Premarital Blogging

I "heart" F.N.Y.

2007-08-17T12:47:00.001-07:00

Today, the packing boxes arrived, along with a suitably excessive amount of packing tape and about 35 miles of bubble wrap. The bubble wrap comes in its own dispenser and is perforated every 12 inches, like a giant roll of highly ineffective toilet paper.

The bubble wrap is what finally made it all hit home - we're actually moving. If you have industrial quantities of bubble wrap in your house, you're either moving, or you've got a serious psychiatric problem. In our case, both apply. But the moving thing is new.

Having lived in our current apartment for two years and nine months, it's the longest I've ever lived anywhere since moving out of my parents' house at age 17. Like most of us in New York, I've moved often and hastily, as if running away from a Dark Past.

In this town, grown adults in their 20s, 30s and 80s continue to live like college students, shuffling from one unbelieveably crappy apartment to another. But in Manhattan, an apartment the size of my freshman dorm room is called a "FLEX 3-BDRM only $4400!!! WOW!!! Call NOW!!! Won't Last!!!!!" The only difference is that the "Phish" posters have been replaced by wall sconces from Crate and Barrel, which is arguably not an improvement.

But by New York standards, this most recent apartment has been great. Well, except for the vomiting bathtub, and the 10 minutes of hot water alotted daily by the quaint "Pre-war!" water heater, or the time we got locked in our bedroom for so long we had to pee in the litterbox (don't ask....). But still.

The Linda Blair plumbing, like a lot of other "quirks" (a.k.a. Building Code violations) can be overlooked when you're half a block from Central Park. There are high ceilings and beautiful hardwood floors that only occasionally cause Paul to fall and break his arm in 3 places, requiring major reconstructive surgery. And, if you stick your head out the window and strain your neck a bit, in the summertime you can almost - almost - see a real-live tree.

Our New York friends tend to be impressed with the good deal we have. However, our out-of-town guests are typically underwhelmed.

"You pay how much for this place?" they ask. We tell them; they laugh nervously.

"Uh, you know, that's three time more than the morgage on our 5-bedroom house with an indoor swimming pool! But of course, keeping up the stables in the backyard is expensive. Really. Be glad you don't have room for horses! "

Then I throw up a little in my mouth.

Still, it's hard to imagine life anywhere other than New York, even though life in New York is not always easy, or even tolerable. It's absolutely nothing like on Friends or The Mary Tyler Moore Show, or Matlock. Not that Matlock took place in New York. But it might as well have.

Don't get me wrong - I liked shows like Sex and the City as much as the next person, but you'd might as well be watching a Harry Potter movie. I mean, really - who could walk around Manhattan in 5-inch Jimmy Choos without calling on the powers of darkness? But gravity doesn't work the same on T.V., and I'm not just talking about boobs. In the New York shows, it's always Amnesia Season - one of the two or three weeks of the year when you can wear a halter top, in that alternate reality where they never seem tacky.

Fictional New York (FNY) is the urban Lake Wobegone -- a place where the women all wear miniskirts and 4-inch heels to work (as, say, a cardiologist); where the straight men are always fashionably dressed; and the poor black children are always adopted by kindly old white dudes.

In FNY, every 20 or 30-something somehow has a rent controlled (not just rent stablized) apartment, even though they aren't named Bertha or Elmer. There are a lot of high-speed car chases in FNY, but the bad guy is always bad, and not just the wrong color. And he always makes a full, uncoerced confession by the end of the episode.

I don't think I'm going to miss New York as much as I'm going to miss the idea of it; how it looks from a distance when you're on the bridge in a taxi at night, coming in from JFK.

I'm talking about the autumnal New York of Annie Hall, in the version of things where Woody Allen's character actually ends up with the eponymous Annie, and they live happily ever after (or at least with the consolation of shared neuroses). But even in the movie, you know it's not in the fabric of things. The real world is less perfect. In the real world, the "happy ending" is something you get for $50 extra at a seedy massage parlor, and Woody Allen marries his ex-stepdaughter, something that even the French find creepy (we all knew there had to be something).

In Fictional New York it's always early October, when the leaves are changing. It's not too hot, not too cold. People spend their immense free time strolling around, making pithy, yet humorous (if not necessarily "ha-ha" funny) observations before heading back to their phat pads.

Sigh.

Now that I'm moving away, I can pretend that I once lived there, too.

The Premier Douche of France

2007-08-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

Ah. Back from France.

It was a good trip. Total friggin' awesomeness. Did I mention we were in a chateau with a ping-pong table?

In French, one might say, Ce fut une expérience inoubliable. Which roughly translates into Amercian English as, "A++++++++Great ebayer!!!1!!! Will buy again!!!!"

Now comes the hard part of any vacation, which is the part where you're not on vacation any more. And the part where you only have 2 weeks before moving to Seattle.

Oh, yeah, we're moving to Seattle.

Why?

Well, there are a variety of reasons, which include a dream involving a talking salmon (always a sound basis for making important Life Decisions) and a cast of characters that includes, however improbably, the Headmistress of Mrs. Frigidbottom's School for Insufferable Young Ladies of Means, which is our next-door neighbor. Anyway, Mrs. Frigidbottom's -- a school with a tuition of approximately $30,000 per year (not unusual in NYC) ---recently purchased our building and is kicking us out, along with everyone else in our building, to make way for an new addition to the school. It would seem that the Insufferable Young Ladies require a new wing in which to learn to distinguish among the various shades of beige (lest one should confuse Taupe and Eggshell), or to understand the subtle textural differences between Beluga and Iranian Caviar.

Basically, it's the Hogwarts for future Ladies Who Lunch.

The name of the school in question has been changed to protect nobody in particular; in reality, it's called The Nightingale Bamford School. They're already taking legal action against all of us who have committed the egregious crime of living here legally, so I really don't care about being sued by them, as, in a manner of speaking, we already are. However, I still contend that the fictional name more accurately represents the ethos of the place ....

But I digress. Where was I? Talking about our vacation?

Something like that. Oh, and I was going to explain my recent extended abscence from the blog-o-sphere (ASIDE: why is it sphere? Why not a decahedron? Or a rhombus?)

To answer your question, Chris, I wish I could say the time was well-spent; that I was adding the final flourishes to my epic (yet poignant) 900-page novel that will singlehandedly revive the picaresque genre in American literature.

Sadly, I cannot say that this. Well, I can say it, but it would be untrue, at least from a certain perspective, which is to say, the one in "reality." Or, as the White House press office would contend, the fact that I have not written a 900-page picaresque novel is simply "a malicious rumor started by the Liberal-Leaning Media."

In "reality" (which, of course, is relative and open to constant revision - a good thing for us slackers) I spent the past six months feeling sorry for myself and moping about. Because, of course, it's hard out there for a white, happily married Young Urban Professional living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where it's notoriously difficult to find a good laundry service.

And every time I sat down to write anything, it just came out all maudlin and annoying, and I'd rather just spare you, dear reader. And myself.

As you can imagine, I felt rather ridiculous for being in this Vast Pit of Despair, but without any good reason. Or even a massively contrived excuse. Nor even a scapegoat.
But now I've decided, as they say in the psychoanalytic literature, to "get over myself." Which is really, like, 32 years overdue.

Anyway, about the trip. The photo at the top of this post is of Uzès, the small town in in the South of France near the chateau with the ping-pong table. The town of Uzès has a rich history dates back to the medieval period, a time when everyone was apparently very into Ren. Fair. The town motto is "le Premier Duché de la France," which might be translated by Babelfish.com as "the Leading Douchebag of France."

In fact, it means "the first duchy of France," but that isn't much better. You see, in the 13th century, the feudal lords of the region took part in various wars that benefitted the kings (e.g., Childobert the Flatulant, or the lesser-known Georges Clovis Bush de Halliburton) and a few of their cronies, but pretty much nobody else. The feudal title of Duke, not unlike the modern-day title of "Head of FEMA", was handed out to the lords who were exceptionally loyal to the king. These men were the kind of gentried landowners who enjoyed nothing more - with the possible exception of quail hunting - than pillaging visgoths at the expense of the peasantry (think: Dick Cheney in velvet pantaloons).

In other words, they were .... well, the leading douchebags of France.

Maybe Babelfish is on to something....

Les liasons bourgeouises

2007-08-08T07:08:00.000-07:00

As I write this, I'm looking out over the French countryside in an 18th-century chateau. It's just like in Dangerous Liasons. That is, except for the Internet access and the hot tub and the Sub-Zero fridge. And without the extramarital romantic intrigue or the period costumes.

So, really, nothing at all like Dangerous Liasons. But I'll take reliable plumbing and a plasma TV over epistlary titilations, any day. Which is why people with cable tend to skip the whole "writing tortured and torturing love letters and driving young women to suicide" thing. Why bother, when you could spend your time watching Kojak dubbed in Turkish, or the French home shopping channel?

We're spending the week at Paul's uncle's winter home near Uzès, a medieval village just outside of Provence. Nobody else is here (it being one of the 10 months the place is empty) except for the Grizzled Caretaker, a gruff older man with arms covered in prison-style tattoos. The only time he even comes close to smiling is in proximity to his dog, a fluffy, yet crotchety little shiit-zu (sp?) named Pralinée. A taciturn man, the caretaker is someone you feel like you've met before, if only in fiction - kind of a combination of Jean Valjean and the old man on Scooby Doo who's always foiled by "those meddling kids!" Apparently, he's a raging alcoholic, which seems like part of the job description.

"Whatever you do -- DO NOT leave any alchohol lying around in plain sight," Paul's uncle warned. But as long as we don't feed him after midnight, I guess we'll be fine.

It's kind of like having our own private Club Med, complete with a pool and tennis courts and le ping-pong. Not that I play ping pong, but it's strangely comforting to know that I could if I wanted to.

(DEEP THOUGHT DU JOUR: Maybe that's the definition of power - having the option to do something you don't even want to do in the first place. Like taking a breeding pair of long-haired dachshunds on a hot air ballon trip across Bhuthan. Or opening a Virgin Megastore in space.)

Here at the Mas de Grézac (an old French term roughly translated as Le Phat Cribb), there's even a young French maid named -- you guessed it --Fanny. Fanny is one of those names kind of like Jeeves; when you put that on your kid's birth certificate, she's going to end up cleaning a chateau. To Paul's great disappointment, she doesn't wear a maid costume, which defeats the purpose of a French maid in his book.

I, for one, could get used to having someone clean up after me. Dear lord, does this mean I have to go register as a Republican?

Excuse me, but I have to go drink some Chateauneuf du Pape to console my liberal guilt ...

Support the Foundation for Cotton Ball and Q-Tip Mental Health

2007-04-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

It’s been such a long, depressing winter. Funny that I’m speaking in the past tense, considering it’s currently 39 degrees in New York, which, as I recall in my saner moments, is fcuking COLD. You know you’ve been in New York far too long when 39 degrees seems like a sign to bring out the cabana wear. Today, it’s cold and dismal, threatening to snow. Gray clouds are lurking in the sky, like a weak-chinned guy hovering around a children’s playground . Kinda makes you shiver, just to think about it. In meteorological lingo, I think the correct term for this kind of weather is “shitty.”

Sigh.

It seems like everyone’s been horribly depressed for the past month. Late March and early April are like the last six miles of a marathon, when people are dead tired, and their feet hurt, and in some cases they’ve crapped their pants (no, really – this actually happens; it’s #38 on my list of reasons “Why I’ll Never Run a Marathon,” right before “You have to run 26 miles” and “The dude in the dinosaur costume would almost definitely beat me”).

April really is the cruelest month, and not just because of the “breeding violets out of the dead land,” blah, blah (but that, too). Early spring always gets your hopes up with one or two beautiful, sunny sit-out-on-the-restaurant-terrace days, just to let you remember what you’re missing before taking it all away again. Spring is a big tease. Really. It’s like the lap dance of seasons.

I haven’t written in the blog for a while (I refuse to say “blogged”; it just sounds gross, as if it might involve killing baby seals) , for a few reasons:

1. I’ve (temporarily?) lost all desire to do anything but sit on the couch and read New Scientist and/or watch specials on VH1 and/or E! about former child celebrities who are now addicted to crack and/or hold minor political offices somewhere in the Valley.
2. The universe is going to implode in a few billion years anyway, so, like, what’s the point?
3. The “premarital blogging” concept is a bit anachronistic now that we’ve been married for two years (happy anniversary, P). I meant to create a new blog, with a more relevant theme, but that would require effort (see #1).

To an outside observer, my recent lifestyle changes might just look like pure, unadulterated laziness. But I prefer to think that I’m going through a “fallow period.”

You know, like how farmers sometimes let their fields go unplanted for a season or two, so that the crops come back stronger. I’ve been doing this for a while (about 32 years, now). So far, so good.

According to the cartoon cotton ball in the T.V. commercials, I could be suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), or just plain old Depression (sad, sans acronym).

But if we listen to the animated evangelists for name-brand pharmaceuticals, we could all have everything from terminal nail fungus to erectile dysfunction or Restless Leg Syndrome (finally, a medical treatment for white people’s genetic tendency to do a little disco shuffle whenever we hear “Brick House”).

You really have to wonder how Americans diagnosed their medical conditions before the advent of talking bees and animated toenail fungus goblins. I guess people had to resort to something barbaric, like consulting “trained physicians” about their ailments.

Fortunately, we’ve come a long way in the past 20 years.

The most depressing pharmaceutical spokes-thingy is, by far, the Zol0ft cotton ball. Maybe it’s not a coincidence, but the commercial alone is enough to make you need anti-depressants. You know the one – the cotton ball hops around with a little rain cloud over his head. It rains only on him.

These commercials make me want to quit my job and start a foundation to help depressed Cosmetic Puffs ...

Sally Struthers has nothing on this little guy - his plight is somehow a brief but very concise history of human sadness. Never mind that he/she/it isn’t technically human, or that cotton balls don’t technically, uh .... emote. Still. Only a monster could fail to be moved.

In other ads, we’re supposed to believe s/he/it doesn’t want to play on the swing with the other cottonballs. But maybe all those other cottonballs are a bunch of douchebags? Or maybe our hero thinks it’s creepy for an mature, adult Cosmetic Puff to be playing on a swing?

It’s interesting how some conditions have an animated spokesperson, whereas others don’t. For instance, erectile dysfunction treatments never seem to have animated mascots. I think I speka for all of us in wishing that Viagra or Cialis would have a marketing campaign centered around "Dickie" the flaccid cartoon penis ...

Kind of like Digger from the nail fungus commercials. Heck, I would get a prescription for Cialis myself, just to support Dickie.

My other favorite is the Nasonex bee:

I recently came across a blog pointing out all the inconsistencies of the Nasonex bee, e.g., “the bee in the ad was talking with its mouth. This would be very difficult physiologically, as the bee respiratory system (the tracheal system) is not connected to the mouth at all, and thus the bee could not easily pass air over structures in its mouth to make noise.”

This is all very interesting, but failed to mention out the #1 inconsistency, which is that bees don’t speak with a Mexican accent (many speak with a Swedish accent). Although I guess that’s more of a stereotype than an inconsistency.

(Why are bees always portrayed as Mexican? If it were a the Nasonex Chihuahua, or the Nasonex Burrito, the accent might make sense...)

But I digress. Which, of course, is a symptom of Attention Deficit Disorder, which is another very handy excuse for my recent lack of interest in anything. When I was first diagnosed with Adult ADD a few years ago, I was very excited to finally have a condition that would explain all my horrible behavior. Not that being an adult is an excuse for anything…

Besides, I really don’t like the term Attention Deficit Disorder. It seems to focus too much on the negative of this condition, which isn’t necessarily a disorder, per se. As someone who likes to look at the bright side, I prefer the term Laziness Abundance Condition (LAC). As in, I LAC interest in doing the dishes, or finishing my work. Maybe I can apply for federal disability?

Of course, just because you have ADD doesn’t necessarily mean you’re crazy, lazy, or stupid, as the book title goes. But at the same time, it doesn’t mean you aren’t. When people can have more than one mental or physical condition, they call these “co-morbid conditions.” Thus, you can have ADD and be lazy and crazy. And suffer the heartbreak of toenail fungus.

I have several co-morbid conditions. So does Paul. So between the two of us we’re co-co-morbid. Or does that just make us “morbid”? Paul does have a rubber model of a skull sitting on his desk. That’s pretty morbid. Or is morbidity just another co-morbid condition? If so, does Pfizer make a cure for morbidity?

And most importantly, does it have a cartoon mascot? Maybe Lurch from the animated Addams Family could be the spokes-cartoon?

Or maybe the A.D.D.ams family could become the mascots for Ritalin or Adderall - a very disorganized family with co-morbid conditions. That would be hot.

Pow Pow! POW!

2007-02-23T20:10:00.000-08:00

As I write this, Paul and his friend Brian are sitting on the couch playing games on the XBox 360.

Yes, they are both in their 30s ...

POW POW! Pow. POW!

As background music, the game features some sort of pseudo/electronic hip-hop music (think: what's in Sonic the Hedgehog's iPod...).

It's kind of quaint to watch two ultra-liberal Manhattanites (did I mention "in their 30s?") spend an evening shooting underpriviledged black and Latino kids. Ahem, "gangstas."

"But ... but... my character is black, so it's okay!!! Right? "

(A look of angst as Paul weighs Social Concience against Entertainment Value of game... )

"Oh, for god's sake, I'm a card-carrying member of the ACLU!!!"

POW POW! Pow. POW!

Alas, "Entertainment Value," like the Devil, is the victor every time.

On the upside, Paul has promised not to make fun of me for purchasing ridiculously overpriced cosmetics and/or underwear and/or self-help books ... So I guess it's a reasonable trade.

Bonjour, y'all!

2007-02-20T17:14:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if anybody's even still reading this (but I guess you are, if you're reading this ...kind of like the virtual tree falling in the SimsCity forest ...). Sorry I've been AWOL for a while - I've been insanely busy at work for reasons that are FAR to dull to go into.

That said, I'll go right into it. Part of the busy season included going to Atlanta to talk about fundraising (which is what I do at Institution Which Shall Remain Anonymous) at a meeting of French school heads (technically, they also had bodies). It was kind of weird to go to my "homeland" to go to a conference in French. Although I'm not from Atlanta per se, it is at the crossroads of where all the various branches of my family are and have been from for as long as anyone can remember: South Carolina (on Mom's side), Alabama (Dad's) and Jacksonville, where I grew up (for the most part).

Sadly, I did not get any grits, collard greens, BBQ or fried okra, which was my secret motive for agreeing to go to Atlanta. At first, I was hesitant about attending the conference, because it required me to face my greatest fear: snakes on a plane. Well, that and public speaking. I HATE public speaking. Being in public is hard enough. As is speaking. But both of them together? Horrifying. Strangely, it's easier to speak to a large group in French, I guess because it's not my first language --which, ironically enough, is Southern. And which I revert to as soon as I am physically even a foot below the Mason-Dixon line. This also happens after 1 a.m. or after two drinks, whichever comes first.

"Bonjour, y'all!" I wanted to say, to make it more democratic; so that nobody - French, Southern or otherwise - would have the foggiest ah-deea what I's tawkin' bout.

I did get bizarre job offers from other French schools. At least, I think they were job offers. Somehow, everything seems a bit seedier coming from a middle-aged French dude. Je vous propose 20 % plus de ce que vous touchez acutellement ...

In French, even a boring job offer sounds a bit like they're proposing something that might be illegal in Georgia.

BUT, on the upside, I have the week off this week! It's Spring Break #1 at the school where I work. Since it's a French school, they have two spring breaks (kind of like how the Hobbits have first breakfast and second breakfast ....). We also have a fall break, and a winter break, not to mention most of the Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Zoroastrian high holidays... The French really do know how to live. Go on vacation and eat some meat fried in butter and duck fat with a big slice of cheese and wash it down with red wine and espresso and a Gitanes - all while having sex. It's enough to let you overlook the whole Jerry Lewis thing. And all those films with "bourgeois" in the title, where everyone sits around and smokes and cries and takes off their shirts/pants for no apparent reason, and then it's over before you can even figure out what kind of existential tightrope they were tenuously balanced over.

There is nothing quite as nice, or as decadent, as the "at-home vacation." I think Travel and Leisure should do a segment on it - "Great Undiscovered Corners of Your Living Room," or "Bargain Adventures in the Backyard."

Today, I've done nothing. Well, next to nothing. I put a bunch of books on Amazon and Half.com. I woke up and realized that all of our bookshelves are overflowing, and part of it is my unfortunate addiction to books with some combination of "Light," "Quantum" and/or "Healing" in the title. I've decided to go on a Self-Help fast. If anyone's been helped after all these years, it's Random House. Following various mental health lapses, I've probably been single-handedly responsible for the quarterly surge in sales in the Personal Development division.

I was having quite a bit of angst lately, because I don't know what I want to do when I grow up. And then I realized - oh, fcuk, I AM grown up!!! Too late to be a wunderkind, except possibly at the 2039 Senior Olympics. This used to inspire me to head straight for the Self-Help aisle, but no more. I've finally just achieved a level of Zen through transcendental meditation (i.e., lowered my expectations).

There was a time when I would sit around and worry about my lack of "achievements" or "professional accomplishments" or "personal hygiene." But more recently it's occured to me that the many people I know who are hugely successful aren't that much happier than I am. In fact, most of them are downright miserable.

But they do have much better footwear, which is why I still envy them.

Penguin indecency, and other subjects of great national importance

2007-02-06T18:32:00.000-08:00

It's far too cold here in NYC.

Far. Too. Cold.

Right now, it's 19 degrees, but "feels like" 7. I love the "feels like" part of the weather. I'm not exactly sure how this is formulated, but I think it involves dividing the wind chill factor by the circumference of meteorologist's ass, multiplied by the square root of the combined digits in the birthday of his/her celebrity crush.

How cold is it? Yesterday, the gay penguins in the Central Park Zoo had to stop threatening the marriages of straight people in Washington State.

Speaking of celebrity crushes, I've let the back issues of InStyle pile up for so long that I didn't even realize that one of New York's top 7 celebrity gay penguin couples, Roy and Silo (above), have broken up. The news is pretty heartbreaking; I really wished those crazy kids the best. You might say they were the Jennifer Anniston/ Brad Pitt of the gay penguin community.

The breakup came after six years together, during which time they incubated a fertilized egg and raised a healthy chick known as Tango. Their story was even told in a children's picture book, And Tango Makes Three, which set off controversy in Indiana among parents who don't want their children to grow up to become penguins.

Roy and Silo demonstrated all of the characteristics of the straight mating pairs of their species - they built a nest (very well-decorated, no doubt), shamelessly nuzzled necks (in front of children!!!), and exhibited something called "ecstatic behavior" (crystal meth is huge in penguin gay bars).

But into this happy domestic tableau, enter Scrappy: a female temptress from Sea World San Diego. You know how those Southern California floozies are.... she probably has fake blubber. Anwyay, you might say Scrappy is the Angelina Jolie of the penguin world. And not just because she, too, was once married Billy Bob Thornton.

This is all very bad news for poor, jilted Roy (who, according to US Weekly, is "just good friends" with Keanu Reeves). However, this team-switching penguin does give some hope for the Rev. Ted Haggard, who, like Silo, has gone back to being "certifiably" straight.

In Haggard's case, it was all just an administrative oversight. You see, he was so busy preaching about the liberal agenda of gay penguins that he simply forgot to go down to the Department of Heterosexual-ness (DOH) to get his license renewed.

This unfortunate clerical error inadvertently resulted in Haggard doing fat lines of crystal meth off the chisled asscheeks of a male prostitute. Repeatedly, over a period of three years.

But, come on - cut the guy some slack. We've all let the tags on our car get out of date. It's practically the same thing.

Besides, who can blame the good Reverend? The DOH always takes forever, and they make you take that stupid "straight test" (written and road). This involves making men listen to the soundtrack to "Funny Girl," and if they actually know any of the words, they have to re-read the handbook and take the test over again. And if a guy notices a woman's shoes and/or personality before looking at her boobs, or if he can tell the diffrence between "Eggshell" and "Ecru" on the Sherwin Williams color chart ... well, he flat out fails.

The sad thing about Roy and Silo breaking up, and about Merle Haggard existing, is that it leads some people to say that being gay is a "deviant" choice, rather than something that is innate (although there are still four same-sex mating pairs among the 68 penguins at the zoo , which means just over 10% of them are "gay") .

But just because something is mutable doesn't make it unnatural. And besides, what if it were a choice? If it involves two consenting humans over the age of 18 (or two sexually mature pengiuns) what the flip difference does it make? I wonder if anyone in the history of EVER has cited "the well-manicured lawn of Steve and Phil down the street" as their reason for filing for divorce?

Most importantly, I wish people would stop looking to flightless arctic waterfoul as a reference for human familial or ethical behavior. On one side of the spectrum, the religious right co-opted the "family values" embodied by those smug Emperor Penguins in the documentary film, The March of the Penguins. At the same time, their cousins in captivity became the unwitting mascot of PFLAG members everywhere.

The poor penguins don't even know they're in the middle of a cultural turf war. Gay or straight, they're neither good nor evil, in the way that a cheetah who eats an antelope is neither good nor evil. He's just being a cheetah.

Adorable as they are, penguins aren't supposed to be our role models. Granted, they're more ethically mature than any of the White House Cabinet members. But still. A penguin's brain is the size of a cashew nut. They're not sitting around their nest discussing the geopolitical ramificaitons of the Guyanese border disputes. They're not even discussing the latest episode of "Top Design." But I'm sure that if they could, they would be.

Especially poor Roy. He really needs something to look forward to now that Cher cancelled her next world tour.

Blue Monday (& other days that sound like Swedish pop-techno bands)

2007-01-22T17:46:00.000-08:00

Happy Blue Monday! Supposedly, today - the third Monday in January - is officially the Most Depressing Day of the Year.

At an awards show last night, Today had these words to say: "First, I'd like to thank George W. Bush ... the weather (shout out to my homey Global Warming!) uh ... the unexplainable popularity of Ashlee Simpson .... that cashmere dog blanket you bought for your cousin on Black Monday, that you now realize will cost an additional 19.8% in interest on your Visa card ... oh, and my wonderful agent ... "

The speech went on and on.

However, the idea that this is the most depressing day isn't what worries me. As citizens, I think we should all be concerned the recent rash of color-coded "anti-holidays" (is that a word? If not, can I officially Coin it? And sell it in a handsome collector's edition from the Marguerite Mint?).

First it was Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when all the retailers go back "in the black." Until this past November, most of us had never heard this aren't-we-clever expression. But then, suddenly, it's everywhere. As if it were a time-honored second-tier holiday, printed on the calendar of every American, but not always observed. Kind of like Boxing Day for the British.

As if Black Friday had been established by the Early Church in an edict from Pope Pius Capitalist IV, as depicted in a stained glass window reproduced on a collectible chalice for Early Burger King (Burgher King?).

That's the scary thing - the marketing gurus have subtly, silently replaced the kings' decrees and papal declarations of old. Instead of making laws that tell you what you can and can't do, they just manipulate you, and let you make your own horrible choices (e.g., Ashlee Simpson). It's infinitely more sinister.

As the story goes, the advertizing exec - I mean, "scientist" (or was that Scientologist?) - who came up with Blue Monday was hired by an online travel site. They noticed that people don't buy a lot of tickets, etc. in mid-to-late January. As a public service, they wanted to encourage people to book vacations to sunny places (as a total coincidence, this is also how they "make money"). So the date for Depressing Day, as it was originally called, was derived through a series of calculations like x=1/the age when you got your first kiss times the square root of the pre-tax fee for "calculating" the most depressing day of the year.

Unfortunately, it backfired. As soon as I heard that this was the most depressing day of the year, it really cheered me up. It took off all the pressure to be not-unhappy. I couldn't stop smiling all day.

Watching T.V. ... On Ice!

2007-01-21T15:43:00.001-08:00

For once, I'm really sticking to my New Year's resolutions. It's been three weeks now, and so far, so good with the goal of watching more T.V.

Today, for instance, we watched "Fashion on Ice," coming to you live from the world fashion (and figure skating) capital, Trenton, New Jersey.

Now, I love figure skating fashions (who doesn't?), but the whole concept of Fashion on Ice seemed a little half-baked. Undoubtedly "Top Chef ... On Ice!" was their first choice, but the combination of knives, ovens and ice skates make the NBC legal department a bit nervous.

Sometimes it just seems like the networks are grasping at straws. The thing is, people had to have meetings about this idea. Lots of them. We can imagine the scene--undoubtedly very late at night-- in an executive suite at NBC:

"Okay, so, people love figure skating. And what else do they love? Peanut butter. Why not have a show that combines ..."

Somebody hits a gong, and the unsuspecting exec's chair falls out from under him, as he is thrust into a cavernous pit and ravaged by crocodiles.

The next exec steps up to the plate.

"What were the top-rated Sunday afternoon programs last year?" (cues PowerPoint) "The Figure Skating Championships and (advances PowerPoint to next bullet point) the Westminster Dog Show. So we ran it by some focus groups and came up with (cues PowerPoint again) Westminster ... on Ice! See, figure skaters take the place of the dog trainers, and instead of running around the ring, they ..."

(Splash; sound of crocodiles ripping through human flesh)

By the time someone got around to pitching "Fashion on Ice," the crocodiles were sleeping off the indigestion.

We tuned in halfway through, but I think the concept was that the figure skaters were modeling fashions that were designed especially for them. So that you, at home, can know what's hot in sequined unitards this season.

Poor Chris Issac and his band was out on the ice, performing live, while undoubtedly cursing his agent and/or whatever bookie he owes money to.

In between sets, the announcer - a former male figure-skater (well, still male, but a former skater, anyway) asked, "So, Chris, you've played to audiences all over the world, how does it feel to perform to people doing a triple sow cow and a triple axel to your music?"

It was one of those questions that's not supposed to be ironic and/or insulting, and yet ...

There was an ever-so-brief moment before he opened his mouth to answer; when he was clearly thinking about saying, "Yeah, this experience has taught me that I really need to take cut back on the drug use," or "being here today, Michael, I've become inspired to diversify my investment portfolio so to ensure that my name will never, ever be mentioned in the same sentence as "triple sow cow."

The show also had a lot of weird segues. At one point, the scene cut to one the skaters and her husband, wearing an apron featuring the not-even-subtle product placement of the sponsors, McCormick spices. "After a long day on the ice," the skater says, "I like to come home and eat some pulled pork." (Who doesn't?) Gesturing to her husband, "He's from Birmingham, Alabama, so he loves pulled pork." (NOTE: I don't rembember the exact words, except for "pulled pork." Which I am not making up.) Then he says, "So we use McCormick Pulled Pork seasoning."

They both smile awkwardly at the camera, then at each other. It was pretty uncomfortable for everyone involved.

Keys and White Russians

2007-01-17T18:31:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I came home to an empty house.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

No matter how much you love your significant other, there's nothing like having the apartment to oneself for a whole evening. Fortunately, Paul and I seem to agree on this point. Unfortunately, this means I need to get a new hobby/social life/addiction, etc. to get myself out of the house at least one evening a week (the "quid" being the bitch of the "pro quo," I suppose ...).

So there I was, basking in the solitude ... basking.... staring at the wall in between half-assedly working on a crossword puzzle ... In a word: paradise (my standards ain't high, folks).

Then comes a knock on the door. Must be someone from the building, because the buzzer didn't ring. A soft knock, like a hobbit, or a ghost, or some demonic Amway salesman who'll end up eating my kidneys in a bernaise sauce while listening to Rachmoninoff ...

With great trepidation, I open the door. It's my 92-year-old next door neighbor, Mrs. K.
Wordlessly, she points to the deadbolt in my door. Sure enough, my keys are sticking out of it.

"You know, dahlink," she says, with a frighteningly slight hint of a (pre-Revolutionary?) Russian accent, "here in New York, it's not safe to leave your keys in the door ."

She gave me that look that wise old New Yorkers give to wide-eyed young girls straight off the bus from from Kansas, or wherever else it's customary to leave your keys sticking out of the deadbolt of the front door, as a sign of welcome ...

The irony being that Mrs. K is 60 years older than I am. And yet, she lives alone. And doesn't EVER leave her keys in the door.

Unfortunately, it's not the first time I've left my keys in the door/left a suitcase on the stairs in when moving back from Paris/forgotten my purse/gloves/scarves/cats at the grocery store, etc . I've been like this my whole life. Call it A.D.D., call it D.U.M.B. - either way, it's more than a little bit scary. If this is how I am in my early 30s .... If I were a few decades older, they'd have me committed.

Sigh.

Resolutions, cont.

2007-01-16T19:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I made some real headway in fulfilling my New Year's Resolutions: I watched every episode of the Top Chef marathon on Bravo, while reading E! online.

That's right --at the same time. After all, one of the secrets of highly effective people is learning to multi-task. I know this because read a LOT of self-help books. And they all stress the importance of setting Primary and Secondary goals that complement one another, thus creating “synergy.” For instance, if you want to be a world-renowned opera singer, you might take voice lessons (Primary Goal), but you would also study Italian (Secondary Goal), for the obvious reason that Italian men are really hot, and if the opera career doesn't work out, at least you’ll have something to fall back on.

So, to go along with watching more T.V., I've also resolved to get less exercise. Not that I don't need the exercise, it's just that I don’t want anything to interfere with my Primary Goal (PG) of watching more T.V. The only Perceived Barrier (PB) to this goal (G) is that, living in Manhattan, we all do an absurd amount of walking. Not "mall walking" or "power walking," like in the suburbs. We call it "getting from one place to another"(GFOPTA).

