Hi Darling Ones,

I had a rough day so I’m just gonna jump to some answers.

What’s it like being tall?

Today I finished reading Sanctuary by Emily Rapp Black and at one point she writes something like, I never felt safe in my own body. Hoo boy, that kind of pull the rug out from under me. I don’t know if it’s my height or my weight or a combination of the two, but I too have never felt safe in my own body. Being an extraordinarily large woman means you are always seconds away from a discussion about your body — with friends, family, random strangers. This teaches you to be ever vigilant and always on guard.

It’s fucking exhausting, and you can never not be ready for the slings and arrows. They come all the time, even when you least expect them. For instance, I had sex with a man once and afterwards he said, “Ugh. Your back is too long.” I had a different man tell me right before sex, “I’ve never been with a woman so big before.”

Being tall is hard. Clothes don’t it. Counters are too short. Flying is a fucking nightmare. It’s hard to exist in a world that is too small for you. It’s doubly hard being a woman and being fat. Women are supposed to be small and take up little space.

I don’t know whether it’s as difficult for tall men. Height in men is considered a valuable and attractive quality. It’s not the same for women.

There are a few advantages: I can reach nearly all the things. People can find me easily in a crowd. I’m pretty much unforgettable.

Is 5’6″ tall for a girl? Is 5’10” tall for a girl? Is 5’5″ tall for a girl? Is 5’4″ tall for a girl? Is 5’8″ tall for a girl?

When someone refers to a human as a girl I’m assuming they’re referencing a person under the age of 17. After that the girl becomes a woman. So are any of these heights tall for a girl? Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know. It depends on how old the girl is, doesn’t it? I was 5’10” at 10. That was tall for a girl. I was 6′ at 12, also tall for a girl. I was 6’3″ at 17. Still tall.

Is 5’7″ tall for a woman? Is 6 ft tall for a woman?

Apparently, according to my own googling, 5’8″ is when they start to consider a woman tall. This made me laugh, because perspective is everything right? I don’t even start to consider a human tall until they reach 6’3″, anything below that is average to short as far as I’m concerned. Anyone 6’6″ and above is tall as fuck.

Is 6’5″ tall? Is 6’5″ tall for a guy?

Allegedly. It’s 12-inches taller than the average American woman (5’5″) and 8-inches taller than the average American man (5’9″).

Is 6’5″ too tall?

For what? No. There’s no such thing as too tall. It’s just the height you are.

Can a tall girl date a short guy?

Hell yes she can. Here’s my advice though, people who want to date tall women, don’t lie about your height. We know. We always know. I often joke that I’ve never met a man under 6′, which alternately makes me 6’8″ to 7′ tall. The last person I dated claimed to be 6’5″. They were not, and I immediately called them out on it. I should have taken that very first lie as a cautionary tale.

How to attract a taller woman?

Since we are all exactly the same with the same experiences and tastes here’s my best advice: be smart, funny, and thoughtful. Don’t make her constantly aware of her size. Ask her what she thinks. Listen to her answers. Pay attention. Treat her like you would treat any woman you wanted to attract. It’s not hard. There’s no secret.

Bleh,
Jodi

The post The COVID Diaries: Answering Googlers’ Questions About Being Tall appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

Recently I had a few people ask me about you, the readers of I Will Dare. How many of you are there? Where are you coming from? Are you as intelligent and good looking as people say?

My reply to these people was: I don’t know. I don’t know. Obviously, duh.

For the most part, I ignore the stats and analytics. As I’ve said before, the less I know about who’s snooping around these pixels the better. Knowing the stats can bring out my obsessives side, and it makes me afraid to write honestly. I have all those whosits and whatsits galore installed, I don’t look. My WordPress dashboard gives me a high-level overview of some stuff, but I just look at what the popular posts of the day are and the most popular post overall (it’s this one).

And, for the record, I Will Dare isn’t a commercial adventure so the analytics are of little use aside from nosiness. I got nothing to sell y’all yet (though, warning, when I get a book published I’m gonna sell the shit out of it to you). Nothing here is sponsored (still waiting for the Nutter Butter people to find me). Last year I even removed all the google ads (at least I think I did, there might be some random code floating around in a post). No need for analytics.

When I stopped looking at stats, I stopped answering the Googlers’ questions. Rude, I know. So many people coming here for advice and me with nothing but hard-earned wisdom tinged with sarcasm to share. Since I was asked about analytics, this was one my mind and today I cracked open Google’s Search Console and took a look for questions people searched that brought them here.

I only look at the last month. There was a lot. I broke them down into four categories: music, Dawson’s Creek, height, and misc. Today we’re gonna cover music.

I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man meaning?

This is my favorite Prince song. I applaud your taste and curiosity mystery Googler. Here’s what I said about it right after Prince died in 2016: It’s a song about a lonely, pregnant woman looking for something on a lonely Friday night: a dance, a one-night stand, a new man to love. And in a strange twist that rarely happens in rock & roll the male narrator of the song politely and respectfully tells the woman the truth. He’s not that guy. He could be a one-night stand, but that’s not gonna work for either of them. What does that mean? I dunno, it’s okay to ask for what you want and it’s okay to not give in to what a person wants when you know it’s not a good idea.

