Had To Move

Three Trends That Need to Die NOW

2008-05-02T11:11:00.004-04:00

1) I read a lot of food blogs, and the comment sections are stuffed full of the words "om nom nom," or, "nom nom nom" when presented with a picture of a juicy cheeseburger or freshly made macarons. People, please. The Cookie Monster thing was funny for approximately 17 seconds, but now that this onomatopoeic Muppet phrase is finding its way onto blogs that have NOTHING TO DO WITH FOOD, it needs to go the way of the dodo. If you can't find anything non-Muppet to say, please don't say anything at all.

2) The use of the word "green" as a verb to describe the taking of ecologically friendly measures. "We're greening our office." "We have to green America's highways." It's as bad as "growing our revenue," another phrase I can't stand.

3) Professional pictures of people's feet that are somehow supposed to represent their personality. Hasn't the so-called "statement" of Chuck Taylors with a tuxedo been done to the point where it is no longer a statement, and therefore no longer worth the stupid photo? I actually like the photography of some of the people who shot these, so where oh where is this demand for foot fotos coming from? It's almost as bad as the now tiresomely ubiquitous "jump shot." What am I not getting here?

I'm going to Pennsylvania this weekend, primarily to escape technology and its seductive luring of me to blogs that threaten to drive me mad with all the chomping choruses of "om nom nom."

Security Insecurities

2008-04-15T12:35:00.002-04:00

Even though I work at a travel magazine, I often thank my lucky stars I don't have to travel more often than I do, not because I don't love it, but because the security measures at airports are so stupid and seemingly misguided that it makes my eyeball blood vessels explode in frustration pretty much every time I fly.

Although I have loved getting my breasts patted by lesbian German hausfraus in Frankfurt looking for explosives (which, judging by my cup size, wouldn't be large enough to put much of a dent in, say, a two-man tent, let alone an airplane), and enjoying the scent of my fellow 4,000 passengers' moldy feet in July at JFK, I think my frustrations are shared by 230% of the other Americans who travel, and who not only don't feel safer, but feel entirely put out by security measures.

Because when people start venting on Amazon.com comments for a security-checkpoint toy, you know it's gone too far.

Via Crankyflier.

You know you've been on a diet too long when...

2008-03-26T15:09:00.003-04:00

instead of the sugar cookie you crave, you eat a bowl of Fiber One for an afternoon snack and think, "MMMMMmmmmm, with enough Equal it tastes ever so much like Honey Smacks..."

One more reason to feel for the troops

2008-03-18T11:55:00.002-04:00

After five years in Iraq, there are plenty of reasons to feel pained for our troops. Here's one you probably hadn't thought of yet: MREs.

An interesting day at the mall

2008-03-11T14:48:00.002-04:00

Saturday, my fiance and I found ourselves at the Manhattan Mall for reasons too weird to get much into (namely, a downpour and an open bag of popcorn in our hands).

As we sat down on the rim of the mall's unused fountain to eat our Garrett's Popcorn (get the mix, get the mix, Oprah ain't kidding, this pig is addictive), we joined a group of rowdy Midwestern high-school tourists who were busy taking snapshots of each other in New York's most compelling tourist attraction, the Manhattan Mall basement. Shortly, a security officer came along to shoo them away. We sat there still, figuring as locals, we had a right to park our cans anywhere in the Manhattan Mall that we damn well pleased, especially since there were no signs reading "Please do not eat your delicious popcorn on the bench around our nonworking, eyesore fountain." But no -- the rent-a-cop soon got in our faces, shouting, "AM I SPEAKING ENGLISH, OR NOT?" as if we were a group of, I don't know, loitering teenage Mexicans? Si, senor, it was all very strange.

Since we felt compelled to keep shoving fattening popcorn into our maws and didn't want to sully the fine merchandise there with caramel and nuclear orange butter-flavor powder that quickly worked its way into our cuticles, we moved to the food court and sat down at a table. I soon noticed that the chap across from me was ranting to himself as the contents of an egg roll dribbled out of his mouth; the fiance suspected he was cracked out and seeing things. As we got up to leave, some raving voodoo lady standing by Sarku Japan (where I definitely recommend you get sushi someday) cackled at my fiance that he sure must "like the crazy ones. She crazy!"

Yeah, lady. I'm the crazy one.

And yet, my day at the mall was not nearly as weird as it must have been on the day that Improv Everywhere struck:

So I'm planning a wedding

2008-03-11T12:50:00.002-04:00

So I'm planning a wedding in New York. On a (by local standards) limited budget. And trying to make it nice, for all my out of town guests, retired farmers and such, who might not appreciate a keg and doughnuts party in the park followed by a viewing of Fuerzabruta, or some such thing that always pops up in conversations when people suggest alternatives for saving money on the reception that will will save you tons of money, allowing for a future down payment of six million dollars for a studio apartment in Bed-Stuy.

Nope, we're doing the church, the organ, the pastor, the cocktail reception and private club (seriously, on a limited budget. I swear). That's why I'll be trying to save money on other areas, like flowers, and plan to carry a head of broccoli down the aisle.

As a result, I've been reading some wedding blogs, mostly to try to figure out how to force vendors to give me what I want for half the cost of what they normally do. Which, by the way, doesn't work.

(Sample coversation:
Me: Here's what I want. And my budget is [20% less than what it really is].
Vendor: You want that for HOW MUCH? The LEAST we can do it for is [40% over ACTUAL budget])

My key initiatives while planning the wedding are to stay as sane as possible and do as little as possible, lest I turn into bridezilla and go completely gray by my wedding day and scare away the fiance.

ANYWAY, I am a big fan of weddingbee.com, a helpful place to get advice and inspiration. But I"ll admit there are days I feel a bit alienated on the message boards. Because sometimes, it's populated by folks like this:

I desperately want David Sedaris to be my pizza delivery man

2008-03-06T13:10:00.001-05:00

Most Intense Commercial. Ever.

2007-11-28T11:20:00.001-05:00

I can't really add anything to this, you just hafta watch it.

Holy f**K, Canada!

The Post in Which You Pay for Me to Get Shin Splints

2007-09-20T16:39:00.000-04:00

So my few remaining readers, I haven't done much for you lately. I haven't posted, I haven't called, I never write, and here I am about to come begging to you...but part of the reason I haven't been writing is, I've been running.

For some reason (possibly insanity), getting out and running 26.2 miles in one stretch has always seemed like an appealing idea to me. The shin splints, the bunions, the lost toenails...who could want for more? But I never had a REALLY GOOD reason to run a marathon until now. That reason is Team in Training (and, my Uncle Bob -- but more on that later).

Team in Training is a fundraising arm of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, which to date has raised $750 million for cancer research. But there's no cure for cancer yet, so people keep running, and donating, and getting bunions -- until there's no more cancer.

Lucky for you, I'm not asking you to bear any of the shin splints. I'll go out and do the training, the 13-mile runs in 13-degree weather running 13 laps around Central Park. And then in January, I"ll fly to Phoenix and run the marathon, all 26.2 bunion-causing miles of it. I'm getting psyched!

I'd just like you (or your generous tax-break-loving corporation!) to visit my page (www.active.com/donate/tntnyc/tntnycEschult) and, if you feel so moved, help me raise the $3,800 I need to raise to run the race. I'm at just over a thousand now -- where can you help me push this up to?

You can donate online, and the money goes to cancer research and patient support; if you have questions about how it's used there's an FAQ on the Team in Training page:

http://www.teamintraining.org/

Remember, this money goes not to me, but to the cause!

Supporting cancer research, to me, is not some amorphous good deed. I am running this race in honor of my uncle, who last year was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. After chemo failed to do the trick, he received a bone-marrow transplant. My father was his bone marrow donor. I run in honor of my uncle and all the other people who have battled cancer. I know many of you have friends or family who have had cancer (or you've had it yourself), and you know what an important cause this is. Please forward this link to anyone else you think might be interested in making a donation to the L&L Society.

Thanks for listening to my little pitch, and I hope you'll visit my page...

9/11 Animated Memorial Film

2007-09-11T12:51:00.001-04:00

My friend Becky was one of the animators on this 9/11 memorial short. On yet another anniversary, it is hard to know what to do or what to think, even now, about that day. Anyway, go have a look at her work, it's really lovely.

I'm in Ur Bed

2007-09-11T10:25:00.000-04:00

Last night was a night like any other night. I got home from a long day of gym, work, errands, and laundry, and after talking to my parents, decided I needed to plug in my ailing, battery-weak phone.

I turned on the light in my bedroom, walked toward the outlet (which is on the far side of my bed), when I noticed a...creature....standing smack dab, proud, and huge on top of my pillow. Normally not afraid of bugs, this thing was so massive and gnarly that it took me by surprise and I let out a blood-curdling scream of the length and volume I normally save for rodent invaders.

This was no ordinary bug. This one was six -- possibly eight -- (and I am not exaggerating) inches long and had eyes so big and beady that I could see them from 10 feet away. I swore he was blinking at me. I think he even had...muscular legs. This was the Ben Johnson of bugs.

I ran to get a bag to capture him but soon realized that the mouth of grocery bag would not be big enough to successfully scoop him up. Verily, when I approached him with the bag, he TURNED HIS HEAD, looked at me, BLINKED with boredom, as if to say, "Oh yeah? What're you gonna do about it?" So I rummaged around and found a shoebox, trapped my prey, which was freakishly scuttling around inside the box, and scooted him outside where I tossed him as far as I could.

I'm not sure what it means that I found a preying mantis -- the bug that eats their mates' heads after copulation -- on my boyfriend's pillow. But, it did inspire to make this, my own little bug-y lolcat. Lolbug?

The Dirtiest Place to Get Clean

2007-08-20T21:16:00.001-04:00

When I was a kid, I loved nothing more than going to the laundromat with my friend Jessie.

My family, being relatively well-off in our humble little cow town, had its own washer and dryer. This seemed to me to be a great injustice, since all things awesome and off-limits were only a quarter's throw away at the laundromat on main street. There we could glug down bottles of full-strength Coke, cold and sweating when fresh from the vending machine. We could revel in the nasty adult antics on full display in the unlimited soap operas on the tube. We could gape at grown-ups who sat and OPENLY FLAUNTED their cancer sticks while accepting the peppermints they slipped into our greedy little hands. Sheer heaven, and all of it prohibited at home. Whenever I begged my mother to go to the laundromat witih Jessie on their weekly sojourn, she rolled her eyes and consented to this little "adventure," knowing later she'd have to lather my obstinant little head with a full bottle of Johnson & Johnson's to get all the secondhand smoke scrubbed out of my locks.

Today, of course, I understand Mom's disdain for the dirty dirty laundromat.

For the last five years, I had somehow had the good fortune in New York City of paying below-market rents for apartments that had IN-HOUSE washers and dryers. Only if you are a city dweller can you know what a joy this is. People who came over to visit and got "the tour" would literally fall on their knees at the site of my in-house unit, knowing that I was spared weekly the torture of hauling a back-breaking load of smelly whites into a laundromat with one of two choices: risk the derision of the Chinese ladies who did the laundry and hope no weirdo panty-sniffers worked in the back, or sit for hours in the steamy stank-jungle that is a New York laundromat, wishing that the very fires of hell were powering the dryer so you could sooner make your escape.

This year, though, the gig was up. I moved up and I moved out, into a place where I pay market rent (read: a king's ransom) for a space that's huge and lovely, but has no in-house laundry. It was back to the laundromat for me.

I hoped only to find a place less desolute than the 'mat I used in Fort Greene, where a man came in every day selling used socks and a bum would regularly strip down eight layers or so beneath his trench before throwing it all -- dirty -- into one of the very same dryers I used to dry my own threads.

And actually, I did. But this place has another problem: It is dirty.

Now, I am not talking average run-of-the-mill dirty. I am talking DIRTY. Dirtier than the Canal Street subway station when the pipes burst under Chinatown's fish market. Dirtier than the old man who regularly flashes me at 6 a.m. on my way to the gym, before he's even had his morning coffee to perk up. Dirtier than the Bush administration. I know, it's hard to imagine.

This place is so dirty I am quite certain they had to try extra hard to get that way.

It has invested in the latest and greatest grime-attracting technology.

Not satisfied with the errant hairball or wandering dryer sheet, my new 'mat has installed Willy Wonka's Pre-Wetted Gobstopper Linoleum, all the better to attract cat hair and chicken bones tracked in off the street. They special-ordered the Ronco 2000 Asbestos Wall Fan with patented Nutria coating, to make sure the dust and dirt is thoroughly distributed via its in-wall ventilation systems. Lighting units were special-ordered from the Sing Sing Interior Decorating Department; through feats of technology they manage to cast their pallid, greenish glow over the premises while hanging tenuously by a mere centimeter of warped aluminum. And don't forget the ceilings! This place went the extra mile, bringing in neighborhood hoodlums to relieve themselves over the panels before they were installed, creating a complex tapestry of yellow stains.

Luckily, I have telenovelas to distract me for the 90 minutes it takes me to strap on a gas mask and do my laundry. The soaps, at least, never change, even though the laundromat has lost its appeal.

And with that, I'm off to slip into bed. Ahhhh....there's nothing like clean sheets.

Perhaps...

2007-07-26T12:21:00.000-04:00

this is why I'm paying 67% more in rent this year than I was last year.

Leave it to the NYTimes to blab to everyone far and near that my neighborhood is "Brooklyn's equivalent of the West Village: sophisticated, refined and slightly bohemian." And thanks for noting its "resemblance to a European village — the cute restaurants and bars...like you are living in a neighborhood in London, having the town houses, the butcher shop, the cheese shop and the fish shop. It makes you feel like you are living in a real place, rather than a mall or something."

Look for my rent to pop another 30% next year. Oh, if only I were a homeowner!

Target Market: NOT Me

2007-07-19T10:31:00.001-04:00

The building in which I work contains the magazine Good Housekeeping. Those who grew up paging through their mother's subscription to GH (and wondering why in the world anyone would care about how to bake clafouti or polish silver) may be familiar with the "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval."

To GH's credit, the seal is not something they slap on any old product that advertisers ask them to. Products with a GH seal actually undergo rigorous testing in GH's test kitchens and labs, and if you don't believe me, come have lunch sometime and I'll take you to the 29th floor, where that part of GH is housed. On any given day you'll find an army of GH employees repeatedly vacuuming little patches of carpet or determining JUST HOW MANY washes a towel can undergo before it falls apart in your hands. On busier days around here, I gaze longingly through the GH window and dream of working in the test labs. Instead of staying on top of the 2.3 million tasks currently associated with launching the website I'm working on, I could spend all day frying egg after egg in a quest to determine the most slippery nonstick surface.

Anyway. Because they test all kinds of products, there are frequently weird little gadgets and gizmos laying around, and they're often the kind of stuff you might see on TBS infomercials if you stayed up late enough on a Tuesday.

The other day when I walked by, I saw such a gadget, named the "Wave Box." The Wave Box is a portable microwave that can be powered by battery or the cigarette lighter space in a car. This is all well and good. But what scared me was the picture on the back of the box: A bald, bespectacled man sitting in his car, the Wave Box firmly perched in the passenger seat, shoving a sandwich inside of the machine.

It was an awfully sad picture, and nothing has ever made me happier that I do not live in an exurb of Dallas.

You Know You're a Grown-Up When...

2007-07-19T10:29:00.000-04:00

You agree to kick off your 32nd birthday by undergoing your annual exam at the gynecologist.

Don't Be Gentle

2007-07-05T14:35:00.001-04:00

After a few days of realizing with building annoyance that my eyebrows were starting to resemble wiggly little caterpillars rather than svelte, foxily arched tools of come-hither, I knew it was time to find a waxing shop in my new work neighborhood. The girls in this building are likely the types who enjoy long, leisurely days at the spa, covering their pores in cucumber slices and and having each hair delicately plucked out with a thread while aromatherapy mists waft over their perfect ski-slope noses. But me? I like my waxing like girls with low self-esteem like their boyfriends: fast, cheap, and brutal. Slap it on, rip 'em out, that's what I say.

Which is why I knew I had to be very specific when I asked a coworker for a nail-shop suggestion: "Where can I go around here to find an Asian lady to dump hot wax on my face and rip all the hairs out of it?"

My to-the-point question received a to-the-point answer and my brows are, once again, looking lean and mean (if a little bit red and puffy). That's what you get when you ask for it rough.

Hey Mami

2007-06-25T13:40:00.000-04:00

I can't say *enjoyed* this story in the Washington City Paper about street harassment, as I found it awfully disheartening. I did find it somewhat validating, though, since men who don't catcall have a hard time believing that it does happen, all the time, and creates a large amount of distress for those women who don't appreciate it (which I have to assume is the vast majority).

The comments are pretty excellent too, especially regarding the vexing "smile" issue that has driven me nearly to the brink of insanity during my years in New York:

"...and the "SMILE!!!" thing??? Drives me fucking crazy. I get told to smile multiple times in a week. Guess what? I can smile when I feel like smiling. I am capable of manipulating the muscles in my mouth to produce a facial expression representing joy. I don't need your assistance on the street. You are not making my day when you tell me to smile. You are just another man who thinks he can control my emotions on command."

Well put, sister.

Tree in the East Village

2007-06-20T17:40:00.000-04:00

Last night I saddled the boyfriend Clark with the apparently cumbersome task of choosing a restaurant. "You pick," translated into manspeak as "Let's go randomly walk around in the muggy heat, becoming increasingly hungry, sweaty and frustrated as we look at menus in windows and wonder why the place is utterly deserted" instead of "Go read menupages and see what looks good in your area." Luckily, Clark has an excellent sense of humor and doesn't mind when I needle him on this blog. Right, Clark? ;-)

Obviously, you can't toss your Chuck Taylor in the East Village without hitting a restaurant, but half of them suck and aspire only to please the palates, apparently, of first-year NYU students. Luckily, I remembered there was a place I wanted to try in the East Village, after reading a NYMag review. It's called Tree, and it's on 1st Avenue between 11th and 12th.

I highly recommend Tree if you're in the area and want a nice garden, some good wine, a good place to talk by candlelight, and solid French food. We had a fantastic bottle of Sauvignon Blanc that had a nice crisp bite to it, along with some escargot to start. The escargot could have used a bit more salt but otherwise were firm and fleshy. Clark had the scallops, but I definitely "won" with my main dish of a seared duck breast (perfectly cooked, and just fatty enough) with pomegranate reduction and a side of sweet parsnip puree.

What's really great about it is the enormous backyard -- easily 10 times the size of the restaurant itself and full of trees and sparkly white lights. Our server was definitely accomodating and I think it would make an incredible date restaurant, (or rather, it did make an incredible date restuarant).

So should you ever walk by, your stomach growling and your desire that someone had looked at menupages growing, and notice that there's no one sitting in Tree, don't be scared off -- they're all out back feasting

I Am Famous (But Only By Association)

2007-06-08T16:25:00.000-04:00

My dear friend Will is doing his best to make sure all of humanity can weigh in on whether the carpets match the drapes.

Ink-Stained Wretch

2007-05-31T17:23:00.000-04:00

The things girls carry around in their purses are varied, fascinating, and a testament to the life of the carrier. If you've ever played a friendly game of "empty your purse" at a bar with your best ladyfriends, you're bound to turn up much weirder detritous than hairbrushes, lipgloass, credit cards and breath mints, especially in a city where you often will go for 16-hour stretches (which could encompass everything from the gym to work to volunteer trash-picking to the opera all in one day) without returning home. My bags tend to be tangled messes of smelly gym shoes, climbing gear, marginal lunch items in tupperware, plastic blisters of Nicorette gum, notebooks, books, matches, discarded plastic forks, salt packets, ticket stubs, hair elastics, half-finished crossword puzzles, electronic gadgets, water bottles, and up to a million other useful or not-so-useful things. They're usually full of unidentified crumbles of crap and by the time I've hauled them around for a year are dirty, smelly, generally unfit for the general public to behold, and completely unsalvagable.

