ONLY WOMEN BLEED (AND OTHER LIES ALICE COOPER TOLD ME):Sometimes, Image is, Indeed, Everything. But What's Really Being Communicated, Well...

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson,
from Self-Reliance, 1841

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- He told her, bluntly, that he'd slept with her first-year roommate as well as her best friend, two women mere days apart back in November, because she'd got kind of fat. He didn't care what she thought, didn't care that she loved him, he was going to spend his last semester in college sowing his oats and seeing women who wouldn't damage his rep.

I read the email, aloud, and tell her that, yes, obviously, her ex-boyfriend is one of those goddamn collar-popping, limp-dicked, pieces of motherfucking catshit chachballs I've often written about here in Oxford Fucking Ohio.

I declined her offer to show me his picture. Frankly, the guy's email turned my stomach to the point where I was ready to quite literally beat the living shit out of him.

I hand the very pretty, healthy-looking sophomore another wad of toilet tissue. She points out that she did, in fact, gain eight and a half pounds during a rather rough Fall Semester. When he quit calling her at home over Winter Break, she knew their relationship was in trouble. The strain of it all pushed her weight up a bit farther - she gained another ghastly, obscene pound and a quarter.

The poor woman's been sobbing for a week, off and on, depressed not only over a failed relationship, but over the fact that she'd ballooned to a beastly 126 pounds.

She goes on to explain that she hasn't been able to eat, sleep, or think clearly for seven days - she's terrified that, well, maybe every guy's noticed how much weight she's gained. She's been taking so much Adderall that one of her professors actually pulled her aside after class to inquire about her emotional and physical well-being.

She took her first shower in more than three days moments after I'd confirmed our "appointment" an hour earlier. She apologized profusely for not shaving her legs, for not drying her hair, or for putting on much makeup. She barely remembered to pull on her lucky track pants and Uggs boots when she exited her room for the first time all day, just long enough to sneak me into her residence hall.

For ten minutes, she tells me about all about how she managed her weight like a sadistic nutritional accountant, how she'd counted every single gram of fat and every single calorie for most of her high school career. But no matter how hard she tried...

* * * *

She jumped up off of the corner of her bottom bunk, bent over, and pointed at why, exactly, she thought she'd been dumped by a rather-worthless sounding prick.

"Look. My ass is fucking HUGE! I got cellulite every-WHERE! Who would want that?"

I looked. I saw nothing but a very nice ass attached to rather attractive girl, a very pretty face staring back at me from over a shoulder. She tugged down one side of her track pants, pulled up the leg of her boxers, showed me the four dimples at the crease between her ass and thigh.

Here is this emotionally wrecked, tired, angry woman, with quite possibly one of the greatest asses in the history of college sophomoredom here in Oxford Fucking Ohio, and she's telling a 29-year-old single librarian about how gaining less than ten pounds has ruined her, driven her rather wretched-sounding boyfriend into the arms of other women, and how this one electronic voice in the wilderness just must agree with her thigh-cheese-equals-troll assessment.

"Chica, I probably shouldn't say this, but I think you know you're not fat, know this cat was a cocksucker, and that this Ms. Perfect shit just makes you look like a dumbass."

There is no way to describe the looks some very pretty sophomores can give a guy when they know, deep down, that that guy may have a point.

"Huh?"

"Well... this ain't really about getting dumped by a douche. Sounds to me like this is about how you see yourself as a person..."

It's amazing, sometimes, the sheer maturity and wisdom I'm able to demonstrate, even with a nice ass in my face.

* * * *

She sat back down on the bed.

I waited for her to call me what blog readers who've mistaken me for some College Girl Crusader or Small Town Defamer often call me - a fraud, a huckster, or, usually, a fucking creepy asshole. Worse, there are some folks who are just appalled - downright DISGUSTED - to learn that, well, being a blogger makes one more of a village idiot than any sort of role model.

When I display the same sort of honesty offline as I often display online, many folks are taken aback, shocked. Yes, I swear like a drunken sailor, say completely inappropriate, insensitive, very un-PC things.

What one reads is what one gets - and if a reader asks a certain blogger to make a housecall to talk, that reader isn't in for any sort of bullshit Blogebrity routine. In all honesty, I don't have time for that ego-stroking, narcissistic horseshit - I work too hard at my day job and know too many good people in this town to behave so, well, stupidly.

She didn't say a word.

Instead, she sat cross-legged, picked at the lint and blackened dust bunnies that had defiled the fur tops of her Uggs. She stared down towards the hornet's nest of sports bras, crumpled jeans, coats, comforters, and sheets that we were both sitting on - she mumbled an apology for not tidying up before I'd stopped by.

