it's a little warm here on the back burner

Mark: I have to cancel our plans for Sunday. I made plans with That Girl I Met Online.
Me: What?
Mark: Yeah. Sorry.
Me: What!
Mark: She's having an Oscar party.
Me: You're ditching me for a GIRL?
Mark: I'm going out with her beforehand to see if I want to go to her party.
Me: So she's pre-screening you?
Mark: I'm pre-screening her.
Me: You're a terrible person.
Mark: For pre-screening her?
Me: No, for blatantly ditching me.
Mark: I'm sorry.
Me: But we were going to have sushi [at my favorite sushi place which is in an obscure part of his neighborhood that I never get out to]!
Mark: I know. I'm not even sure I'm going to like her.
Me: You're ditching me for a girl that YOU'RE NOT EVEN SURE YOU LIKE!
Mark: Well, I MIGHT like her.
Me: I have never felt more special.
Mark: I'm sorry, Red. I still love you. You're still my best friend.
Me: I don't care about your friendship. I care about sushi.
Mark: We'll do it soon.
Me: You better marry her, is all I can say.
Mark: Yeah, I don't know about that.
Me: You better marry her, and then when I meet her, I can be like, "Oh, hello. I was going to have the spicy scallop maki that is like CRACK to me, but instead I gave you a husband." That's the only way this will be okay. And even then, it's a stretch.
Mark: Well, if we do get married, you can be the best woman. Groomsmaid?
Me: Goodbye. I loathe you.

friends don't let weird guys bike drunk

The problem with having people that you know in real life read your blog is that every now and then one of them will say, "Hey, you should really blog about that time that we..." and you want to be all, "I don't take requests, punk, what am I, your wedding DJ?" Except that you wouldn't really say that. Anyway, this is one story-by-request that was fun to write about and required very little prodding.

So my friend Tim and I are out way too late this past Monday, of all nights. I'm coming back from the ladies and I spot Drunk Guy talking to him. And by talking, I mean babbling while Tim avoids eye contact. He'd been at the bar for awhile and only made his approach when I was away. Hence, Tim was basically getting picked up. I loved this.

Drunk Guy said his sister thinks he drinks too much but that he'd only had 11 or 12 that night; I said he should call her right then and let me talk to her. He said he lived down the road and mentioned his cellar, and then said that if we brought beers we could all go there. What? We quickly declined, or as Tim put it, diffused that movie-of-the-week murder spectacular. He said he was 37 but he looked 57.

It actually reminded me of that girl from grad school that I didn't really like but that I felt guilty about not liking, until I had a reason to. Although, really, his being drunk and interrupting our conversation might have been enough of a reason in the first place, but I guess I was feeling pretty patient. Or was, until a few minutes went by and then he decided to sit down with us. He sat next to Tim; I was starting to feel like the poor guy would've been molested if I hadn't been there.

So, then Drunk Guy says something about "the Jews." Then he busts out with the n word. I thought I must have heard him wrong; this is 2006, right? And we're in the capital of arguably the most liberal state in the country, RIGHT? I asked him what he'd said, giving him the benefit of the alcoholic doubt. He repeated himself. I looked at Tim and shook my head. Not a "can you believe this guy?" shake, but a "NO NO NO absolutely no more of this" shake.

Then Tim said, "Could you excuse us?" Drunk Guy said sure, and then when he saw we weren't getting up, he figured out what that request meant and left. Left on his BIKE to ride home at least a mile in SUBZERO temperatures, because that's what you do on a Monday night.

So, yeah. It will always be the night that my (male) friend got hit on by a drunken, racist, anti-semitic, frostbitten bike rider, and for that I will always be grateful.

so I guess arranged marriages work, sometimes

At a department meeting today, Supergirl was in typical form. She was going a mile a minute but making a salient point, as she usually does while sucking in all the oxygen in the room. Someone we don't work with interrupted her mid-word by bursting out laughing: "Are you always like this? I don't know how Red does it! I think you'd annoy the hell out of me!"

It came off even harsher than it did in print. Supergirl's face fell. And I surprised myself by immediately and dead-seriously responding, "Hey, back off my wife."

odds are they won't put me in the brochure

[Picture removed, because all the tried-and-true tenters already had the schmantastic opportunity of seeing it, and also I HATE IT... on some level it's just a stupid picture of me from a long time ago and on another level it's adolesent discomfort captured on film forever. And on another level, who cares?]

Mark: This is the bitchiest looking picture I've ever seen of you.
Me: Holy shit.
Mark: When was this taken?
Me: I don't know, a zillion years ago?
Mark: What's wrong with you?
Me: I don't know. Maybe I read something on that paper that made me really mad.
Mark: Yeah, like, "Red, we like your ripped jeans."
Me: And I'm right in front of the sign, like the worst advertisement ever. "Come to this school and be miserable."
Mark: Seriously.
Me: This is so awful. I should blog it!

quiz

Which conversation happened between Elusive Jen and I, and which one happened during the first ten minutes of Grey's Anatomy?

Scenario #1:
Girl: What?
Other Girl: Nothing.
Girl: So I slept with him again. So I'm a big whore. I'm a big whore who can't get enough.

Scenario #2:
Girl: Good luck with your date.
Other Girl: Good luck with your sex.
Both, in unison: Thanks!

cutting to the chase: reviewing trailers

Lonesome Jim: Seems to have the same basic premise of Garden State, but with Casey Affleck, who is like Ben without the money and tanning booth. In other words, I like him. And I'll see any movie that contains the warning: "Be careful, because when you point a finger at somebody else, you're pointing three at yourself and a thumb at the sky."

Marie Antoinette: I can't decide if this will be bad (Kirsten Dunst) or good (Jason Schwartzman).

Firewall: This movie was specifically designed for my mother, who should have been medicated years ago for her obsession with Harrison Ford. She also loves any book, movie, or TV show that has to do was espionage, terrorism, or heists. When the warning about violence comes on before 24, I've heard her yell, "Violence! YES!"

Date Movie: The only thing worse than some of these movies the first time around is a parody of them that doesn't appear to be remotely funny. And P.S. jackasses, the parody of The Ring in Scary Movie was STILL SCARY, so thanks for that.

Film Geek: I'll need to see this.

Illusion: And maybe this.

Basic Instinct 2: Sad.

The Break-Up: Jennifer Aniston is a good straight man in Movies Like This. I can't explain it, but she just plays normal really well; I'd want her to play my girlfriend in a movie, too. The scene in the kitchen solidifies my massive crush on Vince Vaughn. Anyway, this movie could be good, or not. I clearly feel strongly about it.

Failure to Launch: Where would Matthew McConaughey's career be without all these please-fix-this-man movies to star in? He was at his best as Wooderson... can I get an amen?

Poseidon: I hate when people say, "Oh, blah-bitty-blah? Yeah, I liked it the first time when it was called whoozy-whazit! HA HA!" The person making this joke is inevitably lame. But I can't help it... I can't contain it... I apologize ahead of time... I liked this movie the first time around when it was called Titanic. (And by "liked" I mean, saw it, almost cried myself into a nervous breakdown, and then tried to regain my pride by mocking it.)

The Da Vinci Code: It'd be funny if the movie was like the book, and everyone became completely obsessed with it for two days and then forgot about it.

Lady in the Water: Leave it to M. Night Shyamalan to write a movie for his kids that still looks creepy. I like how they're calling it a bedtime story, though, and I'll see anything that Paul Giamatti is in. Speaking of M., how funny was that scene in Signs at the end of the movie when we finally see the alien, and it looked like it was wearing a $19.99 alien Halloween costume from Target?

Stay Alive: This could have been the next House of Wax, if only they'd thought to cast Paris Hilton. Who am I kidding, nothing will ever live up to that genius.

know your audience

The phone rings, and my caller ID says Big Brother. I thought he just watched; didn't realize he also called.

Me: Hello?
Her: Hi, I'm So-and-so calling from Big Brothers Big Sisters...

Ahh.

Her: ...and we're calling to ask you...

No, seriously, the only time that I'm not with or thinking about kids is when I'm sleeping. I'm sorry, but I'd sooner volunteer to do your books.

Her: ...if you have any clothing that you could donate.
Me: Oh yeah, I do, actually. Do you need adult clothing?
Her: Anything you have. We're doing pick-ups on Monday.
Me: Okay, great.

She verifies my address, and then, although I know I'll regret this:

Me: It's funny, you come up on caller ID as Big Brother.
Her: Excuse me?
Me: No, you just... my caller ID said Big Brother and I thought it was kind of funny.
Her: [silence]
Me: Like, Big Brother is watching?
Her: [silence]
Me: Right, so, Monday?

tag, I'm it

I was tagged by Grumpy Frump, which is great timing because I have a bad case of blogger's block.

What were you doing 10 years ago?
When I was little, I wrote a diary entry about what I thought it would be like to be in "colledge first grade." Once I got there I learned that it's actually called being a freshman in college. Anyway, that's what I was doing ten years ago.

What were you doing one year ago?
Pretty much what I'm doing now: Working, hanging out with my peoples, cupcake tenting, and deriving immense satisfaction from reruns of I Love the 80s on VH1.

Five snacks you enjoy:
1. Mini eggs.
2. Great.
3. Now, yet again,
4. I can't get them
5. out of my mind.

