Gladys

I was vacuuming out my car yesterday when my neighbor snuck up behind me. He and his wife are very nice people. They built a great deck outside last summer and sit out there and drink margaritas and laugh. When my dad died, they collected the flowers delivered to my door and kept them from dying in the cold when I wasn't home to get them.

We stood and talked for a bit. I haven't seen him to talk in quite a while. He's in insurance and we have some similar background, employment-wise. We talked about his daughter's wedding this summer. We talked about our other neighbor, who is a suspect in a murder, and the truck that is parked outside of his house all the time. We talked about his wife leaving for vacation in Florida for Spring Break with her friend down the street. Then...

"So, not to be nosy or anything, but do you have a new friend?"

My old boyfriend was at my house a lot. All the time. Because I never went to his house. Because it is disgusting. The floors were dirty, the carpet looked like it might've served in Bergen-Belsen and the shower curtain? Oh God. I think I just threw up in my mouth a bit. To think his new girlfriend and her child (her CHILD!!!) have moved into that den of iniquity?! I cannot imagine.

Anyway, he was at my house all the time. So they knew him by sight. They knew his car by site. We have a small neighborhood and they...well, they take notice of who is where and when.

So he asked the question. And I was struck dumb.

"Uh...well...uh..."

"Well, we'd seen a car and we thought...you know...really, not to be nosy..."

God help me, I wanted to ask him exactly what car he was talking about.

We stuttered through the rest of the conversation and he left to go help his son build a model train set or build a rocket or a weapon of mass destruction or something. I immediately got on the phone.

Jocelyn: He really asked you that?

Me: Yeah. I mean, I can appreciate the fact that they're looking out for me so wacko next door doesn't murder me in the night and no one finds me for a week. But come on!

J: You're living next door to the woman from Bewitched. Mrs. Kravitz. What was her first name?

Me: Gladys.

J: Just like Jimmy Durante. Who are we?

Me: I felt like I should just put a big McDonald's sign out front. You know, Twenty Million Served!

J: At least you don't have a take-a-number system, like at the deli.

Me: Excellent point. Thank you for that, at least.

WWJD

Lying in bed last night, thinking about religion. Thinking about how I'm not religious, but that I try (for the most part) to live a moral life, a life where I treat people the way I want to be treated. And thinking about religious people who don't, particularly. For example:

1) The guy with the Jesus fish on his big frickin' F250 who knowingly drove in the left lane after seeing the "Lane Closure Ahead" sign, then wilfully cut in front of me with his big goddamn truck with his Jesus fish all up in my face. Would Jesus drive like that? I don't think Jesus would drive like an asshole. Jesus would drive like a nice old lady who manages to keep a reasonable speed. Jesus would let people turn into traffic. Jesus would use his turn signal. Of course, Jesus probably wouldn't swear at the Mexican guy in the office parking lot who ignored the stop sign at the top of the driveway and tried to run me over when I came back from picking up lunch today. Little fucker. The Mexican guy, I mean. Not Jesus.

2) Those old bastards who go to church and then immediately go out to lunch, brunch, breakfast, dinner, or whatever meal they're eating that doesn't involve the sacrifice of babies and/or goats. Because those bastards? They all want booths. All of them. And they don't want to sit in the sun, so you'd better be able to pull the blinds. And they sure as hell don't want to wait for a table, despite the fact that they show up to the same damned place every damned Sunday and know what a nightmare it is to get a table. Jesus would take whatever table came up first, even if it was in the smoking section.

And they tip for shit. Jesus was a good tipper. You know how I know that? Because he waited tables, bringing all those fishes and loaves and whatnot. And all waiters become good tippers.

3) Those people who wear the WWJD bracelets. Because those people? They aren't really wearing those to remind themselves to ask themselves what Jesus would actually do. They're wearing them because they want everyone to know what good Christians they are. What model citizens they are. What wonderful human beings and gifts to humanity they are. They probably don't like Jews. Or Muslims. Or Hindus. Or atheists. Or Catholics, really. They wear them so they can identify each other in crowds as being righteous. As being part of the tribe. No, not that tribe. A figurative tribe. They wear them to make other people seem outside. Seem small. Seem unimportant in some way. And honestly? If you have to wear a frickin' bracelet to remind yourself what Jesus would do, how Jesus would treat others, how Jesus would react to certain situations? Then you're already beyond hope anyway.

