iamsurly's Open Salon Blog

Birds 'n' Bees - Surly Style

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 14:04:24 -0400

So. Yeah. It’s been a while since I posted. I’ve been busy. I have a life. You have a life. I thought we were both going along swimmingly. Well, that is until this week. Apparently some of you need me to explain the facts of life to you.

Yeah. Apparently I’m your Mrs. Garrett. Fuck. Whodathunk it would come to this?

We both know you’ve got the basics mastered. You’ve been gettin’ it on and whackin’ off for decades. You’ve got the callouses and offspring to prove it. What you’ve apparently misunderstood is how to take it to the next level. You’ve got no damn finesse, and your creative efforts are borderline pathological. There’s gettin’ your freak on and there’s FREAKY.

Now, of course, as I always say, I’m all about the live and let live. Within reason. REASON being the operative word here. There are certain people, creatures, and objects you shouldn’t be having sex with. Creepy guys who collect women and young boys in their basement – out. Guys who drive shag wagons – out. Foreign objects that may cut, perforate or be considered an object of impalement – out. Anything with a heartbeat that isn’t a human being – out. I thought these things were self-evident. Apparently they are not. Jesus. What is wrong with you people? Why can’t I leave you unsupervised for short periods of time?

Now personally I’m not one for the anal sex. I’ve got hemorrhoids, so the only thing you’re welcome to come near my anus with is Preparation H. But if it floats your boat, game on. However, let’s show a little discretion about what we’re shoving up there, shall we? List of items Surly recommends you DO NOTtry: table legs (yes one idiot actually killed himself with one – fuckin’ genius); wine glasses – really, anything glass like not made of a Pyrex type of material – Waterford crystal is for wine you idiots; anything, other than some hot guy’s penis, that is actually ALIVE.

Yeah. No. Seriously. Some jackass in China decided to send an eel up his ass as part of his most recent jackoff festival. Who does that? Who thinks this is a good idea? Supposedly Asian women working in sex shows and smoke cigarettes with their twats also insert reptiles in their hoohas as part of their act and that’s where he got the idea. Holy Cheezits who comes up with this crap? Years ago, when I first stumbled on the internet I found an encyclopedia of human sexuality on some university’s alt.net servers and the minute I ran across an entry referring to Zoophilia with reptiles I logged off and never looked back.

So. To recap for those of you who are slow. If it cuts you and makes you bleed, is something you serve your parents food/drink from, or comes from a pet store, DO NOT masturbate with it. And do not accept rides home in vans with guys who have the whole Michael Bolton collection on CD.

Please don’t make me tell you again.

More Than Vajazzling, My Twat Needs Validation

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 19:02:30 -0500

This post is flat out NSFW – which means don’t fuckin’ look at it at work. Some of these links might just get your ass in all kinds of trouble.

Yeah. I can see the look of confusion on your face. Mixed with a small amount of curiosity and revulsion. Lookit! Surly’s talkin’ about her twat, again. Well sure. We’ve talked, more than one should, about decorating one’s nethers for entertainment purposes. But even I have lines, wiggly as they are, that I can’t jump across.

One of those is posting inartistic nude photographs of myself all over the internet. Frankly, at my age, no one needs to see me naked, not even Dave. A nice nude pic or a photo of my tits back in the day when they defied gravity is okay by me – heck I have a few that I probably wouldn’t mind sharing with you lot. I might even sext you if I were 24 again – provided you are hot. (We both know you’re not.) But I draw the line at a full-up close shot of my hoo-ha spread wide like only my gynecologist should see it. Apparently there are others who feel quite the opposite.

I’m pretty sure that the guy that wrote the photobook 199 Vaginas was probably the one trolling around The Well in the mid 90′s asking women to scan theirs and email him the pics for his collection. If not, then they were at least friends or subscribe to the same porn chat sites. I declined the invitation when extended. Even back then in the wild west days of the web I knew better than to share everything with strangers.

