"They're kinda girly," says Metro Times' arts editor, as she hands me a slim pack of stationery and a hardcover journal, both decorated with art by pop master Glenn Barr. He's "Detroit's own," the stationery's publisher reminds us, as if we never heard of the guy. Across the top of each sheet, dewy-eyed hipster chicks pilot their UFOs through pastel-colored skies, dodging floating hearts and leering Naugas, while the oily sea below roils with Picasso-esque monsters and alien surveillance equipment. I guess that's girly. But what kind of girl? The horn-rim bespectacled, Chuck Taylor and ironic T-shirt-wearing heartbreaker who wouldn't give a shlub like me the time of day, that's what kind. Fact is, I know no one cool enough to mail this stationery to. The few friends who might qualify are actually too cool — they'd just chastise me for spending money on something so silly, when they'd have been much happier with a crafty handmade card drawn on a scrap of paper. What a dilemma. I'd pour my confused heart out onto the pink pages of the journal, but I doubt I'd get much sympathy from the bouffant-topped starlet on the cover. I sense, in the arch of her eyebrow, a certain disdain. Sorry, beautiful, didn't mean to disturb your nostalgic reverie. I'll come back when I have some real problems.

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