The Legal Spitter

When I get nervous, I tend to sweat a lot. I don't sweat like a fat guy at the end of Thanksgiving dinner, it doesn't pool around my lower lip or hairline, but I do get sweaty pits, palms and behind the knees (which is weird). My palms feel like they've been spit upon.

I can only imagine my children will inherit only my most unfortunate traits. So beside ears that resemble two open car doors and a case of Twizzler arms, I'm certain my kids are gonna be sweaty messes too.

What kind of parent would I be if I didn't conjure some way to turn this sweaty debit into a credit for my heirs?

I'm fully prepared to pressure each of my children into playing sports and eventually into professional sports, specifically baseball. Even if I have a half dozen little girls, they'll be the Jackie Robinson of females. I can't wait to see little Lily or Abigail blowing a 95 mph fastball past whatever steroid lads happen to be ruling the sport in a couple decades.

I've already over-publicized my intention to teach all my children how to properly throw with both arms. There are plenty of switch hitters in baseball, but not a single switch pitcher.

I plan to spawn two or three of them.

But fathering baseball's answer to the Williams' sisters doesn't stop and start with being able to toss a ball with both arms; not in the steroid era, buddy. That's where my genius for turning my debits into credits comes into play.

Sweaty palms, wet as if spit upon.

Before the 1920s, baseball pitchers were allowed to doctor the surface of baseballs by spitting, scuffing or covering parts of the ball in mud. Mechanically, the ball spins, breaks or moves in the direction of whichever side the ball was tampered due to the additional weight applied to the surface. No matter how you throw it, it's going to react in an unconventional fashion once released. This unconventional fashion is part of the reason the mudball, spitball and shineball were banned. In 1920 New York Yankee pitcher Carl Mays (pictured) spitter, which hit Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman in the head, killing him instantly.

That was the beginning of the end of the legal spitter.

The illegal spitter exists even today, but must be thrown in complete secrecy or the pitcher will be immediately thrown out of the game, fined and branded a cheater until society forgets he ever pulled the stunt in the first place.

If my kids make it to the majors, their nerves causing tiny lakes of sweat to form in their palms, no one can prove or blame them for throwing a shineball. There's nothing in the rules that say you can't be nervous and nothing in the rules that say it is illegal to unintentionally tamper with the baseball.

How's that for a pipe dream? Some fathers want their sons or daughters to grow up happy and healthy, I want my sons or daughters to grown up switch pitching and throwing wet heat to home plate.

Eat your heart out Tiger Woods' dad.

A Bird's Eye Interview

I'm good at job interviews. I don't get nervous, even though I probably should. I am inexplicably talented at saying the right thing to whomever needs to hear it and I never walk into an interview thinking I am anything other than fully qualified and ready to start today.

This isn't a story about how bad I am at job interviews, but about how impossible it is for me to cleanly arrive (literally) at those job interviews.

I'm a ragamuffin through and through. No matter how expensive the suit is that I'm wearing, no matter what products I put in my hair or how long I spend shining my shoes, I'm always under the impression that my immaturity is seeping through my pores and the fibers of my clothes.

Turns out, that seeping sensation isn't caused by my immaturity, but by puss, blood and sometimes food.

Stay with me. Let me explain.

I don't believe in curses, but if I did I'd believe that I was doomed to involuntarily signaling to the outside world that I am not a classy human being. I always try to plan accordingly and prevent creating awkward situations for myself, but I can't.

• Just recently, I went to a wedding, shaved the hair growing on the back of my neck, nicked myself and bled all over he inside of my collar. It didn't ruin the nuptials, but several people asked if I was okay.
  
• I went to church with my girlfriend's family a few weeks back. I prepared myself with the most appropriate church clothes I owned. I even Googled proper church etiquette. I was gonna shine at that Sunday's Mass. I didn't plan on going on a bike ride the afternoon before, having a horrific fall and spending the next five days bleeding and pussing out of the entire left side of my body. Band-Aids, tourniquets and gauze did nothing except slide around my pussing joint wound causing my shirts to become drenched in my body's healing waste. At church, my shirt looked like I had a misplaced sweaty armpit stain.
  
• Whenever I get fast food at drive-thrus (especially if it's Taco Bell), I have to order a third more food than I'm hungry for, because some of it is going to fall in my lap. I can't help it, I can't stop it. Just like painting a ceiling: some of it's gonna get on me.

When my morning alarm rang yesterday at noon, believe me when I say my incident's of messiness were among the first thing I thought about. I had no open wounds, I shaved my face with careful precision and I skipped eating before my interview. I was going to beat this curse like the Red Sox beat the Bambino's curse and the Cubs beat the... oh wait, no. No, just the Red Sox.

I was so wrapped up in thinking about all the things that could go wrong, I left myself no room for creatively imagining all the things that have yet to go wrong, but could.

As I was putting the finishing touches on carefully shaving my face, I forgot that my cell phone was lying a few feet away from me on the top of my bathroom's toilet tank. Apparently, I had my ringer set to "stun" because when it suddenly rang, it scared the crap out of me. I was physically startled so bad that I jumped and sliced off a layer of skin from my ear. Blood.

I had to answer the phone, but when I hung up, a streak of crimson trailed from near my eardrum down to my jawbone. I looked like I had used sonar cannon headphones.

Is this what fans look like when they leave a Van Halen concert?

I put a small circular bandage on the unstoppable bleeding cut with the assumption that I'd take it off shortly before my interview, which was about two hours from the point in which I started bleeding. I looked like someone had ripped an earring from my ear. I looked like Jack Nicholson at the end of "Chinatown." But I had taken care of my ear and I had to face what I've come to identify as the most difficult part of the interview process: getting to it.

I feel like any interview I've gone on has been on the windiest day of the week. Some like the wind-blown hair look, I look crazed. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to identify the direction in which the wind is blowing and walk down the street so that that wind does not affect your hair? I'm walking backwards, or tilting my head 90 degrees to the left.

I looked brain damaged and it ended up not even doing any good. I still showed up to my interview (an hour early) with hair as messy as if I had driven a rocket ship with its top down.

The building to which I was supposed to go had a security buzzer at the front door, so if I went in, the company would know I was there and I wouldn't be able to remove my bloody bandage before greeting them. I walked two blocks away to a burger joint intent on using their bathroom to clean my bandages (and all the sweat I had accumulated underneath my gray suit on this 85 degree day). I should have prioritized when I got to burger joint because I ordered food before checking to see if there actually was a bathroom for which to use.