Jesus? He'd probably be wearing a "Live Strong" bracelet. Or a kabbalah string. 'Cause he's hip like that.

Cattywampus

I did not recall this until yesterday, when I got a text message.

There were women sitting at the bar that we were mocking. The one, the brunette, had the tops of her panties sticking out of her waistband. But only on one side. They were all crooked and cockeyed, apparently.

"Look at that woman and her cattywampus underwear."

Let cattywampus be your watchword in all you do.

Too Old

Watching coverage on Anna Nicole this weekend at my friend, Jocelyn's, house. I think it was Inside Edition or something equally trashy. Someone was interviewing her doctor and asking what medications dear Anna might have been on at the time of her death.

Me: Wow, she is fairly homely.
J: Yeah, you'd think, with all that Anna Nicole money, she'd be able to get some work done.
Me: Is it me, or does her nose resemble a penis?
J: No, you're totally right. How unfortunate for her.
Me: Or that guy. That old guy with the nose.
J: Karl Malden.
Me: No. Older. The guy that always said, "Hot cha cha cha cha!"
J: Jimmy Durante.
Me: Exactly.
J: You're right. Bad nose. Particularly on a woman.

Silence for a moment.

J: What kind of upbringing did we have where we, at our rather young age, know who Jimmy Durante is?
Me: I have no idea.

To Kill Ya

I drank tequila last night. I never drink tequila. Never. Tequila is absolute blow lunch material for me. The only reason it exists is to be blended with lime juice and ice on summer days. And even that is pushing it.

I don't even know how it happened. I was sitting at a table at the bar. The bar I go to where they know what beer I drink. Sitting with a couple of people I know. And a couple of people I don't really know. Everything was proceeding normally: discussion on Tubby Smith, Steve Alford, Rudy Giuliani, the usual. Then someone said something about Patron. And then there were shots. Someone put one in front of me. And, God help me, I drank it.

I almost threw up right at the table. But no. Like a trooper (or do you spell it trouper, in this instance?), I kept it down. It was not easy. But I did it. Kept my lunch down. Then proceeded to drink more. Then a girl with braces bought shots of Tequila Rose. Which shouldn't even be considered an alcoholic beverage. And I drank one of those. Then we started writing things on the chalkboard in the women's bathroom. About sluts. And I was telling dirty jokes to a minister.

I think it is safe to say that the evening degenerated from there.

I knew it was time to go when I was seriously considering going to a scary dive bar with people I didn't know at an hour by which I'm normally fast asleep. And considered turning around and going back when I was halfway home.

I was thinking about eating Mexican for lunch today, but I don't know if I can be in the same building as a bottle of tequila right now.

Hudlow

When I was a kid, my parents played tennis. A lot. All the time. Or so it seemed to me then. I think they started when we lived in Texas. My dad gave up golf at that point, for some reason, and they started playing tennis together. Or maybe they didn't start until Atlanta. Anyway...

The name of the place they played the most in Atlanta was Hudlow. At least, that's what I seem to remember. It was just a tennis center, out in the woods near Chamblee-Tucker. Or was it Jimmy Carter Blvd? Somewhere, out past the supermarket somewhere. If I was there now, I'd probably be able to direct you there, but don't ask me street names.

There was a big clubhouse, set up on a hill, surrounded by pine trees. Because, in Georgia, everything is surrounded by pine trees. Pine trees or red clay. Hudlow had both. And lots of tennis courts. I was probably in 3rd or 4th grade. My parents would play mixed doubles on Saturday or Sunday mornings. They were really the only people with kids my age. Otherwise, it was single people or married people whose spouses didn't play tennis. They'd bring tons of food--Mexican dip, cheese puffs, crackers, coffee cake. I think I first tried guacamole at one of those Saturday morning tennis marathons.

I'd talk to the other players, but mostly I just tried to stay out of the way. Sometimes I'd bring my best friend, Erin. But most of the time, I was by myself, wandering around. I don't think kids get away with that very much these days. Not unless they live out in the country. But I loved it.

