The Seven Year Bitch
By GxxP
As the seven year anniversary of my move to New York approaches, I find myself reflecting on how much the city, and I in it, has changed. It is said that life is a series of seven year cycles -- what we like to eat, our career paths, and who we are as people are supposed to change significantly every seven years or so. Even marriages and romantic relationships are challenged at the seven year mark (although I would argue that these days that happens a lot sooner.) When I moved to the city in the summer of ‘96 I was an idealistic 23-year old from the Midwest who awakened every day in awe that I was living in the big city. Today, living in New York is something I take for granted, although in the manner of a curmudgeonly old-timer I am constantly comparing today’s city to the New York of my past.
This Saturday at the Yankees/ Rangers game I had one such opportunity. Stevie’s friends from Virginia were visiting for the weekend and purchased $20 seats for the game. When I first moved to New York my roommates and I would show up on game day, splurge 6 bucks on bleacher seats, and party like rockstars for 9 innings, or as long as we remained conscious. I’d heard that the bleacher seats had become alcohol-free during the Guiliani administration, so I hoped to recreate the bleacher section experience in a higher-priced section with superior views of the game. I was wrong. Today, $20 earns you admission to the cheap-family section, where single moms with outer borough accents placated their ADD sons with Crunch N Munch and soda. As I watched the birthday announcements and pre-recorded “family fun” segments on the enormous computerized screen, I missed the bleacher days where we drank bottomless cups of beer, smoked pot, and insulted the visiting team’s outfielders. I purchased a beer but drinking in the midst of nine year olds ruined the experience for me. I apologized to the out-of-towners, explaining that baseball games were far more captivating before Yankees Stadium became Disney World in the Bronx.
This month two city policies were passed that also gave me reason to complain. The subway fare was raised to $2 and smoking was banned in bars and restaurants. Again, I find myself extolling the olden days, when a subway ride was a buck and a half and you could do whatever you wanted to your lungs in the bars. Last week I went to a show at Don Hill’s and watched as a fire marshall policed the bar twice to ensure no cigarettes were dangling for the lips of its pack-a-day patrons. When Fishbone took the stage a moshpit formed, and I found myself swept into the body-jarring chaos, partly because I felt like was getting away with something illegal.
The New York I live in today is cleaner and safer than it was when I arrived. Even my neighborhood, the East Village, once home to squatters and drug users, is a place I am proud to show my parents. When the Gap moved into Astor Place I remember how appalled we all were, thinking that it would never stay long. That was about six years ago, and it‘s still there, now joined by a Kmart and an Ann Taylor. Thompkins Square Park is a place for birthday parties, not to score heroin. This is good, but it makes me wonder -- where is the seedy underbelly of New York today? It’s not in the bars, it’s not on the sidewalks, it’s not in Thompkins Square Park. The subways are graffiti-free; there aren’t even as many rats roaming the sidewalks anymore. Where did they all go?
My friend, a native Manhattanite, recently told a tale of how he collected crack vials as an adolescent. In his lifetime in New York, he's seen a lot more change than I have in a mere seven years. Still, we all have our crack vials of memories that we miss when they're gone. When I moved to New York, Summerstage was free, Times Square was a place to buy sex, and paying 8 quarters for a game of pool was unconscionable. As New York has cleaned up its act, city-dwellers have paid a price. Only time will tell whether or not we're getting a good deal. In the meantime, newcomers to the city may have to endure tales of smoky bars and drunken baseball games from the lips of people like me. Don't dismiss us too quickly -- if we bitch enough, maybe someday this city will be delightfully sullied again.
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Chivalry is Dead, and I am an idiot.
By Jen
I don't know anything about cars.
I mean...I drive one, so I know how to do that. I can put gas in it, though I've proven that I lack skill at that as well. Carba-what-a-rator? Transmission who? I'm absolutely clueless, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before this cluelessness was put on display for all to see. Hence my little incident last week.
At about 9:30 PM last Wednesday evening, I pulled into my parking spot at home. I turned off my car and started to head off, dreaming of a nice calm night of couch surfing and relaxation. I was stopped in my tracks however when I saw that both the brake lights AND the parking lights on my car were still on. Confused, I began turning levers, pushing knobs, and generally fiddling with anything that I thought might be the source behind the unwanted illumination. I turned the car back on, and then off again, a process that I repeated several times to no avail. I got out the car manual, and found nothing in the "trouble-shooting" section that pointed me in the right direction. I began to to fear that they would never go off, and I would either just have to let my battery die a slow death, or I would have to sleep in my car, periodically turning it on so I could preserve the life of my battery. While I was madly fiddling with all the levers and knobs in the car, my friend Jeff called me. I thought, "Perfect! A boy! He will definitely know what to do!" Unfortunately he immediately informed me that he knew nothing about cars, suggested the possibility that I might have blown a fuse, and told me that he had to run because he had to get back to "The Bachelor." Thanks Jeff.
Next I called my parents, the previous owners of the car, in hopes that one of them had experienced a similar conundrum at some point during their ownership. I figured that perhaps they might have a quick remedy readily available. When my father answered the phone he became immediately frustrated with me, and ordered, "Look at the manual and figure it out yourself. You're a big girl." My mother sensed my panic, got on the phone, and told me to drive to a gas station and find a nice blue-collar boy to help me out.
So I did just that, and I had to go to four gas stations before I could find anyone who would give me even the slightest bit of assistance. Granted, it was late, and the service areas of most of these gas stations were closed, but aren't people who work at a garage at least supposed to know SOMETHING about cars...and if they don't...shouldn't they at least PRETEND that they know something about cars? I mean really, poke your head in the car, fiddle with a few buttons, do anything!! Lord knows I wouldn't know the difference. Instead, when asked for help, four brawny men, some with dirty greasy hands, pleaded ignorance when asked if they knew anything about cars. Finally I found a nice guy at a Shell station who agreed to help fix my car. Mind you, I use the term "fix my car" loosely, as all he did was poke his head in the window, look around for about two seconds, and flip a random switch under the steering wheel. Then he laughed at me. My humor gone at that point, I thanked him nastily, and pulled away with the sound of his mocking laughter ringing loudly in my ears.
I'll leave the obvious issue of unchivalrous men aside for the time being, and move on to a more important one: Why in the hell did Subaru install a small switch on the underside of the steering wheel that permanantly illuminates the parking and break lights on the car? Why is this a practical feature? I can't think of a single instance in which I would ever have the need to turn those lights on permanantly. Maybe it was just some jokester over in the engineering department at Subaru who wanted to bring a little humor into the lives of his auto mechanic friends. I suppose I'll never know.
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Three Times a Lady
By GxxP
A few months ago, I was on a cross-town bus headed towards the East Village. When we got to Astor Place, a young couple boarded. The girl – young, blond, and barely 21 – did not have enough money for the fare. As she scrounged through her purse and her boyfriend emptied his pockets, I leaned across the aisle and offered her some coins.
She enthusiastically thanked me and paid her fare. As the bus plunged ahead down 8th Street, I gazed out the window, pleased with myself for my good deed. The girl was pleased too, and I overheard her remark to her boyfriend, “How nice of that lady to give me her change.”
Wait a minute. How nice of that lady? The compliment stung like an insult.