Most days, for instance, I walk to work. Would that this were a tacit protest of the geo-political ramifications of fossil fuel usage, or time to contemplate goals and intentions for the coming day... But the truth is, walking is just WAY quicker than the crosstown bus, which at rush hour, takes 45 minutes to go a mile and a half. Every block or so, the bus stops to take on 50 people who have to find correct change, or the right metro card, or chatty tourists from Minnesota wanting to know if this is "the bus to Ground Zero," mistaking the M2 bus for one going back in time to 2002.

Almost nobody in the City has a car, so that's not really a solution for reaching my laziness goals in the New Year. At one point, I thought about bringing up my car from Florida. But then it occured to me that having a car in New York would be about as useful as having a pony. It's cute and you can ride it occasionally and stroke its mane, but where do you put it?

That, and you have to wake up early every morning to take care of it. Those of you who live in NYC know that I'm NOT joking, although the City of New York possibly is:

Above is the sign for "No Sweeping." I mean, No Parking. If you see the broom, it means you can't park in the zone. Except when you can.

It’s called Alternate Side Parking. For the purposes of cleaning the streets and for the purposes of “Traffic Flow” (i.e., whatever unbelievably sinister activities this the code word for...) they alternate the sides of the street on which you can legally park. This happens every other day. Except, uh, when it doesn't.

But don't worry - if you need to know what side of the street you can/can’t park on, you can call a hotline, such as Psychic Friends Network, to find out. The schedule for Alternate Side Parking seems to be based on some non-linear algorithm related to the phases of the Mayan, or possibly the Druid calendar. (I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that higher-ups of the NYC Department of Transportation secretly practice human sacrifice.)
If you do happen to be parked on the wrong side of the street, your car will be towed, and you'll have to go to one of the outer boroughs to bail it out of car jail. Having a car in New York is like being related to Robert Downey, Jr. - you just never know when you’re going to get that phone call in the middle of the night. Only you can’t make the car go to AA. And A.A.A. won’t help.

Even if you were raised Presbyterian, if you have a car in the city, you can't wait for the festival of Idul-Fitr. Or the second day of Shavuot, or, or the Asian Lunar New Year. This is becase Alternate Side Parking is suspended on a variety of obscure religious holidays, like those Jewish holidays that even your rabbi never heard of (the same rabbi who can't wait for Ramadan, because he won't have to get up and move the station wagon).

What they don't tell you, of course, is that the entire Tri-State Area is a Designated Tow-Away Zone. Once, a friend of mine was moving and I was the sap who to "watch the van." I watched - and pleaded, and argued, and narrowly avoided arrest - as the car got a ticket anyway.

To make matters worse, you'll never see a car parked on the streets in New York that didn't look like it had just gone through some horribly traumatic experience. Whenever I go back home to Florida I'm always struck by how clean the cars all seem. And how all the bumpers are more or less intact.

And if you opt for a parking garage in Manhattan, you're not much better off. First, this can easily set you back $600 a month. And second, they stack your car up, kind of like those compartments for shoes at the bowling alley. No joke. They drive your car onto this jack, kind of like in a Warner Brothers cartoon. And then they raise it up and park another car beneath it, like so:

It's like playing Jenga. So nobody wants to actually get their car out of the lot, because they don't want the whole city to collapse under the weight of 50 late-model Lexuses (Lexii?).

Which kind of defeats the purpose of having a car in the first place.

So you can see my conundrum when it comes to transportation exerting minimal effort. I would get a bike, but that would still involve physical effort. Maybe I'll get a Vespa. Or, better yet, a Segue. That's when you know you're just a lazy fcuk: when you spend $5,000 on something that goes slower than you can walk. But sometimes, you just have to exceed your own expectations...

Resolutions

2007-01-15T12:25:00.000-08:00

Today, I got a jump start on my New Year's Resolution: to watch more T.V.

Like a lot of us, I make a long list of "resolutions" at the beginning of each year. Usually, my list includes things like:

1. Write and publish at least one bestselling novel
2. Become fluent in Mandarin Chinese (written & spoken)
3. Learn to figure skate
4. Have a cartoon published in The New Yorker
5. Finish a Sunday Times crossword in less than one hour

As the months go on, ambition gives way to reality, and the goals are adjusted ever-so-slightly, as follows:

1. Finish a Sunday crossword in less than one week.
2. Okay, one year.
3. Okay, ever.
4. Order Kung Pao Shrimp using correct pronunciation.
5. Or at least correct take-out menu number.
6. Watch figure skating on T.V. (assuming Top Model/Top Chef/Pimp My Ride isn’t on at the same time…)
7. Renew subscription to The New Yorker
8. Read at least one bestselling novel.
9. Okay, buy novel and read summary on back cover & pretend to have read it when it comes up at dinner parties.

It finally occurred to me that in the past, my goals have been far too selfish and shallow. This year, I've decided to turn my life over to something ... well, greater than myself.

Yes, I'm talking about celebrity gossip. And watching more cable-network reality shows.
I’m sick of not knowing who-did-what on the latest episode of "Cathouse" (or the short-lived "Catbox," not about prostitutes but actual cats ....). That, and being the last one to hear about celebrity feuds. Imagine my embarrassment recently when two coworkers were talking about the feud between Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump, and I had to admit I didn’t know what they were talking about. It was pretty embarrassing. It’s like not knowing there’s a war going on in the Middle East. Although 50% of us don’t seem know that, either, so it would be a bit less of a faux pas.

I’m still not sure what Operation Desert Trump-O’Donnell Storm was over, because it’s impossible to listen to either of them for longer than ten seconds without it triggering a condition known in the medical community as “hysterical retardation.”

Of course, Trump and O'Donnell have been longtime rivals, most notably for the title of World's Most Annoying Human. Let's face it, they've got lots of competition (see: "Miss USA," below), but they nonetheless rise to the top.

Apparently the two disagreed (I don't know who asked, or who cared enough to listen) as to whether or not Miss USA should drink alcohol, or, like all the responsible underage celebrities, just stick to freebasing grade-A Peruvian feline laxatives.

Okay - am I the only one who thought that Miss USA was just the fictional beauty contest in Sandra Bullock movies? Isn’t Miss USA, like, the Mr. Pibb of beauty contests? Miss America is the original - the Dr. Pepper, if you will – of which Miss USA is avoiding-copyright-infringement-by-a-loophole knockoff. Like the Malibu "Marlie" Fashion Doll.

But the point is, I didn’t even know that this conflict was raging, even though it was in all the papers and the nightly news. Yes, the NEWS. On CNN, and NBC and what-not. Along with REAL news, such as who will get custody of the potentially embarrassing sex tapes in Britney Spears’ divorce.

Regardless, this year I'm going to stay connected to what's really important. No insipid celebrity shall go unnoticed, nor any reality show feud uncommented-upon.

At least, a girl can dream ...

Legumes Guarantee a Happy New Year

2007-01-03T14:37:00.000-08:00

A slightly belated Happy New Year to all y'all out there.

Personally, I'm very optimistic about the coming year, because I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. For the past 9 years (since I've lived in New York), I've been tempting fate in the most ridiculous of ways. It should have been obvious before now.

No, I'm not talking about boozing, smoking, consorting with men I hardly know, going out partying until 5 a.m., flying Air Tran, or any other devil-may-care activities of the past decade.

Much worse. In recent years, I've neglected to eat Hoppin' John on New Year's Day.

If you were born above the Mason Dixon line, you're probably wondering, "who's Hoppin' John?" You probably just hope he's not the family horse, but perhaps you've seen documentaries about the South (e.g.,"The Dukes of Hazard"). So you know those folks Down There are just "weee-aahd."

When I was growing up, I learned from my grandmother and mother, both South Carolina natives, that if you didn't eat your Hoppin' John and greens on New Year's Day, you'd might as well just call the exterminator and put a fumigation tent over your house. Huh? Yes, a tent. Because you could be certain that a plague of locusts would descend upon you the very next day, and follow you right until the end of the year, along with IRS troubles, hemorrhoids, and - worst of all - unflattering haircuts.

Next time New Year's rolled around, you would know to eat your black-eyed peas and rice, and you would eat them with alacrity. And a side of cornbread.

Until January 1, Paul, who grew up in California, thought that "Blackeyed Peas" was just the name of an over-hyped music group. Poor thing had never had a black-eyed pea in his deprived, West Coast life. And he almost didn't get the chance. I had to go to three different stores here in Manhattan to find a bag of frozen "Blackeye Peas." The canned ones are a bit better, but they don't seem to sell them up here. Is this just a regional thing? Doesn't everyone eat blackeyed peas? Maybe not. Who knew?

There are as many variations on the Hoppin' John recipe as there are families, but the two main ingredients are rice and blackeyed peas. Usually there's some onion, bell pepper, garlic and assorted "natural and artificial flavors." Some people eat it with pork, but in our household, it was mostly just beans and rice. And this would be served with collards or turnip greens every Jan. 1.

"The greens are the dollars, and the peas are the coins," my grandmother would say, "so eat them all up so you'll have lots of money in the New Year."

I know this was probably just a saying someone came up with to get kids to eat their greens, but it seemed like they believed it was an exact science. Whenever the mutual funds or stocks are having a particularly good year, we know in our hearts that it has nothing to do with interest rates or the refinancing of the Yen, or Karl Rove biting the head off of a live chicken (which, apparently, is just for a snack, and not a part of a Satanic ritual ....). We know that the world economy hinges upon what we ate for dinner on New Year's Day.

For the past decade, I've been wondering why my financial situation has sometimes been a bit, ahem, less than robust. All this time, I thought it was because I've been "spending more than I earn" along with "poor financial planning."

To think, all along, it was just about not eating blackeyed peas on New Year's Day ...

Coming of Age Story

2006-12-30T22:46:00.000-08:00

Over the holiday, I had that coming-of-age experience that all young ladies of Dixie must have before they reach "a certain age."

Yes, my very first trip to the family plastic surgeon's office. Okay, I won't exaggerate, it was just for something called a "glycolic peel," which is really a fancy word for a facial. The plastic surgeon (who did mom's eye job, etc.) also runs something called a "miracle spa."

And it really is miraculous. Below is me before the glycolic peel (with the new kitten, the non-ironically-named Lucky, whom my parents adopted in October, and who has pretty much replaced me in their affections)...

And here's me AFTER ....

Note that this is an UNRETOUCHED photo!!! No Photoshop trickery! See? The whole process took off, like, 25 years. It really is a miracle ....

While sitting in the plastic surgeon's waiting room with a variety of women who were probably fitting in the appointment before meeting with their attorneys about that fouth divorce, I picked up various pamphlets about rejvenating procedures. I'm reaching the age where I start to think about these things.

I picked up a brochure for a product called Restylane, which featured a smug-looking wrinkle-free woman on the cover. Her expression said, "I'm sleeping with your husband, you pathetic, wrinkled old bag."

But that wasn't the shocking part.

"... Unlike rooster-derived hyaluronic acids and bovine collagen products, Restylane is free from animal proteins. Unlike rooster-derived hyaluronic acids and bovine collagen products, Restylane is free from animal proteins."

Rooster derived??? To put this into perspective, Restylane is a "dermal filler," i.e., it's injected directly into the skin to get rid of wrinkles and what-not.

So this means that legions of middle-aged women are going around injecting rooster semen (giblets, gizzards, whatever...) into their foreheads? And then they wonder why they feel a bizarre, uncontrollable attraction to mature breeding hens.

Now, I'm not categorically opposed to plastic surgery, botox, etc. When the time comes, sign me up. I may end up looking like a trannie, like so many of the Great Ladies of Atlanta or Charleston or Jacksonville. But so be it.

But please just euthanize me if injecting rooster into my body is the only way I can get any, uh, "cock."

2006-12-30T10:06:00.000-08:00

"What are you doing?"

"Stuff."

"Well, be ready to go in five minutes."

"Go?"

"To the luncheon."

(Does anyone "luncheon" outside of the South? Don’t they just have lunch?)

"I don’t wanna."

"Of course you do! Everyone’s dying to see you."

"Mom. They don’t even know who I am."

"Of course they do!"

"They’re all 92. They don’t even know who they are."

"Put on your shoes."

"It’s 9:30 a.m. Isn’t it a bit early for lunch?"

"They’re old. They wake up early."

"When you say the Daughters of the American Revolution, you do mean the actual daughers?"

"We’re going to be late."

"Again, ‘we’ is not the pronoun you should be using."

"Right this minute, young lady!"

If you’re anything like me, from the time you walk throught he door of your parent’s house for any holiday, there’s a kind of clock that starts ticking, waiting for the moment that you scream, much like when you were 13,"I am NOT a CHILD!!!! Sometimes this is followed by foot stamping and pouting.

This time, I lasted 23.2 hours, which is probably a record.

I’m still in Jacksonville. The school where I work is closed for two weeks (the French loves them some "vacances"), so I figured I’d stay in the South a bit longer and soak up some sun. It’s 72 degrees in Jacksonville today; around here, everyone seems to think this calls for an anorak. Sometimes it gets "really cold" (50 degrees) around here in December.

It used to be colder when we were kids, or maybe it just seemed that way. But I do remember the occasional snow flurries and icy roads driving to the thousands of holiday parties when I was little. On the upside, I suppose global warming, and all the resulting Ft. Lauderdale-like weather, has helped boost the property values here in the North Florida/South Georgia area. Better enjoy it before the whole bottom half of the country is known as "Lake Florida."

The whole holiday was actually really nice, but it has been a bit exhausting. It's been one party/luncheon/dinner after another. They say that in the South, they spend half the year planning for Christmas and the other half recovering from it. I think it'll take me at least that long.

People talk about "partying like a rock star," but what they should say is, "partying like a middle-aged suburbanite." Really. I can’t keep up. It’s been pretty much nonstop.

On the first day, we head straight to my aunt’s house for an early lunch with my cousins and their spouses and kids. These being Kennedies, there’s freeflowing booze for the cocktail hour (11:37 a.m.). After all, it’s four o’clock somewhere, darlin’…

Then, we head out to mom’s best friend’s new boyfriend’s (inhale) condo for cocktail hour #2, with something called Johnny Walker Blue and another single-malt scotch called "Glenfargus," which sounds to me like the title of some lesser-known Cohen Brothers movie.

At the risk of sounding unsophisticated (and perhaps causing my great-granddaddy from Argyle to roll over in his grave) I just don’t "get" scotch. To me, it tastes and smells like something you should be using to clean the grout in your shower. But Paul loves it. He could even tell what friggin’ part of Scotland it came from, because it was so "peaty." I don’t even know what peat is, althogh I do know it sometimes ends up in a bog. But I don’t know what a bog is either, so that doesn’t clear anything up.

It’s like these wine snobs who taste asparagus and "overtones of kiwi" and "hints of turkey pot pie" in their Pinot Noir. When you think that, it’s time to put down the glass.

Christmas eve, another party. Christmas day, we head out to the beach for a champagne reception at the hotel room of a friend visiting from Atlanta. Every night since, it's been another party, with more unbelievable food and champagne and bourbon and single-malt. The folks around here take "entertaining" very seriously. Every meal is a multi-course extravaganza that makes those people on the Food network seem like a bunch of amateurs.

There's always a floral centerpice. And candles and not-dishwasher-safe china. Not to mention the festive, seasonal napkin rings for every concievable occasion. St. Patrick's day, there are the shamrock napkin rings. Thanksgiving, little turkeys. Halloween, ghosts. Hearts for Valentine's day. My mom and her friends are all still horrified to know that I don't own any kind of napkin-restraining device. As if the napkins might just rise up and walk off the table in disgust.

It's been fun, but I'm about partied out. It’s as if a person thought she could go out and run a marathon, just because she jogs a mile every now and again. I’ve gotta get back to partying with the nice lesbian rock stars in New York. They seem like teetotalers by comparison.

Why I Wish I Had a Digital Camera

2006-12-03T13:24:00.000-08:00

ABOVE: A Great Dane and a Chihuahua, only not the same Great Dane and Chihuahua.

An Expository Essay, by Marguerite.

I wish I had a digital camera. There are many reasons for this, but one in particular.

Earlier today, I was walking up Park Avenue, on my way home from the bookstore, when I saw a woman walking a Great Dane wearing an orange fleece hoodie (yep; the dog was wearing the hoodie; it's not just poor sentence construction). The hoodie even had pockets on it -- I guess so Marmaduke will have somewhere to put his keys.

I've seen plenty of Great Danes, but this one was easily the largest I've ever seen. You might even call it a Best Dane. A grey-haired gentleman walking by looked at the dog, then turned to me and noted, in the charming way that some older people have of pointing out painfully obvious things, "that's a big dog!" My natural reaction was, "that's not a dog, that's a guy in a dog suit!"

But it was indeed a dog. A big dog.

As I got closer, I noticed that the woman walking the Great Dane also had, in her other hand, another leash, connected to what was either a hairless guinea pig or a exceptionally tiny Chihuahua, also wearing an orange fleece hoodie, an miniature version of the one worn by the Great Dane, right down to the tiny pockets. At first, I hadn't even noticed the smaller dog, because it wasn't visible from more than, say, 10 feet away.

What strikes me about this scenerio: someone put a lot of thought (and money) into creating this tableau. This ain't just the kind of crazy idea you get while drunk, and then sober up and realize, crap! I ordered a Great Dane and a Chihuahua from the 24-Hour Dog Delivery Service! It's not like a hasty 1-800-MATTRES purchase. It's a multi-step process.

This means that one day, someone who had perhaps watched one too many sitcoms said to himself/herself, "I know! I'm gonna get the biggest frickin' dog I can possibly find! And then, I'm gonna get the smallest dog. And see if they can live together in an apartment in New York! And so nobody will mistake this for an accident of fate, I'm gonna dress them in identical outfits. With pockets."

As a result of this reasoning process, these two dogs look like urban canine lumberjacks. Like they should be on pg. 69 of the L.L. Bean Fall-Winter catalog, looking at a watch and smiling ruggedly.

The middle-aged lady who was walking the dogs wore a Burberry-style raincoat, and didn't crack a smile. From a distance, she looked bored. Up close, she seemed a bit startled to find herself on the corner of Park Avenue holding two ridiculously well-matched, inappropriately dressed dogs of vastly different sizes. I don't know if they were her dogs or someone elses'. But when you find yourself in that situation, it's a sign that your life had taken a very wrong turn.

If I had a digital camera, I could prove to you that I'm not completely insane. Well, maybe not. But I could prove that these two dogs, and their fleece sport coats and all that it implies, really does exist.

2006-11-29T04:28:00.000-08:00

LEFT: San Simeon elephant seals

ABOVE: Me after Thanksgiving dinner.

We're back from Thanksgiving in California. My folks came out to San Luis Obispo, where Paul's folks are. It was even more fun than movies like "Meet the Fokkers" (with all its uncanny parallels) would suggest.

Actually, everything went really well. We went to see the elephant seals and Hearst Castle and went on a wine tour. It was kind of like the movie Sideways, except with a totally different script, and different actors, and with no apparent story arc, which is a good thing; family trips that involve a Very Valuable Lesson are definately to be avoided.

Getting to and from SLO, alas, requires a tour of America's Most Boring Regional Airports, brought to you by America's Worst Airline(TM), US Air. This "discount" airline, which features DIY re-routing for the hands-on traveler, is unfortunately one of the few airlines that goes into SLO.

I won't even go into the details, but our picaresque adventure took us to Laguardia, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, SLO, Vegas, Charlotte, and back to Laguardia. We got stuck in Pittsburgh, and were almost rerouted through Chicago to Philadelphia to perhaps the International Space Station and back to SLO.

This might have happened if we hadn't alerted the ticketing agent that there were not in fact going to Saint Louis, home of the Cardinals, but in fact San Luis, which is in California and is NOT the home of the Cardinals (as it says on the license plates).

Below is a rough transcript (no joke) of our on-board conversation with the USAir ticketing agent:

Hi. We're on the tarmac in Laguardia, and it looks like going to miss our connection in Pittsburg. We need to be re-routed to San Luis Obispo, in California.

(the sound of tapping on a keyboard)

You're in luck! We can get you on a flight to Chicago, and then from Philadelphia straight on into Saint Louis!

Not Saint Louis. San Luis. It's pronounced differently, because, uh, it's an entirely different city.

Okay, let's see here ... If we sent you through Houston, we can get into Saint Louis with just one connection..

San Luis Obis -

Or, we can route you through Chicago, back to Pittsburgh, and then on to St. Louis.

But ... we're going to California.

Sorry, I'm afraid Saint Louis is in (more keyboard tapping) ... Missouri?

Granted. But we don't know anyone in Missouri.

Then why did you buy a ticket to Saint Louis?

SAN Luis. Obispo. It's in California.

Our records are indicating that it's in Missouri.

Let's start over....

Oh .,.. I see what you're saying! Give me a minute (10 minutes of commercials for the new USAir Visa! so you can have your money managed by people who think Saint Louis is in California). Here we go - it's all sorted out. (sigh of relief) We can take you through Laguardia to get to Saint Louis even faster!

But .... we're going to California.

But that's not where Saint Louis is.

Which is why we don't want to go there.

But we can't change your end destination, just the routing.

That was supposed to shut us up, which it did. We called back and talked to someone else, who told us to talk to someone at the gate, who in turn told us to call reservations. But 24 hours later, we did arrive in California. Next time, I hope they route us through Hong Kong. I've always wanted to see China, and I'm pretty sure it would be a lot quicker.

Ad-ing it up ...

2006-11-12T16:53:00.000-08:00

Not long ago, while watching a Star Trek marathon (something that could safely be interpreted as a cry for help), I wrote down just a few of the commercials that came on TV during one episode.

To put it into context, we were watching one of the growing number of cable channels targeted to men ages 18-29, or longer for men in New York, where adolescence typically lasts until around 40. (Much in the way that we would weigh less on Mars than on earth, because of the difference in gravity.)

In other words, this unnamed channel (rhymes with "G-Bore") offers programming for men in that halcyon period between the time they're are old enough to have jobs and sufficient disposable income to buy tons of video games, but before they have wives or girlfriends who will forbid them from purchasing said products. Thus, many of the shows on this channel are video game-centric, which I just don't get.

Although I'm not a "gamer," I can at least see how video games might be fun if I had a serious head injury, for instance. But watching a TV show about video games? Come on. I like shopping for shoes, but I wouldn't watch a show about people shopping for shoes. Or even a show about shoes. If I'm not personally shopping for them, I just don't care.

My husband, who is 34, loves video games. If only we lived in Winnipeg, he might have chosen to marry "Doom 3" instead of me. Because in countries such as Winnipeg and Holland and the Netherlands where same-sex marriage is allowed, the next logical step is for guys to start marrying beer. Or even wine coolers.

Except that - oh, crap! - in countries where gay marriage has been legal for several years, pretty much nothing changed. Except for gay people, who now enjoy a fundamental civil/human right (I won't even add "to be miserable," as the joke goes, or even "to sit around watching Star Trek marathons in a legally sanctioned union," although that should probably be worked into most legal and/or religious wedding vows).

Watching these commercials, it occured to me that the products they're hawking just might hold the key to everything that is wrong with our country, if not our species.

Let's start with SweeTarts Squeez, what appears to be a petroleum-based confection that (finally!) eliminates the exhausting task of chewing a SweeTart.

Full disclosure: when I was a kid, I absolutely loved SweeTarts, but was forbidden from eating them except on rare occasions. I felt very victimized by the fact that my mother, who is a teacher, was so adamantly opposed to children - me in particular - enjoying such delightful all-American treats as SweeTarts, Nerds, Lik-M-Aid (you know, where they give you the sugar stick to lick and dip in the colored sugar packets?) and any cereal that was "part of this nutritious breakfast!" I often wondered if I could make a case for abuse to child services for being forced to eat stuff like fresh vegetables and other food that was "grown on a farm." Sheesh.

I clearly remember my mother denying my request to buy a bag of SweeTarts, saying, "those things will rot your teeth out, and then how are you going to chew them?"

It may be 20 years too late, but finally - there's a comeback! I don't need no stinkin' teeth now that it comes in a tube! Best of all, with SweeTarts Squeez (no "e" at the end, 'cause they're cool like that), no need to burn the extra 2 calories involved in chewing.

Irony of ironies, this "fine addition to the SweeTarts family of products" comes in something that looks suspiciously like a toothpaste tube. At the risk of sounding all conspiracy-theory-ish, you have to wonder if this product wasn't the diabolical brain-child of some underground society of evil dentists, perhaps the Dark Knights of the Bicuspids, who want to buy more vacation homes on St. Barthes? Think about it: dentists could be the new hedge fund managers if more people would just "squeez". Or maybe it's designed by Jenny Craig in an effort to get more male clients between the ages of 18 and 29?

But seriously - as rates of Type-2 (adult-onset) diabetes are growing to epic proportions among U.S. children - to whom the cartoon TV spots are heavily targeted - how isn't this a public health hazard? How does this get FDA approval? Most of all, how do the people putting this crap out there even manage to sleep at night?

The late comedian Bill Hicks once said that the marketing and advertising people in this country should just kill themselves. He had a point.

The next spot was for the Triple Whopper with Cheese (comes with a free defibrilator) at Burger King. Unless you're a professional athlete, you're not burning enough calories to justify a whopping (no pun intended) 1230 calories and 82 grams of fat. And if you are a professional athlete other than possibly a sumo wrestler, you're probably not going to eat a triple-decker Whopper with cheese, for the same reason that you're not likely to juggle chainsaws; someone could get hurt.
(LEFT: The Triple Whopper went down to Glamour Shots at the mall, and this is the result. Heck, we all have to treat ourselves sometimes!)

The Triple Whopper started as a cross-marketing ploy in 2005, to promote the movie King Kong, but has since been added as a permanent menu item. It was pitched as a solution for "Kong-sized appetites." In other words, if you happen to be a giant gorilla, this is for you. Which would be a long-overdue nod to the mutant gorilla community, except that gorillas are almost exclusively vegetarian.

I'm not one to blame fast food for making people unhealthy, but ... okay, let's indulge in a little of that. I guess they wanted to make the Whopper seem like a "lite" option, kind of like those Victorian women who used to go around with monkeys on a leash, so the ladies would seem prettier by comparison. The standard Whopper sans cheese has a mere 670 calories.
Again with the how can they even sleep at night?

Bringing us to the next ad, which was for Dominos square brownies. I really thought I was hallucinating the first 4 times I saw this commercial. If Paul hadn't been there to confirm that it was real, I might have called a hotline for immediate psychiatric help.

The star of this commercial is a bizarre brownie-creature, a short person (either a midget or a child who's going to be telling this to an army of psychiatrists someday) dressed in a square costume made of fake brown fur. The square rings a suburban doorbell alongside the Dominos Delivery Associate, who, unlike an actual Domino's employee, doesn't seem even slightly disgruntled. As the square steps back, we see that the hug-ee is covered with, well, what might come out of a person after eating this crap.

Because, of course, nothing says "yum!" like brown plush fur and diarrhea hugs.

As you might expect, the Domino's customer looks utterly horrified by this turn of events. It's one of those moments where everyone, from the viewer at home to the Key Grip to the SAG member in the plush suit, feels a bit dirty.

Not that Domino's is any stranger to annoying ad campaigns, but as corporate mascots go, this one is just weird. In the day, the Noid might have been worth avoiding, but this one is actually repulsive. I'm not a scientist or anything, but isn't the purpose of a commercial to - I dunno - sell stuff? Unless you have some scat fetish, you're probably not reaching for phone to call Domino's.

All I can guess is that the folks who came up with this idea must've been on some serious pharmaceuticals. Or maybe they were just hopped up on spoonfuls of SweeTarts Squeez?

What have you been up to lately?

2006-11-11T19:18:00.000-08:00

The other day, April called. "So, what have you been up to, lately?" she asks.

An innocent question.

"Ohmigosh, I've just been SOooooooo busy!" And, up to that point, I had totally convinced myself that this was true.

"Doing what?"

"Well, uh ... you know." I thought and thought, but nothing leaped to mind. "Work, and ... well... I drew half a monster! Which took at least several minutes."

Do you ever stop to make a list of everything you've done for the past day/week/decade, etc., and struggle to come up with more than 3 things that don't involve personal grooming? Or drawing the bottom halves of monsters?

Let's see ... what have I been up to? Does growing an ulcer over not checking messages/emails count? Or worrying about not going to the gym/not writing thank-you letters, not winning the Prix Goncourt, etc.?

In other words, can you count all the things you're NOT doing ? If so, I'm stoked.

True, work is busy, but it's not like I work all that late (the French frown upon it) -- rarely past 6 p.m. Nor am I involved in any extreme sports, nor volunteering for charity, or frequenting underground fetish clubs. No real social life to speak of (note to self: perhaps should look into underground fetish clubs, if only for the outings).

So where does the time go? I do floss regularly, but that's almost certainly "personal grooming" ...

As something of a personal credo, I've always avoided any and all activities that could be described as a "hobby." The whole concept of hobbies has always struck me as unbelievably creepy. Especially the ones that involve Hobby Glue. It brought up images of weird middle aged dudes in basements creating scale replicas of world monuments out of tounge depressors. Which is depressing, and not just for tounges.

That's when it occured to me: I haven't been busy -- I've just been sitting around the house watching a lot of TV. I can admit this to April, but never would to most people. Except, of course, anyone with access to the Internets.

Disspelling the myth of busy-ness (busitude?) has been kind of depressing. But it gets worse - I started thinking about what I've been watching on TV. This is where the story gets ugly.

To be continued ...

Feeling Bloggish

2006-11-07T19:56:00.000-08:00

Listening to the election results.

Much talk about the "bloggers blogging on the blogs in the blogosphere." On one channel (okay, it was Fox ... they have shiny colors and all the words have no more than 2 syllables, me likey), they showed some bar in DC where there were 10 bloggers blogging. Perhaps about six geese a-laying.

The gist of it was that "blogging" was something that very bad people do to baby seals.

Instead of making an astute political statement, I have to observe that "blog" -- a bastard noun-child, sprung from the union of Web and Log (next step: bestiality!) -- has become a noun, a verb, and even a shape.

Who decided that it's a sphere? I thought it was a truck. I mean, a series of tubes.

Ahem. As you can see from the above text, I have nothing of interest to add to the blog rhombus (or is it a hatchback?) this evening.

However, the political election has inspired me. I've realized that, by waiting until I "have something to say" before saying anything, I'm defeating the alluring, sinister purpose of the blog-ellipse (or is it a sphere?).

As a consequence/benefit of watching too much TV lately, I've had a revelation. It occured to me that in our culture -- now, this may come as a shock --quantity is more important than quality. For instance, in things like votes. Or, say, money.

So, I've decided to start updating this blog every day, even though most of the time, I usually have no salient (a.k.a., "salty") points to add to the blog rectangle (or is it a cube?).

The above represents the first episode of blogging in the bloggish blog even when I have absolutely nothing to say. But if I say enough of it, maybe it will add up to something, at least quantity-wise.

Or maybe it will just be a series of tubes.

Half a Monster

2006-10-31T18:59:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween!

This has always been my favorite holiday, but once again this year, we didn't do anything for Halloween. Last year, we had the excuse that Paul had broken his arm in several places two days before, as reported here. Sometimes it's amazing to think how much can happen in the space of a year.

Tonight, in the spirit of Halloween, we tried that semi-annual experiment of spending an evening without watching TV. It was pretty scary, for reasons that will soon become obvious.

Here's an actual transcript:

PAUL: Wanna play Scrabble?
ME: No.
PAUL: Boggle?
ME: Nah.
PAUL: Commemorative edition "Lord of the Rings" Risk?
(short pause)
ME: As our Halloween costume, can we go as people who are too cool to own something with that particular combination of nouns?
(short pause)
PAUL: Wanna do that thing where you draw the top half of a monster, and I draw the bottom half, and we can't look at each others halves until we're done?

ME pretends to be too cool, before realizing that this is futile.

ME: Okay. Fine. You win. Let's draw a monster.
PAUL: Really?!
ME: It'll pass the time.

ME and PAUL both look at the darkend TV with more than a hint of longing.

PAUL: Wanna call Amy and Brian and ask if they're drawing monsters, too?
ME: Sounds like a cry for help.
PAUL: Yeah, they'd just be jealous.

So we drew a montser (the bottom half was mine, which might be obvious).

Here's our chef d'oeuvre:

I think the two halves reflect male vs. female priorities pretty clearly (note that my half is nicely accessorized, and Paul's ... uh, isn't). We named him/her Diqweena D. Head.

This is a cautionary tale of all couples who might be considering turning off the TV tonight. Just... put down the remote ... slowly, now ...

2006-10-30T14:59:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated this blog in a while because I've been super busy at my "day job." By which I mean my job. Which I go to during the day. I like saying "my day job." It implies that there is something infinitely more glamorous, such as acting, or synchronized swimming, or pursuing an exciting career in dental hygeine, that I do on the side.

The other (by which I mean "actual") reason for not blogging/paying bills/showering regularly: I've been watching a lot of T.V. Which is usually what people mean when they say they've been "really busy."

However, the socially acceptable, and at least 57.3% true reason for said busitude is that the evening of October 11, the day when the plane crashed into the building by my work, was supposed to be the date of a fundraising event at work. So, the event had to be cancelled and re-scheduled for the next week, even though I'd spent 2 months planning the first one. Miraculously, it all worked out, although some people were annoyed that we didn't have a "contengency plan" for when an airplane runs into a building down the street.