This time, I swore it would be different. After ruining my shoulders by hauling around numerous cheap bags of man-made fabrics which cut into my tendons and ripped under the weight of the loads I made them bear, I decided it was time to buy a Grown Up Lady Bag. Especially now that I worked at a fancy magazine where people's bags look like they cost upwards of two weeks of my take-home pay. So I went to Coach and found a nice, sturdy, gorgeous creamy white shoulder bag, which I promised to love and cherish and clean as frequently as my own face to keep it looking supple and new. It was expensive.

And I kept my promise. Each night I took out all the Nicorette bubbles. I scooped up any dirty quarters that had been handed to me during the day and plunked them in a change jar. I started carrying my smelly shoes in a different bag.

This morning, I opened my lovely bag and found that a black pen had exploded all over the inside, soaking not only the pretty cream satin lining but also my phone, various cosmetic items, IDs, and, when I pulled the offending item out, my hands.

I thought my days as an ink-stained wretch were behind me, but I was foolish to deny my roots.

Travel Tips From Your Friendly Midwestern Representative

2007-05-21T22:50:00.001-04:00

I recently started working at a tony, glossy magazine, the type of place where people -- despite subsisting on entry-level publishing pay -- still manage (somehow!) to flaunt gorgeous designer clothes and summer at multimillion dollar mansions. A perfectly-manicured eyebrow or two may have been raised the day I showed up wearing rumpled Ann Taylor pants and an aw-shucks grin, but so far, so good. They all seem like nice enough folk who don't seem to mind the earnest Midwesterner in their midst.

Last week I sat in on a meeting wherein we planned travel stories. Some people based their pitches -- "A newly refurbished castle in Ireland where you can skeet shoot AND eat endangered-species omelettes for breakfast!" etc. -- on real-life travels, and I started to think about what would happen if I were to do the same. Don't get me wrong: this is a beautiful country and I've visited nearly all of its fine states and found something to like in each of them (with the possible exception of Indiana, where the highlight was getting a Subway sandwich handed to me from behind a wall of bulletproof glass). But of the states I've RESIDED in, it would be a tough case to make a decent story pitch. I, a South Dakota native, like to say that I've lived in all the places other people would never want to. I've done stints in the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska, Michigan, Washington state (OK, that one was lovely), and most unfabulously, Arkansas. Not exactly a gold-mine of luxury travel ideas to mine for the Ladies Who Lunch. But I thought I'd try to make a list anyway. Here goes:

1) "Corn Cobs on the Road: The Versatile Veggie Used for Sustenance AND Hygiene."
2) "Crees & Craps: Top Indian Casinos of the Pacific Northwest"
3) "Your Visit to Toad Suck Days: Buying Baby's First Cammo Bib"
4) "Penis of the Prairie: A Look at Nebraska's Phallic Capitol"
5) "The Hawkeye State's Cleanest Slaughtering Houses: An Insider's Guide"
6) "Show Me the Hand: Touring Cherry-Wine Makers on the Left Pinky of Michigan"
7) "Front-Porch Rocking and Chaw: Experience Arkansas Like the Natives"
8) "Grits, Grits, Grits"
9) "Tornadoes: Storm Chasing The Plains in a Pickup"
10) "36 Hours at: Waffle House"

Jerry's At the Great Gay Pride Parade in the Sky

2007-05-15T16:01:00.000-04:00

I have this magnet on my fridge at home. It says "All bigots will be reincarnated as gay, homeless people of color."

I thought of it today when Jerry Falwell kicked off. Can't imagine why.

One of my pastors once said something interesting during a sermon. He was talking about how he often gets asked, by believers and non- alike, who will get into heaven. Being that neither he, nor any of us, can really know for sure, his answer is always thus: "I think there will be a lot of surprises in heaven."

I hope the the esteemed Mr. Falwell is finding that out right now. If indeed his hardened old heart made it there at all.

Excuse my Absence

2007-05-09T17:25:00.000-04:00

Sorry things have been a bit scant around these parts lately. I recently started a new job at as editor of the soon-to-be-launched website of a big glossy travel magazine at big fancy magazine company. Things are going well so far, or at least as well as they can considering that as of day two I have absolutely no idea what I am doing just yet, although I assume once I am up to speed on meeting with all the right people and learning how things work around here that that will change. Until then, I will feast at the lovely corporate cafeteria, stare agog at the view from my office -- which encompasses all of Central Park in its glorious summer green-ness, and try my best to get up to speed. The job, especially until launch, will be a huge challenge and undertaking, so I apologize in advance if I'm not here to regale you with tales of life in New York.

The Secret Door From Alabama

2007-05-04T13:01:00.000-04:00

I'll admit it -- I'm kind of particular and demanding when it comes to boyfriends. One of my primary requirements for any boyfriend, if he wants to stick around, is versatility. If you enjoy wearing a tuxedo, attending the opera and drinking champagne, but find yourself at a loss when I ask you to live in a dirty tent with me for a couple weeks while I climb some big crumbly rock wall, I'll probably give you the boot. If you charm the pants off my parents but fall flat with the friends, you'll likely have to go. I inhabit a lot of different -- and sometimes dichotomous -- worlds, and I need someone who can thrive in any of them. One-trick ponies need not apply.

So I *guess* I should have been thrilled last night when boyfriend (whom for blogging purposes I will from now on refer to as "Clark Kent," for reasons I shall for the moment gloss over) showed some versatility in choosing a restaraunt. Normally we have lovely dinners of oysters or steaks or sushi or try out a recently reviewed place or order from an old-school standby like Lombardi's (unless I cook, of course). So I was a little taken aback when I arrived last night and, exhibiting some previously-hidden taste for lowbrow, chain-style knockoff barbecue, Clark said to me: "Why don't we go across the street to the barbecue place and drink some massive margaritas, and get dinner later?" To which of course I said, "Um, isn't DALLAS BARBECUE the place across the street?" Clark says, "Yeah, so what?" And I say, "You do realize we're WHITE, yes?"

He accused me of racial profiling, I laughed, and figured if nothing else I was in for a new experience and could drown the lousy 'cue in a bucketful of tequila if necessary. We crossed the street.

Upon entering DBBQ I was surprised to learn that Clark had special knowledge of a "back room" -- meaning, this was a place he FREQUENTED! Clark said to me: "If you ever tell anyone I took you here on a date, I'll kill you," thus ensuring I would immediately publish a short essay about the experience for all the world to see.

Secretly vowing to someday take him on a roadtrip of the South so he could experience barbecue as it was meant to be, I peeked around the room after we were seated. The man to my left -- and I am not making this up -- was MISSING HIS TWO FRONT TEETH. The woman to my right, weighing in at a solid 250 pounds, wearing frosted jeans, and sporting a permed mullet, was drinking beer out of a glass the size of a fishbowl WITH A STRAW.

These were not your typical East Village patrons. I posited a theory that the reason you never see these folks on the street is because there's a secret door that opens directly into Dallas Barbecue, and on the other side of that door is a Wal-Mart in Alabama. Clark wasn't done with the surprises yet: after he told me he thought that someday he'd like to name his daughter "Amber," I realized he might fit in with the diners here more than I initially suspected. After all, the only locales suitable for a woman named "Amber" are trailers and porn videos.

And so, to counteract the effect of the surreal cast of characters who surrounded me, I ordered a "Texas size" margarita on the rocks. Was it good? Well, I wouldn't go that far. It was as sweet as liquified Sweetarts and I'm 100% sure there wasn't an assembly line of folks in the kitchen squeezing fresh limes. But it was one thing: large. Huge. Enormous. And all that sugar did a good job of ferrying the booze straight into my brain.

Though we had initially planned to restore our cred by hitting up Crif Dogs for dinner after our drinks, we ended up succumbing to the scent of fried chicken wafting over from Mr. Toothless's plate, and ordered up some sticky chicken tenders and crispy shrimp.

And as much as I hate to admit it, It was pretty good. And DBBQ, with the right date, is loads of fun.

There, I said it. Clark, you win again.

Hole You

2007-05-03T14:55:00.000-04:00

OK, OK, I'm posting, now can everyone from here to kingdom come (or at least My Lai) please stop hassling me?! Thank you!

I've found that I have much less to post when there's nothing to bitch about, and lately I've been just as happy as a clam, so it's a bit harder to mine material. I suppose I could spout off about various family problems, but my cousin's wife (hi Cathy!) sort of inadvertently spilled the beans to my mom that I'm posting again, so I don't want dear Mum turning me up through Google only to find my innermost thoughts about the machinations of our little nuclear unit online for all the world (meaning, my four anonymous readers) to see.

Meanwhile, I don't want to be one of those people who posts only to say "I'm not posting, and here's why." Therefore, I'm just going to have to subject you to what's been going on in my life lately which is, hanging out with a two-year-old. (And no, I'm not talking about the boyfriend I recently snatched from the cradle. He's acts at LEAST nine times two; on a good day, 10 times two!).

But back to the real two-year-old in my life: my niece Stella, with whom I just spent a nice five-day weekend in Minnesota, along with the rest of our family. She is why I'm going to go all "Dooce" on you. Dooce does it so much better, but I shall try.

All of this might come as old hat to anyone who's ever had a toddler, but I found her to be just a fascinating little character, and hilarious to boot. As my brother said every time she started wailing about something (which was often) -- "Life is tough when you're two." INDEED, there's a lot to wail about, I found out last weekend. Maybe your zipper fell down. It's time for tears. Maybe your sippy cup is getting low on expensive organic milk. Definitely calls for a good cry. Pooped your pants? Let out a yowl and someone's sure to come running to empty them. It's kind of like being 90 if you're demented and incontinent, only you're cute and cuddly and smell good and haven't pissed anyone off yet, so no one seems to mind as much attending to whatever it is you're screaming about at the moment.

With that said, here are some cute things I witnessed my two-year-old niece do this weekend.

"Hole you."

"Hole you" is what my niece would say whenever she wanted to be picked up. It's a version of "Hold you," and is derived, I'm quite sure, from her mother asking her, "Do you want me to hold you?" She's an independent little bugger, but occasionally her pudgy little legs would get tired or she'd feel a little needy, and all she'd have to do is say "Hole you" to the nearest adult, and she'd be swept up into a flurry of hugs and kisses and not have to walk under her own power for however long she wanted. If only it were that easy for the rest of us. "Hole you" are two words that will probably forever melt this auntie's heart. I don't think I ever understood why people wanted to have kids until my brother and sister had them, and when I hear those two words, it makes my whole being ache for every orphan out there who doesn't have anyone to say them to. We don't look happy in this picture, I guess, but I assure you we were right in the midst of a very sweet "hole you." And I finally figured out what my pleasantly curvy Norweigan peasant hips are specifically designed for: holding a toddler on.

"Poopy!"

My niece is ready to be potty-trained but her parents aren't ready to tackle that project until they get back to their normal routine lives in Germany. Being ready means she doesn't like the feeling of goop in her pants any more than you or I do, and I think she's getting to the point where she's nearly as embarassed of it. This led to lots of incidents -- sometimes in restaurants, sometimes in parks, but always around amused or horrified onlookers -- where she'd start squealing "POOPPPIIIIEEEEE!" at the top of her lungs and crying in ernest whenever her diaper needed to be changed (or if she farted, or if she was constipated, or if she thought she might poop....). Note to self: Teach own child to scream "Flowers" or "Unicorns" whenever she has to hit the head.

"Buffo."

Niece collects these little German plastic animals that are very realistic looking, and I'm sure by the time she's four she'll have every available species. This year I bought her a frog, a meerkat, a dog that looks like her family's dog (which is an Australian cattle dog, and is the best dog in the land), and my favorite -- a bison. I did a big (award winning!) project on the resurgence of buffalo on the Great Plains when I was in college and have had a fondness for the animals ever since. Stella, naturally, has never seen a buffalo, since they are indigenous only to North America, and had little idea what to call it once she unwrapped it during her birthday party at a zoo in St. Paul. I told her it was a Buffalo and we moved onto the next packages. Imagine my surprise when forty minutes later we ran across a pair of Bison bison in the flesh, laying down in their pen, and she looked at me and said "Buffo sleep!" She's a smart one!

Nighttime

The nicest niece time I had all weekend was on Saturday when she let me read her a book and put her to bed. We read "Blueberries for Sal" and she sat farting quietly in my lap while she cuddled against my chest. I never thought I'd be happy to have someone snuggle up to me and fart quietly into my lap for half an hour, but it was a really sweet time. Speaking of this, I've found that people with babies or young children spend far more time talking about bodily functions than any of the rest of us do. I got used to it. I think.

"Nurse!"

The last interaction I had with my niece was her poking her little index finger into my padded bra and shouting "Nurse!" Uh, that was a little weird.

Babies. I tell ya.

Commuting

2007-04-24T13:44:00.000-04:00

Nick Paumgarten, one of my favorite New Yorker writers, has a beautiful story about commuting in a recent issue. His elegant descriptions of something as mundane as driving a car back and forth everyday are really haunting, and his musings on the daily grind ("tedium broken by episodes of aggravation and despair") are certainly reminiscent of Cheever. Descriptions of modern-day offices have more than just an overtone of Orwell: "He slipped in through a side door and into his office; it was a little like going into a motel. There was no one around to greet him or to make small talk.
“Here are some of our products,” he said, showing me svelte ergonomic containers for soup (Campbell’s Soup at Hand) and dog treats (Pup-peroni to Go). There was a watercolor of his kids over his desk. We went to get a cup of coffee. A few lab workers in hairnets wandered about in the corridors. In the kitchen, a TV was playing an ad for Ambien."

Good lord, that's some good writin'.

Everyone Pile on the I-Banker

2007-04-24T12:05:00.000-04:00

Recent developments have forced a cease-and-desist on I-banker-hating around these parts, so lucky for me, the rest of New York is picking up my slack.

I-bankers in the blogosphere must feel as I do when I go home for Thanksgiving or any other holiday and am verbally accosted and berated by froth-mouthed Republicans who feel it's their mission to convince me -- the invading Blue State heathen -- that carbon dioxide is not a greenhouse gas and that if Hillary Clinton is elected they will be forced to marry the hog that lives in their barn, and together the two shall pay 57% income tax, the proceeds of which will be used to support the illigetimate throngs of cloned children bred on the East Coast and used to harvest organs.

Some days I just wish they'd have a special wall set up for me at the airport for me when I fly into the Midwest; upon my departure from the plane, I'll stand in front of the wall and all the Republicans can throw tomatoes at me until their rage is slaked, and then I can go on about the rest of my visit in peace.

So anyway, I kind of sympathize with this guy except that, at the end of the day, he can go home and cry into the sleeve of his two-thousand-dollar suit, and I have only a scratchy generic tissue with which to wipe the tomatoes off.

Forgive My Absence

2007-04-23T14:34:00.000-04:00

I realize I haven't posted in roundabout a hundred years, but I've been busy celebrating my friend Lacy's birthday. For most people, that consists of a one-evening bar outing, but Lacy looooooves his birthday and so this weekend the bacchanal raged on for not three hours but three days. If you want to live vicariously through the photos (taken with a very expensive magic camera that made everyone look hot -- even though I hadn't done my hair!), you can click that link. Me, I'm gonna go power down a few quarts of water in my continued efforts to recover from the insanity. I'll get back to you when I regain my ability to think, although to be honest, life is so peachy that I haven't had a lot to bitch about -- another reason I've been scarce around these parts.

A Whale Lives in Brooklyn

2007-04-18T13:47:00.000-04:00

Apparently, some poor creature that has been nicknamed Sludgie the Whale (a riff on the delicious ice-cream Fudgie the Whale cake) got lost during the recent storm in New York and ended up swimming in circles around the Gowanus Canal, a polluted slick of water that skulks around a mere five blocks from my house. Poor little guy, I hope he finds his way back to cleaner waters.

IM Conversation of the Day

2007-04-12T15:51:00.000-04:00

Me to Friend with Pregnant Wife: The due datemust be coming up soon, yes?

Friend: She might pop a bit early. For both of our sakes, I hope that's the case. [Wife] is doingwell, but she's basically had it with being pregnant. She's tired. She'scranky. She's sore. And she's been pretty successful in letting me know what it's like, which makes me tired, cranky, and sore.. What's going on with you?

Me: Some job interviews. New boyfriend.

Friend: What's with the new man? Who is he? How did you meet him? Andhow come you're calling him your boyfriend without vetting him through me first?

Me: Eh, I figured you were probably too busy going on Chunky Monkey/dill pickle runs to waste any time judging the latest float in my ongoing man-parade. :)

Food Porn

2007-04-12T10:53:00.000-04:00

The Amateur Gourmet -- a guilty pleasure and nine times out of 10 my "first read" of the day before I get down to actual business -- has a lovely post today about the Gourmand tasting menu at 11 Madison Park, a place I've never been but has gotten all kinds of buzz this year thanks to innovations by new chef Daniel Humm. If you're into food porn, go read it. The descriptions of the dishes there left me in danger of drooling all over my sweater this morning as I read it while snarfing down a sad (and yet magically delicious!) little bowl of Lucky Charms for breakfast. I gotta say, fake-marshmallow rainbows -- no matter how vividly colored -- pale in comparison to Adam's description of the foie gras torchon with rhubarb. Gurgle. I doubt that the picture do the food justice, and this is because I believe Adam, the writer, does not use flashes when he's in nice restaurants as they'd disturb other guests. I think that's courteous, so I don't mind. I also love the end of this piece where he says his boyfriend -- with whom he was celebrating his one-year anniversary -- was the best thing in his life -- "better than a langoustine." And judging by the looks of that langoustine, his boyfriend must be pretty great.

Speaking of food porn, Robyn, The Girl Who Ate Everything, had a post the other day about macarons that had such gorgeous pictures that it actually lured me out of my office, into the sunshine, and across the street to Rockefeller Center to visit La Maison du Chocolat -- which she declared had the best macarons in all of New York City. After spending a semester abroad from NYU in Paris (much of it seemingly in search of the perfect macaron), this is a woman who knows something about the gorgeous little French confections. I had never had a real French macaron, and I'm not even all that keen on sweets, but I know I'll be tempted by the macarons at LMdC every time I walk past. I sampled the rasberry and the salted caramel; both were fantastic, although I thought the rasberry had a slight edge. A long, slim, clear box of 12 macarons, which they sell at the shop, would make a fantastic hostess gift if you're ever looking for such a thing. At $2 each for a small macaron, these are not cheap treats, but I found them worth every penny, considering a bag of M&Ms costs a buck.

Week in Reviews

2007-04-11T12:29:00.000-04:00

Since I have an ugly deadline rapidly approaching, now seems about the perfect time to procrastinate by writing a completely pointless post reviewing a few things I've been meaning to review. So here they are.

1) Dana Vachon's "Mergers & Acquisitions"

Damn, how I did NOT want to buy this book. I didn't want to give into the media frenzy. I didn't want to eat the hype. I wanted to distinguish myself from the rest of the fawning reviewers by turning up my nose at this book. Of course, given the recent hypocrisy around these parts, I ended buying not just ONE but TWO copies of this book (you're welcome, Dana), one for me and one for my boyfriend, who works in finance. And I can't put it down. It's hilarious, and I will never again gaze upon a chicken satay skewer without cracking up. This is a spot-on sendup of Manhattan's I-banking culture and it's just perfect. My friend Aileen describes it as "What happened when Holden Caulfield grew up," and I think that's pretty apt.