As an undergraduate student at University of Illinois in the early 90’s, my Peoria vernacular was soon adapted to the wave of political correctness that flooded the Midwestern education system. “African American”, “Asian”, and “Native American” were all terms I quickly adopted. I will never forget the reaction from my cultural studies class when I proudly announced that my boyfriend was “Mexican”. A brown-skinned girl seated next to me looked at me as if I’d declared that I enjoy public lynchings. “It’s Mexican-American,” she corrected. Suddenly I realized that every word I uttered was being weighed in the minds of the students around me – one small slip, or absence of the word “American”, and I was a racist.
Although I tried desperately to adjust my speech, there remained a category of terms that I never fully embraced. In my women’s studies class, we were taught that we were women, in spite of the fact that I was 19 and still felt very much like a girl. A friend of mine who had left the heartland to pursue a career at Smith reported back to us how great it was to be a “Smith woman”. Those of us left in the cornfields snickered at her new phrase. No matter how un-PC it was, we were girls, and we were proud of it.
Now, nearly a decade later, I still think of myself as a girl. Other people, however, do not share my sentiments. Since the bus ride, two other people have called me a lady. One was a mother in Whistler who asked her son to “get out of the lady’s way”, and the other was a guy in Vegas who sidestepped me en route to the slots ("Excuse me, lady"). Apparently the term “lady” is not favored by a particular region, gender, or age group. Everyone uses it, and lately, everyone seems to be using it in reference to me.
I don’t know what upsets me the most about it – the docile connotation of the term, or the fact that it makes me feel fucking old. A lady drinks tea with white gloves, not tequila shots. A lady goes to bed in curlers and an eye mask, not wearing the same outfit she danced in for three hours at Irving Plaza. A lady does not use the F-word with reckless abandon, nor does she hang out on Avenue C. Remember these things, dear friends, the next time you call someone a lady. You just might not know who you’re talking to.
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The Thong and I
By Yomama
Ten months ago I joined “The Widows Club.” Now this is truly one of the shittier sororities to belong to. For months I walked around feeling as if I had a huge black “W” tattooed on my forehead. Being the extra person at dinners and movies at the insistence of your friends is both a wonderful and an awful thing – wonderful that you have friends willing to drag your ass out of the house and awful being an intruder in a couple’s world. I never imagined myself in this role, let alone at 54. Take it from me – it sucks.
But, the time eventually came when I felt that I just might want to go out on a date. Ha! My grown daughter informed me that the dating world had changed a LOT since the 60’s. She sat ME down to have “the” talk. Online dating. Sport-sex. Condoms. Bikini Waxes. I had a lot to learn. Good grief, was I really willing to subject myself to all this crap? I hadn’t used a condom in 30 years! And then it was only to prevent babies. She then pointed out that my underwear had to go. Old lady undies wouldn’t make it if you wanted to get laid. So, a trip to Vicki’s secret and $300 later, I was laced and thonged and ready for anything. Now, all you tiny tushies out there may look good in a thong, but alas, this behind is NOT what I would want to see, or God forbid, show off. Fifty-year-old mothers don’t wear thongs. We have cellulite, droopy buns, spider veins, and extra tonnage. However, my daughter assured me that by the time any man sees you in a thong – he doesn’t care how you look from behind because he’s too busy ripping it off with his teeth!! (This visual appealed to me as it had been too many months!!!)
Well, my thongs and I wound up in Aspen for a month of skiing. March spring skiing can get pretty warm and on this particular day the mountain temperature was well into the 40’s and I had skied hard. When I arrived home at my condo, I stripped off my clothes and sauntered into the living room to open a few windows. The place was stifling. I was adorned in – you guessed it – my thong and a t-shirt. I was admiring my mountain view when the front door opened and in walked a Latino male housekeeper. What? They don’t know how to knock in Colorado? I was like a deer frozen in a car’s headlights. Nowhere to hide and he stood between any possible escape and me. But, did this guy do a u-turn and bolt out the door? Did he act embarrassed? Hell NO. He just parked himself in my living room and attempted to converse in bumbling English. There I stood with my thonged ass to the windows – no way could I turn around – desperately trying to find the words for “Get the fuck out of here” in Spanish and this guy was asking me what supplies I needed for the kitchen. Six years of Spanish in school and do you think I could come up with the vocabulary for garbage bags or dishwashing detergent? Ha – fat chance. I guess this type of thing must happen a lot because he didn’t even bat an eyelash as we bungled through our conversation. Well, after what seemed an eternity, I had communicated my kitchen needs and he left. Knowing that he’d soon return, I WAS smart enough to put on some sweat pants. 15 minutes later there was a KNOCK on my door… and there he was with my garbage bags and Cascade. Mission accomplished.
And then 45 minutes after that there was another knock. This time I opened the door to find a GORGEOUS young stud standing there with MORE Cascade and garbage bags. Shazaam - Hot Mama in 1522! Obviously, my reputation had spread. (Good thing I never let the first guy see my thong from behind.) I really should have dragged the hottie in by the hair and hopped his bones.
I think I’ll go brush up on my Spanish.
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A victim of overly-ambitious scheduling, I dashed out of class a few weeks ago, late for a concert. I hailed a cab on 6th Avenue and 12th Street, and proceeded north ten blocks, where we were halted by a stoplight. A 50-something Asian woman approached the passenger window, and the cab driver lowered it. The woman shouted something unintelligible and motioned with her hands as if she were expecting something. I thought nothing of it, until my driver responded.
“No! I know you! You do this to me before! Remember me?!”, he shouted in an accent I can only describe as "Island", adding, “Get the fuck out of here!”
“Go to the curb, go to the curb,” she muttered, retreating.
The light changed and we lurched onward, our quiet ride violated by the episode seconds before.
“She do this to me before! Same woman!” He looked out the window to check the street. 22nd. “It was the same street! She ask me to take her to West 4th, and she get out of the cab, and she start PRAYING! ‘Oh god oh god help me!’, she say. She kneel in the street! She pay me nothing!”
“How often does that happen, someone stiffing you like that?”, I asked. “Like, once a day? A few times a week?”
“Oh, no, maybe a few times a year,” he said. “Another time! Another time I have a woman try to give me,” he turned around and stuck his hand towards me, indicating he was holding something very small. “She give me a little thing, a little, she say, DIAMOND, and I say, ‘I cannot take THIS! I need seven dollars!’. And she say, ‘But this is worth MORE than seven dollars!’. And I say, ‘I don’t CARE, you pay me seven dollars!’”
“Did you get the money?”
“No, I did not get the money! They never give the money!”
As we approached Madison Square Garden, he spoke again. “You know who it always is? It’s always the women. The women who – not nice women like you,” he looked over his shoulder at me. “The women who don’t have the boyfriend. They don’t have the sex anymore. I can see it in their eyes. Always these women!”
I wondered where he got off assuming I had the boyfriend. I also wondered where he got off thinking that being single could make you crazy (or cheap). But by sheer statistics, I figured he could be right. He had seen it and I hadn’t – he apparently knew the type. The vision of undersexed women stiffing cabdrivers all over town amused and depressed me at the same time.
We pulled in front of the ballroom, and the fare was five and a teeny. I gave him seven, not to compensate for the fares lost, but to give a little extra tip for the story. Despite the fact that I missed the opening act, my night was off to an entertaining start.
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My Dad Made Me Shit On My Favorite National Monument
By Yoda
The day after my father died I searched for a sign - a sign that he was okay; a sign that I would be okay; a sign that any part of the whole damn universe was still okay. In the midst of all my terror and confusion, I’m pretty sure any old sign would have done. But on that day my Dad sent me an honest to God S-I-G-N. A sign too real, too pure and too sacred to try and put into words. But from that time on, I have known my Dad is with me. I feel him everywhere. And while some may say it’s a coping mechanism, no one will ever be able to prove me wrong. Sometimes, though, I feel the need to prove it to myself again. So every now and then I ask him, “Daddy, are you with me?”