From now on, it's on the Event Checklist, along with the name of an alternate caterer for when/if ours is ever eaten by Godzilla.

2006-10-12T04:29:00.000-07:00

Just the other day, it occured to me that I no longer get that panicked feeling when I hear tons of fire trucks hurling down the street. For the first two years after 2001, like plenty of other New Yorkers, I would turn on CNN every time I heard more than three sirens in the distance, even if most of them were rushing to break down the door of a 5th Ave. apartment where a poodle had set off a motion detector, or maybe to rescue people like me and Paul, who get trapped in their bedroom due to a defective door latch (I promise to tell that story once I've worked it through in therapy, darlings...).

Yesterday at work, our entire block was filled with fire trucks, and what appeared to be every uniformed police officer in the tri-state area. The whole neighborhood smelled like smoke, although nothing like the smell we called, simply, "Trade Center" (everyone in NYC remembers it, in the unrecordable history of scents), a smell you would come across in random patches for a full year after "the events of ..."

I work three blocks from the building that was hit yesterday. "A small plane has hit a building on 72nd Street ..."

I'm sure it was disappointing for the Republicans running for office that it wasn't a terrorist attack. It would have been further proof of Bill Clinton's incompetence.

Still, any phrase with the words "plane" and "hit a building," especially less than 3 blocks away, strikes fear in the hearts of all of us in this city. It didn't seem likely that a terrorist would want to attack a bourgeois apartment high-rise, unless they were from the Pottery Barn Liberation Front. But you never know.

Several of the kids at school saw the whole thing, because the playground is on the roof (if you live in New York, you don't think it's weird to let 5-year-olds experience "the outdoors" on a tar roof). This is something they'll be telling their kids, by which I mean their shrinks, when they're older. By which I mean when they're 5 1/2.

But here's the thing - if this sort of thing can happen as a freak accident (which it is, unless you consider the Yankees a terrorist organization -- and assuming you're not talking about how Gen'rul Sherman marched his horses through your Gram'ama's plantation in Sou' Carolina, thus chipping that soup tureen you see before you, as the story goes in my family) --- what would happen if someone in a small plane harbored malicious intent???

Lucky that terrorists never go to flight school.

That's why it's hard to take the Department of Vaterland Securitat über seriously. They happily let "pleasure craft" - not to mention commercial airlines - fly over the East River, within dirty-bombing distance of Henri Bendel. Henri Bendel.

Is nothing sacred?

Not coincidentally, Henri Bendel is a fine retail outlet for 24/7 Lip Plumper. However, unlike the multi-ton aircraft that fly only a quarter of a mile from easily traumatized Franco-American (not to be confused with Chef Boyardee) children, MY LIP PLUMPER is a danger to this nation. I'm sorry, I still haven't gotten over that one.

(NOTE: when flying this weekend, I noticed that they've relaxed these laws somewhat; you can now take "travel sizes" of prohibited items, because they realized that it would be hard - but perhaps not impossible - to hijack a plane with hair gel.)

But seriously, I have to wonder if the powers-that-be (by which I mean Karl Rove) don't actually want New York to be attacked. It's like we're in some terrible cartoon and the Coyote has sent off for some Acme Bullseye Paint, and we're watching the montage where he strategically spreads it all over the desert, I mean, New York City.

Hopefully, somewhere, there's a falling anvil looming overhead to foil the plot, just in the nick of time.

2006-10-06T12:17:00.000-07:00

So, it looks like I'm going to spend my Third Annual 29th birthday - which, for the first time in years will be on a Saturday night - fishing for something called "bigmouth bass." I guess they're sassy.

I haven't been fishing since I was about 10 years old, when I caught an eel and threw it back in the water. Unfortunately, it was still attached to the brand-new fishing pole, which discouraged Dad from ever taking me fishing again (which worked out quite nicely).

I like fish, don't get me wrong, but I like them better in an aquarium, or on a plate in next to a lemon wedge, rather than flopping around next to me on a boat. Personally, I prefer not to know about the size of my dinner's mouth.

For those of you who know Florida, it's somewhere around Welaka, which is kind of near that bastion of world civilization we call Palatka.

Assuming I don't git et by a gater, I'll tell y'all about it once ah git back.

2006-10-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

Happy Yom Kippur to all y'all who are celebrating! Actually, since it's the Day of Atonement, I'm not sure if you're supposed to say "Happy ..." But it has a better ring to it than "Somber Yom Kippur!"

I, for one, am having a great Yom Kippur, because I have the day off. Working for the French, we get a lot of French, American, and assorted religious holidays. The only consistent thing about all of these is that none of my coworkers - regardless of their religion or nationality - seems to actually observe any of these occasions. And yet, we have off for Colombus Day and Good Friday and Bastille Day. Not that I'm complaining.

I'm not religious, but I think we should have a national Day of Atonement. Maybe not atonement, per se, but more like an "amnesty day" for calling all the people you've accidentally lost touch with, or to apologize to folks you might have offended/ annoyed/ accidentally barfed in their laundry hampers, etc. This would also go for anyone we might be holding a grudge against, and not just because it really annoys people who hate you when you're nice to them.

The other day, Paul was telling me how every Chinese New Year, he and a friend would call up everyone they'd had any issues with, or friends they'd forgotten to call, or whatever, over the past year. I guess the Chinese have a tradition of making amends at the New Year. (Not that Paul is Chinese, but, hey, if Madonna can wear a yarmukle, then Paul can be General Tso.)

Unfortunately, I have a chronically long list of people to whom I owe phone calls, emails, letters, etc. Instead, I choose to be proactive, by which I mean actively worrying about not calling them, sure that they hate and/or have forgotten me by now. But then, the more time goes by, the more I'm afraid to call because I think they think I don't care about them. It's all very mature.

When faced with any challenge, I turn to the "Personal Growth" aisle at Barnes & Noble. In my self-help book du jour (don't ask ...), I learned that this is from thinking with the "reptilian" parts of the brain. Occasionally my decisions come from the "mammal" or even "primate" parts of the brain, but rarely from the more recently evolved neocortex, or "human" part of the brain.

For all you suckers who belive in "evolution," despite the fact that the President of the United States has assured us that "the jury's still out" on this hocus-pocus, the human brain is composed of many layers, which can explain most of our behaviors. For instance, the "fight or flight" instinct These range from the primordial brain-stem which comes from the age when reptiles came up out of the water, up through the modern parts of the brain that has given us things like art, science, and computers, and back to the primate parts of the brain that primarily use computers to download porn.

I wish I could send an email to all my long-lost friends and say, gee, I'm sorry I never got back to you, but, see, the reptilian section of my brain was avoiding a painful stimulus.

Maybe Hallmark makes a "Shoebox Greetings" card to that effect?

2006-09-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

The place: your own dining room. The time: a Saturday evening, just a couple of months from today. The setting: Your table is filled with happy guests - and they're raving about the spectacular Lobster Fra Diavolo dinner you prepared.

- From the French Culinary Institute, description of "Essentials of Fine Cooking" class.

One of the perks of my job is that they'll pay for "professional development" classes. I just have to convince them that Advanced Wine Tasting or the Pastry Cycle at the FCI will somehow further my career in school fundraising. My employers are French, so they at least waited a full 30 seconds before saying "no."

Lately, I've become somewhat obsessed with the idea of Self Improvement. I'm not sure what it is, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that, for exactly one year, I have simultaneously had a job, an apartment, and a relationship. All three. At the same time.

Back in the day, I was lucky to have one - occasionally two - of the above at any given time. Of course, its a cliche that New Yorkers are always searching for at least one of these. But until recently, this had always been the case for me ever since I moved to this city on January 1, 1998.

Amazingly, looking for a job, an apartment and a relationship are remarkably similar processes. A job interview is often compared to a first date, only without booze or the possiblity of sex (depending on your line of work, I suppose). And looking for an apartment in New York is simultaneously like dating and job hunting. You have to fill out forms and show credentials, like an interview. You risk emotional heartbreak when you realize that the gorgeous apartment/guy you have a wicked crush on is dating/being leased to another woman.

There's also a lot of false advertizing involved in the hunt for employment/housing/lovers. Ads for apartments always have more square footage and "exposures" (New York for "windows") than they really have, in the way that people on online dating sites purport to be taller, younger and much less desperate than they really are. And the job ads always make it sound like the position will specifically not involve changing the toner in the color printer, although this seems to be the central focus of virtually every job in New York.

Even now, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night thinking I'm late to a job interview, or with some confusion as to whose bed I've woken up in. Or, worse yet, I dream that I've showed up late to an open house for a rent stabilized 2BD HWF w/NE XVR.

"So, what do you, like, do with your time," asked one of my still-single friends, "you know, now that you don't date anymore?"

"Oh, you know..." I couldn't come up with an immediate answer. I felt a sudden urge to take up knitting.

It may come as a shock to those of you who read my three-page reports on the ethos of Transformers, but, my friends, I think I have a bit too much free time.

Maybe it’s the back-to-school season, but every year around Labor Day, the desire to bite off more than I can chew rears its ugly head. As a kid, this was the time of year that I insisted on signing up for ballet, soccer and art classes, in addition to (obligatory) violin lessons. A month later, it would occur to me that it is much more enjoyable to go home after school and watch cartoons than to be involved in activities that required talent, exercise, or - worse yet - both.

By November of each year, violin was the only extracurricular activity I couldn’t avoid by faking a sprained ankle. It’s not that I particularly liked playing the violin, but my mom would cry whenever I suggested it wasn’t “for me” - a fact that was abundantly obvious to anyone who heard me play. Neighborhood dogs howled in unison to my consistently sharp E-flats. Much like Britney Spears’ mom, mine remained committed to the noble illusion that sheer tenacity can make up for a complete and utter lack of musical talent.

My mother, who as you might recall is a founding member of a cello trio known as “The Yo-Yo Moms,” remained committed to the belief that I would follow in her musical footsteps, and that I was destined to become a Great Violinist. Which is kind of like the Bush administration insisting that the war in Iraq is going really, really well.

Later, in college, every August I would sign up for 6 classes in totally random subjects, like “Feminist Nihilism and the Victorian Novel” or Yoruba Language & Literature. Then, invariably, the day after the deadline for course refunds, I’d drop at least two classes because they were “too early in the morning” (3:00 PM).

So I've decided to take some classes. The only one I've signed up for so far is Creative Writing in French, which work will pay for. It was the result of an elaborate fantasy involving winning the Prix Goncourt, which is the French equivalent of the National Book Award. Not that I've ever written a book in French. Or English, for that matter.

But, really - how hard could it be? Most contemporary French novels - like French movies - are rather short, and feature lots of of gratuitous sex and existential pondering and bourgeois ennui. The whole "developping a storyline" and "conflict and resolution," and other things that might require discipline are considered small-minded American/capitalist constructions. So I came up with the idea to write an entire novel in the present tense, hence avoiding the inevitable conjugation errors.

Je m'ennui. Je me déshabille devant l'écran de mon ordinateur, tout en pleurant comme un petit singe. Hier. Chez mon comptable, on se fait sauvagement l’amour parterre sur le Wall Street Journal. L'amour n'est qu'une transaction économique ordinaire, n'est pas? L'amour n'est qu'une performance comme les autres. Je suis triste et seule. Et toute nue.

Trans.: I am bored. I take off my clothes in front of the computer screen, crying like a small monkey. Yesterday. At the office of my accountant, we savagely make love on the Wall Street Journal on the floor. Love is but an simple economic transaction, is it not? Love is but a performance like any other. I am sad, and alone. And totally naked.

Ooooooh, yeah. Prix Goncourt, here I come.

Hobbit Fabulous

2006-09-21T19:35:00.000-07:00

So, Paul and I have finally figured out where we're moving after New York City. Forget middle America. We're going to fcukin' Middle Earth. Or, for those of you who insist on living in "reality," Middle Oregon. To be specific, "exactly in the middle of Oregon!" as the bumper stickers read in Bend, Oregon, home of "The Shire."

Now, before I go any further, I should offer a full disclaimer: I am a Dork. In my single days, I lived in denial of my dorkitude. This wasn't because I had lost interest in LoTR (if you have to ask what that stands for, well ...), or Star Trek, both original and TNG (again with the "if you have to ask..."). But I knew that if I wanted to occasionally get laid, I had to keep certain things in the closet. And in the drawer in the bedside table, but that's beside the point.

The thing is, guys in New York tend to be self-hating Dorks. Sure, he might have been a level-20 Wizard back in Dayton, but, as they say, what happens in Dayton stays in Dayton.

Let's just say that New York guys are a little too suspicious of women who know what a dilithium chamber is. Or if she knows what's the trouble with a Tribble. But that's nothing compared to a chick who knows the difference between an Orc and a Uruk-hai.

"Urich-who? You mean, the new Austrian handbag designer in NoHo?" This is the only acceptable answer to this question for a single woman in New York. Otherwise, guys will look at you as if you might instantly sprout underam hair and start wearing practical shoes.

Now that I'm married, I'm free to admit it - I've always wanted to live in a Hobbit-themed subdivision. If you ask me, there aren't enough movie-themed housing developments.

Now, clever readers will point out that LoTR (starts with, Lord of ...) was a series of books long before it was a series of movies. But, the aesthetics of "The Shire" houses (and Ye Olde Patio Homes) seem to be heavily inspired by the sets of Peter Jackson's LoTR movies. To be technical, a.k.a., a megadork, the houses - which are not actually holes in the ground - are more like the houses of Bree, the human village nearest to the Shire of Tolkein's Hobbits.

Although no explicit references are made to Tolkein or Peter Jackson's titles, the connection is heavily implied. For instance, in the "neighborhood" section of The Shire subdivision website, one vacant house reads "this is the House of Boramir," (who was a human, not a Hobbit) next to the house of his brother Faramir (also human, albeit less rugged and masculine). Click on a house, and up pops an uncredited movie still of the actors who played Boramir, Faramir and others from the Peter Jackson movies, all of whom "live" in The Shire, perhaps on Copyright Infringement Lane.

It's interesting (taking liberties with the word "interesting") to note that Faramir lives next door to Melilot Brandybuck, who, some of you will remember, is -- a Hobbit. In the real Middle Earth, Hobbits and Humans didn't live next door to each other, because Hobbits liked to keep to themeselves, mostly in the comfortable underground holes where the lived. (Much in the way that many obsessive LoTR fans live in their parents' basement, and only hang around with their high school friends who also still live with their folks at age 34.)

It's important to be as accurate as possible when referencing a history that never existed, for the sake of "consistancy." You know, to keep the illusion afloat. It's something that people like George Lucas, or White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, must grapple with every day.

All I have to say is that I hope they'll have National Guardsmen posted at the entrance of The Shire, to keep any high school kids who live there from getting beaten to a bloody pulp. It's bad enough they live in a town called "Bend." Of course, if teenagers in cutesy subdivisions in Florida are any indication, the kids who grow up in The Shire will make Marilyn Manson look like a friggin' Care Bear.

That withstanding, I think we've reached the point in our cultural evolution when this idea of movie-themed housing developments could really take off.

A few ideas:

Transformer Glen. For those of you who may be tuning in from another Planet (shout out to my boys in the Gamma quadrant!), the Transformers are a children's cartoon inspired by the popular toys (or is it the other way around?) of the same name. The Transformers were/are a loose confederation crime-fighting automobiles who could, uh, transform into crime-fighting robots. The noble Autobots were locked in an unending battle with the evil Decepticons, although the motives on either side were never especially clear.

In the cartoon, the Autobots were led by Optimus Prime, an flatbed truck/fighting machine whose motto is "freedom is the right of all sentient beings." According to the official Hasbro site, "it has often been noted that his wisdom is so great he seems to have a deeper understanding of the universe than he lets on."

Again, we have to wonder if Tony Snow isn't confusing U.S. foreign policy with a particularly riveting episode of The Transformers, but that's another matter.

Anyway, the first kids to become obsessed with Transformers are now in their mid-30s. They might be too old to play with action figures, but they sure aren't too old to want to live in one.

Transformer Glen should probably be an apartment complex in New York City. Come to think of it, I think I've already lived there. The living room transforms into a bedroom (Murphy bed) which is also a crime-fighting kitchen! And the kitchen transforms into a bathroom (flimsy door separating the oven from the toilet)!

Similarly, an L.A. developper might pick up on Blade Runner Estates, an industrial wasteland-themed complex with no trees or nature, but I'm not sure how they'd tell the difference between that and any other apartment building in the Valley.

Personally, I'm holding out for Enterprise Acres. If my address could be on NCC-1701 D Place, at the corner of Tribble Lane, my life would pretty much be complete.

The bomb in the baby carriage is wired through the FroYo

2006-09-16T11:08:00.000-07:00

Last week, I learned that watermelon-scented lip gloss may be used to hijack an airplane. Or else the TSA is a secret subsidiary of the Estee Lauder Corporation, which, personally, I'm starting to suspect.

Our flight to Maui left at 6 in the morning, so of course Paul and I were at JFK by 3:54 a.m. Paul insists on getting to the airport several hours before a flight, which is an entirely new experience for me. Before Paul (B.P.), I was accustomed to running through airports as if being chased by a tiger, usually still wearing my clothes from the night before, no matter how inappropriate for international travel that sequined skirt may have been. Most of the time, I got to the gate only seconds before (or after) the door was sealed.

Paul likes to leave early for the airport, in case there's a line at security, or if we run into traffic, or if the taxi gets a flat tire, or if we get caught in a sudden blizzard (in July) or if aliens choose that particular morning to make their presence known on earth. This time, we got there so early, the security people hadn't even arrived. Unfortunately, neither had any of the people who open up the shops that I never knew existed at the airport, because I used to run past them so fast.

So I thought we were prepared. We knew that all liquids were forbidden in carry-on bags, in reaction to the attempted hijacking in London a few weeks ago. So I'd checked and double checked my bags to make sure I didn't have any shampoo, hair gel, or liquid nitrogen, which, like most women, I usually carry arond in my purse (but you can never find these things when you need 'em, right girls?). It's bad enough to have to go for 12 hours without my can of flammable acetone (it's a kind of security blanket; never mind).

Anyway, I thought I was in the clear. Then, going through security, my bag set off an alarm. I assumed it was my firearm, or the samuri sword I like to carry around for good luck. But no. After 15 minutes of searching, the TSA agent uncovered the contraband. It was a Juicy Tube.

"Yeah, this has to go," said a TSA agent, looking at me as if I were a sick criminal mastermind.

"But - but! It's neon pink!" I was on the verge of tears. It was my favorite. "And scented!"

The Juicy Tube glosses all smell like some non-specific, wholly imaginary fruit. That is, it smells how we imagine fruit would taste in a cartoon version of the Universe, in the way that "grape" bubble gum has nothing to do with the taste of an actual grape.

Trying to reason with the TSA agent, I was careful not to use the word "bomb," because I've heard that they can detain you for even using the word in a sentence, such as, "Do you seriously think anyone would make a fruit-flavored, hot pink bomb? I've heard of a sex bomb, but this is ridiculous. Who would do such a thing? The Mary Kay Liberation Front?"

Then, things got even worse.

"Sorry. This, too." That's when I saw it. The TSA agent was holding my tube of Lip Plumper. As if in slow motion, I watched as he put it in a little basket for things that must be Taken Away.

"Noooooooooo!" I said, sounding a bit like Darth Vader at the end of the latest Star Wars movie.

"But - but! It cost $42! Plus tax!"

This seemed to confirm his worst suspicions. As if anyone who would spend $42 (plus tax!) on lip gloss is clearly capable of doing very bad things.

Of course, Lip Plumper is a substance that seems to arouse suspicion in most men, even men who don't work for the TSA.

Those of you (yes, both of you) who read this blog might remember how excited I was to get my tube of 24/7 Lip Plumper, which, according to Paul, makes me look like I've been eating goat meat, which may or may not be a bad thing. I have to confess that of all the things in my bag, this one might actaully include ingredients that might be used to make a primative (yet stylish!) bomb.

At least the female TSA agent was a bit nicer about it. She gave me the look that parents sometimes give their kids when the family's incontinent, temperamental Rotweiler is about to go "live on a farm."

"Don't worry," she said, "we have lots of them in the back." I think she meant that I wasn't the only one who lost lip gloss that morning, but it was little consolation.

As we were leaving security, it occured to me that I had just lost over $60 worth of lip gloss (plus tax!). For a brief second, I wondered if it was karmic punishment for spending my money on such frivolous things. This might have been an opportunity to re-evaluate my fundamental values and priorities. Instead, I went to the first shop I saw and bought a new pair of sunglasses, even though I had two other pair with me. It felt pretty darn good.

We changed planes at Chicagao O'Hare, where things got even weireder. It was an 8 and a half hour flight, so I asked the lady at the gate if we could bring food on the plane.

"Food, yes. But no yogurt."

Ah, that'll show the terrorits! The crafty folks at the Department of Vaterland, I mean, Homeland Security saw through the plot to make an explosive devise out of a FroYo.

Before the boarding call, the same airline employee, a bewildered-sounding middle aged woman with her security badge attached to a Chicago Bears neck string, made the announcement to all the passengers.

"Yeah, ahhh ... no beverages allowed on the plane. You can bring food, but no beverages. And no yogurt. And no, uh ... uh ...."

In the dead air, you could hear her mentally searching for an adjective meaning "yougurt-like." She and I simultaneously concluded that this word probably doesn't exist.

"... No yogurt-like substances," she continued, authoritatively. "You know. Pudding? Uh ... Jello?"

It occured to me that I had never heard, or expected to hear, the words "yogurt-like substances" over a P.A., in the context of a domestic security warning.

And, at this point, all passengers had passed through security, where they had theoretically been stripped of all hazardous items (e.g., Juicy Tubes). So, the yogurt bomb would have to be an inside job. I guess they're on to "Juan" bin Laden over at the "I Can't Believe it's Yogurt!" stand.

Of course, the real question is: does this make us any safer? Or does it just provide a false sense of security? I mean, really - what percentage of the lip gloss/hair gel/"SweeTarts Squeez Candy Tubes" collected at the airport contain any substances more dangerous than High Fructose Corn Syrup (which is plenty dangerous, but for entirely separate reasons)? I'll give you a hint: it rhymes with "nero."

The fact is, they only scan about half the bags that are checked in, because the airports don't have enough x-ray machines. I would prefer that they divert some of the time and money devoted to the Yogurt Patrol to checking a few of those bags. But then, it wouldn't be a public spectacle, designed to convey a clear message: be afraid. Be VERY afraid. Even harmless things, such as yogurt, are now potentially sinister. Coincidentally, it's almost election time. But I think we've all learned a very valueable lesson: if you don't vote Republican, those bad people with the uranium in their Jell-o Pudding Cups are going to come and kill you and your kids and your grandma and your little dog, too.

Making us get rid of our lip gloss isn't making us safer. It's just making us uglier.

All I have to say is, if the women of America can't even go around with their lips glistening as if they've been eating goat meat - well, that means the terrorists have already won.

It Came From The Shower Drain

2006-08-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

If you never hear from me again after today, it is because we’ve been sucked into a hell dimension. I’m pretty sure that the Forces of Darkness have taken up residence in our bathroom.

On Saturday, we woke up to find a few inches of dark, murky water gurgling up from the drain, into the bathtub. Yes, gurgling. Oh, and yes – UP from the drain, even though “up from” is the preposition you least want to use in association with the word “drain.”

It was a disturbingly slow gurgle, with the occasional bubble thrown in, as if it were trying to communicate with us. Sort of like an evil Lassie. “Okay, good Drain! Gurgle once if little Timmy fell into the sewer… ”

It was like one of those scenes from a horror movie when you think to yourself: Why don’t they just get OUT OF THE HOUSE?

I turned my head to make sure it wouldn’t go all the way around before calling our building super, whom I’ll call Marcello. Marcello, who's originally from Italy, is around 40, and one of those rare skinny dudes who can be described as “jovial.” To be jovial, a man has to be either fat, or Italian, or both. (No, really. Check the dictionary; SEE ALSO “Dom DeLuise”). Let's just say that Roberto Begnini will play Marcello in the movie version.

Marcello speaks in that sing-song accent that people sometimes use when imitating Italian waiters. I hate to admit that it has a downright Pavlovian effect on me; I get hungry just listening to him talk. Even if the subject is draining toxic sludge from our bathtub.

“We must-a snake-a the drain-a, because the – how do you say? – ah, yes, raw sewage-a …”

But all I hear is pasta, pasta, pasta. I lick my lips.

It’s hard not to like Marcello, but he usually takes a very Mediterranean approach to property management. For instance, you call him up to say that he left a ladder in your apartment. You know, the time he came over to install the smoke detector but forgot to put it up and just left it on the kitchen counter, so you installed it yourself, but you’re kind of sick of tripping over the ladder?

Marcello says he’ll come over around 7 PM to pick up the ladder, which is sitting in what the broker called “the dining room,” but which looks more like a “hall closet.” You cancel your plans and stay home to wait for him, but he never shows. This is in January. Then, one random evening in June, there’s a knock on the door. It’s Marcello, looking for the ladder. Remember?
Ater all, he said he’d be coming by around 7:00. He just didn’t specify on which day or month, or which calendar year this might occur. But he’s so nice and smiley, and you expect him to jump up and down and kiss everyone after he wins the Academy Award, so you don’t have the heart to complain.

The thing about Marcello is that he never seems to be surprised by anything. So far this month, I’ve had to call him because a) my tub was going all Linda Blair and b) we got stuck in our own bedroom in the middle of the night.

In both cases, our super was not flummoxed. Instead, he was totally … whatever’s the opposite of “flummoxed.”

“Ah, you stucka in da bedroom? No problems.”

The way he says this, it sounds as if this the most normal thing in the world. As if he worked for the 24-Hour hotline of the Stuck in a Bedroom Crisis Center.

“Yes, yes, this same-a thing, it happens the other day, to an old lady in the another place.” (He’s the super for several buildings owned by our management company.) “She stucka in the bedroom for three days.”

Three …? How does this shit not end up in The Post?

Or, about the most recent crisis, after I explained about the tub, the next question was, “The sink – does it work?” I tell him it does. This was on Saturday.

“Ah, bellissima! So we can wait until the Monday,” Marcello says. “Because the plumber, he is not working on the Sunday.”

I’m not sure I buy that. Unlike in Italy or France, you can find people in America who are willing to work on the Sunday, even in the month of August. Besides, this is New York City. If you really wanted to, I’d bet you dollars to donuts that on any given Sunday at 3 A.M., you could find a naked midget plumber willing to come out and snake your drain, both literally and metaphorically (although the metaphorical part costs extra). If you want, he/she will even bring you a falafel.

Heck, that’s why we live in New York, for the naked midget all-night plumber/stripper/falafel delivery services. It’s certainly not for the reliable buildings.

My theory is that there’s another reason the plumber couldn’t come on Sunday. Because by “plumber,” Marcello meant to say “priest,” which is what the situation clearly calls for. And priests tend to be busy on …. Sundays! Coincidence? Don’t be naïve.

By this morning, it had risen even higher, but still not over the edge of the tub. I feel like a smart-ass robot should be making wisecracks from the audience, like in Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Because the shower was full of Satan’s vomit, I had to wash my hair in the kitchen sink this morning. As a result, I looked like Courtney Love. Really, all I needed was some uneven red lipstick and track marks on my arms. As an added bonus, it happened to be the one day in the year that they take the staff photos. It’s a thing. Later, they give everyone a copy in a frame. It sounds really weird, but I work for the French, so it’s not the weirdest thing that happened all day. If you don’t believe me, I could tell you about the new staff member who introduced herself vis-à-vis a mock telephone conversation with a fictional literary figure (Mrs. Dalloway, from Virginia Woolf, but it was all in French and there was an off-key piano in the mix … No, really - I have witnesses.).

This morning, as I was picking lettuce out of my hair after washing it in the kitchen, it occurred to me that indoor plumbing should probably be included in our rent. For what they charge us, they should probably throw in a small island-nation, or possibly even an archipelago, in addition to a small 1-bedroom apartment that may or may not be Possessed.

Hopefully, by this afternoon, the whole thing will be resolved. But just in case, does anyone know how to get ectoplasm to get out of velour upholstry?

Today on the Internet ...

2006-08-23T12:22:00.000-07:00

From the "I really should be working" files ...

Instead, I learned the following on the Internet:

People in Florida, especially Orlando, are the angriest in the nation. (I wonder which cities are the most apathetic? Or the most giddy?)
President Bush has read more than 60 books this year.
The serving of foie gras has been banned in Chicago restaurants. Chefs say the ban "will cost more than $18 million a year in lost sales ... and may even dissuade chefs from opening restaurants here." I guess the "McFoisGras with Cheese" will have to be taken off the menu at McDonalds in the Windy City.

These inane facts, ineviably, beg an inane commentary (and yes, I really should be working):

1. If I lived in Orlando (#1 on the angry list) I'd probably go postal, too, after hearing the Lite Jazz remix of "It's a Small World After All" for the 3,000th time on any given day.

But, that said, it seems like the study might be flawed, as its measures of "anger" are largely based on rates of hypertension and aggravated assault. Increased hypertension is often, but not exclusively the result/indicator of anger; high blood pressure also comes from genetics, eating too many BBQ chicken wings (Hooters was, alas, founded in Florida), etc. And the rate of aggravated assault in Florida is higher than in other states in part because so much of the traffic in drugs comes through Florida, which leads to a higher than average incidence of gang-related violence.

But St. Pete? All they have there are retirees and sea sponges (no, really; I've been there) .
Of course, if I worked in the sponge industry, I think I would be angry with the world for making me have to think and possibly even make graphs about sea sponges. Sponges + Powerpoint presentations = recipe for disaster.

2. I think we all believe that President Bush has read more than 60 books this year. More importantly, we believe that he's winning the reading contest with Karl Rove, who has only read 50 books. Much in the way that Bush has also won the Olympic gold medal in the Luge event 60 times this year (and counting!). Sadly, Karl only won it 50 times.

This is yet another example of the triumph of belief over fact, which is becoming an epidemic in our country. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, I just wish it could apply to everybody, and not just politicians. For instance, I could tell all my credit card companies that I've already paid them much more than Karl Rove paid them since the beginning of the year, so why don't they just go away? And I'll tell my job that I already raised $3 million this year, so I'm going to go to just go to Texas and cut brush and/or read books about supply-side economics for the rest of the year.

I'm not saying it's humanly impossible to read 60 books over the past 7 and a half months. But even a President who's "literary-minded" (not the first adjective that springs to mind to describe W.) would be hard pressed to find time to read 2.14 books per week since the beginning of the year. And we're not talking My Pet Goat. The books on the Presidential Reading List include titles such as The Great Influenza, a 560-page tome about the public health epidemic of the early 20th century. Not exactly a Dan Brown novel, with those 2-page paragraphs that make you feel clever for reading 10 chapters in as many minutes.

I know he's spent about 8 weeks on vacation this year, but really, we've never seen any evidence to suggest that Bush is a bookworm. In fact, he's the only U.S. President in history who has never written anything about his policies. Other Presidents wrote articles, or sometimes even books (well, I guess there's the autobiography Bush famously didn't remember writing).

Furthermore, it's interesting that "White House aides" say that Bush is out-reading Karl Rove (who might have read 50 books, possibly with titles such as How To Eat Babies, and Nature: Why Doesn't it Just Go Fcuk Itself?)

But then again, 50% of the country doesn't believe in evolution, and DOES believe that Christ is going to come back any day now and take all registered Republicans directly to heaven without dying, on a glowing chariot pulled by flying babies. If only it would happen sooner rather than later ...

3. And Chicago. Excuse me, but $18 million in lost sales from Fois Gras? How much fcuking duck liver are you people eating? Of course, the Chicago City Council would do well to remember what happened in the Windy City during Prohibition. I can see it now. Violent street gangs with tommy guns will erupt over illicit fois gras; goose liver "speakeasies" will pop up so that people can get their fix of illegal pâté, made from ducks raised in some guy's basement.

Come on, Chicago. This could only end badly. Except for the ducks ...

2006-08-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

Today is one of those perfect pre-Autumn days that make you wonder why anyone would ever want to live anywhere other than New York. Unfortunately, these only come about 5 days a year, but usually they coincide with signing leases or renewing job contracts.

Starting today, we go back to working 9 to 5 (during the summer, we work 9 to 4; it's pretty sweet). During the summer we also can wear whatever we want, and now we have to go back to making some effort to look "professional." Also, I now have about two days to do all the work I put off doing all summer.

In my current job, I'm not at all micromanaged, which is both good and bad. I have this unfortunate tendancy to put everything off until the last minute, and then spend a week or so kicking myself for spending the past two months taking Cosmo surveys online when I should have been working. But at least I know the answer to the question, "How Foxy Do You Feel?" Which must count for something. Self-knowledge, , after all, is the first step in the path to enlightenment. Or, What if The Buddha Had a Desk Job With an Internet Connection?

Not long ago I came across an idea that absolutely changed the way I look at the Universe. The idea is: we are inherently problem-solving creatures. So, when things get too "easy," even if that is what we ostensibly want, we manufacture difficulties and problems in order to have something to thing about.

In other words, we are, simultaneously the scientist and the laboratory rat. We make the maze, and then run around in it.

For instance, my job is rather easy. It has hard moments, but on the whole it's not that challenging and even pleasant at times, as it involves lots of perks like occasional wine with lunch from the boss's home in France. However, I do weird things like putting off some task that's actually very easy, like writing a brief report for a foundation (something I could do in my sleep). However, I put it off and put it off and worry and give myself an ulcer. This weekend, for instance, I had two days off and spent the entire time feeling guilty and thinking about work-related things I could have been doing.