There were big piles of railroad ties scattered througout the place. They used the ties originally to serve as barriers around the parking lot, which didn't particularly work that one time that my dad forgot to set the parking brake on the Rabbit and the car rolled down the hill and into the fence around Courts 9,10, 11, and 12. He tried to grab the bumper and physically haul the thing back up onto the pavement as it was rolling. Didn't work.

So the ties. They'd be in big, scattered, haphazard piles in out of the way corners of the place. And the piles had spaces in them. Which I, naturally, turned into forts. Thinking of it now, I'm eerily reminded of the bonfire put on by the Texas Aggies that collapsed and killed a bunch of people. I'm lucky I didn't break my neck. But the ties were pretty sturdy. And I was a lot lighter then than I am now. I'd sit in there with my Barbies or Sweet Treats dolls (Remember? The ones that came in houses shaped like ice cream sodas?) and listen to my walkman, wasting away the hours.

There was a huge magnolia tree there, too, that I spent entire mornings exploring, listening to the waxy leaves brush against each other in the breeze. If Erin was there, she'd take one branch, I'd take another, and we'd practice singing songs from Grease. She always got to be Sandy. I was regulated to Marty, despite the fact that I could sing better than her. She was a middle child, and difficult.

One time I dropped my walkman in the toilet of the clubhouse. I think I lied and told my mom that it just stopped working.

My dad once dragged a woman suffering from heatstroke into the shower there. I remember watching silently as everyone gathered around the door, watching him hold her under the cold water, both of them dressed in tennis whites, still in their shoes.

I recall fighting with someone's daughter, one of the few times there was someone else there my age that I hadn't brought. We were arguing about whether or not people and dinosaurs had lived during the same time. I based my argument on The Flintstones. Smart kid, I was.

I feel bad for kids today. Kids that don't get to wander around somewhere outside, wasting away the hours, living in their own heads for a bit. I went a million different places reading books in my fort under the railroad ties. I concocted a million different daydreams while sitting in that magnolia tree. And I learned to eat guacamole.

Poof

I just walked in from the rain with my umbrella and remembered waiting for the bus in high school. I would have so much hairspray and crap in my hair that I would use an umbrella when it was snowing, because if the snow fell on my hair and melted, it would ruin the impressive sculpture I had created.

Hats were verboten.

The 80's. What were we thinking?

Calista

I'm dressed like a character from Ally McBeal today.

I didn't mean to be. Honestly. And I didn't realize I was. Until I got to the office. By then it was too late.

I woke up today in a better mood than I've been in in days. I've had this project hanging over my head at work that I haven't wanted to deal with, but I woke up, sat up in bed, ticked off on my fingers everything I needed to do to get my head in a place where I could deal with the matter, then hopped out of bed and trundled off to the treadmill.

As I was walking, reading Kindy Friedman and listening to Rufus Wainwright, I also considered what I should wear. Considering what to wear on Wednesdays is always tricky. Wednesdays are bar nights and I don't go home between work and the bar. So I have to wear something that I don't mind smelling like cigarette smoke for the next week or so after going out.

I remembered a jumper that a friend had given me while cleaning out her closet a few months ago. And I remembered a dress that I'd bought in graduate school while interning in DC. Neither of those two pieces fit several months ago, but I'd gotten up a few minutes early and I had time to try them on. You know, before I decided that they made me look horribly fat, then I would wear some long baggy sweater over too-big pants, thereby camoflaging said fat. You ladies know the drill.

Jumper? No. Size too small. Fit around the waist. Tried to button up the front and ended up hunched over like...well, like someone who lives in a bell tower in Paris.

Dress. It fit. So, I kept it on. Basic black. Basic dress. Put on a velvet jacket with it and decided I looked like I was going to a nightclub. Switched to a conservative grey with 3/4 sleeves and liked it quite well.

My office moved last year. In the move, we kept a large wall mirror that we haven't found a place to hang in our new office. So it sits on the floor, next to the file cabinets, and reflects your legs as you walk into the office. I like it, as I like to see where my pants hit my foot. I had a floodpant incident in 6th grade that I never really got over. Sky blue cords. Excuse me. I need to take a minute....

Okay. Now. Walk into the office. I have a trench coat on. Take off the coat. Go to the ladies' room. Come back in.

Holy crap. That skirt is short. I stop. Look in the mirror. It isn't too far past my fingertips, actually. Short. It doesn't look bad, really. But I'm glad I don't have clients coming in. And the guys I work with wouldn't risk saying anything about it. They act like I'm a guy, for the most part. For which I'm thankful, for the most part.