One thing I can't stop wondering since I've started reading it: How do the ladies respond to Dana Vachon the hot writer, compared with how they responded to Dana Vachon, the hot investment banker-slash-anonymous blogger of D-Nasty fame? Also, Dana Vachon, are you reading my blog? On page 79, with regard to the two-cheeked kiss, you are CLEARLY taking a page from my 2003 archives. (Sigh. These are the lengths to which I must go to marginally associate myself with greatness.)

2) Ringling Brothers/Barnum & Bailey Circus Bellobration

I've had a fascination with elephants ever since I was a little kid. The wallpaper in the upstairs bathroom of our old house sported a very 70's jungle-animals theme, with lions and tigers and zebras and giraffes and elephants. I'd hang out with my mom in that bathroom in the mornings while she got ready for the day, and I'd point at the animals and shout out their names (although, for some reason, I thought elephants were called WHA-toos, and I believe it was only when the kindergarten teachers threatened to give me a less-than-perfect score unless I came around that I changed my ways). Anyway, the point is, when I got invited to go watch the circus at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday, I was pretty excited to go spot me some wha-toos. The trapeze artists, elephant, dancing doggies and tiger shows were great -- eliciting ACTUAL SQUEALS and oohs and ahhs from the adults in attendance -- and it didn't hurt at all that we had nice seats in a corporate box that included free unlimited booze and Cracker Jacks and big trays full of pigs in blankets.

But a few words of advice for the fine brothers at Ringling: It's the circus. You don't need to try to infuse it with cultural relevancy by including bits about celebrating racial diversity. You don't need to rip off Cirque de Soleil -- we like the acrobats just fine. And for the love of Pete please stop with those horrible Bello-bration songs you blast over the loudspeakers. Just have elephants. And make them dance.

3) TheMud Truck at Astor Place

This is one damn fine cup of coffee. There's a Starbucks one block east, and another one block south, but please bypass them and get your coffee here. I'd venture to say it's the best cup of coffee in the entire city -- as far from acrid as can be and always with freshly steamed milk (not just dumped in cold out of a jug). In addition, there's eye candy for both the boys and the girls working the truck, and they're always ready with a smile and if the line is short a little conversation to boot. Not that I'm trying to objectify the baristas or anything! I'm just saying, it doesn't hurt. I don't know if it's the caffeine, the awesome coffee, or talking to the friendly folks inside the truck, but it's a really nice way to start the morning.

4) Cary Tennis

Cary Tennis has been a little insufferable as of late, but he has a totally interesting article today on pornography. I found it to be a very original view on why porn bothers some people, and also why and in what cases it can be harmful to people and couples. The letter that inspired the answer isn't very good, but his answer is -- and reader's comments on the matter make for just as interesting fodder on a very polarizing subject.

Life: The Cruel, Sweet Irony of It All

2007-04-10T15:36:00.000-04:00

This blog has a few frequently recurring themes. Among them:

1) I was on the street, and someone catcalled me, harassed me, grabbed a tit, etc. These people are are rude, they ruin my day, and just once, I want to kick one of them in the crotch.

2) I grew up in the corn fields of South Dakota. Boy howdy is New York different!

3) Young investment bankers are pigheaded syphillitic cankers on society, and while they must be tolerated for career purposes, they are to be avoided socially at all costs.

So imagine my consternation now that I find myself happily ensconced in a relationship with none other than a hedge-fund analyst! Admittedly, hedge funds are not investment banks, but they do fall squarely within the realm of opportunistic finance. I imagine Life is having a pretty good laugh at me and my preconceived notions now.

While the relationship has been blissfully problem-free thus far (disregarding of course my tendency to snore like an overfed, alcoholic wildebeest, which ALWAYS ends up causing problems), it presents something of a challenge with regard to this blog. Because I may have just lost one of my top-three recurring topics.

Here's why. Last Friday, as I sat at a very nice steakhouse with the hedge-fund analyst in question (and for whom I am going to have to think of some kind of appropriate alias), I realized it would be AWFULLY hypocritical of me to go on blatantly insulting the men of the finance world if I was going to turn right around and let one of them buy me a thick, heavily marbled steak and an icy platter of fresh oysters. That just won't do. Plus, while *one* kindhearted hedge-fund analyst is not enough to redeem the marching troops of the entire finance industry, I'd hate to think he thinks he's included when I dismiss the lot of them as vampires who suck the very lifeblood from middle-class American homes and use it to drive up prices on midtown condos.

So I'm going to have to find a new variety of asshat to pick on when I need a quick shorthand for "pigheaded syphillitic canker on society." If not an I-banker, what?

I mean, hey, it's hard to criticize doctors for making money (and, knowing quite a few, they don't really make all that much, especially when you compare them to those greedy, gobbling I-ban....oh, WAIT. Crap!). See? See how hard this is?

Any ideas about who should receive the brunt of my vitriol from here out will be deeply appreciated.

C'Mon, Manhattan, I Thought We Had a Deal

2007-04-06T11:05:00.000-04:00

What's up Manhattan? This is Brooklyn. I thought we had a deal.

This is how it's always worked: People who live in Manhattan get the coveted 212 area code. When they leave the city, they have Manhattan bragging rights with which to make Midwesterners and suburbanites jealous (since outside of the boroughs Brooklyn is known only as the place at which Miranda Hobbs turned up her pert little lawyer nose). Manhattanites can walk to work, and they're in close proximity to the high temples of gastronomy. We bow to you, Manhattan, and your captains of commerce and industry who plunk down a cool million to live in a 500-square foot studio in the West Village. We bask in your glow during the week, when we help support your many gyms and delis at lunch and downtown bars and cozy eateries at night.

Brooklynites, historically, have gotten something in exchange for our second-class status. We get bigger, cheaper, apartments with crown molding and character and fireplaces, and backyards in which to grill. We "endure" a 15-minute commute so we can enjoy trees and birds and open green spaces. We put up with jokes about B&T (even though we all know that means JERSEY and LONG ISLAND) because frankly, we like keeping the paradise that is Brooklyn a secret. The trashier you think it is, the fewer of you will come visit, and we can hog all of its brownstone glory for ourselves. We love having restaurants that deserve inclusion in the Michelin guide, but never make it because no one knows about them. And God forbid they do, or we'll never get in again: I'm looking at you, Good Fork.

But apparently, the secret got out.

Manhattan, you are now officially violating one of the key agreements of our deal: limited weekend inter-borough bar mingling.

This one has never been a problem for me. Come Friday at five, I get over the Brooklyn Bridge as fast as I can, back into the large, welcoming bosom of Brooklyn (aka "the Better Borough"). Bars in Manhattan are pleasant enough during the week. Starting Fridays I make way for the stampedes of B&T and horny investment bankers who are easily drawn to fisticuffs should someone accidentally step on their Kenneth Coles in a mad dash for a key bump in the bathroom. Girls with flat-ironed hair and 200 of daddy's dollars in their designer handbags stand 10 deep at the bar, impeding my ability to drink myself out of the distinctive misery that is a weekend in Manhattan. And once I finally get there, bartenders charge $18 for a skimpy pour of Stoli. No thanks, you can have it, Manhattan.

But YOU'RE GOING BACK ON YOUR END OF THE DEAL. You are turning the tables and invading Brooklyn on the weekends, Manhattan. Before, I could enjoy a leisurely game of bocce at Floyd or commandeer an entire section of couches and tables at Abilene for my birthday party. I could reliably depend that the men at any bar I chose would be either friends of friends or, if strangers, intelligent, floppy-haired, well-read gents who probably would LIKE to go home with me, but wouldn't try to get me to do so with cheesy pickup lines or by waving their huge fat wallet in my face.

Manhattan, we're going to have to renegotiate our terms. You're slowly taking my bars away from me; what have you got in return? Don't make me go to Queens. Just don't make me do it.

"Security Theater"

2007-04-03T16:12:00.000-04:00

Undercover agents were able to sneak 90% of weapons, bombs, liquid explosives and IEDs past security checkpoint screeners at Denver International Airport and 15 other airports around the country, according to a story leaked to a Colorado TV station by one of the agents.

I don't find this news surprising. While security at NYC airports routinely takes me less than five minutes to pass through, with a minimal amount of hassle, that's never made me feel relatively less safe than I do at airports like DIA, where they employ grim-faced, power-thirsty nitpickers to hassle and frustrate fliers -- because I don't think it matters much either way. No offense to the TSA, but most security screeners don't seem to be educationally qualified to outsmart a determined and wily terrorist. And security institutionally has always operated in an offensive, as opposed to defensive, manner with regard to thwarting terrorism. If the terrorists try to sneak in a shoe bomb, they start checking shoes. If a terrorist tries to make a bomb out of liquids, we start using travel sizes and having our Immodium and personal lubricants and other embarassing items hand-searched by bored TSA workers who toe the line on whatever the latest inane policy is but don't seem to employ any ingenuity or intuition with regard to something that might actually pose a new, previously un-thought of threat.

I've always found security at DIA to be particularly vexing. Lines are interminably long and the agents there are (seemingly) far pickier about what you can carry onto airplanes than they are here in good old New York, a place that you'd think, after Sept. 11, would have a much greater impetus to be thorough. I've sat at DIA while a security agent unpacked and repacked my carry-on bag four times - ON VIDEOTAPE-- in search of a cuticle trimmer that was stuck in the lining, spreading dirty clothes and camping gear out over a huge table while berating me for not knowing how to get to the offending item. A hatchet-haired TSA agent confiscated a jar of onion and pickle relish from Harry & David for being a few ounces over the size limit -- I guess they feared I'd brain a flight attendant with it, or something, or perhaps just mix it with some cream cheese for a delicious in-flight snack.

The list goes on, and with it I won't bore you, but I've always felt that I were participating unwittingly in some kind of absurdist government experiment designed to test the limits of human patience and stupidity and lull the unquestioning masses into a false sense of security.

Which is why I found it appropriate that the agent quoted in the article referred to what happens at our nation's airport lines as "security theater." An apt description, and a scary one.

Great New Media+Finance Read

2007-04-02T14:15:00.000-04:00

My brilliant friend Dean -- former WSJ reporter, winner of the Pultizer Prize, Soros fellow, rock climber, expert backyard griller of fine meat products, and maker of a killer martini -- has a great new blog he's developing for Columbia Journalism Review covering financial media. It's called The Audit, and you can find it here. I have no doubt it will become a must-read for New York media and those who are interested in how newspapers cover business and finance.

Airing Your Laundry, and Shaking Dirt in Someone's Eye

2007-03-29T12:19:00.000-04:00

Slate has an interesting series this week in which memoirists explain how writing about their lives has affected the people around them. It's fascinating to read about the aching pile of lovers who feel betrayed, or who wish they had merited a different portrayal ("I will forgive you for just referring to me as a pack a day smoker who laughed at your jokes in history class instead of your girlfriend who gave you lots of blow jobs, because I understand that in a memoir there is not room enough for everyone."). It's sad to read about families who were torn up over what was written about them, who sued and cried and railed against the writer. It's encouraging to read about those who admit life can be raw and ugly and painful and still admire the honest work (as honest as memory can be, at any rate) that was done by their friend or family member.

I've not done much writing about my personal life, and the small amount I have done has appeared only on this website. And even so, it's reverberated in my personal life in ways of which I'm aware and ways in which I probably am not. My mother found this site a few years ago and was horrified, embarassed, and furious that I was airing what she thought was dirty family laundry here (albeit more or less anonymously). There are many things I don't write about here because I don't want to embarass or upset my family; I extend that courtesy because I want to protect them, and because I want to protect myself from estrangement. I'm not looking to write a book, and certainly not a memoir, but in the dark, mean corners of my heart the strongest reaction to my mother's protestations were that 1) if the bad stuff weren't going down, I wouldn't be writing about it; ergo, it is not my fault and 2) she was lucky I wasn't trying to cut a book deal and the only people privy to it were those fishing around on the web, and probably didn't know me at all. It was a threatening, revenge-tinged thing to feel (and certainly I wouldn't want either of those emotions to motivate any larger piece of writing I did), but I'm ashamed to say I felt it nonetheless.

In an age where all facets of people's lives are increasingly splayed scattershot across web, I suppose what our web presence looks like -- to family, friends, potential suitors or employers -- is something we all have to monitor, for better or worse. When you google my full name, one of the first things that comes up is a story I wrote many years ago, when I was still grieving and feeling particularly cheated, about a beloved ex boyfriend of mine who broke up with me because he realized he was gay. I don't know how that being out there for him to see has affected him. And I also don't know, really, how in the end its presence has affected me, because I have no idea how people who run across it might interpret it or how it might alter their perception of me.

This isn't something I sit around fretting about ceaselessly. But the Slate articles provide a good cross-sectional view of how writing in any capacity can affect your life, and the lives of those around you, in a way that is unique to people who make their living by weilding a pen.

Please Don't Ask Me Out

2007-03-26T11:00:00.000-04:00

If you are this guy, please don't ask me out. Ever again. Go away.

(Link, circuitously, via Gawker.)

A Note to My Exes

2007-03-22T12:39:00.000-04:00

God knows I love my man-menagerie of exes (my MANagerie, if you will [aha! I have found the title fo my first book!]). Somehow I managed to wriggle out of all but two of my many relationships with some amount of grace, few hard feelings, and moderate reserves of goodwill and mutual affection. Thusly, many of my exes remain close friends, and they add much richness and happiness to my life.

But sometimes, the MANagerie collectively gets out of hand, it usually happens when they start to hear tentative musings about my happiness with someone new.

And just like that, I'm faced with inboxes bursting with laments over losing me all those years ago. Love poems printed on scrolls and stuffed into hand-painted boxes are propped against my door. Kisses that normally land on my cheek are suddenly redirected toward my lips, and I'm forced to duck to avoid them. Someone confesses that I'm all he's ever wanted in a woman. Another sticks his nose in my hair and declares that it smells just as sweet as it once did. Friendly dinners I expect to be drama-free end with someone weeping in my arms, and "I love yous" that never got said while I was actually DATING the gents in question suddently start flying around like so many cupid's arrows. Literally, this happens EN MASSE, and I can't point to just a single offender.

So to my collectively freaking exes: Guys, you know I love you too. Each one of you is special to me in your own unique way, and I hope we can always be friends. I wouldn't have dated you if I didn't think you were awesome, and you are still awesome, even if I did decide to dump your sorry (and hairy) butt.

However. You should have kissed me WHEN WE WERE TOGETHER. You should have told me you loved me WHEN WE WERE TOGETHER. Your syrupy attempts at poetry would have been more appreciated WHEN WE WERE TOGETHER. You should have told me how much you loved how I smell WHEN WE WERE TOGETHER.

You had your chance to appreciate me to the fullest, and you didn't. You now realize the error of your ways, and I'm sorry that that makes you sad. I certainly don't want you to be sad. But there ain't a thing I can do about it except implore you: In the future, when you find someone as awesome as me (although your chances of getting that lucky more than once in a lifetime are decidedly slim, bucko!), look for the things that are lovely about her, and tell her you see them, and appreciate them, and then kiss her and take her out for a nice dinner. Hold her hand on the street on the way home, and look her in the eye.

Perhaps if you do so, you won't be crying to HER three years down the road about all of your regrets.

Cavemen in Esquire

2007-03-22T11:49:00.000-04:00

Hi folks. If you could be so kind as to go read my latest scribblings today over at Esquire, I would be ever so grateful. The piece is entitled "The Evolution of the Postmodern Caveman."

"It's Weird Down Here"

2007-03-21T13:01:00.000-04:00

There's a great Q&A piece on Salon today with Anne Lamott, who talks about her faith and her life and her political beliefs. It's so comforting to me to know that there's someone else out there who both believes in God, doesn't lump themselves in with the Christian voting bloc we're so often associated with, and loathes George Bush to the point that it causes physically palpable pain. Lamott's books are so exceedingly earnest that sometimes I roll my eyes and wish for just a whiff of snark or sass, but nevertheless she remains someone with whom I'd love to share a bottle of wine and cook a casserole.

An excerpt:

"Everything in the culture says that if you're a person who really loves Mary or Jesus or one of the Hindu gods or whatever, that you're not supposed to have jealousy or existential waves of judgment. And I don't think God ever said that. I think the message of Jesus is "Me too" and "It's weird down here" and "People can be really awful and the amount of suffering you're going to see around you, whether in San Francisco or Fairfax or a foreign country, is going to literally blow your mind."

A Call Guaranteed to Ruin Any Appetite

2007-03-20T17:24:00.000-04:00

I have a friend who's a pharmacist. The other day I was talking with my friend and his mother, and the subject of his grandmother, a lovely lady in her 80s who's been a widow for many years, came up. The subject was Grandma's boyfriend, who, for the sake of this retelling, we shall call Larry.

I asked whether Larry, who's a good 15 years grandma's junior, was a boyfriend-boyfriend, or just someone to hold hands with while they watched the 5 o'clock news and ate tapioca or whatever it is old folks do. My pharmacist friend's mother said, "Well, I don't know the particulars, but I *do* know that one day last week I got a call from my daughter moaning about boy problems, and then 20 minutes later I got a call from my MOTHER moaning about boy problems. That was not a good day."

My pharmacist friend shot his mother a withering look and said, "You think THAT'S bad? Last week Grandma called during my lunch break at the pharmacy and asked me if there was anything on the market to treat VAGINAL DRYNESS. Needless to say, I didn't eat my lunch."

I guess that answers my question re: Larry.

Meaning, Money and the Wealth Gap

2007-03-20T12:50:00.000-04:00

Ben Stein has an interesting article in The American Spectator about the growing wealth gap in the United States, something that's unendingly apparent in a city like New York. While on one hand I don't begrudge Wall Street workers their vast fortunes -- given that they drive much of the city's economy -- on the other it's frustrating to be unable, as a decently renumerated working member of society, to purchase a home given the spiraling costs. Costs that are decidedly influenced by living in a city where a certain class of people command annual bonuses large enough to pay cash for real estate. Though I make enough money that I could support a family in relative comfort elsewhere, as a single person in New York my salary is probably by many perceived as one on which I must "scrape by" (though I don't feel that way). Given how much Ben Stein is worth, I find his perspectives on wealth interesting and grounded, and I am always somewhat amazed when the wealthy don't forget upon having their first million in the bank the struggles of the masses and the inevitable problems (inherent to any economic structure) of capitalism. (Link via kottke.)

Will Goes Out of Bounds

2007-03-19T13:54:00.000-04:00

If you subscribe to the NYTimes, go over and check out my friend Will's New York Times blog, "Out of Bounds," about the NCAA tournament. I promise, even if you're not into college ball, it's a great read.

Bitchyface

2007-03-19T13:36:00.000-04:00

So when I was in Colorado hanging out with my niece, I taught her lots of stuff. She's only ten weeks old but in the sevenn days I was there I taught her how to spit up milk on my pants, and how to let someone give her a bath. I taught her how to watch Oprah and how to fart loudly so that it reverberates against your diaper if you're sitting on someone's lap. She aced all these tasks. Obviously, she 's quick on the uptake; she has a lot of knowledge to gain from her big city Auntie and this is only the beginning.

My brother in law bought an "I Love New York" onesie for my niece when she was born; he had recently visited the city and really enjoyed his time here. One day while I was in Colorado my sister put the onesie on the baby so I decided that THAT was the appropriate day to teach my niece an essential New York City talent: bitchyface.

If you're a woman lucky enough to enjoy any hint of attractiveness (i.e., you DON'T have a goiter hanging off your face and you weigh under 350 pounds), it's likely you'll endure daily harrassment on the streets or in the subway, several times a day if you remembered to comb your hair that morning. "Bitchyface,"-- a steely-eyed, pursed-lip, silent rebuttal to all this nonsense -- is a necessary evil. If I walked around with a smile on my face all day long, street harassers would probably see it as some kind of invitation to stick their dirty fingers into the waistband of my jeans, or worse. And no one wants that.