The unfortunate work ethic rears its head in the form of guilt, but unfortunately this doesn't really translate into actually working too much. It's as if my French ancestors (who are in the minority in the gene pool) gave me the laziness gene, but it's in constant conflict with the "it's important to be miserable and work hard your entire life so you may or may not go to an extremely boring version Heaven" gene from the Scots.

Even though I was raised without any form of religion, there is something downright viral about the whole Presbyterian/Calvinist idea that enjoying life is somehow wrong. And yet, argyle socks and navy-blue belts with little pink whales on them are somehow right. It's just messed up.

Worst Monday This Week

2006-08-09T09:06:00.000-07:00

My Essay: Why Monday Was Awful, By Marguerite

Monday started out, much like your average slasher movie, on a suspiciously cheerful note. Paul and I had just spent a nice weekend languishing on the porch at the house on Shelter Island, pretending to be characters in a minor Fitzgerald story. That is, the part before the characters turn into symbols of Symbolism and the "foul dust that floats in the wake" of other more symbolic symbols, such as Gatsby's Green Light, which symbolizes the symbolism of Traffic Signals, and the corruption of Gatsby's Dream, which was also deeply symbolic.

For people who really aren't all that weathly, we spend a lot of our life, to appropriately borrow from good ol' F. Scott, in "the consoling proximity of millionaires." That is, if you substitute "annoying" for "consoling," because, depending on the day of the month, I'm lucky to qualify as a hundred-aire.

This proximity issue is much more by coincidence than design. For instance, I had absolutely no desire to move to Carnegie Hill, except that we happened to find a quasi-reasonable (by the absurd standards of New York City) apartment in this neighborhood. And the house on Shelter Island is a summer share - a rambling, ramshackle Victorian with hidden rooms and views of sailboats and a tennis court. It's possibly my dream house. Literally, in that it reminds me of that dream that almost every New Yorker has had. You know, the one where you realize there's a massive, hidden room in your tiny apartment, that you just never realized was there? Anyway, I ever find $3 million lying under a rock, I'm SO going to buy it and invite everyone over.

The house is actually owned by a friend-of-a-friend who's the former anchorman of a national weekly news program which will go unnamed, although I can say that it rhymes with "30/30". So in the summer, we reap the benefits of the place without having to go to the trouble of hosting a weekly news program ourselves. Which is good because I never seem to get around to doing that myself.

Anyway, Monday (so far, I'm failing my standardized test Expository Essay on the Worst Day Evah!). We were all relaxed, and I was an ever-so-slightly darker shade of beige, possibly even "medium light beige," which unfortunately is as close as my Scotch-Irish skin will ever come to tan.

When I get into work, our accountant, a Russian man named Vitali, comes over to my desk. "I get this yesterday," he says in his thick accent that makes him sound like a spy from some Robert Ludlum movie. It's a letter from the NYS Department of Taxation. It starts with "WHEREAS ..."

When a letter starts with "Whereas," and you don't happen to be working on an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, it's never a good thing.

As it turns out, I forgot to pay my NY State income taxes on a consulting assignment I had in 2001. If memory serves, and it clearly doesn't, I forgot to declare it. That is, I forgot, rather than "forgot." WHEREAS, they didn't send a letter to my current address, they could find my current employer, and told them to take the money out of my paycheck. So I called and paid the bill, which was just over $600, so not as bad as it could've been. But still, not as good as if I'd spent the money on a frivolous pair of shoes instead of giving it to the State of New York. But the point is, I learned a Very Valuable Lesson. Or something.

But unfortunately, that wasn't the last of the Valuable Lessons for one day. AT the same moment I was dealing with the NYS Dept. of Taxation, somewhere across town Paul was about to step in a hole in the sidewalk, thus managing to miss the 99% of the sidewalk space that is hole-free. As a result, he tripped and fell. Hard. On his left arm. Yep, the one that only recently healed from surgery/brokenness. So now he's worried it might have re-broken (although this is probably not the case) and somehow he has further concluded that he's going to have to have it amputated and will have to go around with a pirate hook. Which is really too bad, because Paul doesn't even like parrots.

Anyway, I got home that evening and realized I'd left my keys at work, in my other bag. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal; I'd just wait for Paul to come home, or call Amy and Brian or someone else nearby who has a copy of them. BUT, the locks had to be changed that weekened (another long, unhappy story). And Paul had given his keys to our friend Laura, so she could feed the cats.

So I walked 1.5 miles back to work, to get the keys. Normally, this would be the end of the story. But I'd forgotten that my security badge (which acts as a key to the building) had expired just TWO DAYS earlier, and I couldn't get a new one because the guy who makes the new ones was "en vacances." (It's the "mois d'août" and I work for the French...) AND it was 5:35 in the summer, so there was not one soul was left in the building. So I couldn't get in. AND I had two heavy bags of groceries, including freezer items. And it was 95 degrees. It was like in that horrible Seinfeld episode where they're trapped in the parking garage in Jersey. I take a taxi home and sit on the steps, waiting for Paul.

Dr. Zhivago, I mean, Paul, finally gets home, bruised and battered. Laura's girlfriend was home and had the keys, but they live on the Lower East side, which is 30 minutes away by cab. I hailed a cab.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't the Worst Day Ever. But it was definitely the Worst Monday This Week.

Worst Day Ever, Part 1

2006-08-08T07:55:00.000-07:00

One time, in the third grade, our homework was to write a story about the "Worst Day Ever." It was supposed to teach expository writing skills or something, starting with an implied premise and providing supporting evidence. The teacher was neither surprized nor displeased when everyone's essay came out more or less the same (uniform mediocrity being the gold standard of American education).

The stories all started out with some combination of waking up late and/or missing the bus, followed by science projects eaten by the family doberman (or, in my case, my cat used my fictional working-model Volcano as a litterbox, thus ruining my even-more-fictional chances of winning first prize at the Science Fair), pop quizzes, and trips to the principal's office.

The only exception was the Cambodian refugee girl we'll call Sophy, whose story ended, "... and that's when we discovered that they were all dead."

Even with limited English, Sophy was always a wringer for "what America means to me" essay contests. And the Fire Safety essay contests, for some reason. I'm ashamed to admit that my 9-year-old self was a bit annoyed by this. True, her native village was burned to the ground, but it wasn't exactly because the Khymer Rouge was smoking in bed.

Our teacher looked a bit unnerved by Sophy's story, but couldn't exactly say that she was looking for something a little less ... authentic. "Were there any, uh, other days - maybe here in America - that were, uh, not so good?" Sophy thought, and took the note very well. "Ah, yes! For example, the day my brother is hit by car!" You could tell she was making a mental note to revise the story to reflect this happier time.

Being mostly-American kids who had grown up in comfortable suburbs, were utterly fascinated with Sophy's stories, the kind that are strangely, shamefully thrilling to people who have never experienced any real hardship or tradgedy. For most of us, our idea of hardship was having only two pairs of Nikes, even though our best friend had three pairs. Sure, many of us had experienced the loss of grandparents or older relatives, even parents in some cases, but none of us had had to flee from a burning village, knowing we would never be able to return.

So, when I say that yesterday was a "Worst Day Ever" story, I mean it in the "cat pooped in my model Volcano" way, rather than a "my entire family was killed and our ancestral village burned to rubble" sort of way.

I just think it's good to keep some perspective. This summer, I've somehow gotten into reading a lot of "beach reading" books about women who all seem to work in publishing and live in a spacious rent controlled apartment West Village or Central Park West, but who are nonetheless plagued by ennui, alternately due to to lack of dates/big thighs/bitchy boss, etc. On the book jackets, critics rave that they "speak for women everywhere." Which is true, assuming "everywhere" is confined to 10 floors in the Conde Nast building.

But still. I like reading these books, because it only takes about an hour to read each one, without even skimming or skipping, and then you get to say, "I read a book today!" and feel all smart. As if it makes up for all those Salman Rushdie books I could never quite finish. I think if the central character of Midnight's Children worked in publishing and had fat thighs, it would all be much easier to relate to. Maybe someone could give Mr. Rushdie's agent this note?

Anyway - this introduction became so convoluted that I don't have time to tell the story of why yesterday was a candidate for Worst Day Ever. Which actually references last weekend's tale of having to pee in a litterbox. I know what you're thinking, but absolutely NO alchohol was involved. Unfortunately.

Sunglasses and Wiener Dogs

2006-08-01T20:37:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, I almost bought a dachshund puppy from a street vendor. And no, it wasn’t a hot-dog vendor (although, in essence…).

It all started when I walked by a sunglass stand on Broadway, on the Upper West Side. I always get sucked into the sunglasses and fake handbags they sell on the street in New York. Some of the vendors are fixtures of the neighborhood, and this guy is one of them. He’s one of the rare sunglass vendors who’s actually an American, English-speaking white guy. If you know the area, you might even know who I’m talking about.

The guy with the dachshund.

What I like about this vendor is that he presents his wares as if, instead of discount sunglasses, he were the proprietor of an art gallery dealing in some unbelievably rare and exquisite art.

"Can I show you something in a particular style?" he asks. I wasn't sure what to say. It was like being in one of those SoHo galleries where you mistake the latest Jeff Koons installation for a coat rack. Just because it looks exactly like a coat rack, and is even entitled "Coat Rack 1" (don't get me started on "Toilet 3" ...).

At first, I was drawn to a pair of black sunglasses with round, oversized frames. On the rack, they seemed oh-so Jackie O., or possibly Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour. On me, alas, the effect was more Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. I looked like a giant mosquito.

In addition to the $10 sunglasses, he also has a cache of “the real thing,” which he keeps in a wood-and-glass case. It’s all somehow very Indiana Jones.

“Got something here I think you just … might….like…,” he said, pulling out a glass box under his cart. He opened up the box and a bright light, as if emanating from deep inside the box, seemed to illuminate his face. In the soundtrack of my imagination, a chorus burst into a rousing rendition of Carmina Burana.

They were the most beautiful sunglasses I’d ever seen.

“Only $40. But (leaning closer) they’re real. Calvin Klein. And – (lowering his voice, looking around to make sure nobody overheard) – I’ll throw in a sunglass case. For free.”

They were dazzling. The Platonic Form of sunglasses. I slipped them on. They looked great. Not only that, they felt great. Solid and light; didn’t pinch at all, the way cheap sunglasses do.

Maybe they’re hot? I wondered, again, without caring.

Reaching for my wallet, I stopped. If I came home with yet another pair of sunglasses – something that, by any definition, I do not actually “need” – there would be a 99.97% chance of Paul making fun of me (assuming he did not buy a new video game that day).

Paul and I have this thing. It’s very Lucy & Ricky Ricardo, like when she would buy too many hats. “Now, Loooouuuuuu-ceeeeeeeee!”

The thing is, I know that in this instance, Paul would be right (but for god’s sake, don’t tell him I said so). Yes, I do have a job, and yes, I can afford to buy a pair of sunglasses and even the occasional tube of $42 lip plumper. But it’s probably not a good idea to do so every day.

”See, if we spend every dime we make on frivolous crap, we won’t be able to have save up for other, more important frivolous crap,” Paul contends, “like vacations to Europe, and eating at nice restaurants, and … living indoors.”

Paul and his “reality” crap. It’s such a buzz-kill.

“But … but … it’s an infinitely abundant universe!” I say, quoting from one of the many self-help books that I purchase every month. Ironically, these are part of the reason I’m always broke.

And I did just get a check for the freelance writing I did for the politicians (don’t ask)…

The thing is, every time I get any extra money, I use it to justify at least 5 times as much in expenditures. If only I could make actual money stretch so far. For instance, a single check for $200 justifies: a) $200 haircut b) $200 for new summer wardrobe (okay, new shirt) c) $115 for ridiculous face cream, and … d) for just a few hours work, I could earn … my very own dachshund puppy!

Leaving the sunglasses on, I contemplate my Frivolous Purchase du jour. Okay, du moment. Not an hour before, I’d purchased that gauzy, sequined “beach sarong,” which I might actually wear someday, if I ever need a light wrap to attend a semi-formal soiree on a beach in Tahiti.

I ask if I can pet the dog, whom we’ll call “Millie” (dachshunds are very private, not to mention litigious, dogs). She’s awfully sweet, and looks up at me with those big black wiener-dog eyes.

It occurs to me that this is all starting to sound dangerously phallic; to paraphrase Freud, might I remind you that sometimes a wiener dog is just a wiener dog?

“Do they make good pets?" I ask Sunglass Dude. "Dachshunds, I mean?”

“Why? You want a puppy?” he asks, again, looking around to ensure our privacy. “’I’ll make you a good deal.”

“Huh?”

“Millie here just had puppies. 14 weeks old.” Sunglass Dude whips out his phone and shows me the pictures. They’re pretty friggin’ adorable. Mostly, the shots also feature S.D., a somewhat tough-looking guy in a muscle shirt exposing gratuitous arm tattoos, grinning cheek-to-cheek with hamster-sized puppies.

For a minute, I considered forgetting about the sunglasses and just getting a puppy, instead. Maybe they come with a free sunglass case?

“Yeah, but ... I don’t have a big apartment,” I confess. “And I have two cats. And a husband.” A husband who would probably be slightly annoyed if I wasted $40 on some possibly-hot sunglasses, I thought but didn’t say, much less a hot dog.

Besides, I’ve seen the cautionary videos. This is how it all starts. First, you buy a weiner dog from some guy on a street corner. Then, it’s just a slippery slope until you’re in the South Bronx trolling for a baby Kodiak bear.

So I didn’t buy the cool sunglasses. Or a puppy. As a consolation prize, I did get the $10 pair of sunglasses. They really do look better on than off. Still, every time I put them on (they pinch slightly) I will think of those Calvin Klein sunglasses. The fake ones, I fear, will always savor of anti-climax. And wiener dogs.

Ahem. Maybe I should rephrase that …

The Other One

2006-07-31T09:02:00.000-07:00

For those of you who knew me back in high school (or before), you will be amazed to know that my cat Blackie, a.k.a. "The Other One," is still alive and well, at age 19 1/2 (above picture taken last week in Florida). Blackie is living proof that the key to extraordinary feline longevity is little or no veterinary care, combined with a steady diet of discount cat food.

Blackie isn't even a black cat, so the name is sort of absurd. She's what my grandmother called a "brindle cat," which is pretty much your standard brown-striped alley cat. Her name was originally Ginger Snap (I used to name all my cats after foods, for reasons that now escape me), but somehow the name never stuck. Blackie's always been sort of the Cinderella of the family, only without the glass slipper or the prince. She was a stray kitten my dad found in a parking lot when she was about 4 months old, half-starved and streaked with white paint. The day she came home, her breath smelled like pizza, because some construction workers had fed her some of their lunch. Their intentions were good, but she had all sorts of digestive troubles as a result. Let's just say it's no coincidence that there aren't any pizza-flavored cat foods.

My mom was rather irritated that dad had brought home a cat, and one with diareaha at that, without her permission. Even more annoyed by this turn of events was Coconut, a.k.a. Whitey, our huge, dazzling half-persian (we think) with bright green eyes. For the next 18 years, poor Ginger Snap would be the poor step-sister to Whitey, a long-haired white cat who at one point weighed 30 pounds and pretty much demanded the attention of all humans in his wake. Poor Blackie. It was like being Ashley Simpson, only without the nose job, or the awful lip-synching.

Anyway, when my grandmother was visiting when I was in 9th grade or so, she started calling Coconut "Whitey," because he was white, and the name sort of stuck. Ginger Snap, who at that point was primarily known as "The Other One," became known as Blackie. We might as well've called her "non-Whitey." It's pretty sad.

My late grandparents, for all they doted on their animals, never gave pets anything but the most painfully obvious names, usually reflecting their gender and/or species. For instance, my grandfather Kennedy had an old beagle named Boy. As far as anyone could tell, Paw-paw loved Boy more than any of his own children, and certainly more than all of his grandchildren, creatures he didn't really see the point of, considering none of us could be bothered to fish a dead duck out of a pond.

Boy, as you might have guessed, was a male dog (good thing it wasn't a female dog ...). They also had a chiuhauaha (sp?) that barked constantly, and was thus named Arfy. There was a cockateel called Lady Bird (both gender and species) and an orange Tom cat named ... Tom. All things considered, it's amazing my grandfather didn't name his kids "Hey You," or maybe "Stop That!"

In an unrelated tanget, my grandfather's own father actually named himself. True story, or so he swore. His father was the youngest of 15 kids, born somewhere in the hills of rural Alabama. The Civil War was going on, or had just ended, so maybe his parents couldn't afford a new name, or maybe their mind was just elsewhere. They called the youngest one, simply, "Babe," until a man from the Census Bureau came around, and asked the names of all the residents of their farm. He said that Babe wasn't a given name, so asked my great-grandfather, age 5, to run around the yard and think of what he'd like his Offical Name to be for the purposes of the Federal Government.

He came back and said that he was to be called John William Harrison Kennedy, unwittingly naming himself after not one, but two U.S. presidents. If I'd been asked to pick my own name at that age, you would know me as "Wonder Woman Sparkle Pony," or possibly Princess Leia. Maybe my 5-year-old great-grandfather was an ardent supporter of the Whig party, of which William "Tippecanoe" Harrison was the last member to hold the Executive Branch.

Anyway, the point being, Blackie is (amazingly) alive and well, as is Hugo, my cat from college who now lives with my folks. Yesterday, they got a new kitten, who they rescued from a neighbor who was about to send her to the pound. They're calling her "Lucky."

And this concludes another chapter of, Aren't My Cats Fascinating? Tune in next time when I tell you about how Francis did that cute thing he does ....

In Search of Lost Thyme

2006-07-28T21:45:00.000-07:00

"Young married 'ooman een dis day she nebbuh sattify wid ole time dish; dey allways want fuh mek some kine ob new mixture."

The guests arrive at cocktail time.
On tempting trays, my board displays
Delectable varieties
Of canapés. I yearn for praise
But none comes forth. My busy guests
They talk and laubh and gaily quaff
And stretch unseeing hands to take
My handicraft as though 'twere chaff!

- From Charleston Receipts, published by the Junior Leauge of Charleston, 1950.

If you were raised in the South, chances are you’re familiar with the ubiquitious spiral-bound fundraiser cookbooks. My parents have entire bookshelves filled with these things. You can tell the ones that are from Mom’s side of the family, because they’re mostly published by one the South Carolina Junior Leauges, organizations that raise money for such charitable purposes as producing spiral-bound cookbooks. The Junior Leauge cookbooks are entertaining, but it's hard to imagine ever actually making most of the recipes. These books harken to the age when everyone had cooks. The recipes "reflect the pleasant living of past generations." [Subtext: Ah, slavery! Doncha miss it?]

Dad’s cookbooks, on the other hand, come from the sleepy Alabama towns of his childhood; places where it’s perfectly reasonable to start a recipe, "Get about half a grown goat. Skin and half him. While skinning, don’t get any hair on him." (pg. 243 of Sumpthin’ Yummy, pub. Monroeville, AL, year unknown).

In all fairness, this quote (yes, a direct quote) is from the "Game and Outdoor Cooking" section, right next to other "For Men Only!" recipes. Now, I’m as much of a feminist as the next gal, but I’m happy to forego equality when it comes to any activites involving a knife, a fiery pit, and a mature billy goat. Or any other cloven-hooved animal. Personally, I like my recipes to be a bit less… Old Testament. But that's just my own hang-ups talking.

Still, the Alabama books have the best recipes, in that they’re ones you could actually make without the help of a butler and/or a full-time kitchen staff, although they do require the occasional wild boar.

I bring the subject of spiral-bound Southern cookbooks because I’m in Jacksonville visiting the folks. And because I haven’t been taking my ADD medicine. As a result, I can spend hours on end just looking through old cookbooks/Encylcopedia Brittanicas/newspaper circulars for medical supply companies, etc.

But cookbooks are my favorite waste of time. It’s not like I’m going to actually make anything from the cookbooks. This would involve a multi-step process that far exceeds my gerbil-like attention span. Still, they’re good reading.

I feel about cookbooks the way Proust felt about train schedules, which he famously loved to read before going to bed. (Maybe the pharmaceutical industry should look into this. Do you have Insomnia? Ask your doctor if Train Schedules™ are right for you. Ditto for the collected works of David Foster Wallace.)

It is 99.99(the last 9 has a little line over it, suggesting infinity)% certain that I will never, ever actually make Mrs. Samuel G. Stoney’s "Back River Paté," an "old French Huguenot dish" shared by Mrs. William S. Popham (Louisa Stoney). Nor am I likely to be the kind of gracious hostess who will bring out onto the porch, on a monagramed silver platter, the Cheese Balls described by Mrs. Harold Petitt (Corine Neely).

Still, I love to flip through and find recipes with exotic ("Faber's Pilau") or familiar (7-Layer Salad) titles. Then, I read the recipe slowly and carefully, mentally going through the whole process. It’s strangely thrilling to imagine how those Cheese Balls would taste, and how delighted my fictional guests would be to have such a crispy and delicious treat.
It's fun to plan whole menus for specialty parties. For instance, the Cheese Balls would go nicely with the Rum Punch described by Mrs. Ralph Hanson (Elenor Rutledge). It involves 1 gallon brandy, ½ gallon heavy or light rum, 1 pint peach brandy, 2 qt. Black tea, lemons, and sugar. Mrs. Hanson notes that "this was the punch my father made for all the debutante parties of my generation." Which explains why 9 months later, all the young ladies were going off to "visit Aunt Susie" in New York.

In reality, my guests are lucky to have a clean glass of water and some stale potato chips, served "en croute" (French for "in the bag"). If my mother knew this, she would cry. And she would take back the silver service I got for my 10th birthday (what every 10-year-old dreams of), but which my parents wouldn’t let me bring to New York until after I got married. I guesss they didn’t want to have any illegitamite serving forks running around.

In 1986, the Junior League of Charleston published, "Charleston Receipts Repeats," a revised version of the 1950 text, which had been through at least 25 re-printings. The new tome retains the basic format of the original, including the quaint/deeply horrifying practice of married ladies being listed as Mrs. John Q. Husband (Jane Insignificant Wife). Also, the 80’s version edits out the politically incorrect parts, like the Gullah dialect quotations (as above) from the hired help, who, let’s face it, were probably doing 99.9 (again, with a little line over it)% of the actual work.

However, I’ve decided that I want to learn how to make a casserole. And a Co’Cola Salad. And Cheese Balls. People in my generation don’t know how to make these things we grew up eating, like collard greens and cornbread, and Domino’s Pizza.

So, that’s my new gimmick, I mean, uh, "installation project.". I’m going to start making Southern dishes from my family cookbooks. It’ll be all retro.

I draw the line, however, at chasing down a half-grown goat.

2006-07-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

Last week, while Paul was in California, I sat around the house a lot. This gave me some time to do some deep soul searching and yogic meditation, which to the outside observer might look a lot like watching episodes of Family Guy on DVD.

Fortunately, there were no outside observers.

However, as a result of careful reflection on the current state of my life, I have come to a very important conclusion. I've finally realized what's been missing all this time.

Yes, there comes a time in every young (shut up) woman's life when she must find a gimmick.

It seems like it's the only way to go. I'm sure you've all heard about Kyle MacDonald, the guy who "traded one red paper clip for a house." This is great, and you have to admire his tenacity and what-not, but the way people are going on about it you'd think he was some hybrid of Jesus, Gandhi and Death Cab for Cutie.

Besides, there was a bit of a deus ex machina in the form of the town of Kipling Saskatchewan, in Canada. The town traded him a house (caveat: it's in Kipling Saskatchewan) for a role in a Corbin Bernsen movie called Donna on Demand.

Let's hope this movie isn't what it sounds like, or else the Town of Kipling might have to get a Brazilian bikini wax for the part.

From the Mayor's letter to Kyle MacDonald, offering the house: The day we make the trade will be decreed One Red Paperclip Day by our Town Council and everyone will be encouraged to wear a red paperclip in honor of your achievements.

That, and the town is going to build "the world's largest red paperclip" in his honor. (Good thing he didn't start the whole trading thing with one blow job ...)

Again - Kyle seems like a great guy and all, but you'd think he single-handedly saved the world from an extra-terrestrial invasion, like in one of those movies they play at 3:00 every Saturday afternoon on TNT.

And good thing he didn't, because the "world's largest red paperclip" thing would be pretty hard to explain to someone from another planet.

From a marketing perspective, the whole thing is brilliant. Not only did some random guy with a blog get on 20/20, but , more remarkably he got Corbin Bernsen on 20/20, something I don't see happening any other way at this point, unless he were speeding down the freeway in a white Bronco. More specifically, the words "Corbin Bernsen Movie" were said repeatedly and with a straight face on national television.

Another site/project that recently ended was this one, where a woman in Seattle wore the same home-made brown dress every day for a year to protest consumerism. Or something. The point is, she kept it up it every day for a year. I gotta give her credit. I've never done anything that wasn't an involuntary bodily function every single day for a whole year.

But it's getting to the point where, as a cultre, we are so lacking in tenacity that we're willing to reward anyone who sticks with anything - no matter how bizarre, useless, or even detrimental it may be.

In order to really run with a gimmick, you have to have an attention span that's longer than 8 seconds. Which is where the plan starts to unravel for me personally. I've had a few almost-gimmicks, but none of them ever really took off.

Some years back, I decided to move to Berlin and subsist on little-or-no money. This wasn't to protest consumerism, or to make a statement about the hegemony of Germany's central banking system in European market futures. It wasn't even to protest the Rise of Wal-Mart uber Alles (Die Priese bleiben unten. Immer!), although in retrospect, maybe it should have been. The whole point of living on little-or-no money was because ... that was all I had.

And because a talking Volkswagen in a dream told me to move to Berlin (yes, seriously). Good thing it wasn't a talking Trans Am.

Instead of going to the trouble to make a web site or blog, I just spammed unsuspecting friends and aquaintences with tales of hanging out in Berlin, "not doing any good for anybody," as Paul likes to say about my Paris years. I called the whole thing, "Berlin on $2.56 a Day," but I might have spent as much as $4.76 a day. Except for when my parents came to visit and offered an undisclosed sum for me to return to the U.S., which I refused in a huff. But then I got bored and came back the next month anyway, when the offer had unfortunately expired.

However, the only profit I made off of the whole thing was when my friend Matt sent me $50, undoubtedly because he felt sorry for me, but for which I will always be grateful. I still remember the dozen eggs I bought with the money that very same day.

But, alas, nobody made a giant statue of $2.56 in my honor.

Anyway, I'm now officially in the market for a gimmick. Any ideas?

NYC Welcome Wagon

2006-07-17T12:05:00.000-07:00

"The first thing I saw back in New York was a pidgeon eating some vomit."

Paul got back from L.A. on the red eye, at about 6 AM. I was still asleep, but managed to ask about his trip back. The above was his response.

It was one of those, "why exactly do we live in this city?" moments that occur as a result of visiting the more scenic parts of California and Florida, where we're respectively from. Paul's from the Central Coast of California, which has mountains and oceans and vineyards and very few pidgeons eating vomit.

The only problem is, wherever we ultimately end up, the other person's family will be horrified that we aren't close to them, because our families live on opposite sides of the country. The only solution is to move to one of those box-shaped states where they grow a lot of corn or something, and everyone will be equally misearble.

Movers and (Wiener Dog Salt & Pepper) Shakers

2006-07-16T21:42:00.000-07:00

Today, I tried to buy a telephone. Not a cell phone, or even a cordless telephone. Not a phone/fax/copier/toaster. Just a plain old, regular phone. Somehow, this turned into an all-day affair.

You see, cordless phones, much like cell phones, don’t seem to work in our apartment.

“If you live in an old building, it’s probably the bricks,” explained the Team Member at Sprint, when I tried to explain why I should be able to return or exchange my phone. “The thing is,” the she explained, “cell phones aren’t supposed to be used indoors.”

This explanation came with a knowing look, as if I’d been violating the laws of God and nature by using cell phone indoors, undoubtedly for some unspeakable purpose involving a ball gag and a pair of assless chaps.

There are several problems with Sprint’s “it’s Karmic punishment for making the phone feel dirty by using it indoors” assessment of why we get no reception. First – the bricks? I’ve managed to get crystal-clear cell phone reception on a Boeing 777, in mid-air, sitting in the row next to the thrust engine. But here at home, I guess the bricks are made of some sort of cell-phone Kryptonite. The same thing happened with the cordless phone, even though it was supposedly one of those “up to 500 foot range!” types. Go in the other room (behind the magic bricks), and you loose the signal.

Besides, the idea that a cell phone “isn’t supposed to be used indoors” is just ridiculous. That’s like saying the Internet isn’t supposed to be used for porn.

At any rate, we were left with no choice but to buy a regular, old-fashioned, non-cordless (cordfull?) phone.

“Can you please get a phone shaped like a duck, or maybe Darth Vader’s head?” Paul asked.

He was calling from a vineyard somewhere outside of Santa Barbara, where he was visiting his friend Steve. Ironically, Paul was calling on his cell phone; the same one that doesn’t work in our apartment.

"Maybe get one that rings like Darth Vader's breathing?" Paul suggests.

Why can’t you find novelty telephones any more? When I was younger (but not young enough for the story not to be embarrassing), I had a phone that was shaped like Garfield, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. In my bedroom in Jacksonville, there is still, to this day, a phone that’s shaped like a mallard decoy (my parents are WASPs; this is the sort of thing Our People do…). We’ve had “The Duck” since the mid-80’s; for some reason, none of us can bring ourselves to throw it away. Instead of ringing, it quacks. The only problem is, it somehow picks up a Lite FM radio station whenever you make a call.

On the Upper East Side, hard to find anything so pedestrian as a working telephone. However, if you’re in the market for a Louis XIV toothpick holder, that, you can find 24/7.

Since we moved into the neighborhood last year, not one but two local hardware stores have bit the dust. I guess they just can’t pay the $10,000 a month rent selling spackle and nails. The closest thing we have is a place called Feldman’s, is supposedly a hardware store, assuming by “hardware” you mean overpriced European tchatchkes, like a this tape dispenser shaped like a frog, or a stapler with a striped bass on it (I mean, uh, "desk art").

I love Feldman’s, though. I went in to look for a no-frills phone, and came out with these (for real):

(Shown ACTUAL SIZE)

I looked in four different places in the neighborhood, but no telephones. If I were in the market for something more reasonable, such as an ancient Buddhist artifact (irony not withstanding), a 100% cashmere baby blanket, or a tin of Iranian caviar, there would be no problem.

As a matter of fact, I took an impromptu survey of the ridiculous merchandise for sale in this neighborhood. Below is an extremely short list of what I found.

Within a three-block radius on Madison Avenue, I found the following:

1. “Head of Buddha, 2nd-3rd Century” (about 3x2 feet) for sale at Art of the Past gallery
2. Custom-made Japanese silk bow ties and neckties (in the store that sells nothing but)
3. A candle shaped like a hedgehog
4. Framed, original fashion sketches by Bill Blass, circa 1984-1987, at a store called Gerald Bland (no, that’s really the name; couldn’t make that up)
5. A $186 bra

NOTE: all of these items, all within 3 blocks of each other on Madison Avenue, are 100% not made up, and verifiable. And these are not the weirdest things.

This weekend, I almost bought a dachshund puppy from a street vendor. To make a long story short: I didn't. Ditto with the phone.

2006-07-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

Happy Bastille Day. At least, it is for me, because we have the day off. We also got the 4th of July, and half a day to watch the sodding World Cup. When is Zambia's national holiday? Maybe we could make a case for taking that one, too. You gotta love working for the French. (Did I mention we work 9 to 4 in the summer?)

I didn't go out to any of the "quatorze juillet" celebrations around town. Instead, I paid hommage to the French Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment in my own way, by staying indoors, watching TV. In English. But I'm humming the Marseillaise as I type.

It's really quiet around here, because Paul's in California for a few days, visiting his folks with his cousin Matt, who was staying with us last week. Matt's a good kid. Oy veh. You know you're getting old when you refer to anyone under 25 as "a kid," even if he's 6'3" and in college.

I'm starting to realize that I've skipped right over the "turning into my mother" phase, by turning directly into my grandmother. "What a nice young gentleman!" I say, talking about Matt in the third person even though he's sitting next to me on the couch, two feet away.

"Now, would you like a Co-Cola, or maybe a caramel, young man?," I ask, inadvertantly channeling a thick Charleston accent. I successfully resisted the urge to pinch his cheeks, however.

I haven't had the place to myself for a whole week in ages. I was hoping to get a lot of stuff accomplished with all the free time and quiet, but so far it hasn't happened. Today, I watched 6 straight hours of the SciFi channel, which was having a "Firefly" marathon. Firefly was easily the best show ever. Sigh. Why was it cancelled, and yet "Family Matters," a.k.a., "You Know, the One With Urkel," endured for what seemed like an eternity. And I'm not just talking about how it felt watching half an episode.

Earlier this year, we finally got cable. Taking a page from the Bush doctorine of blaming journalists for all the problems of the current administrtion, I, too, blame all my lack of accomplishements on "the media." It all started when Paul's parents got us an LCD/HDTV for his birthday. If we ever decide to have a baby, he or she will be profoundly lucky if Paul is even half as jubillant as he was to welcome this TV in our home,thus replacing the old 13-inch set. Very reluctantly (don't tell Paul), I have to admit I kind of ... uh ... agree. Okay, it's really frickin' cool.