I'm now hidden behind my desk for the remainder of the day. I'll have to strategically plan trips to the bathroom. And I need to remember not to drop anything on the floor.

Blink

As a child, I couldn't understand my mother's attachment to the phone. She could be on for hours. Days. Eons. Once, I kept telling her how sick I felt. She, thinking I simply wanted her off the phone, kept telling me to go play somewhere. As an only child, that's what you're told. "Go play somewhere. Like in the street." Turns out, I had pneumonia. I still use that one when a guilt mallet is called for. "Remember when I told you I was sick and you ignored me and I had to go to the hospital and stay in a tent?"

Then I got to junior high/high school. Then I loved the phone. Loved it. Would use it for hours. Made my parents get call waiting. I desperately wanted my own telephone line, but they wouldn't bow to my will, despite the fact I was an only child. See, I wasn't totally spoiled.

In college, it turned into a toy. We'd leave long, rambling messages on people's answering machines. My friends in the dorm had the phone number 7-BEER. We'd call them at all hours, leave them messages, crank them.

Or I'd stay on the phone for an hour with my friend, Dan, who would watch Ricki with me. You know, Ricki Lake's show. Or is it Ricky? Or Rikki? Anyway, we'd watch the entire show while on the phone. And he was straight. I know, hard to believe.

Now that I work, however, I am back to hating the phone. At my old office, I'd put post-it notes over the blinking light indicating that I had messages. My receptionist is my best friend, because she sends calls straight to voice mail whenever I want. Which is most of the time. I feel like I've developed some kind of social anxiety issue, where I can't talk to anyone who might cause me the least moment of trouble, pain, concern or other problem.

I don't even get fun drunk dialing phone calls anymore. How did this happen?

A Disappointment of Epic Proportions

I read The Secret History by Donna Tartt a number of years ago. I loved it. I loved every minute of it. From trying to figure out exactly when it was supposed to have taken place ("They're reading People and watching bad television, but they didn't know men had walked on the moon") to trying to figure out exactly who I should be rooting for ("I hate Bunny. No. Wait. Poor Bunny. I hate Henry."), I loved it. I loved the atmosphere of the book--the feeling of long, disconnected winter evenings, driving into the country to spend a weekend at a house you've never been to, filled with someone else's antiques. I loved that it was set in Vermont, where I went to school, in a town that was much like the one in which I lived for three years. I loved the characters, which reminded me of people I went to school with--a collection of odd individuals you would never think to look for outside of a rural valley town in Central Vermont: former Army Rangers, stock market players, prep school escapees, heroin addicts, homosexuals, a larger number of Republicans than you might have thought, people who couldn't form coherent sentences, public policy wonks, mountain climbers, anarchists, environmentalists and brewers.

I remember recommending the book to my friend, Jason. Jason and I have a long history (there's the word again) of suggesting books to each other. I gave him a dictionary when we graduated from high school. He sent me a book of poetry when my dad died. He got me into David Foster Wallace. I told him he needed to read House of Leaves. And The Secret History.

He liked it. Probably not as much as me. But he went to school in Vermont, too. Not the same place I went. But in a way, exactly the same place I went. Because it had its collection of freaks, too. And the winters got cold just as early. And it got dark just as soon. The mornings at his school were filled with blue light reflecting off snow, just like it did outside of my window. The river froze there, too.

I waited for a long time to get her next book, The Little Friend. It looked good. I knew it was about a murder in a small southern town. Yet again, a subject I could relate to, having grown up in the South, although not in a small town. It was thick. It had a creepy cover. I couldn't wait.

I finally checked it out of the library. I was part right. The beginning was great. The premise was great. A murder. A little girl. A mystery. A small town. All the makings of a really good, creepy story, not unlike her first book.

But there was absolutely, positively no payoff. No resolution. No finale. I put the book down, completely pissed off. What? The hell? Was that? When I read a mystery, or something purporting to be mysterious, I want some kind of...justification. Justification that I just spent upteen hours plowing through this brick of a book. Instead, she gets caught in a water tower? Huh? And her brother? What the hell happened to the brother?

