...Miss Head, if You're Nasty

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Things I've Never Done

I was on the phone with someone today, talking about funerals. I admitted I'd never been to one. I'm an only child of an only child and a woman who doesn't speak to fully half of her siblings. Or cousins. We're an odd family.

I've been to a viewing. My high school English teacher. Mr. Hollis. His son was a year ahead of me in school and played soccer. I think he had a younger daughter, too. Mr. Hollis taught American Lit. Moby Dick. The Scarlet Letter. The Waste Lands. Sister Carrie. I don't envy him. But he was great at his job. He's the only reason I remember the names of the characters in The Scarlet Letter, because he infused them with such character and vitality. And the names, themselves, were like the characters. Little Pearl. Hester Prynne. Reverend Dimsdale. Or Dimmsdale.

Hey, he didn't teach spelling.

But didn't go to the church service. Nor the planting, so to speak. None of my friends, thank God, have ever died. By the time my grandparents have died, they're so old that no one is much left to attend a service. My Dad didn't want any memorial or ceremony or much of anything, other than donations sent to his favorite charity. He also would've liked UM to beat Ohio State in perpetuity, but we can't have everything.

Then, I was thinking. I haven't done a lot of things.

I've never learned how to ride a bike. Really learn, that is. Did I tell that story yet? If I did, you know it. If I didn't, I'll save it for a rainy day.

I've never learned how to cook a roast. I love roasts. I love comfort food. I have a potato ricer. But I'm only good at side dishes. I'm no good at meat. That's what happens when your parents let you eat peanut butter sandwiches when you don't want to eat whatever they're having. I was ruined at an early age.

I've never learned a foreign language really well. I took four years of French in high school. Idiot. And another 2 semesters in college. Good for absolutely nothing. Haven't even gone to Quebec. But work with Spanish speakers every day. Dumbest mistake of my life. Well, not the dumbest. That's a tie between parachute pants and that one guy. Never get to use French and have forgotten most of it. The only time I ever used it? With a French policeman in Bosnia. Yeah, don't ask.

I've never learned to whistle. My friend can do the finger in the mouth thing. It is so impressive. I can't even put my lips together and blow, as Lauren Bacall would say. I mean, I can, but not to whistle.

Shut up, pervs.

I've never bought a lottery ticket. Which makes all those hours I've spent mentally spending my winnings seem pretty pathetic, in hindsight.

I've never gone to a professional basketball game. Or hockey game. Just football and baseball. I'm not really feeling that particular loss.

I never learned how to play an instrument. I took guitar lessons for two years and could never play a note. My instructor, Desi, looked like Danny Bonaduce with long hair. He scared me. But I learned a shitload of music theory from him that helped tons in later years. Now? I've forgotten it all.

I've never chased anyone through an airport, or down the street, or in a crowded venue of any kind in order to tell them that I love them.

Nor has anyone ever done that for me.

I've never been arrested, questioned about a crime or testified at a trial. I'm going to go knock on wood now.

I've never changed a tire all by myself.

I've never hosted a big dinner party.

I've never been to California.

And, what can I say, I've been to Paradise, but I've never been to me. Heh.

Like Fear

How can they tell? Can they smell it, like dogs and fear? Is it an innate talent? Or some kind of extrasensory perception that has insinuated itself into their genetic code? Can they see it in your eyes? And, if they can't see you, can they hear it in your tone of voice? Or is it simply luck of the draw? A simple gift of timing?

I'm speaking, of course, of men.

As soon as you've made a decision, and it could be any decision that even tangentally involves them, they seem to know. If you've decided you're done with them. If you've decided you like someone else better. If you've decided you don't like anyone at all. If you've decided that you're not going to shave your legs that day. If you've decided you're not shaving anything that day. If you've decided you're not answering your phone. If you've decided to put on your pajamas at 9 p.m. If you've decided that, rather than going to the bar, you'll hit the treadmill, thereby sweating your ass off for an hour or so and choosing not to shower afterward. If you've decided you need to save money that week. If you've decided you need to call your best friend from high school long-distance in order to discuss Oprah. If you've decided your previous decision was incorrect. If you feel an ounce of regret. If you, like Kelly Taylor, choose yourself.

If any of those things happen? Or if any of a number of other thoughts cross your mind? Thoughts that mean that your interest in that guy diminishes in any way?

It is an absolute guarantee that he will do one of several things, including, but not limited to: a) calling you at inappropriate hours of the day or night; b) texting you inappropriate messages during work engagements; c) show up on your doorstep (intoxication optional) at approximately 3:00 a.m.; or d) sit next to you at the bar and whisper something incredibly suggestive in your ear when no one, or everyone, is looking.

Dammit. How do they know?!

Monday, January 29, 2007

That Road to Hell

Saturday morning. 6:45 a.m. I'm sitting in Parking Lot K of the auxilliary medical center for our local hospital system. Waiting to pick up my mother. Only slightly hung over. Easily cured with fast food hashbrowns and a very large, very cold Dr. Pepper. Breakfast of champions.

7:04 a.m. Still waiting. Thinking about the sketchy, sketchy man who followed me to my car the night before. Believe I could be lucky to be sitting in the parking lot at all.

7:09 a.m. Maybe I'd be better off with the sketchy man.

7:16 a.m. Mother finally arrives. I drive her home in order to monopolize her computer while she goes back to bed. She was at the sleep clinic where, obviously, she didn't sleep. Hence, a nap.

9:00 a.m. Since I'm on this side of town, I should go give blood. I haven't done it in quite a while, since the time I got turned away for low iron. No, not that time, the other one. No, the other, other one. I clearly do not eat enough raisins, cream of wheat or liver.

9:21 a.m. I arrive at the blood center. Sign in in the lobby. They're checking my name. They ask the guy signing up next to me whether he wants to give platelets.

"I will," I volunteer. They look at me, wide-eyed.
"Have you..." the volunteer starts. She moves closer to me, whispering. "Have you ever been...pregnant?"
"Uh, no."
"You're sure?"
Jesus, lady, if I'm not sure, I don't know who else could be.

Apparently, pregnancy manufactures certain...things? That stay in your blood? I don't know. Whatever. I haven't been. I'm trying not to be. I actually don't even need to try not to be, unless visited by a heavenly vision.

And, since I live in a town where everyone gets married at 18 and has had their first child at 18 and ten months, I'm clearly a strange, strange breed. I couldn't figure out if they wanted my blood or if they were going to put me on display:

"Come one, come all! The Amazing! The Incredible! The Unbelievable! The Childless, Unmarried 34-Year-Old! Guess her weight and win a prize!"

9:30 a.m. They're taking my blood for tests. They always have to spin it, since my iron's low. I'm answering the questions on the sheet. The one always gives me pause:

Have you had sex for money or drugs since 1977?

Now, technically, I hope most women could answer "no" to this question. However, I know many men that would dispute this. And some women. I mean, you get taken out to dinner and a movie, then go have sex? Isn't that kind of like a commercial transaction? You might as well just ask if someone's had sex since 1977, really. If you want to be completely honest about it.

But that would seriously cut down on the donor list, I suspect.

9:50 a.m. I'm in the chair in the back of the room, where they do the recirculation thing. They pull out some blood, run it through the centrifuge, then put it back in, sans platelets, with an added bonus of saline. Usually, this takes about 45 minutes. It isn't until they've got the needle in my arm that I realize the timer indicates 90 minutes.

"You can stay for that long, can't you? We're running a double batch."
I guess I can, you stupid beeyotch, since you've got a needle in my arm the size of a Bic pen and I might bleed out by the Voortman cookies if I tried to escape. So much for that lunch date.