There wasn't.

I paid for my food and sat in a tucked away corner of the restaurant. There wasn't a visible trash can where I was sitting, so when I pulled off my ear bandage, I carefully folded the sticky side onto the bandage side to cover up the dried blood and slipped it into my pocket. Maybe that's gross, but I used bandages are the most awful thing I can think of and I couldn't fathom leaving it where someone else might find it.

Several french fries later, I felt something slightly cool running down my jaw.

Blood. Again.

I'm bleeding just as hard as I was two hours ago. So this is the situation with which I'm faced: do I want to blot my bleeding ear throughout my job interview and explain that my phone scared me and caused me injury of Van Gogh-ian proportions, or I can dig into my pocket, fish out the my folded up bandage and re-apply it to my ear.

I can't believe I went back into my pocket. It was the low point of my day.

I figured at least by re-applying the bandage I might not have to explain myself to my potential bosses and I certainly wouldn't look as if I had blown an eardrum on the walk over.

By this point, the small circular bandage was caked in blood and absent of much of its original stickiness, which caused the bandage to somewhat pop off the contours of my earlobe. There was no convenience store nearby that I could find, otherwise I certainly would have purchased additional bandages. I was also running out of time. With only 20 minutes left, I had to patch something together and get back to the building I was supposed to have my interview. I used the reflection in my sunglasses to position the gauze portion of the bandage over the bleeding nick, which was as pointless as choosing which of the 200 cracks in a leaking dam to stick one's finger in. The bandage had changed from tan to rusted red. It looked like I was putting on a single ruby earring.

Again, this story isn't about whether or not I had a good interview. I'm good in interviews and I was good in this one. I pretended my ear is always bleeding and my potential employer pretended most people he talks to have bloody bandages loosely stuck to their ears. It worked out well and I even landed an immediate second interview with the COO of the organization.

This story is of what I find myself going through any time I try to appear anything more than arrestedly developed.

If nothing else, it was fun to watch my potential employer's demeanor change when he discussed health benefits. I can't swear to it, but while he was discussing the benefits package, he had to have wondered why my ear was bandaged. I should have asked, "what about ear, nose and throat doctors? Especially the ear doctor, what kind of ear coverage is there and exactly how soon can I take advantage of the insurance? 'Cause I'm gonna need to see someone fairly soon."

All this might have been worth it if I had the balls to ask him that.

But I didn't.

So it wasn't.

Get the Wed Out

I went to a friends’ wedding recently. It doesn't matter which friend or the details leading up to the couple's nuptials because I'm 28 and everyone around me is getting married. Fill in your own details, it'll probably be fairly accurate.

I’ve only been to three weddings in my life. The first wedding I attended when I was four and I was the ring bearer. For those of you whom have not yet been a ring bearer at a wedding, I highly recommend it. My understanding of weddings is that you can't get married without rings and therefore, the couple can't get married without you. This adds an entirely new layer of excitement one just can't get from sitting in a church pew.

If you're a woman or over seven-years-old and don't like your chances of becoming a ring bearer, I don't know what to tell you. Michael Jordan never made excuses and neither should you. Play like a champion, make it work.

My first wedding also represented my first tuxedo. It was itty-bitty, which isn't to say the tuxedo was small on me. I was itty-bitty and the tux fit perfectly. I remember little of this experience except for vague and immense feelings of pressure, annoyance that old wrinkled biddies felt it acceptable to pinch my cheeks and that everyone thought it cute to concoct a romantic connection between the flower girl and me.

I never connected with the flower girl because, as I saw it, her only role was to make a mess of the aisle and rip apart flowers that I thought came from the bouquets at the front of the church. Adding those observations with my normal iciness toward all cootie-filled girls at the time, I gave her the cold shoulder most of the night.

That girl turned out to be Kirsten Dunst.

No, I'm just kidding. But wouldn't that be a kick in the ass?

More than two decades later, I’m no better at weddings. Most people don’t think too much about whether they are good at weddings or not. Most people need to know only three things:

1. Is it an open bar?
2. Will there be single, desperate people of similar age and lifestyle at the wedding?
3. Will there be electric or cha-cha sliding? Or both?

I’m a big advocate for cha-cha sliding. I use the term advocate instead of fan because frankly, it seems that the "Cha-Cha Slide" needs defending from general unpopularity.

I think people are turned off by the flurry of clapping that the "Cha-Cha Slide" demands. I cannot properly articulate the amount of guff I get for not only supporting, but requesting and celebrating the existence of the "Cha-Cha Slide." I didn't invent the damn song, nor did I hire any d.j. to play the song, I can't be the only cheerleader for this goddamn thing.

And that is just one example of why I’m no good at weddings.

I'm also a cranky ceremony attendee. Although the mingling and the toasts and the dancing seem celebratory, the mass seems like a preemptive strike against all the fun everyone is preparing to have. When my parents punished me for something they later realized I did not do, they would often let the punishment stand and justify it by assuming there was something I'd done about which they hadn't yet found out. The pastor or priest or reverend, realizing that intercourse between two people is moments away from not only be without sin, but blessed... well, you bet the servants of the Lord are all going to get their last licks in while they can.

I’ve sounded off on churchin' before, so I won’t retrace those steps, but I still think it’s kinda uncool that Catholics slip church processions into wedding ceremonies.

That’s what Sundays and Easters are for.

Sometimes when a television network has the rights to popular sporting events like the Indy 500 or the World Series, that network invites stars from their primetime television lineup to sit (and be seen) in the crowd. The purpose of this is to focus a camera on them as if they just happened to love baseball or Indy cars and perhaps this is a good time to mention that they are also starring on a new sitcom that also happens to be owned by the same network.

What were the odds?

"It’s so nice that this man and this woman are here today to celebrate their promise to love, honor and obey one another and… oh hey, you know what? We just happen to have these wafers and I think we’ve got enough hymn books for everyone, why don’t we just throw ourselves a little Mass while we're at it."

Gotcha bitches.

The wedding Mass itself doesn’t bother me, but it lessens the ceremony. Over the course of one hour, the ceremony lasts like, 10 minutes. Vow, vow. I do, I do. Kiss, kiss. What are we sitting around an extra 50 minutes for?