So I sulked about the book for a while. But was happy I'd checked it out from the library, rather than buying it.

Then Jason called. I thought I could warn him, get to him early enough to save him.

Me: Hey, you haven't read that new Tartt book, have you?
Jason: Oh. My. God. That SUCKED! What the hell? With the watertower? And the snakes? What the f$#&!

I'll leave out the remainder of his rant, as this is a family blog. But you get the drift. He proceeding to rail against the book for a good 25 minutes or so. I just nodded, not caring that he couldn't see me over the phone. He didn't want my support or agreement. Just my ear.

I reread The Secret History this weekend. It is one of those books where you're always finding a different nuance, a different feeling about the storyline. I had forgotten some of what happened. Actually, I'd forgotten most of what happened. I did remember, however, the feeling it gave me to read it. The feelings of long, cold winter nights in a big house full of someone else's furniture. The feeling of living in a bit of a fishbowl, with everyone paying attention to you out of the corner of their eye. The feeling that, should you walk out your door and across the town green at 3 a.m., you'll still manage to bump into someone you know. And the feeling that you might learn something about them that you didn't know before. I finished it and was so sad that she hasn't written anything else. Well, anything else that I would read.

Conversations From the Weekend

Me: Who is that girl your boyfriend is talking to?
Allison: I have absolutely no idea.
She turns to look at her boyfriend, Andy, talking to a 20-something Asian woman, then turns back to me.
Allison: Somewhere, some bar is short-staffed.

* * *

Mel: I go to a lesbian dentist.
Me: Is she a dentist for lesbians or a dentist who is a lesbian?
Mel: Both.
Kim: Is she any good?
Mel: She has great teeth. Actually, most lesbians have good teeth. Miss Head, you have really good teeth.
Me: Did you just call me a lesbian?

* * *

Glenn: So I have tickets to see the Rat Pack at the Sands.
Kim: Oh, so do I! Monica and I are going.
Me: Really? At the Sands?
Glenn: I think I have to give away my tickets. I'll be out of town.
Kim: You should go! You should totally go if they still have tickets.
Me: Well, when are you leaving?
Kim: It starts at 7ish, maybe we'll meet for dinner first.
Me: Wait. Where is this?
Kim: At [local arena].
Me: Oh. I thought you meant Leelenau Sands.
Kim: Did you think we were flying in?
Me: Yeah. Kinda.

(This is likely only funny if you live in Michigan. And are drunk.)

* * *

Kim: So how much longer did you stay?
Me: Oh, maybe 10ish. Right around when I talked to you. I'd had way too much to drink by then. I knew it was time to go when I was watching the ticker and couldn't figure out what they were talking about when they wrote "Fee West."
Kim: What was it.
Me: Fewest.
Kim: Good call on the leaving.

Bankrupt

I've been dealing with bankruptcy quite a bit lately. Not mine. For my job. It entails that I occasionally go to bankruptcy proceedings to listen in, take notes, see what's going on in particular cases. They are never fun, like other types of hearings can be on occasion. But they certainly can be entertaining, in a weird way.

The other day, I was sitting there, listening to a case in which these people are trying to declare bankruptcy under Chapter 7. I think. Not that I really know the difference between 7 and 13. But I could look it up. I just don't care enough.

Anyway, so these people. They'd been married for a long time. Had a college-aged child. She's teaching. He's working as a construction project manager. They've already gone through Chapter 13. Now trying 7. Or vice versa. Whatever. The magistrate is going through their monthly bills, talking to them about their exemptions and whatnot.

"What is this payment to North Catholic?" I 've changed the name of the school, to protect the midline imbecilic.
"Tuition." They reply, in unison. They had developed a cadance to their responses to the magistrate, an almost sing-song response to his myriad questions about their lives, jobs, children and activities. It was like watching a cobra hypnotise two small, twitchy rodents.
"Well, I don't know if that's going to count."

I could see the terror on their faces. She's teaching at a Catholic school. They have more kids than lived with the old woman in a shoe. Clearly, religion is important to them. And that's an entirely different topic than the one I'm on today.

"I think you're going to have to send your kids to public school," the magistrate said.

You would have thought he had just told them that he had spit in their soup. She was barely restraining herself from leaping over the table and scratching his eyes out with her Lee Press-On Nail talons.

