything else is exactly the same. That last statement sounds more true in my head but less so when read aloud.

So I'm watching one friend breastfeed today during our lunch-date hangout, and I am trying to act "natural". I am trying because I know that breastfeeding is SO NATURAL and NORMAL and GOOD FOR THE BABY! I know this because it said so in the New Mommies Magazine I perused while sitting on my friend's couch. But knowing something rationally is so different from experiencing it viscerally. Der. I was like a pervert as I sat on the couch trying to both catch a peek AND avoid looking at my friend's HUGE ta-ta's (nipples like slices of salami. Maybe even the circumferance of a Personal Pan Pizza). I mean, the experience was utterly fascinating and totally weird. Like, here is my best friend, my age, so close to me, so like me, except she has a tiny man drinking milk out of her booby. Like: women's bodies make FOOD. What the....?!?! That's not a revelation, really, but it blows my mind! When I have children, my body will like, MAKE FOOD. And not just any part of my body: I'm talking about my TITS! My TITS WILL MAKE FOOD! That is so awesome!

I do look forward to my turn as a milky wellspring, but I have to say I am very much enjoying NOT being a food source right now. I mean, all that breastmilk turns into one thing: ca-ca-doody. And let's face it: dirty doody poopy diapers are kind of a drag -- right now I am prepared to handle only my own.

TWO BLACK HOLES

Finished reading Black Hole by Charles Burns. Left me feeling immensely depressed. I want to say "in a good way," but, uh, maybe there can be no good in feeling as sad as I did after closing the book.

I have said in the past that I like to be devastated by good books (and music, and movies, and, okay, sure -- food), but ugh! maybe I don't! Not that I regret reading it or wouldn't recommend it. I mean, absolutely, Black Hole is amazing, you should read it immediately, it's like The Best, and I say this knowing full well that I am maybe the last poseur to read it. Oops!

A different black hole that I would like to speak of, one that I would NOT recommend under any circumstances, is what I am convinced is the Number 1 harbinger of the Apocalypse: Max Brenner. This "Chocolate By The Bald Man" is a vortex of gluttony so obscene, contrived, and resolutely creepy that it left me, during AND after my single visit there, as empty and hopeless as Charles Burns' graphic novel.

First of all, Max invites you to "watch, smell, taste, and feel my love story." Okay, that is basically the pick-up line of an axe-wielding pedophile. Like, we're all in agreement that Max has decapitated baby heads in his freezer, right? That doesn't make me want dessert, it makes me want to never leave my house.

Tuns out Max's little "love story" is legitimately nuts, because apparently this jagoff wants to create a "new chocolate culture," and what that is, as far as I could decipher, is a very expensive, overly sweet, Dante's Inferno. Seriously, Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here, because you are about to enter not nine circles of hell but a BAZILLION. Yes, a BAZILLION concentric circles of hell. Now, maybe you don't believe in hell, or circles, and, I know, "a bazillion" is not a real number, but it should be because I promise you: I am not exaggerating. Max Brenner's is The Most Hateful And Disgusting Tourist Trap Ever Invented By Man Or Beast Or BaldManBeast.

I invite you not to "watch, smell, taste, and feel [his] love story," but to swear to yourself that you will avoid Max's shops and products forevermore and entertain yourself (ie: have your mind completely blown) with his website. Everything about it is unsane, and I can do it no justice trying to describe it here.

***In case you're wondering, I ordered something called the Chocolate Mess (yes, I was asking for it): It was an "individual" portion (I shared it with a friend), it cost $12.75, and it was served in an ENORMOUS round cake pan, accompanied by two SPATULAS. It was so offensive to look at, let alone eat, that both my friend and I could manage only about two spatula-pats each; we then spent the rest of our time defiling the Chocolate Mess. Which was totally redundant, because defiling anything by Max Brenner is like taking a shit on a turd carpet: what's the dif? Can't see the impact.