When I first started asking this question, it was a little creepy. Getting used to the idea of always having your Dad around can take some getting used to. “Daddy, are you with me? If you are, could you please leave – I can’t poop in front of anyone, let alone you.” “Daddy, are you with me? ’Cause dead or not, Dad, it’s sick and wrong for a father to watch his daughter shower.” I have come to apply the same logic he held in his life to his afterlife – there is no way in hell my father wants to watch me doing certain things. Taking a shower, going to the bathroom and God-willing, having sex are all things I believe my Dad makes every effort to avoid watching me do. But he is around for damn near everything else. Sometimes when I ask him if he’s with me, it will start raining. Other times, I get dive bombed by a bird, or awakened by moonbeams so bright they seem to be powered by Pacific Gas & Electric.
Now, in addition to having an affinity for nature, my Dad had a wicked sense of humor, and an equally wicked case of colitis. (/Ko-lite’-us/ n. Sudden freak attacks of diarrhea that invariably lead to either: A) funny shit stories or B) mortifying shit stories. ) Last week while visiting Muir Woods - the most glorious national monument we have – the national monument that truly makes you realize how small we humans really are – I proved once again that I am my father’s daughter. Maybe my Dad is just plain sick of having to prove to me he’s around. Maybe he was having a particularly shitty day up there in heaven. Whatever the case may be, his point was made. He is with me. And now, a piece of me will always be with Muir Woods.
Here’s how it all went down…
10:00 – Brunch. I order the house special – lobster & crab omelet with champagne caviar glaze.
10:35 – 16-year-old cousin starts asking lots of questions about my Dad’s death.
11:15 – 16-year-old cousin still asking lots of questions about my Dad’s death.
12:00 – We arrive in Muir Woods.
12:15 – 16-year-old cousin asks yet even more questions about my Dad’s death.
12:16 – I feel pretty blue. I ask, “Daddy, are you with me?” Any sort of sign would really help me through all of these questions…
12:17 – (Dad decides to say hello.) Stomach starts to rumble.
12:18 – I break out in full body goose bumps and cold sweats.
12:19 – Excruciating crampage – no doubt about it, diarrhea has entered the express lane.
12:20 – I decide to make a run for it. (Dad starts to laugh. “Does she realize how far away from a bathroom she is?!?!”)
12:21 – I see a sign “1.8 miles to Muir Woods entrance.”
12:21 – “SHIT! FUCK! PISS! FUCK! SHIT” is suddenly heard throughout the forest.
12:22 – (Dad grabs Granddad Gene. “You’ve gotta see this, Dad!” he exclaims. She’s gonna have one of my world famous colitis attacks!”)
12:23 – There has been a breach. There is a shit ball in my pants.
12:24 – I look left. I look right. I scurry off the trail up the side of a hill and hide my ass inside a giant Redwood. (Dad starts laughing so hard, a tear rolls down his cheek. Granddad pats him on the back, “That’s a great one, son!”)
12:25 – Massive Ass Explosion.
12:35 - I am still defecating on a national monument. I have reached an all-time low.
12:36 – I realize that Muir Woods is not a deciduous forest. There are no leaves.
12:37 – I start to cry. I’m 29 years old and I have shit my pants and I have shit on my favorite national monument. The day officially sucks. (Dad tries to track down Cousin Buddy – he’d really get a kick out of this, too.)
12:40 – Strange things are used to try and clean myself up. Sticks, pinecones, pine needles…things that don’t belong near your sphincter. Ever.
12:47 – I look left. I look right. I make a break for it and scurry back to the trail.
12:49 – In the middle of my 1.8-mile walk to the bathroom in my shit covered pants and my shit covered underwear, I realize I also have shit covered hands. (Dad thinks about feeling guilty, but the thought passes and he continues to wipe his tears from laughter.)
1:01 – I arrive in the National Park bathroom, where paper products are considered an environmental evil.
1:02 - “SHIT! FUCK! PISS! FUCK! SHIT” is suddenly heard throughout the forest.
1: 15 – My favorite underwear is thrown away.
1:16 – 16-year-old cousin’s trip to Muir Woods is cut short – must buy new pants immediately.
1:17 – (Dad pats himself on the back for pulling this little stunt when a family member was with me so the event will forever be immortalized.)
Nice to hear from you, Dad. Next time a goddamn bird or some freaky flower will do just fine, okay?
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At 10:15 AM yesterday morning I arrived at the Department of Motor Vehicles on Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles. I had taken care of my registration and license on previous visits, and was only there yesterday to perform what I thought was the simple (and quick) task of "picking up my new plates." Turns out the task was as I had originally thought, quite simple. It was unfortunately about as far away from "quick" as one could ever imagine.
"I'm here to pick up my new license plates," I told a gruff looking woman sitting behind a gigantic sign labeled START HERE.
She looked over my paperwork. "Well you still have to wait in line," she remarked with disdain, as if she thought I was trying to infer differently. "Here is your number, please take a seat."
I glanced down at a slip of paper labeled #B163. "Excuse me," I said, "Could you let me know what the expected wait time is?"
She pointed up to a monitor that was flashing #B42. "Honey, she grinned at me, "your guess is as good as mine."
I looked out at the waiting area. It was filled with countless disgruntled DMV patrons, all of whom were wearing horribly pained expressions on their faces. I quickly calculated that B42 was 121 numbers away from B163 and immediately matched the pained expressions of my fellow DMV-goers with an equally, if not more, pained expression of my own. I sat down next to an old woman who was sleeping rather soundly. She was clutching in her liver-spotted hand a slip of paper bearing the number B61. In desperation, I briefly contemplated swapping her number with mine, but immediately abandoned the notion as I decided I'd rather avoid going STRAIGHT TO HELL.
Since I had wrongly assumed that my visit would be a quick one, I had neglected to bring with me a book or magazine with which to occupy my time. I did however bring my trusty journal, and kept a detailed account of my time at the DMV. I had to suffer through the experience, and now you do too.
10:30am (aka # B42): DMV is crowded, and the old woman sitting next to me smells very bad. Gross. Unfortunately, there are no other seats...Oh wait...There's one! Shit. Not fast enough. God she stinks.
10:45 am (aka #B63): Smelly woman has left. Good news too! It seems that the numbers are moving rather fast. I have hopes that I'll be out of here by noon...at the latest.
10:55 am (aka #B63): I was wrong about the fast moving thing. All but one of the DMV workers have gone on a break. Smelly woman has also returned. I think she forgot to fill something out. I just saw that she now has #B185. Ha. Sucker.
11:15 am (STILL MOTHERF*&KING #B63): What in god's name is #B63 STILL DOING AT THE COUNTER??? I hate B63. Hate him.
11:20 am (aka #B65): OK...he's gone, and some of the hard working employees have returned from their break. We are back in business.
11:27 am (aka #B73): I just witnessed a young child steal the pacifier out her baby sister's mouth, wipe it all over the dirty nasty DMV floor, and place the pacifier back into the baby's mouth. It was all over before I could wake the mother up to warn her what was happening. The mother is, incidentally, still asleep, and completely neglecting her young children.
12:15 pm (aka #B103): Finally some excitement to pass the time. In a scene right out of "America's Dumbest Criminals," a man with (what I deduced anyway) a warrant out for his arrest, just attempted to register his car under his real name. What an idiot. His name was apparently flagged, and the police were clandestinely alerted. The California Highway Patrol just chased him around the room for a bit before finally catching and arresting him. Hee Hee. The police looked funny running around like that.
