Howdy Ho, Readers

I'd like to open this post with a heartfelt message of welcome.

Gio, Ganley, Eppinger, et al.-- welcome.  My brother informs me that you've recently taken an interest in my blog.  Naturally I find this peculiar as we probably haven't exchanged more than 10 words ever face-to-face.  Your sudden interest in my personal life is surprising to say the least, but by all means, enjoy.  The larger the following I can garner for this thing, the sooner I might be able to make some money off of it and quit my goddamn job.

Oh, did I forget to mention?  I hate my job.

(This is a slightly newer model than the computer in my office)

Ah, yes...work.  Who among us doesn't think they're undervalued, overworked, underpaid, and over-stressed?  If I've taken anything away from this past month on Jury Duty, it's the following: Nobody appreciates me.  OK, that and I'm the only person who does anything there.  Naturally when my hours were cut back to about 50% for the month of January, my office running at 50% productivity caused mass-hysteria.  Ironically, everyone was so busy being goddamn hysterical that no one did anything besides run around and bitch about my absence.

This would have been fine if I was on vacation for a half day every day and NOT chugging stale coffee in a courthouse in Chinatown while a crack addict testified on his own behalf that "smoking crack and getting blow jobs" were just two ways he liked to relax (don't we all??).  Instead, a completely insane woman I (ugh, of course) work quite closely with just TREATED it as if I was on vacation.  Now our contempt for one another has reached a fever pitch and this week could very well settle the matter or become WWIII.  I'm pretty torn on which way I'd rather see it end.

Now for some background information, this woman is a mean, old, lesbian.  I use the term "lesbian" not to describe her any more demeaningly than I use the terms "mean" or "old".  I'm simply stating that she IS, in fact, all of these things so that you (faithful reader) may be able to draw simple comparisons between her and myself.  I am not mean.  Yes, I can be sarcastic, caustic at times even, but I'm not a MEAN person.  A true mean person is a different breed entirely.  I am not old.  Despite Hamptons Guy's initial shock at my ripe ol' age of 26 on my drivers license, I think we can universally agree that I am still very much a spring chicken.  Lastly, I am not a frumpy, country-bumpkin, dike such as this woman. I wear makeup every day; I wear heels almost all day every day; when people ask what my hobbies are I secretly always want to be honest and say "shopping" but instead lie and say something sophisticated like "traveling" or "museums" (two other things I like to do, but with far less frequency than shopping).  If butch lesbians were choosing teams gym class-style, I'd pretty much bet that I'd be the last person picked.  Naturally, I've assumed since day one on the job that I was Professor Crazy Pants' worst nightmare in terms of colleagues.  The only thing that chaps her ass more than working with me day-in and day-out is that I'm damn good at my job.

This has become markedly apparent during my absence, when not one other life-form with more brain power than an amoeba stepped up to pitch in and help me out and I STILL got mah shit dun.

Instead of commending my rapidly disappearing ass (as I was busy "working it off") however, she chose to focus on the one thing that I wasn't doing: Staying in the office until closing time.  It mattered NOT that the State Supreme Court required my presence, she took it as a personal affront...and held a meeting one afternoon last week with MY team to discuss it.  "She's never here" she said about me.  "I mean, first her dad dies, then she gets Swine Flu, and now Jury Duty?  She's never here!"  Now before I even get into refuting these claims, let me just state for the record that thankyougod, my father is not dead.  I never said he was, implied I was missing work for a funeral, or indicated anything that would lead one to believe he had passed.  But even if he HAD, wouldn't a sane, compassionate person NOT hold that against someone?  Jesus Christ.  Now to address the Swine Flu complaint: Wow.  Sorry about that one.  My bad.  It must have been terrible for YOU when IIIII had the flu.  How-so-ever did you manage?  And how quickly we forget that I couldn't even get my ass out of bed to get a drink in the kitchen yet I was lying in bed working from home for three full days of that week!  Swine Flu?  Seriously?  Go fuck yourself, Crazy Pants.  Wouldn't a sane person be glad that I didn't come in and spread it around??  And Jury Duty?  According to the state of New York, I was excused from work for the entire month.  My coming into the office every single day all month and working from home every night was me going above and beyond the call of duty.  I could've sent out an email the day I got picked saying "See ya in February, suckas!" but I did not.  I. Did. My. Job.  Which now, it is glaringly obvious, I should not have.  A sane person would have seen how stressful the past month was for me and been appreciative of any little thing I was able to get done.  Luckily my boss IS that sane person, and this dear bitch colleague is nothing more than a thorn in my side.   

Anyway, I needed to unload all of this negativity Sunday night before trekking into the office tomorrow. And come on, what better way to start off a Monday morning than reading about me bitching about work?  You know you're thinking the same thing about your situation.

And Crazy Pants?  If you've managed to come across this blog (I mean my brother's friends have...stranger things have happened), I was totally serious about the part where I told you to go fuck yourself.  

j(UP)date

I said it before and I'll say it again: I live in fear of Dating Karma.

I guess I grew up in the strict school of "What Goes Around Comes Around".  (Another fantastic phrase my mother used to use when one of us did something wrong [be mean to a sibling] and then get hurt [hit back] was "God punished you."  Real nice lady.)  Flash-forward to me as an adult:  When I find someone I really like, I always wind up dating other people in the beginning of the relationship because of my deep-seated fear of not wanting to turn down anyone for a date or blow anyone off, universally discouraging my #1 choice from doing the same to me.  And so, I have continued to respond to interested (not alllll interested, but a large percentage) parties on jdate while I hang on my blackberry's every whimper, waiting for a word from #1.

(I may be 50% Jewish, but I'm attracting these guys like Heeb moths to a Shiksa flame)

As I sift through emails and "flirts" and "clicks" (please don't ask me what means what, I have no idea), I've come to notice the formula for male profiles on jdate.  It appears that in order to have a comprehensive profile a gentleman must do the following: talk about time he's spent in Israel-- or even better, include photographic proof of this magic carpet ride to the MotherLand, have at least one picture of himself holding a baby (double points if it's a baby girl, triple points if he states somewhere in his profile how said baby is related to him), have a picture of himself somewhere tropical so people know he likes to/can afford to travel, and mention at least his mother/his grandmother/my mother/my grandmother in conjunction with how charming he is (show me, don't tell me...oh, and side note: I don't know a single girl who has gone out with a man because her mother liked him, someone should tell these guys that).  And while I pay close attention to their profiles, they are clearly just glancing through a couple of a woman's pictures and then shooting her a message.  I know this, because I have been contacted by some far-out dudes.  Here is a random selection  of my reactions to them:

-Really? You're 53 and NOT EVEN JEWISH and looking for women at least 30 years old.
-You are divorced, 35, and live in Jersey.  You literally don't match a single one of my criteria.
-Why would you email me in Hebrew? My profile clearly says I speak English and Spanish. Period.
-All of your pictures are of you, taking pictures of yourself with an iphone in the mirror.  While wearing a snuggie.  (Oh how you cannot make this stuff up...)
-You're Indian and not sure about converting. This proooobably isn't your ideal dating pool.
-You're trying to tell me you're 26, yet look older than my dad.  Alright, Creepy Creeperson...
-You tell me how much we have in common, clearly not bothering to notice that 60% of my profile is not filled out.  And the part that is states that I'm looking for someone older than you, you College Senior, you.
-I'm supposed to believe you teach literature at Yale and the best you could come up with is "your profile is totally adorable"?

