My my.

Someone is a dismal blogger.

I think Twitter has ruined me…

Black-hearted.

Everyone who doesn’t have a Valentine hates Valentine’s Day. I’m no exception. So to celebrate this blackest of holidays, I’ve compiled a list of my favorite “love songs”. And by love song, I mean songs about how much love sucks.

Enjoy, and Happy Valentine’s Day!

#1 “Henry Lee” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Pretty self-explanatory. Girl likes boy, boy likes girl but not enough to commit, girl stabs boy and dumps the body.

#2. “This Mess We’re In” by PJ Harvey with Thom Yorke

Girl likes boy, boy likes girl. Some sort of disaster happens and they’re on the run. A hot mess.

#3. “Possum Kingdom” by The Toadies

Girl likes boy. Boy is a serial killer? Vampire? Who cares? It’s bad news either way.

#4. “Does He Love You?” by Rilo Kiley

Girl likes boy. Boy is married to girl’s best friend. Hilarity ensues.

#5. “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush

Girl loves boy. Boy loves girl. Boy becomes a brooding, psychotic stalker. Girl dies and haunts boy. With dancing!

Hunt.

You picked up on it before I did.

I was nineteen and home from college on some sort of break. We were talking and you were staring at me so intently I couldn’t perform my usual evasive “laugh and look away” maneuver when conversations turned uncomfortable. It made my palms sweat. Had you been looking at me like that all years I’d known you? Did I just notice now?

I fled back east and you followed, invading my space by sending me long, aimless notes filled with emotion and bizarre imagery. I wrote back to you about my troubles with love and you’d respond, gently curving the content of your emails back to the topic you wanted to discuss: me. I fled again and stopped responding.

I was able to hide for a few years before you found me again. This time I was ready for you. And, in the brief moments we were together in the same place, I let you catch me. I didn’t look away when you stared, and when you tangled your fingers in my hair I leaned into your touch. You, who seemed to know before I did that I needed to be chased. That night I took you home and you kissed me everywhere. We both knew I would leave in the morning, but not because I wanted to.

And now, years later, I still feel you looking for me. We both know you won’t catch me again. The years between have made me faster, sleeker and even more skittish, because I slowed down long enough to see what there is to fear.

One day you’ll grow tired and veer off in search of more accessible love. And it will break my heart because I can’t stop running. 

Doppelganger

Yesterday, while perusing upcoming arts and music events in my area, I came upon a posting that made me choke on my morning Oreos (they raised the prices in the vending machine and I didn’t have enough quarters for Pop Tarts). It read:

“An evening of sketch comedy presented by Dorkus Rainbowpants.”

Dorkus Rainbowpants? That sounds familiar. In fact, it sounds exactly like my blog handle, and isn’t exactly a common name. Who is this mysterious Dorkus? What does it all mean? I decided to investigate.

A quick Google search revealed that Dorkus Rainbowpants is actually the name of several guys who do improv and short films. They won this year’s 48 Film Festival in Minneapolis. The group is pretty new (less than a year) but seems to perform pretty regularly around town.

I was mystified. What are the chances that some random dudes would happen upon my exact blogging alias? And in my immediate area, no less? Were they fans of Steak and Unicorns? A quick check of my dismal reader stats would suggest not. So what was going on? 

Then I looked closer at a photo of the group. One of the guys looked familiar. 

My apartment caretaker. 

What the hell? I hardly ever talk to him except if something is broken (there was also the time he towed my car out of the lot on accident, but we pretend that didn’t happen). I certainly never mentioned my blog. How could such a crazy coincidence occur?

And then it hit me. My apartment unit WiFi is also named Dorcas Rainbowpants. He probably saw it show up on his computer and took the name for his own.

At first I thought about confronting him outright…or going to their show and causing a scene…but in the end it’s not really worth it. If the name works for them and gets some laughs, great. One would hope (being comedians and all) that they could come up with a funny name for their group on their own, but sometimes that’s not how inspiration works. And stealing ideas in the entertainment business isn’t really a new concept. 

So welcome to the neighborhood, Dorkus Rainbowpants. I hope you do your name proud and are actually funny. Maybe I’ll go to a show one day.

See you around,

Dorcas

On Sisters.

Dear boys,

I realize there is a lot of fantasy and mystique surrounding sisters. I blame the novel Little Women and certain rap songs.

However, please take note: It is considered highly inappropriate and offensive to express interest in two sisters at once. Especially if they are close. This may have worked out in some Penthouse article you read, but the reality of the situation is much less sexy. And never assume you can play them against each other. The truth is they are probably talking a lot more than you think, and will always back each other before they ever give you the time of day.

To summarize:

Sister + Sister = Threesome = WRONG

Sister + Sister = You are a douchebag = RIGHT

 

Thank you for your time.