Now remember, I have very little experience with actual weddings, but my experience with Hollywood weddings is vast. I envision the perfect ceremony consisting of a couple walking down the aisle, saying “I do,” running back up the aisle arm-in-arm to a throng of close friends and relatives tossing rice at the couples' mouth and eyes as they run into a limousine with “just married” written in soap on the rear window. Maybe there are a dozen Pabst Blue Ribbon cans jangling behind the car as it drives off, I don't know. That's not imperative. The couple rides into the sunset, not to return until weeks later after their Honeymoon is over.

There are also caveats to this cliché. Instead of a limo, it is possible to ride off on a public bus, as Benjamin and Elaine did at the end of “The Graduate” or perhaps in a flying ’57 Chevy, as per the end of “Grease.” (I am aware that Danny and Sandy were not married at the end of that film and were probably going to live a heathenish existence of unmarried relations like the street rats they were, but the end of that movie was so magical I dare not think about the rest.)

Whatever happened to those weddings? When did receptions start happening? Hollywood always has the wedded couple sprint out of the church into a limo or convertible not to be heard from for weeks. I like that. There' something very Howard Hughes-ish about that. I wanna have the Amelia Earhart of wedding ceremonies, where people don't hear from me for years afterward. Give 'em something Claude Rains would be proud of.

I want my wedding guests to feel about me the way I feel midway through summer when I wonder whatever happened to my favorite shows and can't remember where the plots left off or even if the show got renewed for another season.

I guess I also want to be the "Heroes" and "Lost" of honeymoons.

I should make it clear that I don't hate marriage, happy dance parties or God. I'm just not all that jazzed about pageantry scornful of anyone with a penis. Let's face it, weddings have nothing to do with the groom. They're just as ornamental as the groom's plastic alter ego standing atop the wedding cake. That's all I ever think about sitting in the church moments before the ceremonies began. Everything is all atwitter behind the big oak doors at the back of the church while the groom stands waiting at the alter in front of two sets of friends and family like the court jester.

I've seen too many grooms standing around as if they were informed they were getting married moments before the start of Pachelbel's "Canon in D." They all had the same look on their faces that I had on pop quiz days during classes in which I had yet to start reading the assigned book.

While the bride's entourage, harum and posse all flutter around like ducks trying to dismantle a bomb, what does the groom do? Make fart noises with his groomsmen? Staple the corners of the red velvet carpet down which his future wife is moments away from walking? Try to remember the vows that his fiance wrote for him to say? Poor bastard.

Weddings for the groom are a crock, which I can only imagine is why the bride's family foots the bill for them. Whenever I get married (and according to other people my age, this is something I should have done five years ago), I'm going to strongly consider demanding a pay-for-play clause to the ceremony. I'll pay for the rehearsal dinner, the clergy and officiant's fees, limousine services and honeymoon services only if I can choose the music (or the d.j. or band that will itself choose the music) and the centerpieces.

That's it. Give me the tunes and the dinner's centerpieces and I'll pay for everything for which I'm supposed to pay. If I get shooed away from all wedding decisions, then the women involved in the planning are on their own in paying for it. Don't say I never warned you.

People don't realize how important the centerpieces are, but they will when they see what I've got planned.

But that's another story for another day.

Again, it's not marriage, but pageantry with which I have the problem. I do't want to be stranded at the front of the church yammering with the priest that my fiance's mother most likely chose. Marrying couples should stroll down the aisle together, right behind the flower girl shredding and littering flower petals in front of us. Don't hold Mass with a ceremony hidden in the middle. It's not like we don't notice that we're no longer talking about the man and woman trying to become ajoined in holy matrimony. For each Psalm mentioned in place of a wedding vow, I swear I'll play the "Cha-Cha Slide" one additional time.

Test me. I dare you.

Kelly Ripken Jr.

I was in a discussion recently about the Baltimore Orioles' Hall of Fame third baseman Cal Ripken Jr. Actually, this is inaccurate, we were discussing Ripken Jr's wife, Kelly.

We wondered what the heading on all her mail looks like. Cal Ripken Jr's father was also named Cal (hence the Jr.) and when Kelly Greer married the Hall of Fame junior Ripken, she took his last name.

But what exactly constitutes a last name? Is she Kelly Ripken Jr. or plain ol' Kelly Ripken? She's undoubtedly been referred to as Mrs. Cal Ripken Jr., there's no confusion there. However, if Kelly Ripken leaves off the junior from her name, doesn't that suggest that she married Cal Ripken Jr's father? That being said, if she goes by Kelly Ripken Jr., it suggests her mother was both a Kelly and a Ripken, neither of which are true. If Kelly Ripken was a junior she would keep company with other women likely using the junior suffix to stand on the shoulders of their mothers' notoriety. Fashionista Carolina Adriana Herrera Jr., poet Winifred Sackville Stoner Jr. and Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Jr. all have different middle names from their mothers but were known as juniors. I know them as coattail riders.

But Cal Ripken Jr's mother isn't named Kelly and even if she was named Kelly, Cal's wife wasn't named after Cal's mother.

The mother-daughter duo on the WB's "Gilmore Girls" got around the situation by skipping the suffix and instituting a nickname. The daughter, although technically named after her mother Lorelai, simply became Rory.

So what should a woman call herself when she's married to a junior or senior or a third?

Wikipedia says :

A wife who uses the title Mrs. would also use her husband's full name, including the suffix. In less formal situations, the suffix may be omitted. Hence: Mrs. Lon Chaney Jr. on a wedding invitation, but Mrs. L. Chaney or simply Shannon Chaney for a friendly note. Widows are entitled to retain their late husband's full names and suffixes but divorcees may not continue to style themselves with a former husband's full name and suffix, even if they retain the surname.

I concede that Wikipedia isn't the best source for anything, but it is also the only source that has something to say about everything. Wikipedia is the overly talkative drunken uncle who never stops telling stories. Not necessarily reliable, but oft quoted.

In summary, Kelly Ripken leaves off the junior from her name and Cal Sr. has had a tense relationship with his son ever since.

This was all a roundabout way of half-assing a grammar lesson instead of an entertaining blog, but there' something vaguely lesbian-ish about woman with suffixes attached to their names and I wanted to do my part to cease any excess use.

Some conserve gas, I conserve gay suffixes.

The Attractives and Everyone Else

If given the choice, would you prefer to be well loved and respected by only members of the opposite sex that you find physically attractive, but loathed by everyone else including your current friends, family and co-workers (unless you find any of them attractive), or would you rather be loved by a great many people around the globe... just no one you'd ever want to sleep with?