But the men who find me on their own don't even COMPARE to the men that the site matches me up with.  I get about eight emails a day from jdate saying they've found my new match! Oh joy of joys, my future husband, in an email, just to me????  What a lucky girl I am!  I mean seriously, how does jdate determine my matches?  There is literally NO vetting process here.  Today they emailed me to tell me they found a 24 year old orthodox jew, a 23 year old guy, and get this-- the piece de resistance-- a 36 year old widowed black man with a child who is conservative and goes to synagogue every weekend who himself is seeking someone between the ages of 30 and 67.  What the fuck kind of criteria are they basing this on?

And once you get in touch with someone, you reallllly need to be careful about deciding whether or not to see them.  My first night on the site a guy jdate-IMed me out of the blue. He seemed nice enough and we exchanged Facebook info, friended one another, and made teeeentative plans for the next week.  He was really pushy about us getting together though, and by the end of our chat I had pretty much decided I'd never see him.  Then, I had to permanently sign out of jdate-IM to avoid him.  I never followed up/through/blahblahblah about drinks and thought it'd fade itself out.  Who did I think I was?!  I bitch-slapped Dating Karma, and now I'd pay the price.  He Facebook-ims me constantly.  I seriously cannot be on for more than three seconds before he's popping up asking "U there?".  I have never responded and now almost never go on.  He also emails me on Facebook.  I don't respond to that either.  This has been going on for almost two weeks.  Here's a dollar, go buy a clue.  The worst, and by far the creepiest part however, was that last night I was on AIM talking to my youngest brother when an IM from him pops up!  He must've seen my AOL screenname listed on my Info section (which I didn't even remember I had put on there) and then went online to find me.  I declined the chat and am currently debating if I tell him to leave me alone or just file a complaint against him on the site.  I mean I guess I shouldn't be surprised that some of the people who choose to meet people online are doing it NOT because they're tired of the bars (as they profess), but because they are in fact, quite socially awkward.  Unfortunately for him however, it's called jDATE, not jGETHARASSEDBYAPEDIATRICIANWHOLIVESINJERSEY.  I think Dating Karma's going a little too far with this one.

Anyway, I'm lining up some (less disturbing) prospects for over the next week or so.  As I compile what I can only imagine will be stellar stories, I'll keep you posted.

Teaser: last night I had a phone conversation with a guy who mentioned liking/seeing/listening to Dave Matthews Band so many times I thought I was talking to Tim Reynolds.

Quit Your Bitchin'

There is tragedy in the world.

The earthquake in Haiti, Conan O'Brien leaving The Tonight Show, the New Kids On The Block (or NKOTB as us true fans refer to them) are gearing up for a tour...There are big things happening everywhere, much bigger than myself.  Much bigger than all of us.  So how does it come to pass that all I can think about is myself?  That all any of us do is complain about the trivial and mundane?

(Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has it the hardest of them all?)

So, on that note: Quit your bitchin', Angelinos.  I'm sick of hearing everyone in LA whine about the rain there.  The only person it's been acceptable to hear about it from was Conan O'Brien because he was being viciously bent over by NBC, but now he's off the air and no one else is allowed to complain about it.  I mean, give me a break!  It's nice 360 days a year in LA.  I'm sorry that for a whole WEEK you've had to use umbrellas.  Note: that was sarcasm.  I'm actually not sorry at all.  You want bad weather? Come to New York.  This afternoon it was pouring rain so hard I couldn't even see out of my window at work.  Winds were gusting at 46mph for chrissake.  Now THAT'S bad weather.

And speaking of bad weather: Quit your bitchin', People Who Live in Nice Places.  One of my best friends lives in Houston with her husband now.  Last week we were talking about a vacation she'd taken a couple summers back when she lamented to me, in all seriousness, that the worst part of living in Houston is it's nice ALL THE TIME.  This means that when she goes on vacation she doesn't even get to truly enjoy good weather.  Oh the horror!!!  It was in the 70's there last week, what a cross to bear.  That's like complaining your breasts are too big and your waist is too small, or that it doesn't matter how much chocolate cake you eat, you can't seem to gain weight.  Poor baby.  (Houston friend, you know I love you.)

Now, I should quit my own bitchin'.  Unfortunately, I've had a crap day that started out bad and didn't much improve as the hours passed.  See, I knew it was going to be fantastic when I could hardly wake up and motivate to get out of bed and saw it was pouring rain outside of my window.  I finally rallied because I had people coming to interview with me and by the time I would email them all to reschedule this morning, I'd be awake enough that I wouldn't fall back asleep.  So, I got myself together to trudge out in the monsoon to have my umbrella blow inside out one block from my apartment at the beginning of my 6 mile commute to work.  This was most problematic because I knew I'd need it also to get from work to Jury Duty aaaaand from Jury Duty home.  That was not the time to lose my only means of staying dry.  Then, as I was dazedly thinking about said umbrella as I entered the subway station, I slammed (hard) into the turnstile because for the first time since living in New York, I forgot that you need to swipe your metro card to get on the train.  As I stepped back and caused the kind of people-bumping-into-one another-and-cursing-under-their-breath scene that I so loathe, I patted my pockets and realized that I didn't even have my metro card on me.  I took it out of my wallet on Saturday for some reason and then looked at it on the floor of my room all weekend without putting it back.  Then, of coooourse, none of the metro card machines were taking cash and for the life of me I couldn't remember how much it costs to ride the train now, so I had to charge $6 on my credit card.  Then, I got to ride a subway train so crowded that I was sardined in between bodies and couldn't escape the creepy guy who insisted on poking my ass cheek with his erection the whole ride.  On top of all this, my all-star secretary didn't come to work today and I got stood up for my interview.  This was all before 9:15AM.

So, I guess that paragraph means I'm actually NOT going to quit my bitchin'.  Not just yet anyway.  I mean, as bad as Monday was, Tuesdays are usually my least favorite day of the week.  I'm sure there's a LOT more on the way for me complain about tomorrow night.  Mostly men stuff, so grab a seat.

And if you have to stand, make sure the guy near you keeps away from your ass.

I Wanna Talk About Me

It's late on Sunday evening and I'm feeling self-indulgent so bear/bare with me.

(I never can remember which version of "bear/bare" is correct there.  I'm not an animal, nor am I naked.)

-I was really hoping that a boy I like would call tonight and he didn't.  We went out Friday night and spent half of Saturday together (yes, Mom) so I know that hearing from him on Sunday would probably be crazy.  However, it's also crazy that I want to win the lottery, have Gisele's legs, and marry a prince but that doesn't make me stop wanting those things.  Is the day-after-follow-up text too much to ask?  LE always did that after our dates and I realize that I've grown dependent upon them.  To hell with playing it cool!  I'm not cool at all, I openly admit it.  Also, while it seemed like we both had a great time and really connected, he didn't say he'd call me again.  This could be because he either a) figured that was implied after a 16 hour date or b) has no intention of seeing me again.  Naturally,  I've been debating these two points back and forth since leaving his apartment.  The heart knows not reason.

-I just made that last sentence up but it sounds like a real saying, right?  Very poetic.  I'm reading Pride & Prejudice right now and I've found that while some of my friends are reading Precious and walking around texting me and talking to themselves like an uneducated girl from Harlem, I am at the grocery store hearing my shopping list recited with Julie Andrews' voice and using sentence structures that are more appropriate for a carriage ride to a ball than a 2 1/2 block hungover walk to a deli on the Lower East Side.

-I get selective ADD.  Tonight, honesttoGod, for the better part of 40 minutes I went back and forth between changing the sheets on my bed, painting my nails, switching around what I was watching on Hulu, picking out my clothes for tomorrow, and folding laundry.  I can safely say that not one of these things got done well, and most, not even at all.

