#Adventures of @DustyCPollyD: Polly’s First Time Purchase of Condoms

#TalkNerdytoMeLover’s Polly Dixon

For most of my life, I’ve abided by the rule that if you want to pork me, there must be protection. If there is not – if you do not have a condom – sorry, buddy – you just ruined it for both of us.  I’ve 100% left that burden on the guy. Never in my life have I rolled with a condom. Never in my life have I even thought to purchase condoms.  You come to my place to bang it out, have a condom. I go to your place, have a condom. We get touchy feely in a car and need to pull over, have a condom. I’ve sent guys running for their car in the morning to grab more condoms.  I’ve left guys houses if they didn’t have condoms (and kicked them out if they didn’t think ahead. What a bitch, right? 

I chalk this up to being in a relationship the majority of my twenties where I never ever had to worry about that stuff. Only recently – being single – have I realized that maybe I am being a little tough on the male species. After all, I’m the most important and if I’m denying myself pleasure  due to lack of protection, how unfortunate for me (and for him). So I decided to “man-up” and buy my very first pack of condoms.

NO BIG DEAL.

I strolled into Target on a mission. When I finally found the aisle with the condoms, I was overwhelmed! It took up at least a quarter of an aisle!  So what did I do? I took one look at all the brands, the boxes and the colors, PANICKED and walked out.

INSERT ANXIETY AND SWEATINESS.

Good GOD. How do you pick what to go with? Lubricated? Non-lubricated? With or Without Spermicide? Regular? Large? Extra-large? Magnum? Vibrating? Flavored? Pleasure Packs? Sensitivity? Her Pleasure? Latex? Non-latex? WHAT. THE. HELL.  How do you guys do it!?!?!?!?

I asked my girlfriends if they’d ever bought condoms to no avail. They were no help. I tried one other time on my own at a CVS. Then I sought the advice of some guy friends who each had their own favorite brand.  I mean, insert more anxiety. What if I choose the worst condoms ever, bring them out for a roll in the sack, and then have the guy think I’m the biggest weirdo? Awful. I ended up calling one of my friends while in Target (on my third try), acted like it was no big deal. Strolled up to the condom aisle, with a red, flushed, embarrassed face, sweating profusely, grabbed a box – shoved it deep into my basket—and hurried for the check out, hoping no one saw me.   

Later on that night, my girlfriends and I – in celebration – of my feat, blew the condoms up as balloons. So mature.

Have I used them, you ask? Only one time. Only once. Only one, measly condom. Only to have the guy tell me that there is something questionable about a girl who has her own stash of condoms. Now I’m weirded out about bringing my condoms out to play. FAIL.

And then after that, I went to Planned Parenthood and they gave me an entire bag of FREEEEEE condoms…which who knows what those are like.  I have no idea why I put myself through the drama of sweaty, nerve-wracked shopping expedition.  

#noglovenolove

Want some more? Click here to follow Polly on Twitter, and check out her blog over yonder!

#Adventures of @DustyCPollyD: Car Drama – Almost TMZ But Really Just TMV.

#TalkNerdytoMeLover’s Polly Dixon

Okay , this is really just a Polly adventure...Dusty was involved solely for my bitching, moaning & then, celebration. Solid pal, that one is.

Anyways, I was forced to purchase (err, rather, lease) a new car because I totaled my other one. Insert me, kicking and screaming like a little baby.  I absolutely hate car shopping. I hate feeling like I’m being swindled. I hate the hours negotiating at the dealership. I can’t stand the schmooze the salespeople try to convince me with. Ugh. It’s all very scary and daunting to me, especially as a female, because I can’t help but feel that they love to see a single, young girl with blond hair walk into a dealership. I can just see them jumping up and down in their little brains about what a fast one they are going to pull over on me. Drives. Me. Nuts.

WHAT I THOUGHT:  Talk the sales guy to a price in between the MSRP (what the dealer marks it for sale as) and the Invoice price (what the dealer buys it for from the manufacturer).  You can even find this type of info on Kelley Blue Book (dot) com. I was prepped and ready to take my pink little sunglasses down to the dealership and belly up for hours to come to a decent price for the vehicle.

Until I came across Edmunds.com and the term: TRUE MARKET VALUE (aka TMV). 

WHAT I NOW KNOW:  True Market Value.  It’s what the car is selling for in your marketplace. And sometimes, it can be below the Invoice Price!!! The TMV is essentially the lowest that the dealership is willing to sell the car for. Knowing this price can be SUPER BENEFICIAL to you, as it was for me.  In my case, the TMV was below the factory invoice price.  I also learned how to calculate what my monthly payment will should be – including the price, any money down, trade-in value, interest rates, tax, title, registration, etc. All of this can be found on Edmunds.com. (It’s a little daunting but totally doable!!) Because I did this, I knew exactly what my payment was supposed to be and therefore, the dealer could not take advantage of me by insisting my interest rate should be higher.

WHAT I DID:  Armed with this knowledge, I CALLED up the salesman from the day before when I had test driven a few cars and stated my PRICE (lower than the Invoice Price, thanks to TMV), my MONTHLY PAYMENT ($203 – thank you very much) and my MONEY DOWN (a big fat zero). No Ifs, Ands, or Buts. Ladies and Gentleman, I had a deal within 10 MINUTES over the phone. And after that, I was only at the dealership for an hour and a half before I drove away with a brand new 2011 Honda Civic LX!!