I've asked this question to a growing number of people and I'm getting nearly the same reaction each time. Each person I ask says something like, "Ooo, that's a goooood question." They hem and haw and ask for clarifications that don't matter. After a few moments each person I ask decide they would rather be loved and respected by everyone else on Earth except for attractive people.

Many people, it seems, believe that caring only if attractive people love and respect them is the shallow answer and taking the favor of "everyone else" is the virtuous answer.

Is taking "the field" really all that virtuous or just superficially virtuous? Why would anyone choose to be loved by everyone except the attractives? There are numbers in it, of course. Lots more people will like you. I have a friend that used to throw parties and invite as many people as he knew. When they all arrived, he ended up ignoring most of them opting instead to be with the small group that he really wanted to be with. My friend nevertheless considered these parties a success despite his ignoring nearly everyone based on their having showed up in the first place.

Quantity over quality.

When has choosing quantity over quality ever been seen a virtuous. Gluttonous perhaps, but not virtuous. Most of us would love to be loved by only those we found attractive, but we also know that we're excluding a large percentage of people by choosing that way. If I choose "the field," everyone else except attractive people, I imagine intelligence, happiness, simplicity, safety and familiarity. I imagine my family, great thinkers, fatsos with dynamite personalities and all my ugly friends who make me laugh. I am not, however, thinking more specifically than that. When I think of attractive people that would suddenly love me, my girlfriend, that one coffee shop barista and Mandy Moore all snap into focus, I grab onto specific people. We know what we're getting with the attractives, but not with the other. Is that virtuous?

Does virtue lie in the way we see things or in the number of things we see?

Celebrity Pee

My understanding of human urine is that the clearer it is, the better. If the pee is a vivid Mountain Dew-ish color, the urinator is dehydrated. I can't help but feel cheated when my urine is clear though. When I eject a nuclear gold fluid from my body, it seems appropriate that it was supposed to leave my body. When clear pee leaves my body, it seems like simple water. Our bodies are 60 percent water, why bother peeing that stuff?

I talked to my sister about celebrities and the desire of some people to keep a piece of celebrities for themselves. I don't have this desire, but my sister does. I'm uninterested in meeting most celebrities. The odds are just too string that they're nothing like their public persona and their public persona is the only reason I like them in the first place. Why mess with that?

My sister disagreed. She said she would take anything if it came from one of her favorite celebrities. An old tee-shirt. An inkless pen. Chewed gum.

My sister's favorite celebrity is U2 frontman Bono. I asked her if she would take a Dixiecup filled with Bono's pee. She accepted this hypothetical with an alarming lack of questions, asking only if it were a regular store-bought Dixiecup and how high the pee would be filled within that cup, which I found funnier than anything I could come up with. I decided that Bono's pee would be in a regulation tiny paper cup filled to the brim. Additionally, it would be verifiably Bono's urine (no funny business with ripoff artists eating a bunch of carrots, peeing into cups and passing it off as Bono's pee, Tom Hanks' pee or Hillary Clinton's pee).

Unbelievably, she said she would totally take the Dixiecup.

Now look, I understand this isn't discovering cold fusion, but sociologically speaking it's kind of fascinating. My sister grew up almost exactly as I did and yet feels completely different about the whole human excrement topic as I do.

Axl (not Axel) Rose's sweaty concert shirt gets encased in glass. Mickey Mantle's glove gets a place of honor on the mantelpiece and the autographed photo of Spiro Agnew gets framed. What happens to a Dixie full of celebrity pee? Admittedly, she hadn't thought that far ahead. We both agreed that a small paper cup is no way to display a collectible from a celebrity as famous as Bono. Which leads to the awkward acknowledgment that at some point, the pee must be transferred to a more showcase appropriate artifact.

Spilling will almost certainly occur in this transfer, which changes this hypothetical to whether or not you would accept 3/4 of Bono's pee in a cup and 1/4 of Bono's pee splashed on your forearm?

And what would the introduction of the pee sound like to people seeing it for the first time? Would my sister really say something like, "This was my first place trophy for square dance in high school, this is my blue ribbon for my doggie treat recipes and this is a mason jar full of Bono's urine."

When I brought up my concerns to my sister, she didn't answer and, in fact, refused to acknowledge that I was even talking to her.

I guess she realized I was going to continue the conversation with or without her. I can't be sure what my sister was thinking because she moves in mysterious ways. Perhaps she knew that none of her explanations were good enough and that I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

I can't think of any more Joshua Tree references so I'll stop now.

Road Rash

When I was 14-years-old I biked home from high school. I only had an hour for lunch so when I biked home, I biked quickly. Each day I'd try to improve on the previous day's time. Tighten a turn here, cut through a parking lot there.

One day in November 1994 I was biking down the busiest street on my route home. Usually I cut across this street, but on this day I biked alongside it because traffic was too heavy to cross and I'd have to stop pedaling. Three cars were coming up behind me. My plan was to swing across the street after the third car and cruise home. The first and second cars passed me, then the third and then I veered to cut across traffic.

WHAM!

Actually that's inaccurate. Before I heard the cold limp thud of my bones hitting the fiberglass frame of the car, there was the familiar screech of locked rubber tires burning into the asphalt.

SCREECH! then WHAM!

After that my memories turn into photograph slides of my body flipping over the hood onto the roof and back onto the hood before being hurled in front of the car. My memories of this are in strobe. Something then nothing then something then nothing. My wrist slamming ontp the front grill. My back against the windshield glass. My foot bouncing off the passenger side mirror.

Something then nothing.

I got up unaware of my pain and unable to escape my embarrassment. Whatever doesn't kill me mortifies me with embarrassment. Whatever doesn't kill me usually provides at least one moment worth exaggerating through my retelling to friends.

What really happened:
After peeling myself off the blacktop and gathering my contorted bike, the lady that hit me exited her car and started bitching at me about what a reckless punk I was, which caused me to limp-step myself home as quickly as possible. I basically ran home from fear and embarrassment.

What I tell people happened:
I stoically lifted my bicycle while ignoring the careless and crazed woman who hit me. I willed my broken body home.

The ending to this story remains the same: as I ambled my busted bike home I passed a couple playing tennis near the scene of the SCREECH and WHAM. As they saw me pass, one of them asked, "Hey did someone just get hit by a car?"

Thinking back they had to know that someone had because that's not the kind of thing you casually ask someone out of the blue.