-Speaking of TV (well, Hulu, which is kind of like TV), I would never want to be on a reality show.  I just couldn't face how disappointed my family would be in me if they knew what I was actually like.  Do you think Snooki's parents watched the whole season of Jersey Shore, looked at one another and thought, "We did a good job.  A damn good job."??  Well, I'm definitely not as much of a mess as she is (or...anyone on that show...) but I don't think me starting out a first date with someone by taking vodka shots is exactly how they want to believe they raised me.  I also don't think I ever want to see footage of my drunken adventures when I've sobered up the following day.

-I am a terrible juror.  The first day of our big trial this month, I came home and googled the case and the names of the people involved.  Also, I have the worst poker face ever.  Anything I'm thinking or feeling is usually right out there.  This is detrimental because in court, as they've presented evidence and findings for things I've already read about in an old online NYTimes article, it's all I can do to not scream out "Oh myGod! I know! What ABOUT that?! huh??!"

-Pandora is messing with my mind.  I play music through that site all day at work and am constantly "liking" and "disliking" songs so I can really tailor my stations to play exactly what I want.  This is fine until I put on my ipod on the subway ride home and hear a song that I've "disliked" and immediately think to myself, "Hey! I thought I told you never to play that again!?"  Also, the other day I was running around my office taking care of errands and when I came back to my desk I realized there was no music playing.  When I looked at the site, the message "Are you still listening?" had popped up.  I clicked that yes, I was, and felt myself get infuriated!  I put on my jacket, shut down my computer and left within the next 18 seconds but as I walked out I thought to myself "that'll teach Pandora!  Only IIIII say when I am and am not listening!  Don't second-guess."  I guess a little bit of power goes a long way with me.

To quote The Situation, "winter is cold."  Damn this season!  I think that cabin-fever has set in and I'm going crazy.

Guess Who

I'm terrible at estimation.

No seriously, I am.  I can't judge time or distance to save my life.  I can never tell if someone's wearing a hairpiece (not exactly estimating, but I feel this is somehow related).  I have no idea how fast a car moves vs. an airplane.  I hate rounding numbers and "ball parking it".  In elementary school we had a math lesson on "guesstimation" and I remember on the test there were questions like "5+3= a)0 b)5 c)10".  I think I wrote in "8" and did not pass.  When my parents tried to figure out what I wasn't understanding in this unit, they realized I wasn't missing anything.  I could do math and wanted to do math.  If other kids couldn't do it and needed to use a calculator, I didn't mind.  I did not, however, want to have to "lie" on a test.  Just tell me the truth!  I'm intelligent, I'll get it.  Anyway, I'm also unable to determine if it's better to be 6' tall and 200lbs or 5'5" and 180lbs.  I probably couldn't even tell you which one was which in a picture.  These are my shortcomings; I have learned to accept them.

(No, Jack, I actually CAN handle the truth.)

Why I'm suddenly telling you all of this though is because tonight, my estimation ability has been put to the test.  You see, I've joined an online dating site-- Jdate, to be exact.  I'm tired of meeting friends-of-friends that I'm not crazy about but am then obligated to go on a few dates with.  I'm tired of giving out my number to strangers at bars.  I'm tired of people asking to set me up with so-and-so.  Many people, some of my good friends even, are on this and other similar sites and have had mostly positive results so I figured what the hell.  It's a new year, I'll give it a whirl.

Well, OK.  That's not exactly what I thought.  What I thought mostly was "Jesus Christ.  Do I actually want to do this?" and then got all judgy on myself, my friends, my mother for saying "go for it", and anyone else who actually joins these things.  So, around 9PM on Sunday evening I set up a profile.  I didn't joooooin, but I made the obligatory "about me" section so I could check out who was on there and see if I'd be interested in anyone.  By Monday morning I had 60 messages.  By mid-morning, I had 80+. At that point, Jdate stopped sending me a picture and brief bio of whomever the admirer was and just started harassing me to pay to join their site so I could read my emails.  By 7PM tonight I had over 170 messages waiting and finally bit the bullet.

Anyway, again, I was telling you about how poorly I estimate simple things because I forgot how short Jews are.  (And I can call them "Jews" and be mildly insulting because they're my people, like when black people use the N-word.  If you are not a Jew, don't join in on my mocking here.)  I know that people tend to embellish online, so I assume if a guy say's he 5'10" he's probably closer to 5'8" or 5'9" if he's lucky.  The problem is that I have an exboyfriend who was 5'10" and I always thought he was more like 5'7" (he thought I was crazy for thinking that, and possibly rightly so).  I'm trying to use him as my standard of measurement but I don't even know what that means.  When a seriously good-looking and successful man says he's 5'6" does that translate into 5'3"?  Can I not email him back?  For my sake I'm hoping it means he's actually 5'6" because if he's that short and going to lie about it, he might as well tell everyone he's 5'11", right?  I mean he's ultimately planning to meet someone in person, isn't he?

This all just really sucks for me though because I like tall men.  I want a man who looks like a MAN, so sue me.  And I'm aware that I'm fairly small so how could I possibly be that picky?  At 5'3" in 3in. heels I'm only 5'6", who am I to say that 5'8" is too short?  Well I'm me goddammit and sometimes I wear 5in. heels and sometimes I wanna feel like someone can pick me up and toss me around.  If you're 5'8", I don't know if you're capable of that.  If you're 5'6", I'm almost positive you're not.  The thing is though, we're wading in a fairly shallow gene pool here.  There were maybe a handful of men in my 170 emails who were over 6' tall and no kidding, each one of them had a heading boasting about their height--  "YesThisIsMyRealHeightMD!!" and "TallJewishLawyer".  Guess what Jdaters?  Better brag about that here because in the real world, 6' ain't no thang.

Sidenote: I've come to see that stereotypes exist for a reason.  I think maybe a handful of the guys sending messages out were not lawyers or doctors.  Alright already, Jews!  Relax.  We've cornered the market.  Now let's all explore some other careers.  I hear Architect and Professor are lovely this time of year...

But as much as I dislike the truth of the stereotype, I've realized that I dislike when it's NOT true even more.  First, let me tell you that of the 170, I narrowed down my responses significantly.  I did this through a fool-proof method of seeing how old the correspondent was (I'd ideally like someone 27-32, but would go out of my age-range one year younger and older if he's very hot and has a great sense of humor.  Yes, I'm picky.), checking out some of his pictures to see if I'd be physically attracted, looking at his education/what he does for a living,  seeing if I'm what he'd be looking for (I don't wanna pull any fast ones on people who are looking for orthodox ladies, I'm only a halfsie afterall), and then finally reading what he had to say in his profile.  I figure this isn't a terrible way (but probably also not a great way) to meet guys because out of 170 emails, I responded to 20.  Of those 20, let's guess that 10 will write back.  Of those 10, I meet up with five.  Of those five, maybe two of them make me not want to kill myself at drinks and of those two maybe I actually like one.  And that's probably worst-case scenario.  So if I can find one person I like without initially putting on pants and leaving my bed (yes, I sat here in my underwear all night like some kind of internet-dating weirdo but in my defense my apartment's unbearably hot), it's not the worst $40 I've spent.