Shit...I just realized it's after noon. I suppose being finished by noon was a lofty goal...1 pm. I'll definitely be out of here by 1 pm.
12:45 pm (aka #B124): I just got back from the restroom. Sort of like when you're at a restaurant and you go to the restroom, and then return to see that your food has arrived, I hoped that when returning from MY trip to the restroom the numbers would have miraculously advanced to somewhere a bit nearer to #B163. They did not. I did learn something very important as a result though: Never go to the bathroom at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Ever. It was so disgusting that I vow now to never speak of it again.
1:15 pm (aka #B143): There is a group of children conducting stroller races across the floor. Their parents seem to think that running over the toes of strangers is perfectly acceptable public behavior for young children. Actually, I am so bored at this point, that quite frankly I'm considering joining in. It slooks like they are having fun.
1:20 pm (aka #B149): Had to change seats. The frightening bearded man that was sitting next to me just wouldn't stop touching his leg to mine. I was sitting so close to the edge of my seat to avoid this that I fell out of my chair.
1: 45 pm (aka #B160): I just spent the past two minutes expressing my excitement about how close we were to #B163 to the stranger that was sitting next to me. After going on for quite some time, I asked her what number SHE had, and realized as a result of her response that she did not speak English, and quite likely did not understand a word that I was saying for the past several minutes. God I need to get out of here.
2:01 pm (aka #162): I'M NEXT. I'M NEXT. I'M....
2:15 pm (aka who the hell cares what number they are on): I'm sitting in my car preparing to drive back to the office. I'm going to try not to think about the fact that I just waited four hours to accomplish a procedure that took about four minutes. At least I succeeded in my task. I am now the proud owner of a shiny new set of California license plates. I am so excited to have them in my posession and be leaving the DMV, that one might think I just acquired something much more spectacular than two rectangular pieces of metal. Who cares...all that matters is that I am DONE.
Goodbye DMV...till next year anyway.
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Am I more offensive in LA, or is LA just offensive?
By Jen
There are many reasons why I love living in Los Angeles. The sun, the laid-back lifestyle, and the cute surfer boys who walk around my neighborhood wearing no shirts, are just a few of those reasons. After last night however, I feel very strongly that "people you meet while enjoying the LA nightlife" will never be added to that list.
Don't get me wrong. I always have a good time when I go out. My friends are absolutely wonderful, and our nights out together never fail to be a blast. It also doesn't matter where we are, we always manage to have a great time. I've had equally fabulous nights at seedy bars as I've had at any trendy nightspot. (In fact I largely prefer the seedy bars to the trendy nightspots.) So obviously, my problem with the nightlife is certainly not due to the people I'm with, and not even necessarily the establishments that I'm in. The problem lies solely with some of the other bar patrons that I've had run-ins with. It shouldn't really surprise me - I knew what I was getting into when I moved to LA. I was completely aware that Los Angeleans are a very different breed of people than New Yorkers, but my GOD some of these people...WOW.
Now I know that I can be sarcastic, but then again, so is everyone else in my circle of friends. A considerable portion of our time together is spent making fun of one another, and more often, ourselves. Because of this, I tend to assume that all people surrounding me will have the same sort of mentality. My sarcasm, combined with the fact that many people in LA are quite simply just ridiculous, led to several situations last night where I was offensive to others for what I considered to be no good reason whatsoever.
Situation #1: Jen offends small man wearing ugly crocheted yellow hat
A young man sporting a horrible yellow hat sruck up a conversation with me and began telling me about the road trip he was about to take:
"We're headed down to Tijuana first, then we're off to Arizona to Lake Havisu, then to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and we're ending up in Fort Lauderdale in time for Spring Break," he said with a lascivious grin on his face.
"So," I replied dryly, "You've basically chosen vacation spots based solely on whether or not MTV has hosted one of their spring break extravaganzas at that particular location."
"What exactly are you implying?" he asked nastily.
"Well," I responded, "It's either that, or you're actively in search of underage girls who will flash you their breasts if you give them a beer."
"What is your problem?" he asked me. "That was out of line, and offensive. I'm outta here."
He leaves with his road trip buddy, presumably to go locate some unsuspecting big-breasted women. If he had followed me to the bathroom, he wouldn't have had to look very far.
Situation #2: Jen offends a group of moronic girls with fake breasts.
While waiting in line for the ladies room, I overheard what I wrongly assumed was a discussion about George Orwell's 1984.
"....It's like, um, about this society that supposed to be set in this like, alternate future. Where the government like watches you all the time. Except they like call it Big Brother or something...." (giggles)
"Oh," I chimed in, " are you guys talking about Orwell's 1984?"
Silence. Eye rolling.
"Um, like NO," one of the girls responded with a toss of her poorly dyed hair. "We're talking about a, like, television show."
"Oh? Is it based on the book 1984?" I asked.
"Like what are you talking about? I said it's a TV show," she responded and sighed in exasperation at my apparent ignorance.
"Ok...well, just never mind, I thought you were discussing a book. It's really not important."
"What are you implying? That we don't know about books and stuff? Let's get out of here," she says to her posse of nitwits.
I shook my head and entered the stall.
Situation #3: I attempted to give someone a dollar.
"Does anyone have a dollar?" A blond pony-tailed surfer boy asked. "I ran out of cash and I need to pay for parking."
I happened to have a lone dollar bill in my pocket and offered it to him.
He looked at my dollar as if it was a big steaming pile of poop. "I'm not taking your money!!" he spat back at me, "I don't even know you, and you're a GIRL."
"Um, I'm sorry, if I'm not mistaken you just stated that you needed a dollar for parking. I was trying to be nice."
"I know what I said, but I'm not taking it from YOU! I don't want your fucking money."
He then stomped out of the bar in a huff. I put the dollar back into my pocket and returned to my game of Golden Tee.
Now I realize that PERHAPS situation #1 was my fault. Telling a stranger that he was chasing 18 year old drunken party girls around the country probably wasn't the nicest thing to say, but his hat was so ugly, and he seemed like such an asshole that I couldn't help myself. The other two situations though...come on...I'm pretty sure that I was perfectly polite to those big-boobed morons, and for christ's sake, I offered the angry surfer MONEY. Offering someone money is always nice. Isn't it? Isn't it?
Perhaps I just have to realize that I should keep my mouth shut and stick to having a good time with my existing friends, but I truly think it's worth the risk to put yourself out there and try to meet new people. It can't be possible that LA is completely void of interesting and intelligent strangers. I just know that they must exist. I will not lose hope. At least not yet...
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We live in an interesting time. Television news programs and reality shows resemble Saturday Night Live sketches. The most trustworthy news source on my BBC-less cable lineup is Jon Stewart's Daily Show. When “real tv” reaches the surreal and Comedy Central produces the most thoughtful political commentary du jour, I can’t help but think something is amiss in media today. Frustrated with the world as I know it turning upside-down through the picture tube, I set out on Saturday to experience a media event through something other than my television.
I attended the peace demonstration at the UN, spawned by a combination of curiosity and idealism. I am not a political activist; I am merely a person who is disheartened by war. I realize, based on my limited knowledge of history, that war is probably inevitable. But that doesn’t stop me from holding onto the hope that the world’s problems could be solved without bloodshed. Clearly there are a few hundred thousand people in New York, and a few million people around the world who, at least on Saturday, shared my hope.
