I have been wearing a thong for about six months now. I have discovered two things about thongs: 1) they rock, and 2) it REALLY matters what size they are.

With my ol Grannie Pannies it did not really matter what size they were. I have had the sad, extremely wide-n-low pair. The kind that only stays up because you are wearing pants over them. (Disturbing, I know.) Even worse, I have had the kind that sit well on your hips, but that bags off your butt like a full diaper. As long as the elastic was still intact, I was in business.

However, with thongs, you need to have a pair that is exactly the right size. Too big, and they slither down your ass, giving you a different, but still unpleasant, kind of Visible Panty Line (VPL). Too tight, and oh god…let’s just say it’s very unpleasant. Let’s just visualize that ceramics class you took in junior college. Let us reflect back to the first piece of cold, hard clay you purchased. What did you cut it with? A long, sturdy piece of string. Poor Miss Labia.

But now that I have gotten the perfect-sizing thing down, I can’t live without them. Now I have new problems: Visible Panty Line Paranoia (VPLP). Much like those who are addicted to crack will smoke it all and comb through their carpets, looking for that piece they are POSITIVE they dropped, I find myself looking for VPL when I really shouldn’t be. Sometimes I go home and switch to a pair of my old Grannie Pannies, and there I am, checking myself out in the mirror while wearing my pajama pants and with no plans to leave my house until the morning.

I guess what it comes down to is that I feel unsettled unless I have a tiny piece of fabric jammed in my ass crack. Yes, I know how insane that sounds. I cannot stop, and if anyone tries to intervene I will remove my thong and strangle them with it.

Oh, man. One of my favorite rockers got into a car crash. One of his bandmates in in the hospital as well. If you ever liked Beat Happening, The Halo Benders, Dub Narcotic Sound System, C.O.C.O., or any other K band, I hope you’ll consider dropping a little dough. I am sending $15, today. There are also benefit shows coming up here (Seattle) and in D.C.

I have a constant stream of students to tutor in the writing center, which is good, because I’m always busy, but is also bad, because empty appointments were supposed to be the time I could get caught up on abusive emails, eyebrow-tweezing, and Secret Office Masturbation.

I am still trying to figure out what I should and should not do for students. Sometimes I feel like I’m street-slinging and they need their fix, but they’re afraid I’m the fuzz. They listen to my general advice about structure, and content, and the formal academic voice. They nod their heads and jot little notes. But some always want more.

“Go ahead,” one said. “Tear my paper up. Make it bleed with red ink.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t do that. I’m just your fellow student and I’d rather give you advice to help you become a better writer overall.”

Sometimes they lean in and say it quietly: “I think I have a problem…with semi-colons.”

I always have to say something about the fact that we only have fifty minutes, and I need to take a ‘global approach.” They slink away, looking for someone else to do their nitpicky editing for them.

However, if I face many grey areas in my duties with them, I do feel strongly about what they should do for me.

DO:

• Bring the tutor a Diet Vanilla Coke.
• Tell the tutor she looks “completely rad wearing 100 jelly bracelets.”
• Look at Frannie’s paintings that that are taped to the wall and exclaim, “Look! A future de Kooning!”
• Bring the tutor more pictures to hang on her wall. It’s bad enough that the joint doesn’t have windows, man.
• Act pleased to receive a service that comes at no extra charge, other than your exorbitant tuition.
• Tell the tutor how much that one phDude sucks as a professor, because she knows, and delights in hearing it.
• Complain about hot professors who are married. I know, they ARE totally hot. I can’t believe they are married either.
• Tell the tutor you read writing manuals for pleasure, and mean it. Mmm, style guide.
• Bring me some damn chocolate, already. Fran’s.

