12:48 pm | 03 December 2003 | Let me take you to Funky Town. Again.

So I am up in Berkeley right now, but I'll be heading back down to Southern California in a few hours, or as long as it takes, post-entry makin', to get some toast soothing my roiling stomach. I am up here helping Krystal with her new room. She has moved in with two alpha-dorks (gaming programmers, awesomely) in a big giant nice house.

Nice but for this fact: BOY FUNK. Even though these gents must be in their early thirties, the house bears the dim pall of BACHELORS all over it. Small decorative touches--such as a wooden carving meant to resemble a dolphin, or a green vase with a plywood tulip hanging slack-jawed out of it--have been employed as a means of distractive camouflage, but I know the truth. There is a distinct method to boy-funk which renders it immediately visible to the astute viewer. Let's check out a few of these points, shall we?

1. Mildew. I don't mean visible scum on shower walls or tile grout--that can happen to the best of us. No, I am talking about clothes. Boys apparently have this fear of fully drying anything they've recently washed. I briefly went out with a bearded fellow who smelled like a romantic encounter between a wet dog and Swamp Thing. Boys: The dryer does not eat clothes or steal your ch'i. You can use it until your clothes are dry. Trust me.

2. Mildew II, Fungal Boogaloo. Boys seem to be under the impression that bathrooms are living organisms and, like plants, need ample and frequent watering, so, mid-shower, you'll see behaviour such as flinging water over the top of the shower and onto every available surface, including towels. Which is the next problem: After drying himself off, the Funky Boy will then casually toss the towel into the corner, where it will remain. Until. The next. Shower. MILDEWING. A few weeks later, upon actually washing the towel (which has by then begun to use simple sentences and eat solid foods), said boy will NOT dry it fully, thereby perpetuating the cycle.

3. Man-eating coils of cords on every available surface. What is it with boys and cords? Dude, the boy in question could not even have anything remotely cord-related in his work, hobbies, or lifestyle, and still there would be cords on every surface. USB cords. Phone cords. Electrical cords. Kite strings. Extension cords. The boy in question could be a Yanomamo tribesman in the central Brazilian rainforests and bitch would still have cords all up in his hut. You know that it is true.

There are more signs of boy-ness, but this Seminar of Funk will take more than one session to cover fully, so I will leave it there. In addition, my whiskey-addled brain lacks the ability to remember any more for the time being, so there. Nyah.

...and, incidentally, if you're wondering how to deal with these problems, I'm not sure what to tell you. The Wrangling of the Funky Boy is a delicate topic. I just date men. clm.