Five songs you know all the words to:
OK, I'm putting the iPod on random and picking the first five songs that I know by heart. This has the potential to be fairly embarrassing.
1. The Dangling Conversation by Simon and Garfunkel. I like this song, but I sort of hate the people in it. Somehow the two of them can't make their relationship work, even though they're clearly freakin' made for each other. "You read your Emily Dickinson, and I my Robert Frost," and yet you're incompatible? If I found two people who both enjoyed sitting around reading those poets, I'd force them to marry each other. I'd force them together the way Petey forced those two poor saps together on the log on Fat Camp.
2. Spin the Bottle by the Juliana Hatfield 3. Very high school song, from a very high school movie (Reality Bites), and I first heard about Juliana in a very high school way (Sassy magazine, R.I.P.).
3. I Don't Want to Wait by Paula Cole. Yes, the Dawson's Creek song. I knew my iPod would betray me. I used to annoy Mark by singing the beginning, the "doo doo doo doo" part whenever I thought he was being melodramatic.
4. Past the Mission by Tori Amos. No comment, really; what dysfunctional teenage girl didn't like Tori Amos?
5. The Lady is a Tramp by Ella Fitzgerald. I've always liked this song: "Social circles spin too fast for me; my hobohemia is the place to be. I get too hungry for dinner at eight, I like the theater but never come late, I never bother with people I hate..."

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1. I suddenly feel like I've answered these questions before.
2. I'd get all the movie channels and never leave the house.
3. First I'd have to buy a house.
4. I'd buy a Ford Escape hybrid.
5. I'd quit my second job permanently, take a year off of my regular job, and travel everywhere.

Five bad habits:
1. Procrastination
2. Biting my nails
3. Chewing pen caps into OBLIVION
4. Not answering my cell phone, ever
5. I think Michael Ian Black is a little overly snarky. What do you think? (Can you tell I Love the 80s is on as I'm writing this?)

Five things you enjoy doing:
1. Being with my family and friends
2. Car dancing
3. Living room dancing
4. Reading
5. Buying products

Five things you would never wear:
1. A class ring
2. A top hat
3. The Scream mask
4. A dead monkey
5. A bonnet (Insert the picture of me in first grade dressed as a colonial person for Colonial Day at school, which involved more coloring in pictures of Thanksgiving food than killing Native Americans.)

Five favorite toys/games:
1. Moods, but no one will play it with me.
2. Taboo
3. The running game that came with the old school Nintendo. Remember the mat?
4. Drink whenever Carrie Bradshaw makes you embarrassed to be a woman.
5. The fast money round on Family Feud. I would LOVE to be on this show, but I know I'd be mean to my family. I wouldn't be like, "Good answer, sweetie!" when the question was, "Name a famous John" and some dumbass relative of mine ruined everything with, "Uhhh... John... son and Johnson? Yeah! Johnson and Johnson! Baby powder!" No, I wouldn't be patient; this is my moment on the Feud, people. I'd be like Monica on the Friends episode where they bet their apartment playing that trivia game: "RACHEL! USE YOUR HEAD!"

girl power

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not exactly a girly girl. But I'm also not one to necessarily dislike girly girls; I definitely have friends who rock their girliness. It's just not my thing.

The one girly thing that I can't get on board with is showers. No, hello, I bathe. I'm the product queen, remember? That actually flies in the face of my anti-girliness, but that's beside the point. I'm talking about wedding and baby showers.

It's a touchy subject, because almost every woman has one or both at some point. And it's further touchy because I'm single, so not liking these events gives the impression of bitterness. It's a fair assumption, but you'll have to take me on my word that that's not it.

Once I went to a baby shower for a friend who was extremely sensitive about how big she was getting. However unwarranted her concerns (you're not fat; you're growing a person!), she was upset about it. I walked into her shower and was handed a piece of ribbon by her mother; if mine was closest to matching the mom-to-be's actual circumference, I'd win a prize. What, making her cry?

At the last wedding shower that I went to, everyone wrote down marital advice for the bride on little pieces of paper that she read as she unwrapped presents. Grown women gave advice like, "Remember, if you want him to do X, tell him Y!" and giggled knowingly like co-conspirators in man-taming. God knows that I believe in seeing the humor in anything you can, but comments like that makes me feel alienated from my own gender. I don't know who these people are involved with, but I've never been in a relationship with anyone with whom I had to play games in order to communicate, and I never want to be.

So, my new thing is that I only go to showers for friends. And by friend I don't mean someone I work with that I've never seen beyond the parking lot, or an acquaintance that I haven't talked to in four years. If I'm invited to a non-friend shower, I'll send my regrets and a great gift. Can't really complain about that, right? And I certainly don't share my anti-shower sentiments with them; I save that for you.

And now to contradict everything that I just said about not being girly, here's an incredibly girly story. Feel free to stop reading now if it'll girl you out too much; trust me, it's my story and it tends to over-girlify me. (It may also be enough personal information to appease the always-entertaining Jaek, who thinks I'm dead inside.)

I know Connecticut from college, and my relationship with her has changed since she met her fiancee. That's usually what happens, to an extent, but she went from being a woman who was scared of never meeting someone to being a woman who was sort of self-righteous and condescending once she did. Recently we went a couple months without talking and she sent a long email telling me she feels that I'm not interested in our friendship. It's hard to justify that argument when neither of us were really making an effort, but, okay, it must have been bothering her if she decided to bring it up. So I apologized and we talked about it and then I asked if she wanted to make plans to get together (even though, despite our conversation, I just didn't really want to). And I added, "You can bring Fiancee if you want; you know I really like him," which I do. She replied, "Well, you can't have him." I know she was trying to be funny, but still... ugh.

This is just one example of how she and I communicate lately. I usually judge a friendship by how I feel after spending time with the person: Do I more often leave their company saying, "Gee, I love so-and-so," or, "Gee, why didn't I stay home and watch Ashley Parker Angel neglect his newborn son on There and Back?" If I start thinking the latter more often, there's a problem (a huge problem, actually, because that also happens to be a terrible show). And that's how I feel with Connecticut. Friend-dumping is a delicate thing and I don't take it lightly. I adore my friends and I'm truly blessed to have some really good ones, and if I were to find that I'd been a bad, negligent friend to any of them it would devastate me. But I'm also not willing to tug around dead weight, that is, put time and effort into a friendship with someone who hasn't done anything but annoy, insult, and guilt trip me in a long time.

Long story short, I RSVPed no to her shower, and may do the same to her wedding. And I know that, on some level, there'll be hell to pay; we have mutuals who will say mean, uninformed things about my decision. But I'm not sure I care. Well, obviously I still do care because I think about it and I'm writing about it; any of my friends know how much this has gotten under my skin. I'm just not sure that I should care.

As I get older (ahem, closer to 30), I just find that I'm less and less capable of bullshit. It's not that I'm trying to send a message by not going; it's literally that I don't want to waste my time being around people who don't make me happy anymore. I don't settle when it comes to relationships and every so often I'm reminded that I shouldn't settle when it comes to friendships, either. Of course, these words are easy to type and a little harder to live.

how you know your waiter is good

Me: Wow. I'm not sure why, but I kind of love him.
Heterosexual Guy Friend: Me too.
Me: Seriously?
HGF: Is that weird?
Me: No.
HGF: Good.
[pause]
Me: Maybe a little bit weird.
HGF: Yeah, maybe a little bit.

Timeline

1977. First words spoken about me, by a doctor, immediately following my entrance into the world: "Look at the shoulders on this kid, he's going to play football. Oh, it's a girl!"

1978. I say my first words, "mama" and "dada," not because they're the people who feed me, but because they're early emerging consonant sounds paired with vowels, which are basically formed by opening your mouth and making noise. My apologies to parents everywhere.

1979. My parents decide to start trying for another kid, and are told by the doctor that my mom would have to spend her entire pregnancy in the hospital, because I almost killed her in utero. (Was this the same doctor who thought I was a boy? Maybe get a second opinion.) They decide not to have anymore children, thus placing all of their expectations on my man shoulders.

1980. I have a little panda toy on wheels that I push around everywhere. I distinctly remember fantasizing about being able to climb down into it and have it open up into a place much like the house that I live in, only without anyone else there. Years later I realize that I was wishing for my own apartment as a toddler.

1981. When my dad pours himself a beer, he lets me drink the foam off the top, which I enjoy. It was probably just a convenient way for him to get rid of the head. I wonder what child protective services would've had to say about that.

1982. I wonder where babies come from, but I'm too nervous to ask because I intuitively know it's dirty. In the meantime I continue rubbing Barbie and Ken together until they both start to chafe.

1983. I get a project done before everyone else in my class and am told that I'm "the star of first grade." As a reward I get to hold the Bus #10 sign at dismissal. I almost pass out from happiness.

1984. I keep a short-lived food journal, and on January 20th report that my breakfast consisted of waffles, orange juice, and "starwberry yougert," which I proudly, however misinformed-ly, note underneath as containing "no calories!" I was SEVEN. And the day before I wrote down that I had tuna fish and Fritos for dinner. Was anyone watching me?

1985. I am absent on the day that we learn how to do cursive capital Js, which is inconvenient because my last name starts with one. My Js will continue to look a little off until that summer, when I decide to adopt the J from the Julio Inglesias record in my grandmother's living room. For the next several years, my Latin-influenced Js are quite dramatically big and swirly.

1986. I live in the perfect neighborhood for a kid: one of my best friends lives across the street and one of them lives a street away; both are named Katie. The rest of the street is filled with kids from school to play with, with all of us having dinnertime as our curfew. Garbage Pail Kids, scratch and sniff stickers and charm necklaces are our currency. The only one who doesn't play with us is this kid Stephen who always goes right home after school, despite living in The Funnest Neighborhood Ever. I'll know him peripherally until the end of high school, and always wonder what his deal was.

1987. I turn ten, which feels anticlimactic, as all my friends are about to turn eleven. This will continue to vex me until many of them start turning thirty.

1988. I become a godmother to my newborn cousin Chris. I will spend the next 18 years imparting my wisdom, which he will ignore.

1989. I am going to marry Joey McIntyre. You know this because of the giant pin bearing his face that's affixed to my jean jacket, and the poster of him over my hamper, and the interview with him in Big Bopper that's ripped out and thumbtacked to my bulletin board.

1990. While my friends and I amuse ourselves with terrorizing and being terrorized by neighborhood boys during sleepovers, I hear that someone in my class is having sex and am shocked. I search their face for signs of it and don't find any, but am sure that they now possess a new sense of maturity and worldliness. In reality, they probably possess chlamydia.