In my search however, here are some gems I've come across:
-First, there was another halfsie.  A doctor, 6' tall, "a perfect match!" I thought.  No, wrong.  His profile said he had neither the time nor energy to date so he wanted a girl with a healthy appetite for fun.  I think we can all agree that this roughly translates into a healthy appetite for sex.  Sir MD, it's called Jdate, not Jfuck.
-Next, there were six people who sent messages asking if it'd be ok to message me.  Anyone else seeing the irony here?
-Finally, I started quickly and severely judging everyone on the most trivial things. Turns out my knee-jerk reaction to "Profession: actor" is "poor"; You like fishing? NEXT!; You're under 5'10? NEXT!; Your main picture is you with your shirt off? NEXT!; You're wearing a douchebag hat in your pic? NEXT; You live in Brooklyn? dear Gooooooood NEXT!; You're picture is professionally done?  Oy vey. NEXT; You're Indian! NEXT! (Dude, that's obviously not why I'm here); Your eyebrows are too big.  NEXT; You took a picture of yourself in the mirror at the gym.  Definitely NEXT!; You're wearing pink shorts in your picture; Your hair is longer than mine; You didn't graduate college; You have the same name as my dad; You have the same name as my brother; Your picture is of you with another woman; You have an ugly dog; Your dog is kissing you on the mouth in your picture...I could go on.

Of these 170 men, about 165 of them said they liked my smile.  I'll have to let my parents know that the money they spent on my braces was money well spent.  Hell, if it lands me a 6'0 Jewish doctor it might be the best money they ever spent.

I think it was around $3,000.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The main problem with common sense is that it's not that common.

I feel like much in the same way chocolate and champagne were flowing before the holidays, stupidity is flowing afterwards.  Everyone's so busy concentrating on shaking their ass and getting with their New Year's Resolutions that they've forgotten how to think.  This has become apparent in almost every aspect of my life.

(Wait, what was that again?)

For starters, this morning I arrived and work and checked my gmail inbox.  I saw there was an email from a site called Eventful-- they send me about one or two notes a week letting me know of upcoming concerts and events in NYC.  This is all I have ever received from them...until today.  This morning, it appeared that the whole purpose of the body of the email was to entice me to purchase Christmas ringtones for my cell phone sung by none other than the New Kids On The Block.  Seriously.  Now don't get me wrong, I love me some NKOTB.  Jordan Knight could have me any day of the week, any week of the year no matter my age or dating status.  He will always be my first love.  However, I think the right time to advertise this particular product would have been 20 YEARS AND ONE MONTH AGO.  Just a thought.

Next, I got to spend yet another lovely afternoon doing my patriotic and civil duty of serving my community (in this case New York County) on a Grand Jury.  I will not insult myself by saying that this particular jury is comprised of my peers because the people that I'm forced to spend every afternoon Monday through Friday with have a collective intelligence level that hovers somewhere between profoundly and moderately retarded.  (Again, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the mentally handicapped.  I used to work in Special Education.)  I mean, we've been here three hours a day for the past week and a half (roughly 21 hours of our lives) and the majority of these people are still pretty uncertain as to what exactly it is we're doing there.  Some people are turning into trial lawyers and battling with the other jury members.  Others are asking inane and pointless question after inane and pointless question.  (Remember that kid who, when you'd be leaving class and the teacher forgot to assign homework, would allllways be the one to say "Um, wait, Mrs. So-and-so, do we have homework tonight?" and everyone would groan and hate him?  Well, he's all grown up and sitting five seats away from me.)  And whenever we work on a case involving weapons or drugs, the white people in the room will bicker incessantly until any of the three latino men or one black guy give an opinion.  Then it's like a ghostly hush falls over the other 22 jurors and you can just read all of the white people's thoughts: "Oh, hm.  He's probably got a point.  Afterall, he's hispanic.  He must know about 'the hood'; at least more than everyone else."  Then, the majority of jurors proceed to vote in accordance to whatever the omnipotent minority has proclaimed.  Yes, this is your judicial system at work.

Thursday, I went to Lenscrafters to purchase a new pair of glasses.  I rushed right there from jury duty, hurriedly picked out new frames, got fitted, and paid.  "Oh good" I said, "you close at seven and it's only five-thirty.  I'll be able to get these tonight!"  Nope, the sales woman informed me.  I was at the world's (probably) only Lenscrafters that doesn't do their glasses on site.  This was not going to be "about an hour"-- the world-famous slogan they've built their business on-- but more like Monday.  So when Monday rolled around, I called to ask what time I could pick up my spectacles.  They didn't know where they were and asked if they could call me back.  Unfortunately, they somehow called my parents' house instead of my cell phone.  When my mother informed them that I no longer lived there and went to give them my number, the woman promptly hung up on her, never to call me again.  My mom called and told me what happened so I rang the store back, where the woman thought it must have been an act of God that I happened to know the voice on the other end of the incorrect phone line.  After she recovered from her shock, she told me everything would be ready on Tuesday.  So this afternoon around 1PM, I rang ol' Lenscrafters again to check on their progress.  My glasses had arrived, they told me, but no one had looked them over yet.  Could I come by on Wednesday instead?  No.  No I cannot come on Wednesday.  You've overshot your one hour sales pitch by 119.  Are you seriously telling me that in the next six hours before you close, no one will be able to shoot a cursory glance over my order?  Frames?  Check.  Two lenses?  Check.  Alright, good to go!  She got off in a huff and said she'd see what she could do.  Twenty minutes later my phone rang.  I could swing by any time.

Please don't even get me started on the people I work with, the people I ride the subway with, or the people at my grocery store because I'll never get to sleep.

Move Over, Norah Ephron

I'm going to write a romantic comedy.

If you've seen one lately, or even in the past five years, you'd know that there's literally nothing to it.  I'm certain that I could handle this.  In all honesty, if I took a week off from writing this blog, I could probably bang out a pretty comprehensive story line.  As someone who spends roughly $48 at the movies every time some SJP film comes out ($12.50 for my ticket, $35.50 on hungover movie snacks), I hardly think there's anyone out there (aside from a handful of my friends) who is more well-equipped to crank out 80-100 minutes of amateurish comedy and stiff kisses.

("Well, let's think about this...we go to the movies, that's 15 bucks. We get popcorn, that's 53.  

And she'll want raisinettes, alright?  So, we're looking at 75 bucks." -Patrick, 10 Things I Hate About You)

First, I'll need to sign on a cast.  My female lead should be popular but not too famous.  Bonus points if you can launch a television actress's film career.  You'll need to like her to want to go to the theaters and root her on, but not know her work so well that you're unable to imagine her in this role.  (This is the major downfall of every Sarah Jessica Parker film.  All we want is SATC and all she doesn't want is to be stuck in SATC.) She should be attractive, but not overwhelmingly so.  No one's going to believe that Heidi Klum can't find a man.  My male lead should be almost relatively unknown.  If you can name more than three movies he's starred in previously, he's not the right fit.  (This is the major downfall of every recent Matthew McConaughey and Hugh Grant flick.  Those roles are stale for them already.  Move on, guys.)  Now, let's get some of the regular "sidekick" characters to sign on as friends of the stars.  They should all be quirky and not as good-looking as the leads.  Lastly, I'll need to find one to three HUGE movie stars who are themselves a little too old to play main characters in romantic comedies.  They will cameo as parents or trusted, advice-giving elders.  This works best when it's someone who's Oscar nominated, like Kathy Bates, or has a timeless career like Candice Bergen.