"Okay, okay," their attorney muttered. "We'll discuss that later." Anything to placate the masses.

I, of course, got a kick out of the entire scene. I'm a big public school supporter. Granted, I also know the value of living in a good school district. I'm thinking that these folks aren't living in the inner city and aren't living in fear that their kids will get shanked while waiting for the bus to school in the morning, much less what the SAT scores are at their local public school. But, obviously, their choice of educational opportunities for their kids was important. Important enough to spend money on while going bankrupt.

I thought about things I buy every month, or every couple of months, that, technically, I could live without but choose to buy. And those things I'd like to pay every month, but can't bring myself to do. What could I cut?

I could cut cable. I could do it, if absolutely necessary. I would hate it. Absolutely hate it. But I could do it. I'd spend every minute of the day at someone else's house, but I could do it.

I could stop coloring my hair. But I would be very, very unhappy. And possibly scary.

I could stop buying clothes that are dry-clean only. I could read the labels more before I buy. I could not buy clothes for a while. But, really, where's the joy in that?

I could go for bargain brands for the following: toilet paper, kleenex, tampons, toothpaste, deoderant, diet soda, crackers, cheese, ketchup and peanut butter. Maybe not the kleenex. Or the peanut butter.

And things that I would love to have that I can't justify? Computers, satellite radio, more cable, manicures and pedicures from someone other than myself, carpet cleaning. God, the list is endless. A maid. I'd kill or die for a maid.

But, looking at these lists, my items are all about personal comfort. Luxury items, really, rather than things you have to have. Heat. Water. Electricity. Taxes. Education. Those people are, apparently, willing to sacrifice quite a bit in order to get their kids into Catholic school. While they are financially bankrupt, they could just as easily find me bankrupt in other, more substantial, ways.

Clearly, they'd be wrong. But they could think it.

Paths

When I got home last night, I looked around my condo for a bit, something I don't do very frequently. You know how you just live in a place and quit really seeing things. You can look directly at that spot on the corner where the paint has chipped off and forget that it is even there, even as you're looking at it. You close the blinds every day, seeing that spot where you broke them while flipping the mattress over about three years ago, and you remember that you need to look for nonstandard size blind only once in a blue moon. We live with imperfections because we train ourselves not to see them.

And then someone will come over. Or the sun will come out. Or you'll sit somewhere you haven't sat in a long time. And you look at your house from a different perspective. You see the spiderwebs on the window sill. You see the rust spot on the white carpet from the leg of the crappy table you got from your grandmother. You see the ring in the toilet that you never ever use.

Last night I started looking at photographs I had around my place. Photos in frames that I don't really look at other than when I dust them, thinking of the horrible haircut I had, or why do I always have a beer in my hand when the flash goes off. Pictures of me with college friends. From trips to the Carribbean. From places overseas. From graduate school.

And then, because I'd had a couple of beers, I started digging through my file drawers, looking for pictures from those trips. That one picture? With the guy with the amazing blue eyes and incredible eyelashes? Where did that go? I know it is here somewhere. God, look how thin I was. Look how young I was.

It doesn't seem so long ago. I can remember those trips. Walking through Tuzla in the middle of the night, taking pictures of my new friends. Taking pictures of the shrine in the middle of town, where kids, only a few years younger than me, had died in a bombing. Sitting on those buses for hours and hours and listening to the crazy French guy bitch about how Americans are making the world impossible for smokers. A school of fish swarming around...well, nevermind what they were swarming for. It was still a cool picture.

There's a picture of me at graduation from graduate school. There's a day that was fuzzy. I remember I wore a red suit. It is in my closet even now. The skirt's too short and the jacket too long. Very Ally McBeal. Or a song by Cake. But it'll come in handy for something someday. And pictures from our graduation picnic. I spilled something all over that sweater I borrowed. And pictures of the lake cruise. I honestly don't even remember that picture taken that night...of all of us in front of Joe Jean's house.

And lots of pictures of David-Eric. How did I end up with so many pictures of him? Right. Because he's an attention whore. Or was. I still can't believe he's not around anymore.

All these pictures, telling the story of my life. Moments that seem like they happened just yesterday. Moments I can't even recall but that I somehow felt would be important. Important enought to commemorate in a photograph. I look at myself in those photos and think, simultaneously, that I don't look all that different and that I look so innocent, so naive.