1991. I start high school and retire my hypercolor t-shirt.

1992. They Might Be Giants are my favorite band, and they come to play in my high school auditorium. I am paralyzed with joy.

1993. I spend lots of time at Newbury Comics, wear big black boots, and almost always have some crappy faded plaid shirt tied around my waist. If you're not one of my friends or Eddie Vedder then shut up because you don't know anything.

1994. I've taken all of the English classes at my high school, so I start doing an independent study on Freud because that means I can recycle a paper that I wrote for my psychology class the previous year. My laziness is mistaken for ambition, and is actually rewarded when the teacher overseeing my independent study writes a recommendation letter for me to the college that I want to go to, praising my non-existent initiative and work ethic.

1995. At graduation, my mom takes a picture of my then-boyfriend Justin getting his diploma. Six years later I'll meet Steve and it will turn out that he had been at my high school graduation because he was dating a girl in my class. I found the picture of Justin from that day, and there's Steve standing in the background. I will continue to check this picture whenever I start dating someone to see if they're in there, too.

1996. I start consuming solid food again after having spent the better part of the previous year eating sugar-free Jell-O, break off my "engagement" to Justin, and discover that the guys down the hall from me have an extra room in their suite that they've basically made into an opium den. I like college.

1997. I turn twenty the night that Live ER premieres. There's a picture of me watching it, either riveted or high, on the floor of my dorm room with two of my friends. I guess it's a rockin' birthday when there's a picture of you watching television.

1998. I go on my first real spring break WOOOOOO!!! trip and have fun, but am secretly glad that I'm graduating soon so I won't be doing it again.

1999. First real job, first apartment, first bloodcurdling scream after seeing a mouse run under my bedroom door and into my closet.

2000. I have my first and last gin and tonic at a wedding where the bartender informs us that he is only allowed to make drinks that contain two or less ingredients. Despite never having had a G&T, it's the first thing that comes to mind. Well, right after, "That's freakin' ridiculous." I was not yet a wine drinker and wasn't able to stomach beer, since at that point I still associated it not as a beverage but as the sticky stuff all over my bathroom floor in college (I lived with boys, remember).

2001. The little stick tells me that I'm pregnant. I panic, and then sort of accept it. When I find out I'm not, I'm actually surprised. Then I throw up. (If I had been knocked up, there's a good chance I would've been married with a kindergartener right now. But let's not go there.)

2002. I move into a new place with a living room that has a mirrored wall.

2003. I start writing a blog. The world begins anew.

2004. I finish graduate school. I neglected to mention starting but, needless to say, the finishing was the most important part.

2005. I make the unfortunate discovery that the only thing worse than John Mayer is James Blunt.

2006. I find an unopened Nature Valley granola bar in my bag that's smashed beyond all recognition. I throw it away, feeling wasteful, but really, I'm just not going to eat that.

small candy, big obsession

It's official... from now until April 16th, CVS is enemy territory. Cadbury mini eggs are on the shelves. Cadbury mini eggs, my sugar shell-coated nemesis. When I was in Sunday School, they never told me that someday Easter would come down to simply this: my favorite candy on the planet, taunting me from its perfect purple bag of goodness for two months out of the year.

My friend planned an intervention for me once. One year he decided that the way to deal with this was not to avoid the mini eggs entirely, which only led to thinking about them everyday, knowing they were out there. He decided the solution was to bring a bag into our home and just enjoy it and get it out of my system. It was a pure, simple, optimistic plan, and it didn't work. I wanted to eat the whole thing, so I made him parcel it out to me daily and hide it from me and not tell me where it was NO MATTER WHAT and that if I started going through this things he was to call campus security immediately and give them permission to taser me.

Ahh, mini eggs. Not to be confused with Cadbury creme eggs. Remember the commercials for them with the bunny pretending to be a chicken? I was so confused by that when I was little. I thought it was a real egg, and why would you want to freakin' eat that? I asked my mom what the deal was and she told me it was for adults, which was another way of saying, not for you. So for awhile I thought that adults must like raw eggs dipped in chocolate and hatched by creepy bunny-chickens. Yet another reason that adults made no sense.

flower girl

Here are my other two cents about Valentine's Day. By now most men are onto the fact that sending flowers to her place of business is a move that will pay for itself several times over. Despite the fact that it's ultimately not a gesture that really attests to your love or anything like that... when I was at Shrinkage, this woman had an complete jerk of a boyfriend who yelled at her at the Christmas party and always sent the biggest bouquet, presumably the "I'm Wicked Sorry Baby" arrangement.

But when it comes to flowers, step it up and send them to her at work on some random day, and it will pay for itself a thousand times over. Trust me, this will make your life better. Do it now, in fact. Go on, I'll wait here. Actually, do it in a few days, otherwise it will seem like you're trying to make up for her being the only flowerless girl in the cube farm on V-Day. Do it on some Tuesday in March. Then come back here for more advice on the ladies. And try to imagine that that last sentence came out much more Barry White-ish than I was able to type it.

Damn, I'm good. I'd make some needy, overanalytical woman very happy.

You know what's funny, though? There's even a loophole when it comes to sending flowers to a woman at work, and I, of course, somehow managed to live it. It was several years ago and I had just started dating this guy and I wasn't completely sure how I felt about things yet; not in a bad way, just in a new way. I did end up liking him a lot and dating him for awhile. But he sent me flowers at work on a random day, which forces you to suddenly come up with the exact right response to "WHO sent you THESE?!" Turns out that "oh, just a friend" sounds too coy and "oh, just this guy" makes you sound like a whore. It's like being forced to wear a sign that says, "Hey, random coworker that I've never really talked about anything much with besides that latest brochure copy and the weather! You're standing right here at my desk staring at the damn flowers, so why don't you ask me who I just started sleeping with!"

Maybe I'll send some to myself at work and then yell that at the top of my lungs. That'd probably be worse than drinking the powdered apple cider mix, huh?

candy hearts

Let's have a look into the highlights of my stash and see what the kids are giving for valentines these days, shall we?

Puns are still big. There's a lion telling you You're a Top Cat. A basketball player thinks You're a Slam Dunk. Newsflash: Little Kids Still Like Craptastic Humor! (One of my favorite Onion headlines was Study Shows Babies Are Dumb.)

I received one with a cartoon girl that I can only assume is a prostitute. She looks like Barbie's ho bag cousin. "Have a stylin' Valentine's Day!"

Another prostitute, with slightly less make-up and sans fuck me heels, which is nice considering she's probably supposed to be under ten years old. "Show your style, Valentine."

Hot Wheels! You know this kid forgot about his valentine cards until last night and his dad had some of these leftover from 1985. "Start revvin' your engine--it's Valentine's Day!" I love how even at five years old, boys are Such Boys.

"Love the Nerd You're With" with a box of nerds. Junior high is gonna be tough for this kid.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Who would've thought they had staying power? "It's so easy being green on Valentine's Day." Yeah, not catchy. But I still remember the idiotic "heroes on a halfshell... turtle power!" so I guess they can get away with anything.

The female Incredible with long, rubbery fingers. "If it's not much of a stretch, will you be my Valentine?" But I'm thinking this girl's sentiment isn't exactly genuine, since she put her name in both the to and from slot.

One of them gave me a Wonka cherry-yum-diddly fun dip. What?

So, that's what Valentine's Day is looking like from the kindergarten front these days. Idolizing whores, dredging up the worst cartoon icons from twenty years ago, and giving out candy that sounds like it needs an NC-17 rating. Sounds about right.

snow day

The Blizzard of 2006... call now for the commemorative plates! Next month it'll be Oh, Um, The Other Blizzard of 2006. And then in April, The Blizzard of This One Really Just Hit Boston Because You Guys Have The Worst Freakin' Snow Luck on the Planet, But Great Lobster You Guys, Really.

I just don't feel like it can truly be a blizzard when everything is up and running the very next day. That's a snowstorm. A blizzard is when cars are stuck on the highway and people can't leave work and taxi drivers are delivering babies and Bing Crosby is somewhere in the background, providing a soundtrack for it all. Regardless of how much we're getting, we know the weatherpeople are taking it seriously when they're all in sweaters. It's a snow emergency, get me my J. Crew! There's no time for cuff links, for the love of God, DON'T YOU SEE? THE SNOW IS FALLING!

We used to pull that kind of ridiculousness in college; whenever there was a big storm, we'd all be at the dining hall in our pajamas. Why? Our clothes were indoors, as they were every other day of the year, and whatever kind of weather we were having didn't really make dressing oneself anymore difficult. And yet there we were, snow day after snow day, filling up mugs with hot chocolate and half-dressed like crazy people. Maybe it's a regional thing. I don't imagine that students at UCLA didn't fully dress themselves during a heavy rainstorm, as a way of somehow paying homage to the rain.

Yeah, New Englanders are a little bit insane. The weather does something to us. But it really makes us appreciate those eleven minutes of spring all the more.

still sick, and no less inappropriate

Coworker: I can't believe you drank that powdered apple cider mix.
Me: If there was a powdered version of you that I could make into a hot drink right now, I'd probably drink that too.
Coworker: Would that be like ashes?
Me: Well, no. I wouldn't take you out of your urn. That would be disrespectful.
Coworker: And probably not very tasty.
Another Coworker: What the hell are you guys talking about?

I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell

So, I seem to be on the tail end of some form of the flu. Not entirely surprising, given what I do for a living, but still kind of weird considering that I don't even get colds that often. There's those couple requisite days of rehydration after a tropical vacation, mostly because of too little sleep and too much of everything else, but other than that, I'm just not a cold-getter.