10:42 a.m. I'm trying to squeeze the little rubber ball a bunch to speed up the process, but no go. Listening to depressing, depressing Damien Rice on the MP3 player I thought ahead enough to bring. Halfway through the "100 Most Influential Americans" issue of the Atlantic Monthly. No Sports Illustrated. What the hell kind of a waiting room was I in? Only ESPN: the Magazine. Which gives me a headache. I mean, I'm a little ADD. But not that much.

11:03 a.m. Foot cramps. Footcrampsfootcrampsfootcramps.

I have problems with foot cramping. Sometimes with high heels. Sometimes while swimming. Sometimes, oddly, when engaged in certain intimate acts with...well...whoever.

Let me tell you, nothing kills romance like hobbling around the room, watching your foot contort in strange shapes, trying to salvage that special moment with Mr. Right. Or with Mr. Right Now. "I'll be okay in a minute. Really. No, stay. Really. It'll go away. I swear! No, I really do like you! I'm not faking. At least, not yet!"

So I'm curled up on this chair, which is like the orange rotating chair Xander had in the basement that he tied Spike to in Season 4 of Buffy. I have to keep my arm on a level surface, but the rest of me is contorting in shapes to allow me to try to rub my protesting foot.

"Hon?" Because women who work at the blood bank always call you that. "Hon? Are you okay?"
"Foot cramp," I manage.
"Have some Tums."
Because...? They're magical? She hands them to me like Jack's Magic Beans.

I eat the Tums. They don't really work.

"Do you want me to rub your foot?" she asks.

I'm sure she's a very nice woman. She was incredibly nice to me. However, I don't like feet in general. And, while I have had a recent pedicure, I don't want this woman touching my feet. It isn't sanitary.

"No, thanks. I'll be fine."

11:40 a.m. I'm in the cookie/recovery area. I've been there one minute. I'm supposed to be there for ten minutes. I'm incredibly late for a lunch date with a friend. So I turn to the monitor.

"Would it be okay if I went out to my car for my phone."
She barely looks at me. "Whatever."

Cancel the lunch date. No one inspects my arm before I leave.

Amount of time involved: 2 hours, 20 minutes
Number of times I was asked about my childbirth history: 5
Number of times I was asked if I was giving blood solely to be tested for AIDS/HIV, hepatitis, etc.: 3
Number of times I was told I was so nice for doing this: Easily 12
Minutes involved with cramping feet: 26
Hours until I broke a rule and drank a beer instead of water as I'd been instructed to: 4.8

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Stay Klassy

When I got the job in the field in which I currently work, my parents were incredibly proud. I work in the legal field and, although they were suitably impressed with the prestige and knowledge that such a job can bring, they were truly more excited about something else: the stories I'd be able to tell them.

Every time I came over for dinner, they were on me like white on rice.

"Seen anything interesting in court?"
"Heard of any good cases?"
"Know anything about that shooting?"
"Where does one get a good-looking prostitute here in town?"
"Are there good-looking prostitutes?"

So I told them what I'd learned from hanging out and talking to those fine folks in law enforcement. How much a rock of crack cost. How crack is made. Why is baby formula held behind the counter at stores. Why do gas stations sell Chore Boy at the register. How do you set up a drug bust. Where does one go to buy heroin in town. Where do the prostitutes hang. How to tell an undercover officer working as a prostitute (hint: look at her teeth).

My parents were suitably shocked, amazed, repelled and fascinated by the information I gave them. I imagine they thought I'd learned all this stuff at some kind of intellectual round table, where all the legal minds of the community sat around with law enforcement, sharing information liberally and talking about all this stuff in the most abstract forms. Like Plato with his outdoor classrooms, discussing the cave and whatnot.

In truth, the learning process is a bit different. Take last night, for example.

Rather than meeting in the agora, the classroom was a local watering hole. The occasion? The retirement/job switch/fleeing of a local cop. He's moving on to one of those federal agencies with an incredibly long and complicated name that gets broken down to initials and has something tangentally to do with immigration. He's going to go train for six months in hand-to-hand combat and Vulcan death grips and will eventually be placed on a platform on top of a pole on that fence between us and Mexico. Once there, he'll become a modern-day hermit, just like in the middle ages, and border patrol agents will bring him offerings of beef jerky and beer while he sits on the platform, scanning the horizon for law breakers instead of God.

Anyway...

The place is packed. Cops I haven't seen in years are there. And they're looking old. And if they're looking old, I don't want to think about how I look. There are speeches and applause and presentations. The retiree gets a "major award". No, not a lamp. A nice plaque/poster/thing that has all of the seals of the units with which he worked. And his nickname.

Steamer.

I usually know to leave well enough alone. With nicknames, particularly. Nicknames have a life of their own. They grow organically, change and end up having nothing to do with the original intent. You ask how someone got a nickname and they'll tell you some story from college that they think is the funniest thing they've ever heard while you just sit and stare at them and think how sad and deluded they are and why the hell are you sitting there anyway, with such an idiot.

However, my friend has no such compunction.

"How'd he get the nickname?" she asks. Innocence seems to shine from her every pore. I know better, but it is a good show.
"Ever heard of a Cleveland Steamer?" her friend asks, having worked with the retiree for some time.

Thus began a long descent into a discussion on defecation and deviant sexual practices. Plastic plates. Golden showers. Hamsters, gerbils and other small rodents. Hot lunches. Plastic wrap. Internet sites. Towers of power. Tossed salads. If we know people who've done these things. How to even go about asking for it if you wanted to. Have we ever been asked to perform these acts? How long into a relationship do you have to get before you ask someone to perform their bodily functions on you as a sexual act? What would be an acceptable length of time? And is that a reason to break up with someone?

We eventually got down to the prohibitive favorite for whacked-out sex acts: the Dirty Sanchez. Everyone knows, when they hear the term, that it is something really not right. Not right on a basic, human level. But, if asked to describe exactly what it is, 8 out of 10 times you'll get an incorrect definition. I know this, because I've gotten that emailed list of deviant sexual practices sent to me annually for the past seven years from someone I know from college with one of those idiotic nicknames I talked about earlier. He got that nickname from peeing on an RA's door.

However, my book-learning failed me last night. And I'm ashamed.

I gave an incorrect definition of a Dirty Sanchez to my friend. And was corrected. When I heard the actual definition, I thought, "Of course, you moron. You're thinking of a Hot Lunch." But, by that point, I'd outed myself as an amateur in the field and as someone who's word could no longer be trusted. I'd failed myself, my community and my education. Which was primarily gathered from
www.rotten.com and Dodgeball.

As I left the bar and ran to my car, avoiding some very sketchy older man who complimented my legs, I thought how proud my parents must be of me, despite the fact that I'd outed myself as unknowledgable in the field of sick sex acts. They'd be proud that I can still learn important things. That I can admit I make mistakes. That I can get really good stories about how someone got the nickname "Steamer."

And they'd be proud that I'd choose to never, ever, in a million years, tell them that particular story.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Insult and Injury

Last Friday evening, I went out for a friend's birthday. We went to what used to be the regular watering hole and an entire cast of characters showed up. The guy with the wife nobody likes. The other guy with the wife nobody likes. The AeroMed pilot. The blonde with the fake boob inserts who pulls them out at bars, thereby defeating the purpose. The undercover vice officer.

Wait, was he with our party, or just there?

Anyway, it was a good group of people. And we added more as other people left. It was fun. A fun night that I needed and that I hadn't had in a good long while. When you hang out with the same people all the time, you tend to get stagnant. These folks were more of a breath of fresh air. Tinged with Miller products.

