Suck It, Wonder Woman!: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek (16 page)

As I sit writing this—
in late 2009—there is perhaps no scary creature as hot as zombies, though Glenn Beck is certainly giving the undead a run for their money. Zombies are hot at the movies, hot in books and hot on our trail—gotta go! I kid, but not really. That is actually part of the appeal of zombies, I think: they seem like they could exist. Unlike vampires, who may or may not come from Transylvania and speak with absurd accents, and werewolves, who would never survive in warm climates under all that fur, zombies could be real; they are, in many ways, just us—with terrible skin. And gimpier walks. And an unyielding, unceasing, absolutely all-consuming desire to eat brains. But otherwise, they are just like us. And if that’s the case, then shouldn’t we be able to learn something from them? Call me crazy but I think so. And in considering what zombies could teach us, let’s go for something big—something about life or money or death. Or love. Yes, love, let’s go with love! Now that I think about it, zombies really could teach us something about the lovemaking arts. Sure, they may not always be that easy on the eyes but in the way that they live their lives (or whatever it is the undead do), there are a few excellent lessons we can all remember when it comes time to Make Love Like a Zombie.

*
BE A GREAT LISTENER.
Communication is so incredibly important if you are interested in becoming an accomplished lover. And if you’ve seen so much as one scene from a George Romero movie then you know that nobody is as devoted to paying attention as zombies. Without their unflinching desire to attain a goal, the villains in
Night of the Living Dead
would never have been able to satisfy their monomaniacal urges. Think about that the next time you engage an object d’amour in spine-tinglingly deep conversation over dinner. The great news is that you don’t need to have gone through a face-ravaging toxic accident to also excel in this department. The key is to lock in on your partner with zombielike intensity. That can, of course, be hard to do in this multitasking, highly-distracting, tweet-packed world we live in, but it can be done. You simply must tune out all the white noise that threatens to disrupt your intimate hours with your lover. Be present. You will thank me and, more important, your lover will thank me, especially if you can also give such single-minded attention to…
down there
.

*
GO SLOW.
You know how most zombies walk at such a slo-mo molasses pace that it’s a minor miracle they can catch even one victim? Well, apply that same principle to honoring and pleasuring your lover and s(he) will never forget you. I have read the statistics and so I know that women overwhelmingly say that they would like to have more foreplay involved in their lovemaking sessions. In other words—don’t be all vampiric and go straight for the neck; sloooooow it down to zombie speed, bro. I know what you are thinking: But if I go too slowly, won’t I miss some opportunities to party down? Of course you won’t! Haven’t you seen the creep-along orgy that is the original
Dawn of the Dead
? Those brain-suckers ambled so ridiculously slowly, you’d think they would’ve sprouted moss. And yet, they all totally nailed their target. And you will, too, if you take the time to explore each and every nook and valley of your lover’s rocky physical terrain. Think of your partner’s body as a postapocalyptic wasteland of scorched and still-smoldering Earth and treat it like a ravenous zombie who’s dead-set on fulfilling its every bloody desire. Sexy!

*
FONDLE THEIR BRAINS.
As any good zombie can tell you, brains are not just for breakfast, anymore. The brain, as the saying goes, can be the largest erogenous zone on a human body. So once again the undead were ahead of the lovemaking curve by placing so much emphasis on brains. The only error zombies make, as far as I can tell, is that they spend too much time trying to
eat
brains and not enough time
stimulating
them. How you choose to stroke and stoke your lover’s cerebrum is, of course, up to you, but there are a handful of ways I’ve found to turn on the top light. Phone sex, for example, is all about titillating your special someone’s imagination, which is just another way of saying you are giving him or her a brain erection—or “brection.”

…brains are not just for breakfast anymore.

A road less traveled might be to bake your lover a pie. This might sound odd at first, but I think you will be pleased by the effects of the wafting aroma of warm apples baking. Again, this will tease and arouse the brain that’s connected to the body whose bones you wish to jump. Also—pie is delicious! Just don’t combine thoughts here and bake them a brain pie because that is not so delicious, unless you really are a zombie. Which I am not. Swear!