I would've blogged over the weekend, but I was having difficulty with being anything but horizontal, and thus may have also been challenged to write much more than "need more juice" and "gummy stars rainbow hiccup." Yeah, decided to spare you all that. Anyway, as it turns out, this is how you know you're sick, even when you're A Person Who Doesn't Get Sick:

1. When you mix up your pronouns. Yesterday, I said several variations on, "They... she... I mean, he said..." and "I thought that she was going to go with him... I mean, that you were going to go with her."
2. When you can't explain what the hell your problem is. I was clearly wheezing but announced to anyone who was interested that my coughs were going into my brain.
3. When you're not so much sleeping as hallucinating. When I'm sick and trying to sleep, it's like I become the project manager of all these imaginary dream jobs, because I'm dreaming that I need to get some kind of extremely pressing work done, and I keep waking up worrying that I'm not done yet, and I'm actually pretty stressed about accomplishing these imaginary tasks, and then in my half-awake state I tell myself, "Hey, don't worry, it'll all get done! Oh wait, these are all make-believe problems. Go back to SLEEP." This is your brain on cough medicine.
4. When you suddenly don't care that it's Superbowl Sunday... oh, no wait, I never care that it's Superbowl Sunday. The only good thing about Superbowl Sunday is the apps, none of which I could eat this time around because the only thing that looked good to me was orange juice, and also the fact that it means we're that much closer to baseball season. (Ryan was cute, though: "I have a question about all the backs. So there's quarterbacks and Hasselbacks and running backs...")

The other thing that I realized is that your temperature doesn't matter unless you're a kid. Okay, maybe it matters if you're really really sick and in the hospital, but when you're just sick in a normal way and your mom asks you if you have a temperature, you realize that the whole point of having a temperature is for it to be high enough for her to let you stay home from school ("Please, please, let it be in the hundreds, let it be in the hundreds... 100.6! Yes! I'm SICK! I'm going to watch The Price is Right! Have fun in earth science, suckas!"). Once you reach a certain age those numbers just don't have the same significance.

turn it up

Let's discuss something serious, shall we? I don't think that Janet Jackson is always singing "oh, you nasty boys"; sometimes it's a distinct "ode to nasty boys." This theory of mine is not well received around these parts. Nor was my thinking that it was time to rock the cash bar, or that when it comes to Billie Jean, you should be careful what you do because a life becomes of you. But I stand behind my Janet theory, even though it's caused me to be called Ye Olde Red and subjected to questioning about how much Keats I actually read in college and how it irrevocably tainted my brain.

Whatever she's babbling about, it's impossible not to car dance when it comes on. It's one of the select few songs that you can't even stop rocking out to when you pass another driver and you want to appear reasonable. I sort of hate it when strangers in the next lane catch me singing about Tommy and Gina, but when it comes to Ms. Jackson if you're nasty, well, I just can't contain that.

ambivalence at first sight

A friend was telling me how she got an instant message from a random acquaintance from college that she doesn't really like that much, and, naturally, a little bit of e-awkwardness ensued. This reminded me of one of my favorite random acquaintance stories from a few years ago.

You know how it goes sometimes: You meet some person, and they're fine, and they're suddenly in your life in some way and you kind of want to like them because they're nice enough and you can't think of A Major Reason not to, forgetting, of course, that you don't really need A Major Reason. You find yourself saying, "Well, there's nothing wrong with them." You forget that while you'll lose a date's number if you don't feel anything, you'll somehow make yourself feel bad for not feeling anything with a potential friend. Suddenly I forget that all of my friends, different though they may be, are people that I instantly liked, if not adored. You need friend chemistry, there's just no way around it. And I felt zip with Random.

She was a classmate of mine in grad school. She always wanted to hang out, and to make matters worse she was new to the city and didn't know many people and so I felt extra guilty about being vague and put-offish about making plans. I tried to keep it to school-related stuff but she kept asking me to go to dinner. And then I told myself, "Well, for God's sake, I can have a meal with the girl." So I called for back-up in the form of Elusive Jen. I did a bad sell job. I think it went something like: "So I have to go out with this girl from school that I don't really like and her roommate is coming too and it might be terrible so would you come with me?" She came. You would too. If it ends up being fun, then great, and if not then it's comedy after the fact and fodder during the drinks that you go out for after you ditch the losers.

I'm sounding like a terrible person right now, I know. Stay with me for a minute.

Unsurprisingly, we ended up with comedy after the fact. The dinner was a bit of a blur: Her roommate was like a 80-year-old humorless man in a 24-year-old woman's body, who told stupid stories about brief encounters with obscure celebrities. It was funny that it came off so badly because both Elusive and I enjoy a good obscure celebrity story, but it just didn't work; instead of seeing the funny, roommate was boastful about the encounters, as though accidentally brushing against Chris O'Donnell's elbow is something to dangle over the heads of those who have had no such elbow-on-elbow contact. The other thing is that she was the kind of person who, after some harmless, not-even-especially-funny comment was thrown out, she'd stare right at you and say, "What do you mean?" as though her command of the language was so literal that she would need you to translate idioms for her. And then there was Random, who acted so nervous around me that it made me uncomfortable. When her roommate went to sit next to me, Random glared at her and then roommate jumped up and said, "Oh, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to sit between you." Elusive's eyebrows went up. The weird vibe continued. Later on in the ladies Elusive said, delicately, "Any chance she thinks you two are on a date?" I wasn't entirely sure. And I'm not a fan of dating without knowing it.

Anyway, I attributed that experience to her nightmare roommate, for the most part, and continued to see Random for occasional post-class lunches and study sessions, and continued not really liking her, but still feeling somewhat guilty about it. Then one night I was driving her home from class and she was telling me some story about her parents. She referred to them as Mommy and Daddy. Not even, "my Mommy and Daddy," not that that would've been acceptable. No, she just said, "Mommy and Daddy." Like, "Well, Mommy said..." Dear God.

Then she told me about the guy that her sister was dating, and how it was going to be a big problem because he's not Jewish. "AND he's black." I asked her if that was a problem. She replied, "Well, YEAH," as though I was right there with her on the twisted little Southern plantation in her head. I was actually kind of relieved. Now I had a reason not to like her. Mommy, Daddy, AND racist? Score!

Elusive brings it up now and then, especially when I'm talking her into coming with me somewhere and she says, "Oh yeah, like that night with those two people. Who the hell were they?" My thoughts exactly. What the world needs is more people trusting their initial instinct toward a person when it pushes them in the direction of blind hatred.

where you're coming from - January

It's the end of the month, which means it's time for the first ever monthly review of my favorite wacky things people inputed into search engines to reach me. It's short because I just figured out how to do this a few days ago, thanks to Darren.

"schmoo conference"
When is it? Where is it? Who's the keynote speaker? Just so long as it's not at the Radisson again, because those clowns don't validate parking.

"learning to love yourself"
I thought this was maybe because I teach my readers how to love the pants off themselves. But no... it was just a lyric from the Whitney Houston song that I used to win the sneak attack song lyric contest at work. Sigh. The funny thing is that when you do a search for this, the tent is sandwiched between sites that are actually there for the purpose of talking you down from the ledge, whereas I'm just babbling about how the children are our future and not at all concerning myself with your well-being. I apologize.

"November Rain video how did bride die?"
I KNOW! I wondered this when I was like 14 and never figured it out, so I'm sure I was of no help to this person. I DO know that Stephanie Seymour bitchslapped that woman right off her bar stool without knocking Axl over, even though he was sitting between them. That's a badass supermodel move.

"No no no, you fix that wall before my dad gets home for work! He's gonna beat me with a belt!"
I hope this was a search for a Dane quote and not a cry for help.

next time, order in

Restaurants are great places until they think you're trying to steal their crap. It turns out that if you go to lunch with a friend to a place that gives out those buzzy light-uppy things in order for the host/ess to tell you when your table is ready, and then you decide to go to Barnes and Noble for five seconds because it's right next door and the wait at the restaurant is forty five minutes at 2 PM on a Sunday, the aforementioned buzzy light-uppy thing will not necessarily just beep to let you know you're out of range... oh, no. A simple beep does not always suffice. Because you might not just be at Barnes and Noble for five seconds; you might be trying to make off with their buzzy light-uppy thing, perhaps to use as a prototype to open your own Buzzy Light-Uppy Thing store.

So instead of a hey-where'd-you-get-to courtesy beep, the bastard busts out with the "whennnnnn the moon hits your eye like a big-a pizza pie, that's amore..." song. No lyrics, mind you, because God must not completely hate me. So I hear this deafening monstrosity and start laughing because it's not coming from me. Then Steve says it's coming from me. But no, it can't be, my cell phone isn't even... oh, shit. And we're about a mile from the exit, which means walking past 3,000 people, all of whom are glaring at me because they think I have the Lady and the Tramp song as my ridiculously loud ringtone. But ultimately the restaurant got its way; we were back in there in about 3.2 seconds and proceeded to wait dutifully like kids at detention. When our table was ready the buzzy light-uppy thing simply blinked red and vibrated a few times, apparently having made the decision to communicate with us in a rational way, not in a way that makes me want to knock over a self-help display and scream, "WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME? WHAT IS IT THAT YOU NEED?"

They're onto something, though; Best Buy should put the full-volume amore song on all of their merchandise, and nobody would ever steal anything. That thief would get five steps out the door and then run back in, apologizing for swiping those iPods and begging the staff to take them back and make that godforsaken song stop. And then later, they'd have an inexplicable craving for Italian.

randomness

1. What would be your first purchase after winning the lottery?
A house with a Sephora and Origins in the basement. Wait, did I just buy a mall? OK, never mind. I'd buy a house and a hybrid. Then I'd travel all over Europe and pay for my friends to come with me because I'm rich and they're lucky.

2. What have you always wanted to have/do/be, but know is forever out of reach?
I've always loved the idea of running a bed and breakfast, in a big sunny house with breezy curtains and fresh flowers in every room. But then I realized that would mean strangers sleeping in my home, so it'll just never happen. Some of them could bring dead demon children with them, you never know.