Next, I'll craft an unbelievably trite story line that stereotypes everyone in terribly sexist and masochistic ways.  Most likely our female will be incredibly uptight.  She should probably be desperate to get married, maybe even the last or next-to-last in her family/group of friends/workplace to do so.  And no one will be able to figure out why!!  But gosh darnitall if she doesn't seek advice from her parents who (clearly desperate for a paycheck and not turned off by the idea of showing up on set two times total) might try and get her together with a man who is, geeeeez, Mom, just all wrong for her!  Then, through a series of ca-razy coincidences, she'll run into our leading man.  Because of roughly four minutes of screen time before their big introduction, we'll already know that this guy is just a disaster of human being.  He may or may not be wildly successful, but either way it won't matter because he'll be a womanizer.  He also could have some bad habits (drinking too much and behaving stupidly) or seriously immature friends, it's still up in the air.  However, the only thing that's for certain is that no woman will care.  We will see anything with a vagina throwing herself at him because he's so unattainable and irresistible.  Also, and only the audience will know this, he is really pathetically too old to be behaving in this manner anymore.  It won't be funny or cute in real life, just on screen.

Both main characters will live in fabulous apartments that they'd never be able to afford in reality were they to actually work in the purported professions of their characters.  Our female will also dress exclusively in designer clothing labels that she wouldn't be able to purchase in 10 years of saving up in real life, but that Hollywood will drown her in on-screen because the audience is dumb remember?, and all fledgling advertising account execs making $48,000 a year only wear $600 Louboutins.  Our male lead, however, will only wear t-shirts with holes in them, old jeans and sneakers (even if he wears nice clothes to work, should we assign him a profession that requires a college degree and a razor).  There will be a really great scene where he realizes that she makes him want to be a better man though, and he'll put on something super snazzy and we'll get to see how hot he looks all cleaned up.  Yum.

The rest of the movie is basically unimportant.  Since romantic comedies are only allowed to take place in one of three locations-- New York, San Francisco, or lost in Europe-- securing a setting will be the easiest part of the whole affair.  The majority of the rest of the film will be him annoying her in any number of manners while they try and tackle whatever conundrum has come their way (a work deadline? a rental car place out of vehicles save the one they have to share to their destination?).  He will realize about six minutes into his interaction with her that he likes her, but will spend most of the movie behaving like a second grade boy with a school yard crush, meaning that more or less he'll torture her and be a little mean and make fun of her for her character flaws (mainly, her inability to let loose because all women are uptight bitches and all men are happy-go-lucky party animals).  Then, we'll have the scene where she gets into some sort of trouble and he'll have to rescue her.  After this point, she'll see another side of him and decide that she does in fact like him but will still spend most of the rest of the movie acting like she doesn't to keep his ego in check.

At the end, she'll do something to put herself on the line and let him know that she's his for the taking.  He will either reject her and go back to his original "I'm a lone wolf baby, you don't wanna mess around with a man like me" ways or totally miss her signals.  No matter which path he takes, she'll be heartbroken and decide that she's better off with someone else-- the wrong (but realistically much better) man for her-- and move her relationship with other guy forward at warp speed.  During this interval, male lead will be unable to get her off of his mind.  Eventually, maybe after an interaction with a second cameo appearance by famous older stars (gotta make them work for those paychecks!), he'll find her and go to her, some totally gallant (but possibly super short) speech at the ready.  She'll try and turn him down at first of course, as her ego is wounded, but once she hears how much he needs her in his life, she won't be able to resist.  They'll kiss, the audience will have butterflies in their stomachs, and the curtain can fall.  Fin.

Hm, when I break it down in these terms it actually makes me envy these made-up lives less.  I mean, I still want the man in the film, but not at the price of being the woman.  That's kind of refreshing to realize.

The Home Of The Brave

I feel like Captain America.

I think I was made for the Grand Jury business.  I'm fair, level-headed, and thoughtful...if I say so myself. (Hey, nobody said anything about being modest.)  I'm defending justice, cleaning up the streets of New York, protecting my fellow citizens.  And the best part is, I don't even have to get out of my seat.  I can sip Starbucks coffee for three hours while a rotating cast of NYPD and the occasional eye-witness come through and tell me (ok, us) their tales.  Then, with a wave of my hand I can motion to indict the bastards everyone's talking about or toss out the charges and let someone be a free man.

I. Am. God.

(Recognize me?)

While I am sworn to secrecy about the nature of the very important work I'm doing, I'll share a brief overview.  Today, we voted that a twice-arrested drug dealer stand trial.  This case hit close to home because his "office" was just a few blocks from where I work.  It really made me appreciate how these undercover cops put their lives on the line every hour of the day, every day of the year in order to protect ME and create a safer environment.  Trust me, when you see these men and women, it feels very personal.  It takes a special human-being to make an undercover drug bust at 3AM on Christmas Eve.  These guys absolutely deserve our respect.  And good thing I was around today to really cement all the fantastic work they're doing with the raising and lowering of my hand. It takes all kinds.

We also had our first debate today.  While 12 Angry Men it was not, it was interesting to hear what other people had been thinking while one particular presentation was going on.  There were definitely 23 people in the room with 23 distinct thoughts and the exchange of moral and ethical ideas with total strangers was, from a psychological perspective, fascinating.  This is an amazingly unique learning experience that I'm sure I will never again encounter in my lifetime.

The other thing that's fascinating is how I know practically nothing about the metric system.  They taught this to me year after year in school, yet I maintained that I would never need to know it because I didn't plan on moving outside of the USA.  But just like geography and multiplication, the metric system has become one of those pesky things that, it turns out, IS applicable outside of the classroom.  However, it appears that the "practically nothing" I do know is waaay more than anyone else knows.  The man behind me thought that 500mg is more than a pound.  Um, 500mg is about the size of an extra strength Tylenol.  Now yes, there are various substances on the Periodic Table with such high densities that this size/weight ratio could be possible.  Unfortunately, I'm willing to bet almost anything that cocaine isn't one of them.

That's right, there are crack dealers out there weighing and measuring and converting said measurements and designing business plans that are more complicated than I, with two MA degrees, the be-suited and oh-so-important business man behind me, and the biologist next to me can follow.  Nobody could decide if 13 grams of marijuana fits in a sandwich bag or suitcase.  Did it look like a pine cone or pine tree? Was this a lot or an average amount? Tell us in "dime bags" and "ounces" for chrissake-- use terms we can understand!  That's like saying to me the undercover cop paid for them in Shekels or used British Sterling.  It means nothing.  I was almost tempted to text LE and ask him to be an expert witness on the case.

And speaking of men, I still don't have any.  The closest thing I've gotten to a date this week was being snubbed by a semi-attractive man on the grand jury in the room next door.  I only saw him the first day, but I'll be damned if I'm not dressed up every day for the rest of the month in hopes of seducing him over a cup of vending machine coffee during the three minutes we have to relax before our trials begin.

Afterall, it only takes women 30 seconds to decide if they're going to sleep with someone, and it's probably even less for men.  What we do with the other 2:30 is up to us.

National Lampoon's Family Guilt Trip

Well, it wouldn't have been the holidays without the obligatory familial guilt trip.

(Can I bring along a Louis Vuitton trunk?)

This year's edition comes to me direct from my 82 year old paternal grandmother, my Bubbie.  Now let me first just put it out there that I absolutely love her to the ends of the earth.  We are very close and have always had a special relationship.  However, like they say, familiarity breeds contempt...or something along those lines.  Basically, she feels close enough to me -- and is getting substantially grumpier as time passes -- that she's begun to say whatever the hell she feels like.

Now this isn't only directed at me.  She called my parents and said she can't believe she isn't a great grandmother by now.  Keep in mind I have cousins that are 31 and 36 who are single whereas my brothers and I are all less than five years out of college.  She told my aunt who, after being a little too blonde for a little too long went back to her natural-ish color and looks absolutely amazing, that she was thinking lately about how great she looked with her blonde hair at a family event in April.  People don't talk enough for her or talk too much.  She bosses around waitresses.  She drives 95 mph just pulling out of our neighborhood.  Bubbie took the freedom that comes with age, grabbed its balls, and tied them to the bumper of her car as she rounded a corner on two wheels.