It was high time my niece learned this skill. So right before we took this picture, I leaned down and whispered in her ear, "Now give the camera a look like you wish it was DEAD."

I think she'd get along real good in New York: all cuteness and cuddle on the outside. Until you look into her eyes and see: ICE.

(And that's the end of indulgent baby pictures. I promise, this won't turn into Dooce.)

Staying Home, and Not Bored Yet

2007-03-14T15:48:00.000-04:00

Yesterday one of my friends called to see how my trip to Colorado was going. When I relayed the seemingly banal events of the day, he asked "Wow, aren't you even going to go out at all?"

Given that my nightlife companionship options consist of a pouty ex boyfriend who's trying to (in his own words) "punish" me with sullenness for the crime of seeing someone new, or my sister's handsy, horny boss, who every few months will send me a dirty text message asking me to be in a porn video with him or some such, staying home doesn't seem so bad.

Besides, look at all this cuteness in my lap! I mean, babies are endless hours of entertainment. Trying to get them to smile, laugh, burp, sleep, cuddle is really way more fun than it sounds. Yesterday my nice Jillian and I had a pretty sweet day together -- I gave her a bath and then we watched Oprah (pictured, above -- the watching, not the Oprah) together while my sister took a shower and put on makeup for something like the third time since she had the kid ten weeks ago.

Frankly I don't feel bad at all dialing back the socializing for a week. The frenetic pace that I, and seemingly everyone else in New York, socializes and parties and dresses to impress, falls away when I come out to the mountains, and my liver is enjoying the much-deserved respite (though I did have a couple glasses of fantastic wine last night while watching Babel). All the parties and bars and fancy dinners will be waiting for me when I get back to New York.

So for now, I'm just going to enjoy this slippery happy squishy little kid for as long as I can get her to sit in my lap, and hang out with my sister, and go hiking and running in the mountains and regain my peace and center, which so often get lost in the city. I'm feeling extremely de-stressed, to the point where I might return to New York with one OR MORE of my normally-frayed cuticles intact. I'm in such a good place that I've even conceded to have dinner with the Pouty Ex this evening. I intend to cajole him out of his place of sorrow and regain his good graces by force of sheer charm.

But tomorrow night, I'm staying home and babysitting. And I can't wait.

Mountain Time: On Hiatus

2007-03-13T09:55:00.000-04:00

Hi folks. Didn't want you to think I had forgotten y'all on my little mountain hiatus. I arrived in Denver around midnight on Friday night/Saturday morning and drove up to the mountains with my friend Kris, who has a sweet setup in Frisco, a mere 15 minutes away from Vail and 5 from Copper, Breck, etc. His housemates were gone for the weekend so I, a person who normally lives in a room the size of a European compact car, was awarded the master suite -- complete with a king size bed, fireplace, hot tub on the deck overlooking the mountains, and jacuzzi tub. What's really sad is that all this luxury (a huge two bedroom, three story, three-bath house in the mountains) can be had for around half the monthly rent of my mouse-infested, crumbly old brownstone in Brooklyn. But anyway.

We boarded Copper on Saturday and got some fresh snow, but it was cloudy and, going on three hours of sleep, I got in fewer runs than I probably would have otherwise. That night we ate at the Boathouse (looks bad, tastes great), which I highly recommend if you're staying in Frisco. Sunday, after a long rest, it was time for VAIL (pictured, above), my all-time favorite resort in Colorado. It just can't be beat for views or snow and the back bowls are miles and miles of open terrain with powder everywhere you look. We got a bluebird day and it was in the mid-40s to boot. It was one of my best days boarding ever. Because the snow was so good I rode pretty aggressively and subsequently suffered a few ass-bruising tits-over-teakettle falls, but I'll survive and a few Coronas in the hot tub afterward went a long way to easing the pain.

We drove to Dillon later that night to eat at the Dillon Brewery (which has fantastic buffalo burgers), but they were shut down thanks to a power outage. There was a cute teenage hostess standing outside turning hungry boarders and skiiers away. She said to us: "Sorry, guys. We're closed because of the power outage. But I LOVE your hair, it's so pretty!" Since Kris is bald, she was talking to me, and I gotta say, a compliment from a dewy faced young teenager who found something attractive in me, someone likely 12 years her senior, felt surprisingly nice.

Since Sunday night I've been hanging out with my sister and my new niece in Denver, where it's been 70 and sunny every day. My niece is about 10 weeks old right now and I'm having fun getting to know her and test out my "parenting" skills. Actually, I'm pretty good with this kid. As long as you bounce her around on your knee fairly vigorously, you can keep her from crying, and I've done pretty well getting her to take bottles and pacifiers, and even putting her to sleep. She seems to like me (she let me know by throwing up on me not once, not twice, but FIVE times over the course of two days) and I think we'll get along just fine. Here we are; she's looking for dinner down the wrong shirt. More pics to come, undoubtedly along with more scintillating tales from the suburbs.

IM Conversation of the Day

2007-03-07T16:09:00.000-05:00

Tonight I'm meeting up with friends to go to another group of friend's readings on the Lower East Side. These nights often prove to be beer-soaked revelries, typically ending in unnecessary and highly unadvisable tequila shots, double Scotches, 3 a.m. consumption of sketchy Chinese eggrolls (with a side of sauteed cat) and blurry cab rides home. I IM'd one of my friends, who has a four-year-old kid, to see what time we were meeting up.

Me: Hey, what time are we meeting tonight. 7?
Friend: Yeah. Sorry, was in the meeting of death. I'm gonna shoot up now.
Me: I felt like that on Monday. I actually thought, "I wonder what heroin feels like. I bet it would be AWESOME right now." Maybe we can score you some tonight on the LES. I'm sure your wife wouldn't mind.
Friend: Getting the kid to school tmow will suck enough. I love being the parent who smells like a hobo.

My friends are so awesome.

Moonstruck

2007-03-05T14:32:00.000-05:00

On Saturday night I watched the first full lunar eclipse in three years from the roof of my brownstone in Brooklyn. It was beautiful.I only started watching it about 45 minutes after it started, so I only got to see a little bit of it while it was glowing reddish and eerie, but even later as it returned to normal, it was quite pretty. It was a clear night so there was an awesome view on one side of the Statue of Liberty, and the colors of the Empire State and the jaunty top of the Chrysler building really popped out from their inky backdrop over the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge. I drank a glass of Prosecco and marveled at the beauty of the city and the sky and of life in general, and knew that I was in exactly the right place in the world at that moment.

Reason #573 Life Is Harder in New York (In Which I Find Myself Naked, Wet, and On All Fours)

2007-03-02T12:32:00.000-05:00

If I lived anywhere else in the country, I'd have myself a cute little four-bedroom house, purchased for five measly thousand down, and a $1,500 a month mortgage. It would have a shiny washer and dryer, and I would faithfully clean out the lint filter. I would have a car in the garage (garage!), and I would conscientiously change its oil every three thousand miles. I'd have room for a dog to run around. I could have friends over and after drinking much wine with me and talking long into the night, they could sleep in my spare bedroom -- or wherever it was they happened to pass out. I could have big dinner parties and sit out on my porch in the morning while I drank my coffee. I'd have my own grass. Maybe even a TREE. (Perchance to dream!) As mundane as it sounds, these are luxuries New Yorkers can only conjure up in the sweetest of fantasies. My friends Marie and Jer have just such a thing (hi guys, and congrats on the new kid! Sorry she was such a watermelon!), but hey, they have to live in South Dakota to get it.

And therein -- THEREIN, readers! -- lies the rub.

Because to live in New York, one has to make sacrifices with regard to one's living situation. I've made plenty. I lived in a studio the size of a Starbucks bathroom with a gay man who had a splashy habit of throwing up in mesh garbage cans. I lived in a drafty old brownstone nestled up against the projects, where I was harassed alternately by burrows of scrappy mice and project-dwellers who were as incensed by my gentrification as they were thrilled that they could mug and relentlessly catcall me. I was forced out of my airy loft by greedy developers who wanted to turn it condo and sell it to some rich fucking I-banker instead of allowing a working class schmuck like me to keep paying rent. Note to Awaye Realty: It's been two years now and those condos STILL aren't sold. Nice way to come in at the peak of the market! Hope you enjoyed that icy cold bath! You got what you deserved, assholes!

Speaking of icy cold baths, I was left fervently wishing for one this morning when I made the beginner's mistake of trying to take a shower at my house. You see, I'm a gym addict so I shower there about 90% of the time. Unfortunately, this lulls me into forgetting the maddening exercise that is trying to shower at home.

For those of you who've never had the pleasure of living in New York City, you might think that running hot water in the shower is something you're entitled to if you pay rent. Wrong! You are laughable and naive.

My apartment, a fourth-floor walkup in a 150-year-old brownstone, apparently hasn't upgraded the plumbing since the days the bathroom was called a "water closet" (or perhaps "an outhouse."). Most days it feels like hot water makes it up through the pipes, and out of my shower head, thanks solely to the ministrations of an emphysemic old man who lives in the basement and has been hired to blow it through a garden hose. Occasionally I get a hot shower with steady water pressure and limited fluctuations in temperature, but if someone downstairs is showering, forget it. Enjoy that trickle of alternating scalding and icy water; it's just like a spa treatment! IN HELL.

So anyway today, having just slathered conditioner on my head and soaped up my entire body, the emphysemic man apparently went off to take a nap in the corner. Because the water pressure dropped to zero, and nothing came out of the shower head. I stood there, goose bumps rapidly covering me, with soap and conditioner running into my eyes. Cursing the heavens, I tried to figure out how to get out of this pickle. Heat up a bucket on the stove? Walk downstairs and use the neighbors' shower (although, I assume, they were already in it -- hence the problem)? Immediately proceed naked to the airport, where I would throw in the towel (ha!) and move to a reasonable state where it's not too much to expect to take a shower at home?

After awhile, I thought maybe if the water couldn't make it out the shower head, it might make it out the bathtub spout. And sure enough, I was able coax out a modest trickle.

And that, my friends, is how I found myself shivering and naked, on the floor of my bathtub on all fours, my head tipped upside down under the faucet, trying to get conditioner out of my hair and splash water on my soapy armpits.

Literally and figuratively, it was something of a new low in my ongoing quest to live with dignity in this city.

Today, New York, YOU WIN. You WIN, ok?

Raunchy Roast

2007-02-27T13:19:00.000-05:00

Friday night I nearly herniated something whilst attending my friend AJ's roast from all the laughing. It was a small group there to send him off to Philadelphia in appropriately raunchy gutter style, but you can see the video here (decidedly NSFW). I won't say much about it, because it speaks for itself, but AJ, well, he's one of a kind. And for that we're all thankful.

Quit Your YELLING

2007-02-26T15:38:00.001-05:00

Considering I've spent the better part of the last three days feeling like I have an army of ants crawling through my throat, a swarm of baby bees building sandcastles on my eyeballs, and a drippy goo fountain leaking from my proboscis, now is not the time that I want to be yelled at. I can't even hide out in my office, because then people just yell at me over the computer. They yell because they want the work now! now! now! and FORGET that old, semi-reachable deadline, we're bumping it up a few days! They yell because our recent game of phone tag was insufficient proof of their perceived importance within my friend heirarchy. They yell because they misinterpreted an email about soup, of all things. Speaking of soup, can someone deliver me some matzoh ball? It might make me feel better.

If y'all want to yell at me some more, or possibly lob a rotten tomato my way, I'll be down at Duane Reade stocking up on Cold & Flu medicine and a huge bottle of Tylenol PM. 'Cause all this yelling has made my insomnia come back, and last night's fitful attempt at slumber didn't prepare me to deal with all this e-shouting.

Petulantly fed up,

me

The Young Andy Goldsworthy of Carroll Gardens

2007-02-22T14:27:00.000-05:00

Some kid built this insane snow fort in the park across the street from my house in Brooklyn. I'm glad they're not all at home gorging on TV. I used to build snow forts a lot when I was a kid, but they never looked quite as cool as this. I wonder if his pops is an architect.

Random Leftover Tidbits of Nothingness

2007-02-22T13:36:00.000-05:00

The only time I've ever seen men practically claw each other's eyes out to claim they ARE the father of an illegitimate child (swab my cheek! just SWAB IT ALREADY!) is when said kid very well might come with $800 million in her Golden Diaper. Poor underfed, pawnlike Dannielynne.

I'm not sure I can live in a world where KFed is the more FIT parent.

Here are some New Yorkers who never fail to make me nervous: The crackhead on the train whose house "burned down last week," who's been telling the same saw for two years. Well-dressed buskers. Teenagers. Jim Cramer.

A newspaper delivery person who can't manage to get a paper on my stoop by 6:30, when I'm leaving for the gym, needs to find a new job. If you can't get a jump on a journalist, I'm not sure how well early-morning employ suits you.

Ten Dollar Bottle of Magic

2007-02-22T12:06:00.000-05:00

People occasionally come to this site looking for "useful information," such as "Does John Krasinski have a girlfriend?" (latest update: according to a recent interview with Rashida Jones, she is now his EX, so ladies, perhaps he's on the market. BUT NOT FOR YOU!), or whether Nuvaring makes you fat (answer: yes). With that in mind, I am now going to publish my review of a product. That product is John Frieda Luminous Color Glaze.

I am a redhead (a strawberry blonde, if you will), and yes, it's real. Carpet, drapes, blah blah blah. However, ever since I was 14 (fourteen!) and the stress of having to kiss farm boys and wonder if there were Doritos stuck in my braces overwhelmed me, I have had a gray streak. It's not quite as pronounced as Bonnie Raitt's or Elvira's. It kind of blends in with the rest of my hair anyway. And so when I was in my 20s I figured it looked blonde enough that I could get away with it, unless sitting directly under fluorescent lights.

But as my 30s started creeping up on me, I worried that the inch-thick gray streak might interfere with my propensity for cradle robbing. This would be no good for either me nor the young men of New York, so something had to be done.

On the advice of a friend, and with great trepidation, I visited a colorist. Many hairdressers have told me that you simply "can't get my hair color out of a bottle," and I still believe that to be true. But it wasn't all my hair I wanted colored, just a little streak. So I found a sickeningly high-priced color genius and we devised a formula which covers my gray streak, leaves the rest of my hair color alone, and makes my hair nice and shiny.

The problem with high-priced colorists is they don't like to leave your hair (or 99% of it, anyway) the same color. They want to work their "magic." They keep trying to convince me to go Raggedy Ann Red. "You'll look JUST like Julianne Moore!" they squeal, not understanding that I don't *want* to look like her (especially since she's like 10 years older than I am). I want to look like me, just without the gray streak. I had to fire my first high-priced colorist for just such an infraction. Then I found another one who was willing to color my gray streak without futzing with the rest of it. He was also high priced, and a lousy conversationalist to boot, but if I gave him NINETY EFFING DOLLARS he'd do what I asked. Until last time, when he also tried to push me toward the brighter spectrum of fire engine. If I'm paying you NINETY EFFING DOLLARS to apply a product to a small wisp of hair, a product that doesn't even CONTAIN AMMONIA, for fuck's sake, just slap it on there, take the money, shut your yap, and quit trying to make me do something I don't want to do!

Then one fortunate day I spotted John Frieda's Luminous Color Glaze at Duane Reade. I picked up a bottle of Platinum (blonde) and Radiant Red, mixed them two parts to one, slapped it on my gray streak and VOILA, I may never have to wrangle with an overpriced, pushy color "genius" ever again. OK, I might have to, but probably only twice a year instead of four times. It covers up any stray gray hairs you might have, makes your hair totally shiny, leaves your real color intact, and looks totally natural. I give it five stars of five. Oh, two things: it smells a little funny, and is slipperier than I might have imagined. But besides that, it's great.

Meanwhile, my stylist called my cellphone the other day, wondering why I hadn't been in in awhile and imploring me to call him "if I needed anything." Nya nya, I'm keeping my ninety dollars to myself. (At least for a few more months.) See you later, I'm off to toss my fiery mane and prowl for younger men...

Napkin Fiction

2007-02-21T13:02:00.000-05:00

Well, my favorite item of the day from the new Esquire launch is the wonderful (and, I'm betting, extremely sticky in web parlance) "Napkin Fiction" section, with stories from writers like Tom Junod, Jonathan Ames, and Rick Moody -- all on napkins. Brilliant.

My First Esquire Article

2007-02-21T12:12:00.000-05:00

My first Esquire article is up, on launch day of the new Esquire.com site (congrats Eric!). You can read it here, along with Chuck's latest musings on Britney Spears's meltdown. My next piece for Esquire is going to be about cavemen. Really.

2007-02-20T17:00:00.000-05:00

Seeing as though I couldn't be bothered to keep the "10 Things Tuesday" lists running for more than three seconds, I thought I'd take another stab at an intermittent feature here on Had to Move. Of course, lacking any inclination toward creativity, I'm going to rip it (or at least its format) off from my bitchslap alma mater, The Black Table. When BT closed up shop a couple years ago, so went with it the popular Blacklist feature, wherein contributors would annoint an event, thing, person, or whatsisthingy with a letter grade. I wrote plenty of them. I wrote about selling air, I wrote about clothes, I wrote about advertising, I wrote about the demise of social security. And seeing as though I now write about very little, I'm going to revive the ol' Blacklist right here on my site, although I can't call it that lest I infringe on some kind of copyright law. Sorry Gillin, hope you don't mind. Without further ado, then, I give you today's rating .

Receiving a Dozen Roses

The last time I received a dozen roses, I was 16. The guy who sent them was Douggie Folkens, who was a year or so younger than me and of little interest to me romantically. Nevertheless, I appreciated the gesture.

This week, 15 years later, I received a dozen roses again. They're from an ex of mine with whom I have nevertheless remained close, maybe too much so. He had congenially subbed in as my "fake boyfriend" for months and months, our lack of ire and mutual affection for each other, (despite our breakup), making him the go-to default for nights of TV watching, take-out eating, and all that other crap actual boyfriends are supposed to do.

They were supposed to be sent last week on Valentine's Day, but apparently, the arthritic mule that brought them straight from Colombia took a wrong turn somewhere near Akron and they instead arrived six days late. They're hanging valiantly onto life but looking a tad wilty and parched. Of course, this is a fitting metaphor for the romantic part of our relationship since it was just last night, five days post-V-day, that I told him I thought we needed to close the book on our more or less chaste late-night cuddles.

The buds that are hanging on still smell lovely, and to look at them reminds me that someone cares about me and wants me to be happy. But given their (and apparently, my) lousy timing, and my subsequent feelings of nostalgia and fondness for my 277th romantic relationship to meet its expiry, they make me a twinge sad. Receiving a Dozen Roses -- C.

IM Conversation of the Day

2007-02-20T15:48:00.000-05:00

Me: Does there come a point when you stop mailing birthday presents to your mother? i love her, but I just can't think of anything to buy anymore.
Married Male Friend: um, my wife does all of that now. [hides face in shame]
Me: so i have to wait until i marry a lesbian until i can give this up. off to jersey for me.
Me: NOT THAT YOUR WIFE IS A LESBIAN, of course. I just mean, women do that stuff.
Married Male Friend: no, you'll marry a dude and have presents for twice as many people to get.
Me: that settles it. i'll be single forever.

Follow These Rules, Escape Wrath

2007-02-16T11:25:00.000-05:00

The Morning News has a funny article on New York etiquette. A snippet:

"For men: shorts are not acceptable, except at lunch, on vacation, in your hotel room, a million miles away from anyone you know."

That's right. Take those nobby, hairy knees back behind a push mower, where they belong.