3. Who in your family are you most like?
My mom is extremely emotional, sometimes irrationally so, and my dad is extremely laid-back, sometimes irrationally so. I'd say I somehow fall somewhere in between those two ridiculous extremes.

4. How long would you last on Fear Factor?
I wouldn't go on that lame ass show. Wait, they'll pay me how much to eat sauteed porcupine brain?

5. Describe your sense of humor.
Deconstruction of pop culture, basically.

6. T/F: All I need to know I learned in kindergarten?
True in that cutesy way, but don't drop out afterwards.

7. Religion or politics?
To what, blog about? I prefer to write about movies and bubble gum and cute boys.

8. What’s your favorite word?
Cognizant.

9. Can you macarena?
Ugh, I think so. But that dance isn't even fun in a kitschy way. I wouldn't do it, and I'm a girl that's been known to bust out the Electricslide with little to no shame. (Why did I capitalize the E? Out of respect?)

10. “Is it true that if you don’t use it, you lose it?”
You better have a big trunk, because I'm putting my bike in it.

11. Why do you fill out online surveys like this?
I get my inspiration from Subway.

12. What are you most afraid to do, but have always wanted to try?
Skydiving

13. What is the funniest joke you’ve heard?
Here's a random Dane moment because I can't pick just one: "Remember those Kool Aid commercials, where that big talking bowl of punch would come crashing through the fucking wall in your living room? 'OH YEAH! OH YEAH!' And the little kids were all excited: 'Yes, yes!' And then they would drink out of him, after debris fell in his open dumb head. He would pour himself. 'OH YEAH! OH YEAH!' Him and his crazy tights. I don't like that. I don't like when juice wears tights. That's a horrible combination, a bowl of juice wearing tights. And they're fucking drinking out of him. If that was me I'd be like, 'No no no, you fix that wall before my dad gets home from work. He's gonna beat me with a belt, he's not gonna believe a talking bowl of fruit punch came in here.'"

14. How many “where were you when...?” moments do you have?
The Challenger explosion (watching in on TV with my class in the school library)
OJ verdict (the day after my 18th birthday, eating leftover cake in my dorm room with the Bride and Girl With Bunny)
9/11 (at my apartment watching the Today Show)
Red Sox winning the world series (watching it with my dad and Party Jen, literally delirious with joy and sleeplessness)

15. What is the most memorable offhand remark you’ve heard/said?
In the last year, it was, "What time is it? What are you doing? Isn't he married? Get back here!"

16. What is the average air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Quite speedy, I'd imagine. Also, shut up.

monkey business

I've never been a big supporter of grown women who enjoy feature length animated movies when they're not in the company of children. In my mind, these are the same women who call their dogs their wittle angels and have never missed an episode of 7th Heaven. So it's with some reservation that I tell you that the new Curious George movie looks totally adorable!

And along those lines, sort of, they're coming out with Bambi II. Talk about a delayed sequel. And honestly, why? So that our kids can be traumatized by it, too? It also seems that Bambi hasn't grown at all. May want to see the vet or forest ranger or deer developmental specialist about that, little guy.

I don't remember being really upset by Bambi. It was sad, but it's always been the scary things that get me. My grandfather took me to see ET and when it got to the scene in the cornfield where they all scream, I became inconsolable and we had to leave. Everyone had a scene in ET that freaked them out. Someone told me theirs was when ET was dying and turned white, and somebody else didn't like when the scientist astronaut FBI policemen crashed into the windows of the house when it was all wrapped in plastic or something. Maybe I need to see that movie again. I might have missed some key plot points while I was having a crush on Ell-ee-ot.

And I think it was my parents who took me to see Annie, which I would come to obsessively love later, but the first time that I saw it I was horrified by the scene where the bad guys chase Annie up the ladder and big surprise, I became inconsolable and we had to leave. I hate chase scenes. I used to have dreams where the bad guys were chasing me and I'd just sit down and cry and wait for them to get me because I didn't want to have to deal with the stress of running away and prolonging the inevitable. Not sure what that says about me, but I'm guessing I wouldn't be the one you'd want around if we found ourselves having to escape from psycho killers. Save yourself, because I have to sit down now.

On Halloween in fifth grade, my teacher rented Watcher in the Woods for us. She had to shut it off when we were all screaming in terror, and nobody wanted her to turn it back on, even the class badass, whose name was Jesse, which is a great fifth grade badass name.

I still scare way too easily. Even the movies I'm not supposed to admit to being scared by (Scream, Blair Witch) were quite upsetting for me. When I saw The Mothman Prophecies, I lived in an itty bitty apartment that contained me, my boyfriend, my roommate, and my roommate's boyfriend, and I was still too scared to sleep.

When I saw The Movie Which Will Not Be Named That Rhymes With The Swing, I should have left as soon as the first person that they killed off had the same name as me, and her friend whispered up the stairs: "Red...Red...are you okay?" That movie impacted my sleep for months afterward. I still can't talk about it. I'm uncomfortable typing about it. I'm not even kidding! That's the sad thing. Nothing is scarier than dead demon children. NOTHING.

The other night on the news they were saying that some guy knocked over a bunch of headstones, "some of which were on the graves of children, dating back as far as the early 1900s." Hollllllly crap. That guy is SCREWED.

utter vocal pointlessness

wicked cold cah

As a general rule, car doors never freeze on Saturday morning. It's always, always something that happens when you have to get to work. Like getting pulled over for speeding, or running into a neighbor who decides to give a really long and thoughtful response to "hey, how's it going?"

Tatertot's mom was packing her eleventeen children into her van (which I'm pretty sure is the same one that the Libyans used in Back to the Future) when I realized that my car was a big useless ice pop. She wished me luck before she peeled out. Thanks, lady. The next time you're going out for the night and you tell your kids to come over to my place in case they "need anything," I'm putting a sign on my door that says, "Call 911. Good luck!"

I checked all the doors and realized that my trunk wasn't frozen. This was clearly just my car's way of mocking me. I waited for the tatertots to leave and then did the shameful thing that I've had to do once before: I crawled through my trunk to get to the front seat and start the car. Yes, it crossed my mind that a UPS guy could happen to come along at any moment and see me tunneling through my backseat like Inspector Gadget, but I feel like they've probably seen crazier stuff than that, don't you? Well, maybe not. I may not be very dignified, but at least I'm resourceful.

So I made it to the front seat, which felt sort of victorious, but I still had to perform some extensive defrosting (imagine if I made it to work but was then trapped INSIDE my car?). No two ways about it, I was going to be late. And on my meeting day, of course. And on a meeting day that I have to present on, of course. You're only forced to crawl through the underbelly of your frozen car when you're late for a meeting at which you have to present.

So I call work. Schmoo gets on the line.

Schmoo: Hey Red. Are you going to make the meeting?
Red: I think so, but maybe you could start without me.
Schmoo: Start without you?
Me: Yeah, you could just walk them through the beginning of the report and I'll be there probably ten minutes into it--
Schmoo: I don't know.

Schmoo has been doing this job for, oh, ten years. She's read, oh, fifteen thousand of my reports. And I'm never late for these meetings, ever. She's bright and competent and has been doing this for much longer than I have, yet in the course of this conversation she's suddenly become a malnourished kitten hanging from a tree branch in the dead of winter.

Schmoo: I mean, they don't want to hear from me. I'm administration. I'm the enemy.
Me: Ten minutes. That's it.
Schmoo: I know, but...
Me: You could get Supergirl to pinch hit for a few minutes if you're really concerned about it.
Schmoo: Maybe we'll just conference you in.
Me: Ugh.
Schmoo: Okay?
Me: Yeah, okay. I'll call in at 8:30.
Schmoo: Okay.
Me: Actually, why don't you "just conference me in" every Tuesday from now on and I can do this from bed.
Schmoo: See you at 8:40!

Anyway, I made it in, finally, and later on was telling somebody about my trunk diving adventure. She told me that once she sat behind a line of cars and beeped at them for not moving. She said she was there for a solid five minutes before she realized that they were parked. I immediately felt better.

And I know that I'm not really one to judge after what I did today, but... a solid five minutes? How does that happen?

party girl, or not

Last year a work friend came to a Sox game with me and my peoples because I had an extra ticket and she's a huge fan. Sometime during that night she apparently got the impression that I lead a wild and crazy life, because every so often she alludes to all the debauchery that I must be up to. I'm always like, "I don't know what you're talking about, Work Friend," but she seems to think that I'm being coy rather than honest. Recently we were trying to figure out a day to go for a beer and apps after work, and while comparing our day planners she said, "Well, we definitely can't do it on a Friday, because knowing you, you're doing something far more exciting." What, at four in the afternoon? Then she turned to the person with us and said, "This girl is always up to something!"

To prove to her that my Fridays are not just for heroin binges and bank robbing, we went out this afternoon. At one point she asked what my big weekend plans were. I told her I was babysitting my godsiblings, and now I know what they mean when they refer to someone's face falling. She looked like a six-year-old who just found out there's no Santa. Or Disney World.

I don't know that she'll ever look at me with the same misplaced reverence again, but I'm a little relieved. It's kind of exhausting to be so scandalous in someone else's imagination.

lather, rinse, repeat

I'm somewhat offended by a sign that's been put up at work. No, traumatized.

It's in the women's bathroom and it says, "Did You Wash Your Hands?" I never realized that a sign could be patronizing. At first I thought it must be left over after putting them up in the kids' bathrooms, and someone put it up in ours to be funny. But then I read it and realized that it's really not meant for kids. If it was for kids it would say something like, "The last person who didn't wash their hands after going to the bathroom got cooties and extra homework for a week and their GameCube exploded and they had to eat lunch with the smelly kid for the rest of the year." No, the language on this one was for adults... it actually had instructions on how and why to do it.