Take the other week for example.  I called her to talk about my aunt's untimely passing (on the other side of my family) and get some sympathetic words.  To her credit, she did distract me from being upset, but her methods were slightly unorthodox and unexpected.  Basically, she immediately ignored anything coming out of my mouth and launched in on my love life, which, we all know, is nonexistent.  Apparently I'm not the only one who has a problem with this.

LE, she informed, "is a shithead."  EB, she added, "is a shithead too.  Everyone in New York is a shithead."  She went on to tell me that as long as I'm residing here, I'll never meet anyone.  I'm never going to meet anyone.  I told Bubbie that I'm happy being single.  I'm having fun.  "You've had enough fun," she said.  "You've gotten your masters, you lived in Europe, it's time to settle down now."  Settle down?  I'm young!  I'm not ready to settle down.  "What are you saying? Are you moving back to Spain?"  What? What does Spain have to do with anything?  "Are you telling me you're moving back to Spain?"  No! I'm not moving anywhere; I have zero plans to leave New York.  "Well I don't understand what you're looking for.  You've already done it all."  Done it all? I don't think so.  There a million things I still want to do.  I'm not settled in life yet.  "How are you not settled?"  I don't have a career yet, I'd like to get some of my grad school debt paid off, I want to feel like I'm self-sufficient before I hitch my wagon to someone else's horse.  "...oh....well."  And I'm happy.  Isn't that what's important? That I'm happy??  "Well, I can't die until you're married.  I need to see you married.  I need to see you settled."  Then plan to live for a very long time, Bubbie.  I'm young.

To really hammer this point home, let me just tell you I'm watching Weekend At Bernie's while playing with my hair and drinking chocolate milk...almost exactly the same as I did 20 years ago when the movie came out.

People Needing People

I hate people.

People are the worst.  WORST!  I think that sometimes, all they were put on this earth to do was annoy me and make my life crazier than it already is. And trust me, my life is basically out of control, the last thing I need is people around messing it up even more.

(I'm sick of you little girl and boy groups, all you do is annoy me so I have been sent here to destroy you)

A woman I work with, who is NOT my boss, is giving me a hard time about having been picked for jury duty.  She wants to know why I didn't get out of it.  Ohhhhh, get out of it you say?  Why that is a novel idea.  If only I'd thought of that yesterday.  See, I found the prospect of getting hopelessly behind on all of my work while debating upwards of 800 cases with a jury of my "peers" (which is in quotes because us all being "peers" is also still up for debate) over the next 24 days to be absolutely riveting.  Getting oooooout of it never even occurred to me.  But the really great thing about the grand jury is that we only meet for half a day.  This means that I still get to go to work for half a day.  Now, I don't have to miss out on what it's like to go to work every day AND be on jury duty ever day.  Best. Of. Both. Worlds. !!!!!

After the painfully boring process of grand jury selection yesterday, I realized that a loooot of caffeine is going to be needed to fuel my next few weeks.  Today, I got down to Chinatown with about 30 minutes to spare since I was still unsure of how long it would take me to commute from my office to the courthouse.  I decided to relax with a nice cup of coffee and talk to my mom on the phone to enjoy my afternoon a little and kill some time.  However, they don't serve coffee in Chinatown.  It's like there's a goddamn Starbucks every 27 1/2 feet in this city and then when you need one, it's nowhere to be found.  I walked for almost ten minutes before finding a Chinese bakery where, I assumed, there would be coffee.  I was wrong.  Chinatown serves a rainbow variety of teas, but coffee is certainly NOT on the menu.  Finally, after trekking three more blocks, I spotted one two blocks up and across the street on the far corner.  It felt like a mirage, but I ran toward it anyway.

Once inside, I stood in line and waited my turn like everyone else.  As I approached the register however, a woman jumped in front of me.  I was not in the mood to be nice and just let her go ahead (as she obviously didn't spot the GIANT sign that read "Enter Here" and all of the people corralled in the ropes), so I kinda-sorta elbowed her out of my way while mumbling "aw heeeeyll noo" in my head.  It immediately became apparent that she was a crazy homeless person who jumped in line to ask me for money.  "You got a dollar?  Can I have a dollar?" she asked me.  I ignored her and ordered my coffee while the guy behind the counter a) stared at her like she was nuts, b) offered me exactly zero help, and c) finally went to get my coffee.  In his absence, another girl came over, told me it'd be $1.90, and I handed over a $10 bill.  While the cashier got my change, the homeless woman was doing her best to penetrate my personal space as much as humanly possible.  At one point, I thought she was going to get inside of my jacket with me.  The girl behind the counter slowly and carefully handed me my change, first my coins and then my bills, so I could put one away before the other (as opposed to dumping them all in my hand at the same time like they normally do).  All the while she warily eyed the crazy lady to make sure she didn't reach in and grab anything from me.  The homeless woman, while off her fucking rocker, was still able to pick up on this subtle social cue.  "It's ok," she said, "she's giving that to me," and motioned to the $8 in my hand.  "Yeah, that's not our deal actually," I replied.  "Oh," she said.  Then, "you got a dollar?"  I shook my head no and went to add milk to my cup.

While I struggled with the Non-Fat Milk container (what is with those pitchers??), another 'bucks employee came over to usher the crazy woman outside.  "I got a knife! I'm not leaving!" she started yelling.  Ah, great.  There's about to be a stabbing in the Chinatown Starbucks.  All I could think was now I'll have to go to court AGAIN to testify to being a terrible human being who didn't give a homeless person a single dollar bill and then caused a riot when they tried to kick her back out onto the eleven degree sidewalk.  In my defense, I donate money to many worthwhile and well-known charities and donate time to several other local organizations.  I do not, however, make a habit of giving to crazy homeless people because in New York, if you start doing that, you'll never stop.  You will literally run out of money and have to start giving them the clothes off of your back.  It is painfully sad, but very true.  Anyway, after a moment, the homeless woman (or maybe just crazy, I have no idea as to her living situation, I shouldn't stereotype) confessed to kidding around about the knife (what a comedian!) and I ran out the side door.

Safely at jury duty, I was seated in the front row of the room next to a singular empty seat while we waited for our last juror to arrive and begin the day's festivities.  Of course, the late-comer is a middle-aged gentleman who smells terrible and is The Sickest Man In The Universe (verse...verse...rse...[echo]).  He grabs the chair next to mine.  While he's coughing up phlegm and choking on his own chest congestion, the warden assigned to our group comes around and assigns our seats, telling us to get comfortable because this is where we'll be sitting for the next month.  Oh. Great.  I spent the next three hours leaning as far away from him as I was able while mouthing "OHMYGOD" to no one in particular.  I was practically in the lap of the guy next to me.  TSMITU spent those same three hours leaning as close to meee as possible while he fought of some mutant strain of pneumonia.  I mean, he didn't want to cough on the woman to his left, he told me.  Tomorrow, I'm bringing an arsenal of Mucinex, cough drops, and Advil Cold & Sinus and telling him to pick his poison or this is going to be a loooong month.

The best part of this all though is that the windows to the room are sealed shut and there's another building about six feet away.  I felt totally suffocated (remember yesterday when I said I have breathing issues/OCD?) and passed the time while the Assistant District Attorney was outlining our duty as jurors trying to breathe as slowly and shallowly as I could, while mentally willing my heartbeat to slow down as well, thus limiting my oxygen intake in this toxic environment.  I think yogis can do it, why can't I?