So I hang. And hang and hang and hang. And drink beer and then water. Eventually, there are only a few of us left. I get pulled out the door, since everyone else is leaving and they want to make sure I can get into my car, since I chose to wear very practical cork high heels in the driving snow. Kind of them, I know. But I get dragged directly out of the bar. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

And, most importantly, do not go to the bathroom.

I live...oh, about twenty minutes away. About five minutes into the drive, I started doing the dance. You know the dance. The dance four-year-old girls do when they have to pee and they don't want to tell their mothers because they might miss the last five minutes of the Don Ho show.

Not that I watched Don Ho or anything.

Doing the dance while driving on the highway going 75 is not the easiest thing to do. Especially when it has been snowing and I drive a stick. But that doesn't stop me. I'm dancing. I'm hopping. I'm sqeezing. I'm trying not to think about running water.

I finally pull in my driveway. And proceed to drop my purse in the snow, dumping all of the contents on the ground. At this point, I'm in stocking feet, having wisely chosen to take off the cork-heeled red shoes. And I'm hopping around, in the snow, looking for the keys, almost crying because I have so much liquid in my body that it is forcing its way out of every pore.

I find the key, let myself into the house, sprint up the stairs and into the bathroom. Where I take a moment...or five...alone.

In my haste to get to the bathroom and as an indication of the desperat nature of my plight, I wasn't satisfied with just dropping trou. No, I apparently thought it was a good idea to just take them off. Forgetting, of course, that I still had to go back outside and gather up the tattered remnants of my life scattered across the driveway.

So I bundle up in my coat, basically naked from the waist down, as I was too lazy to get dressed by then, and picked up random lipsticks, pieces of gum, pennies, business cards, and every other piece of detrius I've managed to gather over the past year. All of which had become rather cold and wet from sitting in the snow for the...lengthy amount of time it took me to relieve myself inside. I really, really hope that my neighbors weren't home to see that display. The cops didn't show up, so I think I'm safe. For now.

Over the weekend, I'd pretty much convinced myself that I was suffering from a bladder infection. I hurt. It wasn't right. And it couldn't just be from holding it in for so long, could it? I went on WebMD and convinced myself that, if it wasn't a bladder infection, then it was undoubtedly cancer. Then my friend sent me a link to some other weird cystitis thing, which is incurable but can be relieved by...stretching? Really? And isn't that a little...invasive? Really?

I even went so far as to see my doctor. I've had a bladder infection. And I had the same, wonderful, shooting, stabbing pains that are so very fun to endure. But no. No infection.

Since then, I've gotten better. I'm not afraid to drink a glass of water now. And my confidence in my doctor has been restored. I believe that I don't have an infection, that it must have been something else and I'll, someday, return to normal.

Obviously, the stretching must have done the trick.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Respond

Recently, there was an article in the paper, or an item in the news, about a comparison study between men and women and the number of words they use a day. Unsurprisingly, women were found to use more words than men. Surprisingly, it was almost twice as many.

I'm too lazy to go look up the exact numbers, but it was a lot. Enough that our entire office, all six of us, got into a discussion about it. Of course, the women had more to say on the subject.

That was a joke, people.

I do find, in general, that women talk more than men. We use more words. We make an effort to make contact with people, find out how they are, check up on them, make sure they're okay. I just sent three emails to a guy to make certain that he wasn't about to throw himself off a cliff. Not that I thought he would, but I wanted to make sure. You know, for my own peace of mind.

I have a friend who corresponds, via email, with a bunch of different guy friends. They work in the same...industry...kind of. They all have families. They all have jobs. They all have responsibilities. However, she's always the one sending the first email, making the phone calls and, generally, trying to keep in touch. When they don't respond, what's their excuse?

"They say,'I'm busy.' What's with the 'I'm busy' shit?" she asks. "Like I'm not? I've got a life. I've got a kid and a husband who can't cook dinner and a dog and my son's girlfriend who I'm suspicious of so they have to sit in the living room instead of hiding in the basement and I have to be diligent and shit. I've got work at work and work at home and work-work to do at home and when the hell is my husband going to learn to type so he can do some of my work? So what's with the 'I'm busy' shit? That shit don't fly."

I feel her pain. There's the three-email guy. There's the guy who randomly texts me and then drops off the face of the earth and never, I repeat, never responds to my texts. Then there's the guy who, in response to my lengthy and, I might add, incredibly witty email sent a two word response. I didn't know whether or not to be offended. I eventually realized that, well, he's just one of those guys. You might never get him off the phone but put him in front of a keyboard and officialdom takes over.

The only two men I know who really revel in email? One is my friend's bizzaro husband who emails me incessently at work. The other? An old friend of mine in college with whom I discuss Big Ten basketball and our mutual hatred of the SEC. Along with old drinking debacles. We've been engaged in marathon email sessions lately, particularly in that dead week between Christmas and New Year's. But he's a rare, rare case and, in fact, one of the few men with whom I could, at one time, picture myself married to. Then I realized that he only wanted his girlfriend to visit him at college so she could do his laundry. I got over that toot-sweet.

So I've come to the conclusion that men really don't value communication in the same way that women do, for the most part. Women use language to nurture. To indicate a level of interest. To share knowledge while, at the same time, letting people know that they care. Men...really...are just imparting information on the most basic level. And, if they don't think they need to share any information, they don't. So they, in many cases, simply ignore what the women are asking, or saying, or trying to share through the non-verbal part of their verbal or written communication. Because, for us, it isn't just about what gets said. It is about when it is said, how it is said, how much is said, and how what actually gets said makes us feel.

The real reason women use twice as many words as men on a daily basis? Because the men are so busy ignoring what the women have to say that the women have to say everything twice.

And they wonder why we're pissed all the time.

Monday, January 22, 2007

The Sound of Silence

Funny how you can get people to admit things they never really thought they'd admit if you just listen closely enough.

I once had a roommate in college. She was gorgeous. I tried to hate her, but she was really cool, too. Much, much cooler than our third roommate, the Stamp Nazi. She'd get pissed at my because I never bought stamps. I, of course, have now turned into the Stamp Nazi, so, Jennifer, I apologize to you, here and now, for my failure to adequately contribute to the household finances my junior year by failing to buy stamps for our monthly bills. Instead, I took them to the office where I worked and used the postage meter. I hope I haven't just committed mail fraud.

See what I mean. People just confess things sometimes.

Anyway. So my roommate, Denise, is gorgeous. I had a lot of guy friends then. And they all wanted to hang out at my house. Because they all loved her. I can't blame them. She was the coolest good-looking woman I have probably ever known.

So, my friend Mark. I used to have to rewrite his papers all the time. I can't remember what he was studying. Phys. Ed.? Recreational Studies? Something bizarre like that. He couldn't use grammar if his life depended on it. If he was stuck in a trash compactor and he had to correctly punctuate a sentence in order to keep the walls from smashing him and his walking carpet, they'd be dead.

Mark would come over all the time. Mark and Denise started hanging out all the time. Mark really liked Denise. Reaaaaallllly.

Denise eventually told me they had hooked up. She wasn't terribly specific about what they did. Just an off-the-cuff remark. She...wasn't terribly impressed, I don't think, by his prowess. It wasn't a big deal to her and the only reason it was a big deal to me was because he was usually so closed-mouthed about his relationships/hookups/whatevers that there was tremendous curiosity in our circle of friends as to what kind of women he liked. Or if he even liked women.

So I mentioned it to him. They had cooled off by that point. I think I just told him that she had told me they had hooked up once or twice.

