One More Ting

Today's blog post is the long-awaited expose of friend, teacher and gamer Ting Lam.

Ting and I have been friends for multiple Target trips, Carrabba's meals, feminist books and Snapchat streaks. She is now demanding to be featured on the blog so I have managed to secure an exclusive interview.

Before the interview I wanted to display some pictures so my readers can get to know the woman, the myth, the legend, Ting Lam. Unfortunately, she did not approve several pictures for publication. Here's a quote from Heather McCrory, esteemed PR professional, on the subject, "She should know nothing is ever off the record with a journalist." Excellent point.


The thing about Ting is...she's obsessed with me. She copies everything I do. Here she is copying my selfie face. She's got the head tilt and the lip purse down.


She also copied my "Snapchat filter shades" look, I mean honestly. This is just embarrassing. But I guess plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.

The woman asked me for cooking advice about vegetables for goodness' sake, clearly just an excuse to make conversation. Literally everyone knows I don't do vegetables.

The good news is that although clearly deranged and obsessed with me, she happens to possess a handful of redeeming qualities. Exhibit A - her cat Dee. Dee is looking very demure here, trying to seduce her boyfriend, a mature tabby named Taco.

She's also lowkey funny. But don't tell her that, it will go straight to her head.

Even though Ting interrupts me constantly and I tell her to shut up at least 30 times a day, we're #bestfriendgoals.

I asked Ting the following questions, and I recommend using these on a 1st date to weed out all of the psychopaths and Tings. Also I got them from a website called "160 First Date Questions" so there's that.

1. What do you like to do in your free time?
Ting: "These are the worst questions ever."
Me: "Is that your final answer?"
Ting: "Do you even know how to journalist?"
Me: "Moving on..."

2. Who is the most fascinating person you've ever met?
Ting: "I really wanna say Oprah, but that would be a lie."

3. What's your favorite international food?
Ting: "Does it count as international if I'm international?"
Me: "I'm afraid of a racial discrimination lawsuit so I refuse to answer that."
Ting: "Dim sum. Being the youngest you get beat up by your grandparents if you don't have seats for everyone."

4. What would be your dream job?
Me: "Mine is a re-enactment actor on like Mystery Diagnosis or Monsters Inside Me."
Ting: "I think the question was for me. A writer from the 1500s like sitting in a cafe like 'ooh I'm writing look at me' and being immediately famous but a classy famous not young adult writer famous."
Me: "Are you coming for John Green right now?"
Ting: "No, he wants to be me. Or does he want to be a teenage girl because that's the perspective he always writes from?"
Me: "Someone is forgetting about Will Grayson, Will Grayson, even though I tweeted about it, like, a day ago."

5. Among your friends what are you best known for?
Ting: "Deflecting. Calling people out for saying my name incorrectly."
Me: "Have I been saying it wrong all these years? Is it not Tingala? You're not Yiddish?!"

6. What fad did you never really understand?
Ting: "John Cena. Is that a fad?"

7. Who is the kindest person you know?
Ting: "Am I supposed to say you?"
Me: "Just be honest. But yes."
Ting: "Me."

8. What's the silliest fear you have?
Ting: "I have an intense fear of parking in unknown places. Like if I've never been there I have to look it up on Google Earth."
Me: "I think that's Chapel Hill PTSD, I have it too."

9. What odd talent do you have?
Ting:  "I don't think I have talents."
Me: "Agreed."

10. Finally, where do you see yourself 5 years ago?
Ting: "5 years ago I was starting a long-term relationship - "
Me: "Is this gonna be funny or just sad?"
Ting: "Well, it's my life, so..."


And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is Ting Lam. Stay tuned for her mixtape.

Life is Not a Meg Ryan Movie

I'm back with more unsolicited dating advice from Missy, but this time I have a rebuttal.

This weekend I was at my mother's house making a list of things I wanted to discuss in therapy on Monday because those appointments are $40 a pop, and I, for one, want to get the most out of them since I can barely afford luxuries like toilet paper, concealer and mental health. My mom tried to read over my shoulder and when I blocked her view she started giving me questionable advice.

First of all, my mother means well. I love her very much. But why she thinks she's a dating expert is beyond me. My mother got married a few months after she turned 18. What advice could she possibly have? Go to prom? Try to take Biology together? She's not even an expert on her own kids, she started this lecture with, "you're what? 24? 25?" and I realize that I can be shockingly conceited but I would assume that my mother would know the age of her firstborn only daughter. And I would be wrong.

Life is not a Meg Ryan movie. Sure, everyone in the dating game at my age is sleepless but that's due to chronic anxiety, not gallivanting around town with Tom Hanks. Do people actually meet in person anymore? Is it safe to talk to strangers? What if I leave my apartment and go somewhere and there's no WiFi? Too many variables.

My mother expressed concern that I was looking for love in all the wrong places. She compared online dating to going to a shoe store looking for a dress. But I pointed out that I wouldn't go to a shoe store or a dress store, I would order directly from Amazon. And online dating is equivalent to Amazon, I'm ordering exactly what I want directly from the website instead of searching for it in a store so...checkmate.