I wanted to write underneath it, "Not only do I KNOW ENOUGH TO WASH MY HANDS, but I also happen to be the one who supplies the GOOD SOAP out of the GOODNESS OF MY HEART because I don't want to use the blue crap that smells like Windex that comes out of the dispenser on the wall."

I thought restaurant bathrooms with "Employees Must Wash Hands" signs were bad enough; apparently my place of work is already going on the assumption that we're not doing it and need to be chastised ahead of time.

I mean, what's next? "Did You Pull Up Your Pants?" It's a slippery slope.

what we have here is a failure to communicate

Me: Hi.
Dorie: Do you have call waiting?
Me: What?
Dorie: You have call waiting, right?
Me: Yeah.
Dorie: That's so great.
Me: I guess. I hate the beep, though.
Dorie: What beep?
Me: The... beep. You know. The disruptive beep.
Dorie: I don't have it. I didn't know it beeps.
Me: You don't have it?
Dorie: No, but I need to get it. I hate never knowing who's calling.
Me: Do you mean caller ID?
Dorie: What?

impulsive? me?

My First Boyfriend posted an anecdote about high school in his blog so of course I had to post a comment, because his anecdotes and mine are basically the same. Then we started commenting back and forth and at one point, in the context of a story from long ago, he mentioned that I'd never had great impulse control. I immediately wanted to reply, "WELL THAT MAY BE TRUE, BUT YOU BECAME A WOMAN!" but I think that would've just proved his point.

Her point.

nice play, but why's the field all bloody?

Here's part of the sports report that I saw on the news tonight: "Guy McFootballington, whose wife stabbed him the night before, ran the ball whatever number of yards..."

They said "stabbed" with all the casualness of "cooked him lasagna" or "bought him a new shirt." I'll never again say that football is boring.

knowing me, knowing you

1. What time did you get up this morning?
6:30. And I listened to the world's biggest airhead DJ, Kelly Malone, pontificate about a new self-help book she's reading and how it's taught her that every time you say "Do I look fat in this?" what you're really saying is, "Am I good enough?" I really hate it when people state obvious, generic, pop psychology crap like it's a freakin' revelation.

2. Diamonds or pearls?
I'd rather take a trip.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
King Kong, which was also Jurassic Park, Star Wars, and Honey I Shrunk the Kids.

4. What is your favorite TV show?
The Office. And the episode of Lost where Walt was on instant messenger.

5. What did you have for breakfast?
Nature Valley maple and brown sugar granola bar and peach yogurt

6. What is your middle name?
Susan

7. What is your favorite food?
Peanut butter

8. What foods do you dislike?
The Big 5, of course: Potatoes, cheese (unless it's from Dali, oddly enough), bananas, beans, and coffee.

9. Your favorite Potato chip?
Baked Lays sour cream and onion

10. What is your favorite CD at the moment?
I miss CDs, actually, because I don't buy them anymore; it's all very song-specific now, with iTunes and LimeWire.

11. What kind of car do you drive?
Honda CR-V

14 Favorite drink?
Diet Pepsi

15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would it be?
Italy

16.What color is your bathroom?
One is light green, one is yellow, and the other one is too many bathooms

17. Favorite brand of clothing?
I don't know. Is that wrong?

18. Where would you retire?
Maybe the Cape

19. Favorite time of day?
Whenever I'm with or talking to my friends

21. Favorite sport to watch?
Baseball, obviously

22. Who do you least expect to send this back?
I'm not sending it to anyone

23. Person you expect to send it back first?
See above

24. What laundry detergent do you use?
All free & clear

25. Coke or Pepsi?
Diet Pepsi

26. Are you a morning person or night owl?
Morning person

27. What size shoe do you wear?
8.5

28. Do you have pets?
No, I have not yet acquired Duck

29. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with your friends?
I think they pretty much know everything already.

30. What (who) did you want to be when you were little?
Becky from Tom Sawyer, because they got to go on adventures and I had to go to school

31. Favorite Candy Bar?
Hershey's

33. What are the different jobs you have had in your life?
Candy striper, bookstore girl, receptionist, marketing crap, talkologist

34. Favorite season?
Autumn

35. Nicknames you've had?
For some reason, at some point everyone I know has called me Redaboo

36. Piercings:
Ears

37. Eye color:
Green

38. Ever been to Africa?
No

39. Ever been toilet papering?
No

40. Love someone so much it made you cry?
This is worth re-posting:
Kid #1: Grape is better than cherry.
Kid #2: No, grape is the worst.
Kid #1: Miss Red, have you ever loved someone so much that it made you cry?
Me: What?
Kid #1: Like if you went on a date with them.
Me: Ummm...
Kid #2: Actually grape is OK sometimes.

41. Been in a car accident?
Not a bad one

42. What's a question no one has ever asked you?
"Ever been toilet papering?"

43. Favorite day of the week?
Friday

44. Favorite restaurant?
I freakin' love Sake.

45. Favorite flower?
Yellow tulips

46. Favorite ice cream?
Mint chocolate chip

47. Disney or Warner Brothers?
Disney, primarily for mocking purposes

48. Favorite fast food restaurant?
Wendy's

49. What color is your bedroom carpet?
Grayish

50. How many times did you fail your driver's test?
None, but I should've. I purposely took my test in a town where the only thing they made you do was a 3-point turn.

51. Before this one, from whom did you get your last e-mail?
Disney's husband

52. Which store would you choose to Max out your Credit Card?
Amazon

53. What do you do most often when you are bored?
Read, watch TV, talk on the phone, blog it up

54. Bedtime:
On worknights, I try for 10:30

56. Last person you went to dinner with?
Melissa and Joe at the Soup Factory... a 3-hour dinner, which is the only way to do it

57. Ford or Chevy?
Ford. Hybrid!

58. What are you listening to right now?
The news

59. What is your favorite color?
Purple

60. Lake, Ocean or River?
Ocean. Lakes are creepy. Horror movies always have lakes in them.

61. How many tattoos do you have?
None

62. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Your mom came first

63. How many people are you sending this email to?
I'm putting it out into the universe, and who knows how far-reaching my influence may be

64. Favorite Cocktail?
Felicitini

65. Red or White wine?
White... Cakebread

66. Where would you go for a girls or boys weekend get-a-way?
Summer camp... marshmallows and campfires and bug spray and Capture the Flag. It'd have to be co-ed though so we could have a big dance at the end. Camp Cucamonga!

67. What do you want to be?
Happy

68. Republican or Democrat?
Independent, but more Democrat.

69. Favorite Family Vacation?
Dirty Dancing. Nobody puts Baby as the last question.

the lost boys

Okay, the torch has been passed, and I'm answering the call to talk about my Worst Bad Date Ever. But let the record show that I'm doing so with a certain sense of trepidation, because unlike some of you guys, my next worst date could end up being next Tuesday. That's enough to wipe that snarky smile right off my face.

Here's the funny thing. Despite having encountered my fair share of losers, psychopaths, and gender changers, I could conjure up some crappy moments, but not one spectacularly horrible evening-long memory. I consulted the Jens.

Me: What was my worst date ever?
Elusive Jen: Ummm...
Me: I mean, there've been some real wackos, but...
EJ: I know. Nothing jumps out.

Me: What was my Worst. Date. EVER?
Party Jen: Ummm...
Me: I know.
PJ: Wait. WHY?

Yeah, the Same Namers were no help. That's okay, though; I shouldn't actually be relying on friends to store my memories. So, here are some snapshots. Read them and weep.

There was The Face Chaser, who defied logic. He went in for the kiss, I backed away, and he CAME AFTER ME. Not aggressively, just persistently, as though I had slipped backwards and he was simply compensating for the sudden distance between us. I don't know how someone rejecting your mouth could inspire you to travel to reach it. I'll never understand. Hence his nickname, which Connecticut and I invented before I'd even made it home. One of the few times having a cell phone came in handy.

There was Random Conversation Guy. He was my first blind date, and he suggested that we meet first in the bar of the restaurant and then "figure out dinner." As in, decide if I'm worthy of eating food with. Way to make it feel like a rose ceremony. Praise God, I made the cut, and we had the opportunity to dine together. He was nice enough, but from that day on he peppered me with random thoughts about a special he saw on volcanoes and offered me some weird friends and family deal from his bank. What?

There was Married Guy, who may have been fine if he was Used to be Married Guy, but he ended up being Still Very Much Married Guy. They had just separated the week before. And he talked all about how much she pissed him off. And that was the end of that story.

In college, I finally ended things with the Gender Changer by plagiarizing a line from Vineyard by Jackopierce because it was one of my favorite songs at the time, but that was more lazy break-upping than bad dating.

There was Blam! Ahh, Blam. To be fair, he wasn't all bad, just wasn't for me. But the way that I met him is priceless. I'm a little off topic, but it's worth it.

A few years ago, the Bride was single, which was a huge affliction that her family was trying desperately to cure her of. The Bride is also 6'1", so needless to say she wanted to meet a tall guy. Because of this, her mom had told her about a delightful organization called the Tall Club. It actually has a more cutesy name, but I'd be afraid those giraffes would sue me. So it turned out this Tall Club had meet-and-greets at a local bar one night a month. Of course, I was on board about a milisecond after hearing about this. I think my response went something like this: "TALL CLUB? We are SO GOING!" I proceeded to tell everyone that I was attending a gathering of the Tall Club. We went, met some nice people, and I was short for the first time in my life. I was also told that, while I seemed nice and all, I would not be permitted to join the Tall Club, but I could attend any events that I wanted so long as I was accompanied by someone who met the height requirements. They also told me they were having a big fancy Tall Dance in a big fancy hotel a few weeks from then. A tall prom! I was ecstatic, but of course I needed the Bride to get in. I tried to reason with her: "It will be SO GREAT! We'll get all dressed up and dance with tall people and I WANT TO GO!"

So we went. I dragged Elusive Jen along too, who is taller than me but still too short to get into the club. That place is like the Mensa society... few members, many hanger-ons. Anyway, we got gussied up, we went, and we were about ten years younger than everyone else there.