"What exactly did she tell you?" he asked, with fear in his eyes.
"Pretty much everything," I replied.

Because I really thought she had told me pretty much everything.

"She told you about #*%$&?"

Had I known what was going to come out of his mouth, I would have stuck my fingers in my ears, closed my eyes and "la la la"ed myself into the next year. Permanent scarification of my brain, people. Permanent. To go from thinking a man might be gay to knowing that he performed an act like that upon my roommate was more than my fragile spirit could take.

"Um..." I didn't really ever answer him. And I never, ever, ever looked at him the same way again.

Perv.

Sometimes you get more out of people when you pretend to know what the hell they are talking about. I turned the lesson of Mark and Denise into a lesson for my daily life. When people think you know something, they're more likely to open up to you about it and tell you things you really didn't even actually know.

It is called "faking your way through life." I try to incorporate it into my life on a daily basis.

Mastery is my goal.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Sap

I spent last night in front of the television. I'd been a bad girl the night before, drinking too many beer and not eating enough fried foods, in what a friend of mine used to call "buzz maintenance." There is a perfectly timed equation by which, for every so many beers, one must eat some type of fried appetizer. This will, in turn, maximize...well, buzz maintenance. Regardless, I stayed home last night. Turned on the television. Big mistake.

I started watching "Deep Impact" which I could not remember ever seeing before. I thought it maybe came out at the same time as "Armageddon" but then I remember that came out against "Godzilla" so now I'm really at a loss. Maybe "The Core"? I don't know. All I know is that it has a great cast but isn't all that great. I think parts of it were better than "Armageddon"--the sense of chaos of society breaking down was really interesting to me, Stephen King reader that I am. Very little jingoism, too, which was refreshing. And directed by a woman, which I thought was interesting. Anyhoot, I'm watching and watching and they are showing Tea Leoni reconciling with her father and waiting for this huge wave to kill them both and I find that I'm crying. Not the hysterical crying of George's dad dying, but crying nonetheless. Okay. Fine. Time to change the channel.

And what do we have here? "Seabiscuit". Excellent. No crying here. Until the horse breaks its leg. And poor Red. And they come back and win. God, dust in my eyes again!

So, guaranteed weepers?
"Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey". The remake from the 90's. I cry every damn time Shadow falls in the hole and he thinks he's too old to get out and he's just shivering there at the bottom and Sassy tries to encourage him to get out. And then they cut to the family. And then Shadow runs out of the woods and, damn, it gets me every time.

"Rudy". I remember watching this movie for the very first time. I was in school in Vermont, in my apartment the first winter I lived there. We were planning to go up to my friend, Jason's, ski cabin for a night of drunken debauchery and were calling all over town to gather up a group of likely debauchers. I was sitting in the chair in the living room I shared with "Perfect Girl" and "Mafia Son" and "Rudy" on. I hate Notre Dame. I really do. But it was made by the same guys who did "Hoosiers" and "Breaking Away" and completes the Indiana trilogy, so I watched. And I know Rudy's douche. I know. But I remember Jason calling every five minutes or so for updates on the debauchery. And he'd ask what I was watching. Then he'd ask if I was crying yet. And, eventually, I was. And I still cry every single time. And I think of Jason every time I watch it.

I still have pictures from the ski cabin. They'll be used in later political campaigns, I'm sure.

"Hoosiers" and "Breaking Away". Enough said. Except for the time that I was watching "Breaking Away" at an ex-boyfriend's house when he was out and he came home to find me a shivering wreck on his couch, sobbing incoherently about Cutters and whatnot. I'm sure that was a direct contribution to our breakup.

"Out of Africa". Do I really need to go into it? This was the go-to chick flick when I was in grad school. If we were feeling depressed, we'd buy a couple bottles of white zinfindel, rent "Out of Africa", go home and cry. Little did I know that, soon, I'd be crying over the fact that I spent money on white zinfindel.

"Million Dollar Baby". I'm really not overly emotional. This list shouldn't give you the wrong idea. And I never, ever cry in movie theaters. Ever. I think I cried at "E.T." And "The Fox and the Hound". And I kinda knew what happened in MDB going in, so it wasn't like it was a big surprise. But by the end of it, I was full-on weeping. Like someone stole my puppy and was going to sell it for medical research. I think my friend who was with me was a bit embarrassed by me. Like I was the only person in there crying. It was nowhere near as bad as the time my roommate ran out of the theatre sobbing at the end of "With Honors". Whoo boy!

And, I admit it, I do tend to tear up when Liv Tyler says goodbye to Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck gets all weepy. What can I say, I'm easily manipulated.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

That Thing

You know that thing you did? That thing you never told anyone about? Do you think you can really keep it a secret forever? Do you really think you'll be able, after a bottle and a half of wine on a dark snowy night with only crackers available to soak up the alcohol, to refrain from spilling your guts to your best friend? Who is sitting there telling you all about her: a) divorce from an abusive husband; b) affair with the condominium handyman; or c) fling with her son's best friend. Do you think you'll be able to keep the beans in the container? Do you think you'll be able to keep the cat in the bag? Really? And for how long?

Or that other secret. The one no one knows. Not even the last three people you dated. Dated seriously. The only people you probably ever would have told. Can you keep it in for much longer? Can you afford not to be honest about it with the next guy? Or girl? Because, really, in the end, aren't they going to figure it out?

The last time I told someone a really big, life-changing truth about myself, he thought I was going to tell him I was gay. Which, in the long run, may have been easier. But, fortunately (or unfortunately, considering who I was telling), lesbianism was not the case.

I try to be a truth-teller in most areas of my life. And when I don't tell the truth, I pretty much just keep my trap shut. And I'm a compartmentalizer, which means that I end up keeping quiet about a lot of my life. I'm like George Costanza--I can't always handle it when my worlds collide. Of course, it sometimes makes it hard to remember who I've 'fessed up to and who I've keep in the dark about certain aspects of my life. But I rarely, rarely flat out lie. I can think of only one big one I've told in the past several months, and the subject was so far outside of the person's business that I don't feel particularly bad about the lie.

But it gets difficult, you know. I feel, sometimes, like I'm walking around with a headful of secrets that I'm not able to tell. That I'm ashamed of things I've done and seen and said. That maybe it would be easier if I just spilled my guts about everything in my life. That, if I were more open about things, my life would be better.

Then I get back in my head and think about how people would look at me differently if they knew what I was really like, down deep in the dark recesses of my heart and soul. If they knew what I think about, late at night, looking out the window of my room. And I just keep my mouth shut. Because I don't know how to live any other way.

Everyone has those things. Those things that no one knows about. Not even their husbands or wives or children or parents. That they pick their nose in the car when they're alone and wipe their fingers on the floor mat. That they steal medicine from bottles in other people's bathrooms. That they have collections of dirty pictures hidden in the garage in the roasting pan that their mother-in-law gave them as a wedding present, 'cause you know that's never getting used. That they've met someone on the internet and are thinking about meeting them. That they got someone pregnant and she had the baby without telling them and they just found out. That she didn't have the baby and they just found out. That they can't ever have a baby. That they're diseased. That they're thinking about killing themselves. That they're broke. That they are seriously considering having an affair. That they are in love. Or that they aren't.

Sometimes the secrets just sneak up on you without you even knowing it, and all of a sudden, you're keeping them. Other times, they smash into you, like waves on a rock, and you end up hefting them around with you for the rest of your life.

They are starting to get heavy.