Having been raised by educators and such, I've always been rather conflicted on the subject of television. As a kid, I was barely allowed to watch TV, and when I did it was always Masterpiece Theater or Nova or some other - let's just face it - astoundingly boring shit. But to maintain my cred as an "intellectual," (i.e., someone too cheap to pay for cable) I didn't have a TV for 8+ years when I lived alone. I often like to throw this up to Paul.

"Oh, yeah?" Paul says. "And tell me one thing you did during those 8 years?"

There was a pause. The pause got longer. "Okay! This one time? I, uh ... installed a bathroom shelf!"

Paul looked understandably shocked. "When was this?"

"Sometime in ...you know. Clinton was President."

FULL DISCLOSURE: I've never actually installed a shelf. Ever. I've purchased many shelves, and several of them have even been propped up adjacent to the location where, ideally, some magical shelf fairies would have installed it during the night. But never have I personally installed one. Guess I was too busy not watching TV.

Like Blance DuBois, my shining moment was merely an exaggeration; a maudlin play in the amateur community theatre of my own memory.

Nowdays, I really don't know how I lived all those years, especially living alone, without TV. And it's not like I was reading a million books, or out tutoring retarded kids, or even finishing the Celebrity Crossword Puzzle in People magazine. Honestly, I have no idea how I passed the time.

My parents hardly ever watch TV, except for the news. And they fight like rabit wombats. Have been for 37 years, now. It's much harder to argue while watching "Top Model," because higher brain functioning is essentially cut off. My emerging, if controversial new theory, based on almost no actual evidence, is that TV is good for you. Maybe my autobiography will be called, How I Gave Up and Learned to Love "Pimp My Ride."

I would go on, but I might miss Entertainment Tonight.

The (Partial) Rememberance of Things Past

2006-07-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

Wow. I just had the exceptionally rare experience of feeling nostalgic for high school.

Okay, not high school per se, as I'm rarely nostalgic for Stanton College Preparatory Schoo l. However, I do often think of/miss my friends from high school.

Yesterday, Mollie sent me some pictures of us from back in the day. One of them was of us at a party at my house; one that I'd forgotten entirely until I saw the pictures.

AVOVE: Me with a bad perm, age 17. Back of photo reads "reenacting the death scene from Heart of Darkness." (WTF??) At least the horror! the horror! pretty much sums up my hairdo. Not to mention that shirt. As I said to Mollie, one of the great consolations of getting older is that I will never, ever, have that hairstyle, or make such reckless sartorial choices, ever again.

The invitations, which for some reason were printed on paper doilies, read, "Oh, wow! It's a Luau!" The fact that I mailed them suggests that there was an entire thought process behind this. I said to my self, “I should have a party.” Then, “No! I should have … a luau.” And, somehow, what followed logically was, “where’s them doilies?”

I'm not sure what's more disturbing: that I made and actually sent out invitations to a luau on paper doilies, or the fact that I have no recollection of doing it?

The whole idea would make a lot of sense if I had been high. But alas, at age 17, I had never even smoked a cigarette, much less anything else. The only booze I'd ever had was the occasional half-glass of wine with dinner with my parents, usually only in Europe where they don't frown on people under 21 (or, say, under 12) quaffing a few.

Going through these bits of our past, we all have to become forensic anthropologists. You try to remember the name of the brown-haired guy in that drunken group photo – you didn’t write anything on the back, because you were so sure that it would always be perfectly obvious. Now, all you know is that he was a dude at some party, years ago, and that his name started with an “H” …. ? Definitely an “H.” That, and you dated him for 3 years.

We find notes to ourselves and passionate references in journal entries to someone named “S.” Who exactly was that? It’s like decoding Linear B.

[It's funny. In most photos, I look drunk. Usually, this is at least partially due to the fact that I am. But here's proof that you don't have to be drunk to look drunk. And notice -I'm reading a book. Because that's what cool kids do at parties.]

Now, all these years later, I can only wonder – why a luau? I sincerely hope I meant it ironically, and that the paper pineapples and leis were supposed to be "kitchy," but chances are, I didn't, and they weren't. All of my parties were adult supervised and alcohol-free, which makes the photos that much harder to explain.

At the risk of giving any undue credit to a school that is the source of at least 85% of my billable hours of psychotherapy over the years, I don't think we realized how lucky we were, on some level, to be at a School for Dorks.

Stanton was kind of like the school on "Fame," only nobody could dance. Instead of being a school for the arts, it was designed for the "socially challenged." Okay, techincally it was for kids who wanted to Take Over the World, like The Brain from the Animaniacs (I'm pretty sure I only got in because my parents knew the principal, or maybe because the person in charge of admissions was drunk that day).

In Florida, "gifted" (the quotation marks are key) students are given the same status and rights as all Special Ed. students. Many of us even took a short bus to school, bussed in from whatever public high school we would have been at if not for Stanton. In ninth grade, I took the bus to the local high school before getting onto another bus to go to Stanton. On those bus rides, I got a look into what life might have been like at normal high school. Like most of the kids at the front of the bus, I would have been eaten alive.

It wasn't a bad or dangerous high school or anything. Just your average suburban Florida school. But I don't think acting out scenes from Joseph Conrad novels would have been very endearing.

All the kids at the "normal" high school looked about 30. Some of them had kids. They smoked, and drank beer, and had sex, and did all of the things that we could only wonder about as we discussed the latest Phillip Glass recording with our Gay Best Friend. It was kind of like Sex and the City, only without the sex. Or the City. But the "and the" part - that was SO us.

We read The New Yorker (we lived in Florida - even back when it was a Blue State, everyone thought The New Yorker was the guy who was responsible for all the traffic, not to mention all the litter, on the highway). We listened to The Smiths and The Dead Milkmen and The Cure, but preferred "the old Cure," of course.

Stanton was rather neurosis-inducing, because everyone (except me, that is) was brilliant and ambitious, and most of the girls (except me, that is) could have probably had thriving careers as runway models if not for their burning desire to get several Ph.D.s from Yale and find a cure for cancer (yes, Dagny, if you're reading this - I mean you).

I graduated at the bottom of the class. Or, as I like to think of it, the "inverse valedictorian." It's kind of like getting one of those ribbons that say "Participant" when you come in last at the Special Olymics. Which seems strangely appropriate, considering we were taking a short bus to school ...

Voice Mail Anxiety Disorder (VMAD)

2006-07-11T19:42:00.000-07:00

It seems that I've developped a telephone phobia. Okay, not the telephone, really, so much as a Fear of Voice Mail. You see, I haven't checked my voice mail since mid-April. Seriously.
I've also been avoiding calling anyone who might have left a message for me since that time, because, clearly, that's the most mature way of handling the situation.

I spend at least 37% of my waking hours worrying about this. "Why don't you just check your voice mail?" You ask.

Oh, you simplisitic solution-having types, thinking you know it all ... That's like telling a person in a jail cell to just walk out, assuming the jail cell isn't actually locked.

Okay, so you may have a point. But that's beside the point.

So, the longer I put off checking my voice mail, the more dreadful I imagine it being. I don't know why. It's not like anyone ever even calls me on my cell phone. This could be for many reasons, such as the fact that I have no friends. Which is perhaps in part because I never call anyone back. Although some devoted folks keep trying. They really want that June payment, bless their hearts.

Does anyone else ever do anything like this? Back when I had a therapist, she told me that it was "perfectionism" (there might have been some other, more disconcerting acronymns tossed around in the same context, but let's not focus on that).

I like to blame it all on my parasites. Or maybe that strep infection I had as a child, which caused some sort of permanent brain retardation. OR - in an ironic twist - maybe it's radiation from the cell phones? Or maybe it's because I was marginalized as a child, because I was a middle-class WASP who never experienced any great trauma other than a series of remarkably bad haircuts in the mid-80s? Or, worse yet, what if it's all due to my own poor choices, which I must now "take responsibility" for?

Fortunately, the entire psycho-pharmaceutical industry is betting against that last bit ringing true. I'm pretty sure they make some hot-pink pill for Voice Mail Anxiety Disorter (V-MAD). You didn't know it existed, or that you had it, but you'll be relieved to know you're not alone.

But, seriously - if either of the people who read this blog has left a voice mail for me since early spring, I just wanted you to know: it's not that I don't like you, or don't want to talk to you. I don't (don't don't like you, that is). And I don't don't want to talk to you. I do (don't?). It's just that I'm crazy.

But then again, you probably already knew that.

2006-07-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

So France lost.

I don't look forward to going to work tomorrow.

This past Wednesday, they gave a half day to anyone who wanted to go watch France in the World Cup. Of course, I had to go "watch France in the World Cup." Which may look like shopping for a new pair of pink espadrilles, but in spirit, I was definitely watching the World Cup.

I remember the last time the French won, in '98. As I recall, it also fell on Bastille Day. I was still working at the French Embassy at the time, so we all (once again) got a day off during the semi-finals. We all went over to Services Culturelles, where the little Michelangelo (okay, "attributed to" Michelangelo) cherub in the lobby was almost knocked over by the rowdy Frenchmen, excited about "le foot," which is what they affectionately call "football." Which we affectionately call "soccer." That is, when we call it. Which ain't so often, unless it comes before the word "mom" and it's in the context of some massively condescending political advertizement about Incecency in Video Games, which of course the root cause of the rize of construction costs in the housing index. Not to mention the whole war thing.

In the end, when France actually won against Brazil in '98, I've never seen such jubilation in my entire life. It was, I imagine, what it might have been like to be in Normandy the day after the Liberation was announced in 1945. Grown men were crying like little girls, jumping up and down, dancing down the street with the first woman they could find, regardless of her age, attractiveness level, or willingness to participate.

It was like a live-action version of some Gene Kelly musical, which, as it turns out, is even creepier than it looks.

Still, I was hoping to get another day off out of it. Hopefully, they won't make us work late tomorrow to make up for it. But I wouldn't be surprized.

Why They Hate Us

2006-07-04T12:08:00.000-07:00

"America needed a hero. America has a hero in Joey Chestnut."

The above is a direct quote from the commentary of this morning's Independence Day Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island, which was featured, in HDTV, on the Competitive Eating Channel, a.k.a., ESPN.

But at the end of the day, Joey Chestunt fell short of the dream of bringing the belt back to the United States.

Say it ain’t so, Joey. Kids all over America look up to you as a God. On this day, of all days, they were hoping to see you prove that WE are the most gluttonous people on earth. If not, the terrorists have already won. Or something.

The theme to Chariots of Fire was playing in the background – at least, in my imagination – as Takeru Kobayashi, the world’s reigning Gurgitator , won the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest for the sixth year in a row.

Kobayashi has been described as “an alchemsit who can transform athletics into poetry, poetry into mathematics, and mathematics into history.” And history into ... well, you know what.

Since 2001, the fake-jewel-encrusted Mustard Belt has resided in the Imperial Palace in Saitama, in Japan, right next to the Pickle Relish Bra. The belt is of “unknown age and value” according to George Shea of the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFCE), an organization I sincerely wish I were making up.

Check out the heraldic crest .. if only the lions (uh... griffins?) also had some jalepeno peppers in their feet (uh ... talons?)

In every person’s life, there is that moment where the universe aligns in such a way that we can see beyond our own limitations. “When I can be more than I thought I could be,” as the Whitney Houston song goes.

For Kobayashi, this day was today. The Michael Jordan of gluttony, the Michelangelo of Competitive Eating, the 27-year-old Japanese man exceeded his own record of eating 54 ½ hot dogs in 12 minutes, by eating 54 ¾.

According to ledgend, the contest was started in 1916 as a bet made by four immigrants who wanted to prove who was the most profoundly drunk, I mean, partiotic. What the eating of weiners has to do with patriotism is not entirely clear, although it is possible that they were drinking heavily. Irish-born Jim Mullen won the contest by eating 13 hot dogs.

The great Kobayashi has taken the sport to new levels. His strategy is to break the hot dog in half, dip it in water, and shove it in his mouth. He calls this “the Solomon method.” No, really.

“What an eater!” Proclaimed the ESPN commentator earlier today, without a trace of irony. “What a MAN!”

Why is it that everything Americans start has to be perfected by the Japanese? They already have the most efficient cars, electronics, and giant, city-destroying lizards.

Why can’t they even leave us our dignity in a sport that, clearly, has none to begin with?

Furthermore, when did eating excessively become a international sport, with its own Federation, instead of just being one of the seven deadly sins? What's next? Competitive Sloth? (If so, sign me up - finally a sport I can excel at.)

The best part is that it’s shown in HDTV. You feel as if you were right there as the competitors shove enormous quantities of food into their mouths, sweat pouring from their brows, mouths open, as the wide-angle lens captures the intricacies of the half-chewed food.

It’s like poetry, with some mustard on it. My eyes well with tears of pride as I watch the slow-mo replay of this, the most American of all sports.

As for Joey Chestnut, there’s always next year. Until then, Americans will just have to wait, and hope.

Happy Fourth of July, everybody.

95% Cotton, 100% Ironic

2006-07-03T13:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's too hot, and I'm too lazy, and I assume nobody's reading this anyway, so ... The other day, I came across this site, selling ironic right-wing t-shirts. Conservatives trying to be ironic is just so ... ironic.

It's like those photos of dogs in ironic clothing that you sometimes find on the cover of Hallmark cards that are supposed to be funny, with a punch line like "Congratulations, Dog-gone it!"

For instance, here's one of their featured novelty shirts:

There's another version, modeled at the bottom of this page. A goofy looking dude is sporting an exceptionally high-quality cotton shirt that reads "I just neutered the cat. Now he's French!"

This has inspired me to start a t-shirt company of my own. The first one will read:

I just lobotomized the cat. Now he's a Republican.

Or, better yet:

I just lobotomized the cat. Now he thinks your t-shirts are funny.

But that's not all. These shirts also offer the kind of biting, and insightful political commentary that only t-shirts, novelty belt buckles, and Rush Limbaugh's latest arrest report (freebasing cat laxatives "from his housekeeper"?) can offer.

My personal favorite is:

Journalists are the ones to blame for all the problems in this country, after all. Especially all those commie-pinko bastards over at Fox News.

Can we start with Bill O'Reilly?

This t-shirt. Your ass. A shoehorn. SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED.

Ironically, the t-shirt above is featured right by this one:

So ... the Bill of Rights is not negotiable, EXCEPT the whole free speech and freedom of the press thing, which is just for pussies. And the FRENCH.

Of Window Shopping and Warthog Tusks

2006-06-27T07:45:00.000-07:00

This weekend, Paul got the idea to go "window shopping" on Madison Avenue. Unless I happen to be in the market for some actual windows, I don't like this concept at all. I don't like shopping in places where there's nothing I can afford to buy.

This doesn't seem to bother men as much as women, which explains the existence of Luxury Car Shows, where the average Joe can preview the new shades of kidskin leather (beige vs. extra beige) for his new 2007 Bentley. Same goes for the concept of strip clubs. I've never had any problem with the idea, but I'm amazed that guys don't. You can look at the naked women, but you can't touch them or even yourself without being pounced on by a 300-pound dude with ridiculous sideburns, who might have recently escaped from prison and/or the walrus pool at Sea World (hence the job at "See" World, ahem). This might be one reason that you don't see as many women going to see male strippers. It's like window shoppping, but with no option to buy. That, and naked men wearing bow ties look a bit ridiculous. That, and naked men not wearing bow ties look a bit ridiculous ...

The problem with living on the Upper East Side (well, one of them) is that you're surrounded by tons of luxury items that you never knew existed, but that you start to feel impoverished to be living without. This is how I felt as we walked past items like this in the window of the Safari Outfitters, where you can get all those must-have items for your trip "the Bush." And we don't mean Kennebunkport. Or a strip club.

When travelling in rural Africa, it's important to take along your leather Race Day Bag, so the starving child who has to run behind the air conditioned Range Rover with your luggage will know what he can buy if he and everyone in his village saves 100% of their income for the next 25 years. Colonialism is cool again, kids!

It's important to let everyone in Zimbabwe know that, really, you would have paid for their food and AIDS medicine for 10 years, except that you really needed these. Fortunately, I live within walking distance to the "finest collection of vintage cocktail shakers" in the U.S. (a must for any safari). It was even in the broker's ad for our apartment: "1 bdr hwfl UES, near CP, FCVCS ..."

I tend to believe whatever Madison Avenue wants me to believe. I don't mean the advertizing industry, I mean the actual avenue. Sometimes it tells me to do things. On Sunday, it told me to buy some $40 lip gloss. I mean, "lip plumper." I'm not sure when it was that we all decided our lips just weren't plump enough, but I think it was around the time we all decided our teeth and eyeballs needed to be just a bit whiter.

We went into Clyde's, a pre-Sephora makeup and perfum emporium/drugstore on Madison. The thing I like about Clydes is that, unlike neighboring boutiques such as Safari Oufitters, Chloé and Carolina Herrera, I can actually buy stuff. Granted, it may only be a face loofah (a.k.a., "that falafel thing," if you're Bill O'Reilly trying to sound sexy). It may be a $15 loofah, and hence a huge rip-off. Especially since loofahs, and falafels, have now been ruined for all of us who read the transcript of the Bill O'Reilly phone calls. But at least the $15 loofah is in the realm of reality, which, conveniently, borders on the kindgom of Stupid Ways to Spend Money. I am no stranger to this land.

Unfortuntely, I have to go do some actual work, so I'll have to continue this story later.

Tune in next time when...

ME: So, do my lips look plumper?
PAUL: Yes. Which is more than you can say for your wallet.
ME (puckering, looking into a store window): I'm serious.
PAUL: Seriously. You look like you've been eating BBQ goat meat for the past hour.
ME: Really?! (slowly realizing that this may not, in fact, be a compliment)

Fakin' Bacon (sorry...)

2006-06-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, if you can't tell, we've just entered the slow season here at work. Hence the above photo, sort of continuing the crazy cat theme of the week.

A friend sent me this email about some tiger in a California zoo whose cubs were premature and died. As a result, mama tiger, although healthy, fell into a deep depression. The vets decided that she should "foster" some cubs, but I guess tiger cubs aren't excactly the sort of thing you can just go down to Costco and pick up by the dozen. (They might consider talking to that guy in the Bronx who illegally kept that Bengal tiger in his studio apartment; he probably has a few to spare).

So they found some piglets for her to foster, and, for some reaason, dressed them up as if they were going to a gay bar. (Not that there's anything wrong with that ...) Fortunately, it cheered the Tigress right up. Either because it soothed her maternal longings, or becuase pigs in unitards are just plain funny.

Inane Cat Blog du Jour

2006-06-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

Since we're on the subject of bad cats, someone has a whole blog dedicated to cats who look like Hitler (from Metafilter). Everyone's known one of these cats - and not just people who live in Argentina, next door to Adolph "Sanchez." Note the resemblance to Lewis (né Heinrich?) ...

Lewis the Cat, from Cell Block D

2006-06-22T12:53:00.000-07:00

Several different people have sent me the link to the various articles about Lewis the Cat, who is now, arguably, the most famous Connecticutian (Connecticuter?) since Frederick Law Olmsted, father of landscape architecture. There was a whole thread about Lewis in the Connecticut Post. He even has a MySpace profile with over 4,000 friends.

In a nutshell, Lewis is a Bad Cat. He scratches, he bites, he mauls. Now, after a lenghty trial, he's going to be wearing an orange jumpsuit and little cat-manacles (catacles?).

Some of my friends seem to assume that just because I'm a card-carrying Cat Fancier, I'm de facto pro-Lewis. Au contraire. Yes, I'm a crazy cat-lover. But I am decidedly NOT a lover of crazy cats (that would be a "crazy-cat lover" - it's all about the hyphen ...).

The reason has much to do with a cat named Eugene, a Lewis doppelganger owned by Paul's former roommate. Eugene was also a pretty black & white "tuxedo cat." The first time I went to Paul's former apartment, I saw Eugene, who, at first glance, was adorable. So naturally, I ran over to pet him.

"I wouldn't do that," said Paul.

"Don't be silly," I say. "Cats love me. They can tell I'm a cat person."

"No, really. He scratches. And bites."

"Maybe it's just you. Maybe he was abused by a man when he was a kitten."

"Who are these people who abuse kittens, for crap's sake?" Paul asked. "Where do they get the time? Personally, I've had to cut back."

I approach Eugene. He purrs. "SEE?" I retort, as the cat begins to rub up against my leg. (Paul says that I'm not happy unless I get to say "seeeeee?" at least once a day, but that is another story.)

"No, some cats like women better than - OUCH!!! You little ...."

The f-ing cat BIT me. Hard. I've never been BITTEN by a cat in my entire life. I must confess, Gentle Reader - I did not react well.

"I told you so," said Paul, going to get me a bandage, as blood spurted out of my hand, Monty Python-style. It was a deep bite.

Eugene was a bad cat. He had been BANNED from 3 vets, two of whom recommeded he be euthenized. His owner had permanent scars.

Like Lewis, Eugene was put on Prozac, but (surprize, surprize) he didn't react well to his owner's attempts to shove a pill down his throat. I hear sodium pentothol works wonders ...

My Speech to the Graduating Class of [Prestigious Institution]

2006-06-21T08:59:00.000-07:00

The other day, I woke up with a start. You know the feeling - when you're sure you've slept through some exam that will determine your entire future, even if you've been out of school for years. I woke up and realized I forgot to Do Something With My Life.

I think it has to do with graduation season. From time to time, on the bus or what-not, I start writing the imaginary address that I will someday deliver at one of the Ivy Leauge universities where, had I applied, the admissions officers would have ruptured their sphincters from laughing (at, not with me, I don't care what my mom says) before putting my application on the "Hells NO" pile.

Below is a rough transcript of my address:

(ahem) Mr./Ms. [College President], distingished guests. It is an honor to be here today. I never would have thought, that day I was sitting on the M4 bus going up Madison Avenue, wondering why the traffic is so bad and if I'm going to get home in time to watch Top Model, that I would one day be here, at [Prestigious Institution] delivering the Commencement Address. However, I suppose it's not that shocking in light of my recent breakaway success as a ["Pimp My Ride" Winner/Best-selling Novelist/Triple-Crown Jockey]. However, you may be surprised to learn that this improbable victory only came after years of a 99.9% accomplishment-free life.

My advice to you, the graduating class of [fades off...], is simple. Carpe Diem. Which, I believe is from the Aztec, meaning, "seize the Charmin." Or, depending on the declination of the verb and gender of the interlocutors, "seize the day." If you figure out how to seize the day, let me know. Days don't like to be seized. Or grabbed, or licked. Trust me - they tend to take offense. It's like trying to pinch the ass of a glass of water. It just doesn't work, and someone could get hurt.

This is the part where I'm supposed to tell you to set your goals high, and then make a plan, and work diligently to make it all happen. Why, just look at my own life, which as you know is a story of unbridled - albeit very recent - success. Do you think this all happend overnight? When people ask me how I got where I am today, I tell them - a dream, a little luck, and a lot of sexual favors.

By which I mean, working hard is entirely overrated. Much like soberiety, diligence, and paying taxes. (short pause, for effect.) You may be waiting for a "but..." But there isn't one, except for one at the beginning of this sentence. Fortunately, you can avoid all of these evils through the judicious use of legal and moral loopholes. Loopholes, if you will, make up the crocheted fabric of our great society. Loopholes are what will allow people like you and me - the ruling elite - to use corporate subsidies to pay for a party on Santorini featuring an ice sculpture pissing vodka straight into a hooker's mouth, while writing off on your personal taxes the c-note you put in her g-string. Avoiding work, taxes, and soberiety isn't just the civic responsibility of the very rich. It's an art.

No, hard work isn't what will take you far in life. Look at me. I was once labeled an "underachiever" by my high school guidence couselor. And yet, here I am, delivering the commencement address at [Prestigious Institution], far from sitting on the M4 bus, wondering why it's taking so long, or if that skanky chick is going to get booted off of "Top Model"?

As you go forth, I would advise you to take a series of random, soul-sucking jobs with little relevance to whatever you studied at [Prestigious Institution]. This shouldn't be too hard, considering your degree is probably in the History of Cross-Gender Dance Studies, or something else that you will resent knowing so much about as you make front-and-back color photocopies of a press release for a new treatment for Irritable Bowel Syndrome, even though your title is supposedly a "Junior Account Executive."

As you head out into the world, whatever you do - don't have a "career path." Career paths are for Loo-sers (here, I make the "L" sign on my forehead). Ditto for "savings accounts." And - most of all - don't go to graduate school. That includes law school, med school, all of it (again, making the "L" sign, with a shrug that suggests the obviousness of this statement) .

But if you do decide to go for your M.B.A., thus giving up your music and your dreams of becoming the next "Death Cab for Cutie" - well, you're probably doing the world a huge favor. But please. Don't call it "B-school." If you ever say that, please - slap yourself. Hard. No, I'm serious. Are you really so busy that you can't spit out the other syllables? It doesn't sound hip. It sounds retarded.

Just kind of let things happen, and when a talking Volkswagen suggests that you should move to another country, for god's sake, take its advice.

Don't look for a career, let one find you. Enjoy exaggerated fantasies of your own talents. It helps to not explore your talents, and that way, you don't have to realize they aren't all they're cracked up to be.

Here you are, about to go out into life, which is like a box of chocolates. Mmmm. Be sure to mash them all on top to see what flavor is inside. That way, you'll avoid the ones with the gross neon-pink filling, and nobody else will want to take any because you've already put your germs all over them. But to you, they'll taste just as good, because, after all - they're your germs.

I think that's the heart of what I'm trying to say to you tonight. They're your germs. Spread them wisely. And never loose sight of who you really are. Whatever the hell that means.

Before you go forth, into the keg party at the Women's Studies building, I would like to leave you with some final words of advice. I've long been a seeker of the Truth, and several years ago I realized that it is the following: there's no such thing as a good perm. Had I known that when I was your age, I might have spared myself several months of agony.

Congratulations, and good luck.

2006-06-02T07:58:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's time to drink less coffee...

Yesterday, I had a crazy, splitting headache all day. The kind where you can't even see straight. An extreme version of the coffee-withdrawal headache (if you're a coffee drinker), only, in the extreme. My head hurt all night despite many Advil and even some bizarre, expired headache medicine, the kind you get at rural truck stops, that Paul had in the cabinet.

So, naturally, I assumed I had a brain tumor. Which is generally the conclusion I rush to any time I have a headache/stomach ache/shin splints, etc.. It's always a brain tumor.

I'd ruled out the coffee thing, because I'd had three coffees - the expresso from the divine little Nespresso machine which, for weird reasons, happens to live in my cubicle.

The thing is, they recently got a new box of pods for it, and I asked, very specifically, are these caffinated? To which they said, but of course! So I believed them. I had three coffees yesterday, but it didn't do any good.

Today, one of my co-workers pointed out that the brown capsules are decaf. ARRRRRGGgggggh!!!!

Time to drink less caffeine.

Today I've pledged to myself to spend the whole day doing actual work-related work. This week I've been busy doing freelance work writing campaign letters for some politicians in Brooklyn, which is really entertaining. The only problem is, they don't seem to like it when you use Republican-style tricks to co-opt language. For instance, for a candidate running against an incumbent who has run un-opposed for many years, saying, like the leaders of corrupt, totalitarian nations, X. is accustomed to his being the only name on the ballot.

You don't say that he's actually like a leader of a corrupt totalitarian nation in terms of policy, tendencies towards genocide, etc. Just the irrefutable fact that - like those leaders, he's usually the only name on the ballot. In the way that you don't say that Saddam Hussein is responsible for 9/11 (because there's no evidence whatsoever that that this is even remotely the case), you just mention the two in the same sentence so many times that the become inseparable in that limited region of the brain that people use to process information that is not related to "American Idol."

As I'm learning, the problem is that progressive Democrats don't want to say anything that could be "misleading." Or "not nice." Which, arguably, and unfortunately, is why they don't win.

Even though it's all for candidates I'd vote for myself, after writing the letters I kind of wanted to take a bath. Politics & sausage, as they say ...

Blogging at Work

2006-05-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

On second thought, maybe getting caught blogging at work is a good thing. It seems to be a sure-fire formula for success and a 4-book deal. Maybe I could get a job working for Anna Wintour at an aquarium?

I don't think my bosses would do a search in English, so, je voulais juste dire que mon patron est un gros con! Ils sont fous, ses gens!

The Cheese Stands Alone

2006-05-24T07:14:00.000-07:00

You know it's time to work less when your blog posts all relate to your job. On that note: another work-related post ...

Yesterday, a school-wide search ensued when Mimi the mouse (Mimi la souris, if you're nasty) escaped her cage in one of the kindergarten classrooms. This morning they found Mimi, cowering in a corner, exactly one foot (30 cm, if you're nasty) from her cage.

Maybe Mimi's the one who stole the wheel of cheese last week? Sheesh. This place is like a live-action nursery rhyme. I'm just waiting for someone to jump over a candlestick.

Speaking of blogging at work, I would like to take this opportunity to officially state my fondness and approval of my place of employment. And, while I'm at it, the NSA. And every aspect of the U.S. Government and its domestic and foreign policies. Especially surveilance, torture and hating the French. I wish I had a bumper sticker that says I (heart) Wire Tapping! and/or France: What's the Point?

Except that the last bit might piss off my employers, who are French. As this woman learned, having a blog about work can get you fired. And possibly sued.

Although I've carerfully never stated where I work or put any work-related photos on this or any other blog, you can never be too careful. So I'd just like to say that I love the French. Unless you're from the NSA. In that case, I think the French are a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

Who Moved My Cheese?

2006-05-12T06:57:00.000-07:00

Today we're super-busy at work, on of the busiest weeks this year, so naturally my first thought was: Time to make a blog entry!

Hopefully the above statement will not someday be read back to me during an Employee Review session. That would be awkward.

Anyway, I just had to report on the scandal here at work this morning: a giant wheel of Brie has gone missing. Where's Nancy Drew when you need her?

You see, we're in the process of organizing something called a Spring Fair (I work for a school). One of the few clown-free activities (don't ask) is a silent auction, where we sell stuff that companies or people have donated. Yesterday, a box of cheese arrived, perhaps under armed guard. We're talking expensive cheeses (did I mention it's a French school?). The kind of cheeses that are made by aescetic monks in the Pyreenées who have devoted their lives to coddling the curdling of the milk of pygmy sheep, as a pathway to God (that's what they get for giving up sex, but nevermind). In short, these people are more into cheese than the people who go see "Tony and Tina's Wedding" off-Broadway.

But anyway. A wheel of cheese - and no ordinary wheel - was stolen. How will the executives react? I think we can turn to Spencer Johnson, author of Who Moved My Cheese, to try to see the lesson in this challenge.

From Amazon.com: "Change can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective. The message of Who Moved My Cheese? is that all can come to see it as a blessing, if they understand the nature of cheese and the role it plays in their lives."

Boy, sounds like a lesson for those monks. Not to mention the French in general. Or, specifically, the people getting upset over the stolen cheese. Instead, we should just see it all as a metphor and get over it.

I personally think this is just one more piece of evidence that our planet really is a research colony for some vastly more intelligent, albeit deeply disturbed, life forms. Some peon in the interstellar version of a Ph.D. program "introduced," say, reality TV shows into our living environment, and is studying our reaction. I hope he or she or It will at least get tenure out of it...

My Parasites & Me, The Sequel

2006-05-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

Within the past week, I've had not one but three entirely separate conversations about Toxoplasmosis, a condition caused by microscopic parasites that make women want to go shopping (I wrote about it here back in January). Infection comes from exposure to raw or undercooked meat (esp. red meats, such as steak tartare), or through exposure to cat feces. The worldwide infection rate is about 30% , whereas in France, the infection rate is up to 85%. This is possibly because of the French fondness for eating raw cat feces, or, cat feces tartare.

Typically, infection is asymptomatic. However, if you're a woman, it might cause you to dress like a hooker, and/or a middle-aged French woman (i.e., you start wearing a leather bustier and stilletto heels to your job as a secretary at the phone company). And if you're a man, you might stop taking showers, and be chronically jealous, only in part because your girlfriend dresses like a hooker and you know you know other men smell much better than you ...

The other day I was trying to explain this concept to several of my co-workers, who are French. I think we were talking about how French women tend to accessorize much better, and (as much as I hate to admit it) look better overall than women from other countries. I tried to put forth the argument that the famous "je ne sais quoi" of les françaises has less to do with an inherent cultural superiority (as the French would, of course, have you believe), and more to do with parasites that are eating up their collective brains.

I tried to explain this idea in French, roughly translated into English as follows: See, there are parasites in the head. And they force you to buy more clothes. But the parasites come originally from rats. They make the rats not afraid of cats, thus endangering the rats, who the cats then eat. But afterwards, in humans, the women want to do the sex with many men, whereas men become jealous.

My co-worker responded. But of course, because their women are doing the sex with too many of the men!

Their expressions helped me to realize that I sounded completely bat-sh*t crazy (merde de shauve-souri?). Should have thought this through before talking ... But impulsiveness, as it turns out, is also a symptom of Toxoplasmosis.

From Wikipedia: There are claims of toxoplasma causing antisocial attitudes in men and promiscuity[11] (or even "signs of higher intelligence"[12]) in women, and greater susceptibility to schizophrenia and manic depression [13] in all infected persons. "

Wow, it causes "higher intelligence" in women? What are the chances???! Maybe it causes cats to ride bicycles, too?

Anyway, it turns out that the concept is just as hard to explain in English. Maybe harder. But I keep trying to explain it, because I'm fascinated by the idea of parasites that have evolved to alter the personality of host organisms. We're a "dead-end" host for this parasite, that gets to the cats (where it wants to be) via the rats (whose personality it alters). Ending up in humans is just an added bonus.