This morning my friend Emily, who searches the web for things to entertain me, found an article about a site called the Large Labia Project where, if you’re feeling bad about how ugly your twat is, you can send them a picture and they’ll praise it for you. No really. They will make you feel all warm and fuzzy about the fact that your twat hangs to your knees, has wrinkles, needs a shave, has warts, whatever. They are there, in all their feminist glory, to embrace your twat and all of its insecurities.

Okay. I’ll admit, even with all my degrees in psychology and years and vast experience, I have never met a single woman who told me her twat had low self-esteem. Not to knock your issues if you got ‘em, but who sits around wondering if their twat is too big or too small? I can see if you’ve got issues because your clit is the size of a child’s penis and you’re wondering if you got the wrong genitalia and how much surgery costs. I’ve read Middlesex. I’m all kinds of enlightened. But I have yet to meet a hetero-man who would look at a STD free twat and scream “OMG! Get that thing away from me! It’s huge! I’m afraid!” I mean, unless it has teeth.

Apparently there is, officially, a blog for everything now.

And in case you were wondering…My twat is a lot like the Honey Badger. Yeah. Surly’s Twat don’t give a shit.

I Drink Milk From the Container & Other Dirty Little Secrets

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:01:49 -0500

Yeah. Like you’ve never done it. Liar. Whatever.

We all have our dark little secrets. Things we’d rather polite people not know about us. Things we do that we think other people don’t notice. How many times have you seen some guy scratch his ass and follow up with a sniff his fingers? Yeah. I know. That just pulled up a visual you thought you’d manage to suppress for all time. You’re welcome. My sister Parrish’s dirty little secret was that she was a nose picker. I mean a professional nose picker. Like the inevitable guy next to you on the freeway. The one who doesn’t realize they are being watched. The compulsion to pick her nose was so paramount at times that she wouldn’t realize that the sound of you gagging was related to the fact that she was talking to you while her finger was jammed up her nose and half-way up to her brain. (Since she’s dead I can totally get away with telling you this.)

We’ve all got our quirks. I know it cheeses Dave out that I drink from the milk container. I try not to do it a lot. At least not in front of him. But seriously, he and I are the only ones who drink that milk and we both know where the other’s mouth has been. And we brush our teeth regularly. I call it a minor sin.

My bigger problem, and the one that I think embarrasses Dave the most, is my need to watch each and every episode of some really bad TV shows. And I mean all. I have to see the whole series of re-runs from beginning to end. Back in the 90′s I got caught in a late night addiction to re-runs of Matt Houston, Star Trek the Next Generation, and Star Trek Deep Space Nine. You can credit the incredibly poor British TV programming for the Trekie incidents. When Dave and I first moved into together it was Sabrina The Teenage Witch. It’s not even necessarily the case that I like what I’m watching. I just feel compelled once I’ve watched some of it to see all of it.

I do this with books too. I will download a book that is part of a trilogy or series on my iPhone and nex thing I know, despite wanting to pull my hair from my roots, I find that I need to listen to the rest. I have punished myself through years of Patricia Cornwell drivel – until finally I had to give myself an intervention when I was angrier than her lead characters and was considering taking tips from her books on how to stage the crime scene when I finally killed Kay Scarpetta. More recently I’ve found myself listening to the teen saga of The Secret Circle and even worseThe All Souls trilogy about witches and vampires that makes me want to slit my own wrists with a dull spoon. Yeah. I dunno what it is about the witches and vampire shit that makes me want to read them in the first place. I always end up hating them.

There are also movies, usually chick flicks that aren’t even a genre I will pay money to see in the theatres, that I can watch over, and over, and over, and over. Dear God I wish I knew why, but I can watch Practical Magic with the dreadful Nicole Kidman every time it’s on TV. Same thing with Sweet Home Alabama. I can watch both of those over and over back to back while I’m cleaning the house or putting away laundry. I find the story lines insipid and the acting mediocre, but like the good classic Gone With the Wind or The Wizard of Oz, I can watch it any time it’s on. Dave really hates it when I do this and make him go watch his football or golf on the smaller TV in his man room so I can watch it on the big fancy TV in the living room. Yeah. I’m not sure why he’s not left my ass yet either.