Friday, January 19, 2007

The Club

Damn you, GA. Just when I think I can write you off as a stupid show about unrealistic relationships and crazy plot lines about $8 million cheques, you go and kill off George's dad and make me cry when Christina goes out to talk to him about being in the Dead Dad's Club, of which I'll be a member of for two years in April. Damn you to hell.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

A List, If You Will

I was recently asked by someone what I learned from my prior relationships. And so, a list was born:

That the state of a man's bathroom is a good general indicator of his mental health.
That just because you're dating or have dated doesn't mean you get a break on professional fees. Of any kind.
That I need to be with someone with clean floors.
That men should take care of their feet, too.
That I hate the smell of jerky. All kinds of jerky.
That fooling around in a very small car is rarely a good idea. Especially when there's a sunroof.
Ditto for fooling around in a parking lot. Except for the sunroof thing.
Large county parks are okay, however.
That someone that doesn't know that my phone won't work in Azerbaijan isn't someone I want to be with.
That I also shouldn't be with someone who doesn't know how to operate the vacuum wine sealer, for a number of reasons.
That if I get store-bought roses, he loves me not.
That if I get a hand-picked bouquet, he loves me.
That having doors opened for me, while not mandatory, is preferable.
That having someone walk between me and the street on the sidewalk is impressive.
That I do know how much broth goes into the chicken chili. Dammit.
That he should have a large cd collection, heavy on early 80's new wave.
That he should maybe have a house with, you know, furniture.
That he should be able to drive stick.
That he should not feel the need, ever, to play Neil Young at eardrum-piercing levels at 3 a.m.
Ditto for Terrance Trent D'Arby.
That he should not attempt, ever, to cut firewood in the house.
Or allow any of his friends to do so.
That I am not compatible with people who wake and bake. Unless they are making cookies.
That he should be unafraid to eat at a restaurant that doesn't have a liquor license.
That he should be able to laugh at himself, his job, his friends, his family and me.
That he should not have dated or been intimate with any of my friends within the past year.
Or be dating them currently.
Working knowledge of a car is a good thing, because I will stoop to using feminine wiles to get strangers to change a tire. And have, in the past. Don't test me.
If he has a dog, it should be trained.
If he has a cat, it should have a litter box.
If he has a snake, he should make sure it doesn't escape.
That having similar internal clocks cannot be overrated.
That I'm not nearly as freaked out by guns as I thought I was.
That twitterpation is the best feeling in the world.
That pining away for someone is completely overrated. Except when done by the Smiths.
That you should have an understanding going into the relationship as to who gets what friends at which bar when you break up.
That he should take the bar where there's more cigarette smoke.
That if he gets mean after Jager bombs, he is probably mean at other times, too.
That someone who opens your birthday present to them in their car when you're sitting inside with friends? That guy? Is not the guy you're going to end up with.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Freaks

Honestly. Do I bring out the worst in people? Can they smell something in me? Some deep, dark, hormonal phermerone-thing that brings them running from their dark, dank places into the light to come sit next to me? Or, at least, next to my friends?

We go to dinner the other night in Florida. Hole in the wall joint where the specialty is fried. Just...anything fried. Hushpuppies, grouper, shrimp, chicken, fritters, onion rings, potatoes, babies, cats, palmetto bugs. Whatever your heart desires. They have paper towels hanging from coat hangers above each table, to help blot the grease away from your fingers. Or chin. Or neck. Or gut. Wherever the grease happens to end up.

So we order our baskets of fried food and a couple of beers and start to look around. As people do. And we start talking about other people in the restaurant. As people do. The older couple sitting next to us. And the older couple across from us. And the other, even older, quartet behind me. We were easily the youngest people in this joint, and this was even after the Early Bird special. One couple was fairly put together, pretty cute in a South Florida, I'm-70-years-old kinda way. They got up to leave and we remarked upon them as they walked out the door.

"Can you believe them? I can't believe them," we hear. This is coming from the hostess.

The hostess had been drinking. A lot. From a very, very large insulated glass. Not water. Not lemonade. Unless it was the electric variety. She was pretty hammered. And she thought she looked gooooood. I thought she looked like my elementary school gym teacher. You know, the one whose sexuality was just a little bit questionable? And then she married some guy in the oil business and moved to Saudi Arabia? And all the mothers could talk about was the fact that she was going to have to wear a veil? And you didn't get the big deal 'cause, in your mind, a veil was an improvement? That one.

This woman starts talking to us like we are her very best, best friends. Telling us about how those two oldsters were actually married to other people. Or something. She was sounding kinda Paula Abdul-esque, if you catch my meaning. She seemed to be implying that they were having an affair and that we were absolutely brilliant for having caught it while just sitting there eating. Almost, in fact, as brilliant as her.

She was bananas, obviously.

She leaves and we, of course, start discussing the level of her wack-jobbedness. Comparing her to other nutcases with whom we are both aquainted. She was pretty high up there on the list, if you must know. I then attempted, in a poor call on my part, to turn around and catch another glimpse of her.

I caught her eye. I knew I'd been busted. I turned back around in time to see my friend's eyes widen.

"She just said something about us," my friend said.
"Good or bad?" I asked.
"Not good. Something about coming over here and shutting something for us."

Luckily, we were done with all the various fried concoctions and had only a bit of beer left to finish. We left crumpled dollar bills in our wake as we fled out the door. Literally. Luckily we were driving a rental, so she couldn't hunt us that way, but I was honestly afraid that she might try to track us via credit card slip there, until I realized we weren't in the local phone boo,

We used the chain lock on the door that last night.

Then, waiting for the plane out of town. Sitting. Minding our own business.

In walk two of the saddest commentaries on humanity I've seen. Two women. Big hair. BIG. Black hair. Could have been synthetic. Long and big. Rings on every finger. Several on every finger. Rings all around the ears. Camoflage pants with heels.

And Hooters shirts. That unironically read, "Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined."

No shit.

One has...a hat? A bandana with a visor? Bright orange (to match the Hooters lettering, I'm certain). With sparkles. To match the sparkley lotion. Neat. And the back of it? Is open. To let out all the hair. The fake-looking black hair.

We watch them for 27 minutes. They giggle. They text. They giggle more. They pick at their nailpolish. They adjust their bra straps.

Boarding time. I sit next to what I think is a couple or might be a man with his retarded, yoga-instructor sister. There are two seats empty next to my friend. But not for long.

Yes, the smell of hot wings soon reached our nose as the Hooters girls wandered up the aisle. They sat on my friend's bag. They encroached on her space. They littered the seats with red nailpolish chips. They offered her Juicy Fruit.

They did not, however, offer her any bleu cheese with those wings.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Musings

--I could totally become one of those people on the beach in the early morning with little plastic bags full of shells. I'm a total shell whore. If it is big, I want it. I was obsessed with shells as a child and the obsession has not abated. However, I'm really not certain what those people are looking for. Or what they do with them. They get bags of shells every day. Do they sell them? Do they keep them? Do they enbed the shells into a wall of their home? Is it just the thrill of the hunt? Kinda like dating? Who knows...

--Why do people always say hello to each other on the beach? People who wouldn't give the time of day to anyone else in daily life? People who fail to hold the door open for other people still manage a smile and a "good morning" when walking along the beach. Why can't you take that attitude and transfer it to the rest of your life? What does it hurt to say "please" and "thank you" and "good morning" to others? Of course, I'm at the point where I'm going to start going up to people and ask them what kind of shells they're looking for, so maybe I'm not a good person to emulate...