I figured that was my cue. I said I'd leave her alone, thanked her for, well, keeping me entertained via her intoxicated late-night instant messages, and reminded her that, well, my office door at the library, is almost always open.

Without looking up, she reached up and grabbed my arm, squeezed. I sat back down, put my hand on her shoulder. She asked me to stay. So I did.

And, once the emotional hysterics that go along with being jilted were well out of sight, we had a nice, brutally honest conversation about why one doesn't take time off from college because of a douchebag, how one sucks up that rage and turns it into scholarly fuel, and the importance of never, ever letting something as trivial as a temporary low self-image get in the way of making good, emotion-free decisions.

I even recommended that she start a blog about her experiences under a pseudonym, document her struggles so that maybe, sometime in the future, some other sophomore in her position might find it and go, Holy fucking shit! This girl really knows what I'm feeling!

Hell, blogging has done wonders for my own concept of self-worth and self-esteem issues - why not pass on that experience to others? College women need to get online, need to share not just their musical tastes or fashion tips or bullshit political ideologies but personal experiences as well. Venting does a body good - and sometimes it's equally rewarding to simply read about an experience that let's a random stranger know that they're not alone in this world.

As we talked, she held onto my arm for dear life. I was the first person not a mutual friend or family member she'd spilled her guts to in a long, long time. She told me why she reads this silly web site has more to do with how I handle certain information more like a priest taking confession than a blogger - I don't use names and carefully conceal identities, so, therefore, spilling one's guts is less of a risk than, say, posting something to a MySpace or Facebook account.

That's why she asked me to stop by, made an afternoon appointment. She needed to confess her sins - and my openness about my own, batshit insane personal life made me sound like the perfect holy man.

In all honesty, I showed up only because I was terrified that I may be asked to administer Last Rites.

* * * *

Suddenly, mid-sentence, she asked me if I was hungry. I lied and said that, well, a nice hot toasted roll - one of the Local U.'s signature culinary treats - sounded abso-fucking-lutely scrumptious. Actually, the very smell of those things makes me nauseous, but, well, I was just on my game enough to realize the question about hunger was more self-directed.

Getting a Local U. girl who's been starving herself for a week may, in fact, be the single-most important contribution I've made to the Oxford community, professionally or as an everyday citizen, in more than a year.

As we hiked down towards the student union - she was craving a slice of pizza - she stopped me with an Ugh! Hold on. That's so annoying..., turned me on my heels like a wayward toddler, and started adjusting my cockeyed stocking cap and tangled mess the hood on my sweatshirt had become. She went so maternal on me, this woman barely out of her teens, that she even licked her thumb before she slicked down my disheveled eyebrows.

"You know, you have gorgeous eyelashes. There was this girl in my history class last semester who told me that she had a crush on this guy who worked at King..."

Suddenly, she stopped cold, pulled herself into me. The first-year roommate, one of the two boyfriend-fucking Jezebels, was on her cell phone, pacing, right in front of the student union doors, a mere thirty feet away. I started to turn and look, but, well, serving as a human shield left me with only the risk of sweatshirt strangulation as the very pretty, image-conscious sophomore clung onto my collar for dear life.

"Ohmygodohmygod... if she sees us together she's gonna think... she's gonna tell everybody... fucking whore!...God, she's s'posed to be in Cincinnati ... don't DON'T look... she's looking... FUCK!"

It took me, in my so not an undergrad mindset, a good thirty seconds to figure out what, exactly, that ferret-faced Ms. Thang, clad in her trendy North Face jacket and skintight black pants, guarding the entrance to a student union food court could possibly assume, or who the everybody was she'd possibly tell.

I laughed. Hard.

You know, the sight of a cute girl ducking into the chest of a 29-year-old librarian with supposedly gorgeous eyelashes probably is something to gossip about - if you're a catty, rodent-looking Cincinnati rich girl with nothing better to do than to fuck my blog readers' boyfriends because you were, like, soooooo wasted at beer pong parties, like, two or three times, accidentally.

I thought about it for a moment, pondered and weighed the potential risks to both my professional credibility and, well, my fine, upstanding reputation (go ahead and laugh, dammit!) as an online writer. I then strategically twisted in such a way as to position my mouth at the ear of the very pretty, way-too-young sophomore, twisted in such a way that Ms. Rodent Face would have a clear view of both her former roommate's face and my constantly graying stubble.

I whispered, slowly, into my chestwarmer's ear that she had nothing to worry about, said sweet nothings about how learning to tune out gossip comes with maturity, and told her, well, that she shouldn't give a flying fuck what others may think.