These are all times
when life was so crazy and weird, you just really needed to be there…

When I was in fourth grade, one day I was sitting in class taking a test after lunch. I couldn’t concentrate on the test because I had to pee so bad. I know the logical grown-up response would be that I could just get up and go to the bathroom. But at nine years old, I didn’t want to get up in front of everyone and walk to the bathroom. I also didn’t want the teacher to think I was cheating by leaving in the middle of a test.

So, I did the next best thing. I tried to let just a little pee out. Just a little so there’d be relief. Yes I was going to let myself pee
just a little bit
in my pants.

Did you know that it’s very hard to just let a
little
pee out? Because once you need to go and you let yourself, it doesn’t really stop.

So, I sat there, completely relieved, in the middle of class, in my own pee.

The girl sitting next to me notices a drip coming from my chair and whispers, “Hey…hey…did you pee your pants?”

“No, I didn’t pee my pants. Geez…I had
ice
in my pocket and it’s melting…duh.”

I felt instant panic. I don’t know why I didn’t think that anyone would notice. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t be the girl who
peed her pants!
So, I thought quickly and said, “No, I didn’t pee my pants. Geez…I had
ice
in my pocket and it’s melting…duh.”

Yeah, child wonder over here went with the most logical answer—I was keeping
ice
in my
pockets
. The best part? To the best of my recollection, I’m pretty sure I felt confident she believed me. God, I’m an idiot.

There was a great deal on peaches at the grocery store down the street from my studio—a box of sixteen peaches for only $5.99. I thought it would be nice to get six boxes for the writers, producers and crew. I parked my car, ran inside the store and paid the cashier for six boxes. I went back to my car and drove it to the front of the store where all the peaches were stacked up. I jumped out of my car and raced around to start piling the peaches into my passenger side. Before I even pick up the first box, some woman pulled up behind me, got out of her car and screamed, “Can you move your car so I can get around?” It had seriously been less than ten seconds that I’d been stopped. I smiled and yelled back, “Yep, right away. I just prepaid for these peaches and I’m gonna throw them in my car real quick!” I grabbed the boxes two at a time to be fast. Before I could even get the first two boxes in my car, the woman, still standing outside her car yelled out again, “Seriously! Am I on
Candid Camera
or something?!”

It had been a total of maybe forty-five seconds since I stopped my car! I put down the peaches, looked at her (this time not smiling), thought about how dumb and outdated that sarcastic quip was and then responded, “Yes. Yes, you are on
Candid Camera
. And you might wanna fix your hair and face ’cause you look like shit.”

She just dropped her mouth open in shock and got back in her car. It was so awesome.

A friend of mine lost her job and asked if she could move to Los Angeles and work as my assistant. She said she saw how busy my life had become and would be happy to help me out. So, I gave my current assistant time to find another job and then hired my best friend.

People always say “don’t mix business and friendship.” But they never say
why
. I’ll tell you why. Because when you inevitably ask them to do a favor for you as a friend like, oh I don’t know, “hand me that glass please,” they think you should be paying them for that.

She was the worst assistant somehow managing to do things completely backwards and would end up costing me double.

But one day we found her calling! She loves gardening and offered to water my hedges and take care of them. That’s great! That’ll save me a little money on a gardener each week. Awesome.

One day I came home and she said with a smile, “I need $300.” I asked what it was for. Her response? “Oh! I had sprinklers installed so we don’t have to water the hedges anymore!”

Seriously?! So we don’t have to water the hedges?!! Bitch, your ass said you were gonna water them! So, you offered to water the hedges to save me money, but instead installed sprinklers that
I
had to pay for, so now
you
don’t have to water them. Wow. You’re either a fucking genius, or a bad friend. Oh, man—you really needed to be there.

A few years back I dated a guy for a year and then one day we broke up. Later on, through mutual friends, I found out that he had been cheating on me. Years went by before I finally ran into him again. I guess he got some kind of spark when he saw me and called me later that week.

“I wanted to see if I could take you to dinner tonight.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I responded.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because I don’t really want to start anything with you again,” I said.

“Why not? We were so great together. Let’s give it another shot. I’d love to be with you again, So, why not?” he said.

“Why not? Okay. Because the entire time we were together you never made me come. Not once. I faked it for almost a whole year. And I really don’t want to fake it anymore.”

That was 100 percent true. And I’d wanted to say that for a long time. He was speechless and it felt good. Perhaps you needed to be there.