--Still have not spoken to a soul who isn't a waiter or a bartender. Other than the lesbian who wanted to know if our seafood fritters were crab cakes or hush puppies. Wow. I did kinda yell at a table of about eight real estate agents who couldn't figure out how New England ended up with a first down after the Chargers missed the field goal Sunday. Only about how you would think a bunch of SEC football experts would know more about football than a lowly Big Ten fan and all, but who the hell am I, anyway? Right? RIGHT?! Sorry. I'm suffering from a bit of a Big Ten crisis of self-confidence. I also told a lady to shut the hell up when she wanted the bartender to change the channel to the news with 1:14 left in the fourth quarter. Also, I thought about talking to a guy of indeterminate age (approximately 22) who was eating dinner with his friend, the friend's dad and the obvious step-monster. The guy made a point of checking out my legs each time he walked by our table, which was flattering in a rather disturbing way. It would have been better if I'd actually been assured he was over 21, but everyone at the table was drinking ice water. Freaks. Thankfully, we left before I embarrassed myself by asking him if he wanted work as a cabana boy.

--Every single night here has been an adventure. We spent the first night searching for a salad. You wouldn't think a salad would be that hard to find. Four places. We went to four different places looking for a salad and a glass of wine. Amazing. I then proceeded to insult the woman at the table next to us by pointing out the fact that she was wearing her phone actually on her belt and wasn't that a bit gauche? She began shooting us the eye at that point, then talking animatedly to her dinner partner, who she'd been ignoring until that point. The second night we spent looking for a particular restaurant, whose menu we found in the condo and had spent the afternoon drooling over. In leaving the condo, we made the fateful choice of turning right rather than left, which took us the exact opposite direction of where we needed to go, of course. Rather than dinner, we got a 25 minute trip down the beach, a stop at a 7-11 to check the phone book and a visit to the liquor store/biker bar to buy beer. We totally could've gotten dates there. We were eventually forced to go back home, where we, you know, got the address off the menu. We're so smart. The remainder of the trip has simply been the search for the perfect margarita. Always an adventure.

--I forgot how big the bugs are here.

--Still obsessed with this dream I had the other night. It involved me trying to do a flip turn on a slant-faced pool and smashing my lip. Odd.

--When considering the perfect guy, or girl for that matter, how does that ideal get formed, do you think? I used to pine after tall men with dark hair and big blue eyes. I've dated exactly one of those, ever. Now I find a completely different type of guy attractive. Except for the tall part. And what is it about life that forms those preferences? And what about life changes those preferences?

--Why are Jessica Simpson's eyes so far apart?

--Who knew mullets were still a valid hair-style choice? I didn't, until I got here.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

The Weirdness that is Florida

I've noticed a number of very strange things about Florida, since arriving the other day. They include, in no particular order:

--The lack of blondes. I've been to Florida before and seem to remember bunches of blonde women trekking up and down the beach, their bikinis filled out in all the right places and sunglasses covering most of their very bored countenances. Yesterday I think I saw one blonde woman and one or two guys. Where did they all go? Has Clairol been banned? Perhaps it is only because I currently live in a Dutch ghetto where everyone is blonde that I've noticed this phenomenon, but I'm a little freaked out by the whole thing.

--Packs of men wandering free. Living where I live, you never see a single man by himself, unless he's accompanied by a litter of children in a grocery cart. That, apparently, is the only way his wife will allow him to leave the home without her presence, save to go gather her monies in order to allow her access to the local spa. Here, they are everywhere. They're starting to creep me right out. I don't know if there is divorce seminary going on or what. We kept track the other day at the beach. We counted about 15 within a few hours. Totally alone. Wandering aimlessly. Most, apparently, for good reason, judging from the number of inches their guts were hanging over the waistbands of their really poorly cut bathing suits.

--Families of Middle Eastern Origin cooking on the beach. In tents. Enough said.

--The total lack of LaBatt Blue Light. They've got the fully leaded version, but no Light. I'm suffering from withdrawl.

--The complete realization that I'm turning into my mother, in that I'm now eavesdropping on everyone. From 80-year-old men talking about the split in the local utility company to teenage girls buying grams of some presumably-illegal substance. I don't think we've actually spoken to anyone who isn't involved in the service industry, but we're up on all the gossip.

--The lack of anyone really attractive. I don't know if it is where we are in the state, or on the beach, but there really aren't very many attractive folk around here. I suppose, when everyone is stripped down to bathing suit level, there are going to be drawbacks. Hence, my reluctance to even get into one. But, really, this is Florida. You'd think they'd have higher standards. Or an entry exam. Something.

It is 11 a.m. on Sunday and I've got to head off to sun worship on the beach. I woke up from an amazing dream about a guy and a swimming pool that I'm going to see if I can get back into. More from the front later.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Airport '07

I love to travel. I love the act of making lists of things to take, buying new bathing suits or shoes or packs of gum, getting my suitcase out of the back closet and finding old ticket stubs and phone numbers scribbled on the backs of napkins from restaurants in foreign cities. I love going on-line and researching the best flight times at the lowest prices. I love the act of packing. And I love, love, love going to the airport.

I find airports to be the most fasinating capsules of human behavior. Right up there with the mall. You can watch all aspects of the human condition at the airport. Sadness, happiness, desolation, despair, elation, ambivilence. All of it on display for everyone within 50 feet to watch. And, if you're lucky, you can drink beer while you're watching. It is right up there with E!

I just set off for a long-overdue vacation and, therefore, got to go to the airport the other day. Our little airport isn't particularly spectacular with respect to people-watching. We're midwestern and conservative and not particularly effusive with our emotions. You rarely see men with flowers or families with balloons waiting to greet someone coming home from foreign travels there, although I imagine we've sent more than our fair share of folks to Iraq to work for Blackwater. There's only one bar. One Cinnabon. One newspaper shop.

But then we flew into Detroit.

The Northwest terminal at the Detroit airport is excellent. All brand new and shiny, filled with the promise of many more years of operating in the black. A pipe-dream for Northwest, really. But with good restaurants.

My travel companion is a member of the World Perks so we decided that, rather than pay for overpriced alcohol at the Bennigan's by our gate, we'd go to the World Perks lounge. Wow, what a barrel of laughs those folks are. While we did manage to get free samples of Zicam for our incipient colds, the beer was flat and the company dismal. Instead of a bunch of fun, happy people going on tropical vacations, we were surrounded by businessmen planning their Super Bowl parties via cell phone. Loudly. And people who put their luggage on the chairs next to them in order to keep anyone from sitting there. Even though the place was totally crowded. I HATE those people. I managed to break a glass on the way out of the place because, as we all know, if there is glass to be broken, I'll break it.

We ended up in the fabulous Jose Cuervo eating/drinking establishment, eating chips and very strange salsa, watching the people at the bar. The crowd was more our style--people heading out for vacation, people hanging out with their friends, people without briefcases. So we sat there and did what we do: watch people.

There was the bar fly. Bleach blonde. Leopard print shirt. Lots of bronze-looking jewelry. She looked like an extra from an Amazon woman cable tv show. We thought she was with the Dennis Hopper look-alike circa Easy Rider, he of the handlebar moustache and the long leather duster. But he took his little wheeled bag off and left her there to talk to the gay chef who looked like he just jumped off the Lucky Charms cereal box.

Then there were the Bosnian mafia types. You know what I'm talking about. Two guys, crew cuts, former Yugoslav army guys, wearing Adidas sweatsuits and dress shoes. Walking aimlessly around the airport, looking for...something? Someone? Their next job? Daniel Craig? We never figured it out.

There were the typical packs of teenage Asian girls, all dressed alike with Hello Kitty! bookbags and multi-colored knee socks, using electronic equipment I couldn't begin to determine the uses of. Groups of frat boys with hats on backwards. Lots of Ohio State sweatshirts, strangely.