I guess that's how it happens. How you get older. First on the inside. Then on the outside.

Oh! Look! A picture of Shelly Hack!

I'll Be Your Freakazoid

I know I've been super lame lately, what with the lack of posts. I can claim to have been incredibly busy and all, but that isn't quite true. I just haven't been struck with the bug, to tell the truth. I've got some stories percolating: roller derby, karakoke, the ketchup guy. I'll get them out. Soon. But sometimes they need to germinate. Need a little dark earth and some rain and some direct sunlight to sprout.

You know, before the moles eat the damn things. Bastards.

I will, however, relate a rather disturbing story I heard last night.

I was getting my hair done. The girl who does my hair has been doing it...geez, for about ten years now. I went to her when she was in beauty school. She and I waited tables together right after I finished school. I've seen her go from falling-down-drunk to a mother of three. Not that those conditions are mutually exclusive. In fact, I think one encourages the other. Anyway.

I'm sitting there with my hair in foils and another woman comes in to get a haircut. Her son goes to school with my friend's son.

First, she claims not to know Reese Witherspoon is married. Lady, don't lie. I'm a trained and licensed professional. I went to school for nineteen years, plus kindergarten. And preschool. Don't act like you're all better than me because I like E! and read Us Weekly.

Then she claims that she has loved Julia Roberts "ever since I was a little girl." Okay. I seem to remember that Pretty Woman came out when I was in high school. So get over yourself, sweetheart. I'm not that much older than you.

When she leaves, I ask my friend her deal. We dish for a while. Then, I hear this:

She just weaned her child. Her youngest. Who is. Four. Years. Old.

I find that completely disturbing. Like Child Protective Services disturbing. Like he's going to remember that shit when he's fooling around with some girl in high school or college. "Gee, just like with Mom." He's gonna tell his wife about that some day. And she isn't going to want to hear about it. Creepy ass shit, right there.

Apologies

I apologize for being so lame lately but I seem to have been running around quite a bit with not much time on my hands. Which I will need in order to complete my next entry, tenatively entitled "It Happened on the Way to the Roller Derby" or "Why Fat Men Shouldn't Sing Karaoke".

As you can see from potential titles, it'll be a long one, and I haven't had the time to sit down and write. Hopefully, this weekend will provide both time and internet access.

LMAO

A conversation from the other night that I had with a guy I know:

Guy: And now my father? He just sits around and watches NASCAR all the time.

Me: Well, that kinda...sucks? I...guess?

Guy: Yeah. Completely. Just sits around all day on Sunday. Him and my brother. Drinkin' beer and watchin' NASCAR. Is that any way to spend your retirement?

Me: Um...no?

Guy: And now they're corrupting my nephew. My smart little nephew who's stuck living out in the sticks.

Me: How so?

Guy: Oh, he's watching that crap, too.

Me: Really?

Guy: Yeah. His favorite driver...was...shit, I dunno. Mark Martin or somebody. Marky Mark? Whatever.

Me: Okay...

Guy: And he was sponsered by...maybe Winston-Salem or Cutty Sark or some such shit. Cigarettes or booze or something. And that was fine with everybody.

Me: Right.

Guy: But then the driver switched sponsers. To Viagra. And now they won't let him root for the guy anymore.

Me: Uh-huh.

Guy: Because erectile disfunction is unspeakable, but we got no problems with 10-year-olds rooting for the Booze-mobile.

Me: Well, sure.

Important Stuff

I was sitting in my office this morning when someone walked into our lobby area. My desk is angled to look out my office door and right onto the lobby, so I can see when someone comes in, but still ignore them if I don't feel like talking to them or recognizing that they exist. That's usually the tack I take.

Young man walks in. I can tell right away that he's way too short for me to bother paying attention to for anything other than work requirements. He starts talking to our receptionist. I completely evesdrop. He asks for one of the other guys here and proceeds to tell her that he's this guy's son.

"Oh, are you the one that's getting married?"

