Two nights ago Joe knocked on my door. “Saw your interview in Real Change! Have you seen it yet? Great headline: ‘Gettin’ Horny with Ellen Forney’!”

“Pff, that’s not the headline.”

“Uh… yes it is.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Of course he was kidding.

“Uh, no… ‘Gettin’ Horny with Ellen Forney.’ They didn’t run that by you?”

“That… isn’t really… the headline. Please say you’re kidding.”

A huge, shit-eating grin spread across his face, and he cracked up. “Gettin’ Horny with Ellen Forney”!” he sang. “HAAA!”

(Is “shit-eating grin” an east coast term? It means smiling really big in a kind of smug, but joyous way.)

Joe says the homeless guy he bought the paper from the next day was thrilled, because the cringe-worthy headline is more eye-catching than the usual ones about housing initiatives and political fights. (Real Change, a newspaper and non-profit organization, supports and advocates for low-income and homeless people in Seattle.)

The interview, also available online, is great though, and if that’s what it takes to get people to fork over a dollar and read the paper, so be it. Many thanks to the interviewer, Rosette Royale, for making me sound smart! Here’s a pull quote:

“I hope to inspire other people to become comfortable with their own selves and their own desires, and to pursue them. Insecurity and sexual frustration are big problems for a lot of people, and stifle their ability to really express themselves in a positive way.”

Hello, Catholic priests and Republican senators!