I arrived late, joined by three Brits who, like me, were nursing a hangover. My friend Beth was already on the scene, instructing us by cell phone which route to take to meet her. By 2 p.m. the demonstration area was teeming with people, who spilled into the streets and avenues far beyond 49th Street and 1st Avenue. Police had barricaded the streets as far up as 60th Street and Lexington Avenue, where we arrived. Latecomers like ourselves were denied access to the throng of people three avenues away. We wandered up to 66th Street, where we finally crossed eastward along with a growing crowd of fellow walkers. By the time we were midway down the street, my friends and I looked at each other with excitement and surprise. So many people were walking down the car-less block that we were, in fact, marching. Despite the fact that the city did not grant the organizers the right to march, that was precisely what we were doing.
At each avenue we gained more people, and although we were swept up with the chanting (“This is what democracy looks like!… Tell them what democracy looks like!”), we were a bit confused about where we going. With the speakers and main stage of the rally sixteen blocks south of us, our northward path seemed counter-intuitive. Harlem? La Guardia Airport? The Guggenheim? I couldn’t imagine what important political destination lie on the Upper East Side or beyond. Still, we eagerly followed the crowd.
As we arrived at 1st Avenue and turned southward, it was finally clear that we were joining the other demonstrators downtown. By this time it was 3 p.m. and the temperature had dropped to “I can’t feel my thighs”. Huddled in a mass of bodies, we tried to keep warm, entertained by the signs brandished by our fellow marchers.
Hippies, hipsters, and high school kids were among the diverse crowd. Regardless of everyone’s purpose for being there (anger towards Bush, disgust with war, picking up your morning bagel at the wrong time and getting swept up in the sea of people), it was empowering to take over the streets that were normally bustling with buses and cabs. On one street we passed two cars, their drivers and passengers looking at us with curiosity and some degree of impatience, but not with the fear that has permeated the city for the past “Code-Orange” week. A friend of mine was further uptown and witnessed a violent skirmish between police on horseback and the crowd, but downtown with the Glamericans (more on them later), the peace march was exactly that -- peaceful.
Although I hadn’t given much thought to what I was getting into on Saturday, once I was there it became clear. I was a small part of a greater whole, and came away with a profound respect for the drive of my fellow New Yorkers. When I could no longer feel my hands and my friends’ bellies ached for brunch, we left the demonstration. We walked away with a small feeling of accomplishment, and a short list of the most memorable signs we saw that day.
Anti-Pres
Even though I’m not a big fan of the Pres, it shocked me to see how many people chose anti-Bust sentiment for their signs. Ranging from unflattering cartoons to the more direct, here are the highlights of this category:
-Stop Mad Cowboy Disease
-VotetoImpeach.com
-Bomb Texas They Have Oil Too
-The Idiot of Mass Destruction
-Bushit
-Stop THESE Warheads (photo of heads of state)
and our favorite, Eat Another Pretzel, Asshole (raised high by a bearded 30-something in a mesh cap)
The Old Standards
Beth, while waiting for us to arrive, had encountered some guitar-strummers who lead a round of Kumbaya. This, she believed, was a little too much. For me this moment came when I heard the cracking voices of Caucasians singing We Shall Overcome. I suppose every war protest is going to have its share of the old standards. This trickled down to the following signs:
-Veterans Against War
-Not In My Name
-No Blood For Oil
with some timely newcomers, phrased as questions:
-Is the Media Pro-War?
-Would We Go To War if Iraq’s Export Was Broccoli?
The Glamericans
Perhaps the highlight of our day was encountering the Glamericans, a posse of drag queens and their fashion-fabulous friends. Bedecked in feather boas and snakeskin cowboy hats, the Glamericans were chanting “Makeup, Not War”. Even their posters were adorned with feathers, and the following catchy slogans:
-Glam Not War
-Baby, I AM The Bomb
-War is So Last Century
-My Sign’s Peace, What’s Yours?
-Sexy Peace
-Botox, Not Bombs
Los Angeles Checks In
When I returned to my apartment I landed on the CNN on Steroids channel, which was covering the demonstration in LA. Martin Sheen and Rob Reiner spoke in support of the US Troops, but with the hope of a peaceful resolution that will keep them safe. As the correspondent shouted to the camera over the din of the crowd, one left-coast rallier held a sign with Hollywood flair. I See Dead People, it read. Only in LA.
Who knows if any of this will make a difference. Even though millions of people gathered worldwide to voice their pleas to stave off war, I have a feeling it’s going to happen anyway. When and if it does, there will surely be more of these in the future. I should start thinking now about what my sign will say. There’s a lot of competition out there.
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Me 'n My One Night Friends
By GxxP
Wednesday was a typical New York night. By typical I mean it was unpredictable – the people I was supposed to meet bailed on me, soon to be replaced by strangers. Beth and I met for a game of pool at Tribeca Tavern, a dark bar on a triangular block between three of Manhattan’s quietest downtown streets. The owner bears a strong resemblance to James Gandolfini of Soprano’s fame, and the bartender is a voluptuous blond who looks like she’s killing time before her late night shift at a strip club.
When we arrived, a small crowd of displaced 9 to 5’ers had already claimed the front room of the bar, giving the tavern an air of post-work boredom. We immediately fed the mediocre jukebox (filled mostly with songs you play at the end of a long night after all of your first choices have played twice) and sauntered to the back room. The back room was more our speed – it was home to the worn red felt-covered pool table, and devoid of any people. We played a couple of games, catching up on our day, our cramps, and our plan for the rest of the night.
Solitude in a New York bar rarely lasts, and soon we were joined by three men who looked more like thugs than Wall Street types. They introduced themselves as Leo, Jimmy, and Elliot, and challenged us to a game. In the years that I’ve played pool in this town, I’ve come to find that there are two types of players – nice people, and assholes. I prefer to play the first type, regardless of their skill level, although when forced to play opponents of the second variety I do take some pleasure in trying to beat them. There’s nothing better than knocking someone’s ego down a few notches, especially if he’s a misogynist ass whose name you only gathered from the list on the chalk board.
Leo, Jimmy, and Elliot were of the friendly sort, although they did indulge in some paternalistic “Here’s how you should have taken that shot, little lady”-type remarks. I didn’t let it bother me because they were chatty in between their bouts of advice-giving. Leo stood 6’5’, and was on call for his job as a bodyguard for a Dominican phone card mogul. His shots appeared effortless, and as he bent down over the table he looked like a giant in a dollhouse. Jimmy and Elliot were much smaller in stature, and once Leo was summoned to meet up with Phone Card Carlos, they joined us for a beer.
Elliot, sporting a red hooded sweatshirt and gold chains, proceeded to explain internet advertising to me. “When you type in a website the person who owns the website gets money every time,” he said. “I can’t really explain it but my brother told me how it works.” I was too bored to tell him I’d been in the industry for four years and it didn't work that way. I received no salvation from Beth, who was deep in conversation with Jimmy. When the room fell silent, I leapt from my seat to feed the juke and abandon the internet tutorial.
By the time I returned to our table, “Your Time Is Gonna Come” was playing at full volume. I was flooded with the memory of a six-hour drive to Southern Illinois to pick up a date that wasn’t my first choice. My first choice (and my first love) had cheated on me with my high school nemesis, leaving me dateless and heartbroken for my first college dance. Led Zeppelin I had played on a continual loop during that drive, and I used an entire box of Kleenex, my heart pouring out of my body in the form of tears and snot.