Or maybe, deep down, the parasites really just wanted to go to Neiman Marcus to buy impractical shoes, but lacked the feet? They went to Oz and the Wizard gave them a magical hot-air ballon made of cat feces, to take them home ...

L'Affaire Colbert

2006-05-04T09:13:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the blogosphere is buzzing, or burning, or otherwise in the throes of alliteration over the "Colbert Affair." Which, if said with an authentic French affectation, kind of rhymes.

In case you're not a total dork (you're reading this blog, so the chances are not in your favor...), I'm talking about Stephen Colbert's performance on Saturday at the White House Correspondent's Association dinner. All I have to say is: I hope he's paid his taxes, because he is SO gonna get audited. That is, if he doesn't end up in a grave more shallow that the journalism jokes made by the W and his doppelganger, which, the President might have been disappointed to learn, is not a new menu item at Burger King.

First, I should confess that I did not actually watch the televised dinner on C-Span. Nor did I even download it onto my phone or iPod - and not just because I don't know how.

The thing is, politicians attempting to be funny is somehow not in the natural order of things. It's kind of like people who dress their kids up to look like Joan Collins circa 1986, and force them to sing "Papa Don't Preach" at the Junior Miss Pagent. It's supposed to be cute, but it really just makes everyone involved feel a bit uncomfortable.

So I didn't watch the show. But just because I have no "first-hand knowledge" of the event in question does not mean that I'm not entitled, as both an American and a member of the Blogosphere (both of which, fortuantely, require zero credentials), to have a strongly held opinion on the matter. After all, I did read at least two other blog entries on the subject ...

However, I did read the transcript, which I thought was brilliant - especially the White House press conference parody. That is, I thought it was hilarious until it occured to me that they might have gotten lazy and just copied the transcript of an actual White House press conference, because it was so much like the real thing. But nevermind.

On a few conservative blogs, I learned Stephen Colbert is not just a slanderous, disloyal traitor whose heinous treason should be subjected to the Death Penalty, which, thanks to the Godless New Yorkers, is not legal in New York. More importantly, I learned that people in the audience on Saturday weren't laughing - not because they were afraid of being audited or having their wives exposed as CIA operatives - but because it "objectively," and "in all seriousness," "just wasn't funny."

Let's face it - if you're liberal, you thought it was hilarious. If you're conservative, you didn't think it was hilarious, and only in part it didn't involve The Family Circus or a precocious black child. While watching Colbert, you might have been thinking: Why can't there be more shows like "Home Improvement" and "Family Matters"? That Urkel. He was a hoot ...

The dividing line on this issue seems fairly obvious. What gets me is how the main thrust of the argument - on both sides - was whether it was or was not "inherently funny." A huge debate ensued over the nature of satire and comedy. Someone says something that ruffles the feathers of the powers that be, and all of a sudden everybody's friggin' Aristotle. Conveniently, the debate was not over the content, but the categorical semiotics of the content - whether it is or is-not humorous. Overnight, everyone with a a newspaper column or a blog has a Ph.D. from Komedy Kollege.

Take Richard Cohen's article in The Washington Post. He begins:

First, let me state my credentials: I am a funny guy. This is well known in certain circles, which is why, even back in elementary school, I was sometimes asked by the teacher to "say something funny" -- as if the deed could be done on demand. This, anyway, is my standing for stating that Stephen Colbert was not funny at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. "

The problem with the rest of the article is that Cohen's introductory statement is, inherently, false.

Rule #1: If you have to say, "I am a funny guy" - you're not (as anyone who's ever attempted online dating can confirm). It's like the TV movies with the overly expository dialouge. "Mindy, you're my wife. I know you love me even though we've been having trouble in our relationship since my tire business failed last year. Anyway, I know it was wrong of me to cheat on you, but I really hope you won't use those Ginzu knives (close up: GINZU KNIVES, chopping a suitably phallic vegetable) in the third act to chop off my scrotum."

The rest of his article was equally unfunny, which is kind of ironic. But not in the funny-ironic sense, just in the "Americans don't really understand the definition of irony" sense.

One possible definition of irony, for instance, is Tucker Carlson telling us that Colbert was "unfunny." This is kind of like Tucker calling someone "white."

Anyway. What people do know - what Freud and Aristotle knew, what the Pope knows (but won't let on) - is that that humor is serious business. And deeply subversive. But that doesn't meant that anything is, or isn't "inherently funny."

Except the Germans. And bacon.

Happy Loyalty Day (TM)!

2006-05-01T17:52:00.000-07:00

Happy May Day, almost-belataedly.

C'est le premier mai! One of my co-workers exclaimed this morning, with just a hint of carefully non-disguised disgruntlement (is that a word?). Many of the folks at work, most of whom are from France, were seriously annoyed that we didn't have the day off. In France, le premier mai is a sacred holiday known as la fête du travail, or the "festival of work," which is celebrated by ... not working. What separates it from most other days for the French is therefore not entirely clear.

The May Day lady was giving everyone those little white flowers shaped like a bell. They're called "muguets" in French, but I can't remember the English word for them, if I ever knew it.
I think it was erased from by brain by the horribleness of the word muguet. What kind of a flower name is that? Don't they know that muguet would be a better word for a bottom-feeding fish, or perhaps a transitive verb for cleaning the sludge out of one's refridgerator coils, or that noise that Karl Rove makes after burping up several of the babies he just ate before the White House press conference?

But nevermind.

May Day started in the U.S., in 1886 after Haymarket Riots in Chicago, when workers - inspired by the success of Canadian workers - demonstrated to bring about an 8-hour workday. The idea caught on, and International Workers' Day is now celebrated in most industrialized countries, except, ironically, the U.S. and Canada. We wouldn't want people getting any crazy ideas about working 8 hour days, or women getting the vote--I mean, getting equal pay, or not starting wars to support giant multinational oil companies.

Lest we go having any such radical ideas, May Day has been officially declared Loyalty Day in the U.S. (No, I'm not kidding.) I could make an ironic statement, but that would mean I hate the troops and also their kids and grandmothers. Oy veh. I'm all for supporting the unfortunate National Guard kids and anyone else who got sucked into what's politely refered to as a "quagmire," but constantly using the troops as a bullet-proof political vest (when they don't have enough actual bullet-proof vests, which would be much more useful to them) ... it just seems --well, tacky.

Happy Administrative Professional's Day

2006-04-26T10:31:00.000-07:00

It's Administrative Professional's Day. Have you sent flowers to the Administrative Professional in your life? If so, they're probably really pissed off.

How much do you want to bet that, in the trash can under Condi Rice's desk, there is a bouqet of roses along with a card reading, "To a #1 Administrative Professional of State. Love, George."

This is the one holiday where you're guaranteed to have more of an awkward moment if you remember than if you awkwardly pretend it doesn't exist. Because it shouldn't. Why have a day for secretaries? And, while we're on the subject, what's so bad about calling someone a secretary? It's a perfectly challenging job that doesn't typically involve a name tag (as most truly heinous jobs do), and often requires a college education - preferably in Classical Studies or Anthropology, and/or an MFA in Dance.

But, if we're going to have a day for secretaries, shouldn't there be a special day for, say, dog groomers, or air traffic controllers, or people who work at the Gap? And let's not forget Waste Collection Professionals (who will at least have the perfect place to put all that crap from Hallmark).

In my post-college years, I had a short-lived career as Administative Professional, despite inflated titles such as "Associate Trade Attachee," which sounds like something you might find on pg. 76 of The Sharper Image catalog, available in leather or suede. Later, when I was pretty unambiguously the Executive Assistant to the president of a company, I never got anything on secretaries' day. This may or may not be because I was the world's worst secretary, considering my utter lack of organizational skills and my utter inability to care about the font style in your travel report, which - yes, I know - should have been Times New Roman instead of Ariel, or that I forgot to cancel your dog food delivery the week you were travelling to Aspen. Samuel Beckett meets Dilbert with a twist of Dada, for good measure.

Come to think of it, maybe the Administrative Professionals do deserve their own holiday. Better yet, why don't we have a National Ambiguous Job Title Day? That way, nobody will get their feelings hurt.

Of sick days, babies, and weiner dogs...

2006-04-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

I called in sick today. I felt a bit ill but, in all honesty, I could have made it in. But this is my first actual sick day at the new job (since September), so that's not so bad. I still always feel insanely guilty for taking a sick day, even if I'm actually sick. That unfortunate Protestant-guilt/work ethic thing that I somehow inherited despite my thoroughly non-religious upbringing. On my mom's side, I come from a long line of Presbyterian Scots who believed that the purpose of life is to suffer. That, and to purchase items on sale. And then, after all that suffering, you're going to go to hell anyway, just for good measure. Or maybe in retribution for that time you got your own desert at that restaurant, and had the poor manners to actually enjoy it.

Ahhhhh. It was a cold, wet weekend in New York. This is particularly distressing since it had been beautiful all week - in the upper 70s, sunny, fluffy clouds, the whole thing. This was particularly distressing because my dear friend April and her friend & co-worker Amy came to visit from Florida this weekend, as a side-trip from a conference they were attending in DC. To put matters into perspective, April only brought one pair of shoes, and they were sandals. Because it's April (both the month, and the CPA with hippie tendancies). In Gainesville it's about 85 degrees this time of yeear. In NYC, it was rainy and in the 40s.

I'm really ready for winter to be over. Technically, it is, but somehow the weather didn't get the memo. Ugh.

On Saturday, we met up with Liz, our good friend from high school and college, who now lives in New Haven. She brought her 7-month-old baby, Charlotte, who is an example of what I call an "ambassador baby." One of those babies who's so cute and sweet and well-behaved, proudly advancing the cause of Babiness everywhere. The kind of baby who makes you think, "this parenting thing couldn't be so hard!" On the other end of the spectrum, on Sunday we went to the Museum of Natural History, where we encountered any number of kids who are the opposite of the Ambassadors; the kind that make you think the Chinese might be on to something with the whole forced sterilization policy.

I do want kids eventually. I think. I'm just not sure I'd be a very good parent. Maybe not a Britney Spears or a Bette Davis type mother, but no June Cleaver, either. Can selfish people be good parents? When I was a kid, one of my best friends had the kind of parents that some people accused of being selfish, because they went out every Friday and Saturday night and did whatever married adults on the Eastern Shore of Maryland do on a weekend. All the neighborhood kids would love to be invited over to my friend's house and watch cable (which nobody else had in those days) and ask the teenage babysitter questions about boys and sex. Between the John Hughes movies and the babysitter, I learned pretty much everything I needed to know about life by the age of 10. My friend and her sister, the children of the "selfish" parents, both have Ph.D.s, and are unbridled success stories. Meanwhile, the parents who sat at home and reviewed the finer points of grammar with their kids every Friday night -- those kids turned out ... well, like me.

Also, I'm still waiting for the maternal instincts to kick in properly. They're in full force when it comes to cats, and, to a lesser extent, long-haired miniature weiner dogs (especially the spotted ones). I've got to say that it's very comforting to see that Liz seems to have taken to the whole parenting thing like a duck to water, because back in the day both of us were bewildered at best, and frightened at worst by the concept of babies. Kids I get - I love kids. It's just babies that are scary. They need constant attention. In my single days, I encountered a few men who were like that, but you can't just break up with a baby for being too "clingy." Yes, yes, I'm sure you don't want to when it's yours and all that. I'm just waiting to go as crazy over babies in the park as, say, dachsunds. Of course, I don't want a weiner dog of my own because they're too much trouble. Which might be a sign that I'm not ready for kids.

A Cautionary Tail

2006-04-17T07:58:00.000-07:00

Good news - Molly the Cat has been liberated.

Even if you don't live in New York, you might have actually heard this story on the news. All last week, there were camera crews from all over the world camped out in front of Myers of Keswick (free plug #7,838,353), a store in the west Village that sells British specialty foods, such as crisps (potato chips) and curds (potato chips) and whey (potato chips). The store also sells a variety of prepared foods made from the non-vital organs of pigs and sheep (try the Spleen & Appendix Pie, a pub favorite).

It seems that Molly, a mouser, somehow got caught in the wall of the building and couldn't find her way out.

Now, anybody who knows me knows that I'm what you might generously refer to as "a cat person," or less generously as a "future crazy cat lady." Nonetheless, one word does spring to mind, and that is: DARWINISM. (Clearly, they need to go back to teaching it the schools.) The cat managed to get into the wall, when she gets hungry enough, she'll find her way out. Or not.

Instead, a team mounted a Jessica Lynch-style search and rescue operation to bring Molly to safety. An anonymous donor volunteered to underwrite the cost of getting Molly out of the well (I mean, the wall). I'm really glad she's okay, even if she probably would have been even without the intervention of the Navy Seals. Kind of like Jessica Lynch.

However, the thing that amazes me the most is that this story made the papers in other countries, including France and Japan. I've heard of fluff news, but Fluffy news? Come on.

Yes, it just goes to show that wherever people are from, whatever their religion or culture, the press will go to great lenghts to avoid reporting real news. But still. Don't they have cats stuck in walls in Tokyo and Paris?

It reminded me of the fake news conference that was held recently where a woman (who the government perhaps had some serious dirt on) got up and asked, "Mr. President, why doesn't the evil liberal media [sic] ever report anything good that's happening in Iraq?"

Don't they have any cats stuck in walls in Tikrit? Maybe they should look into that.

In other parts of the country, cats get stuck in trees or on roofs or whatever all the time, but in general, it does not garnish the attention of the international press. If it did, they would have to start a special wire service that reported nothing else. The Cats Stuck in High/Small Places (CSHSP) Press. Virtually all news headlines would be: "Cat on a roof in Des Moines - News at 11. "

Before becoming an international cautionary tail (ugh ... sorry) Molly's primary raison d'etre was to catch the mice that scamper about the store, sort of a disgusting thought considering they make sausages on the premises, but nevermind. I'm betting that Molly was named after the character from Ulysses, a novel that famously begins, Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beast and fowl.

Although I don't think this was a PR stunt, if by chance I ever open up a British specialty foods shop, the marketing plan will be very succinct: Dig well. Throw in cat. Call Newsweek.

Amazingly, Molly isn't the first New York cat that managed to make the morning news by getting herself wedged into a crevice, as this article explains.

I guess P. Diddy and Sting can call off their benefit song, "Sending our love into the tight crevice," which they simultaneously realized could be misinterpreted in very rude ways.

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote...

2006-04-04T10:50:00.000-07:00

The tail end of winter (which it still is here, I don't care what the calendar says) is the worst. It's like the last mile of a marathon, when people are worn out and ornery and don't even care what their ranking is, they just want it to be over. I say this from experience, having personally watched people on TV run marathons.

It's still cold. Why is it still so cold? This weekend was beautiful. Sunday was warm and dazzling - one of those beautiful, unexpected sneak-preview-of-spring days, the kind that are so perfect they make you acutely aware of & afraid of your own mortality. Walking through Central Park felt like something from a ridiculously upbeat musical, or a Seurat painting (or both). The kind of day when you expect the guy who's sweeping in the park to suddenly break out in a sychronized song & dance with the guy at the pretzel stand, and the jogging lady with the weiner dog, with the flowers singing an ironic back-up.

April really is the cruellest month. The bulb flowers in the tree pits along Park Avenue and Madison Avenue, and in the park, are suddenly all over the place. For weeks they've been doing their slow wake-up thing, bent over and waiting waiting waiting like the rest of us for the end of winter. And then one day, wham! Daffodils all over the place! Tulips! Like Demeter coming back from the underworld, only to be peed on by schnausers in Louis Vuitton raincoats. And coverd in smog from the DHL truck and taxis, and drowned in the remnants of sodas and pop rock.

It's amazing that living things manage to not just survive, but actually manage to be perfectly beautiful in such an inhospitable environment. What is it that makes plants grow in the cracks in the sidwalk? It must be the same impulse that allows humans to live in small, overpriced apartments with plumbing problems.

All of this brings us back to the age-old question of Why do we live in New York? I ask this now, because we're fast approaching the time of year when it won't occur to any of us to question why we live in New York. From May to June, there's that window of idyllic bliss (what I call the Amnesia Season) when all those plans to open up a surf shack in El Salvador suddenly seem really absurd.

The funny thing is, when people leave New York, we usually use terms like, "got out," or "escaped," or other words usually reserved for people who are incarcerated in prison or perhaps a mental institution. And you never hear about people who leave New York who aren't entirely, freakishly ecstatic about it. It's like once people leave New York, they become a Scientologist about wherever they move to, sending emails and creating web sites in hommage to their new hometowns, which are inevitably warmer and cleaner and cheaper and friendlier and less pretentious than New York.

Yes, Ashville sounds lovely. And Portland, and Seattle, and Santa Barbara. But can you get a falafel at 3 in the morning? Huh? Gotcha there!

For instance, our friends Morgan and Sheri finally "got out" of New York, and are now on probabtion in Seattle. By all accounts, it seems beautiful and welcoming and relatively affordable and all the things New York ain't. They seem much, much happier. Same goes for pretty much everyone else I know who's moved to other places.

So why is it that the idea of leaving New York is so disconcerting? It's like a smoker thinking of giving up smoking. They know it's a bad habit, but they love it anyway. Even with the worst of the weather and the pollution and the crowds and everything else, it's a way of life, and it's one that would probably be hard to give up. I guess in a world where most of your basic needs are met, the biggest fear becomes boredom. And it's hard to be bored in New York. On the other hand, it's awfully easy to be insane.

Sigh.

2006-03-27T10:55:00.000-08:00

First day of my at-home vacation. Spent the morning reading self-help books. This is such a cliche, as I have an entire library full of quasi-spiritual texts with words like "quantum" or "light" or "thin thighs in 30 days" in the title.

I should probably stop reading so damn many self-help books. Maybe I should get a book on the subject? My typical solution to virtually any problem or neurosis - everything from anxiety to toe fungus - is to run to the new age section of Barnes & Noble.

At any rate, it's been a delightful day. I love sitting around the house alone. When alone, it's much easier to sustain the little illusions we all like to maintain about ourselves. The problem with other humans is that they hoist their own opinions and perceptions upon us. For instance, this morning I went to the corner bakery without brushing my hair or teeth, or putting on any makeup and/or pants. We live in a rather snooty neighborhood, where people are expected to wear pants (or shorts, or a skirt, or some form of trouser) every time they go into a place of business. People on the Upper East Side are SO uptight.

Back home, sitting on the couch in my underwear, staring intently at the wall -- who's to say I'm not a genius? And a very snappy dresser? Francis and Seymour are asleep, and even if they weren't, I can assume they would agree. And if they don't, well - they're cats.

I just had a lunch of chinese food (lunch special, Rainbow Shrimp), enjoyed on the couch, without the burden of clothing. Eating while naked really does make you eat less. This is a good diet strategy, but one that would be harder to pull off at work. Most of my co-workers are French, so we could probably get away with being topless, but full-on nakedness might raise some eyebrows.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I'm sure that, if not for work, I wouldn't enjoy not-working this much. At least, that's what I keep telling myself. Even though it's a lie. I love not working. Some people aren't good at doing nothing, but it's kind of my "core competency." If doing nothing was an event at the Olympics, I would be a medalist. And that would be impressive, considering the French would probably sweep that category.

After reading my self-help books, I decided to read some of the fiction of Robert Benchley, from The Complete New Yorker (the cd-roms of all the New Yorker issues, ever, from the beginning -- way cool). New Yorker fiction hasn't changed all that much since the 1930's. And the cartoons didn't make any more sense back then, either, which is strangely comforting. And if you fill in some (slightly) different names, the gossip and goings-on-about-town are all more or less the same as they are today. For instance, you can just substitute "Bush" for "Mussolini" in the politics section, and you'd have a perfectly salient commentary on current events in 2006.

Strangely, I'd never even heard of Robert Benchley until recently, but he was basically the proto Woody Allen. Except in the sense that one of those hard-to-pronounce characters from a Greek tradgedy* was the proto-Woody Allen.

As coincidence would have it, I'm going over to the New Yorker offices later this afternoon. I'm going to have a drink with a friend of mine who works there, so I have to practice talking without moving my back teeth, a la George Plimpton. I love going to the New Yorker offices. Last time I was there, I saw not one but TWO dudes under the age of 40 wearing - and I shit you not - argyle sweaters. And no, they didn't mean it ironically. Who wears argyle sweaters? Dudes who work at the New Yorker, I guess. It's simultaneously so awful and so cool ... an irresistable force vs. an immovable object ... My head hurts just thinking about it.

*such as the little-known tragicomedy, Clytemnestra and Her Sisters

Of Cat Real Estate and Vacations ...

2006-03-26T11:15:00.000-08:00

I have next week off from work because it's spring break #2 at the school where I work. It's a French school (that is, a regular K-12 school, but mostly everything's taught in French, because most of the kids are from French-speaking countries. Like France, for instance.).

The French luuuuves them some vacation. They love vacation as much as they can love anything that isn't cheese. Which is one of the many reasons they make good employers. That, and they take any excuse to drink wine and/or champagne at work or work-related events, such as breakfast meetings. Well, only on special occasions (March 24, for instance, only comes once a year).

So for the first time in recent memory, I'm going to have an entire week to myself at home! For spring break #1, in February, I went to Jacksonville/Charleston, etc., and over Xmas and Thanksgiving we went to California, and most of my mini-vacations over the past year have invovled family members or close friends coming to my house or vice versa. Which is great, but it will be so weird and nice to have an entire week to sit around and pretend I'm unemployed again, which was really fun except for the part where you don't have any money, which puts a damper on all that delicious free time, because all you can afford to do is sit around the apartment not spending money.

In other news, we recently crossed over the border into the territory of Crazy Cat People. We got Seymour and Francis a cat condo (broker listing: High Ceil/HWF/Remodeled FKE MSE!!! Scratch away at this one!). Or is it a cat duplex? Either way, I'm pretty sure it has more square footage than my first apartment in New York.

2006-03-19T15:05:00.000-08:00

For the first time in about two weeks, our apartment is perfectly quiet. Except for the sound of gunshots, repeatedly going off in the background. I'll get to that in a minute.

My cousin Kitty and her daughter, Lauren, 16, and her friend Monica, 14, just left. It was a fun visit. I learned a lot about lip gloss (cheap stuff stays on better than Juicy Tubes), text messaging (will eventually replace need for computers), and water polo (which is not, in fact, played on inflatable raft-horses ... ha ha, New York cousins are very gullible ... ). Remarkably, they weren't joking when they said that water polo is a real sport. Apparently, it primarily involves high school and/or college girls grabbing other girls bathing suits. Throw in Ron Jeremy and Gary Coleman, and it sounds like the premise of pretty much every TV reality show.

The girls they did their obligatory part to keep New York's thriving tourist (a.k.a. fake handbag) industry afloat. They even took the Staten Island Ferry one day while I was at work, because this is the best way to see the Statue of Liberty. If you're not too distracted looking at the dude with the spaghetti strainer on his head.

"Ohmigod, we saw sooooo many crazy people today!" Lauren exclaimed on Thursday night.

"Uh ... I think the preferred medical term is 'wacko.'"

"So, this one dude? On the subway? He, like, walked right by us, and pointed his finger at my map, and didn't even look at us, but kept walking and kept pointing ..." The scene was re-created by Monica and Lauren, like in the flashback sequences with questionable production values in those real-life detective shows.

"Then this other guy came up to us, and he said something--dunno what--and then he started slapping himself on the cheek!" Monica demonstrated. "And then, omigod, some other dude was talking to a tin can. Calling it Melvin..."

"And then, there was this other guy, and - get this - he was wearing a Bush-Cheney 2004 shirt!"

Okay, the last part's not true, but it's just a random example of the absolutely crazy sh*t you get immune to living in New York. I'm sure I see just as many crazy people in the course of any random day, but those of us who live here just learn to filter them out. We filter out a lot of stuff.
A fun New York game is to think of some random thing or phenomenon, and decide to notice it that day. For instance, decide to see nickels on the sidewalk (they're all over the place), or asterisks carved into posts or signs, or piles of barf in subway stations. A friend once said, "have you ever noticed that everyone in New York waits to go down into the subway before they hurl?" I said, that's crazy, you don't know what you're talking about! Surefire, that afternoon I went down into the subway to find a giant pile of human vomit. Of course, this is not so much a testament to synchronicity and the quantum interconnectedness of things so much as the consistently low sanitation standards of the Metropolitan Transit Authority. But after that, I noticed barf in the subway all the time. And now, I've passed the gift along to you.

We also went to a lot of museums. I only live a few blocks from the Metropolitan Museum and the Guggenheim and the National Academy Museum, which has the distinction of never having been visited by anyone. Not even the mothers of the artsist whose work is on display. I often feel sorry for this museum, wedged between the infinitely more interesting Cooper-Hewitt and the Gugg. I almost want to go visit it, for the same bizarre reasons that I kind of wanted to break our washing machine because I genuinely felt bad for the Maytag repairman. He seemed to represent-- along with the Dunkin' Donuts guy-- the eternal, lingering ennui that is the inevitable by-product, a.k.a. "buy-product," of the American corporate establishment. (Clever readers will note that the previous sentence is a pile of pretentious crap that makes absolutely no sense. That is, unless you majored in Comp. Lit. or possibly Women's Studies, in which case you might mistake it for "a very salient point." Whatever that means.)

Anyway, we went to museums. I love the Met, and have ever since I read The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler when I was nine years old. The girls had never been to New York before, so I wanted to show them everything, such as how to get into the Met without paying (go in through the gift shop on the right, and you can walk straight into the museum), or how to use our Guggenheim membership to get four tickets in one day. It's important to teach young people how to rip off charitable institutions. These days, they've cut these subjects from the curriculum of most public schools. It's a darn shame.

2006-03-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

I'm having an uproductive kind of day. Fortunately nobody at work knows what I actually do (this includes me), so it doesn't set off any alarms when I'm not doing it. Strangely, I'm usually pretty busy at work doing whatever it is I do. This year, we've managed to raise a lot of money, which makes me look good, but soemtimes I think it's purely a coincidence that things are going well.

In every job I've ever had, including this one, I always have a nagging suspision that I'm thorougly incompetent and a total fake, and one day people are going to figure out that if I weren't here, things would function just as well. And that they might as well replace me with someone who actually knows how to change a toner cartridge in the photocopier. Not that this has anything to do with my job, but nobody here knows how to change the toner, so we all gather around the copier like the monkeys around the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odessey.

All in all, I rather like my current job, because I like my coworkers, who come from all over the world, and because about once a week they give us hot, fresh croissants from top bakeries and sometimes we get to drink champagne at work. Because most of my co-workers are French, someone can always find an excuse (March 13 only comes once a year, after all ...).

Brokearm Mountain

2006-03-09T13:02:00.000-08:00

Last night, my mother-in-law arrived at our apartment a little after midnight. Fortunately, she will never, ever know what the place looked like only 5 hours earlier. I won't say the place was dysfunctional looking, but if it were a car it would have been up on blocks on a front lawn.

On Friday, Paul had surgery to fix the arm he broke in October (read all about it here and here). As a result, we're temporarily back to square one with the arm healing thing, but at least this time it seems to be on the right track. I just wish they'd done the surgery 4 months ago, but they waited because it heals on its own in about half the cases. And the operation sounded pretty unsavory.

"It's essentially a filet of arm," said Dr. Yang, without a trace of irony, when he originally discussed the procedure.

"I hear that goes well with fava beans," I said. Neither Paul nor Dr. Yang was amused.

On Friday morning, we had to be at the hospital at 6 AM. The surgery wasn't until 9 or so, but they like for patients to come in early to sit in the waiting room for an hour, so that being cut open will seem like sweet relief when it's time for the operation. At Mount Siani, they give you a beeper (no joke) which buzzes and beeps when it's your turn. It would be more helpful if they just gave you a calendar to figure out when you're going to be called.

Lessons learned: In a hospital 6 am, nothing on earth is less interesting than the June 2004 issue of Golf Digest. Except possibly AARP Magazine, or The Liver Disease Survivors' Fan Club Newsletter. Maybe people have stolen all the good magazines? I flip through an issue of Time Out Chicago. If I weren't in a hospital waiting room, and it weren't 6 AM, and if I were in the greater Chicago area, this would be a much more relevant publication. Did they specifically subscribe to Time Out Chicago, I wonder? Are they that sadistic?

Anyway, Paul survived the operation and is doing well, although he's still on a lot of pain pills (which, of course, are wasted on actual pain). At the hospital, everyone kept asking how he broke his arm. I think he should start lying.

"... and that's why I was kicked off the U.S. Olympic Luge Team," the story might end. It's much better than the version with the wet hardwood floor and the laundry lady and me outside in my nightgown buzzing the doorbell (which, when you see that on paper, sounds much more lurid than it actually was).

Fortunately, Paul doesn't blame me at all for the whole arm-breaking thing. As he says, I'm the "co-Executive Producer" of Paul's Broken Arm. The laundry lady I was helping that fateful day, I guess, is the key grip.

(DISCLAIMER: the title of this blog entry does not imply that my husband, or his arm, is actually a gay cowboy. Not that there's anything wrong with that ...)

Charles Town

2006-02-23T10:20:00.000-08:00

After Savannah, we went to Charleston, SC, where my mom used to live, and where our ancestors supposedly (with a big emphasis on "supposedly") came to the city the year John Locke wrote the Charles Town charter for the eponymous Charles II, who was of course namesake of the King Charles Spaniel.

To be honest, I'm not 100% sure if we're decended from the Founders of Charleston or not. My relatives, like all good Southerners, are inclined to "exaggerate," which is kind of like lying, only ... okay, it's exactly like lying. But the theory is that if enough people believe something, it is somehow converted into truth. They belive that fiction - even more than the truth - is a deeply sacred thing. Every Southern family has a James Frey-type memory, the kind that probably wouldn't stand up to a team of editorial fact checkers. But fortunately, nobody ever bothers. They know, like all good storytellers, that fiction usually makes for a much better narrative than literal history, which is mostly full of Stamp Acts and heated disagreements over bond issue referendum (whatever that means).

Kind of like how Faulkner said that his characters were more real to him than his own daughter. Which is a pretty harsh message to send to his daughter. "Yes, dear, you're much less real to me than an imaginary retarded kid who's in love with a cow." If I remember correctly, she committed suicide at a young age. But I digress. Which is another unfortunate side-effect of Southern-ness, which is also sometimes referred to as "ADD".

My grandmother and her sister always insisted that we were descended from raow-uhlty (or, royalty, to those who don't call it the "War of Northern Aggression"), but I'm not sure of any empirical evidence that backs that up. All proper Southern ladies are convinced they are decended from royalty. I've never understood that. If they were so royal back in Scotland or France or wherever they came from, I can't imagine they would have been very anxious to give up their castles and servant wenches and velvet clothing for the glories of rice farming in a dangerous, mosquito-filled country loosely founded upon anti-royal sentiments. No. If you were royal - unless you were crazy (not ruling that out) - you would probably want to stay in a designated royal place, and oppress people, or collect Welsh Korgis, or carry on affairs with horsey-looking women, or whatever it is that royals do.

But anyway. Here are some pictures of Charleston. Let's just assume my ancestors lived in these main-shuns (that is: mansions; they weren't speaking Chinese, I'm just not good at writing dialects), sitting on a wide porch drinking mint juleps with Elvis and General Lee (that is, Robert E., not the flying car from The Dukes of Hazard), playing chess with their well-compensated servants of African descent who were really very glad to be there, and not oppressed in any way. After all, if you don't know the truth, anything could be true.

2006-02-22T07:15:00.000-08:00

Just in case anybody's actually reading this, or for the person who stumbles across it accidentally while searching for "SORORITY GIRLS + MATURE BILLY GOATS!!!" (which, until just now, that would have been highly unlikely), here are some photos to follow up my recent post about Savannah.

Above: A park in Savannah.

LEFT: A savannah. In Savannah. If only there were a woman named Savannah in the picture, it could be a triple entendre. Or somehting.

Adventures in Ye Olde South Land, Inc.

2006-02-21T10:22:00.000-08:00

Last week, I went with my mom on a trip to our ancestral homeland. No, not Scotland or France or England. I'm talking about South Carolina. And Georgia.

First, we went to Savannah, which is probably the most beautiful small city (or is it a large town?) in America. Savannah was built around 27 small parks, after a trend in Paris in the early 19th Century. The parks and the trees and the flowers are effortlessly beautiful, dripping with Spanish moss and recalling a simpler time - that is, a time before all of the actual residents fled to the outskirts of town. Unlike the typical "urban flight" syndrome, they didn't leave because the neighborhood was getting bad. Most of them had to leave because the area was slowly being sucked into a Pottery Barn catalog, like in some twisted, Yuppie version of The Twilight Zone.

Savannah has changed a lot over the past 15 years, or however long it's been since "that Yankee wrote that book" (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) about the place. These days, visiting Savannah is a bit like going to "Ye Olde South Land" at Epcot center. It even seems as if strategically placed locals are on the payroll of some undercover theme park. You expect to see them wearing name tags, like: Crazy Civil War Reenactment Dude, or Toothless Old Man Selling Boiled Peanuts Out of an Unhygenic Truck.

These days, downtown Savannah, except for the area around Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), feels eerily empty, as if the ghosts they love to go on & on about had recently pulled up and moved to darker, less well-appointed haunts. Most of the people on the streets are tourists - mostly from Southern states, but with a generous sprinkling of Yankees and Asians and Australian backpackers (Australian packpackers are everywhere; if mankind ever manages to travel to other planets, I'm pretty sure we'll be greeted by Australian backpackers).