She giggled at my use of the phrase flying fuck (she didn't believe anybody actually spoke such things so casually) and whispered something back about not wanting people to ask questions. Again, she played right into my not-so-sinister plan of attack.

I could feel the stare. Just the type of stare I'd counted on, one of those soul-rupturing glares that catty gossipwhores tend to give people when they think certain things, when they assume that they are now entitled to do whatever they want with certain information, regardless of courtesy or consequences.

So, like clockwork, I pushed the very pretty sophomore back into an upright, chin-up position, told her that the time had come to say Fuck it and to march right past Jezebel No. 1. She sighed, agreed, and we double-timed it past the loose-lipped (in more ways than one, apparently) sentry. My blog reader, the trooper that she was, shoved her hands into her pockets and stared at the ground.

I just grinned a very stupid-looking grin. My plan was working.

I stood as straight as I could, puffed out my chest, and did my best Dirty Old Man impression, acknowledged the gawker with a well-timed, jaw-shattering S'up.

And how that other woman stared. She even had the beady little brown eyes of a ferret.

* * * *

Over a quick bite, I let my very pretty, supposedly hefty, 126-pound dinner date in on the intricacies of my, well, strategically placed movements, mannerisms, and whispers, on the use of a quick and controlled burn to manage someone else's need to perpetuate rumor and disinformation.

It took her a bit of time to grasp the concept. After she'd pondered it over the remainder of her very bad cappuccino...

* * * *

"So what you're saying is that she's gonna tell him and his ego's gonna be smashed?"

"Yup."

"That's weird."

"Okay, lemme put it this way: how do you think most guys react when they're hearing rumors that their ex is potentially fucking an older guy?"

"I'd be fucking pissed."

"How would you feel, in his shoes, if one of your gossipy mutual acquaintances was spreading rumors ..."

Silence. And then, the wondrous Eureka! moment.

"Oh shit. So he's gonna look like a total ass and I'm the mature one, right?"

"Yup."

"Really?"

As I walked her back to her dorm, we discussed all sorts of things, ranging from other forms of data manipulation in interpersonal relationships to her new-found obsession with G.I. Joe comic books and online poker.

A guy she knew, too, grad student, had invited her over to hang out, watch a couple of old 1980s movies. She wasn't sure about his motives, but, well... she wasn't ready ... she didn't really like him that way...

"Well, sounds like you're getting ready to upgrade to business-class there, chica."

She didn't seem to get what I was getting at. I let it drop, wished her a great weekend, and promised I'd have something new for her to read sometime Saturday afternoon.

She reminded me that I don't use real names and that she'd be really mad if I slipped up. I reminded her that, well, I really didn't need to be reminded of anything.

* * * *

I'm supposed to mention, somewhere, that Mr. Super-Prep was born blessed - I am sorta like a priest, after all - with a really, really tiny...

Er.

Would anybody believe me if I swore she asked me to include something about how his imagination resembles a Vienna Sausage?

Length and width, apparently. That's a serious lack of imagination.

And to think...

There are people who ask me how, exactly, my not-so-secret life as a blogger has helped build up my own self-confidence and sense of personal image.

I'm completely comfortable with my imagination, actually. Way overactive at times, but, well, I'm working on that...

Seriously.

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HEY, UM, DIDN'T JOANIE LOVE CHACHES?: Notes From Conversations About Jack and Shit, Chin-Up Bars, and Sexual Cockroaches

CHACH (alt. sp. CHATCH) - n. A younger American male who overly relies on shallow and often superficial things to compensate for intellectual deficiencies, sexual inadequacies, basic dignity, socially acceptable etiquette, and/or understanding of human interpersonal relationships.

For better, more creative definitions, check out the various entries at Urban Dictionary or this stellar commentary from an Ohio campus newspaper, The Independent Collegian.

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I'm not a college student anymore. I haven't been one for many years. And I never attended the Local U., never experienced many of the things students here experience as part of their development from children into men and women.

I moved to Oxford Fucking Ohio not from my parents' house or some boarding school but from a tiny little apartment in Baton Rouge, one with a stellar view of both Tiger Stadium and the State Capitol Building.

I left behind the last of my college years back in the Pelican State. The days of tailgating, of running over to Ichabods for shots after - and often immediately before - Thursday evening classes. I experienced the crawfish boils, the pink flamingos of the Spanish Town Mardi Gras.