DO NOT:

• Offer to drop off your paper and come back later. This is not the damn dry cleaners.
• Ask to see a paper the tutor wrote. She is waiting for you to leave, because the tutor’s paper is due in, like, an hour.
• Look sad that the tutor thinks you are a good writer and doesn’t have many suggestions. If you want to get whipped, go see your professor.
• Lick the tutor.
• Pat the tutor.
• Quote Nirvana to the tutor.
• Smell the tutor’s hair.
• Cry in the tutor’s office. It’s a pass-fail paper. If you stopped crying and wrote it, you would probably pass.
• Look at the tutor’s dirty pillows. The answers to your problems with effective transitions are not written on the tutor’s luscious rack.

More horror! Does it ever end? I feel like my life has been one long chain of auspiciousness lately.

My holely problems have come to a climax. Does anyone remember this terrifying zit of doom? Well, I must TMI you and tell you that it never went away. It got to the point that I was checking out different kinds of acne and backne on the Goog to see what was wrong with me. Did you know that there is a special name for ASS ZITS? I can’t remember it right now, though.

Anyway, so this hole in my back just kept filling up, and I would try to ignore it, thinking that I had just been irritating it. Finally a few nights ago, I had had enough.

I peeled back the remnants of a scab that was still on it. I couldn’t believe that a year later it was still sore. I could see something it there, and I am an optimist, so I thought, “Maybe this will be the end this time.”

I tried to pop it, and the white part would rise to the surface, but it wouldn’t come out.

“That’s it,” I said. “It’s time for some minor home surgery.” I took my tweezers, unsterilized, and went at it. I would pull the white part halfway out and it would sink back into its hole, like some kind of horrible bog. It reminded me of those childbirth videos where the baby’s head is sliding in and out and you want to just gouge out your eyes to make it all go away.

Finally, I got a good grip on whatever it was and gave it a righteous yank. It came out and was the size of a small ball bearing. The hole was evident, but did not bleed. I could see to the bottom of it where it looked kind of…black.

It reminded me of a wart I pulled out of my hand when I was 16. Ever since I have pulled it out I have had no problems or pain, and the hole is healing nicely.

Cripes, who gets a wart on their back?

The End.

Update! 3:58 p.m.

I should also add that as a youth, I got immense pleasure out of pulling my sister’s teeth. All signs lead to me needing to start smoking again regularly, so I can have something else to do with my handses.

That’s it. That’s my number assigned for my study by the Human Subjects Division of the university. They want four more puny documents from me, and then I am on my way to being approved for research. If everything goes as planned, I am going to start research on the first week of November.

This evening, my student org. had a mixer for the first- and second-year library students, to give them a chance to get to know each other. It was very successful, and I suspect it will become an annual affair.

What a great day. I shouldn’t have anything to snark about, but when you get a roomful of future librarians and information professionals together, they are really easy targets.

The cat was let out of the bag about my dive into Drumheller Fountain at the end of the Spring Fling. Everywhere I go, there my reputation is.

Gah.

Dear Everyone,

I said I’d never do this, because it goes all against my blas

My closest friend in library school and I are almost never seen apart. We have been called “The Dynamic Duo” and “The Gruesome Twosome.” When I am without her, people say, “Hey, where’s Scratchy?” and when she’s spotted without me, people want to know where Itchy is.

A few months ago, we decided it would be fun to perpetuate a scandal in which people would believe we were in a huge fight. But the (dumb, and boredom-induced) twist to it all would be that when we were together we would act as if everything was normal. When we were apart, the backbiting would commence.

I have been thinking about the perfect set-up for months, sadly. It had to be perfect: a time when there were just a few people around to hear it, and the kinds of people who might tell others, but were credible enough to be believed. It couldn’t be a party, because I didn’t want to talk about it a ton, like you do when you are standing around shooting the breeze at parties. Today we had our first window of opportunity.

Scratchy and I have the same class together in the morning. Today she was out with a rotten head cold, so I took my opportunity to unleash the very devilish and scandalous gossip right before class started.

The professor was making us draw barns (yes, long story, and I know it’s supposed to be grad school), and we were all drawing and chatting.

Archivist: “Where’s Scratchy? Was this class interfering with her mojo?”

Me: “I think she dropped. At least I hope so. She and I had an altercation, and I’d be very surprised if she showed up in here again.