My sister Laura is getting married today. But she has three possible fathers! Oh Mamma Mia!

It is about 8:20 am as I write this, and I can assure you that I’ve already made this exact joke to my family at least 3 times today already. But how can I resist, when a major family event coincides with such a cinematic milestone like a Streep/Brosnan musical?! It’s like, if my dad suddenly carved up my mom’s face with a razor, I’d have to be like, “OMG, this is sooooo Dark Knight!”

I completely despise the fuss, pomp, and circumstance of all weddings, including my sister’s. At the rehearsal dinner last night, I smiled to myself and thought fondly of my future elopement, and the eventual familial disowning that would follow.

I would never dare shit on my sister’s big day with my cynicism though. Just because I’m a weirdo who wants wedding pie and a cult-classic celebrity to officiate my ceremony doesn’t mean I can piss on her parade.

So I put a big smile on my face, wear my black bedazzled “Bridesmaid” t-shirt with pride, and do what all moderately funny people do in these situations: Use humor as a coping mechanism. Hey, if it worked in high school, it’s gotta work for weddings, right?

This is why in the past 3 days, I have insisted to my sister that my gift to her is that I’ve hired a man to object at her wedding. Even if they don’t ask for objections. He’ll just storm in. Because every girl deserves a little bit of cinematic flair on her big day! I’ve given her three choices.

1) A dramatic, The Graduate-esque objection, where the man yells from the choir pit, “Laura, noooooooooooooo!” There’s no glass window overlooking the church, but we can make do. She then retorts “You missed your chance!” and the ceremony resumes. The next day, he kills himself.

2) A comedic, Wedding Crashers style objection, where the man interrupts the wedding to make an impassioned, yet clever speech about how she is making the BIGGEST mistake of her life. He gets into an argument with the groom, and knocks out the groom. My aunt Fran then punches him in the face. The wedding resumes at the emergency room.

3) My personal favorite, the 90’s teen movie objection. It turns out that the man objection isn’t in love with Laura, but instead is an old-friend-turned-enemy of the groom, who chooses this moment to reveal that Matt only dated Laura because of a bet. Through tears, Laura asks, “Is this true, Matt, is this true?!” and Matt softly says, “I went out with you because of the bet…but the true prize was falling in love with you.” They kiss, I start a slow clap, and a ska band starts playing a cover of “I Melt with You” in the choir pit.

And the objector? You guessed it, Neil Patrick Harris, star of Doogie Howser and How I Met Your Mother!

You know what? Screw it. Those are too good. I’m saving them for my wedding.

See you at the open bar.

In The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger gives a lackluster, uninspired performance that will tragically tarnish his artistic legacy. Hopefully, we will all be able to clutch onto our copies of Casanova, and remember the talent of this young actor.

All this and more in my new book: “Completely Untrue Statements, and the Blogs that Followed!”

At this point it seems cliched to talk about how fucking brilliant Heath Ledger is in that movie, or how he created a dark, terrifying interpretation of the Joker that frightened me even as I was watching the movie, or how fantastic it is that he could surprise everyone who initially thought “Really? Heath Ledger? As the Joker? REALLY, Christopher Nolan?” when they heard he’d been cast (which was everyone, until they thought for a second and realized the casting choice was so unexpected that Ledger had to have had an awesome take on the character, and then got really really fucking excited for the movie and couldn’t believe they’d have to wait a year and a half to see it — or was that just me?). Or to discuss how Ledger should at least get a posthumous Oscar Nomination, if not that actual Naked Gold Man statuette.

And it seems really futile for me to tell you that I thought the movie was bad-fucking-ass with a capital “HOLY SHIT, BATMAN, DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?!”

Because if you saw the movie, you already know that Heath Ledger was totes awes (that means “totally awesome” in bastardized English) and you already have your opinion of the movie as a whole, which you’ve probably proudly displayed in your Facebook status. And really, the idea of using a blog to try to sway a Facebook status makes me want to bake a cake out of my own vomit. And I would really like to be able to write a blog about something else besides The Dark Knight, but well… I was sick this weekend, and it was the only thing I did, ok?