I left behind those downtown trips to Tabby's Blues Box (No. 2) and Red Star to drink cheap beer and party 'til Last Call, the ones made while everyone else was cramming for their comprehensive exams, pretending like those silly reference and cataloging classes were actually challenging.

And there was this one very hot waitress from Lake Charles at that sports bar across the street from my apartment, the one with the shirts cut so low you could see her...

Er....yeah.

And that was graduate school. There are days I'm grateful that I didn't start blogging in college.

Needless to say, I have really no idea about what it feels like to be a student here in Oxford, beyond what I've witnessed or what I've been told.

Hell, I just work here, folks. No ties whatsoever, other than the ol' job. I'm a transcontinental foreigner, a single guy who, through some quirk of fate, ended up accepting a position in this little town.

It's not a bad little town, really. Never once worried about getting mugged, never once have I worried about rush hour traffic, and I really enjoy the nice, peaceful summers.

But I've never given a shit about Green Beer Day, a once-a-year annoyance that leaves my facility's plumbing fixtures clogged with vomit and beer shits. I've never celebrated Ghetto Fest, never experienced one of the famed Toasted Rolls in a dining hall, never had to suffer through perhaps one of the most tedious general education schemes known to Man.

I've never even thrown up in The Alley, never worn a Muck Farshall tee to the football stadium, and I've yet to log a single hour passed out on the couches in the ZenFo Pro Library - all seen as benchmarks of the Local U. Experience. I've never cried over rotting water towers or whined to city council about outdoor drinking game bans, either.

Without having been a student here, well, there are several local phenomena for which I have no frame of reference. There are concepts that I can't seem to grasp, no matter how hard I try.

Sadly, the chach concept isn't one of them.

* * * *

The first time I heard the term chach, "Britney" and I were sitting in my new apartment, back in late November (when I began writing this damned post), chatting away about her experiences transitioning from undergraduate to alumna.

She'd come back to visit Oxford for the same reason many recent alumni return to visit their alma maters post-graduation. While out in the working world, adjusting to a 40-hour work schedule, the decreased socialization, an the inability to sleep past the asscrack of dawn, she'd grown a bit nostalgic. Sadly, coming back reminded her of why she'd said she never wanted to return in the first place. Too much drama, bad memories overwhelming the nostalgia.

Over dinner, she even told me that seeing all of the drunk students staggering down High Street, from bar to bar, made her new boring life - up at 5 to go spinning at her gym, in the office by 8, and hanging out at a Barnes & Noble drinking coffee and reading away her evenings - seem like a vacation from the reality she'd once known as a student.

One of her former roommates called while we were sitting at the kitchen table. I laughed as "Britney" made faces and obligatory obscene hand job gestures while she talked, occasionally kicking my leg to remind me that she'd much rather be talking to me.

The two didn't really like each other; they kept in contact, it seemed, primarily out of a sense of obligation. I guess they missed arguing over unpaid utilities and, er, certain former flings who'd once, er, accidentally removed a showerhead with a pair of handcuffs.

Long story.

Yeah, I don't think I'm going out tonight. I'm over at J's apartment right now. No, we're just talking. No, I've got a hotel room....I don't think that's any of your business really anyway. Later babe!

"Britney" hung up her cell and flung it down onto the table.

Can you believe her? She wanted me to come down to Brick Street because she's not sure if she should hook up with some guy. Un-FUCKING-believable. She's 23 and hitting on fucking chaches and thinks YOU were a bad influence on ME!

Having never heard the term Chach before, I asked "Britney" what the term meant. I thought she was talking about Scott Baio's character from Happy Days.

It's one thing when someone laughs with you. It's another thing completely when a former "fruitcake sex" partner laughs at you for being so ignorant of local slang, points and giggles at you like you're the dumbest guy on the planet.

And she absolutely refused to define the term beyond never mind...this is too fucking funny.

"Britney" explained, through the snorts and tears, that, well, the idea of the oh-so-smartypants librarian not knowing the meaning of Chach was one of the funniest things she'd ever seen or heard - especially since I'd been suckered by something called chachbait quite a few times since she'd last seen me (see this post for one example).

Very humbling experience.

We ended up hanging out in my apartment all night, drinking my last very good bottle of Tobin James, a 2004 Estate Private Stash (a $50 bottle of reserve-bottled Bordeaux. I'm not a wine drinker, but, well, I know how to buy the stuff. Great flavor on this one.) and watching Justice League Unlimited on my laptop.

At one point, she excused herself to use my john. Five minutes later, I heard more hysterical laughter from my bathroom. Apparently, the chin-up bar I'd recently installed in the bathroom door frame was chachish - "Britney" even asked if I secretly pop the collars on my polo shirts and flex in the mirror when nobody was looking, a closet chach.