Yeah. I know. You thought I was gonna tell you twisted little things I like to do in the dark. Sure. I’ve got those too, and Dave has the physical and emotional scars to prove it. But those, quite frankly, are none of your fuckin’ business you nosy parker.

So. I told you mine. Now you tell me yours.

The Episode In Which B of A Makes Me Want To Kill Myself

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:01:44 -0500

Y’all know I’m not a vain woman. Lord, vanity got kicked to the kerb about the same time my eyebrows fell out. You can’t think you’re all that when you don’t have an eyebrow to raise in disdain at lesser mortals. Not that I don’t think I’m better than you ’cause let’s face it, I am.

As a rule, I don’t pose for photos. I make a rare few exceptions, like my wedding, but other than that, you point your camera in my general direction and you’ll find me giving you the finger. Don’t even try to take it, I have a preternatural ability to sense you trying and will flip you off before your autofocus has kicked in. More than one easily offended kind Christian person has found this out the hard way. Surly’s School of Hard Knocks had an adult education program. Enrollment is free. It’s not like the paparazzi are chasing me to get a snap, but most people have now given up trying to take my photo. This is just back story so you understand that this post took a monumental effort on my part to do.

A few weeks back I was watching one of those annoying morning news shows made less annoying by the distinct absence of Anne Curry, when they started talking about a product Bank of America was pushing called “Face Retirement.” The premise seemed plausible. They want you to realize people are living longer and should be saving for their retirement now instead of waiting until the last possible moment or hoping there will still be Social Security. Sage advice. I should follow it. I am in no way prepared for retirement. We live paycheck to paycheck and have enough in savings to buy an nice last meal when I decide to put our murder-suicide pact into effect. Yeah. It’s true. I’m taking Dave with me when I go, but we’re having a fucking awesome steak dinner first.

My desire to do myself in rather than wait for nature to take it’s course isn’t new. I have a long list of reasons why I will choose not to go on. In as much as I am not vain, I’m not brave either. This plan was only bolstered by playing with the Face Retirement program. Instead of making me want to start saving now and live forever, they made me want to join the Hemlock Society and take up every bad habit I’ve ever quit in favor of a healthy lifestyle. Unsafe sex, hardcore drugs, and unfiltered cigarettes here I come!

According to the fine folks at Bank of America, this is what I have to look forward to at

Age 67

Age 77

Age 97

Age 107 – As Fucking If

So, it looks like I’ve got less than 20 years before I’m forced to face facts and pull the plug. I’m good with that. It’s actually longer than I had originally given myself to really let myself go. I’m going to start every day from here on our with a shot of Wild Turkey and a Marlboro ’cause apparently I’ve got fuck all to lose.

Are you with me?

Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 22:12:09 -0500

You'd probably not be surprised to discover that I don't have a lot of friends. I mean sure, I have friends. I'm not The Cipher in the Snow by any means. I have 331 friends of Facebook at last count. What I don't have are a lot of good close lifelong friends that I see regularly. My mother spends most of her days with her lifelong friends from childhood. While I, on the other hand, see most of mine once every couple of years. When we do see each other, it's a hurried game of catch-up to cover lost ground and a couple of rounds of "Remember when...?" We know each other. Are comfortable together, have known each other for decades but don't really truly know each other all that well as adults. I don't know their daily lives, their regular struggles or triumphs. But I'm not so sure that matters.

I was reminded of that today when I swapped the one of two-three emails a year with my childhood best friend, Liz. Today is her birthday and I sent my annual greeting to remind her she's still 10 months older than I am - which is as important a fact today as it was 35 years ago, only now for wholly different reasons. Liz, or Betsy as she is known to most - except me as I've always called her Liz, mostly to piss her off I think, and I have always had what our mothers referred to as a Love/Hate relationship. So it's not surprising that after all these years I still take a little pleasure in giving her the occasional jab.