The streets around the park squares are fairly quiet, except for the fleet of trolly buses with the muffled voices of tour guides going on & on about what everything used to be. The big old houses in the historic district have been sold for a mint. A lot of these have been sold to foreigners (people from Japan, or, say, New York). On the whole, they seem to be uninhabited except by contractors involved in interminable plumbing and heating projects. Some are museums of one sort or another, or maybe the hobby- the life-size dollhouses - of people who live far away but who watched the Patrick Swayze mini-series "North and South" at a particularly vulnerable age.

Still, many parts of Savannah are so beautiful it hurts your eyes. Maybe it's just because it reminds me of driving through on car trips as a kid, or because 10 generations of my ancestors are buried up and down the banks of the Savannah river. Or maybe because it represents the good parts of the South with relatively few of the bad. For instance, when integration came in the '60s, Savannah was one of the few cities, including Northern cities, where there were no riots, no protests whatsoever. On the whole, people were glad. There were plenty of Southerners who were, but they don't get much press. Granted, they weren't the majority. But if we're to believe 99.9% of all media portrayals, virtually all white Southern people are:
a) profoundly stupid b) evil c) poor, and d) extremely fond of ironic t-shirts (e.g., the 450-pound dude at KFC with an ill-fitting t-shirt that reads, If you're rich, I'm single!).

When I was a little girl (specifically, about 20 years ago), I remember Savannah being a lot seedier. But then again, everywhere was. Sigh. I miss seediness. It's becoming illegal in the United States of America, Inc.

The problem with both Savannah and Charleston (the old parts, at least) is that these cities have become the victim of their own success. They've become reconstructed and refurbished and whitewashed to the point that they're just these rarified monuments, rather than just a place where people live. It becomes a more self-conscious Historical City -pretending to be something that was already a dream within a dream within a dream. Within a Patrick Swayze mini-series. Or something.

2006-02-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

My dad picks me up at the airport on Friday. He has a new car with one of those GPS route trackers in it.

He presses a button, and a robotic woman's voice starts talking in French. Apres 2 kilometres, veuillez tourner ... a gauche.

"See!" Dad says, very proud of this discovery. " It tells me the directions ... in French!"

I hesitate to point out that Dad doesn't ... speak French.

"Of course, it can also tell you the route in English -- and several other languages." He presses a button. The same voice intones, "In one ... mile ...turn ...left." It's a woman's voice, but the phrasing is very Captain Kirk. In fact, I wish they'd gotten William Shatner to do the voice over for this device. I'm sure he could have broken away from the Priceline commercials for an hour or two.

"For the love of God, man ... Turn ... left in 1.2 miles!"

This tracking system, which seems to involve enough technology to launch a rocket to Mars, might be very helpful if Dad ever went anywhere in the car that he hasn't been driving to for at least 35 years. But I don't want to burst his bubble.

For that matter, I'm not sure why my dad needs to have an SUV. It's not like he has 5 kids, or needs to haul a boat, or drives up to the top of an off-road mountain peak to have a ram, or some other horned animal, gaze admiringly at his 4-wheel drive.

"It's good for when I, uh, you know, go fishing," Dad asserts. To his credit, my dad and his friends do go fishing about once a year, often in Alabama or Colorado or one of these places. I don't bring up the fact that he usually flies to the destination and then rents a car (undoubtedly some non-SUV). He doesn't even own a fishing pole, because it's easier and probably cheaper to just rent the stuff once a year.

My parents do have the suburban habit of buying everything in bulk, so the SUV does come in handy for that. In the garage, we have cases upon cases of random household supplies. It's as if they're preparing for some international toilet paper shortage. And we have enough mayonnaise to survive a nuclear apocalypse. Which is interesting, because one jar of mayonaise tends to last my folks for at least one presidential administration. Sometimes two.

The idea of buying in bulk is utterly foreign to most of us who live in New York City, where every item really has to justify taking up space. "Hmmm ... the urn with grandma's remains? Well, it is taking up 6 inches, and seeing as how we're paying $10 a month per square foot, well ..."

I'm joking, of course. Most people in Manhattan pay much more than $10 a square foot.

2006-02-09T10:22:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't it be funny, albeit not "ha-ha" funny, if a third world war erupted over some Danish political cartoons? First, this would be difficult to explain to most Americans, who would wonder why anyone would be so upset about people defaming a pastry. Then we would have to explain that "Danish" is also a word that refers to the people of a nation located in Amsterdam, somewhere between a donut and a cinnamon roll.

I don't know if anyone's been following the recently-erupted scandal over the cartoons satirizing the prophet Mohammed that were published, back in September, in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Both Saudi Arabia and Libya have recalled their ambassodors to Denmark, and violent protests have erupted in front of the Danish embassies in Damascus and Beirut.

Just as an FYI to the protesters: the people who work in the Danish embassies are not cartoonists. Nor are they newspaper publishers. If they wanted to be involved in international incidents, they wouldn't have become diplomats. No, they would be drawing cartoons.

The newspaper cartoon world hasn't been this incesnsed since another Dane, Marmaduke - a Great Dane, at that - implied that Moses was gay.

Actually, he didn't. But if he did, I wouldn't expect the U.S. government to issue an apology to all Jewish people. Or to gay people (our government probably should issue an apology to gay people, but for entirely different reasons, such as the lack of frontal nudity in Brokeback Mountain). Or to gay Jews. Or Great Danes. Or to gay ... you get the picture.

It's one thing to ask the newspaper to apologize, but as far as I know, Denmark has freedom of the press. (I'm no expert on the Danish system of government, but I once very briefly dated a Dane, and I know they're into "free love," so I assume freedom of the press goes along with the package.) Freedom of the press means, pretty specifically, that newspapers can publish whatever they want. Newspapers all over the world are full of offensive content, even/especially here in the U.S. Case in point: Ann Coulter's column, and/or Ann Coulter's outfits. But I don't demand that the American government issue an apology for her (although, really, somebody should). Nor do I want to censor Ann Coulter, or burn her embassies in Beirut. Burning her outfits, however, is entirely called for.

Not having seen the cartoons in question (and even if I had, I don't speak Danish, although I do enjoy a danish with my morning newspaper), I can't comment on their content. Regardless, it doesn't seem fair to blame the entire nation of Denmark for something that may be the bad taste of one cartoonist and/or publisher. It's like if North Korea decided to declare war on the U.S. because Kim Jong-Il didn't like last week's "Doonesbury." In Le Monde, a journalist made the point that Denmark is suffering retribution for its Atlantist foreign policy, and that it's one of the most Islamaphobic countries in Europe, but still, the reaction seems extreme.

As a result of the cartoon scandal, several middle eastern countries have called for a boycott of all Danish imports -- cheese, and the Euro-pop band "Aqua" (also technically classifed as cheese). And you can bet that throughout the Arab world, angry readers will be cancelling their subscriptions to Jyllands-Posten. As well they should.

The Vespa in the Cubicle (or, the story that almost caused the king to finally get bored and kill Scherezade)

2006-02-08T15:09:00.000-08:00

I should be working, but there's a Vespa in my cubicle.

No, this isn't an overly-direct translation of a line from a Kung Fu movie. There's actually a Vespa, complete with suede seats, here in the office. Looking around, I can also see two Marc Jacobs purses; a picnic basket full of $5,000 worth of crap from Fauchon; several baskets of expensive European cosmetics; four magnums of Veuve Clicqot Grande Dame, two crates of wine (worth more than all the belongings I own put together), and a 5-foot-tall hookah. No joke.

Our offices have become a makeshift storage facility for the auction items from our annual Gala, which was held on Friday (I do fundraising for a French school which will go unnamed, but just for the record, cher Monsieur le proviseur, je ne ferais jamais du blogging au bureau, puisqu'il est interdit ...). The Gala raises a million dollars for the school, so it's a pretty swanky affair. The women, most of whom are French, wear elaborate couture dresses that are so beautiful you just want to cry. Americans aren't as big on dressing up and wearing ball gowns, which I consider unfortunate. I think that instead of the ubiquitous Casual Friday, we should have Formal Fridays, where we all come to the office wearing ball gowns. Even the dudes. It would make work more interesting.

The theme of the Gala was A Thousand and One Nights (hence the hookah, which is a middle easter water bong, not the thing you stand under with the rabbi to get married, unless you live in Canada, where, G-d love 'em, maybe you can marry your water bong). Several of the live auction items went for $20,000-$30,000+, including one of Lance Armstrong's racing bikes from the Tour de France. All the auction lots had titles related to Arabian Nights, like, "Scheherazade and the Italian Nights" (a trip to Italy) or "Voyage to the Mystic Mountains" (some Swiss ski extravaganza). It's kind of amazing that there are people - many people, in this city - who can blow $30,000 without a second thought on things they don't even remotely need.

Sigh. I want to fly first class to Italy and stay in a villa while wearing "new green chryophase and diamond earrings." I'm not sure what chryophase is, but I'm pretty sure it would make my life 100% complete.

Did Keats ever write an Ode on a Basket of La Prairie anti-cellulite cream? If not, he should have. If I weren't so cursedly ethical, I could just ... Wait. This is quickly going to devolve into another love letter to luxury goods and services, so I should probably quit while I'm ahead.

Once again, I find myself in daily, close proximity to some of the wealthiest people in the world, while I hold my breath as I charge $5 worth of groceries because I've already spent the rest of my money for the week on unneccessary crap. Case in point: a little doctor's bag full of "cosmoceuticals" (Just like a real doctor of cosmotology!). I'm already turning into Blanche Dubois, but that's a story for another day, darlin'.

****
"The only interesting people are the very rich, and the very poor," he said, raising a glass to the man who was paying the bar tab. We were young, and in Paris, and in lust, and slightly drunk, and way too impressed with our thoroughly unoriginal observation. We were neither very poor nor very rich, but bourgeois (French for "bourgeois") kids from comfortable, wide-lawned suburbs who had overly romanticized both wealth and poverty. Not real poverty, of course, in the way that most of us aren't actually starving when we say we're "starving" because we haven't eaten since breakfast. We're talking a temporary (if pretty much total) lack of money. The sort of thing that makes you appreciate luxury in the way that being slightly hungry gives one a fuller appreciation of food.

It felt Hemingway-esque, in the way that sitting in a Burger King in Paris can when you're 22 years old and/or slightly drunk. It was after a vernissage at the art gallery where I worked, which was frequented by nouveau riche Russian mafia types (it was a Russian gallery). The gallery openings were very elaborate, with champagne and caviar and such. Meanwhile, I lived in a tiny chambre de bonne (a fancy word for a converted maid's quarters, from the days before maids were allowed to bathe) which had no shower or bathtub, but did have a bidet.

The next two years would be all about being broke, but living among ridculously wealthy people. Many of them were Russians, and many had been rich beyond the dreams of avarice but, being new to capitalism, had spent all their money and come full circle back to being poor again (think: MC Hammerilivich). It's this bizarre pattern I keep repeating and repeating, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, only my debts never seem to be cleared away when I wake up to start the cycle over again & again & again ...

My Parasites & Me

2006-01-30T10:01:00.000-08:00

I think I’ve found a way to get my HMO cover the cost of the impractical pink lamé shoes I bought the other day. You see, I’ve just found out that this purchase, like so many others, might be related to a colony of fun-loving parasites living in my brain.

Recently, several articles have appeared in various publications about T-gondii, microscopic parasites that inhabit the brains of about half the people in this country. At first I said EEeeeeeew!, but then I read the symptoms ...

T gondii is the parasite that causes Toxoplasmosis, which I thought was perhaps what causes infected men to run out and buy a plasma TV. In a bizarre twist, that's not far from the truth.

Most people who have toxoplasmosis, it seems, have few - if any - noticable symptoms. However, some scientists have observed distinct patterns of personality traits among those who are infected with the parasites, which seem to affect men and women rather differently. According to some researchers, these parasites make women want to go shopping, and make men less likely to groom themselves.

For instance, Professor Jaroslav Flegr of Charles University in Prague has discovered some evidence that infection by intracellular protozoan parasite toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii)can actually alter the personalities of those infected. He found the women infected with toxoplasma spent more money on clothes and were consistently rated as more attractive. “We found they were more easy-going, more warm-hearted, had more friends and cared more about how they looked,” he said. “However, they were also less trustworthy and had more relationships with men.”

On the other hand, infected men tended to pay less attention to their personal grooming habits, and more quick to fight. They were also more jealous than other men. “They tended to dislike following rules,” Flegr said in one interview.

Lemme get this straight ...

They make women like to shop, wear makeup, and have sex with lots of different men. And it causes men -- the same men who can easily fashion a working computer out of a coffee pot, a Furbee and a digital watch (really - this can be done)-- to be utterly flummoxed by the concept of using an iron. And makes them physiologially incapable of asking for directions.

In other words, they've finally discovered the cause of heterosexuality.

The funny thing about this virus is that it starts in rats, causing them to have an inexplicable attraction to cats. The rats loose the instinct to fear cats, so the cats eat the rats, which are a Trojan Horse, getting the intracellular protazoa into the host they really wanted all along (the cats, not ancient Troy). The effects on humans are totally secondary, but somewhat similar - after all, human brains and rat brains -- according to people who, unlike me, did not cheat their way through AP Biology -- are structurally rather similar, as demonstrated in studies conducted on current White House cabinet members.

Women infected with T Gondii, in particular, seem to be more fearless. Not only are they not afraid of rats, they actually date them. But a girl can't help it.

They say that 50% of the population in the U.S., and closer to 80% in France (buht of corze!) and Germany are infected. Are we heading towards a future full of promiscuous, well-dressed women living alongside poorly groomed men with a jealous streak? And if this is true, how will we tell???

Will our bad behavior be excused with doctor's note?

"Honey, it wasn’t me – I didn’t want to buy all those clothes at Bergdorf's, but I had to have something to wear for when I went to that hotel to meet all your friends to make that video that's been going around the internet. It's not like a wanted to, but my parasites, you know how randy they get after I go shopping ..."

2006-01-27T20:17:00.000-08:00

One of the best things about being married or in a long-term relationship is that you don't feel any great pressure to be doing something cool on a Friday night. Tonight, for example, I am posting pictures of lasagna on the internet.

You see, I just figured out how to post photos on a blog! I realize this should not be so difficult, and yet ...I thought maybe you had to host them on one of those other internets. Besides, I never post photos of myself because in virtually every photo ever taken of me, food seems to be falling out of my mouth. Even when I'm not eating at the time the photo was taken. It's rather odd. So I figured I'd just cut to the chase and post photos of the food.

The above is my mother-in-law's amazing lasagna, which she prepared on our recent visit to San Luis Obispo. Vita's parents both came from Sicily, and so her lasagna and red sauce come from some 500-year-old family recipe. Sigh. I wish I were Mediterranian.

The morning after said lasagna. Paul always waits until I have no makeup on and am in mid-sentence and/or am chewing to take pictures.

Here is a great picture of me, except that I'm not in it. Scenic Morro Bay in CA.

Me and Francis, pre-op, when he was still Frances (in July), before we found out he'd have to be neutered instead of spayed.

Paul and kittens, which are now cats, but I can't find the new photos. The gist of it is: they're bigger.

One last San Luis Obispo picture from Xmas. I like how every picture in california involves a "vista." Growing up in a flat part of the world, I'm totally amazed by mountains. Maybe it's just boob envy.

"I"m a deeply shallow person"

2006-01-26T07:03:00.000-08:00

- Andy Warhol

I’m sorry if I’m in a bad mood, but it’s that time of month. By that, I mean - the end of it. The time when my ATM receipt reads “Available Balance: $1.27.” You see, at my new job I only get paid once a month, which is both good and bad. That is, it’s good for local retailers, but bad for me personally. At the beginning of the month, when I have plenty of cash, I go into Barney's and think, "$175 for a jar face cream? Gee, I can't afford not to buy two!" Three and a half weeks later, I go into the grocery store and think, "$1.19 for a can of tuna? Who do they think we are, Rockefellers?" So instead I buy the discount brand tuna that "may contain pork bi-products."

Around the 26th of every month, the ATM becomes my nemesis. I have this whole imaginary conversation with the receipt, which seems to form an origami mouth that hovers in mid-air, talking to me.

Your own fault, you know… the receipt tells me. Its voice is strangely reminiscent of KITT, the surly Trans Am from “Knight Rider.” (Unrelated question: was KITT supposed to be gay? By that, I mean NO offense to the gay Trans Am community - some of my best friends are gay cars. I’m just saying, it just seemed like they gave KITT a bit of an ‘exasperated waiter’ inflection. I was a little kid at the time, so I don’t really remember the premise of the show - clearly thought up by someone inhaling giant piles of blow - but it might have actually been “Can a straight man and a gay car live together in the same apartment?”) Anyway.

Shoulda managed your money better, my receipt says, in a tisk-tisk tone.

What do you know, you’re just a receipt!

There’s really no need to make this personal, the receipt counters. If you don’t like receipts, well, that’s your issue.

That’s not true! I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t – I – you know, some of my best friends are bank receipts.

Anyway ...

I love luxury items. But I mean really love – in that deep-down sense; the simple, unambiguous pleasure that only comes from extremely shallow things. Being shallow gets a bad wrap, because there are people who actually judge others on, say, the kind of shoes they wear or what kind of car they drive. This is of course stupid and wrong. If you have to judge people at all, it should be on the basis of their personal integrity, and/or their handbags. Just kidding, of course. Personal integrity is way overrated.

Okay, even if you don't want to admit it, you've probably felt the blood-lust that comes from wanting a certain stupid, ridiculous item, be it clothing, a car, or, say, a flat-panel 37-inch television so that you can play your video games in HDTV, even though you're almost 34 and your wife would rather have a new bed, which you could have gotten for the same price (love you, honey). For instance, you never want anything in the way you want a specific outfit when you're a teenage girl. She will remember every detail of The Outfit (however ridiculous it will inevitably seem in future decades) long after she’s forgotten the last name of the boy whose attention she hoped to get by wearing it. I was talking with my mother-in-law, Vita, about this during our recent trip to California. She was telling me about a “winter white” wool skirt suit that she got for Christmas when she was 16. That year, winter white was what all the girls had to have. The way she described it, I could feel how much she wanted that suit, and how happy – how relieved she must have been when she finally got it. Although we don’t like to admit it, urgency of the “must have” item du jour applies just as much to the soi-disant "smart" girls (read: no boobs) such as myself who spent their free time in high school writing ironic essays about Ionesco, perhaps to make up for lack of cleavage.

Vita is one of the more intelligent and unpretentious people you’re likely to meet, so it was nice to know that even women like her go ga-ga over clothes as teenagers. I sort of never graduated out of that phase (I think the technical term is "maturity"). The women in my family are all Southern, and hence we all pretty much live for "puttin' on the dog" (getting all gussied up). I think this phrase must have originated when some lady in Georgia, after a few afternoon drinks (it's fo' o'clock somewhah, darlin'), mistook her terrier for a mink stole.

I know it's silly, but I love walking home up Madison Avenue, so that I can press my face up against the windows of the boutiques (no, I don't mean metaphorically), staring at the dazzling, ridiculously expensive clothes. Even though can’t afford them, I’m genuinely glad that somebody can. There’s something comforting about knowing that there are women out there who can go into Bergdorf's and try on that silk and alumninum ball gown - the kind of thing that makes no sense except in a store window - and actually buy it. More importantly, they have somewhere to wear it.

The other day, at Barney’s, I fell in love with a navy blue, see-thru knit sundress. There are many things wrong with this concept, but they were negated by the fact that if you looked closely, you might have noticed that the scallops along the hem of the dress were actually the wings of upside-down dragonflies, woven into the fabric. It would have been the perfect thing to wear at a semi-formal pool party (?) where nobody was actually going in a pool, on an evening that was not too cold (knit, after all) nor too hot (hello, see-thru?), where nobody was offended by partial nudity, in a world where I had much bigger boobs and smaller thighs.

A bargain, really, at $2,000. The thing is, if you can afford that dress, you know where that party is.

Back in the real world, I don’t have anywhere to wear a see-though knit sundress. Nor do I have $2,000. But, hello – dragonflies!

I didn’t buy the dress, of course. But I take comfort in knowing that someone knows where that party is, and she’s going to wear that dress. And she will look out over the shallow pool, among shallow people, and she will know that the bottom of her dress, know that there are dragonflies hiding, upside down ... spinning in infinity, I say hey, hall-e-lu-jah ...

The Picaresque (not a new, hot band, although maybe it should be)

2006-01-21T12:53:00.000-08:00

The world is so taken up of late with novels and romances, that it will be hard for a private history to be taken for genuine, where the names and other circumstances of the person are concealed, and on this account we must be content to leave the reader to pass his own opinion upon the ensuing sheet, and take it just as he pleases.

- from the author's preface to Moll Flanders.

To add to the whole discussion about whether or not the actual life experiences of an author are relavant to the text, and in response to econoclast's comment about Daniel Defoe framing his novels as "true stories," I decided to re-read "Moll Flanders," which is my favorite Defoe novel. To be honest, I'm not sure if Defoe posited (DISCLAIMER: being in English-major-dork mode, I am required to say "he posited" when in fact I mean "he said") that the stories were really-truly real, or just "real," wink-wink. I could research it, but if memory serves, I'm inclined to go with the latter. I studied the early novel rather extensively in college, but at the time I also enjoyed many recreational pharmaceuticals, which might have caused me to confuse Daniel Defoe with Willem Defoe, or for that matter caused me to confuse the oeuvre of Daniel Defoe with my left buttock. (Not that I would grossly exaggerate about my use of drugs, because that would be wrong. I was, however, in prison in 3 states, unlike that liar James Frey. Hence the tear I have tattooed under my eye, for the homeys I cut down in prison).

Daniel Defoe clearly wanted Moll Flanders to be sympathetic and taken seriously, which she remains despite her "thieving and whoring." Moll Flanders is a classic of the picaresque tradition, which is one of my all-time favorites. For those of you who might not be familiar with the picaresque, because you were smart enough to study subjects that might allow you to "get a real job," and "have more than $1.27 in net assets," a picareque novel is essentially a story in which a social underdog type travels around and has varied adventures, while offering a satirical commentary on the events and people he/she encouters. In Defoe's novels in particular, the main character always achieves a kind of redemption, usually of a religious nature, in the end.

What occured to me is that novelists and "memoirists" like James Frey and JT Leroy are, essentially, the direct heirs to the 17th-century picaresque. Their characters are margnialized by addiction, cross-dressing, prostitution, or all of the above; they travel around the United States and act as the moral arbiters (ahem)of their circumstances. Leroy's oeuvre, which is just a stupid French world for "oeuvre," would have been a biting commentary on child prostitution in West Virginia, or something, if only it were even remotely true. (While the author never said these stories were nonfiction, the idea that it was based on actual life experiences was strongly implied by the author, publisher, and others.)

The moral salvation which occurs at the end of either Leroy or Frey's works (either through rehab, or moving in with a social worker and her cross-dressing husband, etc.) simply reinforces the eerie ties between these novels and Defoe's picaresque. Defoe, after all, was raised and educated by puritans, and Moll Flanders spends a part of her time in the plantations in the new colonies of Maryland and Virginia. Because Defoe's father was a Dissenter (essentially, a Puritan), and even though he was as English as bad teeth, I would posit that, in a sense, his were not just among the first novels, but among the first American novels. (As an aside, it's like how Modern American English is structurally more similar to 17th c. English than Modern British patterns of speech, in the way that people in Montreal or Dakkar sound more like 17th c. Frenchmen than the modern French, because the language in the colonies remained more attached to this older structure.) The structure and sensibility of Defoe's works was even a moral and aesthetic precursor to 21st Century American televison and film. For instance, Moll Flanders arguably has a 3-act structure, sort of like, say, Pretty Woman, and other feel-good hooker/drug addict/gruff-but-lovable football coach movies. So begins tradition of the "very important lesson" that Arnold or Willis has to learn on every episode of "Differ'nt Strokes."

Defoe's novels were popular, in part, because he exposed the "underbelly" of society. Fortunately for him, they didn't have a lot of editorial fact checkers in the 17th/18th centuries. I'm pretty sure that any actual women in Moll Flanders' circumsatnces in that time and place would have had a much less riviting, much more drudgery-filled existance, and probably died of syphillis or consumption long before she achieved fame and fortune enough to look back on it all and have a moral epiphany. The details of Defoe's characters' lives were rather racy for the time, and even now, in parts, they read like pulp fiction. But the important thing, for Defoe, was the rather simplistic (and very puritanical) redemption the characters must experience in the end. In JT Leroy's case, this redemtion is mostly extra-textual (not to be confused with "extra-terrestrial"), because we're to believe that the "real" character is actaully now living with a couple and their child in San Francisco (which is true, as she's the 40-year-old housewife/mother in this scenerio).

Although we all like the idea that a novel or story should exist on its own merit, sometimes the text interacts with fictions that are outside the actual text (or, "extra-terrestrial"), to the extent that the author's persona becomes somehow central to the denouement. Which of course is just a pretentious French word for "denouement."

On a web site called Bookslut, someone named Litsa Dremousis says:

It was two years ago, the night I finished Sarah, LeRoy's 2000 tale of a boy who becomes a "lot lizard" (truck stop whore) to compete with his mother, assuming her identity in the mouths and arms of tricks. In his quest for a bigger raccoon bone (a signal to others of his prowess as a whore) "Cherry Vanilla" endures rape, beatings, and the ritual shearing of his hair. Abandoned by his mother and forsaken by his pimp, he is alone and desecrated because he had the hubris to want a better life. I sobbed until I threw up.

Hyperbolic, much? Litsa then goes on to tell us:

LeRoy's reviews are uniformly spectacular, but reporters fixate on his friendships with Madonna and Winona Ryder, his penchant for female attire, and his years as a prostitute. Insightful readers, though, tune out the hype like so much static. They know LeRoy's work is the stuff of cave painters -- ash and blood -- and that he crawls through the same dark, jagged spaces to create.

AND YET ... when it comes to her first question for the author (in a telephone interview, of course), her FIRST question - and clearly the one she most urgently needs answered, is: Did you guys have a wrap party for the film ["The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things"]?

HELLO? Your FIRST QUESTION is about a celebrity party that has nothing to do with the "ash and blood" of the novel you SOOOOO love! OMG! What is this, Tiger Beat? Of course, "Leroy" doesn't seem vexed, but is quick to note that Chloe Sevigny did get past the bouncers, even though they wanted to keep her out. I hate to say it, but Laura Albert is a fcuking genius. Not a genius as a writer, by any stretch, but she should sell this shit to the Guggenheim as a big, weird, strangely beautiful "installation."

I could go on and on on the subject, but I won't. I was really hankering to go off on JT Leroy/ Laura Albert's position as a woman-as-man-wanting-to-be-a-woman as it relates to "l'ecriture feminine" and post-structuralist feminist thought on language and identity, but I restrained myself, thankyouverymuch.

Next time, I promise to go back to writing about frivilous sh*t, such as why I don't have any money left this month.

J.K. Rowling's "Hogwarts" exposed as a fake ...

2006-01-20T10:32:00.000-08:00

I'm becoming downright disillusioned. First, we find out that James Frey is a serial exaggerator. Then, we find out that JT Leroy isn't really a dude pretending to be a woman pretending to be a Boy George impersonator.

NOW they tell me that J.K. Rowling, author of the "Harry Potter" series, didn't really discover a magical boarding school where precocious wizards-in-training fight the forces of evil. And to think that I actaully cared when Dumbledore died! Had I known it was fiction, I wouldn't have given a rat's ass. Now I'm going to have to retract those harshly worded letters I wrote to my senators about the looming threat of He Who Must Not Be Named.

Confession: I am the real JT Leroy

2006-01-14T12:35:00.000-08:00

If you've already received your latest copy of Transsexual Drug Addict Literary Weekly (dba,The New York Times), you were undoubtedly shocked and dismayed to learn that, last week, not one but two supposed strung-out literary boy wonders were exposed to be, tragically, much less fcuked up than they claimed.

First, we find out that Oprah’s pet addict du jour, James Frey, wasn’t 100% honest about the details of his life as an outlaw who was “wanted in three states” (ahem, for outstanding parking tickets). He spent a few hours in jail, instead of a few months. Instead of being addicted to crack, he *technically* meant he was “addicted” to “those cinnamon raisin scones at Starbucks, which are so yummy, they’re like crack.” And he also lied about the part where he said he was a dude, but in fact he’s a 40-year-old mother and housewife. Oops – wait a minute. That was JT Leroy.

As it turns out, the "gender-blurring wunderkind" JT Leroy was neither transgendered, nor male, nor 17 when he wrote his first novel, nor a former child prostitute pimped out to truckers in rural West Virginia. The real author of the novels is, by all evidence, a mother and housewife named Laura Albert, whose knowledge of cross-dressing child prostitutes in West Virgina truck stops might have been loosely based on a very special episode of "The Dukes of Hazard."

As a real transsexual drug addict and former truck stop prostitute, I find this revelation particularly offensive. Coincidentally, my story is more or less the exact inverse of JT Leroy’s. See, I’m actually a 17-year-old MTF ex-junky from West Virginia, pretending to be a 30-ish married woman on the Upper East Side of New York.

Because I am, in fact, a 17-year-old former prostitute, I could see a lot of inconsistencies in the work of JT Leroy. Critics had the literary equivalent of a cheap orgasm over Leroy’s novels and stories, calling them “real” and “brutally accurate” and “ooooh! I felt just like I was back in the truck stop in West Virginia!” Of course, the author (whomever he or she may be) was banking on the fact that about 100% of the people who read art-house fiction have never, ever been to a truck stop in West Virgina – and they never will. For all Dave Eggers knows, there could be an entire subculture of redneck truckers who get off on fcuking 12-year-old boys dressed up like plush female aardvarks. No, wait, Dave – get this – they also drug these kids and they steal – I mean, they eat their kidneys (deep fried, of course – we know how dem Suth’ners are …) while having sex with them!

For all Dave knows, this is a growing crisis that should be addressed by a Congressional Task Force. Of course, if any of Leroy’s readers had ever worked a truck stop in West Virginia (and remember – I have), a few inconsistencies might’ve jumped out at them. For one thing, in his novel, Sarah, one of the main characters is his pimp who turns out to be an all ‘round great guy. As a 17-year-old transgendered prostitute, I’ve had plenty of pimps, and I can assure you that they never, ever have a “heart of gold.”

But even if I were a 31-year-old married woman living in New York, which I certainly am not, you’d think I might be able to figure that out. Another red flag comes from the question of how a homeless kid who left middle school to become a prostitute has such advanced expository writing skills, not to mention a broad knowledge of the works of literary-elite authors such as Mary Gaitskill and Dennis Cooper. He does at least make an effort to explain this, telling us that his San Francisco johns influenced his literary tastes. (WTF???)

Okay, again – even if I were a heterosexual woman who had never been an underage prostitute - a big "if" - I might at least suspect that men who are paying for sex in public restrooms aren’t all that interested in sticking around to discuss Schopenhauer in the afterglow. I mean, I’ve heard of a literary whore, but this is taking it a bit too far.

Women writing under men’s names is nothing new – George Eliot, George Sands, and now, by the looks of “JT Leroy,” Boy George. Laura Albert, writing a fiction about truck stop prostitution in West Virginia, however “brilliant” and “honest” it may be, would probably never have been published in the first place had it been known that she was a 30-something educated, heterosexual woman and not a homeless, transgendered 16-year-old.

It’s a tired, cliché question from Lit 101 class – does the identity and biography of the artist matter, or does art exist on its own merit? In theory, if JT Leroy or James Frey’s work is so "honest," and "beautiful," what the hell difference does it make if any of it ever happened? (Of course, it should be noted that JT Leroy never claimed that his/her work was anything other than fiction, although the persona created around the author was clearly a huge part of the author’s mystique, because most of his "fans," such as Courtney Love, never read his books; in Courtney's case she has the excuse that she doesn't actually know how to read.)

The realpolitik of the current publishing world is that packaging and marketing is a an integral extention, if not actually a part of the work itself. These days, the “truth,” no matter how contrived, seems to have more merit than a work of the imagination. But we don’t want real reality, we want the sexier, better-looking kind that only fiction can create. And an integral part of the fiction is that it must sustain the illusion of “reality;” In other words, we insist on reality, but only in quotation marks. James Frey, after all, couldn’t even sell his novel about a drug addict, but he made $5 million re-packaging the same text as the “truth.”

We don’t care what the truth is; we know we’re being lied to constantly; we want to be lied to. We like it. More to the point, we insist on it. People just don’t approve when confronted with the distasteful notion that “the truth” is, in fact, in quotation marks. Case in point: the unabashedly fictionalized Weapons of Mass Destruction that led to the war in Iraq. They didn’t even try very hard to cover up the fact that it was all a lie, because they knew that we had given our consent to be lied to. Fortunately, Saddam Hussein never claimed to be a transsexual prostitute, or there might have been more of a scandal.

2006-01-09T21:09:00.000-08:00

I'm going to get up at 5:30 in the morning, and meditate, do some yoga, and then sit down and churn out several chapters of thoughtful and salient prose before running around the resevoir in Central Park, after which I will enjoy a bowl of homemade muesli in front of the windowsill as I watch the sun rise over the alternate universe in which I might get around to doing such a thing.

