me and you

me: i am drunk
you: you have 16 days left to find me a job that is not in cincinnati

me: i am hungry, but if i try to cook right now i might burn myself
you: you should be writing me a love note right about now, because you are, in fact, in love with me

me: i will be in cincinnati this weekend tearing it up with my friends
you: you will be somewhere else, undoubtedly having less fun though you had more raw potential to work with

me: i am the forkgirl
you: you are someone who reads my blog obsessively because you always longed to have a fork collection but your moms thought it was too dangerous

me: i am cupcake famous thanks to ariel waldman
you: actually, i'm done with you. check out me:

corporate pattern baldness

there are days when everything changes in an instant.

i had one of those days yesterday.
i'm sort-of a professional at being drug tested. i've been through 10 pre-employment drug screens, and up until yesterday, all of them involved me awkwardly handing a nurse a cup of my warm urine and hoping that there wasn't anything dripping down the side of the container.

yesterday i went in for my FOURTH pre-employment drug screen with pee+gee since 2001, and apparently the company recently switched over from urine tests to hair tests. i thought i was going to get one...maybe two hairs pulled out of my head. i was even going to be hilariously flippant and tell the woman to go ahead and grab any extra gray ones she ran across. i had it all planned out.

ha. i was so naive in those golden days of yore.

after a TWO HOUR WAIT at the clinic, i was escorted into a room and SCALPED.after i "lost" those 70+ hairs, i jolted from my testing chair and made a run for it. i bolted myself into my suv and convinced myself not to cry. i used the following logic to hold back my tears: if i cried then it would mean i'm emotionally unstable even when i'm not on the pill, and i really want to believe that i'm not. alas, i didn't cry, despite the fact that this is the first time i can ever remember (since 1999) having long and chemically unaltered hair, i did not cry.

i wanted to cry, though.
and the more i thought about why i was upset, the more i realized that it wasn't so much the vast bald patch that was getting me down as it was the invasion of my civil liberties.

all i could think about was going to the new hire orientation in june and comparing my bald patch to everyone else's. i imagined us all with matching tracking devices implanted in our wrists so that the company could monitor our every twist and turn. the imagery in my head was 1984 on crack, and even the post-scalp purchase of three new frocks at nordstrom rack couldn't make my racing thoughts of fascist dictatorship disappear.

and then it happened.
i went all new hampshire on my vermont ass (translation: switched from liberal to libertarian).

i laughed when my friend dominic looked at me late last year and embarrassingly confessed to having become a libertarian. in classic bliss form, i am now suffocating on that laughter. while i will continue to live a drug free existence, i think i'm finally ready to support other people's rights to live free or die.

note: although i now support people's rights to do whatever the hell they want in the privacy of their own homes (unless it involves feces or child molestation) i will continue to find stoners cataclysmically annoying. i don't mind coke heads or speed freaks though, because they're usually a lot of fun to party with.

true love stories never have endings

i kind-of got sidetracked for a few days and forgot about my pledge to tell you all about my 2008 valentine.

she's sweet.
she's sassy.
she's one of the smartest women i know.
she is creative, innovative, brilliant, hilarious, a skilled flipcup player, and a legend in her own mind.
...and it doesn't hurt that i like waking up with her every morning, even when she's grumpy and hungover.

my 2008 valentine is ME!
it's not like it was easy to get myself to agree to be mine. i spent the first month and the half of the year courting me. i signed me up for a gym membership (and already lost 2-6 pounds, depending on which scale you trust), i bought me books (and read them to myself), i fed me pre-natal vitamins to strengthen my hair and nails, i went out of my way to drive me to acupuncture appointments, and i dragged me to glide each and every sunday morning.

i did everything in my power to make me happy, and it worked. i am officially "in a relationship," and that relationship is with me.

i hope that everyone else out there considers making themselves their belated valentines too. after all, the most important person for you to love is yourself. hey - don't take my word for it...take whitney houston's.