What the hell is a real estate novelist? What does real estate novelist mean?

I was shocked by how often this question showed up about Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” I mean, I thought it was obvious that Paul works in real estate but wants to be a novelist. Or is a novelist in his spare time. I could be wrong and maybe Paul writes novels about real estate, but that would probably be kinda boring.

Who wrote Raspberry Beret?

Prince.

John Krueger Mellencamp songs

This is more of a statement than a question, but it tickled me. It seems obvious to me that this person had only heard The Coug’s name out loud and never saw it spelled. I love they thought he had two last names. These are his greatest hits according to me.

What does thick thighs save lives mean?

It means when you find yourself in times of trouble thick thighs will make your life infinitely better, like cuddling up next to or between them. It means fat women are sexy and worthy of physical affection.

Are trumpet players good kissers? Are trombone players good kissers?

I don’t think I know. I’m not entirely sure of the trumpet or trombone playing history of every person I’ve ever kissed. One would think they would be. Working on that embouchure’s gotta mean something, doesn’t it? If you’re into this kind of thing, I started a playlist called K-I-SS-I-N-G. I don’t think it mentions trumpet or trombone players.

The Replacements best album?

“Let it Be.” I gave this some thought. Both records have eight killer songs and three filler songs. But when it comes down to it Black Diamond > Dose of Thunder; Tommy Get’s His Tonsils Out > I’ll Buy; and Gary’s Got a Boner > Lay it Down Clown. It’s just math.

Did Kurt Cobain wear dresses?

Yes.

Soul Asylum Runaway Train Meaning?

I’m not Dave Pirner, but my best guess is it means that sometimes we get emotionally or mentally out of control (This time I have really led myself astray) and feel stuck at the same time (Seems like I should be getting somewhere, somehow I’m neither here nor there)and you just need someone to listen (Call you up in the middle of the night, like a firefly without a light. . . Can you help me remember how to smile? Make it somehow all seem worthwhile).

Not quite a GenX Dear Abby, but close,
Jodi

The post The COVID Diaries: Answering The Googlers’ Music Questions appeared first on I Will Dare.

Ever since I started the agent query process, I have become addicted to looking at I Will Dare’s stats. I’ve convinced myself that I will be able to discern literary interest by studying the IP addresses of everyone who visits this site. Shut up, it works for me.

So lately, it’s like 2002 all over again. That’s just a vague guess as to when this site first got a stat counter. These days you can get paid a lot of money to study Google Analytics and such, but back in the olden days I had no fucking clue about these elusive things called hits or page views. I kind of figured the only person reading my website besides me was this guy named Tim from St. Louis who I knew through alt.music.soulcoughing. It was on USENET, go look it up.

So I got a stat counter because that’s what all the cool kids were doing. I got comments too, which was a lot of fucking work to implement on a blog back in 2001 (or 2002, I can’t remember I am old and it was a long time ago). When I first found out I could kind of see all the people who visited my website, I was drunk with power and refreshed that bad boy on a pretty regular basis. But as the numbers waxed and waned, it started to infect my writing. I questioned every thing I posted, which might be hard to believe considering the sheer number of absolute bullshit that is most of I Will Dare for the first fiveish years, but whatever. I was finding my voice.

Anyway, at some point along the way I decided I was not my stat counter and that it didn’t matter if one person read I Will Dare or if one million people read it. It was merely a venue for me to say what I wanted. This belief has severed me well because I am also not my number of Twitter followers or Facebook friends or whatever thing we are using to measure ourselves against each other on the Internet today.

One thing I did love about the stats was the search terms that brought people to I Will Dare. I used to write about them all the time, but then I stopped because I have a short attention span. Tonight however, I saw a question that someone googled and brought them to I Will Dare and that was what made me dust off this feature.

And, for the record, I’m pretty sure if this entire website were devoted to nothing but being a 6’5″ woman who watches Dawson’s Creek it’d be the most popular joint on the entire Internet.

So, here goes.

Q: Is 5 foot 6 too short to date?
A: No. You are totally worthy of dating no matter how tall you are. I promise.

Q: What are the best Flintstones episodes?
A: These ones.

Q: Do Dawson and Joey sleep together?
A: Yes, at the end of the first episode of the sixth season.

Q: What would River Phoenix look like today?
A: A stone-cold fox is my guess.

Q: What is Cherie Currie’s age?
A: 55

Q: How did kids dress in the 70’s?
A: Like this.

Q: What is the meaning of ‘Keep passing the open windows?
A: It means please do not kill yourself because I love you and would miss you if you weren’t around.

Q: What to wear to a Bret Michaels’ concert?
A: Tank top and cowboy hat. Works for both men and women.

Q: Is it rare for women to be 6’5 tall?
A: Yes. I think it’s something like .07% of US women are taller than 5’10”. A doctor once told me I am a statistical anomaly. I’ve been alive for forty-two years and I’ve never, not once ever in my entire life met a woman as tall as I am. I’ve never even met a woman nearly as tall as I am. I think may 6-feet is the tallest.