"Hey do you have genital warts?"
"Hey did your company recently file for bankruptcy?"
"Hey are those my pants you're wearing?"

All those questions fall into the non-casual category. So they asked me if someone just got hit by a car and in a moment of brief awesomeness and without looking at either tennis players, I replied, "Yeah. I did."

I recalled this story sitting bent forward bleeding in a ditch of a gravel road thankful that I'm not dead.

Aside from the normal reasons to be thankful for not being dead, I was immensely happy that I didn't happen to die in this Iowa dandelion ditch in which I found myself reminiscing. That would kill my mom. All her life, if there were two things she most feared about me, it was that I'd be dead in a ditch somewhere and that I'd be far from home when it happened.

Dying in an Iowa ditch would totally validate my mother's greatest fears. What son ever wants to do that?

I hadn't been on a bike in almost 13 years until last Saturday when my girlfriend Emily suggested we pass the time by biking to a popular ice cream shop. It sounded innocent enough.

Little kids rid bikes. Ice cream is soft and enjoyable for everyone. Council Bluffs, Iowa doesn't host the same kind of manic traffic that Chicago or even Omaha does. Why wouldn't a fella? What could go wrong?

The adages that once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget and if you fall off your bike, it is best to climb back on and continue pedaling are both misleading. It's true that one never forgets how to ride a bike, but the adage should also stipulate that a refresher course will most likely be required if you haven't ridden a bike in over a decade. A short few loop-the-loops around the driveway before careening downhill at 40 mph.

The second adage about climbing back on the bike and start pedaling... well, I did that and there should be an asterisk noting that before getting back on one's bike, one should pick out all the gravel chunks from one's hip, spray iodine on the road rash and let the blood coagulate a bit before continuing on one's bike ride.

I thought my will, stubbornness and desire for an Oreo shake would propel me up the remaining hills and through the swelling pain my ripped hips and bloody joints had caused. Even more than my desire for ice cream was my desire not to appear weak or foolish in front of my girlfriend's parents.

Last year I was unable to escape this fate after I went golfing with her father and brother. I shot almost every ball into the sand traps or off the goddamned course and spent the entire afternoon wanting to crawl into the 18th hole and never come out. This year, I had golfed well. I felt I had escaped another weekend of shame. I should have known that riding a contraption I haven't been on in over a decade was a table setting for a bad meal.

Emily's mom offered us both helmets, which we declined because, y'know... why would we need helmets? We spent 10 minutes changing clothes, adjusting seats, adding air to tires, mapping our route and convincing both Mr. and Mrs. Girlfriend's Parents that we'd be fine. If you spend more than 20 seconds convincing someone that you'll be fine, I've found that you probably won't be.

We set out, starting atop the windy sub-divided hill and it only got windier as we descended it going 20 mph, then 25, then 30.

I wondered whether I should brake and whether my right-hand brake was for the front or rear tire. I wondered if I did brake, should I pull both brakes simultaneously? Should I pull them hard or ease on them?

35 mph.

I wondered if I created the sudden growing wind or if I was caught up in Mother Nature. I zipped past a road sign that said the speed limit was 35 mph and wondered if bicycles were held accountable to this too. Don't bikes always run red lights and stop signs? Yes was the answer. They do, but was it legal for all those bikes to do that? I wondered if the gravel was going to make it hard to steer.

40 mph.

I wondered how my girlfriend was doing. She was in front of me and seemed to be gliding along with ease, probably using her brakes. More wind and an oncoming car. Danger followed by panic. Gravel. Wind. Speed. The car passed me, then I passed a traffic sign indicating a winding road ahead. The oncoming car created a tailwind that added to the cyclone powering my bike down the hill. I started losing my balance. I corrected it. Shit. I've over corrected it. I tried to straighten out. Faster downhill. Panic. More overcorrection. Faster downhill.

I'm done. I'm airborne and separated from my bike. Flashback to 1994. My back against the windshield glass.

I'm already out of control by the time I decide to brace for impact. I hear the bike skid on the ground and I know what's next.

Flashback 14 years. WHAM!

What's next is generally a series of curse words; a shorthand of my agony. It's clear before I stop rolling that I'm hurt, but I won't know how hurt until I, at least, stop rolling.

They give you ice cream for missing tonsils and stubbed toes. What do they give for this and how ironic would it be if it too were ice cream?

What I should have thought was, "Oh God, am I okay?" What I actually thought was, "Oh God, I hope no one saw me beef it just now." I would really rather not show up on YouTube. When Emily stopped her bike, turned around and found me, I was huddled in a ditch thinking about getting hit by a car as a high school freshman.

I felt like Ralphie at the end of "A Christmas Story." Everyone warned him that he'd shoot his eye out if he got that bb gun. He got the gun and within minutes shot the glasses off his head. I was warned to wear a helmet and to take it easy. I ignored all that and now I feel as if someone lit my back on fire.

Emily wanted to go back. We had only been riding a few minutes. I had visions of her parents standing in the same spots they were standing when we left. Her mom still with the hose. Her dad still with pruning sheers. Everything the same, except for me. I'd return much worse than I'd left. The only reason we'd be back so soon is if something bad had happened. No ice cream. I couldn't go back to the house without having had ice cream.

It would be like last year's golf outing. I cannot present myself as a lame or a liability. I'm not weak or fragile or in need of special consideration and I'll be damned if Emily's parents are going to see me that way. I'm inpatient and therefore occasionally careless, but I didn't really want them seeing me like that either.

I replaced the chain on my bike, used toilet paper that Emily retrieved from a nearby port-o-potty to sop up the blood bubbling from my elbow and employed that second adage about climbing back on the bike. We were getting that damn ice cream. This was not a wise decision, but it is a decision I would probabaly make again in a similar situation. When we reached the shop, a few patrons looked at me as if I had traveled underground to get there. It must have been a humorous sight to see some dude cut and bloody sipping Oreo shake through a straw like nothing was wrong.

One has to have priorities. Survival is my first priority. Tending wounds is a distant third after saving face and perhaps even getting ice cream.

The White Knuckle Express, pt. 3

Here are some things you might not know about the underpasses connecting the Bronx to Long Island.