although i previously issued a statement proclaiming that i don't much care for valentine's day, because it's a holiday of obligation and not one of love, i always end up thinking about love anyways because messages of love (whether sincere or not) are omnipresent.

for me, love has always been defined by the acceptance of imperfections. more than a few overflowing handfuls of people have told me that they love their siblings, but that they will never have the same kind of relationship with them that i have with mine. most of those people have never even MET any of my siblings. here's a little secret: my sisters and i are hugely imperfect, and we have imperfect relationships with each other. as a matter of fact, we fight all the time. we fight about things as stupid as facebook comments and things as important as who gets to have the center spot in photographs. we fight and fight and fight, but those fights don't impede our ability to accept and forgive each other's imperfections and to love each other fiercely and unconditionally.

if we can't forgive other people's imperfections, how can we expect them to forgive ours? . . . and we are all gloriously imperfect creatures.

in the spirit of imperfect love, i dedicated this valentine's day to one of my 3 aunt and uncle teams. married for about 7 or 8 years, my aunt and uncle divorced in the early 80s. i remember my aunt, devastated beyond belief, drove herself and her children to nova scotia to stay with her sister (my mom) for a few weeks to help her recover. on one particular evening, they were both drunk and they stood up on the porch railing of our victorian gingerbread house BELTING out the lyrics to dolly parton's song "hard candy christmas," which is about pushing through the bad times and starting over fresh. they drank into the night and sang until their voices gave out. it's probably their fault that canadians think americans are insane.

20 years and 2 or 3 collective divorces later, my aunt and uncle fell back in love and moved in together. actually, i'm not sure "fell back in love," is true, because i have my doubts that they were ever out of love. it might have just taken 20 years for them to fully appreciate each other's imperfections. my aunt, for example, can not STAND it when someone turns the TV off and leaves it on any channel other than CNN. i've seen her scream at the top of her lungs over it, because she insists she doesn't know how to change the channel back. my uncle, on the other hand, has a tendency to both womanize and drink until he smashes his head into a plaster wall or locks himself out of a hotel room buck naked after peeing in a plant in the corner of the room, thinking it was a toilet. just like everyone else on the planet, they're messes. luckily, they're messes who stopped fighting the fact that they're messes who belong to each other.

as cynical as i sometimes seem, i'm ultimately an incurable optimist who believes that love is a force far beyond human control. you can walk away from it (and people often do), but it skulks around the perimeters of your mind. it haunts your daydreams. it lurks in the shadows of your memories, waiting impatiently for a vulnerable moment to make an unexpected reappearance. my aunt and uncle give me hope that everything ends exactly the way it is supposed to...sometimes you just have to wait until the timing is right.

as the old cowboy proverb says: timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

no bush is good bush

i <3 flickr stats.

according to flickr stats, the top yahoo image search terms that led people to my photos last year are as follows:

1. pen15
2 . barbara bush
3. nice kitchens
4. italian mafia
5. hair color
6. elimidate
7. handcuffed
8. capsizing
9. cal logo
10. ballet leaps

i can't figure out which is more horrifying: the fact that a search for barbara bush somehow leads people to my flickr feed or the fact that there are people out there who prefer yahoo! over google.

awkward either way.

vomit under the couch

valentine's day...does it suck? is it rawksome? i don't actually give a rat's ass about the holiday. my mother once married a shitbag compulsive liar on valentine's day (i hope you're reading this, you sociopathic and manipulative creeper), and valentine's day always reminds me of him. alas, it's not quite my favorite day of the year. but that's just me. . . maybe you should listen to less jaded people:

here's what zefrank has to say about the holiday.

joey comeau, of a softer world, has these words of love wisdom buried in one of his awesome cover letters: "In the end it never works out. You are who you are, no matter what you pretend at the beginning. So I'm not pretending. I drink to ignore my problems. I spend more time with my computer than with my friends. I don't have a very good relationship with women. I am angry and lonely, but I can wash dishes just fine. I'm being honest. Please don't be an asshole about this."