“This is the song that I played a million times after Chris broke my heart,” I said to Beth between lyrics. I left out the part about how it was the worst pain I’d ever experienced at that point in my life. It was the breakup that forever changed me, the one where I realized that love is not forever, that it ends, even when someone makes you a promise that it never will. I had meant every word of that song on that tearful drive, but never could have imagined how his time would actually come.
“Where is he now?” Elliot asked as the song drew to an end.
“He’s dead,” I said, offering no information other than how sad that made me.
“I know how you feel,” he replied, and while Elton John sang “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”, Elliot told me the tale of his sister, who died from AIDS in the days when Chris was still alive. “When her boyfriend got out of prison he gave her the disease,” he explained. “We told her not to go back with him but she didn’t listen.”
Jimmy joined in with his own tale of suffering. He, too, had lost a sister to AIDS in the ‘80s. She had contracted the disease from a deadbeat boyfriend, a man who Jimmy, an otherwise forgiving person, hated. “He’s probably dead now,” Jimmy said, “and I don’t care.” His kind face twisted into anger, then sadness, as he told his sister’s story. I realized that I’d never felt hatred like that, not even for an 18-year-old boy who introduced me to heartache. Not even close.
As the room filled with other drinkers, our conversation seemed out of place among the happy chatter surrounding us. A professionally-dressed man and his girlfriend started a game of pool, and I looked to Beth, who was frowning. “We’re late for our friend’s party,” she explained, and we all took a final swig of beer. Jimmy asked us for our phone numbers, in that fleeting moment when you think an evening could be repeated if only you have the right combination of ten digits. We settled on giving him our email addresses – Yahoo accounts, not our less anonymous work ones – and bid them goodbye. We then set off into the cold winter night, in search of people and music that would make us smile.
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Do you Smell Gasoline??
By Jen
“Jen, do you smell gasoline? It’s really strong…Yuck.”
This is not a question you wanted asked of you while sitting at a fancy client dinner at The Ivy at the Shore in Los Angeles. This is especially not a question you want asked of you when you are the individual who had been doused in gasoline in an unfortunate incident earlier in the day, and therefore are a cause of the offensive odor.
Yesterday I had yet another of the infamous clumsy days that Gina has documented so well in “Jen’s Clumsy-time Journal.” I would usually just add to the journal, but I believe the extreme nature of the events that happened yesterday deserve their own recognition.
When I awoke at 5am yesterday morning, I was aware that the day was going to be hectic. I had a client visiting from Sacramento, and was staring down the barrel of a day full of meetings, followed by a huge dinner party that I had organized for a bunch of people. The client that I was picking up was a self-proclaimed cheapskate, and asked that I pick her up from Burbank airport and then shuttle her around town all day in order for her to save on the cost of cab far or a car rental. I agreed, anything to please the client, but warned her straight out that I had just moved to LA, and did not know my way around at all. Frightened of getting lost, I plugged all my destinations into Mapquest, and was armed with a stack of directions the size of a small novel when I arrived at Burbank Airport to pick her up. It was while I was waiting for her in the pick-up area when I had my first incident. I was waiting in my car, distracted by Howard Stern, and was startled when the security guard snuck up on me and pounded on my window asking me to move my car. I was so startled in fact, that my incredibly hot cup of coffee flew out of my hands and landed nicely in the middle of my passenger seat, spilling all over my car, myself, and more importantly, all over my directions. Luckily they were still somewhat legible, just quite wet. When my client showed up, whom by the way I was meeting for the first time, I was frantically trying to wipe up the coffee on my skirt and the passenger seat with a tee shirt from my gym bag. I greeted her with an overly-enthusiastic “Hi there! Nice to meet you.” She eyed me warily and hesitantly sat down on the just-clean passenger seat.
Due to the smeared and coffee stainded directions, I got lost several times on the way to my meetings. I managed to cover up my mistakes somewhat as my client did not know her way around Los Angeles either. She seemed to think that it took 45 minutes to travel what was supposed to be about five miles. After the long morning finally ended, I frantically rushed back into the office, late for a lunch meeting. I entered the dark, and very quiet, conference room where the meeting had already begun, and sat down quickly in the only available chair. I was shocked to realize that someone had used said chair as a resting place for their plate of half-eaten pizza and salad. I jumped up, yelled “SHIT!!” in front of everyone, and excused myself to the ladies room to clean myself up. I returned to the meeting embarrassed and pizza stained, and thought to myself, "This day surely can't get any worse."
I spent the rest of the afternoon driving my client aimlessly all over Los Angeles. As I dropped her off for the last meeting of the day, I realized that the frantic driving had drained my gas tank, and I needed a fill-up so as to not run out of fuel on my way to my big client dinner at The Ivy. I rolled up to the Shell station, and began pumping. As I reached down to fix the strap on my brand new pair of red leather sling-back stilettos (BCBG...and very NICE), the gas hose came flying out of the tank and proceeded to douse me from the waist down. I was soaked with gasoline. Literally soaked…it was dripping off my skirt, and had pooled in my shoes. I stood there for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for someone to acknowledge what had happened. Unfortunately, the only person who saw the incident was a woman who appeared to be a prostitute, and even she was looking at me with pity. There was no gas station attendant to be found to help me out, and the station was one of those with only a small booth in which to pay, therefore offering no bathroom where I could take refuge and clean myself up. I whimpered quietly, wondering what the hell I could do. I didn’t have time to go home, and I HAD to attend the dinner. It had been planned for weeks, many people were coming, and I was the glue that was holding all the attendees together. I rummaged through my gym bag, found a pair of yoga pants, and proceeded to change into them while seated in the driver’s side of my car. I put my shoes in a plastic bag, and angrily threw my coffee/pizza/unleaded fuel stained skirt into the trash with a flourish. I called ahead to the office where I was to be picking up MORE clients that I was meeting for the first time, and told my boss what had happened. My explanation was met with silence and absolutely no compassion, so I forged onward. I returned to work, and spent about 20 minutes in the ladies room putting together an outfit that consisted of the aforementioned yoga pants, the shirt that I used earlier in the day to clean up the coffee in my car, a leather jacket (you know...to dress up the outfit a bit), and a pair of running shoes. I unfortunately still had no access to a shower, so I attempted to wipe the gasoline off my legs with paper towels from the women’s restroom. When we got to my car to leave for the restaurant my client informed me that I did in fact smell quite bad, and offered me some of her perfume to help mask the smell. I thanked her profusely, and, not realizing that the cap was already unscrewed, poured the entire bottle of Chloe onto my arm. It was then that I cried.
After the story of my being doused in gas came out at dinner, I had to sit through two hours of people making fun of me. The waiter went to light a candle…everyone at the table screamed “NOOOO!!” One particularly funny client asked the waiter to pretend that I was disturbing the neighboring table with my odor. I was not amused.
I woke up this morning with a fresh outlook on life. After all…it was a new day. Unfortunately, my sunny disposition quickly disappeared quickly. As I sat down at my desk this morning, my contact lens popped out of my eye and when I bent down to pick it up, I rolled over it with my chair, rendering it completely useless. As I type this, one eye is clear…the other blurry, and I have a low-grade migraine as a result.
Good times.
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Arrested Development
By GxxP
I recently had a cell phone conversation with Jen that went a little something like this:
Jen: Hey girl, wassup?
Me: Busy day at work, but I’m chilling at home right now, about to meet the Brits as Hi-Fi. Hey, it’s 6:30 in LA, where are you?
Jen: I’m in my car.
Me: Wait a minute – does this mean you’re wearing one of those wacky headsets so you can talk while you’re driving?