How big is Superman’s junk?
A: I don’t know but now I want to know.

Q: What can you call freakishly tall girls?
A: Their names.

Q: Why did McCarthy not use apostrophes in The Road?
A: Because he’s an annoying dick, that’s why.

The post Answering The Googlers’ Questions XV: Back After a Five-Year Hiatus appeared first on I Will Dare.

A long time ago, I used to read my web stats religiously. But then I got bored because all anyone seemed to be searching for were various ways to watch a tall woman have sex with a short man, how to actually have sex with a tall woman, or whether or not tall women will date a shorter man. If you’re ever super bored and looking for some crazy kind of creepy reading, take a gander at the 93 comments on this post.

This morning, I meant to click the icon for the STrib that sits at the top of my browser, but accidentally clicked the Stats one instead. They look similar. I quickly fell down the rabbit hole of web stats, chuckling at the phrases people Googled that brought them to I Will Dare. My favorites? “I hate Nicholas Sparks” (which prompted me to say, out loud, ‘me too, buddy’) and “Kerouac overrated?” (another out loud response, ‘Yes.’ What? Doesn’t everyone talk to their web stats?)

So when I saw “top ten reasons why pacey is better than dawson’ in the refer logs, I clicked it because I was curious to see if anyone had come up with such a list. When I discovered that no such thing appeared to exist I thought, this is a void that needs to be filled. People need to know the ten reason that make Pacey better than Dawson. And as the Internet’s self-proclaimed, self-deluded top Dawsonologist, I’m just the nutjob to create the list.

Top Ten Reasons Why Pacey is Better than Dawson

10. Pacey is adventurous. Dawson is too cautious. Pacey spent the summer before his senior year sailing the Atlantic with his girlfriend? What did Dawson do? Sit in his room pouting and watching “The Last Picture Show.”

09. Pacey can cook. I have no idea if Dawson can cook or not, but we know Pacey can and that rules.

08. Pacey stands up for what’s right. These are almost too numerous to list but include: having it out with the teacher who made Jack out himself in English class; kicking the ass of that rich dirtbag who ruined Joey’s mural; standing by Andie through her breakdown and forgiving her (eventually) for cheating on him; and raising money for Dawson’s movie after accidentally losing it all in the stock market (we’re turning a blind eye to the whole teacher/sex thing). Dawson doesn’t take many stands and mostly plays the victim in all situations.

07. Pacey’s a brunette. This one is subjective. I can’t help it. After redheads, brunettes are my weakness. Sorry blondes!

06. Pacey bought Joey a wall.

05. Pacey is a good friend. Even though big baby Dawson never really forgave Pacey for “stealing” Joey (even though it was Dawson who threw the two together in the first place), Pacey spent most of the entire run of the show trying to make life easier and better for the butthead.

04. Pacey is better in bed. Okay, this is just hunch, being as I never had sex with either Dawson or Pacey (because they are fictional characters). But Pacey’s first lover was a 30something woman, you know she trained him well. Dawson’s was Jen. Need I say more?

03. Pacey watches Joey sleep that night after the Potter B&B opens. Love is the hardest of woods or something. Grams said love is being content to watch someone sleep next to a fire, which is exactly what he does. It isn’t creepy like it might sound. It’s totally sweet.

02. Pacey remembered the bracelet. During the Jr. Prom Joey who went with Dawson finally gets to dance with Pacey, her one true love, and even though she’s sporting some gaudy earrings that Dawson borrowed from his mom, Pacey knows that aren’t Joey but instead compliments her on a bracelet that used to be her dead mother’s. Hello, swoon much?

01. Pacey never made this face:

The post Because you asked for it: Top 10 reasons Pacey is better than Dawson appeared first on I Will Dare.

Tweedy song about quitting job?
Dear Employer

How do I lose my virginity to my sister?
You don’t, unless you’re locked in the attic by your flaky mom and evil grandmother for like five years.

How to make an ugly girl pretty?
Take off her glasses, haven’t you ever seen a movie?

How tall is Jeff Tweedy?
I’m not sure, but I bet Robin knows.

Why does Jodi Picoult hate The Notebook by Nicolas Sparks so much?
I had no idea she hated the book. My guess is that she has taste and Nicolas Sparks writes crappy pap.

Are girls with tattoos easy?
Some of them are. Some of them aren’t.

Am I incapable of fidelity?
Yes, I believe you are.

Should a copywriter know the history and structure of language?
Yes.

What is the theme of My Happy Life by Lydia Millet?
That even when life sucks your attitude makes all the difference in how bad the suck is.

Why do boys love baseball?
I don’t know, it make them cuter? I’m not sure why boys who love baseball are cuter than boys who love football or hockey, but they are.

In the book The Road by Cormac McCarthy why doesn’t the author use apostrophes in the negatives?
Annoying writerly affectation is my guess.

Why don’t men like tall women?
Because they are insecure about their penises.

The post Answering the Googlers’ Questions XIV: A few about books and only one about sex appeared first on I Will Dare.