Starring Me, as Pauly Shore

I've been picked for a jury.

(That Pauly.  He's so sassy.)

But not just any jury.  I'VE been picked for a graaaand jury.  That's because I'm grand.  Or unlucky.  2010 has yet to fully reveal its true colors.  Either way, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Allow me to share with you a little blog ditty that I jotted down on my blackberry while I lounged at the NY State Supreme Court this afternoon...

I'd got my summons in the mail right before Christmas (remember? The day my aunt passed?? Good day...).  Since that time, I've received varied (and sometimes conflicting) reports on how to get out of serving.  Two of my friends strongly maintain that jury duty is a gift from God and I should embrace this present with open arms and never look back.  Not surprisingly, they both hate their jobs.  Everyone else however, had more constructive advice.
     -Be Racist.  (Why no, Your Honor.  I haven't ever received a DUI...but did I mention I hate Mexicans?)
     -Say Your Friend/Significant Other/Roommate/Parent Is Currently On A Jury For The Same Thing.  (Well sir, the only thing I know about embezzlement is what my roommate tells me about the trial she's currently serving on.  This sounds exactly the same!)
     -Take The "Guilty Until Proven Innocent" Stance.  (An open mind?  Judge, if this man is here being tried for murder, he muuuuust have done something wrong in life!)
     -Play Dumb.  (I don't know.  I don't know.  I don't know.)
     -Play Smart.  (Oh!  I knew that!)
     -Play Pregnant.  (Pillow under the shirt anyone?)
The list goes on.

When I arrived at the courthouse-- in one of the more beautiful neighborhoods in Manhattan called "Chinatown"-- I was ushered through two sets of doors, a metal detector, and an x-ray machine.  Was I taking an elevator to my floor or a flight?  And what the hell kind of trial is this going to be that you're so worried about safety?  Upstairs, two more police officers checked our summons...summonses?  summoni?  I don't know...and the one with the dyed blue hair asked a gentleman to remove his hat.  Really lady?  Your hair is blue and all of the sudden you're worried about decorum and respect??

Once inside, I quickly snagged a seat by the exit, anticipating my release.  Unfortunately, everyone else had the same idea and crowded in the back.  A woman with an ass where each individual cheek well out-weighed my entire butt stood directly in front of me and encroached upon my personal space.  Side note: I love when people do that.  The front of the courtroom quickly turned into a college lecture hall, with everyone refusing to grab seats in the first few rows, the "splash zone" if you will, in a classroom.  There were no less than 80 people there who preferred to stand until 5PM than take a seat that had absolutely no bearing on whether or not they got picked.  Not that I can blame them.  I sure as hell wasn't sitting up there.  And just when I thought it wasn't crowded enough, two women showed up with suitcases.  I panicked.  Wait a second...how long are we here for??

However, the real treat were the two stellar citizens sitting on either side of me.  The woman to my right had a cough left over from the bubonic plague.  I could practically feel my immune system shutting down.  (Cue tiny men pushing levers into "stop" position and heading outside for cigarette breaks).  The guy on my right though, sigh, he was the real winner.  Right off the bat, I noticed that he smelled like something they use to preserve dead bodies.  Now I've never smelled a dead body per se, but I just know that scent was it, eau de no-decompose.  Then, he started breathing heavily.  Like...really heavily.  And I have a thing about people breathing on me: I hate it. My family thinks I'm crazy, and probably rightly so; it just makes my skin crawl.  I don't want my mom breathing on me if she hugs me, I don't want a boyfriend breathing on me when we cuddle (I also don't really want to cuddle while we're making a list of DON'Ts here), I need to crack the window in the car when I feel like it's getting too stuffy and I'm breathing in other peoples' air.  In short, I'm a nutcase.  On an airplane I have so many vents blowing on me, I look like a dog with its head out the window.  THEN though, he started letting these really gurgly burps rip.  I mean these babies were surfacing about every 45 seconds from his gut and it was disgusting.  I felt like I was sitting next to a boiling pot.  And nothing-- I mean NOTHING, not even breathing on me-- bothers me more than burping.  I just think it is THE grossest human bodily function.  I know it's normal and natural but it makes me want to throw up...which oddly bothers me less than burping.

Luckily, I got to leave my seat when I was called for the grand jury and had to go sit with the other members of my team.  As I headed up the aisle, I wondered what my chances were of getting to serve on the same trial as a hot guy.  Twelve out of...four million??  Actually, that's about three out of a million, and call me Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber, but I kinda like those odds.  They're probably better than my chances of meeting a hot guy on the subway and at least as good as those of meeting a hot guy at a bar.  Unfortunately however, the only men on my panel look like recently-escaped convicts or middle-aged business types.

But don't worry, I won't judge them too harshly right off the bat.  I mean, afterall, I'll be serving with them everyday FOR THE NEXT 25 DAYS.

Ah, New York.  Where dreams come true.

The Change Of Life

It's snowed in New York the morning of New Year's Eve.

This meant two things to me.  Firstly, I thanked God it was still 2009, because that kind of weather won't fly with me in 2010.  The holiday's are over and it's time for spring!  (Where's this global warming people keep promising me?)  Anyway secondly, it meant a fresh start.  I always feel like when it snows, everything is wiped clean and looks new and peaceful.  I couldn't think of a better way to wake up to a day of symbolically preparing for a new beginning than looking out my window at an empty canvas.

(That empty canvas will soon be painted with the urine of homeless men)

New Year's Eve is a time for reflection...before getting blindly drunk in an effort to erase the previous year from existence.  Unfortunately Facebook won't automatically delete any photos of said previous year at midnight of New Years Day, so I still know that there was a 2009 because of the 87 tagged photos of me holding martini glasses and Solo cups.  But I'll be damned if despite the "downs" of the previous year those pictures didn't capture some pretty amazing "ups".

Like the pictures of my friends and I taking shots in OCMD in August, the night that I fell, skinny-dipped, threw up, and showered myself off with practically no memory of the first through third things listed there, and absolutely none of the last.  Well, alright, I'm not totally convinced thaaat particular part of the weekend was an "up", but overall we had a great time.

Oh!  And earlier that summer when we had our celebrity encounter at one of my best friend's bridal showers.  Her mother-in-law had thrown her a beautiful party at a golf club near the puppy mill where Kate Gosselin churns out children, and who of all people should walk through the door with an "oh yeah.  You're seein' it.  This is hap-pen-ing." look on his face while our backs were turned but the much-loved Jon Gosselin?  He came.  We saw.  And many grandmotherly-aged women attempting to operate digital cameras definitely conquered.

Mmm, and how could I forget later that same summer at that same friend's Hamptons bachelorette party?  The naked man playing cards, the champagne pong, the bachelorette party t-shirts with "Hamptons" spelled incorrectly, the poolside lounging-- we have pictures of it all.  Unfortunately, there is also photographic evidence of some extremely drunk 20-somethings getting graphic with penis-shaped balloons, all of us dancing like wild women during a vodka-fueled power hour, wearing the pink streamers (that 24 hours previously we'd painstakingly decorated the entire house with) as substitute boas, and me, trashed and positively hysterical (and so, appearing downright giddy) with a stripper laying across our laps in a group shot.  However, among the weekend's attendees were a psychologist, a social worker, and a lawyer, so many, many pictures have been untagged to protect employment.