My Underminer

2007-02-16T10:36:00.000-05:00

There are certain people in my life I wish would just go away., and I'm not entirely sure how they got there in the first place. I've had a handful of stalkers. There's a know-it-all who is forever correcting me and everyone around her, even though I've been traipsing through this confusing earth nearly a decade longer and have lived more expansively (at least by my own admittedly skewed estimation). And now my Underminer has returned.

One of my problems is that I tend to view the past, and people I have known (but perhaps aren't around to bother me any longer), with rose-colored glasses. I forget the ways in which they wronged me, I fail to remember how they grated on my nerves, I only remember our happy happy ha ha times. I guess overall that's a good thing, I mean, who wants to go through life stewing over crap that happened a decade earlier? Why, just the other day when my ex sent a baby present to my sister, I wrote him an email telling him how thoughtful he was and how my family were all such big fans of his, as was I. He wrote back: "Do they know that I blocked your e-mail on and off or about two years and then texted you asking if you wanted to fuck after not speaking to you for 9 months? Thanks for the compliment, but puh-lease, I think your memory is a bit selective right now."

Point taken.

Which is why I forgot just how much the Underminer gets to me. The Underminer has in ways been a wonderful friend. We've travelled together, had many adventures, and she's certainly unique. But she has a way of paying me "compliments" that somehow sting. Example: "Your hair looks so great! So natural! You can hardly even SEE any gray!" I mean, wtf? It's my natural hair. Of course it looks natural. I've had a streak of gray since I was 13, so quit trying to imply that I'm ready for Depends and a Rascal scooter.

I could go on in enumerating the ways in which I've been insulted in the last two days, but in the interest of at some point forgetting, I guess I'll leave it at this.

The Charm of the Geeks

2007-02-14T14:46:00.000-05:00

Stephanie Zacharek has a nice column todayin Salon laying out the appeal of one of my favorite shows on television, Beauty and the Geek. I especially like the intro, which I relate to all too well. I remember being in first grade and getting my first paper back that didn't have a big star on it. It had a zero with a dash after it (as in, zero wrong), in red. Heart palpitating wildly, I ran home from school with the paper in hand, wondering what I could have possibly done wrong, how I could have messed up and gotten something wrong, until my mother gently explained that "zero dash" was the same as a big star. I suppose I've always thrived more than some on praise and perfection and head-patting, though once I started calculus, it became immediately evident that I'd have to find my satisfaction elsewhere.

"Kick Me"

2007-02-14T09:55:00.000-05:00

Can't find a link for some reason, but Time Out New York's Feb. 15 issue has a hilarious little article about a British artist named Mark McGowan who's coming to New York to do a little (painful sounding) performance art.

"McGowan will spend 72 hours nonstop crawling around New York on his hands and knees while wearing a Dubya mask and a sign on his behand that reads 'KICK MY ASS.' Says McGowan by phone from London: 'I like to think of it as a service -- a therapeutic engagement with the people of America.'

"...He'll be aided by a vital piece of equipment hidden in his clothes -- a pillow for his butt. 'I don't mind people kicking me, I just hope it isn't too severe,' he says. 'But it's all for a good cause: Bush needs his ass kicked.'"

I don't know whether to kick the guy, or kiss him. McGowan, that is. Not Bush.

Phone Slouches Steadily Toward Grave

2007-02-13T16:49:00.000-05:00

Somehow I have managed to not lose my little Sprint clamshell phone for, oh, maybe two years or so.

I haven't left it in a cab as I fumbled around looking for crumpled-up ones and tried not to fall into the gutter at 3 a.m. I haven't accidentally lodged in between the couch cushions at the homes of any of my fake boyfriends as I slumped further toward the ground, drool accumulating as we melted our minds on hour after hour of reality TiVo. I haven't accidentally left it, along with my sanity, on the "service" counter at the airport as I juggled 47 bags, a snowboard, a laptop, and a missed connection.

Verily, it's a miracle. But now we have a problem.

I am rapidly approaching the upward limitations of my contact list, 300 in all. That I have managed to accumulate 300 contacts is yet another miracle, considering how many nights I hole up alone at home, eating Lonely Soup. I guess I'm more popular than I thought, or at least I aspire to be. Then again, none of these folks ever call me, so I take it back. And who are "Jimmy Philly" and "Todd Grumples" anyway? Obviously, these are not real people.

I assume that at some point during 2007, I am going to have to buy a new phone. But since it's been so long since I looked at them, I have no idea what I should buy. Anyone have any suggestions?

I guess it's time anyway. This weekend somebody pointed and laughed and said, "When did you buy that thing? 1989?"

One more item for the to-do.

Strange New York City Conversation of the Day, No. 237

2007-02-13T11:23:00.000-05:00

Friend: So you think I should just sublet my apartment to this lady, or what?
Me: Yeah, she seems like a great candidate. But you should definitely try to clean that blood off your wall first.
Friend: I tried. It won't come off. I even scraped it. Nothing.
Me: Can you just, um, paint over it?
Friend: That's disgusting. White paint? Really?
Me: Well, you could cheat and try toothpaste.
Friend: But I use Aquafresh.
Me: Oh my gosh. Go buy some Colgate, or I can't help you here.

Valentine's Day. Hooray.

2007-02-05T17:10:00.000-05:00

Has anyone ever given or received a good Valentine's Day present? Ever? One that made you feel loved, appreciated, and not like an unwilling participant in a mass-hoodwinking by the Tschochke Marketing Association of Greater Taiwan? I bet they set up little security cameras in the aisles of drugstores across the nation, and have a good laugh as balding, frenzied men in pleated khakis paw over four-inch stuffed gorillas grasping boxes of artificially sweetened chocolates, hoping beyond hope that the bestowal of said item it won't be too much of a letdown.

Looking at all the mass-produced, chintzy crap being passed off as viable tokens of romance makes me want to cry. I can't imagine receiving a box of Russell Stover and a browning fistful of baby's breath from someone who earnestly meant to convey his affections. But it makes me even sadder to think that people in my demographic might actually make these purchases ironically. It seems an insult, somehow, to the genuine feelings of the unfashionable masses who really do buy them for their significant others with love in their unoriginal, if sentimental and sweet, old hearts.

When I think back to past Valentine's Days, it's hard to remember a gift -- even among the better ones -- that doesn't make me sort of depressed in retrospect. For instance, one time a (well meaning, and really very sweet) boyfriend gave me some nice lingerie. But my excitement was nearly entirely extinguished once I found out that he had his best female friend, who OWNED the lingerie store, pick it out. His only request regarding the style was that it be "see through." Ugh. Then there was the year that I received, on my doorstep, a homemade, hand-painted jigsaw proclaiming verses of eternal love inside the completed puzzle. Unfortunately, the Puzzle of Passion was from someone with whom I had broken up months earlier. Receiving it only made me cry, feel intensely guilty, and remind me of my utter failure in that relationship. And then there was the year that my Soul Mate kicked me out of his apartment in the middle of the night after Valentine's dinner so he could do some heavy thinking about how, in two months' time, he would leave me for a man. GOOD TIMES.

Don't get me wrong. I've never GIVEN a decent Valentine's present, either, and that's a trend that probably isn't going to change. But I'm not going to let that little fact damper MY hopes.

This year, what I'm hoping for is that someone will put together a picnic basket full of oysters and champagne, take me hiking to a beautiful overlook at sunset, and serenade me while playing the lute. Ideally, he'd hire small babies, outfit them with working wings, and train them in archery so they could fly around and shoot Arrows of Passion our way during dinner. After dinner, my suitor would produce from his pocket a lump of coal, and say to me, "I am but a man, but through the strength of our love, I will turn this coal into something beautiful." After pressing the coal into my palm, he will wrap both of his hands around mine and "through the strength of our love," turn the coal into a perfect 2-carat diamond, which soon enough will be mounted on a band on my finger.

I really don't think it's all that much to ask, and it will save him from the scrum in the candy aisle.

Happy Valentine's Day!

A Simple Answer to Your Complex Question

2007-02-01T16:22:00.000-05:00

In the past couple of months, a good number of my male friends have asked this question of me: "Hadtomove, how is it that you can POSSIBLY still be single?"

They go on to list my (myriad, naturally) positive attributes and bemoan the fools out there who are standing on the dock, smoking cigarettes and missing my comely ship as she sails on by them down the Gowanus Canal.

So I've been pondering the correct answer to the question, at the very real risk of treading on loathsome Eric Schaeffer's territory.

I suppose the answers could be all complex. Issues of bad timing, bad judgment, and bad behavior can thwart relationships for even the most eligible. Maybe I have daddy issues, or maybe I'm too picky, or maybe I'm too busy tending to this blossoming writing "career" I've carved out for myself (ha!). Or, it could just be that I'd rather sit at home with one of my pretend boyfriends (who are legion), chastely eating take-out and musing over the latest issue of "Beauty and the Geek" than perch on a barstool somewhere all tarted up and waiting for a humorless I-banker to ask for my number. Maybe I spend too much time at the gym.

The answer could probably be any combination of the above, or none of them at all. So I've decided to go the simple route when someone asks me "How can you still be single?" I just throw more questions back at them:

"Do you know any good-looking, intelligent, genuinely decent men, preferably with a taste for adventure and relatively few issues with whom I might have a workable amount of chemistry?" I ask.

Yes! They invariably say.

"Are they single?"

Never.

And there's your answer. So quit asking. Now back to my regularly scheduled take-out and Tivo.

Optimism Bias, Overruled

2007-01-29T15:10:00.000-05:00

Optimism bias, or the tendency for people to be overly optimistic about their own endeavors against all statistical realities gleaned from the experiences of others, ruins a lot of things in life.

It's why everyone thinks they're going to be a star, why they'll sing their way to first place on American Idol, why they will be famous. And it's ridiculous. I mean, it's nice to dream big -- and plenty people in New York do so with good results -- but in general I think we've got to rein in optimism bias in day-to-day life.

It's why New Year's Eve, if you're expecting the RAWK HARD PARTY OF THE YEAR, sucks almost without fail. It's NEVER the best party of the year, there's NEVER enough champagne, and prince charming NEVER appears at 11:37, giving you 20 minutes to warm up before he smooches you under a disco ball. You'll have a lot better time if you settle for more meager goals -- you know, having someone else to sit on a couch with, and not barfing in the cab on the way home. Success! Your New Years is not likely to be, on average, more or less fun than anyone else's over the course of the decades. Keep that in mind and you'll have a fine old time, and avoid disappointment to boot.

This is why I try to keep my expectations for day-to-day life in check. It's why I don't cause a fuss when a blind date calls his coke dealer from the table while we're drinking sangria. I mean, on AVERAGE, factoring in the worst and best blind dates of all times, that's probably about average, yeah? It's not like he hit me in the face with an anvil, raped me with a crowbar, and threw me into a drainage ditch in New Jersey. Nor did we fall madly in love, spend the night eating unlimited oysters platters, and then run off to make little crackhead babies. We had a few chucks, then he called his coke dealer. Average.

Lately, though, I've been getting a bit down. Average wasn't cutting it. My life had somehow become an interminable gerbil wheel of gym, work, sleep, repeat, perhaps with some TiVo thrown in just to "spice things up." For all that, I might as well be living in the suburbs. I'd probably be required to be fatter, and wear uglier pants, but really, what was the difference?

Last weekend I resigned myself to another crap couple of days doing nothing spectacular. After all, I had to be up very early on Saturday to climb, and I had to be up early on Sunday for church. That left little time for nighttime shenanigans, and besides, no one seemed up for them anyway. I grumbled and moaned to my friends on Friday over IM, but no one had a hot hidden boy in their pocket to fix me up with, or was throwing a "rager" in a loft in Williamsburg. It was to be another night eating Lonely Soup for One.

As I was leaving work, my friend Eric called me and said three words I love to hear, "Let's make trouble." (I also love to hear, "You look hot," in case you're ever at a loss for words...)

I met up with Eric at his place on the LES, and we had "dinner," consisting of three garlic knots and a bottle of a very nice Bordeaux. The night was looking up. We left to go meet our friends (and one of my future roommates) at a bar down the way, and had another bottle of wine. Just as the tannins threatened to seep into my eyeballs, we took our leave and returned to Eric's for a lengthy three-person shredding challenge of Guitar Hero. I don't really like video games, but I'm sure if I did, I would say this is the funnest video game ever invented. As it is, I have nothing to compare it to save for long-ago Pong and Ms. Pac Man, but nevertheless, it was fun fun fun.

Eventually the Brooklyn-bound friend and I returned to the better borough, where we had MORE wine (unwise) and before I knew it, it was incredibly, unbelievably late, and I was floating on a boozy cloud of fermented grape fumes, even though I had sworn to myself that I'd be tucked in by 11 so as not to suck at climbing on Saturday. I missed the deadline by many hours.

I awoke on Saturday late and drunk, and was forced to take a cab to Chelsea to meet my climbing partner. Shaky and dehyrdrated, I knew it would be a miserable day, and gave myself a pass -- I'd phone in the routes but at least not let down my partner, because he needed me there to belay.

But, once I started climbing, something magical happened -- I had the best climbing day I've had in probably six months. I was ticking off routes with ease that a week earlier I'd been unable to do. I was up on the roof feeling light as a feather (though, given, I'm nearly 20 pounds lighter than the last time I was in shape enough to get up there -- it's INCREDIBLE what a difference that makes). I was gleeful and thankful. My low expectations had been exceeded several-fold.

I rewarded myself with some sushi and then headed out to take on a task I had long dreaded: LINGERIE SHOPPING.

I really, really hate lingerie shopping. Bras cost upwards of fifty bucks apiece, and it's not like I'm buying La Perla or anything. Every time I go in, I'm a different size, so I always have to wait on line at the dressing room (where this time, I kid you not, I had to wait for security to drag out a shoplifter before I could get in there). Underwear costs about 20 bucks a pop and you can't even try it on (I mean, gross), so half the time you get it home and it gives you a wedgie, makes your love handles spill over, or rides up your crotch. And the Victoria's Secret in Soho is always a mob scene.

Because my body has changed so much in the past few months, none of my clothes really fit anymore. Replacing them is going to take awhile, but bras are a priority because it was getting embarassing traipsing around the locker room with what looked like two flapping, empty coconuts loosely strapped to my chest. At my peak weight, I busted (very sexily, I might add) out of a 36B, but my tatas have deflated so much I assumed I'd have to downgrade to a 34B, or, god forbid, a 32A, which I haven't worn since junior high. I held my breath and puffed out my chest.

Somehow even THIS grim task was redeemed. Miraculously, my latest bra size is a 34C. It's probably due to a new vanity-sizing policy at VS, but I'll take it.

For one weekend, improbable fun, improbable strength, and improbable cup size overrode the concept of optimism bias. And I thank my lucky stars.

Dreams of a Geek Sandwich

2007-01-23T16:26:00.000-05:00

During the last two months of 2006, I was busier than a bartender on payday, and I blew off blogging. As you can see, my alliteration skills didn't suffer, although this blog has. Now, my workload has abated (although I fear I'm due to get slammed in February), but I'm still not back in the swing of things. I'm attempting to figure out why.

I think part of it is that after the intense concentration required to achieve each of the 624,345 deadlines I had in the past few months, I'm enjoying not doing much. I became a little manic during my busy phase. I became a list keeper, and everything on my list each day had to get done, be it 12 things or 120. And I *did* get them all done; I became somewhat manic and even more neurotic than usual, but dammit if I didn't pull down (for two months, anyway), a salary that is more commensurate for one with a law degree than one with a BS in journalism from a land-grant university.

Now I'm spending my days trying to decide if there's some way, at my advanced age, that I can lure Beauty and the Geek dreamboats Scooter and Nate into my boudoir -- one, both, I don't care. Call me, boys! Alas, it doesn't make for good blogging.

I'm sure someday someone will come along and arouse my ire, providing fuel for what often amount to little more than vitriolic rants. Until that day comes, think of me as at peace, at home with my TiVo, nurturing crushes on 22-year-old dorks who sing in Star Wars bands. Sigh. Dreamy.

Let Me Be Your Creepy Crush

2007-01-22T13:35:00.000-05:00

I was recently asked if I might want to be the subject of a magazine story about crushes. The reporter would interview me about my crush and track my progress (or more likely, the lack thereof) in catching his eye. My intentions would at some point be revealed to my crush, and our pictures -- mine with a longing gaze, his with a horrified grimace, no doubt -- would run alongside the story. "CAN THIS GIRL FIND TRUE LOVE?"

The first problem is that I don't at the moment have any intense crushes. However, I considered trying to drum one up because getting my glossy, stylized mug splashed across the pages of a big magazine might actually provide a new and interesting opportunity to get an actual date (assuming, of course, I didn't come across as cuckoo bananas during the interview, which given the nature of the article, is likely). Perhaps some smitten reader of the magazine would recognize me for the lovable soul I am, make a plea-filled call to the reporter, and weasel my contact information out of her. He'd then call me and offer to take me out for dinner, ply me with foie gras, and pledge eternal love. Yep, I'm sure that's how it would go.

Of course, it might also attract a coterie of creepy stalkers, but I already have some of those, so what's a few more? Get in line, nutjobs. Here's my address. Please, move in right next door. And let me provide an outline of my weekly schedule for your ease of stalking.

The second, and larger, problem is that admitting to a crush in a popular general-interest magazine would be embarassing beyond all imagination for both I and the object of my affections, especially since from the outset, the subject of my lusty fantasies wouldn't know he was the unwitting subject of a magazine article every time I batted my eyelashes at him. If someone did that to me, I'd want to take out a restraining order against him, not date him.

In summary, it seems as though I am going to find another sneaky way to get myself a date. Valentine's Day is coming up, after all.

51% of Women Are Pathetic Cat Ladies

2007-01-16T14:41:00.000-05:00

I was heartened today to see an above-the-fold article in the New York Times with this headline: : "51% of Women Are Now Living Without Spouse." Finally, my family would stop looking at me as though, at 31 and unmarried, I were some kind of minority freak. They'd stop patting my hand every time I came home and opining at family reunions, "Whatever happened to [boyfriend from 3 years ago]? We sure had high hopes for that one..." I never understood their sentiments anyway, coming as they were from people who'd been bored for 25 of the 30 years of their marriage, from people divorced for longer than they were married, from people who eat or drink themselves into a stupor nightly to escape, at least mentally, the confines of their own "blessed unions." *I* was the happy one. Couldn't they see that? I'm the one who gets to travel on a whim, spend my time with a diverse menagerie of fascinating friends, do whatever I please on any given day. I can devote my hard-earned money to fun, good books, nice clothes, fancy dinners, my own savings, and what I deem to be worthy charitable causes, not to fund my husband's country club fees or visits to the titty bar, let alone diapers or strained peas. Life is fine.

But back to the article. I didn't quite have time to finish it in the paper version on the subway, so I clicked on it at lunch to read the rest. Unfortunately, as progressive as I like to think my favorite newspaper is, the photographer was phoning it in today. Why?

The article is illustrated with a middle-aged woman petting her cat.

Really? REALLY?

Couldn't the woman be off having a rock climbing adventure, or holding hands with a foxy 22-year-old with whom she is having a hot but wildly inappropriate affair? Couldn't she be doing something a little more empowering, and a little less cliche, than PETTING A CAT?

Eff you, New York Times.

Strange Personal of the Week

2007-01-07T23:16:00.000-05:00

I like to read personals. I don't know why. I don't like to respond to them, and my forays into Internet dating have been alternately crushingly boring or alarming.