What followed was, I'm not kidding you, a 23 minute discussion with this poor young man involving every female staff member of our office that covered, in no particular order, the following: the location of the wedding, whether anyone knew anyone who'd been married at that location, whether anyone had ever even been to that location, what the dress was like, where they were going to live, how does he like Chicago, does his future bride like Chicago, what does her dress look like, what does her ring look like, is he going to wear a ring because his dad doesn't, is it a sit down meal or a buffet, what are the colors for the bridesmaids, have they gotten a cake yet and, finally, do they need a caterer because someone knows someone who knows someone, if he's interested.

I imagine that this is not an unusual position for this guy to be in. There are two subjects that people, well, really, women, absolutely lose their shit over--weddings and babies. Not having ever been involved in either of those things might color my perception a bit. However, does anyone really need a receptionist at the dentist's office giving them her opinion on baby names? Or whether they should have an open bar for the entire wedding or just before and after dinner? Or what flavor filling should be in the cake? The answer is obviously raspberry, anyway, and everyone knows that, so keep your opinions to yourself. Who the hell cares what these people think? And why oh why do they feel like it is any of their business?

Let me tell you, if it is your business, you'll be invited to the wedding, or the baptism, or whatever. If it isn't, you won't. Get over it. My God, people, this young man is not your stand-in for "Engaged and Underage" or "Bridezillas" or whatever other horrible wedding reality show you watch. He is not there for your personal entertainment. Let him get on with his life. Treat him like a real person. Ask him what he thinks about Iraq. Or the collapse of the American Auto Industry.

Or Anna Nicole's funeral. You know, ask him important stuff.

Misheard

A conversation last night at the bar:

Kim: "So he told me that, if I kept wearing shoes like this, I was going to get...mrphsglah."
Monica: "He told you that?"
Kathy: "I can't believe it. What a jackass."
Me: "Wait, what did he say?"
Kim: "He told me I'd get hammertoes."
Me: "Oh. That makes more sense. I was wondering how your shoes could give you camel toe."

Hippity Hoppity

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I've been emailing back and forth with a friend of mine from college. He's completely unaware that I was his self-appointed stalker my freshman year. I used to get to class 20 minutes early so I could sit in the hallway and wait for him to leave whatever crappy history lecture he had the hour before my crappy history lecture. Actually, his class was probably a crappy poli sci class. Anyway, I was full of unrequited love for him until he graduated and then I found some other fool to follow around for another year. Then I went to grad school in the world's smallest town, lost 50 pounds and didn't have to worry about unrequited love anymore.

Anyway, he and I are emailing about world events, college mishaps, whatever strikes our fancy. We usually start the morning exchange by discussing whatever was on NPR or the state of the market. We then move through current events, celebrity news and pop culture. By the end of the day, we are rehashing drunken escapades in which we took part, either at college or later.

Last week, we were laughing about stupid shit we did at parties. I reminded him of a particular party my junior year at which I was passing around reading material. I was involved in student government at the time and, in our offices, we had pamphlets on every disease, disorder and type of substance abuse known to man. I used to page through them when I was bored, wondering how frequently they were replaced or rewritten. When the birth control pamphlets are really faded and still recommending the IUD, you start to wonder these things.

So, I found these pamphlets. And I thought to myself, "This could be fun." So I grabbed a bunch of them and took them to my house for future use. Because I plot and plan like that. And I respect that trait in others.

It was springtime and the guys were having a party. Not that they only threw parties during the springtime. They threw parties all the time. But it was getting toward the end of the year, close to my friend's graduation, actually, and the parties were gaining in intensity.

I walked in and the place was in full swing. I don't know where I'd been beforehand, but I'm reasonably certain I was three sheets to the wind when I got there. I had to have been. Because I started handing out AA pamphlets to my friends. And I thought I was fuckin' hysterical.

When I thought about the whole event recently, I couldn't believe I'd done something like that, particularly since we were all probably functional alcoholics at that point and I had absolutely no business making fun of anyone's drinking habits. If that party had been in a Lifetime movie, I'd have ended up dead under a bus for committing the sin of making fun of a disease. (Speaking of, I'm very much looking forward to the upcoming binge drinking special on Lifetime. Will someone DVR it for me?)

"Do you remember that party?" I asked my friend via email.
"Oh, totally," he replied.
"I can't believe I did that."
"Yeah, well, don't you remember why we were having the party?"
"No. Was there an occasion?"
"Yeah. It was Easter. It was our 'Drinking for Jesus' party."

Oh. Well. No wonder I was passing out AA pamphlets.