A guy we had met at the bar meet-and-greet asked me to dance. I politely declined, pointing out there was no one on the dance floor yet. The next time he asked, I felt like saying no would make me kind of mean. Short and mean. So I danced with him. On an empty dance floor. To Celebration. By Kool and the Gang.

I KNOW.

Trust me. I KNOW.

Anyway, the guy I ended up meeting later on was in his 30s, really nice, and still could boast the distinction of having made me the best grilled steak I've ever had in my life, which is quite a feat considering I don't always like steak. I think of him every summer when I try to figure out what the hell he did to make it so good, and then proceed to fail miserably. There was an interesting moment when I was at his house a couple dates later and commented on a picture of a cute boy in his bedroom that I fully expected was his nephew; turns out it was his son. His 11-year-old son. I found myself figuring out who I was closer to in age. Guess who won? Anyway, he earned his name for something that he said in the e-mail where I tried to blow him off (not because of his son, but dating someone with a kid whose age is in the double digits is a little overwhelming when you're barely legal to drink). He responded and said something like, "Well, let me know if you want to try to get together next week, because after that we're BLAM! right into next month." What can I say? He walked right into his own nickname.

There are more, of course, but I think I've recalled enough disturbing crap for one day.

happy new

I have a few problems with New Year's Eve. They are as follows.

I'm getting sick of the people that complain about it. And yes, fittingly enough, I'm complaining about people who complain. It seems like the one night of the year that people who don't like going out-out* feel like they have to defend their idea of fun. Do whatever makes you happy, like you do the rest of the freakin' year, then stop worrying about it.

*Going out is dinner and home in bed by eleven. Going out-out is dancing, cocktails, and home in bed by 3ish... maybe 5ish if you live in a city that doesn't sleep.

I love both going out and going out-out. I also love staying in and analyzing the sociological implications of the Real World/Road Rules Challenge... I have the benefit of friends with whom I have fun doing anything or nothing. But in a New Year's Eve out-out scenario, it seems that once the ball drops people want to start making out with strangers, which I'm not so into (ahem, anymore). Suddenly it seems like the world is divided into two choices: spending the night watching Dick Clark and listening to a married friend analyze the doilies that she used while hosting Christmas dinner, or at a bar deciphering the slurred semisweet nothings of a drunken marketing manager. Where is my middle ground, people? I'm 28, not 21, but also not 51. I'm too old to have the first words that I hear in the new year be "we want pre-nup, WE WANT PRE-NUP!" But I'm too young to not have fun dancing to Billie Jean. Next year, we're going to have to get creative.

You know that means having another party. You heard it here first. I'll make sure the office is clean by then. And crazy neighbor's weird friends are not coming this time.

Although that WAS a funny New Year's... let's flashback to a few years ago...

I dimly recall a 17-person game of Moods, before everyone I know forbid me from ever bringing it out again (one exact quote: "If I ever see that game again, I'm setting it on fire"). Crazy Neighbor had just moved in and invited me to his party, so at one point the Bride and I went over to say hi. Crazy had a sign on his door asking people to remove their shoes. I have all hardwood downstairs too (actually, I have the same apartment as him, if you want to get technical) but for cryin' out loud, just swif tomorrow. It was particularly funny because his friends were all decked out in dresses and suits, but no shoes. Crazy introduced me to his girlfriend at the time, who was insane. On the other side of the room, one of his friends was hitting on the Bride. You know how my living room has a couple of steps that go down? And if you don't know me in real life, my living room has a couple of steps that go down, which I'm sure you've shrewdly deduced by now. Well, he was shorter than her and standing on the two steps above her in order to be taller. Anyway, I told Crazy to come by later if he wanted, which ended up being famous last words because my humble abode became their afterhours. One guy was most accurately described by Steve as a bad guy from Miami Vice. He was like, "Do you like zee Chemical Brothers?" and proceeded to pull out his own CDs and put them on my player. He ended up making out with Elusive Jen's friend in the parking lot. Um, awesome. And the short guy was there too, schmoozing the Bride again and back standing on the same step on my apartment that he'd been on in Crazy's apartment.

There was a woman there who was talking at length to Steve about how she loves bad boys. Who was she? No one knows. Steve is such a sport. Then she came up to me and told me that I have a pure soul and that I exude sweetness and that good things will come to me and she should know because she's a Pisces and what is Steve's sign? She ended up wandering out at some point in search of her friend whom she said lived up the street. Here's hoping she found her.

Then around 4 or so, Elusive Jen went and told zee guests that they had to go home. That girl always has my back.

the room that time forgot

Well, I finally got a wake-up call about organizing my damn office already, in the form of a puncture wound. This morning I stepped on the side of a plastic-and-metal Christmas Tree Shop box that was on the floor, along with everything else on the planet. The metal actually went through a piece of posterboard and into my foot and I had to pull it out. You know it's bad when a room in your home forces you to perform impromptu surgery. Everyone that I've told has had the same reaction, right down to their enunciation: "Oh my GOD, Red."

So to all those who have suffered this mess graciously, stepping over it instead of grabbing me by my shoulders and shaking some sense into me: Tomorrow, I am SO cleaning this mofo. And then we can all frolic in here happily once again, without needing a stitch or a tetanus shot afterwards.

but Scoob...

Steve: ...and he was saying that the one adjective in every Scooby Doo episode is "meddling." Remember that? "If it weren't for you meddling kids..."
Me: Yeah. Isn't that a verb, though?
Steve: Oh. Maybe.
Me: Is it questions like that that keep me from deriving any joy from life?

today I am one

Happy blogday to the tent. Here's to first words, emerging motor skills, and the slow but steady neurological formation of all my neuroses.

the empire claims another

So New York announces that it's stealing Johnny Damon right out from under our noses (AND making him shave so he more closely resembles a Jeter-bot) and at about the same time its residents are forced to walk miles to work in the (thank you Darren) BLISTERING cold. So okay, the two are basically unrelated, but the connection is there if you REALLY want to see it: You've gone too far this time, NYC, and shall suffer frostbite as a consequence. You're like the kindergarten bully that steals our snack as soon as we look away for a second. Apparently $52 million in the bank holds a slight advantage over hometown pride and Fenway franks. Fine, New York, I know you make more money and stay up later and okay maybe dress a little better than us, but for the love of God, stop buying our people! At least don't touch Big Papi, otherwise we'll be forced to put down our Sam Adams and rip your well-coiffed head right off.

if some guy sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake, maybe close the blinds

You know it's Christmas when the joy and spirit of the season touches us all. Or when one of your relatives says dead seriously about one of your other relatives, "I'm sure I have some crap in the basement I can give her." Or when one of my students sings Jingle Bells in its entirety without taking a breath and then bursts into tears. Santa is like crack to 6-year-olds.

Or maybe you know it's officially the holidays when your sneak attack lyric contest at work, which has laid dormant for months, is reborn for the sake of Christmas songs. One of my esteemed colleagues was thisclose to winning when he asked me, "Do you hear what I hear?" It would have been his finest moment, tripping me up by using an actual song TITLE (you get extra points for that) but his delivery was a little too sing-songy and I suddenly remembered something about a star, a star, way up in the sky, little lamb. Not bad for a girl who dropped out of Sunday School when she was seven. But honestly, I can't lose my champion status because I accidentally agree with someone that the weather outside is frightful. Needless to say, tis the season to watch your step.

The only thing that sucks is that this time around some lamer people at work have caught on and are all like, "HEY RED, ARE YOU ROCKIN' AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE?" That's subtle, jackass. So glad you joined the game.

In any case, a very merry Whatever It Is You're Into to all, and to all a goodnight.

funkytown

I've been in a funk lately. And it's not just me... when I asked Hot Chocolate Guy how he was this morning, he told me without hesitation that he'd be lying if he said he was doing great, that he was just keeping it in neutral. Usually when people you don't really know answer you literally it's kind of annoying, but today I was glad to hear something different.

I keep hearing things like haven't heard from you, wondering what you've been up to, different versions of you're fucking up. I drove the wrong way down a one way street yesterday, and the opportunities for metaphor are painfully abundant. (If you put a disclaimer on a cliche, you get to use it and still act like you're being ironic about it, right?) I watched part of Jerry Maguire today and noticed "what if I'm not built like that?" I'm uncomfortable with all of it lately, in every direction that it's coming from. My office has become a landfill; I'm literally just not dealing with anything. It's a definite shift and not toward the positive.

Not sure what to do about this. I do know that I have no interest in becoming one of those serious bloggers who describe their issues in prose and their emotions in colors. Spare me. So no worries, next time we'll be back to stories of me fighting with Comcast or burning the roof of my mouth or something equally tentworthy.

can't say I didn't try

Department Receptionist: ...and don't forget you have the XYZ conference all day Friday.
Me: No thank you.
DR: What's that?
Me: I said, no thank you.
DR: Do you think you're going to get out of this by being courteous?
Me: Maybe?
DR: Sorry, no.
Me: It's too cold.
DR: To be at a conference that's indoors?
Me: Yes.
DR: I don't think so.
Me: I have jury duty again?
DR: See you Friday!

we the jury

My Tuesday started out with metal detectors, standing in line with disgruntled strangers, and watching a video that attempted to answer the age-old question "What IS a TRIAL?" That's right, kids, I had jury duty. Or, rather, sit-at-a-table-reading-my-book-next-to-people-slumped-over-their-coats-trying-to-nap duty.

I loved the video. They were basically like, "You may have heard the words TRIAL and COURTROOM before on TELEVISION. Or maybe you've been involved in a TRIAL before yourself." These are my choices? I've learned about the legal system from Ally McBeal, or I'm out robbing 7-11s and finding out about TRIALS firsthand?

The guy in the video really wanted us to understand that the legal system isn't like what you see on TV. He was about 100 years old, wearing a tweed coat, holding his lapels with both hands, and squinting at the camera over giant black glasses. All he needed was a pipe and I would've thought the legal system was like the board game Clue.