So instead of a full-fledged movie review, I instead present:

9 Random Thoughts Somewhat Related to The Dark Knight

1. I am so glad that the producers low-balled Katie Holmes into making Mad Money instead this movie. If Christopher Nolan could actually go back into Batman Begins and digitally insert Maggie Gyllenhaal into the movie, that’d be perfect. That way we could all forget Katie Holmes and how she tries to use that stupid half-smile of hers to convey that she’s: angry, uncomfortable, happy, overwhelmed, scared, constipated. Seriously, I couldn’t sleep Saturday night, and ended up watching a re-run of Dawson’s Creek at 5 in the morning. Let me tell you, the girl acts exactly the same when she’s preaching to Bruce Wayne about the inaction of good-hearted people as when she’s mad at Pacey for not letting her talk to Dawson at the end-of-summer clambake.

2. I love how Morgan Freeman makes any character seem ten times more trustworthy. If I were a director with an upcoming thriller about a serial killer, and wanted to surprise the audience with the killer’s true identity, I’d cast Morgan Freeman in the role. It would make the audience shit their pants. NO ONE EVER SUSPECTS MORGAN FREEMAN!

3. Ya know, I didn’t think Ledger would ever be able to top his performance in 10 Things I Hate About You, but I think he might have done it with this picture!

4. I saw the movie on a girl-date with my friend Amy, and whenever Freeman came on screen, she’d turn to me and say, “Hey, is that Samuel L. Jackson?” This got me imagining what Lucius Fox would be like if portrayed by Samuel, Mr. Jackson if you’re nasty. I think it would go something like this:

“What do you mean, you want me to hook up every muthafucking cellphone in muthafucking Gotham?! That ain’t muthafucking right! Consider this my muthafucking resignation!”

Then he’d shoot Alfred’s head off, and hilarity would ensue.

5. I really want to watch 10 Things I Hate About You.

6. I definitely agree with the criticism that the movie was a bit too long. However, this seems to be symptomatic of pretty much every film that has been made in the last 5 years. Especially if Judd Apatow had any involvement in it. I love The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but he could have cut at least 20 minutes off that movie. These days, filmmakers aren’t as interested as presenting streamlined product, but rather, showing you everything they can do, even if it makes things cluttered. They have a lot of ideas, and instead of editing them, they just want to throw them all at you and hope you like the smörgåsbord. I don’t really mind it too much, especially as this is the exact concept that this entire blog entry is centered around.

7. Okay, I REALLY want to watch 10 Things I Hate About You.

8. Since I was sick this weekend, I watched an obscene amount of television, including 3 Batman movies, the first season of Mad Men on AMC, and far too many episodes of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. After seeing The Dark Knight, I really wanted to watch another movie with Ledger in it, to completely bask in his talent and of course, look at how pretty he was. I was going to rent 10 Things I Hate About You, but just my luck, Brokeback Mountain was on TV, so I watched that instead. I had seen the movie once before, about two years back when I was visiting With Tongue in Berlin. I thought it was a good movie at the time, but the hype surrounding it kind of spoiled the film for me. It was very refreshing to see it again, removed from the hype, and finally be able to appreciate it for what it is — a beautiful, haunting, depressing film. And it doesn’t hurt that Heath and Jake are two cute boys making out. Yowza! Ledger gives a performance so completely different from the Joker, one that is more quiet and restrained, that I suddenly appreciated the breadth and variety inherent in his talent and couldn’t believe that the same actor could do both roles justice. It made me a little sad that I wouldn’t get to see what else he would have done.

9. Seriously, why don’t I own 10 Things I Hate About You?

“Well maybe you’re not afraid of me, but I’m sure you’ve pictured me naked!” - 10 Things I Hate About You.

After seeing The Dark Knight, I can honestly say that both statements are true.