1. They're ancient and hang low enough that trucks and vans are not allowed under them.
2. If these vehicles ignore, miss or misinterpret the warning signs declaring it unsafe for them to drive underneath these thousand tiny underpasses, there is really no way to escape and correct the error.
3. The displayed clearance heights of these bridges range from 11'10" to 5'11," which is why it isn't a good idea to drive a 12 foot truck like ours under any of them.
4. Holding your breath, closing your eyes and praying to some merciful being in the heavens moments before passing underneath each bridge apparently is the natural reaction of U-Haul drivers in this situation. Additionally, it seems to work because our truck's roof never touched any bridges.
5. The clearance signs on each underpass are wildly inaccurate.

Upon our arrival at Chris' beachy pad, I realized that Chris never planned where anything we were moving might possibly fit in his new place. He had more furniture than room to store it and some of the stuff I was straining my back to haul up his stairs wasn't long for the dumpster.

Those old Long Island seaside doors and stairways were built for stocky sea captains and, at best, a 6 foot marlin.

It was going to take some creativity to get some of Chris' stuff into his place. I lifted Chris' queen sized box spring onto my shoulders and then onto a nearby railing. Chris stood over his second floor balcony, grabbed the thick plastic covering encasing the box spring and held it firmly. Once Chris secured a strong hold on the spring, I let go, sprinted upstairs and onto his deck, hopping the balcony, leaning off the roof and assisting Chris as we both yanked the spring over the balcony railing and onto his deck.

It was our 6 foot marlin.

Not bad for two dudes with mild cases of vertigo.

====================================================================

White Knuckle sidebar #3

If you find yourself in a new town chances are you're going to eventually going to take a taxicab somewhere.

Nothing wrong with this, of course, but if you take a cab try not to act like a rube.

The best way to do this is to have your destination address memorized. If you climb into a cab with a crumpled scrap of paper with what may or may not be Worchester, Winchester, or Wisenheimer Boulevards scrawled on it, your chances of getting ripped off double if not triple.

Another manner in which your chances of getting ripped off increase is if you have no idea your destination is in relation to where you are currently. Especially in Long Island, if you climb into a cab, stutter your way to explaining where you're trying to go and that place is less than six blocks away, the driver won't even turn on the meter.

"Ten bucks," he'll say. No matter what. Your trip will cost ten bucks. Not $10.35. Not $9.80. Ten bucks.

And you'll tip him. Even though your mind is telling you that you just took a $2.45 cab ride, you'll hand the cabbie ten bucks and tip because you know he'll make you feel like the stupid asshole you are if you don't.

=====================================================================================

Eventually our triathlon was over. Moving out, traveling and moving in someplace else took no less than 31 hours hours and I was exhausted. Chris and I both slept like the dead that night, slept in our bruises and stink and sweat; slept in whatever a shower couldn't rid our bodies of.

Moving stinks. I stink. My socks stink and only now standing in JFK International Airport do I realize just how much it all stinks.

The White Knuckle Express, pt. 2

At one point early in the trip I told Chris that we'd miss our U-Haul van once we dropped it off somewhere along the eastern seaboard. Once there, we found that I was wrong. We were ecstatic at the prospect of giving that van back. The beast had a 50 gallon tank and got about six miles to the gallon.

The Toyota Prius gets 47 miles to the gallon. Our van got six.

That's three $200 fill-ups from Oak Park to Long Island.

As if that weren't enough, towing Chris' car and his embarrassment of possessions added enough weight that the van's wheel well emanated a burning smell. Not a fire burn, but a grinding tire-melting burn. The kind of burn that we might've been able to prevent if we had any idea what we were doing.

It doesn't seem smart to let absolutely anyone drive vehicles this cumbersome. It seems inevitable that something would start burning.

Despite the smell, we continued on our trip. I can't always whack the side of a television to straighten out the picture. I can't always click the refresh button to make the Internet speed up and I can't always ignore obvious deficiencies with my car until the trip is over.

These things can't happen all the time, but they can happen every once in a while and it's important to acknowledge that this was one of those times. The burning smell is U-Haul's problem now.

=====================================================================================

White Knuckle sidebar #2

Fill-up stations are ripping a page from the coffee house handbook.

Whereas once an average joe could buy a cup of joe in small, medium or large varieties, places like Starbucks now choose to confuse buyers into getting sizes they don't want or understand. Normal society dictates that small is the tiniest size one can have. Yuppie-hipster society dictates that that same size is now known as tall.

Small, you'll note, both rhymes with and is antonymous of tall. Check most Dr. Seuss books to clarify the differences.

This is not new territory. People have been bitching about the English translation of venti long before I added to the throng. It's not the coffee shops I'm upset with, but the current shell game gas stations (like Shell Oil ironically enough) are playing with consumers. When I learned to count from that "Sesame Street" vampire, I was taught that the number one came first, followed by two, three and so-on. Gas station owners don't follow these patterns.

Unleaded gasoline is no longer the simplest most basic petrol. There's unleaded plus, premium unleaded, maximum unleaded, kickass unleaded, diet unleaded, unleaded-palooza and ethanoltini. These adjectives all describe the relative concentration of ethanol in each gas, but not their relative price.

Most pumps hold the cheapest gas on the left, most expensive gas on the right. Every once in a while, there's some turd gas station owner that organizes the various grades of gasoline like an Olympic podium.

Silver, gold, bronze.
Unleaded, premium, maximum.

Premium sounds better than unleaded doesn't it? Premium is like unleaded only slightly better. Maybe it's mixed with fairy dust and unicorn giggles, who knows? It stands to reason that the more impressive the adjective in front of unleaded, the more it's going to cost. Isn't it illegal to use common sense against the consumer? Then there's maximum. Maximum should be better than premium, right? Maximum is at the ceiling of quality, otherwise it wouldn't be called maximum unleaded. It'd be called modicum unleaded.

One, two, three turns into two, one, three. Small turns into tall. Regular turns into unleaded turns into premium.

And I turn into one angry dupe standing at the pump.

=====================================================================================

Nine hundred miles on the road and I realize it's much easier to drive the White Knuckle Express than to sit shotgun in it. The White Knuckle Express got it's name because even though Chris and I would be inwardly relaxed, our concentration while maneuvering the gigantic van through interstate after interstate was so intense that our hands would hurt from gripping the wheel. The driver's life hangs upon the balance of his or her own concentration. You sleep, you die.

Sitting shotgun at four in the morning leaves little for the tired mind to think about other than falling asleep. Before the trip starts, it's understood that the person sitting shotgunner controls the music and entertains the driver so that the driver can do his job, which is both to get closer to the final destination and not kill anyone in the process.