At one point we did get called into another room. There were about thirty of us and nobody was talking. If we'd all been in a room together at a bar the noise would've been deafening, but put a bunch of strangers in a room without alcohol before 11 AM and everyone checks their personality at the door. But I could tell this guy coming in was going to start talking, because he was one of those loud enter-a-roomers. He walked in, looked around, exhaled and said to nobody, "OKAY THEN!" Then he sat next to me, and he almost scared me when a few moments later:

Him: DO YOU EVER WATCH JUDGE JUDY?

Keep in mind the room is silent. Except for him. And now me.

Me: Um...I've seen it before, yeah.
Him: THAT GUY LOOKS LIKE HER HUSBAND.

Dear God, tell me he's not pointing to someone else in the room. I follow his gaze and realize he's referring to a painting on the wall, presumably of some judge. Then I realize that there's only one word with which to respond when a loose cannon who has just entered your life tells you that Some Guy on the Wall looks like Judge Judy's husband. And that word is "Oh."

HIM: I'M TRYING NOT TO LOOK AT YOU, JUDGE! I KEEP TRYING TO LOOK AWAY! BUT IT'S HARD!

He's addressing the painting, by the way.

When all the other panels had left us I looked around at my crew. Thanks to Lost, I now imagine how random assortments of people that I find myself amongst would fare in the jungle. I could take that guy, he's like 80. That guy's reading Faulkner, he'd probably burst into tears before I have a chance to karate chop him. Wait, what am I talking about? Am I really planning on offing my fellow jungle jurors one by one in order to achieve total island domination? Who ARE you, Red? I should be collecting sticks or berries or comforting that old lady or something; it's not Survivor, for God's sake.

Then I realized that I seemed to be the only woman under 50 in this group, and you know what that means: repopulating the species is now up to me. And my baby daddy prospects aren't looking good. Then I decide that this thinking is a sign of mental illness and it's time to start text messaging my friends, who are now starting to think that between snow days and fighting for justice, I don't seem to have an actual job anymore.

So I just sat there reading, secure in the knowledge that my very presence in that courthouse was causing cases to settle left and right, lest anyone in the legal profession have to sit in a room with me for the next several hours. I got to leave at 1:00. Is this the commonwealth's way of making amends for forcing me to take adult driver's ed? If so, I accept your apology.

feed the world, indeed

One of the most exciting things about being a rock star must be that at any given moment, somebody could ask you to participate in a group singalong to raise money for something. Just imagine being able to hold that giant headphone to your ear with one hand while you emote with the other. Although nowadays it would probably all be wireless, and that would be sad. You probably wouldn't even be able to get everyone in a big room together anymore, because they would all need to have their bodyguards and plastic surgeons there. I, however, remember a simpler time, when Spandau Ballet shared a stage with Paul McCartney for the wholesome purpose of saving the world.

So, yeah, there's We are the World, with lyrics that were life-affirming yet nonspecific enough that they could be applied to any humanitarian situation. "We all must lend a helping hand... you know, love is all we need..." They had to invent a lot of opportunities for this kind of cheerful ambiguity so that all those singers could put in their own two vague cents. And those people clearly don't tone down their shit for anyone. They're used to having their own song and this time around they only have a few seconds to be heard so they're going to make the most of it, harmony be damned. (I'm talking to you, Huey "But if you JUST BELIEVE!" Lewis.)

I think the Pointer Sisters sang on We are the World, actually. Granted, I'll bust a move to Jump (For My Love) any day of the week, mostly because I admire their use of parentheses, but they're really not the sort of band that had much staying power.

Who am I kidding? I'm doing the neutron dance as I write this.

Anyway, I had a point here, somewhere. This time of year we get to hear one of the best singalongs recorded... Do They Know It's Christmastime? by God Only Knows Who. I think I hear Bono in there thanking God it's THEM instead of YOU. My only memory of that show Pop-Up Video is when they responded to the song title with a pop-up that said something to the effect of, "Well, they probably don't care. Most Africans don't even celebrate Christmas." I love you, Pop-Up Video. Why should that stop us, though? Nobody can strongarm a holiday like Americans. "You WILL celebrate this because otherwise we won't drop any boxes of food down from helicopters. Now dance to the song we made for you, Ethiopia, DANCE!"

I think of Pop-Up Video every time I sing along with the chorus which now just sounds like, "FEMA, who-oa...," which is really so much more timely. That song has a lot of levels, people.

no day but nine years ago

Okay, fine, I'll talk about Rent.

As is the case for most of us, my tolerance for drama and preference for the eclectic was much higher when I was younger. So back in the day, Rent came along at the perfect time. My friends and I were 19 and so were the characters. Naturally, I ran in Rent-loving circles; you probably did too. We played the soundtrack until it wore out. Literally... eventually I had to get a second copy.

I saw it several times; on Bostonway, not Broadway. So it became a Thing in My Life that I'd never be able to be objective about because "oh, Rent, I LOVED it when I was in college." I can never be too hard on it, just like I can never be too hard on Dave Matthews or Ben Folds or that stupid song Closing Time... it's the sentimental factor. For a lot of reasons, I wouldn't have liked it as much if I'd seen it today. So when the movie version comes out, with all the original Broadway actors, I'm in that gray area, negotiating with my college self.

It never should've been a musical. It would've been more compelling as a book, a movie, a series on HBO. Don't get me wrong; I know every breath of the songs on those CDs and like a lot of them. Wore out my first copy, remember. But honestly, the "lyrics" are essentially just dialogue set to music, often awkwardly. Plus any movie that features characters who randomly break into song immediately becomes such an easy target and often seems to lose more people than are willing to hang on for the ride.

Roger and Mimi make me crazy. I'm sorry, but have any two people prepared more to begin a relationship? They're not ready, you'll never truly understand me, but you just have to TRY, let's fight in the snow, come ON, this is your LIFE! Then they decide to give it a shot, but first they have to sing about their decision for twenty seven minutes. Great, no pressure there. Then Mimi almost dies and Roger starts frantically rhyming. Your eyes, as we said our goodbyes, what's the door prize, meaningful sighs, we're all going to dies. But it resuscitates her... never underestimate the potential healing power of wordplay.

I turned to my friend and asked her if you know you're old when you suddenly realize that Benny has some valid points. All my friends who loved Rent in their penniless, scrounging-for-alcohol days now have mortgages and kitchens lousy with Crate and Barrel. The Age of Rent seems to have ended, for us anyway.

Most ironic of all was seeing this movie about love and friendship with the Bride, who used to be my best friend and my original Renthead buddy before she sold her soul. I hadn't seen her in months and she insisted that we see it together. I forced myself to be a sport, but I hated being around her, and was mad at myself for being a sellout. Then I thought, how Rent-appropriate; it really wouldn't be right if I wasn't feeling overly emotional. So after all, Jonathan Larson has the last laugh.

365 days of misery

I just saw the He's Just Not That Into You day-by-day calendar. I'm trying to imagine this.

January 1st: Happy New Year! He doesn't like you.
February 11th: He really doesn't like you after finding you asleep on his doorstep.
March 17th: It's St. Patrick's Day, but lucky you, you've been inebriated for most of 2006. Has it helped him realize what he's missing?
April 1st: You know what? He changed his mind and he likes you. No, wait, April Fools.
May 29th: What are you doing for Memorial Day weekend? Really? That sounds like fun. He's probably having sex with someone else right this second.
June 18th: Happy Father's Day. You're never going to have his babies, by the way. But some other chick is, and she's probably way cuter than you and has a better job.
July 21st: How's your summer going? By the way, he saw you on the street and ran in the opposite direction.
August 12th: You're so smart and brave to go with this tough love approach. Why are you crying?
September 6th: Seriously, why are you still crying?
October 31st: Oh neat, you came dressed as a psycho. Oh, my mistake. Well, happy Halloween anyway!
November 23rd: Are you thankful that the pain hasn't killed you? Yet?
December 2th: He's forgotten your name. Good egg nog, though.

and THEN...

I heard this story from what I could have SWORN was a reliable source (she said it happened to someone she knew!) and then proceeded to tell everyone I know... and some of them told everyone they know. Turns out, I'm a spreader of lies. Finding out you inadvertently passed on an urban freakin' legend as a legit news story really does not help your credibility. What am I, The Onion? Have I been relying too much on Tina Fey and Jon Stewart for my world news?

Did you also hear about the time that I was unconscious in the bathtub and someone stole my kidneys?

peppermint patty

I love this time of year for many reasons, but one of them is the fact that I love all things peppermint. I love candy canes. I love even LOOKING at candy canes, which is why I have a jar of mini ones. I like the ones they have in the drugstore that are just like big rods, but there really wouldn't be any way to cavort about with one of those in public and still maintain any dignity, being 28 and all. (I'm a purist, by the way; none of this multicolored, chocolate-flavored candy cane shit. It's straight up red-and-white or not at all.) I lovelovelove peppermint ice cream; it makes me giddy with excitement. Bubble Yum makes perfect peppermint sugarless gum that you can't always find but you know it's a good day if you do. William Sonoma has peppermint bark, which is why I can't go in the store this time of year because they'd find me two hours later hiding among the stainless steel tea kettle section with five open bark boxes. And anyone who knows me knows that I eat peppermints constantly, and because when I eat one I have to offer it to the person I'm with (because that's the law), most of my friends have instituted a no-more-offering rule. Mark always says, "I'll just TELL YOU when I want one, OK?" which probably makes him sound slightly abusive to any stranger standing near us who doesn't know that I've been offering him mints every three seconds. Anyway, this time of year is great because my love for peppermint seems more festive than obsessive. It's the only time that I could, in theory, hang pieces of it all over my house. Imagine if heroin addicts had a holiday like that! Actually, stop imagining a syringe tree. That's weird.