joey also concocts valentine gems like this (click to enlarge):okay, so i don't think he actually meant that to be a valentine or anything, but nothing says "love" to me like an empty bottle of gray goose, a half-naked boy whose name i can't remember, and vomit running down the front of my dress. hot damn! (note to any and all family members who are reading this: i am KIDDING. mom, seriously, i'm totally kidding, and i don't need a lecture on taking care of myself and acting like a responsible adult). joey is from halifax, nova scotia and likes making out with boys. translation? HELLOOOOO, LOVERRRRR!

to round this pre-valentine's day post out (and to help you get laid), here's my all-time favorite pick-up line courtesy of the onion:

we should go back to my place and do some math. we'll add a bed, subtract our clothes, and do other math stuff related to fucking.

one more thing. if you love me and you are rich, please buy my this squid jogger (pictured below) because i want it wicked bad, but i think it might be obscene for me to spend $100 on a hoodie that (1) doesn't even have a hood (2) is made from an american apparel garment (and i do not like to buy things from american apparel because their ceo is a sleazepocket who goes to work in his manties and thinks it's appropriate to sleep with all of his subordinates.on february 14th i will be announcing who my 2008 valentine is (and who i think yours should be). stay posted.

"nobody has done, in modern times, as much as i have done to radicalize the church" -rev. cecil williams

there was an article in the san francisco chronicle today about glide. among other things, the author noted a general crisis of faith at the church, an exodus of glide members with the exit of rev. douglas fitch and the entrance of rev. donald guest, and too many white folk in the pews.

never one to waste time, rev. cecil williams had a response ready to go by the 9am service. he discounted each of the article's main points (especially the point about cecil being "hippity-dippity") and then he still had time left over to deliver a sermon on "the black preacher". a sermon, mind you, that included cecil singing a song that brought his ministry team to tears (or at least donald...though to be clear, donald is somewhat of a crybaby.).

here i am with the superstar himself, cecil williams (he's not actually shorter than i am...in my quest to become girly this year, i've been wearing an awful lot of ridiculously high heeled shoes).

whether cecil is talking about the subprime mortgage crisis and its effects on people of color or the lack of free hiv testing in san francisco for people who identify as straight, he knows how to talk to people to move them to take action. glide is about the religion of power to the people.

although cecil is a legend in his own right, i don't go to glide strictly to bask in his fame and brilliance; i also go for the music. the glide ensemble and the change band get everyone up out of their seats and moving from the second each celebration begins. as a collective they are uplifting and amazing. some of the soloists, however, are downright unbelievable.

vernon bush is one of these soloists. how fricking adorable is he?kiki and i have been obsessed (in a healthy way) with vernon for over two years now. when vernon opens his mouth he truly gives everyone in the room a highspeed wifi connection to whatever higher power they call on. listening to his singing is the kind of musical experience that brings people down to their knees (not in a dirty way). don't believe me? see for yourself:

vernon sings @ glide from blissforkface on Vimeo.

vernon is my official boyfriend of the week, and don't you go trying to steal him.

if you live in san francisco, and you want to check out glide, just holla' at me. i'd be glad to drag you along. be warned though...a few people (namely kiki and phtoizzle) got dragged along by me once, and never ended up leaving.

just for fun, here are a few shots of kiki and i post-glide:

big thanks to photizzle for taking all of the pics (and for signing up for a pro flickr account so that he can post his photographic gems for the world to see). i would also like to send love to kiki, and thank her again for FINALLY moving back to the bay area. i love all of my new friends here, but there's something comforting about hanging out with people who i've already gone to hell and back with. they've seen me at my best. they've seen me at my worst. they've seen my 80085. there's not much else for them to see...and yet they still stick around. god bless 'em (or as we glide folks say: "amen. hallelujah. right on. shalom. salaam. namaste. ")

here's one more article about glide, in case you're curious

less than three

on behalf of your entire san francisco based flight crew, i would like to be the first to wish you a happy valentine's day (which is why i'm wishing it to you 6 days early). please remain seated with your seat belts fastened, and enjoy this gift of love while we taxi to our gate:



love it? want more? feel free to stalk its creators: jay and leah.