Every year, the I-book contains a list of things you should do before you graduate. I’m all for making bucket lists, but this one is rather unadventurous and prepares U of I students for four, fun, fulfilling years of living in Hendrick House and playing World of Warcraft every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night (no offense to anyone who matches these characteristics — I’ve met some lovely chemical engineers who lived there that could actually carry on a conversation, though I have yet to determine if they could write anything other than a lab report).

Here are some of the gems from the I-book list:

“Take a trip to Meijer at 2 am.”

Wait a minute, is the I-book encouraging me to buy economy-sized containers of Kraft Mac and Cheese after the bars get out? Or, are they suggesting that this could be the highlight of my weekend? Clearly, if you are doing college correctly, you should not be at the legal level of sobriety to drive to Meijer at this time. No thanks, I-book. I’ll be at Murphy’s.

“Attend a lecture of a class you are not in.”

What the fuck?! This has got to be the stupidest suggestion on the whole list. It’s a perpetual struggle for students to make it to their 1 pm lecture (probably because they were at Murphy’s the night before), so why would they dare go to a class that they ain’t getting credit for?

Take it from a recent college grad currently stuck in C-U summer limbo — make it a point to leave college having taken advantage of this campus and what it has to offer. More importantly, take advantage of being a college student. Make sure to revel in the things that you can really only do as a college student. Let’s face it. Celebrating Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day in a non-college town would be provocation for an intervention. There are truly some things that you can only get away with while attaining The New High School Diploma (aka, your Bachelor’s Degree). I’ve thought about my own personal College Bucket List, and gathered a few pearls of college revelry from my friends, and compiled it into (drum roll, please)…

Triple Entendre Presents: Shit Ya Gotta Do in C-U

1. Streak the Quad. This was the number one thing I had to cross off my own personal list, and I’m proud to say that I did, right before finals started. Granted, it’s very stereotypical and cliched, but so is binge-drinking when you’re in college, stop pretending you’re original and take your pants off, drunky. Plus, with the creation of the Quad Cam, this quintessential college tradition has an extra edge of taboo when you know that Ground South of Allen Hall might be gathered around a computer watching you and your friends’ naughty bits bob on the Quad (which I’m also pretty sure happened the night I did it).

2. Study Abroad. Your college career is the only time in your life that you will be able to get loan money from the government to make friends from the Czech Republic. It’s awesome. In addition to making you a more worldly, independent individual, studying abroad gives you amusing anecdotes that entertain attractive members of the opposite sex (or same sex). If you can’t fit a study abroad program into your academic career (which you probably can, if you aren’t lazy and plan ahead), be sure to at least travel abroad. We all love Champaign-Urbana, but there are wonderful things beyond these cornfields.

3. Have a hangover. It’s simply a rite of passage, according to my friend Dave, and makes you truly understand the drinking process. It will also make you a more sympathetic friend. I never used to understand what my friends were talking about until the day after my 21st birthday, and boy howdy, now I don’t tease them for drinking an economy-sized jug of Gatorade the morning after. I tell them to pass it.

4. Have your heart broken. This one comes from my friend Alison, who says you’ll become a wiser, stronger person as a result. Very true.

5. Don’t have regrets. But do, however, do something that will make you cringe in retrospect. Trust me, there’s a difference. If you haven’t done something that your friends will mercilessly tease you about until the end of time, start your undergrad again.

6. Stay in C-U for a summer. Ya gotta see the world, but sometimes you just gotta stay put. Spending a summer on campus is a unique experience that makes you appreciate this town. The town slows down a lot, but in a good way. You will get incredibly close to your fellow campus-dwellers at a break-neck speed. Bonus: You actually get to have sober conversations with your friends.

7. Kiss everyone in the room at a party. New Year’s Eve doesn’t count. This one could also be rephrased as “Get mono by doing something funny.”

8. Go see a student theater show. Then go to the after-party. Penny Dreadful Players, New Revels, What You Will, Armory Free, Fishing with Dynamite, Potted Meat, Debono, Spicy Clamato, Other Other Guys. There is an amazing creative culture on this campus of young people trying to make a little art. Explore it. This also allows you to go to their after-parties, as going to the parties without seeing the show is considered a big d-bag move. And let me tell you, there are no crazier parties than a group of people coming off a performance high while suddenly realizing that they won’t get to see each other at rehearsal every day. This will help you achieve number 7. Also, take this a step further and audition for one of these groups.