Jen: (hesitates, giggles) Yes.
Me: (joins Jen in fit of laughter)
The week before I had spoken to Jayme, who was driving around Peoria with Syrus her dog along for the ride. As she gave an amusing blow by blow of a drunken Santa swaggering around the Toys R Us parking lot, I couldn’t help but find the whole thing so strange. Not only are my friends calling me from their cars, but they have cars, period.
I’ve been receiving a lot of phone calls lately that have given me pause. People calling me from their cars, or calling me to tell me they’re looking at houses, or asking me if I’m aware of how low interest rates are right now.
The answer to that question is NO, I haven’t been following interest rates, in fact I only recently appreciated the state of interest rates when my little brother called me from Wyoming to calculate the mortgage payment on a house he and his wife recently bid on. Yes, the same kid who was known for industrious yet unauthorized use of our father's credit card during his teen years is about to buy a house. Upon hearing news like this, my immediate reaction, after congratulating my friends and loved ones on taking the Next Big Step Towards Adulthood, is, “Am I ever going to grow up?”
I live in a playground for adults, in a city where anything you want is at your immediate disposal. As I watch my friends who live elsewhere enter adulthood, I begin to feel as if I’m suffering from some sort of arrested development. I go out a lot, I hang out with my friends, I shoot pool and smoke pot, and sometimes address my co-workers as “Dude”. I’m the only person I know who made a new years resolution to quit the gym. I live in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in which every square surface is covered with a book, a CD, a photograph, or a sock. It’s a lot like my apartment in college, minus the slacker roommates. I don’t own a vehicle, and when I’m home for Christmas, I utter seven little words that bring me right back to high school: “Hey Mom, can I borrow the car?” I’m thirty years old. Is this a bad thing?
I guess compared to most people who share my demographic, yeah, it might be a bit strange. Over the years when I’ve returned to Peoria for holidays I’ve watched the local watering holes get emptier and emptier of people I know as they settle down, get married, have children, and forget what the inside of a bar looks like. I’m far more likely to see someone I used to baby sit in a Peoria bar than someone from my high school class.
Then I return to New York, and am welcomed by the open arms of innumerable 30-somethings just like me. I have settled down in one of the last communities in America where a 30-year old single woman is not considered a pariah, in fact, she's considered pretty smart. I have married friends here, but they’re really cool married friends, the kind who seem more like fun roommates than two people conjoined until death do they part. They, like my single friends, are a constant source of intellectual stimulation and good old-fashioned fun. Married or not, we’ve all embraced the collective culture that comes with living in a big city. We traipse around neighborhoods, befriending local business owners, chatting with strangers, constantly keeping our eyes and minds opens for new experiences.
I’m not saying that people that live elsewhere don’t embrace exploration, nor am I saying that mortgages and car payments an adult make. I do however know that when I’m away from the music, ideas, and excitement about life that I share with the friends I've made in New York, I want to get back to them as quickly as possible. My friends challenge me, they teach me, and they have a way of saying the right things at the right time. While expressing to Stevie my fears that New York City is a catalyst for arrested development, he broke it down like this. “I wouldn’t say arrested development,” he said. “It’s more like… prolonged young-adulthood.”
Although that could be just a matter of semantics, looking at the issue a little deeper, I realize that New York living has a way of keeping you young. I’m not just a 30-year-old, car-less, renter. I’m a 30-year-old, car-less, renting New Yorker, and I am all of these things by choice. There are plenty of years ahead of me in which I can pay car insurance and buy a house. Of course I probably won’t even be in NYC when that happens, because for starters there are no houses in Manhattan, and cars that aren’t painted bright yellow with a “For Hire” sign on their roof do not belong here. But when and if that day arrives, and I do finally join the ranks of my married, home-owning, driving peers, I’ll think back lovingly to this colorful mess of an apartment, the three block walk to Hi-Fi, and the cast of characters awaiting me there. As far as I’m concerned, adult life doesn’t get much better than this. I plan to prolong it for as long as I possibly can.
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In a moment of boredom during Christmas week in Peoria, I got an idea. I will apply to grad school! Perhaps this revelation was inspired by two of my close friends, Jayme and Glenda, who after suffering through months of unemployment in New York City, decided to apply to law school last year. I stood idly by, offering words of encouragement while they took hours of practice LSAT tests, scoured resources on the schools most suitable to their needs, and penned essay after essay during the application process. As impressed as I was by their ambition, I couldn’t help but think, I’m so glad that’s not me.
It was funny, then, that this idea hit me, and even funnier that I decided to act on it. It started with research I conducted from my dad’s computer on Christmas Day and ended eight days later when I sent off my application to an MFA program at a New York University. Only a week had passed, but much had happened. Not only had I managed to compile 30 pages of prose, compose (and re-compose) a personal statement and book review, and gather three letters of recommendation and my college transcripts, but I also finally understood what Jayme and Glenda had been going through over the past several months… hell.
This experience was challenging for a number of reasons. For starters, I didn’t exactly have a lot of time. How was I supposed to know that in order to go to school in September you have to apply by January? I’ve been out of college for nearly eight years and forgot how this works. Which leads me to another reason why this was hellish. I’ve been out of college for eight years. I have no academic references pertinent to what I’m trying to do – not only would my college psychology professors not remember me, but they wouldn’t have a hell of a lot to say about my potential to become a creative writer. While gathering essays for my writing sample wasn’t hard – an extensive cut-and-paste session on this website yielded far more than the required 30 pages – honing it down to material that didn’t mention wanton drug usage, porn, or me making an ass of myself proved to be a difficult task. And that was the material that I had at my disposal – there was still much to write beyond the creative sample. I’ve never written a personal statement, and am humbled to report that my first draft was the schmaltziest piece of writing I’ve penned since I got drunk on peppermint schnapps and wrote my holiday cards. (All two of them.) With the help of friends, I cleaned it up, at least into something I wasn't humiliated to submit.
The clock was constantly ticking, and I was keenly aware of how many days and hours I had until the deadline arrived. I holed myself away in my apartment for the entire weekend, leaving only once Saturday and once Sunday, both times to get food. I may have taken one shower. I was sleep deprived, and was a slug at work Monday and Tuesday. I struggled to dedicate myself to my job while my future as a Woman Of Letters hung in the balance -- plus, I had a book review yet to write and 30 pages of text to edit. At night I conferred with friends, all of whom had a different angle and opinion and didn't hesitate to share it with me. It got to the point that I didn't want to talk about it anymore -- the more I talked about it, the more hopeless I felt.
Still, I got it done, and accomplished in eight days what most people take months to do (and now I know why.) I have many people to thank, in words and free drinks, for their help. I'm sure that the kind souls who wrote my letters of recommendation had plans for their New Years week that didn’t involve getting me get into grad school. Two of my three letters I picked up in a bar – and that’s only because the third person I enlisted to vouch for me forgot to bring her letter to the New Years Eve party. Perhaps the aroma of champagne wafting from the page will intoxicate some unsuspecting faculty member into accepting me into their program.