And who could forget the wildest, the craziest times that weren't ever photographed?  If you think I'm referring to the infamous Hammer incident...you'd be right!  While my long-suffering relationship with EB came to a close in early 2009 and LE and I broke up in a taxi cab on Halloween while he was high out of his fucking mind, I think 2009's REAL "Man of the Year" was hands-down The Hammer, if for no other reason than he is burned so deeply into the minds of my friends and myself that he will never ever be forgotten.  (It also helps that he is in town on vacation and texting the crap out of my phone to meet up.)  Hell, he might even be the "Man of the Decade"...we can take a formal poll later.

Ah, but the incident.  No, it's not one I've ever shared here before.  It's a...special one...one that I needed to reveal when just the right chord was struck.  Allow me to paint a picture:  It was an unseasonably warm spring day.  Hammer invited me out to dinner at a nice restaurant in the Meatpacking District and we grabbed a drink nearby at a fun outdoor hotel bar first.  When the check came, I almost offered to pay and then thought better of it.  I had paid partially for and/or brought something for our last three dates, he invited me out to do all of this, that night was on him.  Plus, at the time he was about to embark on his surgical career and I was still mostly unemployed.  We went to dinner.  He ordered appetizers and a bottle of champagne.  As per usual we talked mostly about him, he made some bad jokes, got none of my good ones, and blankly stared at me with Zoolander's Blue Steel face for the majority of the evening.  When the check arrived at the restaurant he took it, looked at it, and told me I was paying for half.  He always made awkward jokes like that so I laughed.  He laughed too and took out his card and put it in the book.  A few minutes later, the waiter walked by and attempted to take the check away and Hammer stopped him and told him we weren't ready yet.  The waiter walked away and Hammer looked at me again and said "So, do you want to put down your card or just give me cash?" I, still not getting it, laughed again for a second and then realized "oh shit" and sloooooowly reached for my wallet, waiting for him to stop me.  And yes I know I should've said no way-- he invited me, he ordered everything, and a man should never TELL a woman to pay for herself-- but I was so caught off-guard, I didn't know what to do.  We "went dutch" and left.

(By the way, I've been to Holland.  The only thing people went halfsies on there was weed and prostitutes)

The following day, Hammer was finding out his residency placement and I'd promised to go out and celebrate with him.  After the previous night though, I pondered my obligation towards him.  My friends and I tried to rationalize his rudeness but couldn't really make it seem right.  Eventually though, because I am a total schmuck, I felt guilty and decided to go out anyway.  A friend of mine (who introduced us, remind me to thank her later) and I went out for some drinks that night and then decided to meet up.  When we got there...well, he was drunk.  He wasn't fall-down drunk though, he functional and introducing me to people, but nonetheless he was in celebration mode.  Good for him.  We hung out and drank for several hours until it was time to head out.  He took one last congratulatory shot with his friends and we jumped in a cab back to my place.  Hammer passed out immediately, I went to sleep about 30 minutes later, roughly 2:30AM.

The next thing I knew, it was around 5AM and it sounded like someone was pouring out a glass of water on my hardwood floor.  I groggily rolled over and HOLYFUCK it appeared as if The Hammer was standing at the foot of my bed and peeing onto my floor and TV stand.  In less than a second I had the light on, the covers yanked back, and was standing beside my bed screaming his (real) name as yes, he waaaaas in fact standing at the foot of my bed, peeing all over.  My shrieking his name did not only fail to wake my roommates (thanks girls, glad nothing serious ever happened), but also to wake him from his sleep-peeing trance.  He simply turned towards the noise and proceeded to re-aim his stream all over my comforter and the clothes I had on the floor.  Then, he turned back to his original spot and finished up.  I was so angry that I ran into my bathroom, grabbed the toilet paper roll, slammed it at him, and yelled at him to clean up his goddamn mess.  Hammer stared at me blankly, put the roll down, and promptly got back into bed and fell asleep.

I cleaned up after him and then laid in bed fuming until morning, unable to relax.  Around 9AM, Hammer came-to and tried to snuggle with me.  I think I almost broke his ribs, I pushed him away so roughly.  When he asked what was the matter, I replied "you PISSED all over my floor last night!"  He tried to apologize, I wouldn't hear of it, and pretty much threw his ass out back to Hoboken.  Hammer texted and emailed a bunch the next week, at first seemingly sorry then getting more upset with ME that I didn't care to see him again.  At no point though, did he appear embarrassed.  This was apparently not the first time he'd done this late-night "pee"p show.  $100 in cleaning bills later, I still couldn't walk barefoot on that spot.

There is a lot of good I'm leaving behind in 2009, but I know that will be repeated and improved upon in the coming year.  There is a lot of bad I'm leaving behind as well, and I've left no forwarding address.  However, memories are memories and that year of trials and tribulations (a psychotic roommate and her even crazier mother, two bad breakups, a golden shower, being unemployed for the first six months, student loans going into repayment, Swine Flu) have made me a stronger woman.  A woman ready to take on all of the crazy times and positivity that 2010 is bringing my way.

And on that note, I've missed you all while I've been away.  I figured I'd take some time off since we're all busy during the holidays, but now we're back in action.  Strap yourselves in...I have a feeling 2010 is about to be a wild ride!

'Twas The Night After New Years

'Twas New Years Day, 2010 

Not a house guest was stirring, not even the men;

My stockings were hung on the arm of a chair,

Very drunk last night I probably tossed them there;

My good friends were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of champagne flutes danced in our heads;

Pizza on my nightstand, water there as well,

I foresaw a full day of feeling like hell,

When from last night’s clutch there arose such a clatter,

I groaned from the bed not caring what’s the matter.

Away towards the noise I crawled like a baby,

Had to stop the ringing driving me crazy.

The glow of the screen said my mom’s on the phone

Wanting to know what time train I’d planned to take home,

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a clock telling me it’s time to get out of here,

With a little cab driver, so lively and quick,

I got to Penn Station in less than a tick.

Jealous of my friends all at home taking naps,

I took the Jersey Transit train feeling like crap;

"Now, Newark! Seacaucus! now, Rahway and Linden!

Elizabeth! Metuchen! to Hamilton and Princeton!

From northern New Jersey! last stop is Trenton!

Now watch the gap! board the train! stops where mentioned!"

Couldn’t look out the window my head was spinning,

If I had to throw up would the crowd start thinning?

I munched barbeque chips to stave off the shakes,

Needing to feel better whatever it takes.

How many dirty martinis did I drink?

At least enough to black out I’d have to think.

As I pondered ‘09’s big last night mysteries,

I knew from my parents I’d get no sympathies.

I wore BCBG, from my head to my feet,

My hair day was perfect, my makeup looked sweet;

But when twelve rolled ‘round I got no New Years kiss,

Because no man could come between a glass and my lips.

My eyes -- how they’re bloodshot! my crushed curls how frizzy!

Just writing this down is making me feel dizzy!

And then come the pictures on Facebook, oh my,

It’s like ’09 never happened, boy how time flies;

There are pregame photos of the Goose and Bull,

Patron shots runneth over, road soda cups full;

Then Grey Goose martinis and then champagne toasts,

If they gave prizes for vodka shots, we took the most.

All the liquor was flowing down from the top shelf,

And I laughed when I saw it, in spite of myself;

My wallet is empty, my hangover free,

Some big karmic joke after drinking heavily;

Now at my parents’ house and this part’s the worst,

All the food here is healthy, for chips I could burst,

Give me pasta or pizza, something really greasy,

I can’t eat this grilled chicken I need my bread cheesy;

 
Though my lids grow heavy, and I dare not look back,

Time to dream of the future, ’09 fades to black.

But I know I exclaimed, as I cheers-ed our good time,

"Happy New Years to all, 2010 will be mine."