9. Have a truly epic adventure. Not involving alcohol. Everyone has hilarious drunk stories, and we all love to hear them, but ya gotta do something outside the college box. For instance, my friend Dave went on a bike ride…to Bloomington. Completing number 2 on the list will also help you achieve this. One of my personal favorite stories to tell is how I accidentally ended up in Hamburg, Germany.

10. Drink a good beer. Yes, yes, at the rate and volume at which college students drink, we must normally subside on an alcoholic diet of Keystone Light. However, from time to time, remember that in the real world, alcohol is meant to be enjoyed, not binged. Take a night where you buy a pricier beer, or according to my friend Dave, spend a night where money is no option. For those of you who don’t drink beer, interpret this number as “Learn to appreciate beer, you wussy.”

11. Memorize a bar special. The point is not the drinking of the bar special. The point is that you create a tradition with a group of usual suspects (aka, your friends). For the past two years, I’ve been going to Murphy’s on Wednesdays with my friends for our weekly “Logo Lunch,” which consists of bacon cheeseburgers and a Logo Glass beer. When our schedules got messed up, we changed it to Logo Dinner so everyone could still partake. And you bet yer britches I’m going there today.

12. Wake up in a bed that is not yours. And remember: It’s not the “walk of shame.” It’s the “stride of pride.” You just woke up in some one else’s bed, have a little self-respect!

13. Go on a barcrawl. People never do this in the real world, which means you must do it before you graduate. I only recently when on my first barcrawl, The Jessica Barcrawl Birthday Barcrawl (not a typo). It’s a very different experience from spending a long night sitting around at Murphy’s. Not only is it fun to run around campustown with your friends, but you also get to tour and experience the many fine (and janky) campus bars. You get to develop a finer appreciation for Murphy’s, lemme tell ya.

14. Spend an afternoon on the Quad. It is essential to one’s mental health to sit on the Quad, doing nothing and shooting the breeze. If that gets tiresome, break out the frisbee and hackysack for some more cliched college behavior. The Quad is the living, breathing microcosm of our college society.

15. Spend a night not drinking with your drinking buddies. I know, I know, we are college students, and we love to get schwasted, I know. But friendships based on seeing one another only when sauced is a superficial friendship indeed. These people are called “acquaintances.” Your true friends are the ones you can tolerate while sober. So hang up your drinking hat every so often, head over to Perkins, and spend an evening catching up. To paraphrase something my friend Carl once told me, it’s not the crazy drunken times you’ll remember forever, but the quiet sober ones that will last with you forever.

At least remember this: College is all about becoming a more interesting “Never Have I Ever” player.

What would you add to this list?

My graduation party was this weekend. My closest friends and family gathered in my tiny ranch-style house in the forgettable suburb of Oak Forest, IL, to celebrate my unemployment with sangria and Italian sausage. Overall, the party was a success — My mother told me before the party that she bought the most beer she’d ever bought for a family party. The next day there wasn’t a single bottle left. Obviously, my mother had never been to a party with my alky friends before. I also took my friends on a field trip to Oak Fest, our town’s annual carnival and collection of the best in suburban white trash. As we waited in line for the Tilt-a-whirl, a future burn-out (aka, a 12-year-old boy from Oak Forest) made lewd gestures at my friends as he spun towards us.

Then he threw up. It’s times like this when I think God might exist.

In the midst of all this good, semi-clean fun, a small bit of drama arose, as it tends to in my circle of friends. My friend Alyssa was taking a train to Oak Forest from Chicago, and she called me for directions to my house. Luckily my friends Trendy and Paul had just arrived, so they willingly accepted my request that they go pick up Alyssa at the station.

“Do you guys need her number, in case you can’t find her?”

“Naaaaw, she’ll be easy to spot.”

Ten minutes later, Trendy calls me.