My favorite personals are in the New York Times on Sunday. They're all really quite sweet, posted mostly by older gentlemen, most of whom I imagine have moustaches, have sherry glasses in a cabinet at home, and wear old-fashioned hats. I guess they give me some hope that since I'm apparently not going to find Mister Right anytime soon, maybe by the time I'm in my mid-50s someone will be looking for a younger older woman of substance and I can finally respond to one of these things.

Usually the NYT ads are very genteel, men and women seeking out opera companions or someone who enjoys yachting and snifters of brandy. But today I came across one that was obviously posted but a man who has not yet, well, worked out all of his kinks in old age.

"Self Made Multi-Millionaire. Handsome, generous, athletic, 40s, 5'10'', 180, avid golfer, runs and works out daily. Seeking attractive, tall, blonde or redhead, 25-35, fitness instructor or dancer WITH MUSCULAR CALVES, for fun, romance and travel. NS."

I can do multiple sets of 240-pound calf raises and have red hair. Maybe I should reply. I see calf massages in my future.

Bubby's Brunch: Bad, Bitchy, and [What's a Word for Horrifically Overpriced that Begins with "B"?]

2007-01-07T22:38:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's just because I'm suffering from a case of cramps that would bring down the most stoic of frauleins, but I am feeling PISSED. I don't often complain about the treatment I get in restaurants or mistakes made that affect me when I'm eating out. I love restaurants and eating out and it takes a lot to make me unhappy when I'm waiting for someone to slip a plate of foie gras or a chilled dish of oysters under my nose. Furthermore, I'm utterly empathetic to the injustices and slights endured by restaurant workers everywhere. In my life, I have been both a cocktail waitress and a server at a steakhouse, so I understand that most days consist of jerks yelling at you and turning around five minutes later to pinch your ass, only to not tip you when they finally get move their fat can toward the door. But today just warrants a rant.

I met up with my friend B. for a late brunch. He suggested Bubby's, and since I've heard it mentioned countless times as among New York's best brunches, I agreed with enthusiasm.

We arrived and put our name in and began salivating over the specials, namely the fresh crabmeat eggs benedict and the cheddar, apple, and bacon omelette. We had a half hour wait, so we settled in at the racous and rowdy bar with a nice spicy Bloody Mary and a small glass of juice, which together were a rather shocking $14 (especially given the use of rotgut vodka), but what the hey.

Forty five minutes later we'd still heard nothing so B. approached the (saggy, sour-faced at far too young an age) hostesses and inquired politely where we might be on the list. Well, as it turns out, we weren't ON the list.

The chunkier but marginally less ugly of the two said she'd "See what she could do" since we "CLAIMED we arrived earlier, but she didn't remember us." Nice.

Thirty minutes later, after the hostess most definitively did NOT "see what she could do" (unless she saw that there was nothing she could do), we were finally seatetd, and I was already out $24 for a thimblefull of OJ and two bloody Marys.

The complimentary biscuits were tasty and I began to get excited about the special eggs Benedict, although I made a backup selection in case they were out of it. Which, of course they WERE since by this time it was already nearly FOUR P.M. Our waiter, who I'm sad to say appeared to hardly speak English (which is fine, but you know, it helps to know English if you're trying to turn the tables over 5 times in the matter of 3 hours or so), offered no consolotion, not even a throwaway "Lo siento."

"Gosh, you'd think a place charging EIGHTEEN dollars for an omelette could afford to hire legal residents," my companion remarked. Really, it was no offense to our waiter, but rather, a condemnation of the obviously greedy management. Plus, my brunch companion expects waiters to be HOT if you're paying double digits for a plate of eggs. I tend to agree. Luckily, there was some eye candy sitting in a booth across the way, so he sufficed for our purposes.

Our food arrived 30 minutes later and we tucked in. Three bites in I realized they had brought me not the cheddar, apple and bacon omelette, but one with goat cheese and red peppers (which, incidentally, I don't really like all that much). At this point I was too weaek from hunger and steamed to go through it with the waiter in my crappy Spanish, and the hostesses were still shooting daggers at us with their eyes, since apparently we had become a "problem table" somewhere along the way, even though we're the kind of people who ALWAYS tip 20 percent or more and endure the longest of waits with nothing but a polite smile.

On the upside, the bacon, coffee, and biscuits, were excellent. But, nearly 70 dollars later, B. and I had both agreed to spread far and wide the word that Bubby's should be avoided unless you like having your wallet drained by bitchy people who serve you mostly blah (not to mention the wrong) food.

That's it. I'm emailing Lockhart. Bubby's, you messed with the wrong (dangerously cramped-up) girl this afternoon.

Haiku of Annoyance: A Note to Roommates Everywhere

2007-01-03T13:33:00.000-05:00

Garbage cans are not
A game of Jenga. Must I
always clean it up?

(Feel free to post your own Haiku of Annoyance in the comments.)

Ten Things Tuesdays: What I Got for Christmas

2007-01-02T16:21:00.000-05:00

1) A delicious jar of Harry & David Pepper & Onion Relish. Mixed half and half with cream cheese, this stuff is the ambrosia of the gods and is unavailable for retail purchase in New York City. Unfortunately, some hatchet-haired security wench at the airport took it away, so I am going to have to go dip free until my mail-order shipment arrives in mid-January. Given that my blood is now running half-cheese after a week in the Midwest, I'm not sure what kind of DTs this is going to bring on, but I'm not looking forward to it.

2) Cash. Cash was a lot more fun when I got to spend it -- not that I don't appreciate this year's cash! I do, I do. Keep it coming! But this year's cash is going straight into a Roth IRA, and I can't tell you just how very old that makes me feel. People this mature are supposed to have kids, and I have only my houseplant to whom I can pass this kind wisdom. I'm sure it will appreciate the annual compound growth of this year's maximum $4,000 contribution when it's 60. Verily, at this rate, I think my philodendron will outlive me.

3) Yelled at for 30 minutes by a raving drunk who happens to be a blood relative. Merry Christmas to you, too. It made me want desperately to come back to New York, where people are normal.

4) A big fat gift card to Crabtree & Evelyn. Normally gift cards are kind of a cop-out but I scored this year. Crabtree & Evelyn makes my favorite massage oil of all time. If only my houseplant could slather it on my aching back. I think I"m headed there after work; maybe some aromatics will help ease the pain of the first day back at work.

5) The ability to fit into a size six. Thanks, me! Those countless hours on the treadmill paid off and left me clapping with glee in dressing rooms at year's end. My sister, another gift-card giver and 9 months pregnant (making me look EVEN THINNER by comparison), took me shopping at White House Black Market, where I found a hot little party dress 60% off. It looks kinda like this, but not really (mine's cuter!). Only a size 4 and a size 6 remained, and thanks to my new lack-of-beer-belly, I got to buy one instead of stomping out in fatty frustration. Now, where to wear it...? Suggestions?

6) A camping cup with a carabiner for a handle. I love how my brother keeps it real and reminds me how much I enjoy living in tents.

7) Lift tickets to Copper and Keystone. You'd think that 2 feet of new snow in Denver would automatically translate to endless powder in the mountains. But, you'd be wrong. All it did was snarl the airports to a crawl. Nevertheless, given that Vermont has a base layer of ZERO FEET, even the inches-thin dusting of new powder I got to enjoy during two days of boarding sent me into waves of adventure-sport ecstacy. Plus, none of the other tourists could get there, so we had the mountains all to ourselves!

8) Lily Allen's album. Run out and purchase. You can say you knew her when. She's gonna blow up huge.

9) A handblown glass ornament from Germany, where my brother lives. If you're going to give Christmas ornaments, that's the classy way to go.

10) Dinner at Blue Ribbon in Soho. I'm still thinking about the raw bar and the lamb chops...I had never been happier to be back in the city.

Women: A Real Drag on the Sharp End

2006-12-19T15:09:00.000-05:00

Since this appeared on , I'm assuming most readers of this blog will have seen this already. (Originally credited to Dethroner.)

As someone whose first climb EVER was a five-pitch 5.8 in Yosemite, however, this made me laugh/offended me all the more. Nice pants, dudes.

(Text reads: "Men are better than women! Indoors, women are useful -- even pleasant. On a mountain they are something of a drag. So don't go hauling them up a cliff just to show off your Drummond climbing sweaters. No need to. These pullovers look great anywhere!"

Too Busy to Blog

2006-12-13T16:04:00.000-05:00

But I promise things will ease up in the New Year. Because if they don't, I'm going to have to check myself in somewhere for "exhaustion." Me and LiLo will have a gay old time.

In the meantime, make your way over to my friend Guy's site for his account of a recent Friday debacle. I know it's hard to believe that he's not totally full of crap because really, who could possibly masturbate more than four times a day? But I assure you -- at least some parts of this story are true. You have your witness (although luckily, not to the olfactory-danglings of pork products).

Caught With My (Yoga) Pants Down

2006-12-07T14:41:00.000-05:00

Dear Sports Center at Chelsea Piers,

It's time for us to have a little talk. We've been together now since 1999, and you know me pretty well. You've been suspicious for awhile now -- I've lost weight, I have a new spring in my step, and we're smack in the middle of a seven-year itch. So I just want to get it out in the open: Yes, Chelsea Piers, I'm cheating.

CP, I'll always love you the best, you know that. My affair with Equinox is just a locationship -- not a relationship. They don't have a sushi bar, or a climbing wall, or a full-size track and a sundeck. Obviously, you're superior in every way.

And yet, I think it's time for us to reevaluate our commitment. Because despite all your great qualities, you're just TOO HIGH MAINTENANCE. I'd say "It's not you, it's me," but let's face it, that's not true. I've dumped more than five figures into you over the past seven years, I've endured grueling daily commutes to Manhattan's absolute farthest western reaches, ALL FOR YOU. And yet you still refuse to give an inch: You're not getting any closer to the F train, and I finally realize, you never will. I've opened my wallet and heart to you, and what have I gotten in return? Nothing but a world of grief from the M14 bus.

Baby, don't be mad! Don't be that way! We can still be friends. I'm not going to cut off your alimony just yet, and I'll come see you on the weekends when I have hours to spare on unreliable public transportation to the West Side Highway and need a climbing fix. Really, I'm gonna miss you more than you know, and Equinox will never inspire me that you have.

But I need a little somethin' on the side. Somewhere that doesn't make me WORK so hard. Somewhere that accepts me just as I am -- that is, in close proximity to the F train.

Ten Things Tuesdays: I Smell a Tourist

2006-12-05T11:45:00.000-05:00

Ah, the holidays in Rockefeller Center. Since I work in the area, I am intimately familiar with the caverns beneath Rock Center, so I can avoid the scrum of slow-moving lookie-loos each year, all oohing and ahhing at the tree and the ice rink as they bump into poles and trip over pigeons on their way to bring their red-velvet-clad snotnosed toddlers to see the 200 dancing santas at Radio City. I mean, I try to be nice, provide directions, avoid stepping on their hammertoes -- but just how much can one girl handle?

Sometimes, they're just unavoidable. The other day, pushing through a bunch of people trying to figure out how one of them thar Metrocards work (and feeling woefully lacking in holiday spirit), I felt my nose crinkle up as I looked at them all, like I smelled something bad. That wasn't very nice now, was it?

But when I started to think about it, I realized -- you really *can* smell tourists.

And so, Grinchlike, I present to you this Holiday Season an olfactory map of the smells wafting from the ample acres of mottled skin and puffy coats that swaddle the burgeoning throngs of New York's holiday tourists.

1) Stale doughnut.
"Now, why would we want to try the bread basket at Balthazaar when we have a perfectly good continental breakfast FOR FREE right here at the Comfort Inn?"

2) Horse poop.
"Stan, wouldn't it be SO ROMANTIC if we took a carriage ride? Around Central Park? It's like we're IN A MOVIE!"

3) Knish.
"Is that a square doughnut? I don't get it. And why do they put MUSTARD on it of all things? New Yorkers are so weird. Oh well...WHEN IN ROME!"

4) Bulgari Voile de Jasmine Fragrance.
"Oh my gosh, LOOK! It's SAKS. Let's go BUY SOMETHING. Wow, everything is so expensive. No, no, I WOULDN'T like to try Bulgari Voile de Jasmine, stop! Stop spraying! [Cough.]"

5) Sweat.
"I KNEW we should have driven the Econoline. But where do these people park? Wait, how many blocks is it to the Empire State Building? I'm not paying for no damn taxi! We'll walk it. Come on, Helen. Keep up! My left arm feels funny all of a sudden. Tingly...so tingly..."

6) Gas.
"There has to be a public bathroom around here somewhere. Right? Um. I need to find one. Now."

7) Oregano.
"I can't believe they sell drugs IN THE PARK. What about the children? Should we buy some? I mean, that would be so EDGY, we'd have quite a STORY to tell when we got home; it'd be just like my days back at the University of North Dakota when we got a hot shipment in from Minneapolis. Smoking 'doobies' right in the park. Fifty bucks? Well, I guess it's worth it if we want to get the real, gritty experience. We'll take a bag. Thanks."

8) Vinyl.
"Gucci purses, right here on Sixth Avenue. Well, why not -- it IS fashion avenue after all. A girl can splurge. I deserve it. I'm on vacation."

9) Hair spray.
"This wind isn't doing anything for my perm."

10) Fear.
"Oh my gosh. There's a, a...BROWN person over there.."

On Hiatus

2006-11-28T17:53:00.000-05:00

Had to Move will return when I finish making sure my brain doesn't blow up. Some people bite off more than they can chew when it comes to work; apparently, I have done ordered up one of those 72-ounce steaks in the hopes that if I eat it all, no one will make me pay the bil.

I'm Alive..But Barely

2006-11-27T15:11:00.000-05:00

I escaped South Dakota unscathed. None of the typical travel travesties -- late or missed flights -- dogged me, and somehow it hovered around a magical, temperate 50 degrees as opposed to the usual extremities-freezing single digits.

However, the rest of the trip was nothing but strange. It involved bunny shootings, thinly veiled (if that) overtures from not one but TWO married "men," (luckily, none of them family members), and near-constant mental breakdowns over the fact that I was unable to tackle a tenth of the crushing workload I needed to because I felt it was more important to go over old family photo albums with Granny before she's not around anymore. Plus, she wouldn't let me get up from the table.

All this, along with some other personal developments, has left me rather rattled, so I apologize in advance if these pages aren't up to snuff in the next few days. Not that they ever are.

This Year, I am So Thankful...

2006-11-21T17:44:00.000-05:00

I'm headed home early tomorrow a.m. for South Dakota, by which I mean I'm headed to O'Hare, where I will LIKELY be delayed by weather for four or five days, miss my connection, endure countless cancellations, and spend Thanksgiving eating a $27 turkey sandwich in the airport, crying, and wishing I were dead. That's what happens most years. Alternately, I will make it home via some holiday travel miracle. In which case, I look forward to enjoying the forecast highs of 12 and lows of 2. YES!

I'm thankful as always that I have a great family to spend my holidays with. I just wish they'd move a wee bit closer to an airline hub.

(p.s. to all my friends who have come to expect my annual New York Thanksgiving dinner -- lumpy gravy and all -- I promise to be back next year [siblings' procreational cycles willing] with MORE BOOZE THAN EVER. I'll miss you more than you know!)

Ten Things Tuesdays: I Saw It With My Own Two Eyes

2006-11-21T13:16:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid, I loved books. Still do of course, but apparently I was quite the little sponge when I was a tot. Mom said I had memorized full books before I was 2 years old, and she could never get away with skipping a page because I could quote entire tomes by memory. (If only I had such a photographic memory today -- guess I should have held off on the beer bongs in college.)

Of course, Mom read me a lot of Dr. Seuss and I remember loving "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street," a book about a young boy named Marco who is exhorted by his father to keep his eyes peeled for interesting sights during the day. All he sees with his eyes is a horse pulling a wagon, but in his imagination it's a zebra pulling a chariot, or a reindeer pulling a sled, or an elephant with a prince on top!

I knew how poor little Marco felt. All I saw when I looked out the window when I was a kid was cows chewing cud and endless acres of corn fields. Maybe if I was in for a real treat, I'd get lucky and spy a soybean field. Oh, the variety! South Dakota is a nice, safe place to grow up, and it's starkly beautiful in a way, but I credit part of my zest for New York in all its endless variety to the 17 formative years I spent in what amounted to a very large sensory-deprivation chamber.

It's theorized that Seuss's Mulberry Street is based on a street near his childhood home in Springfield, Mass. But there's a Mulberrry Street in New York, too. Here are some random, weird, wonderful and terrible things I've seen in my wanderings here. New York can be gorgeous, or ugly, but whatever the case there's always something to see.

1) A woman on the subway throwing up in a Tupperware container, then primly closing the lid and putting it in her purse.
2) A waiter in a red tuxedo running full-steam down the sidewalk in the Village, a pineapple held aloft in one hand over his head.
3) An irate woman hurling Dunkin' Donuts at a legless, earless man in a wheelchair, while her toddler looked on. God help us all.
4) A three-legged dog sitting on a bar stool at a pub, lapping beer out of a glass.
5) An elephant meandering around in the street near Madison Square Garden. Why hello there!
6) Two buildings being hit by airplanes, and crumbling to ash before my eyes.
7) A man in a loincloth and feather headdress, standing under a bridge in Central Park, playing a violin while dancing and singing opera in falsetto. (His name is Thoth, by the way.)
8) Ice skaters whirling around on an outside rink -- on a 70-degree day in October.
9) For sale: Live frogs in a bucket, on the street. Mmmmmm, dinner!
10) A fully made-up mime walking down the street, carrying a Hefty bag, and smoking a cigarette. (OK, it's recent. Sorry!)

What are the most memorable random things you've seen while out and about?

Quips Near Times Square

2006-11-16T14:11:00.000-05:00

Today my friend Roger took me out for sushi at lunch. Afterward, we were walking up Broadway back to his office, when a very sour-looking female mime -- in full face paint -- passed us, carrying a bulging Hefty sack in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

We looked at each other, with eyebrows raised, and I said "Was that a...?"

"Mime smoking a cigarette?" he finished. "Why yes. And a mime is a terrible thing to waste."

11:11

2006-11-15T22:14:00.000-05:00

What is the clock trying to tell me?

Every day when I happen to glance at the clock, it's 11:11. The other day, on Nov. 11, I looked at the clock, and it was 11:11. On 11/11. That really freaked me out.

I feel like the clock must be trying to tell me something of import. But it can't be, because I'm NEVER doing anything important at 11:11. I'm sitting at a desk, staring at a computer. But it doesn't just happen there. I'll be walking down the street, running late to work from the gym. I glance at a parking meter. It's 11:11. At my cell, it's 11:11. It's like the time awhile back when I kept hoping someone would call me, and every time I picked up my phone to check my old TMs it rang, and it was him. Freaky.

Maybe the date 11/11 is somehow supposed to be important. But on 11/11, the day I saw 11:11 11/11, I think my day went like this: gym, work, home, tv, Tylenol PM, sleep. GOOD TIMES.

Maybe something important will happen on 11/11/2011 at 11:11. Maybe I will meet the man of my dreams, although, I hope not, since I will be 36 by then. I'd like to have met him on 11/11 of this year, thank you very much. Or maybe I'll get mowed down by a taxi. Maybe I'll adopt a Chinese baby on 11/11/2011. My dad informed me he was difficulties trouble dividing up the family fortune in a trust thanks to me and my troublesome lack of procreation, because he doesn't know how to split up his fat wads of cash evenly between spawn-producers and non-spawn producers. And I hate to be problematic.

On a totally unrelated note, is it weird and totally junior-high-school of me to, at any given time, feel as though one or more of my friends or acquaintances is "mad" at me for something, or that they're "not talking to me"? It's totally self-centered. These people probably never think about me, and they're probably just busy.

But I secretly fear they're mad.

I'm going to bed in 59 minutes, when it's 11:11.