Then Missy backtracked real quick with the old, "I didn't say it, some country music singer did." Well girl, let me give you a list of reasons I don't take advice from country music singers.
1. You're the Reason Our Kids are Ugly by Loretta Lynn
2. What I Never Knew I Always Wanted by Carrie Underwood
3. Redneck Yacht Club by Craig Morgan
4. Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart by Johnny Cash
5. Double-Wide Dream by The Casey Donahew Band

But don't worry, Missy didn't leave me nothing. She had some suggestions on where exactly I can go to meet these alleged guys who are allegedly out there in the alleged real world. Her first suggestion? Barnes & Noble at Southpoint. I don't think that's the dating mecca that she thinks it is. I also don't think she's ever been to this particular Barnes & Noble since she thinks it is fiscally irresponsible to buy books when libraries exist.

And she didn't stop there, she even gave me a sub-genre to consider. According to my mother, the one person on this planet who always thinks highly of me, "the guys you like will be in the weird section, reading the weird things" and you know what...she's not wrong.

My mother did make me realize that perhaps I should really refine my online dating profiles. Maybe get some new pics?

Maybe change them entirely? My gay best friend curated half of my profiles and that might not be the best strategy but it's a definite strategy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Missy's closing remarks..."find someone in a bookstore. Or at church."
Me: "What about a Christian bookstore?"
Missy: "Even better."

Jury Shore

Sit down before you read this post because I'm about to blow your mind. In terms of the best ideas I have ever had, this is right up there with the complimentary bread app, turkey nuggets and the domestication of raccoons.
tl; dr - I'm a genius.

Imagine a television show that completely meets every entertainment need you've ever had. I'm talking the Reese's of TV. That peanut butter cup combines 3 of my favorite things into one perfect candy.
Chocolate + peanut butter + empty calories = perfection.

When it comes to television, what's the secret recipe for success?
Legal drama + true crime + reality TV = Jury Shore.


I came up with this idea on my way to work when I was listening to a podcast (Last Podcast on the Left) about Casey Anthony. I realized that sequestering juries is completely unfair. To the jurors, to their families, but most of all to us, the American public. We're missing so much drama!

This show would also solve a huge problem facing this nation. Not tax fraud, not prison overcrowding, not littering, not Twenty One Pilots, but jury duty evasion. Think about it, who wants to serve jury duty?
1. Some fans of Sex and the City seasons 5 & 6.
2. Sort of Zooey Deschanel in New Girl.
3. Psychopaths.

But if serving on a jury came with the chance to be a reality star...then who would want jury duty?
1. AMERICANS

Problem solved, invite me to the White House. I'll shake a few hands, kiss (steal) a few babies, sign a few autographs and be on my way.

Here's my vision for the show. It will air on TNT, naturally. Our narrator, Nancy Grace, will fill us in on the case's background info. The show will feature all of the legal drama and deliberation highlights from the courtroom as well as the drama from the sequestered juries. And none of that civil tort bull crap. I'm talking capital murder cases, criminal negligence, depraved-heart and anything else that would catch the eye of a Buzzfeed staffer or Cracked contributor.

Imagine being a fly on the wall during the jury deliberations for Casey Anthony, O.J. Simpson, Larry Nasser, et cetera and et cetera. If you tune in to watch Jury Shore, you will be. We give each juror a GoPro and they record themselves Naked and Afraid style. Testimonials are shot separately a la Real Housewives. I'm hoping we can get Andy Cohen on board, or the honorable Tom Girardi to be our legal consultant. Will the defendant get life in prison? Will juror #2 finally ask juror #6 for her phone number (even though I think that's not allowed)? Will the DNA evidence be thrown out? Will the head juror crack under pressure? Will the defense go for an insanity plea? Will they be able to reach a unanimous decision? Jury Shore, the show that combines Law & Order, 12 Angry Men and Big Brother, airing this fall on TNT.


Finally, I just want to put this out there for your consideration. Please complete this Google form so I can gauge interest in my upcoming one-woman show.

Drugs, Weaves & Gospel CDs

This week I am sharing the hometown murder that I sent in to my favorite podcast, My Favorite Murder. If you love true crime, cats or therapy you should definitely give them a listen.

Hey guys, long-time listener, second-time emailer. But enough about me.

I'm from a tiny town in North Carolina. Goldston is only known for providing the high school education of Charlie Daniels and growing a lot of NC's state vegetable...tobacco.

When I was in high school, I slept through something really bizarre but here's what my mom told me the next day. 3 people crashed in my front yard in the middle of the night after flying off a bad curve and hitting a tree. My parents didn't hear this but were woken up by a guy knocking on the front door. He said 2 people had kidnapped him (at his age it was actually abduction) and forced him to do drugs with them, as kidnappers are want to do and they had wrecked. He wanted to come in and call 911. My parents talked to him from the balcony upstairs and he said he was okay so my mom, staying sexy, called 911 for him while he stayed outside and my dad got a gun just in case. Then he wanted to call his mother so my mom called his mother to let her know what happened and

His mother wasn't surprised or thankful, she brushed it off and was like "sorry you guys have to deal with him." Help arrived and my dad made coffee for all the firefighters and police while one of my dogs trotted up holding some hair extensions that were in the wreckage in her mouth. The rest of my family watched everything from the window in my room while I was sound asleep, dreaming about John Stamos or something.

We later learned that one male had died immediately in MY FRONT YARD and the female was air lifted to Chapel Hill. The guy who knocked on our door came back a week later asking if he could look around in our yard for a gospel CD that was in the truck when it wrecked. He said he had to sing at church that Sunday and needed his tunes. WWJD? But alas, Gaither's Greatest Hits was never found.

Thanks for all you do!