To be honest, I have no expectations of getting accepted, and even if I do, I’m not even sure that I will go. I know that makes this whole process seem like a waste of time, but it wasn’t. At my age I feel some sort of social obligation to apply for graduate school – it seems like a rite of passage not unlike the thirtieth birthday party or the day you decide to take men home with you only if you really like them. The most important thing that I gained, besides the knowledge that I’d like to start taking writing classes again (although not necessarily two full-time years of them at the staggering price of $7-15K a semester), was the experience itself. In one week I vacillated between a wide range of emotions, from, “Yeah! Graduate school! I will walk among the academics, sipping coffee with fellow creators and pontificating on Things That Matter!”, to, “My writing is shit. It’s so shit, that it’s not good enough to get me into a program that will help me improve my writing. I’m doomed, forever shackled to the advertising industry and the vapidity of Corporate America. Woe is me!” I felt all of these things and more, sometimes within the same minute, which made for an emotionally-charged week.
I have no regrets about this past week, other than the tornado of activity I subjected my friends and loved ones to in order to get through it. I don’t like doing anything half-assed, so the fact that I applied to grad school in only a partially-assed manner makes me feel like I’ve actually accomplished something. I’m not sure what this holds for my future, if anything, but I do know that it was a worthwhile experience. It feels good to think about the future beyond next weekend, to ask yourself what you want out of life and assess what you need to do to get it. It's downright character-building to scoff at the odds stacked against you, roll up your sleeves, and just try. Most importantly, it feels damn good when it's over. Those present at Mickey’s Blue Room last night can certainly attest to that. (I was the deliriously happy girl drinking vodka-ginger ales and singing Eminem lyrics into my pool cue.)
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It's a sign, I just know it is
By Jen
Three days before my departure from New York City, I received a sign from the heavens that my move to Los Angeles was the right thing to do. The sign wasn't a traditional one. It didn't come in the form of a blinding light or a loud thunderclap, but instead in the form of a former child television star. Pretty much everyone I know is familiar with the odd and ever-continuing connection that I have to one Mr. Danny Pintauro , former star of one of the finest television programs ever to grace the small screen...Who's the Boss? Well folks, you'll all be happy to know that this connection is ever present, as was witnessed in an absolutely extraordinary event that occurred on Nov 21, 2002.
Gina and I had attended a karaoke birthday party for a mutual friend of ours that evening. After a night of singing and drinking (more drinking than singing), we stumbled out into the wee hours of the morn on the streets of the Lower East Side. We needed food, badly, and Gina happened to remember that there was a late night pizza place right down the block. We headed out with the hopes that it was still open, and were both thrilled to see the neon lights still flashing. As we walked into the pizza parlor, I found myself being pushed out by Gina, who was so excited about something she could barely speak.
"DANNY PINTAURO IS IN THE PIZZA PLACE!!!" she yelled.
I could barely breathe. I mean REALLY. What are the chances? The odds that I would keep running into the same child star over and over and over again are slim to none. Gina calmed me down (sort of), and we forged ahead into the pizza place. It was clear that we HAD to talk to him, but since I was rendered speechless by Danny's presence, I forced Gina do my dirty work once again. She sat herself right down next to Danny and his friend, and explained the situation. It's possible that he had a vague recollection of us, but he couldn't recall anything concrete about me, our mall date, or anything else regarding our former run-ins. I fear that he might have thought were were slightly crazy, or at the very least, stalking him. The fact that his director in A Queer Carol had emailed me after seeing the last Danny-related Bitch Sessions entry luckily seemed to validate our story at least a little bit. He was very gracious, chatted with us for a while, and shouted a "Good luck in LA!!" in my direction as he headed off to an after hours club.
That was it. All doubts about my decision to move were erased. I just kept repeating, "WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?" "Good luck in LA," he said. What more could I need? It was perfect. Gina likened the experience to a religious one, stating that she might now belive in god due to what happened that night. She informed me that I might as well leave the next morning, as anything further that would go on during my goodbye weekend would just be anti-climactic.
It turned out that the rest of the weekend wasn't anti-climactic, it was wonderful. I enjoyed a great night out with my friends on Saturday, followed by a tearful goodbye on Sunday night. I headed off on Monday, sad to leave my friends, but knowing full well that I was making the right decision.
Thank you Danny. Thank you.
I arrived in LA four days ago, and have spent the majority of my time thus far either at work or driving around marveling at the fact that I own an automobile for the first time in many years. My LA experience up until last night was limited to time spent in Hermosa and Manhattan Beach, my office building on Wilshire Blvd., and the area in between Hermosa and Manhatten Beach and my office builiding on Wilshire Blvd. I ventured out last night for the first time to meet a friend in Hollywood. I made it to the Cat and Fiddle without incident, and proceeded to have a lovely dinner in an adorable Melrose Place-ish courtyard. (There's nothing like eating outdoors in 70 degree weather in December. ) Our peaceful meal was interrupted suddenly by a small commotion in the restaurant, and I realized that an entire area of the outdoor courtyard had been entirely cleared of people. We were then informed by a fellow restuarant-goer that Tori Spelling had arrived. Sure enough, I looked over into the empty area and saw a tiny waif-like girl placing what appeared to be small party favors at all the tables. We guessed that she was having a party of some sort, a fact confirmed about 10 minutes later with the arrival of a large group of beautiful people, all who appeared to be talking on cell phones and kissing each other on the cheek. Could it have BEEN any more LA?
Now mind you, I am in no way putting the Tori sighting on the same level as the "sign" I received from Danny. Really though, what better way to kick off my LA experience than to eat dinner a mere 10 feet from Donna Martin from 90210? (Another one of the best shows ever to grace the small screen.) I took it as another celebrity sign. Someone is trying to send me the message that I am supposed to live in Los Angeles. That someone is sending me the message through former celebrities who made their names known with their performances in now-defunct television programs. It appears that these signs will come only from celebrities who fell off the radar immediately following the cancellation of the very shows that made them famous. Who's next? Kirk Cameron? Gary Coleman? It could be anyone. I'll be keeping my eyes open.
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Jen and Gina's Celebrity Prison
By GxxP
Last night Jen and I were talking about Michael Jackson’s recent antics, and out of genuine concern for him (and his children), we concocted a plan that would put his children out of harm’s way. Basically we decided he should go to celebrity prison, a land with no plastic surgeons and by god! -- no minors. While we were at it, we decided we should also remove a few other celebs from society, but not necessarily for the same reasons as Michael. Therefore we created several different security compounds to which we’d like to send a few people who may have spent a little too much time in the limelight. Here is our proposition.
People who should be removed from society:
(This is the maximum security compound, as these celebs are an endangerment not only to themselves but others. A few of them are highly unstable, so in order to get them to move to the prison, we will need to take an approach not unlike when you send an oddball relative to the mental hospital for a much needed respite. We need to make the impending outing sound like fun -- like Neverland Ranch, or an NRA amusement park; we then ship them off to celebrity prison, lock them up, and throw away the key.)
Michael Jackson
Mike Tyson
Charlton Heston
Courtney Love
O.J. Simpson
People we just need a break from:
(This is the minimum security prison. These inmates are allowed to make personal phone calls, finger paint, and some of them are even committee chairs.)
Jocylene Wildenstein, aka the Cat Lady
Liz Taylor
Liza Minnelli (and her gay husband)
Paige Davis from Trading Spaces (and her gay husband)
Fiona Apple
Mariah Carey
Anne Heche
William Shatner
Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie
People who need a legal guardian:
(Well, it’s just one person. She’ll have her own cell decorated with animal print rugs and a big pink bed. And her own bathtub.)
Anne Nicole Smith
People who need solitary confinement for purposes of ego reversal:
(This category speaks for itself. A few months in solitary and maybe these people will realize they are not the center of the universe.)
David Cassidy
Barry Williams (aka Greg Brady)
Diana Ross
And finally, People who should stage their own death:
(This is merely to spare us from careers that should have been over