I saw the guy across the concourse.
"He looks like a repo man," I said to my friend, nodding at him.
Big guy, blonde hair that hadn't been cut in easily eight months. Black leather jacket that just escaped from the interior of a trucker's cab. Long, baggy pants. He looked like he should be working in the back room of...something. Somewhere unsavory. He looked like the henchman of the deal-cutter in the movies. The not-bright one in the crew. The red-shirt that gets shot first, but acts as the muscle beforehand. He was reminiscent of Pig Pen, in that you could tell, just from looking at him that he and Suave are not well-aquainted.

After 45 minutes, during which time they wouldn't let us leave the boarding area for fear we'd all run to the bar and do shots of tequila, we boarded. My friend and I waited until almost the end of boarding, knowing that they wouldn't leave without us, and talked to the hotel builder we'd met who'd spent the day flying around the country in a vain attempt to get to Florida to build a La Quinta somewhere near Orlando. We knew we were near the back of the plane, but who really needs to sit there for 15 minutes while everyone else gets on the plane?

We finally board. We walk. All the way. To the very back. Three seats on either side of the aisle. We're sitting next to each other. Guess who's sitting in the window seat?

Repo Man.

He's from Florida. Going home from Cleveland. We promptly wiped Vicks VapoRub under our noses and fell asleep for the remainder of the flight.

Coming soon: The Search for the Perfect Salad; Why Are All Men Single in Florida; and Evesdropping for Pros.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Reality-Based Internet Dating

An old friend of mine called the other night to catch up on happenings. She is one of my last unmarried friends. We were both in school for a long time, then working up the ladder at our respective careers. And we both date inappropriate, emotionally unavailable men. So we've got that going for us.

She tells me that she just signed up for an on-line dating service. My friends have been after me to do this, too. The reasons are to numerous to count. "You won't find a future husband in a bar." "Don't you want to have kids?" "Your eggs are getting old and dried up." "Aren't you sick of inappropriate, emotionally unavailable men?" I keep explaining that I don't really like people that I meet in daily life and I don't understand why meeting people over the internet would be any different, except that I would know right away whether or not they could spell. Or use punctuation correctly.

My friend goes on to tell me about the lengthy personality test they give you before you sign up. Turns out, you don't even have to post it to the dating site--you can just see what it has to say about you. Since I like personality tests like other people like horoscopes, I poured a glass of wine and hopped right on the site to take the test.

Turns out, I'm exactly middle of the road in every aspect of my personality. Of course, who could fail to be when answering the types of questions they ask. "Do you like to create romance in a relationship?" "Do you enjoy recreational activities outside of the home?" "Is physical attraction important to you?" Well, duh!

I've decided we need a more reality-based internet dating system. One that asks real questions. The ones we really want to know the answers to before we start dating someone. So far, I've come up with the following:

Have you ever been convicted of a felony?
Have you ever been charged with a felony?
Have you ever spent time in jail?
Have you ever been convicted of, investigated for or accused of stalking?
Do you have a current drivers license? If not, why?
How frequently do you drink?
How frequently do you drink and drive?
Are you a mean drunk or a cheerful drunk?
How do Jagerbombs effect your judgment?
Are you "technically" a virgin? If so, why?
Your profile indicates you identify yourself as a Christian/Muslim/Whatever. How frequently do you attend services?
What do you think is the role of women in the home?
Do you want kids?
Do you have kids?
Do you even like kids?
Do you care if I like your kids?
Ever been married?
Are you still married?
Have you ever lied about the state of your marriage to get someone into bed/into your car/into your pants?
If you are divorced, when did you file?
In what state?
What court?
When's your next hearing date?
Who is your attorney?
Do you smoke?
If yes, how frequently?
Also, if yes, what?
When was the last time you mopped the floor in your house?
When was the last time anyone mopped the floor in your house?
How frequently do you clean your bathroom?
When you clean it, what do you do?
How frequently do you get a new shower curtain?
How much mold is too much?
What is your position on pedicures for men?
When it comes to "personal grooming", do you prefer porn star or au natural?
Choose: Sandra Bullock or Pamela Anderson.
Choose: VW or Honda.
Choose: Big Ten or SEC.
Choose: Football or basketball--college only.
Choose: Hamburger or wings.
Choose: Tastes great or less filling.
If you were cheating on your significant other, which would you do: Buy the significant other flowers to divert her attention; Act like an asshole so she dumps you; or Invite the new girl over for a three way.
Have you ever been involved in a three-way?
If so, what was the man-to-woman ratio?
What's the dumbest thing you've done while drunk?
What medications are you currently taking?
Do you have anything incurable?

I haven't figured out how to incorporate this into a site that actually pairs people up, but I figure it is a great starting point for anyone I might be interested in. Feel free to cut and paste...

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Breakfast

I went to breakfast with my married friends this morning. They're like the little brother and sister that I never wanted. I called them after sleeping for approximately 1 1/2 hours of sleep, because those mornings call for large, greasy, disgusting breakfasts with as many forms of starch as possible.

First, the waitress wants to know how to split the bill.
"We're together," Wife says to her.
"And you're alone?" the waitress says, pointing to me.
Husband starts to cackle.
"Yeah."
She walks away.
"Yeah, of course, I'm alone," I say to her retreating back. "Alone again. JUST LIKE ALWAYS!!!"
"Bitch."

She comes back to take the order. Husband just had his wisdom teeth pulled out and he's been on Vicodin for three days. He's a total mess. He's been watching Little People, Big World and crying during every episode.
He orders a Eggs San Chez, which makes me giggle, because I'm really a twelve-year-old boy.
Then she asks, "Do you want toast with that?"
He thinks for approximately one minute. I'm mentally singing the Jeopardy theme song.
"Ummm, no."
I start to order when his wife asks him if he wants a biscuit instead.
"What's a biscuit?" he says.
I look at him. "What's a biscuit? Are you serious?"
"What is a biscuit?" he says again. He's starting to get angry. "What IS it? What's a biscuit?"
His wife and and I look at each other. I'm beginning to wonder if this is a quiz. Or if he finally snapped.
She looks at the waitress and tells her to bring him a biscuit.
I look at husband. "A biscuit is a very young man whom I take home in order to molest, dear."
"Oh, okay." That answer seemed to satisfy him.

Later:
"Are you crying?" Wife asks.
"No," says Husband.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I ask.
"I'm very vulnerable right now."
"Were the eggs that bad? Or are you crying about Matt dealing with his kids and teaching them how to get along in that big world?"
Sniffle. "Shut up."
"Just eat your biscuit, honey."

Friday, January 05, 2007

Code

Oh my God, dude. Is it really so hard? Is it that hard to call when you actually say you're going to call? I mean, you don't even have to say you're going to call. Right?

You say you wanna go have a drink and that you're going to call the next day. Yet you don't call. So why even say it in the first place? Why even bring it up? Or why don't you call and let us know something came up? And, if you change your mind, just let us know that now is a really busy time for you. We get the idea of the brush off, if you say you're going to call at some imprecise time in the future. Only crazy, needy girls say, "When?" "Sometime" obviously does not mean "tomorrow." So why even say "tomorrow." Just say "sometime." Or "next week." Or "after this project is finished." Or "when my divorce is final." Or "when I'm done with the girl currently locked in my basement."

We're understanding like that.

