happy ash wensday

Mardi Gras has come and gone, and I didn't get flashed even once. For those of you who didn't flash: now is the time for dignity and restraint, not last week.

Mardi Gras was like Christmas, like Melissa said. Ed and I begged for a rubber chicken from every float. Instead we got beads from guys who felt sorry for us. Mostly they were throwing at Jessie and missed. Someone hit me in the face with penis beads and Jessie caught them. I was fine with not getting the beads, but spare me the fleischpeitsche to the face. My friends wanted to see the French Quarter, so we went on Saturday night after endymian, and it was the lamest, grossest, most crowded college-y thing I've ever seen. Add to that the sad lack of breasts, and you can understand why I liked the parades so much better. The parades promised me beads and high school cheerleaders (if they're wearing short skirts and doing dances that involve shaking something, somehow it feels acceptable to take their picture and flirt with them) and the parades delivered in spades. Plus I got some dubloons from the KKK. Who knew?!

Thanks, NOLA, for the great time. You made me feel a lot better about people. Somehow you make it OK to drink on the streets and in front of little kids. I didn't have a problem with that to begin with, but the North is more uptight. And speaking of uptight, somehow I was in the middle of the biggest titfest in the world, and I didn't see any flesh. Weird, right? But I don't blame New Orleans. The big easy wanted to show me. It showed me on new year's. I was just in the wrong places at the wrong times.

But Illinois, it was your responsibility to pick up the slack on Fat Tuesday. We went to the normal hangouts (Murphys), where everyone was decked out in three sets of beads and a coat. We brought a dozen of the lame beads from the parades and easily topped the rest of the bar. But the best I got was "I think the beads are tops, but I'm not gonna show you my tits for them" from some british girl. Maybe you thought you were slutty when you got dressed tonight, but I just proved you wrong. Mikey's new fun girlfriend wanted to take our beads to the slutty bars and make some deals, but instead we went to the after-party for the Wilco show. Great decision. That involved one guy in eye makeup who looked like he worked sound for someone who knew someone important and wanted you to know it, and a hundred kids in matching t-shirts who'd worked the show. We got one girl to work up the courage to flash Natalie (in a corner so nobody else could see) for beads, and to hear her do it you'd think she just had her first orgy with farm animals.

Purple is the color of sexual frustration, and I saw a whole town decked out in it last night.