LESSONS LEARNED:  A few hours of nerdly research, math calculations, Edmunds.com and TRUE MARKET VALUE can help save thousands of dollars.  Oh. And my pink sunglasses helped, too. Take that, you slimy car salesmen!

#boom



#TextMessage from boy: Look what I have growing!

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's Polly Dixon

That was a text message I received from the newest dude in my life…”Look what I have growing…” with a PHOTO attached. All I could make out from the thumbnail was a long skinny type thing with a nude type color.

My heart skipped a beat. I thought for 3 seconds that he had sent me a picture of his PENIS. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how we had moved so fast into SEXTING each other. Flabbergasted, I opened the photo…..

To See This:

WHAAAAAATTT??? I’m confused. I don’t know.

#weird

Want some more? Click here to follow Polly on Twitter, and check out her blog over yonder!

#Oscars: The low down on the SHORTS

#TalkNerdytoMeLover’s Polly Dixon

If you are like me, you like to be “in the know” about awards season. And “knowing” for me means that I like to watch the shows – judge the outfits and argue with my friends over what was the best movie or who did the best acting job. I don’t really purport to know anything about the movie industry or anything…I’m just your average, judge-y nerd who likes to have an opinion about anything and everything (or at least pretend, I know something) . And THIS YEAR, because our own @JenFriel is headed to the Academy Awards…we ALL should be well informed.

With that said, do you ever wonder what the heck the Short Films are? And how/when/where to watch them and what they are? I have. I never pay attention to them at the Awards shows…I can’t even remember if they announce them during the live broadcast. If they do, I’m usually taking a pee break or grabbing my next glass of wine. Anyways, a short film is defined as an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits.  It’s just not long enough to be a feature film.  There are two categories: Animated and Live-Action. (Note: there are also documentary short films too but this entry is not covering them).

THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT: Now you can be FULLY informed! Starting today, if you have digital cable, you will be able to view the nominated short films before the #Oscars!! If you have Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks or Cox, they will carry the shorts under their "Awards Season" category while Comcast will have the shorts under its "Oscar Nominees" category.  You can also look them up on iTunes and purchase them individually, if that floats your boat.

And, in case you were wondering, this year’s Short Film nominees are:

Short Film (Animated)

• “Day & Night” Teddy Newton
• “The Gruffalo” Jakob Schuh and Max Lang
• “Let's Pollute” Geefwee Boedoe
• “The Lost Thing” Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann

• “Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)” Bastien Dubois***

Short Film (Live Action)

• “The Confession” Tanel Toom
• “The Crush” Michael Creagh
• “God of Love” Luke Matheny
• “Na Wewe” Ivan Goldschmidt
• “Wish 143” Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite***

***I was able to locate two shorts online (which I think are legitimate)– one from each category -  for your viewing pleasure. You can probably find some bootleg versions (if you dig deep enough, but I’m more in favor of supporting the artists & not stealing their creativity …but that’s an entirely different post).  Clips from the others are available on the Oscars website too.

Check ‘em out ... (unfortunately we can't embed them ... stupid vimeo plus, but click the links to enjoy!)

Madagascar, carnet de voyage 

Wish 143

#yayforshorts



Love/Hate Relationship Status: My Trainer

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's Polly Dixon

What: Physical Fitness
When:  Session One of Twelve
Where: Golds Gym, Hollywood

Ugh. I’ve gained 10 big, fat, huge pounds since moving to Los Angeles. Who does that? This is the land where your body counts for everything. I want to say healthy eating…but we all know that is not the case (CVS on Beverly Blvd can’t keep it’s large laxative section filled!). But it certainly is the land where physical fitness is important. Everyone here has fabulous bodies and mine, lately, is just not up to par with the way I would like it to be (and it’s also cramping any desire to jump in the sack or date or basically, even smile at a dude), so I’ve put some measures into place to try to fix the situation.

One of those being hiring a trainer. Today was my first session. And GOD HELP ME: He’s a super cute, southern boy from Virginia with some amazing agility skills and a super tone body. I want to be like him. Anyways, I was so nervous about sweating profusely and looking like a fat lard ass that I barely slept last night. Turns out – I did sweat profusely and jiggled all over like a bobble head. Gross. But seriously, he’s cuuuttttteeeeeee.  I don’t know what it is about trainers but seriously, I spilled my guts to him within 3 minutes of Exercise Set #1. He knows more about me than a lot of my friends do in this town! Insane. I’m thinking that I no longer need therapy and can just go to “my trainer.”  [Too bad, my therapist would highly recommend against this!] Plus he shared some dirty details about his life too. So pretty much, it’s LOVE.  What is it with these trainers? This always happens to me.

On the other hand, I HATE him. Seriously.  I can’t lift a single thing right now. I can barely type. I’m tired. I don’t want to eat anything remotely healthy. For gods sake – I LOVE PEANUT BUTTER! Whaaaaaaaa. Plus he made me do some god awful exercises today that made me not look pretty. Inappropriate. And he lies to me. He keeps saying that I’m almost done with a rep and then the next thing I know, I’m doing 5 more. Lying is never a good thing in a relationship.

It’ll be interesting to see how things go. . . aka will I fall in love? will I keep going? will I lose weight? at what point will I start calling him names and using inappropriate language? My friends make fun of me because I fell in love with my last trainer. Swore we were meant to be together until we located his website where he sold HATS wit his EYES on them. And I haven’t heard the end of it yet. Ohhhh, how I love Hollywood. Let’s hope this isn’t the same thing.

#help

Want some more? Click here to follow Polly on Twitter, and check out her blog over yonder!