At one point in the evening, she popped her own shirt collar, put on my Stetson, and did her damnedest to convince me that her impression of the Chachformation Professional was as funny as she thought it was.

I walked her back to her hotel at well past three in the morning, unable to pick a meaningful definition of Chach from her oh-so-smartass brain.

As I walked back to my apartment, the only thing I could think of was Charles in Charge, Fonzie jumping the Shark, and Joanie Friggin' Cunningham.

* * * *

I tried researching the origins of this particular, uniquely Midwestern term in a more scholarly fashion. I tried finding an answer in various slang and contemporary language dictionaries during my lunch breaks.

I finally called a language expert, a buddy of mine, who responded by laughing hysterically, questioning my sanity, and suggesting that I ask the locals - something that, well, someone studying regional dialects and its unique identifiers would do.

She did, however, put me on hold while she asked her teaching assistant - an apparently charming 26-year-old who my friend has suggested, in less-than-scholarly IMs, represents the kind of woman I should be dating, should I continue my professional career here in Oxford Fucking Ohio.

The language expert's probably right. I really do prefer educated women who listen to the Clash and the Dropkick Murphys, have a particular fondness for industrial techno but no longer enjoy going to clubs, enjoy hiking and target shooting, and who sport nose rings.

But I digress...

The TA, a Hoosier State native who attended an Ohio university as an undergrad, thought it was, well, fucking hysterical that that blog guy was calling from across the country to learn about Chaches.

After some delay, the faculty finally put her protege on the phone.

According to the Indianan, roughly 60-70 percent of Ohio male college students fall into the chach category - at least the ones she knew when she was an undergrad at her Ohio university.

Here in Oxford Fucking Ohio, at the Local U., she estimated that as many as 90 percent of the male students fit the bill, based on her experiences partying with and dating several Local U. students.

...Basically, chaches are guys women go home with in college because they're cute, frigging adorable, on the outside... Women wake up and literally feel like their IQs have dropped because they've just hooked up with a Metro version of a Neanderthal... Chaches are like the sexual cockroaches of college, they're everywhere and don't ever seem to go away.

Wait...

So I have metrosexual sexual cockroach caveman tendencies?

I explained to the TA how, exactly, I'd become obsessed with the Chach. That only led to more laughter.

Dude, if you have a chin-up bar in your bathroom...yeah, that's kinda chachish. But you don't seem like a Stadium Toad, at least online.

Wait...

Stadium Toad?

* * * *

I finally admitted that I needed, well, a Local U. perspective, a perspective that I could trust to cure my obsession.

So one night, while bar-hopping at way past my normal bedtime, I asked a few male friends - none of whom seemed to be the type to have chin-up bars installed in their bathrooms - for a better explanation.

One guy, a larger guy who I'll call Mr. Molson, laughed as we stood out on the balcony of this one particular bar. Mr. Molson, I knew, used the term frequently.

I'm pretty sure you're not a chach, Mr. Molson said, pointing towards a group of younger bar patrons.

Now that, my friend, is a chachfest.

A group of guys, all dressed in matching neon polos and overpriced jeans, staggered out of the bar, drunk girls in tow. Their hair hardly moved, gelled like mine but...not. Their faces seemed almost waxed, nary an ingrown hair in sight, eyebrows plucked and perfect. The whole group reeked of expensive cologne and Natty Light. The air was filled with the sounds of hey-bras and what sounded like rich white kids who'd heard one too many Dem Franchize Boyz tracks.

And, yes, they looked like the kind of guys who would have chin-up bars installed in their bathrooms.

But unlike the ol' ZenFo Pro, they didn't seem to be the kind of guys who kept Whitman's Leaves of Grass on the nightstand or who'd list The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as one of their favorite films, or would, well, think twice about whether or not being called a chach was a bad thing.

Oh, so a chach is basically a preppy douchebag? Wow.

Mr. Molson looked up from beneath his ball cap. We were both drunk as skunks, standing in the cold, smoking cigarettes and watching as the chachefest migrated back to whatever horrid, vile place chaches take their chachebait.

Yup.

I guess being a college student in Oxford Fucking Ohio is no different that being a college student anywhere else.

* * * *

While the slang may change, there have always been chaches. We had them at LSU when I was a grad student, at Cal Poly and Northern Colorado when I was an undergrad - we just had different names for them.

Yeah. Chach works. And they really are like sexual cockroaches.

One day, maybe, I'll unearth a good definition for Stadium Toad.

I'll save that one, however, for another post.

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