As a driver, I did my job. As a shotgunner, I'm afraid I left much to be desired. I spilled Mountain Dew in the door panel, which left a sloshing wave of yellow liquid until eastern Pennsylvania. I also continuously scuffed my head against the headrest of my seat, nodding off and straightening up. In my head I pictured Chris and me singing church songs all the way to Long Island. In reality I spent 300 miles in a transient state of conciousness praying the van would break down just so we'd have time to sleep in peace.

We were bright eyed and bushy bottomed by the time we arrived in Queens. It was about 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, nearly 16 hours after leaving Oak Park and the fun was really beginning.

By fun, I don't mean fun. I mostly mean tears and toil.


to be concluded...

The White Knuckle Express, pt. 1

I never think about my socks. Socks are just something I wear to stop my feet from getting funky. I don't even understand how socks work exactly. How do they protect one's feet from overheating inside a shoe? Isn't that like wearing a cotton blanket to keep from becoming too warm underneath a wool blanket? Really the only time I ever think about my socks is when they are somehow a hindrance to me. If I'm slogging through a rainforest in swamp boots developing trench-toe, my mind might focus on the socks chafing my skin. When I'm not running through jungles, the only other time I find myself thinking about my socks is right after I've removed my shoes and placed them in the metal detector bin at the airport. I'm never more aware of my own foot funk or sock grubbiness than the moment before they are about to be exposed. Socks are rarely seen or considered, which is why they are often the dirtiest thing we wear .

If smokers had to wear their lungs around their necks every once in a while, many fewer people would smoke.

I'm in line at JFK International Airport in New York and I haven't changed my socks in three days. With the past 48 hours I've just had, I can comfortably admit that a change of socks never entered my mind. All else considered, if moving my old friend Chris and everything he owns 900 miles from Oak Park, Ill. to Long Island, NY. only yielded stinky socks and a few sidelong glances from fellow travelers already disenchanted with the airplane travel process, so be it.

I consider myself lucky.

=====================================================================================
White Knuckle Sidebar #1

If I ever work in an airport and am in a position to make some sort of missing passenger address over the intercom I'll make sure to call out each passenger's name followed by one false famous name just to whip the terminals into a frenzy. Sure some people wouldn't hear, misunderstand or simply disbelieve that Ashton Kutcher, Gene Hackman or Goldie Hawn were actually late for their JetBlue flight, but not everybody.

How great would it be to see a few dozen rubberneckers shuffle their way to some terminal to failingly glimpse John Grisham or Andrew Dice Clay? =====================================================================================

Everything began at exactly 12:10 p.m. on Saturday. After Chris and I drove to Villa Park to pick up a U-Haul truck nearly 33 percent larger than the one he ordered, we drove back and started muscling the most taxing items down three flights of stairs.

Have you ever tried to move a 26 foot truck in reverse? It's hard and made harder by attaching a 12 foot car tow to the back of it. That's 38 feet of dented curbs, mangled overhanging trees, clipped rear view mirrors and pissed off passengers. Generally speaking , the trip wasn't treacherous as one might imagine when driving a behemoth like that. Ninety-eight percent of the trip consisted of staying in a straight line. Driving the mammoth U-Haul did mean I'd have to put a hold on my normal "expressway slalom," but I was doing Chris a favor.

The trip wasn't about me.

After all my alpha male buddies finished haggling over the truly wisest way to pack an ungodly amount of shit into the truck, spent four hours longer than we should have packing all that stuff, we were finally ready to move the stuff across country. Nine hours and 20 minutes after we started the packing process, we rolled out.

The 900 mile trip from Oak Park, Ill. to Long Beach, NY. was almost exactly what you'd expect from such a venture, unless what you'd expect is that the trip zoomed by quickly and offered immense amounts of sexiness throughout.

If that's the case then this exhaustingly demanding trek about the White Knuckle Express is actually nothing like you'd expect.

To be continued...

Fame Vacinity

I'm always curious how I would react if I ever met a genuine celebrity. I'm not talking about the local weatherman or the guy in the used car commercials on Saturday afternoon; I'm talkin' Clooney.

Madonna.

Kutcher.

Legitimate mega-wattage.

But what would happen if you met them? Would you have a screaming fit like the 14-year-olds in Giants Stadium when the Beatles invaded America? Or would you pretend you had no idea who they were like my mom has done everytime a Cubs, Bulls or Bears player walked in her hospital?

There was a video on YouTube capturing a recent Springsteen concert in Europe. Someone in the crowd handed Bruce a six-pack of beers. Bruce took them and passed them to other audience members... but not before sipping a few.

If a legitimate celebrity handed you something like an open beer can with a sip missing, what would you do with it?

Could you just discard it on the ground like you would if some fat drunk (whom we'll call Grandma for the sake of this blog) handed it to you? Would you spread your hand over the opening and do your best to preserve the beer whilst continuing to rock out?

Would you finish the beer?

Things get complicated the closer one gets to fame.

Girls! Girls! Girls! (2009)

Since the summer of 1998, my (guy) friends and I have ranked just about anything we can think might fall in some sort of debatable chronology. It was only a matter of time before we sunk so low as to rank our hottest celebrities. I first published this tomfoolery three years ago, feel free to gander at how little I've matured since then.

Lauren Graham, 42, a perennial favorite from 2002-2008, ranked 17th last year and 10th in 2007, has officially been retired until a "Gilmore Girls" movie is released or she makes her way onto one of those "Traveling Pants" movies.

Others dropped off the list were Michelle Rodriguez (20), Ellen Pompeo (19), Jennifer Connelly (18), Emilie de Ravin (16), Jessica Rose (13) and Kate Hudson (11) This year brings five rookies making their way onto the Top 10 board.

God, I hope I'm not still doing this when I'm 50 years old.

Top 20 Girls My Girlfriend Had Better Watch Out For 2009
Parenthesis indicate last year's rank.