although i can't speak directly to leah's awesomeness, i can tell you with 100% certainty that jay is the funniest vancouverite i have the pleasure of e-knowing, and he is fierce with a squash racket and/or nail gun.

thank you for flying jetBliss. please use caution when opening overhead bins.

we're looking for someone a bit less interesting

don't get me wrong...i get it.

i understand why i had the hardest possible time in the universe finding a job.

my greatest asset is also my greatest liability: i can not be put into a box or neatly labeled and filed away. i break the mold, i define myself differently depending on when you ask me to do the defining, and i won't hide who i am, even when it would behoove me to do so.

many interviewers want to talk about my experience working for jetBlue, but once i start excitedly explaining the adrenaline rush of marshalling in an aircraft or the pure fun of zooming around the tarmac on a belt loader, the interviewers get nervous that i might return to the aviation industry, and suddenly they start to imagine i'm incapable of running command and control pollution policy analyses.

other interviewers want to hear about the underwater coral reef research i have done, but then after listening to me discuss my thesis on marine protected areas and my coursework in the caribbean, they think i'm destined for an outdoor job where i get to play with fish all day long. alas, they won't hire me to market their new green product line.

i feel like if interviewers were privy to a short series of questions and answers fleshing out just how fantastic i am, they would find me a bit more compelling, and hire me BECAUSE of my scatterplot nature. i'm imagining something like this:

Q. hey bliss, my desk is acting weird. can you weld it back together for me?
A. yes, i do arc welding, resistance welding (aka spot welding), and gas welding.

Q. hey bliss, our company caterer just bailed out on us and we have to somehow find food for 60 people asap. have you ever cooked for 60 people?
A. yes, i have cooked for groups of 60 people on multiple occasions. pick a cuisine and throw me a sous chef and you need not worry.

Q. what about building a structure from blueprints?
A. done it.

Q. can you sail?
A. i got a perfect score on my final exam in sailing class, and my half hitch makes all the sailor boys swoon.
Q. can you operate an industrial paint mixing computer and related equipment?
A. check.

Q. build a toilet using only a shovel, some rope, trees, and a saw?
A. where do you want it, and would you like me to throw in a thatched roof for free?

Q. can you tutor my son in geometry?
A. consider it done. do you need proof? (joke for nerds...)

Q. are you any good at navigation?
A. give me a compass and a thomas guide and i'll put any vehicular gps system to shame.i could go on.

it just doesn't compute to hiring managers that while i can wax poetic for hours on how to best set up a data center for energy efficiency (including discussion points on crac units, outside air economizers, raised floors, and gel cooling), i can also sew a mermaid costume from scratch, bake a chocolate souffle that never falls, sell someone on why they should install solar panels on their home (and help them apply for the right rebates), rattle off the regular and promoted price of tide 100 oz at every major national chain, counsel kids on why they should not join gangs, lead an orienteering class, and break into a ford f150 in under 5 minutes using only a wire coat hanger.

i love not fitting into a discrete bin, but at the same time, it makes me unemployable to any and all who do not understand that i really am smart enough to be good at all of the above, and then some.

i'm silly good at almost everything i do EXCEPT sports, making beds, maintaining equanimity, understanding how gravity works, fixing cars, and keeping my mouth shut and my clothes on when i'm drunk.

ummmm...and ironing. i doubt i will ever get better at ironing, and i really miss my two favorite ironing gurus (my ex-boyfriend bucky who learned how to iron in the marines & my former roommate kiki who burned two shirts, but was REALLY good at pressing corners into pants).

please note that i'm not claiming to be excellent at everything i do. i am a jill of all trades, but really only a master of 3 trades...maybe 4 if you count napping as a trade.

anyhow, i have a job now, so blah blah blah and also: the end.

one more thing -- i actually like britney spears' latest album.
sigh. zomg i feel so much better now.
i just couldn't keep that confession inside of me any longer. it was burning me up inside.

late night phone call transcript

peipei: i cant remember my last healthy relationship.

blissfork: i don’t think i’ve ever had one.

peipei: me neither [3 second pause] i think that’s why we’re friends.