“Ok, I need her number, we can’t find her.”

A second glass of strong sangria later, I get a call from Alyssa.

“So, I’m in Oak…Park.” Which happens to be on the completely opposite side of Chicago. Which happens to be a town that just a few days earlier I was telling Alyssa that people always confuse Oak Forest with.

After a bit of discussion amongst my friends (and laughing…a lot of laughing…and teasing…so much teasing…), Alyssa decided to take the El to the city, hop over to the LaSalle Street Station and catch the 6:45 train to Oak Forest. She took the Green Line, survived a crazy cab drive, and ran as fast as her cigarette-smoke filled lungs would allow her to without exploding, and got to the train station. Just as the train was pulling away.

And she was holding sunflowers the entire time. Her graduation present to me. Throughout that entire debacle, she didn’t let go of those damn sunflowers. A girl sitting all her lonesome on a curb in Oak Park. A girl riding the El, and nervously checking her watch. A girl sprinting towards the Metra. All while carrying giant, bright flowers to delightfully contrast with her current situation. My friend Ryan, who also happens to be one of the most helpful and selfless people I know, volunteered to pick her up so she wouldn’t have to wait 2 hours for the next train. When they pulled into my driveway at 9 pm, Alyssa jumped out of the car, and sure enough, she was still holding onto those sunflowers.

I reciprocated by giving her a Bud Light.

My mind is blown that Alyssa would go to all of this trouble just to eat microwaved rigatoni at my house. Especially when I think of how our friendship started. A few years ago, I hated Alyssa, for no rational or logical reason besides the fact that I’m a douche bag deluxe sandwich with a side of lame fries. She was in a class with me, and I thought she was overbearing and talked too much. She just rubbed me the wrong way. She later tried out for a play festival that my theater troupe was producing, which included a play I had written. She walked into the audition and I thought “Oh great, that bitch from my Women’s Studies class.” Then, in another moment that makes me consider God’s existence, she gave a fantastic-i-dare-you-not-to-cast-me audition, and I thought “Oh, fuck, she’s a great actress. Goddamit, I’m gonna have to hang out with her now. GAH!” For the next few months, we would interact at cast parties and happy hours, with her completely unaware that I disliked her. She thought I didn’t talk much because I was shy. In reality, I didn’t talk much because I thought she was going to be a manipulative bitch who would hurt my friends. Potato, patata.

Then a miraculous thing happened. I began to realize that my first impression was completely wrong. Behind that studded leather jacket of hers beats a heart made of marshmallows and sleepy puppies. Over time, I saw her for what she is was: An honest, open, loving gal (who talks a lot in her discussion sections).

We’re close … VERY … close.

Isn’t it wonderful when people smash your negative expectations of them and prove you wrong? Realizing that Alyssa was actually pretty cool felt like when you discover your new favorite band and can’t believe you haven’t listened to them before. I’d say it was the equivalent of when I saw Regina Spektor in concert and realized she was more than just a weird Russian with a piano. I’m glad I was so irrationally judgmental of her, because I honestly don’t think we’d appreciate each other as much as we do now. Our friendship seems like an accomplishment, having overcome my douchebaggery. And she has made me a better person. After completely misjudging her, I’ve noticed that I’m more likely to give other people I meet a chance for a second impression. And I think people in general should do this more often. Granted, some might turn out to be, in fact, manipulative bitches, but I think it’s worth it to find the true surprises.

From now on, true friendship will always make me think of a girl running frantically towards a train with wilting sunflowers.

damn straight.

In my freshman year health class, we had a visit from the local “Keep Your Legs Closed Til Marriage” organization. Their abstinence presentation made up the bulk of our sexual education unit, the other part consisting of an hour where our teacher told us to silently read the chapter about reproduction in class and fill out the vocab questions at the end. The abstinence organization, therefore, was the main point of discourse. They talked about how abstinence is the most effective way to prevent pregnancy and crotch rot (which is true), but their arguments for abstinence were based upon the idea that sex is a special bond that is best shared with one person (your heterosexual husband or wife) and boinking with more than one person cheapens the act.