20.
19. Leryn Franco, 27 (-)
18. Christina Aguilera, 30 (5)
17. Hayden Panettierre, 20 (9)
16. Evangeline Lilly, 30 (7)
15. Christina Hendricks, 34 (-)
14. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, 25 (14)
13. Amanda Bynes, 23 (12)
12. Mary Louise Parker, 45 (14)
11. Catherine Zeta-Jones, 40 (5)











10. Emmanuelle Chiriqui, 31 (4) 9. Zooey Deschanel, 29 (-)











8. Mila Kunis, 26 (10) 7. Alexis Bledel, 28 (8)













6. Julianne Hough, 21 (3) 5. Rashida Jones, 33 (-)

















4. Maggie Gyllenhaal, 32 (1) 3. Gina Carano, 27 (-)





























2. Minka Kelly, 29 (-)

























1. Mandy Moore, 25 (2)






I've never included a professional model on any of these lists. I've thought a lot about that while compiling this thing (and masturbating). In the past I've justified not doing it because of my perception that being a model is all models are capable of doing and that beauty cannot be the only reason I would place one woman above thousands of others. I'd like to think of myself as better than that, above that, even on a juvenile list such as this. Perhaps by forcing this list to be more about beauty, I could believe it wasn't as juvenile. Making this list about perceived intelligence and ability coinciding with beauty served the same purpose as putting articles in between pictures of naked Playmates.

It's fucking culture, man.

Two things are true for this list: 1) I find Miranda Kerr and Adriana Lima far, far more attractive than most of the girls that ended up in my top 10. 2) I never once considered putting Miranda Kerr or Adriana Lima on this list.

And that's supremely confusing to me because I don't have any real reason why I never considered it. Perhaps this list is just as much about perceived intelligence as it is about attractiveness. And even if our actresses or musicians don't play smart roles or sing intelligent songs, maybe the ability to have learned how to sing or act is enough to convince me that the hampster is on the wheel. That would explain why I left Kim Kardashian off. As attractive as I find her, I cannot get around how vapid she appears to be.

But then there's Heidi Klum. She's making more money from the two television shows she's created (and from the Vicoria's Secret specials that she produces) than from any modeling gig she's ever done. If nothing else, Klum has proven she's got tons of business savvy. I certainly don't think she's as vapid as Kardashian. But Klum ain't making this list either. And I think that's based on my perception that although she's friggin' gorgeous and intelligent, she's also not very kind. And I'm just not into that.

If I'm going to canonize people, I'd like to believe they're not bitches. For as much (and as long) as I liked Catherine Zeta-Jones, this was always her one drawback: she seems like a bitch - mostly because she's made a career playing bitches.

And I guess that's the one flaw about these lists - I don't put enough weight on beauty. I weigh their work and my perception of what they brought to a song or a role. Instead of enjoying Christina Hendricks' monster, monster bombs on "Mad Men" I consider that I haven't seen her do anything else other than that role. I find myself turned-off by my perception that Rihanna is a young, messed up kid instead of just appreciating "Disturbia" and the fact that she looks like this.

Jennifer Garner's proximity to Ben Affleck? Dealbreaker. Abby Elliott's proximity to Chris Elliott? Dealbreaker.

So here are the girls from 2009 and the entire preceding decade with whom I most wanted to do a combination of fucking and socializing.

Top 10 Girls of 2009


10. Emilie de Ravin, 28 (not ranked) She dropped off the list last year. Her return in '10 is the equivalent of a doctor desperately trying to resuscitate a body that has already been pronounced dead. It's probably a fruitless venture, but why not give it one last go-'round. And if the final season of a super-popular network television show and a rom'-dram' with the world's most popular "it" actor can't get her firmly into the public eye than nothing will.


09. Emma Stone, 21 (not ranked) I'm guessing that Demi Moore and Kathleen Turner were young at one point. But since I can't prove it, I can really only use Emma Stone as an example of how terribly sexy a smokey voice is on someone so young. she also fills my overbite quota.







08. Alexis Bledel, 28 (7th) In a perfect world, Bledel and Zooey Deschanel would have a staring contest and I would be in charge of the Visine.






07. Rashida Jones, 33 (5th) A lot of the girls on this list went through a bangs phase back in the brief window of a few years ago when bangs were cool again. What I'm trying to say is, a lot of my favorite girls have big foreheads. So - surprise - I guess I'm a forehead and butt guy.





06. Julianne Hough, 21 (6th) I want to spend some time in Utah and find out what goes on there that makes the women so beautiful. Has anyone else noticed this? I've met five Mormon girls in my lifetime (that I know of) and four of them were, at the very least, really cute. I didn't have anything to say to them. It wasn't that I was too nervous to speak, it was that I had spent five minutes hearing them speak and realized I had no interest in talking to them. Nevertheless, we've much to learn from the Mormons about breeding.



05. Gina Carano, 27 (not ranked) I went through a phase of really being into Pink (or P!nk) a few years back. I mostly liked her music, but also mostly thought she was hot. I never felt comfortable thinking this because, by and large, she wasn't hot. She was tough. A little crass. Seemed independent enough. Maybe I just like the idea of being around a woman I'm not convinced I can make cry if I really want to.





04. Emmanuelle Chriqui, 32 (10th) It really says something about this Israeli-Canadian that on a show designed to cram dozens of hot faceless naked women into frame each week, she's the one to whom "Entourage" chose to give lines.







03. Mandy Moore, 25 (1st) I don't like her music, but I really want to. I don't like her movies, but I've seen every one hoping that I will. I'm not even a huge Ryan Adams fan, but I guess "Beautiful Sorta" was good enough that I can let it go. Mandy Moore is easily the most frustrating beautiful girl on my list.





02. Mila Kunis, 26 (8th) Whenever I watch animated films, I inevitably spend half the movie trying to figure out whose celebrity voice is doing each character. Then once I figure it out I can't help but picture that celebrity in the sound booth with headphones on, passionately emoting while recording the dialogue. I've seen too many behind-the-scenes featurettes not to do this. It's because I can't help doing this that "Family Guy" loses a little edge anytime Meg is involved. Meg is a short, dumpy, possibly lesbian teen who is unloved by her family. The girl providing the voice of Meg is none of those things. I also had this problem with Yeardley Smith as Lisa Simpson. Yeardley's almost 45 years old and the only problem with that is that I'm aware of it.

01. Minka Kelly, 29 (2nd) You know, if you absolutely had to have someone's sloppy seconds you couldn't hope to follow anyone better than Derek Jeter. Maybe Timberlake. Let's not split hairs. Also, can someone named Minka not be beautiful? It feels impossible. What would an ugly Minka even look like?






Top 20 Girls of the Decade

Catherine Zeta-Jones
Cameron Diaz
Mandy Moore
Kate Hudson
Alexis Bledel
Katie Holmes
Britney Spears
Evangeline Lilly
Maggi Gyllenhaal
Lauren Graham