Flying the Friendly Skies

I'm heading off to Florida next week. This will be my first vacation...real vacation...in about a year and a half. That trip was to Key West with my then-boyfriend, affectionally known hereabouts as "that asshole." We were also supposed to go this past May. I held off buying tickets until February, just in case something happened and we couldn't go. As you may have noted from reading previous posts, something did happen: the Polish beer hall woman with three kids. I really enjoyed the fact that he met her in January, let me buy the tickets in February, dumped me in March, then had the audacity to complain to mutual friends that he was going to have to eat the cost of the ticket. Hence, "that asshole."

Our first trip together was, well, a trip. Neither of us had ever been to Florida. Nor had we been on any kind of vacation longer than a football weekend or a few days at the lake. It was obviously a test. If only I'd gotten the score mailed to me, like the SATs.

First off, he is not a planner. I, on the other hand, like to micromanage prior to arriving on site anywhere. I've tried to curtail this habit, since I have, on occasion, been sent to foreign countries for work having absolutely no idea where I'm going to end up, how to speak the language or even what kind of currency I'm going to be using. Working like that will drive you bananas, as Gwen Stefani so frequently notes. So you have to go with the flow. However, Florida isn't a foreign country. Hertz rents there. There are maps. I could work with all these factors.

He had nothing to do with any of it. Didn't know anything about Key West other than it was warm and there was alcohol readily available. Actually, the alcohol issue was probably paramount in his mind, since he always vetoed restaurants that didn't have liquor licenses. Didn't know how far things were. Didn't know how expensive things were. Didn't know where we were staying. Didn't care about any of it. Going was enough.

By the time we drove from Miami to Key West, during a gorgeous sunset, mind you, and got to the hotel I had arranged, I was in tears. We argued about where to park. We argued about how to get into the hotel. We argued over which key to use. We argued about who got to use the bathroom first. We argued about which way to turn to get to town from our hotel. We argued about whether or not I should be crying.

By the third day, he was suffering from sciatica. He insisted on wearing his horrid, nasty old Birks, rather than any of the other shoes he brought. The other shoes alleviated pain--why would he wear those? If he wore Birks, he wouldn't have to walk anywhere. He could just sit in the nearest bar, drinking mojitos and smoking Parliments. The cigarette of east coast gentry!

On the other hand, I was getting up at 5 a.m. and walking through town, waving at the homeless people, watching the city workers hose off the streets, talking to the cats and the chickens that scattered the sidewalks. I found the Dunkin' Donuts. I brought him coffee. I'd figure out what I wanted to do that day. Then I'd tell him and he'd resent it. We'd spend the morning not speaking, the afternoon by the pool, and the evening drinking. I'd fall asleep around 11 p.m. and he'd wander off in his Birks with his Parliments to do whatever tickled his fancy. And around, and around, and around.

I should've known, by the end of the trip, when we walked between four different gates in as many concourses at the Miami airport and the sciatica was knawing at him with a vengence, that we were not destined to be together. Especially since they don't allow Parliment smoking in the Miami airport, which correspondingly made him pissier and pissier. I resolved that, the next time, I'd inspect his footwear before we went. Luckily, it never came to that.

With the distance of time, I can see now that he was testing me and I wasn't reacting the way he wanted. He really wanted someone who didn't care as much has he didn't care. Unfortunately, I care. I care about getting up in the morning. I care about my clothes not smelling like cigarette smoke. I care about showing up for things on time and not hung over. I care about doing a good job and not looking like an ass. And I care about what people think of me. That, perhaps, was our ultimate difference. He probably thinks of it as a flaw.

But I don't.

So now I'm heading off to Florida with a friend who wakes up the same time I do, who waits until the sun is over the yardarm to crack open the first beer (except on Big Ten football Saturdays), who can read a book and not talk, who likes good movies and good wine and interesting people. And who doesn't smoke and wears appropriate footwear.

I can't wait.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

A Public Service Announcement

Picture it, if you will. A table full of beer drinkers, out for their weekly social get-together. It is January, north of the Mason-Dixon line. Even unseasonable warmth requires coats and scarfs, just fewer layers.

A woman approaches. Older than most of those at the table. She pulls up a chair. Across from her sit three unsuspecting observers. She takes off her coat. She sits down.

"Oh my God," says one woman, looking at her friend.
"What the hell," says the friend, putting a hand to her mouth.
They turn to look at the guy sitting next to them.
"I...I don't know what to say," he says.
"Can't you do something?" asks the first woman. "Can't you...give her a shirt? Write her a citation? Something?"
"I realize I'm not in the best shape of my life..." the man starts.
"But WE DON'T DRESS LIKE THAT!!!" the friend whisper-screams. "Seriously? I cannot even look at her."

So, let this be a lesson to us all. If you are over 40 years old, chances are good that you should not, under any circumstances, wear a tight-fitting crop-top Everlast t-shirt to the bar, sit down and slump over, thereby causing all of the skin on your stomach to fold into what could best be described as pleats.

Especially in January.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

A Favorite New Year's Story

Several years ago, I went to a friend's lake house for New Year's with the guy I was dating. We got there first, so early that I had to go fish the key from the top-secret hiding place. I can't tell you where it is, but a fake rock might be involved.

Getting to the house first meant that we got to pick our room first. Other than our hostess's room, all others were potential fair game. We took the bedroom off the living area, with the second-best view of the lake and a bathroom to share with just one other room. The room was noted by all to be the second-best in a house with five or six full bedrooms, plus a dorm room in the basement.

Car by car, the rest of the guests began to arrive. I think the final total was six children, all between 7 and 14 years of age, and at least 13 adults.

Midnight came and went. Bottles of wine and champagne were emptied. Children were sliding down the spiral staircase on cardboard boxes. Videos were played on surround sound. And I got tired. And cranky. And did I mention tired?

I went to bed. Or tried to. The drawback to the fabulous room is that it is right next to the living room. With the big screen tv. And surround sound. So I was listening to the climactic battle of Star Wars at about 2:30 a.m. When I was already part-drunk, angry at my very-drunk boyfriend, and desperately trying to go to sleep.

It was cold. It was January, obviously. I'm reasonably certain there was snow on the ground. But we all had cars. So I took it upon myself to go find one to sleep in. I took blankets. Warm socks. A pillow. And went and curled up in the back seat of my boyfriend's car. Which should indicate how desperate I really was, had you ever seen the fur-covered state of that car.

Apparently, after I left, Boyfriend came in the room to find me gone and a search ensued. All bedrooms checked. All closets searched. All bathrooms investigated. No sign of me anywhere.

My friends, a married couple who'd gone to bed at approximately 10:30 p.m., heard the fracas. Her comment, "Go see if she's out in one of the cars." Her dutiful husband? "Huh?" "Tell her she can sleep in here," the wife says.

He comes right out to the car. I can tell he's half asleep. I'd been waking up bit by bit, what with the cold nose and toes. I rolled down the window.

"What's up?" I asked.
"What're you doing out here?"
"Trying to sleep."
I could see him trying to puzzle this out.
Instead of an invitation to their room, this is what I get: "Don't be ridiculous. You can sleep in our car."

Sunny Day

Reasons I had an excellent New Year's weekend? I ate lobster for the first time. I drank enough sparkling wine to be drunk but not significantly hung over. I learned that, instead of making that phone call, I should just watch an episode of Sex & the City. I saw awesome scenery. I stayed on a lake. I got long-distance propositioned by not one but two different men. I managed to scare up business while out of town. I got hit in the head with a large framed picture but no bleeding ensued. I resolved to be more spontaneous. I also resolved to care less about consequences and more about possibilities. Texting was kept to a minimum. One day was filled by a cheese-only diet and I lived to tell about it. Wine was purchased and enough bottles made it through the weekend to come back to my house with me. Full. And I got a phone call that made me smile like a silly little schoolgirl.