But, seriously - tomorrow I am getting up early. Mark my words. I'm going to do all the stuff I've been meaning to do for the past month/decade. I'm going to write meaningful handwritten letters to long-lost friends, on paper that I fashion by hand from colorful scraps of paper that are already lying around the house. This would take about 1/203344th the amount of time I spend developing an ulcer and biting myself (it's a thing) over not ever keeping in touch with people due to lack of artistic homemade stationary.

The thing is, the longer you wait to write letters, emails, etc. the more perfect and delightful they really have to be, to make up for their lateness.

This is one reason why I still haven't finished writing the thank you notes for our wedding gifts. The ones I've put off are the those for which I wanted to write an extra-special note to express my gratitude.

A haiku:

asparagus tongs
grasping the delicious stalks
I want to eat them.

I decided that if I could churn out an actual sonnet for each gift, the lateness would be forgiven. Unfortunatley, here's not much that rhymes with "3-speed blender." Maybe a limerick? Heck, if I could churn out a villanelle - that would so trump the whole late thing.

Regardless, I'm going to get up early in the morning and do stuff. Paul laughs as I say that, because, of course, I say it every night, and every morning I sleep until 8:15 and then eat breakfast while showering and getting dressed, all at the same time. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results. Although, technically, I think the clinical definition of insanity has something to do with writing a haiku about aspargus tongs.

Galette des Rois

2006-01-05T16:48:00.000-08:00

One of my new year's resolutions is to blog more often. It was either that or "get out of debt" or "go to the gym regularly" or "volunteer to help the less fortunate." Aftr some deliberation, I settled on 1) blogging more and 2) enjoying more quality teen dramas on the WB network. Maybe I can combine the two, and blog about teen dramas on the WB network?

On an entirely unrelated note, I didn't win the fève.

Yesterday at work, we had a "Galette des Rois" party (I work for a French school, so there are a lot of parties). The galette is a sort of puff pastry that the French eat once a year, in celebration of some obscure religious holiday that may or may not have to do with Jerry Lewis. Hidden in the galette is the "fève," a little porcelin thingy, usually just large enough to block the wind pipe. This year it was a tiny cow, which may or may not be significant to the holiday in question. Whoever gets the slice with the lucky charm in it is supposed to have good luck all year long, unless of course they accidentally choke on it and die.

Over the years, I've heard at least 300 different versions of why the French eat the Galette des Rois. It's kind of like daylight savings time - everyone has a different explanation for why it occurs, but none of them make a damn bit of sense. In theory, the Galette des Rois has something to do with Epiphany, but that's another one of those things that nobody can explain. I bet, if cornered, the Pope himself would be stumped if he were on Jeopardy! and the answer to the Daily Double was What is Epiphany? Supposedly it has something to do with the kings that came to see baby Jesus. Now, I'm no biblical scholar, but I always thought the kings were there from the get-go? At least, that's the way it's usually depicted in the manger scenes at the mall, in front of Sears. Does this mean that the three kings got there late? Maybe they had to stop off at Discount Francensense & Myrrh Emporium, but it was a madhouse being Christmas, so they got stuck on the freeway, except they forgot that that excuse wouldn't really work for a few centuries still.

Maybe one of the kings had his kids with him, making it the first-ever Christmas family road trip. Maybe, after being asked, "are we there yet" one time too many, the king turned around to the princes in the back seat. "Do you want me to turn this camel around right now?" It being early on and all, the young princes didn't realize it was an idle threat. "Yes! Please take us home so that we can enjoy whatever it is that we do in this world without video games or TV!"

So, for the first and last time in history, the father actually turned around, and went back home. Little did he know that two thousand some-odd years later, people would not even know that he was the reason they were choking on a little porcelin cow.

Extreeeeeeeme Scrabble

2006-01-03T19:31:00.000-08:00

Last night, Paul and I played a game of "Extreme Scrabble" before going to bed (contrary to the rumors, this somewhat dangerous pasttime has nothing to do with how he broke his arm). Extreme Scrabble is just like regular Scrabble, but each player can only take 2 minutes for each turn (that, and it has the word "Extreeeeeeeeme!" in front of it).

Entirely Unrelated Sidenote: Far too many things are coming in Extreeeeeme! versions lately, if you ask me. Ironically, in most cases this appellation only makes sense if you add "sucks in the ..." in front of it. Usually, "Extreeeeeeeme!" simply means that additional food coloring and/or high fructose corn syrup has been gratuitously added to soda, burritos, frisbees, etc. I'm just waiting for the Frisbee Burrito - it's extreeeeeeeme! Throw it!/Eat it!/ Throw it up!!! Your vomit glows in the dark! (Have you ever noticed how TV announcers always speak as if every other word were BOLD ITALICIZED!!!!?) Sadly, the Frisbee Burrito could never happen, because Frisbee is a registered trademark, so they'd have to call it "Extreeeeeme Novelty Flying Disc Burrito!" which just doesn't have the same ring.

Anyway, back to Scrabble. Paul and I have often said, in a tone that imitates joking, that if we were ever to divorce, there's a strong chance that the statement: "quim is NOT a real word!/ YES IT IS!!!" would be cited under "reason for divorce." However, that is not the moral of this particular story.

We were about 15 minutes into the game when Paul threw down "Hoax" on a triple word score with a double letter on the "x," for a total of 66 points. Because we were playing the quick, or, extreeeeeeme! version, so most of my words were a measly 5 or 10 points, so this put him in the lead by about 80 points. Naturally, I felt like "accidentally" turning over the board. Ooops! And then "inadvertently" stomping on it before letting all the letters fly, by "mistake," out of my hands and through the window, little wooden snowflakes of consonants and vowels falling down into the cold hard streets of a bewildered city.

Not that I'm a poor looser.

It seemed, at that point, that I'd might as well quit. So I put down throw-away words, just wanting the whole thing to be over. Then, I got the Q. Then the U. "Queer" in a triple word score! From there, more possibilties started to open up. To make a long story short, because it just occured to me that I'm telling a story about Scrabble --- yes, that's what I'm doing --- I ended up with 249 points at the end of the game, compared to Paul's 237. Yes, children - I won. It was like one of those inspiring movies about an plucky inner city football team that teaches their grizzled white coach an important lesson about why corporal punishment is entirely justifiable.

Anyway, I learned a very important lesson, which was, obviously, that I really am a total dork. And that's ... okay.

2006-01-01T20:47:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year and crap! Today, P and I started the New Year off right by watching about 15 hours of network television and eating gratuitously over-fried food ordered from 3 Guys diner (I think they even fried the napkins). The nice thing about New York city is that you can go for days, weeks even, without ever having to put on pants.

Being slightly hung over, or possibly still drunk, or possibly just stupid, it seemed like a good idea to watch Zoolander, which came on TBS for the 10,003rd time this weekend. Zoolander was actually the high point of our cinematic journey today, which ended with King Kong Lives! (orignially, and more appropriately entitled King Kong Blows!).

In King Kong Lives!, we discover that King Kong never actually died when he fell off the Empire State building. Instead, he was taken to Atlanta, to the famous Center for the Advancement of City-Attacking Giant Gorillas(CACAGG), which may or may not be owned by Ted Turner. Apparently, the great ape had developed a heart condition as a result of being shot down by airplanes (although he might have also been taking Vioxx). All the leading minds in the field of City-Attacking Gorilla Cardiology were hard at work trying to develop an artificial heart for the ailing Kong.

The situation looks bleak until hunters stumble upon a female King Kong (Queen Kong?) in Borneo, perhaps running down a beach with her hair in corn rows. She looks just like King Kong, except that she looks even more like a guy in a bad monkey suit. In a very moving turn of events, the two giant gorillas (who look like they should be wearing a sandwich board on 42nd Street, advertizing a Monster Appliance Sale), end up falling in love. Kong is fortunately able to put Ann Darrow behind him, perhaps after going on Dr. Phil to resolve his issues with dating his own species.

The whole story line didn't make much sense, but it did have its moments. My favorite line in the movie - possibly my favorite line in any movie, ever, was when Linda Hamilton (as the sexy giant-gorilla-artificial-heart-transplant-specialist), following Mr. and Mrs. Kong through the woods, opens her sleeping bag to the blond hunter dude, saying (AND I QUOTE), After all, we're primates, too.

That was rad.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, New Year's eve was good. We went to a party at Helen and Fletcher's super-fabulous loft in Greenpoint, guest starring Morgan and Sheri, who moved to Seattle a few months ago. There was a chocolate fountain and ridiculous quantities of champagne and other inebriants, such as deep-fried irish sausages, and several live bands (including Paul's band Live Girls!!!, exclamation points included). Bands with members who aren't afraid to take off their clothes on stage are inherently better than bands where everyone necessarily feels the need to remain dressed. That's my official position on the matter, anyway.

The Accident, continued ...

2005-12-03T10:29:00.000-08:00

This month, I did NOT help the 90-pound laundress down the stairs when she came to collect our bag of laundry, which was about the size and weight (and, I daresay, smell) of a mature rhinosceros. I learned a very valuable lesson the last time she came to pick up the laundry - a lesson that a more astute New Yorker might have learned from many years of watching sitcoms. That lesson, of course, is: helping other people can only end badly.

So, Paul's accident. I don't think I ever told the whole story, but be forewarned - it involves a lot of references to both Saturday morning cartoons and sitcoms, which some people may find troubling. I know I do. Believe me, if you're ever rushed to the hospital, you don't want to say to your spouse, "remember that episode where Homer gets dropped out of the ambulance and down the cliff?"

Let's rewind to the moment where I finally got into the apartment after ringing the buzzer with what was, in retrospect, perhaps excessive vigor for about five straight minutes, not realizing that Paul was lying on the floor with his arm broken in 3 places after slipping on the wood floors while running out of the shower to get the door. (Diagram that sentence, kids ...). Fast forward over 15 very long minutes to the point where an ambulance was blocking Humvee owners on their way down to Wall Street to buy more XOM stock, horns blowing with outrage at the thought of anyone having a medical emergency during rush hour.

The EMT team consisted of a burly, yet very jovial guy named Rafael, and a small, humorless woman with a Scandinavian (or possibly Eastern European) accent, who mumbled that her name was something that sounded like 'Vulva'.

Later, while writhing in pain in the emergency room, Paul would look at me in a morphine-induced haze and ask, "Did she say her name was Vulva?

"Not sure - but I think so."

"Wasn't this a Seinfeld episode?"

And that's when it occured to me - our lives are really just a shadowy series of references to moments in syndicated TV shows. Like the "Cave Analogy" from the Platonic dialogues. Or was that from The Flintstones?

The EMTs struck me as a pairing of characters from two different shows, like in one of those ill-concieved "crossover" episodes that sometimes happened in the 80s, wherein one of the kids from "Fat Albert" would show up, in character, on "Knots Landing." The female EMT (or, She-MT) was Natasha from Bullwinkle, dry, humorless and possibly diabolical. Meanwhile, her male counterpart was from one of those UPN shows where the fun-loving bachelor is suddenly saddled with 6 kids when his distant cousin dies.

Raphael and Vulva seemed to have a whole schtick worked out; it was as if someone had written it all out beforehand. He was the funny one, she was the straight man. As if some imaginary director was yelling out, "play up the laughs about the sponge baths!" and then, "you, Vulva, you really diapprove - give him the evil eye. Come on - give me some anger ...".

Raphael had clearly been an EMT for a while, and didn't seem at all phazed by the site of a half-naked, wet, seriously injured guy lying in the foyer of an apartment. He probalby encountered this sort of situation all the time, responding to calls where someone forgot the "safety word."

"Nice place," he said, as if he were an old buddy who just stopped by for a beer, in a world where wet naked broken-limbed dudes were a normal part of the decor in any apartment. "Are these oak floors?"

Vulva, meanwhile, looked worried and pale, studying Paul's arm as if it were the most gruesome and terrifying thing she'd ever seen. It was she who decided that Paul absolutely must be put onto a contraption they called a "surfboard" - an orange gurney intended to immoblilze the spine. There was absolutely no indication that Paul had hurt his back, but EMTs are trained to take this precaution just in case the patient might have the number of a particularly crafty attorney.

This presented a bit of a problem. You see, men strapped onto surfboards are notoriously hard to get over a bannister and down a flight of stairs in a New York apartment building. A "boogey board," maybe, but a full surf board presents a serious logistical challenge. We encountered similar difficulties getting our 500-pound couch in and out of the apartment, an operation which took several hours and the combined mental and physical strenth of four strapping Ukrainian men who looked like they should have been fighting Rocky in the final days of the cold war. Rafael seemed up to the task, although Vulva looked like she might get a hernia if she picked up a bigger-than-average hamster.

When the time came, Raphael picked up the head end of the board as if there weren't even a 175+ pound injured man lying on it. The waifish Vulva was assigned to the foot-end. She grunted and groaned, as if she were trying to pick up a Volkswagen van. It didn't budge.

Granted, she was a very thin, small woman, but not nearly as small or thin as the laundry woman I'd felt so badly for, who had thrown the 100 pound bag over her shoulder like the Jolly Green Giant After much discussion, it was decided that they would just drag him over to the top of the stairs, and, well ... push.

Push him down the stairs? I said, as Paul turned a distinct shade of green. Now, I don't have any training as a medical professional, but pushing a man with a broken arm down a flight of stairs strikes me as a questionable idea. A whole discussion ensued between Raphael and Vulva, who sounded more like two movers trying to haul a sleeper sofa out of the apartment, not realizing that the sleeper sofa was in fact listening to the conversation while he turned a deeper shade of green.

"Maybe use the bannister as a (gesturing) - how do you say.."

"A see-saw?" Rafael suggested. "No, a lever!"

"Or is it fulcrum?" I heard myself adding to this very warped version of "Pictionary."

"Yeah, but how do we get him up onto the bannister?" Raphael countered. "Maybe I could just prop him up and ..."

At this point, our next door neighbor, an elderly Russian lady named Mrs. Kimble, came out to find out what was going on. It was the first of several hundred times we would tell the story. There was originally a longer version, now I just say, "shower, doorbell, wood floor, ouch!"

"Ach," said Mrs. Kimble. "This exact same same thing happens to my friend Ruth, only last month." Meanwhile, the EMTs were trying unsuccessfully to get Paul out the door. "Ruth - just like your husband! - she is in the bathtub, and then she is falling down and broke her hip. They say she may not walk anymore afterwards."

Being compared to a 90-year-old lady might not have been the most comforting thing for Paul, but Mrs. Kimble didn't notice. "My friend she must go to Beth Israel for hip replacement, where they take an artificial hip and ..."

Vulva interrupted. "Madam, we must get him to Ambulance." I gave Mrs. Kimble a look intended to convey, "if she hadn't so rudely interrupted, I'd have loved to learn more about the pros and cons of hip replacement surgery ...."

Fortunately, we only live on the second floor of a brownstone, which has a somewhat wider staircase that your average Manhattan apartment. Still, much maneuvering was required to get Paul out the door and over the bannister, in position to go down the stairs. Unfortunately, this was happening at the time of morning when most people in New York are leaving for work. I hate to admit it, but I had to wonder what the neighbors would think.

At this point, Paul was also wearing a precautionary neck and head brace, to protect against possible law suits. Strapped onto the gurney, he looked like he had been pulled from the bottom car in a flaming Interstate pile-up caused by a driver who did not appropriately signal, a disgruntled man with a cop moustache inevitably explains as you watch the cautionary video in Driver's Ed class. I imagined the neighbors wondering what anyone could possibly have done, short of not signaling on the highway, to end up in a plastic body cast, unclothed, and strapped onto a stretcher. Fortunately, we don't own any gerbils. It would have just made the whole thing look a lot worse.

To be continued ...

The Accident, Part 1

2005-10-31T18:39:00.000-08:00

Since I last updated this blog, I have become not only older, but wizer. For instance, I recently learned that New York City ambulances take nearly 15 minutes to arrive at your door.

I further learned that 15 minutes can be a really, really, really long time. I also learned that it is hard - albeit not impossible - to get pants onto someone who is lying on the floor, sopping wet, with a visibly broken arm. You see, my husband, Paul, slipped while running out of the shower to answer the doorbell, which was ringing rather incessantly.

"Just imagine how the person who was ringing the doorbell must feel," tisked a rather grizzled ER nurse.

I did my best impression of someone who wouldn't have any idea.

It wasn't worth telling the whole story, which starts with the 4 foot, 70 pound non-English-speaking woman they sent to pick up our 300 pounds of laundry. She was literally dwarfed by our giant piles of dirty clothing, which me feel a bit - well, dirty. And not just because I hadn't washed a load of underwear in a week. Okay, a month. (Those of you who live in New York, and hence don't have a washer-dryer, you will withhold judgement.) But I also felt just a bit Dickensean-villan dirty. I could just imagine the young woman coming to America, wide-eyed and hopeful, only to have her dreams, by which I mean her major organs, crushed by a giant pile of ironic t-shirts.

Shuddering, I decided to help Immigrant Laundress with the laundry, to prove that we are in fact not all like the people who force her younger siblings assemble anatomically correct "Sponge Bob Square Pants" novelty items in a poorly ventilated factory. No! Americans, even New Yorkers, are nice, goddamit.

I helped I.L. drag the laundry out to her cart. But unfortunatly, I didn't think to bring my keys, and double-unfortunately, the second front door (we usually have two front doors here, non-New Yorkers) locked behind me, even though the lock has been broken, literally, for as long as we've lived there. I guess they fixed it. Now I know.

So, I was cold and annoyed and locked out, and so I pressed the door buzzer. There was no immediate response, so I pressed it again. And again and again and A-GAIN!!! (I have a similar strategy for dealing with virtually all technology-related problems.) I though maybe Paul was just in the shower, and didn't hear me. Regrettably, I didn't realize that he was instead writhing on the floor in mortal pain. Again - now, I know.

Amazingly, Paul doesn't blame me at all, but I really wouldn't blame him if he did ENTIRELY blame the laundry service.

Other bits of wisdom gathered over the past week:

Sponge baths - just NOT as sexy as they sound. For either party involved.

A Bidet, and a Lot of Hope

2005-09-25T14:04:00.000-07:00

First, what's up with the sudden spamming of the "comments" section of blogs? Some automated mechanism keeps leaving these comments, like: "Great information here! Check out my blog to find out how to enlarge your penis. AND get a 50% discount on 'Precious Moments' figurines!"

OMG!!!

So, I recently started a new job at a French lycee (which is a school, not to be confused with those pink, syrupy nuts one finds on the dessert menu in certain Chinese restaurants). It's another job doing fund development, only this time for the benefit of extremely rich kids. My last job was rather miserable, and caused me to spiral into a black hole of depression, although working for a charity in East Harlem was arguably doing more to "help humanity" than my current job. Although, technically, extremely rich kids are also a part of humanity, which is something to consider. Also, I am a part of humanity, and I'm being helped considerably by having more money and 5 weeks vacation each year.

School just started in September, but we already have our week-long "fall break" coming up, starting on October 9. God, I love the French. My first "real job" in New York was working for the French Embassy, and the new job kind of reminds me of those days.

The other day, my friend Amy reminded me of an episode from that era. I was taking care of my friend Jean-Pierre's cat for the weekend, and one of the nights I was staying at the apartment, I went out and partied with the Eurotrash until 5 in the morning, at which time I came home I barfed in his dirty clothes hamper, having mistaken it for a toilet (a natural mistake, under the circumstances). I didn't remember this until he and his girlfriend found it when they got home. Sigh. Good times.

I had just spent several years in Paris, where I had read a lot of Anais Nin, just to add that superlative layer of cliché to the already-ridiculous cliché of the flighty chick who runs off to Paris with no money and no clear way to make a living. My main memories of this time involve a slew of ill-considered romances, as if researching a future memoir called, "I'm Not Slutty, I'm Just European." Bread, sex, cream sauces .... those Euro types do a few things right, which is the only reason they haven't been entirely obliterated for being a bunch of gits.

Test subjects in The Experiment ranged from a young Indian diplomat; an American football player; an aging abstract artist who cooked well enough to make him seem young; a Spanish art student who couldn't draw, paint, or sculpt ("you're entirely missing the point of art," he said...), a French TV producer who wore a lot of purple shirts and silke Hermes ties with butterflies on them (in France, it's not considered gay - v. confusing ...); a Russian "artist" (the quotes are key) with a magnificent loft/studio on the Ile St. Louis, but no visible means of financial support; a conflicted German on his way back to the Vaterland post-Harvard; and a writer who, in his own words, had “a wife, a girlfriend, and somewhere in the misty backwater of the Bay Area, two snakes.” Hey - at least he was honest.

Lesson #1: Never, ever date an artist. Or an "artist." Or a "diplomat." Or a "German."

This is particularly true if the lover in question is a soi-disant “artiste” who is a) supported by his parents or b) has loose ties to the Russian mafia or c) claims that your relationship is a part of an “installation.”

So, I made some questionable choices. At the time, I thought of them as “erotic adventures.” Of course, at the time, my whole “life” was surrounded by imaginary quotation marks. I was a “writer” (the kind who never wrote) dating several “artists” (read: alcoholics) living in a “garret apartment” (maid’s quarters, but the kind any real maid would be too insulted to live in for free).

Still, I was bizarrely happy in the way that one can be when one has no money or prospects, or even a bathroom with a shower. I did, however, have a bidet, and a lot of hope. (The title of my future autobiography, after retiring from the Senate: A Bidet, and a Lot of Hope.)

But I digress. Part of the reason why I digress so often is because I have Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, or “ADD.” I’ve actually had ADD all my life, although I was only recently diagnosed as an adult.

As you may have noticed from the television commercials on the subject, ADD is a serious affliction that causes one to randomly see people dressed like plush bunnies waving at them from the corner of the room. However, people with ADD are not crazy. They’re just perverted, and feel strangely attracted to people in bunny costumes. Fortunately, there’s medication we can take to make our symptoms go away. Ironically enough, these medications, such as Adderall, are actually amphetamine salts.

Overheard at the psychiatrist’s office: So, Doc, I’m seeing the Easter Bunny, and you want to prescribe amphetamines? Dude, score! Can I get some crack rocks with that?

But I digress. I finally decided to stop apologizing for the unconventional way my brain operates. I’m never going to be the kind of person who can tell a story in a linear way, going from point A to point B, in the same way that I’m never to be the kind of person who will send in the warranty on a hair dryer, and file it in away in a color-coded folder with a typed label (I have a friend who can). I’ll never have an alphabetized spice rack, or be someone who “folds clothing” or has “good personal hygeine.”

Anyway, I had a point. Unfortunately, I don't remember what it was.

Waterfordgate

2005-09-08T20:10:00.000-07:00

I came home only to find that I’ve caused my parents to become social pariahs. It’s been nearly 5 months since the wedding, and the thank-you notes are just now going out. This is a “severe breech of etiquette,” a Henry Jamesean concept which is technically punishable by death in most Southern states.

In my weak defense, I might say that according to all the wedding books, you supposedly have between six months and a year to finish the thank-yous.

Whoever wrote those books was clearly not a member of the Jacksonville chapter of the D.A.R. My inability to write a timely thank-you note has been linked to several deaths and at least one case of psoriasis among the Ladies of the Club, most of whom are old enough to be the actual daughters, or possibly even the second wives, of the Revolution.

Nobody seems to appreciate the fact that, although I haven’t acually “written” all of the thank you notes, I have devoted a great deal of time, effort, and Cherry Flavored Tums into actively worrying over them on a daily basis for nearly 5 months.

Instead, the whole thing has turned into Waterfordgate.

“I can’t believe you haven’t written the Druckers even though they gave you that elegant Waterford ..."

"Oh, yeah," I say. "What exactly is that, anyway?"

Mom thinks, but decides to let the question slide. "It's worth at least $327.”

My mother has an uncanny knack for instantly and accurately appraising the retail value of virtually any gift. Really, she should work for Sotheby’s.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate it. I love it. It's just that, when you write the thank you note, you usually say something like: thank you for the lovely ... how do I fill in the blank?”

“It’s a Waterford ... bowl. Plate. Dish-thingy, it cost at least $325 if it cost a cent.”

Implying that an expensive wedding gift should have a practical use is like implying that our plump Persian cat should go out and get a job as a greeter at Wal-Mart.

... Mom makes a sound that is the universal noise for “do NOT question the purpose of the Waterford bowl/plate/dish/thingy.”

“It’s just that – I was just wondering how to use it around the house,” I say. Or how to use it in a sentence ...

“Well …you could put candy in it. Or … (getting an idea) …. straight pins!" !

Postscript (a double entendre ...) -

Dear Dr. and Mrs. Drucker,

Thank you very much for the elegant Waterford dish bowl appraised at approximately $327. We are keeping candy and straight pins in it.

Love,
Maguerite and Paul

One down, 110 to go ...

My Half-Assed Nervous Breakdown

2005-09-06T13:39:00.000-07:00

In case anybody's still tuning in, I guess I should explain my silence on the blog front over the past month or so. I wish I had some great excuse involving abduction by aliens who looked like Brad Pitt and came from the Planet Without Shirts. But alas.

The thing is, I had a minor nervous breakdown a while back. There wasn't any real rhyme nor reason to it, but the general gist of it had to do with the fact that I can't seem to follow through with anything, and that I very possibly may never accomplish anything in this lifetime or the next, unless you count watching an entire season of "Buffy" in one weekend as an accomplishment. Which I sort of do, but it makes for a pretty lackluster epithet.

Apparently, having a nervous breakdown is yet ANOTHER thing I can't follow through to completion. I guess I just don't have the tenacity to go totally Anne Heche - seems like it would require some actual effort. Or something. For once, having the attention span of an autistic gerbil actually paid off.

Although I feel like I'm no longer quite so insane, I'm currently in Florida, which is arguably the same thing. I'm here for a week because I GOT A NEW JOB!!! YAY!! I'm
starting next week, so I'm down visiting the folks for a few days.

Since arriving in Florida on Saturday, I already feel more sane.

That means that, to feel more sane, I had to come to a state where you can marry your cousin (but only after a 3-day waiting period), but where there's no waiting period to purchase firearms (which you can buy in bulk down at Wal-Mart, to stock up for the apocalypse) and where the 3 people who actually know how to operate a voting machine still voted for Bush. And Bush. Perhaps in part due to the universal popularity of Busch, which is in fact a beer (and a beer-related theme park), but which is already a front-runner for the next gubenetorial elections.

This is the state of theme parks and retirement villages -- where the country comes to go on vacation, or wait for death (or both, as anyone who's ever been on line at the "Land of Tomorrow" exhibit at Epcot Center knows).

And yet, I feel more sane in this state than most other places. Maybe it's just because sanity is a relative thing. Although seeing as how I'm visiting my family this week, I'm not 100% sure that the words "sanity" and "relative" ever belong in the same sentence. Especially if one's relatives are from below the Mason-Dixon line ...

I would write more to illustrate this point, but it's almost cocktail hour, and my parents are expecting several friends and at least one poodle in a monogramed dog sack. Within the hour, there will be many different shades of pastel plaid pants in the Florida room, along with several varieties of appetizers involving fruits and/or vegetables that look like things other than what they are. Like many Southern women, my mother is a sort Michelangelo with a melon baller. This is the result of some continuing ed class she took during the 70s, where they learned how to make appetizers that look like Spiro Agnew or something. It's really quite impressive.

Alas, the smell of mini-quiche beckons ...

2005-06-24T08:19:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not dead. At least, not in the clinical sense. Although I am at work, so same diff.

For the past few weeks I've been rather morbidly depressed for no good reason, so I thought I'd spare any blog-readers from any sniveling that may result.

See, it occurred to me a few weeks ago that I have a deep and abiding committment to failure. Considering my committment issues, this is kind of ironic, but oh well.

I guess I've been sort of depressed since the wedding. It's not the fact that it's all over, it's just that it was a way of putting off thinking about/assessing all the things in my life that need improvement, such as my so-called career. I hate grant writing and fundraising. It is an inane line of work (no offense to any card-carrying members of the Association of Fundraising Professionals). I realize that someone has to do it, in the way that someone has to, say, collect elephant semen to help pachiderms reproduce in captivity. But still.

I really, really, really need a new job. I can say, without hyperbole, that my job is sucking out my soul and digesting it and then spitting it out and batting it around like a chew toy.

In the past, when I've really hated jobs or been at a crossroads, I just picked up and went somewhere else for a while. The other day I woke up and thought fondly of going to Florida for a while and living in April's "porn room" (what spare bedroom isn't?). Not that I'm going to do that, because I'd also have to bring my husband and two cats, which would be like the premise to some very bad reality show, called something like, "FreeLoader Island" where April would win a million dollars if she could put up with us for six weeks. It would be a hard-earned million.

Or maybe the idea is that Paul and I would be the butlers, in exchange for room and board? The show would be called "Bad Butlers." (Unrelated note: Why is it that virtually all movies with "Bad" in the title are, in fact, just that?)

Anyway, I'm officially seeking a new job. Possibly as a female butler. Can women be butlers? I'll be like the Elizabeth Cady Stanton of butlers. It'll be hot.

2005-06-08T17:51:00.000-07:00

Today I called in sick to work.

I said that I'd thrown out my back, which, if anyone from work is reading, is absolutely and thoroughly TRUE. Although if in an entirely theoretical scenerio someone were to be dishonest and lie about such things, back pain is remarkably hard to disprove. You don't have to fake-cough or come up with an elaborate description of what caused the "food poisoning."

I briefly considered calling in insane, which would have been more to the point. Sadly, honesty ain't always the best policy.

Sometimes I think I really am going crazy. I spent all day Tuesday staring blankly at the computer screen at work, nursing an elaborate fantasy in which I came down with appendicitis, or some other not-fatal-but-still-serious condition, so I could take a few days off. Not a good sign. (Hello, universe? Just kidding about the appendix thing. I respect & value all of my vestigial body parts.)

Today was the best day I've had since the last time I called in sick. Mind you, the last time I called in sick, I spent the entire day lying on the floor of my bathroom puking my innards out (including something that looked like an appendix), wishing that my parents had been more cautious about birth control and thus spared me the agony of that moment.

Still, it was notably better than being at work.

I really shouldn't complain, as my job could be much worse. I could be gluing lifelike hairs onto "adult novelties" in Malaysia for 12 cents a week. I could be the poor sucker in the Shamu costume at Sea World in August. Or I could be a producer for Bill O'Reilly, for god's sake.

The other day, my dad half-jokingly sent me a link to this article entitled, "Are you ready to jump ship?" It included one of those quizzes like you sometimes find in women's magazines, that typically lead you to think that you should run screaming to your doctor, leave your spouse, or buy a better bra.

The first few questions:

1. I find it hard to get out of bed in the morning.
2. I'm often late for work.
3. Once I arrive at work, it takes me a while to actually get started working.
4. I sit at my desk and daydream.
5. I spend time at work doing personal tasks.

My score was "Why Haven't You Quit Already?" Of course, I'm pretty sure that was the score of 98% of all people who aren't Paris Hilton for a living.

A better quiz might be as follows. Respond to each question with never (0), sometimes (10), often(20), or fuckin' A! (40)

1. I've consulted a witch doctor or shaman about harnessing the forces of darkness against clients/boss/photocopier

2. I no longer pay attention to traffic lights.

3. I linger a little too long in the "Guns & Ammo" section of Wal-Mart

4. At work, I somtimes get distracteed by non-essential personal tasks, such as sitting in the corner slowly ripping up newspapers, while talking to self.

5. On Sunday nights I sit in front of the Medical Encyclopedia trying to decide anyone would believe I actually have rickets. Consumption? Cat scratch disease?

Prince Charmin

2005-06-07T11:35:00.000-07:00

I should be working.

That's going to be the title of my autobiography. I Should Be Working, by Marguerite.

In my state of procrastinating doing work, I've been reading a lot of infotainment (CNN, for instance) on the internet.

Things I've Learned:

Christian Slater appeared in court yesterday. He was charged with "grabbing and squeezing” the buttocks of a woman coming out of a deli on the Upper East Side, apparently while engaged in a heated argument with his girlfriend. Because, let’s face it –grabbing another woman’s ass is the easiest way to win a fight with your girlfriend.

In court, Slater plead “not guilty,” stating that he had simply mistaken the woman in question for a roll of Charmin.

This all took place on East 94th Street, a few blocks from where I live. Not that it's appropriate anywhere, but Carnegie Hill (as the 'hood is known) is not exactly the grab-ass capital of the world. It's rather hard to grab the buttocks of people in this neighborhood, because the broomsticks wedged up their derrieres typically get in the way.

That, and because linen wrinkles if you so much as look at it, dahling.

Desperately Seeking New Job

2005-06-03T11:39:00.000-07:00

Where I work, almost everybody is quitting and/or getting fired (or, "fired off") because nobody seems to get along with the new boss, who arrived in January. I take the Vanna White approach, and just keep my mouth shut and nod and smile. They probably think I don't even speak English. At this point, I'm the only full-time employee left in my department.

If people keep leaving, I'm going to become diabetic. Every day, it's another "goodbye" sheet cake. I'm pretty sure that the blue flowers on sheet cake are made out of roughly the same ingredients as crystal meth.

Here's an excerpt from my conversation with a co-worker at today's going away desert party. I call the following piece: Why I Need A New Job, by Marguerite.

CO-WORKER: I met Sponge Bob this moring. At the bookseller's convention at the Javits Center.

ME: So, is it true? I hear that, in real life, he's a big asshole.

(Silence)

CO-WORKER: Actually, he was very nice. The guy in the costume, that is. Who's not really Sponge Bob.

ME: I hear he's dating Katie Holmes.

(More silence; odd looks)

The End.