We were constantly swinging between being best friends in the world and saying mean things to each other from the first day we met. For example, when my mother was 8 months pregnant with my younger sister Reese, Liz remarked that my mother was so fat she probably couldn't do a cartwheel. Much to her chagrin my mother appeared on her front lawn a few hours later to prove her wrong. This little smack down by my mother proved to be one of the foundation stones of my mother's relationship with Liz's mother, who I still refer to as my Aunt Jean.

Sixth grade was a particularly tough year in Liz's and my relationship. First there was The Rainbow Club. Rainbows were all the rage in the late 70's. Well before we knew they were the flag of the gay movement, they were on our t-shirts, artwork in our bedrooms, and I even wore jeans with them embroidered on the back pocket. Liz took the fad one step further and formed The Rainbow Club whose true purpose and bylaws I never fully knew as the membership was so select as to not have included me. Yeah. I know. You're thinkin' "No fuckin' duh, Surly. No one wants you in their club." As excellent as a point as that is now, at the age of 11 it was heartbreaking. In despair I complained to my mother who spoke to Aunt Jean and the Rainbow Club was disbanded before the ink had dried on the hand drawn membership cards. With the maturity of being in the 6th grade also came the introduction to boys. In particular there was Eric Davis. Long time readers will remember that Eric is the boy I gave his first black eye. And while it wasn't directly Liz's fault that he got decked, the stiff competition for his affections in our small little class of 24 kids, may have had something to do with it. That and he said my grandmother was so old she farted dust. So there's that.

Liz, who has always been quick of wit and a snarky bitch from way back, could always be counted upon for quips and astute observations and commentaries. To this day I can still hear her voice ringing out the classroom windows as I climbed the stairs past them on the day I dared to be the first girl in our entire school to wear a bra.. "Surly's wearing an over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder!" When we were in 7th grade and attending a new school, where I tried and failed to reinvent myself as Vernette (my rarely used first name), Liz put an end to that announcing quite loudly during one of our heated arguments in a locker room, that it sounded like the name of a pubic hairspray. I went back to using my original nickname the very next day, and when asked today why I don't use my real name, I relate this very tale.

Liz circa 1978 - The resemblance to Brooke Shields did not go unremarked.

Now don't get me wrong. Liz an I weren't always at odds. In fact our bouts of bickering and backstabbing, while the stuff of personal legend, were really few and far between. We had long stretches where we were inseparable. We pulled all-nighters during finals locked in my grandfather's office cramming our heads full of dates for European History or trying to wrap our minds around algebraic equations. We spent weekends at each other's houses whiling away the hours doing things that only interest children. It was at Liz's house that I was able to get some measure of vengeance on my estranged father who had somehow wound up being her pool man. I remember standing on the balcony that overlooked her family room surreptitiously dropping Chinese jacks on his head and hiding when he tried to look up. He never knew that it was me who was lobbing them at his head while Liz sniggered behind me.

When we got to high school, though, we did drift apart. Our lives went in very different directions. She stayed a private school and wore pastel uniforms, while I went to public school wore ripped up jeans and did drugs and bad boys in the back seat of my mother's Buick. We saw each other periodically at social gatherings or holidays. I showed up at her last birthday during high school reeking of cigarettes, with my hair bleached white and a much mangled Bondage Barbie doll in tow. Everyone else looked like a page pulled from Town & Country. After college we reconnected again, our friendship having been sustained over the intervening years by letters and quick visits when we returned home. We did normal friend things. I helped Liz learn to drive stick. Bitched about our mothers. Gossiped about our friends. We even took a trip to Hawaii to relax before it was time for the real world to slap our faces.

Since then I've seen Liz only a handful of times. Her wedding, in which she made me wear an egg yellow suit dress; a one night stop-over in New York on my way home from London; and the last time, a lunch in Miami while I was en route to the Keys. That was about 15 years ago. Since then it's been the odd phone call and email exchange. However I know, that if I knocked on her door tomorrow we'd pick up where we were.

Since I know Liz's annual holiday habit is catching up on my blog, I'm leaving this here as a birthday greeting to my elder and old friend. May you always be older than I am.