---hysterical laughter ensues---

love is in the air

if you are a boy, please do not try to hump me.

i'm not kidding.

as of sunday, february 3rd, i am officially embarking on a year long biological project. that's right, sporto, on sunday morning instead of waking up early to pop a birth control into my mouth i am delightfully going to sleeeeeeeep in.

no pill on monday either.
tuesday? nope.
well come on then, at the very least i'm probably going to take one on HUMP day. no, no i am not.
i am going to go an entire year without an ortho tri-cyclen lo tablet coming anywhere near me.

to be clear, i'm not trying to get preggers. i have no desire to be a single mother, nor do i look forward to my stretch marks multiplying or waking up in the middle of the night to cravings for powdered tide and plant dirt sundaes with pickles on top.

i am conducting this experiment because i'm worried that the pill might be throwing off my natural ability to choose a suitable mate. it seems like everywhere i turn i discover a new article on birth control pills interfering with a woman's ability to sniff out an appropriate partner, eventually leading her to breed with a man who has too similar of an MHC profile (which can cause fertility problems or (probably) wicked ugly babies). the women in my family are not exactly known for choosing suitable partners to begin with, so throw in this additional road block and i feel doomed from the get-go.

the basic concept is as follows: the pill tricks a woman's body into thinking it's already pregnant. that said, these women prefer smells that remind them of home and kin. instead of being attracted to men with different MHC profiles (which is normal and healthy), their natural preferences are reversed, and they may feel attracted to men who have similar MHC profiles to themselves, their brothers, and their fathers. in terms of pure physicality, psychologists have found that women who are taking the pill tend to fancy macho-macho-men with strong jaw lines and prominent cheekbones. women who are not taking the pill, however, seem to be more likely to go for more sensitive types without traditionally masculine features. these sensitive types are likely to be better long-term matches (read this bbc article for more info).

you might be wondering what the big deal is. well, the big deal is 3-fold:

1. couples experiencing difficulty conceiving a child share significantly more of their MHC than do couples who conceive more easily.
2. as the proportion of MHC alleles increases, women's sexual responsiveness to their partners decreases, and their number of sex partners outside the relationship increases. in fact, the number of MHC genes couples share corresponds directly with the likelihood that they will cheat on one another; if a man and woman have 50 percent of their MHC alleles in common, the woman has a 50 percent chance of sleeping with another man behind her partner's back.
3. when a woman chooses her partner while she is on the pill, and then comes off it to have a child, she may find she is married to the wrong man.

there are more than a few researchers who suggest that single women should forgo the pill until they're sure they've met their match, because taking the pill appears to change women's taste in men. alas, that is exactly what i am going to do. call it smart. call it science. call it whatever you want. i'll call it an attempt to find a partner who will give me happy, healthy children and who won't screw his secretary behind my back.

if you want more information on the studies, check out the article in this month's psychology today. i sent the link to one of my female friends, and within hours of reading it she, too, decided to get off of the pill.

it's not as if it's a small sacrifice for my me and my friend to go pill-free. i'm going to get debilitating cramps (so painful that i may have to pull over onto the side of the road if i'm driving when they strike). i will also probably get a horrendous underground zit on my chin every month, and suffer from a much heavier bloodstorm (boys, that one was for you. i hope it grossed you out.). my friend is going to get an irregular cycle and god knows what else. i can only hope that i also get some positive side effects too. i would love to get my sex drive back, as it's been awol for almost 7 years now. i also wouldn't mind dropping 10 pounds lickity split (although i'm not positive that going on the pill ever made me gain weight).

one more thing for any of you out there who might make your livings as strippers: a study at UNM concluded that non-pill-using exotic dancers make about 50 percent more in tips than dancers on oral contraceptives. In other words, women who are on the pill are only about two-thirds as sexy as women who aren't.

girls, keep your boys locked up tight, because my long-lost third is coming tumbling out next week, and you just never know where it will end up.