What's in a name?

"Fiction writers as a species tend to be oglers. They tend to lurk and to stare. They are born watchers. They are viewers. They are the ones on the subway about whose nonchalant stare there is something creepy, somehow."-David Foster Wallace

I have a problem. I'm so curious about every damn thing. I'm also kind of restless. Especially in small, confined spaces such as airplanes, unintoxicated dance club visits, or traincars. After the first few times commuting by train during rush hour, any city girl gets the blues. At my height I'm destined for nose-engulfed-armpits and breath on my face. BREATH. Sick. Upon this realization, I did what every logical babe does and said F U to rush hour after almost three years of its beastiality preying on my innocence. Nope, didn't start going in earlier...just quit my job and got one that afforded me more train-related comfort. I'm going to call this responsible, and you can lick my clam if you think otherwise. Well, not if I don't know you...come on, ya freaks! The point is, I can finally sit down on any of the rarely-incoming Brown or Purple lines to the loop and I don't have to wake up early. I totally win.

Now that there is more room for me to observe at eye-level, I've realized that my insanely piqued curiosity takes me straight to the dick. All the dicks. I can't stop staring at Junk on the Train. Doesn't even matter if I'm sexually attracted to them. Black guys, white guys, Obama-looking-somewhere-in-between guys, healthnut guys, not-sure-if-you're-homeless guys, fat guys, tall guys, skinny small white trash guys, Filipino guys, trying-to-guess-if-they're-circumsized guys, Mexicans, tattoo guys, soccer-playing guys, CEO guys, guitar guys, long-haired and short-haired guys, sunburnt should-have-worn-some-sunscreen-on-the-boat-this-weekend,bro guys...all of them have dicks and I apparently want to see, well, all of them. The only reason I even realize I possess this malady is because I keep getting busted. Once I looked up from a sideways-seat and a dick cloaked in Dockers was just right there, its owners arm supported by the pole attached to my seat. When I realized I'd been analyzing the bulge for the whole backside of The Fruit That Ate Itself, he smirked down at me with eyes reflecting visual allegory from Debbie Does Chicago. While I fancy myself a non-cocktease, I didn't even know I was subconsciously offering a teaser in the first place. I lost him in the Washington/Wells shuffle, platform-quickie averted. If you're going to scope shaft all day, don't make it so fucking obvious...lesson learned.

"Other" powerwomen ogle and judge each other's Louboutins, Kindling Kindles, and text, text, text away, while I'm fake-reading The Dolliver Romance, peering over top, lost in an unrestrained fantasy land similar to that of Jonah Hill's character's in SuperBad. It's not even that big of a deal, something like 8% of pervs do it. If there's one thing I've learned from my weird, round-trip voyeuristic voyages downtown, it's don't judge a dick by its cover; this guy is Asian. Til next time, creeps.

who will give me surgery hugs?

As the fated date approaches, July 13th's countdown ticks loudly and instigates my anxiety for tomorrow's 9 pm (CT) closing ceremonies. Aged almost in parallel, I have grown into a woman alongside LC, Lo, KCav, and Ceiling-eyes Partridge. We've made hard choices together and I've stood by them through horrible hangovers, post-meth-addiction dating struggles, and countless surgeries alike. Tomorrow, when The Hills comes to an end, so will a part of my youth.

As the girls gossip about the past and chat unknowingly about the future, I will sit in a bittersweet cloud of present tense; happy that these potentially-strong females can finally live life freely off-screen, and sad that I can no longer laugh and judge to make myself feel better in some twisted sense. Sure, I wasn't birthed onto the Pacific shoreline with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I'd like to think my general positivity and drive to succeed (whatever that means) makes me pretty okay. Watching these hoes unravel adult reality and cry about it has been pretty hilarious, if not encouraging, that the rest of us less-fortunate assholes actually have had something going for us all along: a life not cloaked in veneers, perhaps. When you learn early that nothing is perfect, what you want you may not get, and that insecurities are healed from within, there is something vindicating about witnessing these lightbulbs go off for someone else. Especially as her surgery-jaw prevents her from chewing a sandwich and the permanance sets in, rolling down her face.

I told you...it's twisted. But it is for all of us. Isn't that why we watch? To see that even the glamorous "celebrities" have faults and make mistakes? To see that even the most bodacious maneater around doesn't always get her man? To see that the smart ones knew when to walk away and capitalize on a book tour or clothing line because they didn't want the light at the end of the tunnel to be another humiliating camera flash?

As our Hollywood friends descend from popular culture tomorrow night, I will toast Andre to them all from my small two-bedroom apartment surrounded by my own version of girlfriends. The kind that don't start sex-tape rumors about me, but instead destroy the evidence, and the kind that would never, ever, under any circumstances, let me marry the crystal-weilding mental-case Spencer Pratt. One thing is for sure, however; from the Hollywood Hills, to Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood, women everywhere will gather in gaggles, making puppy-dog faces and swapping surgery hugs with the ones they love as the clock strikes game-over for our frenemies out West. Godspeed, and thanks for the memories.