Ten Things Tuesday: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

2006-11-15T13:50:00.000-05:00

I'm aware that Ten Things Tuesdays is actually going up Wednesday. I apologize.

I'm sorry to disappoint all seven people who came here yesterday, eagerly awaiting another edition of Ten Things Tuesday. What with Monday being the new Saturday and all, I had spent the previous night drinking oh, I dunno, 87 beers with a friend who was in from out of town. We talked, we laughed, we reminisced, and we got pie-eyed. He's about to move to a foreign country where people wash, drink, and throw dead bodies all into the same river so I figured I better cherish a few last moments with him before he develops an inevitable case of cholera.

Of course, this left me completely incapacitated with regard to creative thought come Tuesday, and instead of writing a Ten Things list, I ate a quarter pounder with cheese and moaned.

Wednesday has come around, and I STILL don't have a good idea for a Ten Things list. If there's something you'd like to see, hey, feel free to holler in the comments below. Until then, I give you 10 misguided reasons people have come to my web site via fruitless google searches in the recent days. (I know, I know, it's so masturbatory. I apologize.)

1) "Is cheesecake midwestern?" No, but Jell-O salad is! According to Wikipedia, "The first recorded mention of cheesecake was during the ancient Grecian Olympic games." American cheesecakes "generally rely on cream cheese, invented in 1872 as an alternative to French Neufchchatel."
2) "John Krasinski girlfriend" People, how many times do I have to tell you that he DOES NOT WANT TO DATE YOU? You are an average-looking, middling member of society. That's fine -- but you need to accept the reality of your situation. You probably work as a bank teller in Beloit, Iowa. I promise you that the only ladies John Krasinski wants to date are the types who don't have to Google him. So PLEASE stop searching here and go read People.com or something.
3) "John Krasinski Jewish" I don't know whether he is Jewish. Even if he is, he still doesn't want to date you -- I don't care how good your blintzes are. Why? Because you are a Jew who had to Google him. That automatically dqs you. Go back to JDate.
4) "Internet lady" Someone needs to take a class in online sleuthing.
5) "Different moves bye-bye" HUH?
6) "Learn some football moves" I imagine this search came from an earnest seventh-grader somewhere, who is dying to make the JV team in order to impress his father. This made me a little sad, but it made me even sadder that my blog was the best he could do in researching this goal.
7) "A famous research" See No. 4
8) "Rashida Jones" Yes, she's dating John Krasinski, or at least she was. Sorry to be the one to break it to you.
9) "Dead beavers" I don't even want to think about this one.
10) "Bulging biceps" I guess if you guys want some pictures, I can flex and take a picture.

Have a nice week. Sorry for my tardiness, and a tangible dropoff in quality.

Wherein I Spot an Endangered Species

2006-11-13T20:12:00.000-05:00

For the past seven years, I've slogged my way through the heat and the slush and the rain and the throngs of public-housing dwellers around 17th Street to make my way to Chelsea Piers. I sweated, I froze, I waited untold weeks -- in vain -- for the M14 bus so I could use my beloved climbing wall or work off the day's stress on a treadmill while looking out on the Statue of Liberty.

Afterward, I could pick up a great sushi roll in the cafe or lounge around in the spacious steam or sauna rooms. Best of all, its membership is 98% Chelsea Boys -- bulging biceps, tight tanks, and not a one of them looking to pick up, or pick on, the ladies. I don't have to care about my boobs sweating or my face turning bright red from an hour on the treadmill, or endure unwanted advances on the off chance I happen to show up looking glamorous. The gays don't give a flying, fat-free fig, either way. Of course, this also means that you will never, ever meet anyone date-able at the gym, which judging by its consistent ranking by Glamour magazine as one of the top 5 places to meet good dudes, is a shame.

There's no doubt about it, I LOVE Chelsea Piers. But I HATE the commute. It's 45 minutes to an hour from ANYWHERE, unless you live directly above the Half King, and it's nowhere closer to my offices in midtown than it is to my home in Brooklyn.

This week, my patience finally wore thin. I decided to cash in a short-term guest pass to Equinox, which has a branch two blessedly short blocks from my office.

I got to the gym fairly early and had my pick of machines. But soon it started filling up with strange people. These were men, but they weren't wearing the tank tops and patting each other on rounded, canteloupe bottoms. There was a suspicious absence of waxed limbs. They were wearing beat up old T-shirts advertising basketball teams or company picnics. They were wearing dorky socks and smelly shorts. They were watching sports and looking at women's asses. HOLY SHIT, THEY WERE STRAIGHT!

There pheremones in the room were palpable, and there was friendly banter and flirting -- even some hitting of other people's body parts with their towels! Despite the dorky socks, these guys were...hot. Sure, they were likely lawyers and bankers from the surrounding buildings that probably wouldn't interest me at all if they actually opened their mouths, but it was nice to have eye candy -- and eye candy that looked back, at that.

If anyone wants to know what to get me for Christmas, please make it a yearlong membership to Equinox? I can't give up my Chelsea Piers, but I'd like to cheat with Equinox for my side dish of straights.

Coincidentally...

2006-11-09T11:29:00.000-05:00

a great article today from Cary Tennis (see post below) on street harassment, which shows that some men do have insight as to why this happens and why it's a problem. An excerpt:

"There is something to be said for being invisible. For the city is also a stage, occupied by actors trying to become real. Suffocated by the sheer numbers around us as we sit on the buses and subways day after day, we sometimes feel that we are less real than others, less powerful, less important and respected; we dream of doing something to take some of that power and visibility away from them. So we attack them, take their money and spend it, take their credit cards, take their lives.

How do we pick our victims? We pick the ones who catch our eye, the ones whose bright colors enrage us, whose sexual attractiveness fills us with resentment and anger. Who will be the victim? That pretty one there."

Getting Off on the F Train, And the Umbrella of Fury

2006-11-08T21:16:00.000-05:00

Longtime readers are probably familiar with my frequent rants about street harassment, something that I (and thousands of other New York women) grudgingly put up with every day. Men seem to fail to understand why it's such a big deal if someone hisses "Nice ass, honey" and gives you the creepy up and down when you walk by, or honks his horn at you before making lascivious gestures with his dirty, cheese-coated tongue, or sees fit to let ya know that you're a super sexy mami and why don't you come say hi? They're COMPLIMENTS after all, right?

Today I was getting on the F train at Rock Center to go a few stops south for a meeting. As I waited for the doors to open, the man on the inside of the car gave me the eye, but whatever -- he could have been looking for the closest stairwell for all I knew. But nope, he was looking for someone to force himself on. And -- lucky, lucky day! -- it was me.

This guy had the bug-eyed visage of T-bag from Prison Break and smelled of rancid five and dime cologne, bought way back when five and dimes still existed. I waited for him to step around me so I could get on the train, as he was getting off (both literally and, apparently, figuratively).

As he stepped out of the car, he rubbed his hands across my chest and slid one back around me in an attempt to grab my ass. I yelped and lept into the car, screaming that he was a slimey creep and to get his fucking hands off of me. I'm a nice Christian lady but when a stranger tries to shove his hand in my snatch in a public place I think that Jesus himself would cheer on a counter-attack. Greasy-haired T-bag got off easy. (And one more time with the double entendres.)

I was shaken. I got off at 34th street and not one but TWO more jerks, in the space of three blocks, decided to run off their mouths with regard to my various body parts. And folks, I was not looking my best -- my jeans were soaked and baggy from the rain, my hair was pulled back in a frizzy ponytail, and I was half obscured by an umbrella anyway.

And then, the hot-dog man. The Middle Eastern hot-dog man at 32nd and 5th -- apparently not yet used to seeing women out of headscarves -- decided he absolutely had to tell me that I was looking beautiful and that I needed to come back and talk to him.

I snapped.

I turned around and, weilding a huge wet umbrella like a comical and ineffective saber, attacked the hot dog man. A stream of obsenities poured forth and I let him have it. I chased him back behind his hot dog cart, waving the steely tines of my Umbrella of Strength before me. I bet they don't do that back in Iranistan, do they? Huh? HUH?

This is probably not an effective way to deal with street harassment, and should I ever crave ketchup and pig eyeballs in a tube whilst in the vincinity of 32nd and 5th, I'm out of luck. However, there is no way to *prevent* street harassment, as far as I can tell. I told one of my male friends about the incident and he said, "Unless you can somehow stop being hot, it's just going to happen. Deal." But being ugly doesn't even help -- I get as many hollers on super-fugly days as I do on my cutest ones.

I feel like I should be able to walk down the street looking my best -- or my worst, for that matter -- without having some stranger give me his two unwanted cents or trying to reach down my (totally conservative) shirt. Street harassment makes me, and other women, feel intimidated, preyed upon and vulnerable. And since the only antidote I've ever found to it is having another man around (even if I could probably kick the harasser's ass more thoroughly than he could), I'm calling on the non-harassing men of Manhattan to step up a little. I don't need a man to protect me, but when you see someone getting tit-grabbed or worse, be a good-neighborly bystander and inquire, "Is that man bothering you?"

Or, if you have an umbrella handy, weild it with fury.

Oh, and finally? I'm getting a taser and going Veronica Mars on the next man who hassles me. The T-bags and hot dog men of the future will only WISH I had an umbrella then.

I Voted Today

2006-11-07T15:57:00.000-05:00

And it made me feel so much better.

Ten Things Tuesdays: And you wonder why I'm single

2006-11-07T15:53:00.000-05:00

I've been dating now for oh, 16 years or so, which has given me PLENTY of time to amass an interesting menagerie of exes, each with myriad appealing qualities. That said, it's also given me plenty of ammo to poke fun at people -- after all, it's no fun to talk about how GREAT someone was in the sack or how SWEET it was that Mr. X always gave me cab fare to get home or how SMART so and so was on the crossword puzzle. Which is why I'm going to share with you 10 conversations -- a few of them sublimely ridiculous in retrospect -- which preceded the end of previous relationships. Out of context, it's kind of funny what people say to each other in an attempt to wind things down.

All I can say about any of these things moments in retrospect is -- wouldn't a simple "It's not you, it's me," on either party's part -- have sufficed? But then, I guess I'd have nothing to write about.

1) Him: "I'm moving to Australia. But...you can come visit!"

2) Him: "It'll be great. We can live on a farm near Omaha, and you can work at the World-Herald! I'll tend the cattle, and you can be an investigative journalist!"
Me: "But I'm sick of cows."

3) Him: "When? When did it all change?"
Me: "I don't know. Remember that time we met up at McDonald's? I saw you sitting in the window, and you were drinking a carton of milk. MILK. It was just so weird. I think that's when it changed."
Him: "You're breaking up with me over milk?"
Me: "No." [Exasperated sigh.] "That's just when things changed."

4) Me: "We've been dating long distance for almost two years now. Maybe I should move to Colorado. I love it there!"
Him: "I been thinking about it, and it seems like living in the same state might put too much pressure on our relationship."

5) Me: "Why, why can't we be together? I love you! We'll work through whatever it is!"
Him: "I want to have sex with men."
Me: "Oh." [Hysterical sobbing.]

6) Me: "It's been like TWO MONTHS since you kissed me on the lips. What did I DO?"
Him: "Nothing. I just have a lipgloss phobia and intimacy issues. You KNEW that."

7) Him: "Sometimes I just can't help but wish that I was back with my old girlfriend, that things were the way they used to be."
Me: "You mean the one who refused to marry you and aborted your love child?"
Him: "Yeah. Her."
Me: "I can see the appeal. She sounds like a PEACH."

8) Him: "Why? Why do we have to break up?"
Me: "Because when I think about marrying you, I have panic attacks in the shower."

9) Him: "It's so funny. Did I ever tell you? I had the biggest crush on your sister in college. I totally made out with her once! God, she was hot."

10) Me: "I'm sorry, I'm in college now, this can't go on."
Him: "But who am I going to take to my junior prom??!"

Tenaciously Clinging to the Bar Stool

2006-11-03T14:48:00.000-05:00

So I'm in the process of lining up some new consulting work and the person who's doing the hiring started calling my references today. He called me later to tell me I had a "fan club," and I assured him it was only because I had given each person $20 to say something nice. Aren't I the comedian?

One of my friends and former colleagues I had put down as a reference IM'd me shortly after she got off the phone with the employer and told me he had asked some kind of unusual questions. One of them was, "What are 3 words that you would use to describe Hadtomove?"

I asked her what she said, and she said, "Tenacious and smart."

I thanked her for leaving out "frequently inebriated" and knew that my twenty bucks had been well spent.

No-Lube Tube

2006-10-31T13:37:00.000-05:00

I find the time change utterly depressing. The sun sets at like 2:15 P.M. in New York and I can't tell you what a bummer it is to leave work and not get a little Vitamin D boost from the sun.

I was trudging to the subway this morning at 6 a.m. to go to the gym. The time-change depression was nearly unshakeable. I was even more crabby than usual because it was 6 a.m., I hadn't eaten, and all I had to look forward to was an hour of cardio and a pokey ride on the M14 bus.

The F train is screwed beyond all belief through the end of November, and there are signs all over our station alerting you that, in order to get to or from Manhattan between Friday and Sunday night, you will likely have to take some combination of every line in the friggin' city to do so. It's nearly driven me to madness already.

On one of the not-so-helpful MTA signs a rider had made a little drawing of a man's face saying "Not again!" Someone had written beside it: "Welcome to NYC transit, where we fuck you without Vaseline."

For some reason, it made me smile. We're all in this ass-fucking together, I guess.

Ten Things I Figured Out

2006-10-31T13:33:00.000-05:00

It's time for Ten Things Tuesdays! Here are some things everyone else probably realized when they were 17 or so, when I was off nursing a six-pack in a cornfield somewhere. Oh well. It took me awhile, and I doubt I'm going to blow anyone's mind here, but they're still things I'm glad I learned before I turned into a bitter old cat lady.

Ten Things I Figured Out

1) Your life is pretty much just a sum of all the decisions, big and small, that you make. This may seem simple but I think it's something we don't think about often enough when we're running around doing thoughtless, potentially destructive, things. Do that for long enough and this will become clear to you when you look around and realize your life is a mess (and I'd know something about this).

2) Just becuase you want to fuck someone, doesn't mean they're a nice person who will treat you well. Ride the hormanal wave if you must, but don't think it says anything about someone' s heart.

3) I've never met a woman who didn't look better after putting on a pair of heels. Believe in the power of the heels.

4) If you're spending a thousand bucks on a handbag, you need to have an ever-so-slightly broader worldview. Give some thought to the fact that women in Africa are selling their children into slave labor for 20 bucks a year. Put down the credit card and go volunteer somewhere.

5) I don't believe much of the religious dogma I heard repeatedly as a child. After study and contemplation as an adult, I believe fewer things. But I believe in them more deeply because I was able to satisfy intellectual questions that I had.

6) Embrace where you're from. I grew up in between a haystack and a chicken coop, more or less, and that -- and the fact that I moved away from it -- are part of what makes me who I am. I didn't go to Harvard, I don't come from great wealth or poverty, and I don't have a great story. But I make of it what it is in the narrative of my life.

7) Eventually, you become responsible for the pains inflicted on you in childhood and adolescence, even if they weren't your fault. If you were mistreated or raped or ignored or whatever, that sucks, and it hurts, and it changes who you are. But eventually if you want to be happy, you have to forgive for your own happiness -- not because someone else necessarily deserves it.

8) Your parents probably didn't really know what they were doing. They were just muddling along like everyone else, so cut them a little slack. It's nice to learn this in retrospect, although I think it would have served me better when I was a teenager.

9) If you're in the dumps, quit drinking, go to the gym, put on your makeup and actual clothes (boxer shorts, bathrobes don't count), see a shrink, and then wait for awhile. If you still don't feel better, it's time to get a prescription written.

10) You don't have to get married or have babies to be happy. REALLY. I promise.

What's on your list?

(Please don't say: "That Had to Move was not a philosophy major.")

Rethinking My Identity

2006-10-27T14:57:00.000-04:00

It's been weird and a little depressing re-thinking my professional identity since I quit being a journalist and started being a whatever-I-am-now: an itinerant writer/editor/researcher/fact-checker/media consultant/PR whore. I may as well describe myself as a "professional juggler," but then people might get the wrong idea (especially when I'm wearing my red clown nose). The PR whore thing is a new gig that might be coming down the line. Basically, someone said, "We'll pay you triple what you're making now!" and I said, "Sweet, that should bump me right above minimum wage, count me in!"

Trained to be inscrutable and completely objective during J-school, in my younger and more idealistic days I was convinced PR people were hacks at best, liars at worst, but above all useless. A few years out of school, having brushed shoulders and gotten pitched stories or sources by PR people who knew what they were doing, I realized that PR professionals did have a useful place in media. Sure, there are still stinkers. But there ARE good ones, and some of the best ones have a background in journalism. I don't think the PR that I am contemplating doing will really interfere in any harmful way with where my writing is going, so I think it's ok.

But anyway, the point is, in order to justify possibly taking a position doing a little bit of corporate PR on the side, I had to admit to myself that my days as a professional journalist -- which I was for eight years or so -- are effectively over. I'm running my own small business, and if someone offers to dump a wheelbarrow-full of money into my lap in exchange for a little work, it's in my best interest to take them up on it. After all, someday I aspire to owning more than a laptop and a violin, which are pretty much my only wordly posessions worth more than fifty bucks. Plus, I've found that I've been OK at most of the jobs that have come my way in the two years I've been freelancing, and it's been interesting to try out different facets in the wide world of media. I admire newspaper people more than I can say, but I just didn't have enough patience to stick around making crap wages and working horrible hours for peanuts for 10 years until I could move my way up the ladder to a job I really loved.

SO ANYWAY, this is I was thinking about it the other night when I went out to dinner with my friend whom from now on we shall call Roger.

Roger hates his job and has been batting around the idea of writing a book for pretty much forever. It's getting to the point where I'm ready to offer to write the first friggin' chapter FOR him just to get him started so I can quit hearing him moan about how he'd be such a great author but isn't quite sure what he wants his characters to DO. But actually, I'd never do that because as long as Roger has something to crab about, it means he'll take me out for nice dinners during which he'll bemoan the emptiness of his life.

Wednesday Roger took me to Otto* and I think we actually had something of a "book breakthrough" moment. I suggested a certain plot device on which he could hang his story, and it seemed to light a fire under his butt to actually get crackin'. Of course, we'll see if that happens -- if you hear me talking again in a month about how Roger took me out for oysters, that means he's probably still lollygagging.

"I better be at the top of the list in the acknowledgments page!" I said as he stared off into space, plotting out the next moves for his book's main character.

"Oh, dont' worry, I'll put you right at the top," he promised.

Which is when it occurred to me how I should mollify my ego now that I am no longer a "professional journalist." If you look me up on Amazon's A9 search, I already turn up in a few acknowledgment pages (and in several dry financial bibliographies, but let's not think about that right now).

And that is why, from now on, I am going to think of my identity as: "Muse."

*The olive-oil gelato with sea salt really IS life-changing. Seriously. I didn't believe it either. Neither did Roger. But despite his horrendous intolerance to lactose, he scarfed down nearly a whole bowl anyway. There were consequences to pay. But he doesn't regret it.

Todd, a Stand-Up Guy

2006-10-24T14:31:00.000-04:00

My good friend Todd from college has been doing stand-up comedy in L.A. for a number of years now. In the beginning he'd send me little snippets on CDs so I could hear how his shows went down. He's gotten better and better through tons of practice (and no small amount of humiliation, to hear him tell it). You can catch part of one of his shows here. I think you'll like it.

Ten Things Tuesdays: War Paint

2006-10-24T12:54:00.000-04:00

Life can be hell, but it's easier when you look pretty -- or at least as pretty as you can. Take today for instance.