On Cleanliness.

I’ve been enjoying some recent discussions between friends regarding cleanliness and appropriate showering schedules. They seem to range from once every 8 days (due to a recent arm injury) to almost every day (me). The discussion evolved into a conversation on body odor and our culture’s affinity for covering it up with artificial scents.

I’ll be the first to admit I love showers. I love the warm water. I love the acoustics for singing bad showtunes. I love scented bath products. And, most of all, I love blowing my nose right afterwards and getting rid of everything the steam shakes loose. I will probably always be a daily bather. 

As far as body odor goes, I think we hate it so much because it’s so personal. To smell a stranger’s body odor is like a moment of nonconsensual intimacy. It’s something that seems private and vulnerable and that makes us uncomfortable. It reminds us that we are animals. So we encourage eachother to cover it up with soap and deodorant and perfume. These things aren’t real. They are generic and impersonal well within our zone of personal space.

Perhaps the only people we allow to smell us as we truly are are the people we love. And then it just seems a natural extension of our relationship to eachother. I guess people are right when they say cleanliness is next to godliness, because uncleanliness is very human.

Whatever the case, I will continue with my showers and my snot rockets.

Unicorn Lover Report: Sofia Coppola

I thought I’d kick the year off with a Unicorn Lover post. Because once you find one they start coming out of the woodwork.

The Virgin Suicides has always been a favorite movie of mine. Whether it’s the dreamy soundtrack, the subtle feminist commentary on objectification of women, the heavy-handed dying religious and environmental symbolism, or Josh Hartnett strutting around to Magic Man, the movie has found a special place in my heart.

And then there’s this priceless scene:

In case you missed it, yes, that’s a girl frolicking in a meadow with a unicorn.

Now, of course, unicorns can symbolize any number of things. In this instance the unicorn can be a visual representation of the Lisbon girls’ purity and innocence. After all, only virgins can summon unicorns. Or it could be a symbol of the boys’ sexual desire for the Lisbon sisters. Unicorns have horns. So do boys…

 

Either way, we can be certain it means Sofia Coppola likes unicorns. And so we at Steak and Unicorns salute her. May she continue to weave girly fantasy imagery into her films. One look at Marie Antoinette confirms she is doing so.

Have you missed me?

Maybe not, but I’ve missed you.

I’ll be the first the admit I’ve been horrible at updating this blog. But now it’s a new year. A fresh start. And I’m re-committing to frequent updates. Much like the hordes of weekend warriors who flood gyms and yoga studios after the holidays to make good on resolutions, this blog will be flooded with new and interesting posts.

At least through January. 

So grab a unicorn, eat some steak and let’s get the ball rolling.

Zombie Neck.

Warning: be very careful using spirit gum if you have sensitive skin.

This past weekend I took part in the 4th annual Zombie Pub Crawl as a Zombie Nurse. It was amazingly fun. For the first hour I joined Feminist Hottie Radtothemax to hand out condoms and HPV vaccine information to the bloody hordes. After the rubbers were gone the night devolved into boozy, debaucherous fun. Have you ever noticed how stumbling drunk is similar to stumbling like the undead?

For my “look” I decided to apply fake cuts to my neck so it looked like something ripped my throat out. The effect was perfect.

Unfortunately I’ve developed an intense allergic reaction in the days since the crawl. I now look like the victim of domestic abuse.

I talked to an actor co-worker who said it was probably because I just took the scars off at the end of the night and didn’t use “remover”. Figures.

So there you have it. Fake zombie wounds resulting in a real zombie neck.

Why real life is not like the movies: Reason #293

 
I always imagined that if you ever randomly bump into a past flame in the course of your day-to-day life, it would play out like that scene at the end of “The Way We Were”. 

You know that scene. And even if you don’t know it, you watched Carrie Bradshaw compare it to her relationship with Mr. Big.

 

First of all, you look great. Secondly, you know exactly what to say, and it would be something poignant and moving that perfectly articulates everything you felt about life and love and him, at which point the music would swell and you both move off into your respective sunsets. 

Turns out it doesn’t happen quite like that in reality. There’s a lot of shock (especially when you cross paths in a place far from either of your respective cities), stunned looks, awkward embraces and general confusion so that when it’s over you’re not exactly sure what just happened or what it all means.

Oh- and you overslept that morning and haven’t showered.

On another note, my stats tell me a ton of people are coming to my blog by searching “Rainbow Brite costume” which I find hilarious. So let me offer my perspective:

-Yes, it is a cute and fairly unique costume idea for Halloween, especially if you are a child of the 80s
-Yes, I own the costume you can buy off various web sites
-Yes, it does look like a stripper outfit, so make sure you wear shorts underneath the skirt