They did this one scenario exercise to make their point. They gave everyone in the class a paper heart, which was supposed to represent our love, or our capacity to love, or our soul, or purity, or something warm and fuzzy like that . They asked for a female volunteer to be the main character in the scenario. They would then have her go up to various guys in the classrooms and describe her “relationships” with these men. Their point was that every time you engage in sexual activity, you are giving a little piece of your heart away. So when the girl kissed a guy she dated for a year in the scenario, they exchanged tiny bits of paper heart love. And when she had sex with a guy on the first date who never called her back, she gave away a huge chunk of her heart and got nothing in return. The end of the scenario has her marrying a guy in the class who decided to stay a virgin until marriage. And his heart has a few nips and nibbles, but is mostly whole. Hers, meanwhile, looks like a crackwhore had a baby with Lincoln Hall. The presenters then asked, what kind of heart do you want to give to your future husband or wife?

For me, their whole abstinence spiel was preaching to the chaste choir. As some one who had already made the decision to not bump uglies until marriage, I had already bought what they were selling.

But even I knew that the paper heart metaphor was complete and utter bullshit.

I find it really disturbing that the main message I got from my sexual education in high school was that you can’t have a full heart if you’ve had pre-marital sex. What is even more disturbing is that this is pretty common experience. My friend Alyssa told me her high school had a similar presentation, but everyone had a piece of tape instead of paper heart. And the more you “stuck your tape” the less sticky it got, and the more worn out it got. Why do they keep comparing our naughty bits to office supplies?

“Your penis is like this stapler. The more you use it, the less staples you’ll have. And no one will ever be able to love an empty stapler.”

I’ve decided I’m going to start using that as a euphemism. “Wanna make my tape less sticky, big boy?” Let me tell you, if you find a guy who wears your tape out, he’s a keeper.

Alyssa also described an exercise where everyone had to pass around a flower, and after a few minutes of everyone handling the flower, it began to wilt. Obviously, that flower did not do Kegels as a preventative measure.

Well, ya know what? My heart is not made out of paper, and my vagina is not a piece of tape, so keep your metaphors away from me. And seriously, if your genitalia is sticky to begin with, you need to get your ass to McKinley post haste. Or try washing for a change.

If you want to practice abstinence, I fully support your decision, and there are many many valid reasons to do so (not getting knocked up being a very important one among them, along with not feeling emotionally ready, and wanting to wear white on your wedding without a sense of irony). However, I have huge issues with abstinence-only sexual education. Actually, I have huge issues with sexual education in this country in general, and I think so-called “comprehensive” sex ed could use a few reforms. My school district was not strictly abstinence-only focused, but abstinence was the only option that was vocally discussed with us, and the other options were shrouded in silence and vocab words. I support informing students about abstinence, but not as the only option. I think it is possible to inform students about other forms of birth control or sexuality in general without saying “go do it now! make babies! Might I suggest reverse cowgirl?” For some odd reason, people are afraid that if kids know about sex they are gonna run out and do the nasty. Well, I’ve got news for you: They are going to have sex anyways! Our Puritanical country assumes that a lack of knowledge will prevent the act. Why do we think that ignorance is a form of birth control?

Abstinence-only education has failed many of us.

Abstinence-only education doesn’t even work. Study after study has shown that abstinence-only education makes no long-term impact on a person’s attitudes, intentions, or sexual behavior. However, people are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, like sex without a condom. The concept of teaching abstinence until marriage is also incredibly heteronormative, to use that lovely Women’s Studies buzzword. How do you teach abstinence until marriage where, statistically speaking, 10 percent of your students are unable by law to get married? Sounds like a job for the degayification camps!

Perhaps we need to remember to not just teach our youth to not do it or do it, but talk about valuing themselves. Instead of making them fill out the vocab at the end of the chapter, get them into an actual discussion. Make it something they can talk about.

Then again, maybe I’m just a girl with a dream and some random object as a far-fetched metaphor for my heart.

You really can’t argue with this.