I was in a cab heading to work from the gym, as I was late for an interview. My cabbie was a very nice Haitian fellow whose name was, unsurpringly, Jean. This is unsurprising because one time someone -- who seemed to have some authority on the matter -- told me that every male in Haiti is named Jean. I guess he was right.

Jean was in a big hurry to get me to work. In order to do so, he decided to take a wrong turn on to a one-way street. I screamed and waved my arms in the back seat, "No, no, no, this is a one-way street, TURN AROUND!" as we nearly had a head-on collision with another cab. Stressful, right?

But boy did I feel better that at least if I died, the EMTs who hauled me away would mourn that such a put-together lady died tragically young. I egotistically imagined the falsely fawning adjectives the tabloids would indubitably attach to my name. Had I left home looking my worst, I'd probably be no more than blotter ink in the back of the paper. And screw that! If I die in this city, my mug BETTER be splashed all over the front pages of the Daily News the next day.

So today I am going to expose to you my embarassing, soft, white underbelly. I am going to share with you the ten beauty products/habits/helpers without which I would not be myself. I am scared that now that you have this list, you will come to my house and steal these things, and I will melt and my feet will roll up under my couch or something.

I would like to pre-emptively defend myself by saying that although I may sound like some icky Long Island fake-nail makeup junkie, I am not. I spend less than five minutes in the morning "putting on my face," as my mother calls it. (See? SEE why I have issues? My face is already there!)

1) MASCARA. Thanks to my redhead status, I have very light strawberry blonde lashes, and my eyes virtually disappear unless my eyelashes are coated in a nice layer of black goo. I'm no Tammy Faye, but I will NOT leave home without mascara. I even put it on when I go camping -- secretly, in my tent. I'm neurotic about my mascara, but I also know that this particular mental tic can be traced directly to a specific adolescent trauma. When I was in eighth grade a member of my family -- who shall remain nameless -- took a hard look at me and said, "Isn't it about time you started wearing mascara?" Of course, he was right. I do look better with mascara. And you will have to pry the tube out of my gnarly, dead claw before I stop using it.

2) Eyebrow pencil. Thanks again to my bloodnut (which is what Australians call redheads), I also have strawberry blonde eyebrows. You can't see them unless I give them a little oomph with a pencil. Without it, I look as though someone shaved my brows off in a cruel sorority prank. Because I never want anyone to think I'm a sorority girl, I make sure to help out my eyebrows every day.

3) Eyelash curler. I'm no dog, but my sister won the brunt of the genetic lottery in our family. She punched her way out of the womb with perfectly formed muscles (my mom attests to this) and has never had to do a thing in her life to maintain them; this irks me to NO END, since I am the athletic one in the family and have to work my ass off at it. She dodged the family curse of child-bearing hips and cellulite. As a little extra frosting on her pretty pretty princess cake, she also got eyelashes so long, curly and thick they threaten to tangle up in her bangs. In order to stave off jealousy that might drive me to rip them off her face, I use an eyelash curler. It gives me the approximation of her eyelashes (only after, of course, I've gooped on a few coats of mascara).

4) Stairmaster/treadmill/eliptical machine/gym. OK, this isn't something that you spackle onto your face, but I consider a consistent workout schedule the most important thing you can do to make yourself less ugly. Without it, I'd likely be 20 pounds overweight, bloated, acne-ridden, and worst of all, totally depressed. That would lead me to hit the bottle, become even more depressed (and fat!) and the cycle would just continue. I shudder to think what my life would be like without the mood-elevating effects of exercise.

5) Sleeping pills. My favorite men to ensnare in my "web of obsession" are those who have an Ambien prescription -- one they like to share, that is. In fact, I think that will be one of things I'll require of my next boyfriend. I mean, I can't seem to find anyone who can sexually fulfill me, commit to me, or even AMUSE me for gosh sakes, so AT LEAST have the courtesy to PUT ME TO SLEEP. Ambien is too darn expensive under my insurance plan, and I fear that sooner or later my stopgap Tylenol PM is not gonna cut it. You see, I have periodic bouts of insomnia, and I will not tolerate them. I just won't. Because then what happens is I stay up drinking Scotch until 4 in the morning, I can't make the a.m. gym run, my skin looks like crap, and I'm crabby to boot. Mommy's gotta have her pills.

6) Origin's Clear Improvement Charcoal Mask. I used to have this boyfriend who did something really annoying. He had huge windows in his bedroom. I'd wake up on a lazy Saturday, the room flooded in light. He'd look at me lovingly as I lay facing him, and move his hand toward my face. "Ooooh, here, just let me get that...." he'd say before he'd turn his fingers into a vile set of pincers and squeeze a blackhead out of the top of my nose. This infuriated me to no end, and it hurt like hell. All I wanted was a little nookie and instead I got an unwanted, excrutiating facial. Something had to be done, and that something was Origin's Clear Improvement charcoal mask. I don't care if you have a gallon of West Texas crude stuck in your pores, this stuff will mop it up like a Bounty paper towel taking on blue stuff.

7) Shrimp cocktail. Eat it for dinner instead of a burrito or three take-out boxes of Indian food, which should be saved for hangover days. It's tasty and zingy, and it helps you stay thin.

8) Aveda Confixor hair gel and Aveda Brilliant pomade. This stuff smells AMAZING. As for how it works, here's my testimony: the other day, I went to the gym, did an hour of cardio, and sweated like a hog. A hog, I tell you. Afterward I decided not to wash my hair because I was just going to go home, get up in the morning, and go to the gym again. I took my ponytail out, shook out my hair, ran my fingers through it, and my hair still looked, dare I say it, pretty good. I can't ask much more than that of my products.

9) Neutrogena Healthy Skin Eye Cream. Start using it in your 20s. Start using it before you have to call in the heavy-duty $200 eye cream with crushed pearls and whale semen in it. Trust me.

10) Coty Airspun Powder. This stuff is six bucks for a tub that's big enough to last you, like, a year. And yet for some reason, they still put it BEHIND THE COUNTER at Duane Reade -- do they think people are going to snort it, or are they just doing it to add one more hassle to my day? Yeah, screw you, I buy all my make-up at a drugstore. And it works just fine. Look at my porcelain complexion!

That's how I try to stay acceptable looking. The end.

Fish and Broccoli Reminds Me of You

2006-10-20T13:15:00.000-04:00

I just returned from a business trip to Charlotte. I didn't get to see much of Charlotte since it was a quick trip, and it was foggy the one time we drove anywhere. I can't tell you much about Charlotte except that it is the nation's second banking capitol, that it has a nice airport with rocking chairs, and that the U.S. Airways terminal smells like ketchup and cigarettes.

The company I was consulting for got me a car to drive me home from LaGuardia. It was so good to be home; I was exhausted from two long days of meetings and smiling and trying fake my way through talking about economic policy with a bunch of Congressmen and financial executives. I wonder if they could tell I'm probably poor enough to qualify for some of their low-income housing loans. I think I was the only person in the room without a business degree from Wharton or Harvard, but luckily there's always a few people around who are dying to talk anything but shop. I provide levity, or something. Jester-consultant.

ANYWAY, as the car drove me home, each block I passed in Brooklyn reminded me of someone who's touched my life. My friend Jason lives there, and Carl's across the street. My friend Keith lives over there; gosh, that was a really nice date he took me out on last year, he really knows how to do it right. Ah, there's where W. and I used to have drinks, and here's where me and my ex ran into that tiny little puppy one time and I watched him cuddle it in his big arms. And I felt really glad to be in Brooklyn.

I guess being gone for two stupid days really juiced up my nostalgia factor, and at lunch today I had a memory that went much farther back. For lunch I got some salmon and broccoli to try to help my body recover from the travel-related booze and food abuse I heaped on it in the last few days. It reminded me of something from my childhood.

My mom loves to tell a story about how my sister, when she was maybe 4 of 5, went to a birthday party. Somebody asked the kids what their favorite food was and everyone was shouting out, "Pizza! Hamburgers! Ice cream!" etc. etc. When the chorus stopped, everyone heard my sister meekly say, "Fish and broccoli...." and they all laughed at her. She misheard the question and thought they asked what everyone had for dinner the night before. I think she started crying, and later my dad accidentally washed the goldfish she got at the party down the garbage disposal. More crying. She was always a softie, and it always made me worry about her. Still does.

Today I wrote her an email, saying "Fish and broccoli reminds me of you."

I'm glad we're close enough that she'll know what I mean.

A Message From the GOP?

2006-10-18T13:11:00.000-04:00

This morning after the gym I took a cab up 10th Avenue to work because I was running late. Somewhere in the 30s I saw a neon sign beaming forth from a large plate-glass window. The letters "T" and "R" were burned out. It said:

"SUPPORT OUR OOPS."

Support our troops, I will, but I cannot support your oops, Bush.

Ten Things Tuesdays: Live Music Experiences

2006-10-17T14:01:00.000-04:00

It's that time again, for Ten Things Tuesdays.

This suggestion came from a friend who once intentionally smashed himself in the face with a boot (though that's his story to tell), so if you have a problem with the content, you can take it up with HIM. Just look for the guy with the crooked beak.

I was going to do Ten Concerts, but to be honest, when I started thinking about music that I have seen performed live, my mountaintop experiences (or at least, interesting ones) were not limited to what could strictly be called concerts. So I'm going to take a little blogetic license here. Some of this is going to be horrifically embarassing to admit, so please stifle your guffaws and wait for my explanation about how a man in a white cowboy hat and ball-hugging jeans managed to break my top ten. Also, I apologize for the length. I guess I rambled a bit.

And now I give you, in no particular order (though more embarassing entries MAY be found lower on the page):

Ten Live Music Experiences.

1) The Flaming Lips, Hammerstein Ballroom, September 24, 2006
I've written about this before, so you can click here if you want the full experience. Suffice it to say that the moment when the key shift in "Do You Realize" pushed its way through the crowd along with a flurry of confetti shot out of canons, balloons the size of hippos and a daybreak of floodlights into the audience, is one that I'll never forget.

2) Dolly Parton, Irving Plaza, July 10, 2002
My friend Kevin -- who once won the "Miss Hendrix" drag prize at his small private college in Arkansas -- insisted that I attend this show. He's been a Dolly fan forever; I was puzzled at the appeal and knew little beyond "Nine to 5" and the excellent album of fragile classic bluegrass "Little Sparrow." But because Kevin once helped me move all my earthly possessions into a second-floor storage unit in the bowels of Brooklyn using not an elevator but a LADDER, I agreed to go. And am I ever glad I did. Dolly is the consummate performer -- the depth of her musical treasure chest (pun! pun!) was beyond what I could have imagined, her storytelling is unparalleled, and she held what was most likely a bitter, wrung-out crowd of New Yorkers in the palm of her slim-wristed hand. There were hipsters and middle-aged suburban fans and the drag queens were out in full force. Her ability to pull them all into her world for two hours was unlike anything I've ever seen -- she talked about her daddy and Jesus and growin' up in dirty rags and everyone ate it up without nary a shred of irony. Verily, it felt like a religious experience.

3) Indigenous, Shine, May 24, 2000
Indigenous, for those not in the know, is a group of siblings from an Indian reservation in South Dakota that play (although that word seems a heinous underestimation) the blues. As my favorite journalism professor once described them, they are "Red people who play black music for white folks." And really, that's what they do, considering that they primarily perform in the Midwest, where diversity is more or less nil. During college, I'd frequently go see them at the Zoo Bar in Lincoln, where they threatened to blow the doors off the place. And when I heard they were coming to New York, I knew I HAD to see them. I begged my friends (not that I had many, having only lived here a few months) to go but no one wanted to go with me -- they wanted little to do with a band from South Dakota, my home state. So I went alone. When I got there I met a roving group of fans who follow them around the country. One of them was a skinny, long-haired, middle-aged hippie with a dangling fish earring. He shared his flask with me all night and I danced with abandon. Mato, the lead singer and guitarist, plays in a way that you can feel in your guts. It was an amazing taste of home and powerful music at a time I was feeling very, very low thanks to the fact that the love of my life had recently turned very, very gay.

4) Rigoletto, Metropolitan Opera House, New York, March 12, 2004
As I said, not all of my great live music experiernces have been concerts, per se. Rigoletto at the Met was the first opera I ever attended, and it was a hell of a way to start. It's kind of like starting to climb in Yosemite, or starting to snowboard in Vail (both of which I did, for the record). Anyway, back then I was still working at a newspaper. My boss had very recently, via a big promotion, become NOT my boss. He knew that I was interested in seeing an opera, and he had season tickets. He asked me to accompany him, forked over a 200-dollar orchestra seat ticket, and met me in his tux. I wore a floor-length, backless, black dress and fishnets, and we drank expensive champagne before the show. The Opera House is one of my favorite spaces in New York, and I drank in every inch of it and the people in it. I was blown away by the space, the sets, the precision of the orchestra, the power of the opera singers, and the entire experience. The opera, which I have seen quite a few times since, always reminds me of the main reason I love to live in New York -- it is full of amazing people doing amazing things at a level that's just not possible most anywhere else. Nothing ever happened between me and my ex-boss, and I was never quite sure why he took me to the opera. My best guess is that It is pretty amazing to take people to their first opera. Last year I took my parents to their first opera -- Carmen at the Met. And they were blown away, too. It was an incredible experience to share, to see the excitement other music lovers feel, especially if you have some idea of what classical music requires of the people who perform it (and being a 12-year veteran of violin lessons and orchestra, I do). If you've never been to the opera, make it one thing you do while you have a chance. Plus, you will TOTALLY get laid if you bring a date.

5) Yonder Mountain String Band, State Bridge Lodge, Colorado, July 15, 2001
During the summer of 2001, I was dating a man in Colorado. A JEWISH DOCTOR. God, I bet Jewish mothers all over America were incensed that I was keeping him from dating someone in the tribe (namely, their daughters). But anyway. That summer I was out there visiting. One day we went on a long hike, made love near a stream on a mountain, and afterward met a bunch of friends at the State Bridge Lodge on the Colorado. State Bridge, near Steamboat, is an outdoor music venue next to an old log-cabiny thing where you can get stout Colorado beers and burgers and the like. YMSB is kind of a crazy hippy speed-bluegrass band that can do nothing but make you smile. Partly because my brother plays the banjo (which I'll get to later), but also just because it's incredibly good-natured and intricate, I have a particular affection for bluegrass. It was the perfect day under the sun and sky and mountains, with someone I loved without question and was always happy to have next to me, drinking good beer and dancing with friends. It's a fantastic memory. Four days later I was in New York. It was my birthday. I went to see YMSB play at the Wetlands in New York. There were fewer hippies dancing around in stupid patchwork pants, but probably just as much weed. I remembered my time in Colorado, and smiled.

6) My brother (on banjo), Trail Ridge Retirement Community, South Dakota, May 2005
I come from a fairly musically inclined family. I started taking piano lessons at 5 and continued through age 17. I started taking violin lessons at 7 and continued taking lessons, or playing in community or college orchestras, through age 20. My sister still plays violin in a symphony in Colorado. My brother was in the marching band at the University of Nebraska (on trombone) and later in college took up the banjo. He got quite good and started his own bluegrass band. A few weeks after his baby was born, we were all home in South Dakota to visit my parents. We made a stop one day at my grandmother's retirement community. We had promised them a family concert. My brother told a few vignettes about each piece he played. He sang in a high-lonesome voice that I never knew he had. The residents of this place were all looked kind of beatific as he sang and played. The buttons of my grandmother's cardigan nearly popped with pride. It was a touching family moment, I guess.

7) Garth Brooks, the Iowa State Fair, 1991
Yup. Here's where it starts to get embarassing. Growing up, I listened to: 1) 70s classic rock 2) the Humpty Dance 3) power ballads and 4) country music. What do you WANT? I lived in the middle of a corn field in South Dakota. I had no options. There was none of this mysterious "Interweb" that we know about today to enlighten me to Morrisey or The Cure or what have you. There was no alternative radio. For fuck's sake, we didn't even have MTV, which was banned by our local cable provider. Faster Pussycat was as crazy as it got. Garth Brooks' "No Fences" was the first CD I ever bought for the first CD "boom box" I ever owned. And come on. It was catchy. Right? Anyway, we listened to this shit nonstop and in 1991, as high school sophomores/juniors, for some reason our parents let our 15-year-old selves drive a state away to go see him at the Iowa State Fair. Say what you will about him, but he was at the top of his game. No Fences had just come out. He was on fire. And he put on a great show. We got to see someone who at the time was kind of like our Beatles. We screamed and went hysterical and jumped up and down and pushed our sweaty, teased bangs off our foreheads as we wailed for more. It was fucking great.

8) 311, The Ranch Bowl, Omaha, winter break,1994
By college, I had alternative radio. I had heard of the Pixies. And 311, well, they were still a Nebraska band -- not an "L.A. band." "Music" had just started to take off and they were on the beginning of a groundswell, but they were still a band I used to see in the student union for three bucks, and Peanut's sister was still in my aerobics class. In short, they were not yet lame. During that Christmas break, my friend Marie and I went to see them at The Ranch Bowl, an Omaha venue that is a bowling alley upstairs and a music venue downstairs. It was bone-cracking cold outside. The kind of cold that makes your snot freeze, which is not something you understand unless you live in one of the Dakotas, or Maine. The Bowl was packed wall to wall. I am not a moshing kind of girl, hell, more than 10 years later I am still, occasionally, forced to shop at Ann Taylor Loft. But Marie and I found ourselves in an honest to goodness mosh pit, getting joyously and surprisingly smacked around and crowd surfing -- which is almost as amazing a feeling as attending an opera in black tie. Wait...moreso. Anyway, at some point Marie got dropped during a crowd surf and was getting trampled on the floor. I reached down, grabbed a handful of her hair, and yanked her to safety. I thought she might bust my lip, but instead, she hugged me and said "Holy shit, thank you!" We went outside and smoked a cigarette, and the steamy sweat was rising in a mist off people's bodies in the frozen parking lot, and turning into clouds.

9) Ryan Adams (and secret performance by Elton John) Irving Plaza, Oct. 3, 2001
Ryan Adams is kind of a dick to his audiences. So as much as I like his music, he's not really the reason I loved this concert so much. I've been an unashamed fan of Elton John for years. How can you beat "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues"? OK, but back to the matter at hand -- I was planning to attend this concert. And then a (Canadian) coworker told me that Elton John might make a guest appearance. How did he know? His best friend from high schools' younger brother is Elton John's lover. And he tipped him off. Still, I couldn't expect anything. But halfway through the show, EJ walked on, played the piano, and sang his ass off for three pieces. People started jumping around and screaming, and it was a great moment. And I saw Elton John for fifteen bucks. At Irving Plaza. Holy shit.

10) Wilco, Radio City Music Hall, Oct. 6, 2004
In the fall of 2004, I saw a show by what is probably my favorite band of all time, Wilco. I loved them when they were twangy simple alt-country, when Jeff Tweedy was expected to go nowhere, when they went to experimental noise, when they sang lyrics that made me believe they foresaw everything that happened on 9/11. They've been with me for years. What made this show memorable was, well, I guess...weed. I attended the show with a friend a mutual friend who is a music critic. He is, or at least was, also a huge fan of weed. He had a steady supply of government weed from California, and we smoked some before the show. It resulted in all the great things weed does -- an opening of the mind, a happy fuzzy feeling -- but none of the bad things (unignorable munchies, paranoia, the need to have sex RIGHT NOW). I sat in the balcony in a chair, which would normally annoy me. But I just sat back, watched the weirdo psychadelic images behind the band on the screen, didn't worry about anything, and enjoyed my favorite band.