Career Girl

HOLY CRAP!!! 2008!

I just stayed on the phone with Bloke till the New Year rang in in NYC. We cracked each other up with our grossest possible phone kisses (think licking the receiver). Now I’m going with my sister to some house party that friends from high school are throwing, so we can ring it in out here. Could be fun. Could be tragic. Who knows?

I do know that I need to get out of the house ASAP. I’ve been here long enough that my goody-two-shoes facade is starting to slip and people (ok my Mom) are getting on my nerves big-time. Every morning when I wake up, I get the feeling that she’s been waiting outside my door for at least three hours, clutching a stack of recipe cards on which she’s jotted a list of possible conversation topics with which to engage me. She’s so sweet but seriously… who the hell can deal with that much attention I ask you??

This is my long-winded way of saying that I would have happily accepted an invitation to a New Years Eve hot dog eating contest, just to escape for a few hours.

It’ll be cool to see people. But can I just say that every person I’ve run into from high school looked really, really old! Maybe it’s the poor jean choices. Maybe it’s the hairdos. Maybe it’s that they all have kids already. Regardless, I have to say that I look a wee-bit fresher than the other girls, even Jeanette, the token boob job recipient in town (who should have saved herself the trouble and spent the dough on rhinoplasty, but ‘aint that always the way?).

Lest you think that this is some kind of conceited rant and that I’ve grown too full of myself, and really, how old could a group of twenty-somethings possibly look? I have two words for you…. SPIRAL PERM…

And with that vision dancing around in your head, I shall leave you. I wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

 

 

 

Pearls Before Swine, I Tell You!

1:45pm

Whenever I visit my family in the good ole’ Mid West, the townspeople delight in making fun of what they consider to be my ridiculous outfits. Even when I think I’m dressing down, they can’t deal. As is the custom in small towns nationwide, they express their feelings by yelling them at me as I pass. What makes it all the weirder is that they don’t even have the discretion to do so from a moving car! They feel free to do it in person as they walk by me in the mall/movie theatre/ grocery store, etc. Example: jeans tucked into boots (HEY! Nice Hip-Waders!), a billowy, tunic-y top (HEY! When Ya Due?), my shrunken leather jacket (HEY! I Love The Eighties!)

If only they knew that I have been secretly photographing their curled bangs with my camera phone. If I collect twelve I swear to God I’m making a friggin calendar!

A YEAR OF BURGER BANGS… Imagine!

Mama I’m Comin’ Home

8:30am

I’m doing a half day today to get things tightened up before I go see my family for vacation. My plane leaves at 4. I am so tired and burned out that I’ve decided to stay for the entire winter holiday. I don’t even care that I’ll miss out on New York New Years Eve (Bloke has a show anyway). I just want to sleep, eat like a pig and go thrifting/burger bang spotting with my little sister. I could honestly give a crap about fabulous parties! Sometimes a girl needs a week off to hibernate and carbo-load (not exactly optional at my parents house, as all meals include at least one kind of potato if not three). I plan to happily attend every hideous, inspirational movie that my mother suggests (even if it’s clearly for people under the age of 10). And I’ve promised myself that I will not make a stink about not being able to get a decent salad within a hundred miles.

Can’t wait to get out of here!

Relationship - Idiotic Behavior = Friendship

4:09pm

Ah… the dignified inner-workings of a budding relationship. How could I have possibly forgotten the sheer bliss? How could I have forgotten the insecure fumbling, the frequent free-falls into bottomless shame spirals, the subtle power struggles, the ever-changing emotional temperature of the relationship that demands constant analysis?

I’ll tell you how. The mind, by design, refuses to remember these details in order to propagate the human race. If any of us remembered this shit clearly we’d never have another relationship and civilization would fizzle out. Allow me to break it off.

Remember my weekend under the covers? Here’s how the following week played out.

1. Monday – Bloke doesn’t call.

2. Tuesday – Bloke doesn’t call.

3. Wednesday – Bloke calls. I play it cool. Too cool. Several days without a ring-ding-a-ling have hardened my heart and I backslide into my standard, emotionally removed, take-it-or-leave it phone manner. Blake hangs up sounding confused.

4. Thursday – Bloke texts me, CAN WE TALK? I fear a kissoff. But think - well, at least he’s ballsy enough to do an In Person. Bravo, or bully for you or what-the-fuck-ever.

5. Friday – meet Bloke for coffee after work, expecting some version of the “I’m not ready for a relationship” speech. Whereupon Bloke tells me that he’s totally into me and that I’m acting squirrelly and did he do something to freak me out? I guess he wondered if he had worn out his welcome by staying at my apartment all weekend (Oh yeah, he did stay at MY place. I kind of forgot that detail duh!). So he thought he’d give me breathing room on Monday and Tuesday, blah blah snore.

Yeah. Anyway the week was emotionally exhausting for both of us – when in fact not a dam thing happened. Tell me, will I ever grow out of this sort of thing? Or is this the nature of all relationships? Please tell me it gets less pathetic! Idiot shivers all around.

 

 

 

Hola Hades!

6:55pm

Claire is clearly punishing me for some unknown sin that I mindlessly committed in the recent past. And baby, it musta been ba-a-a-ad! She is making my life downright miserable lately! I only wish my atonement were four hundred Hail Marys or the like.

Alas, nope.

Instead, I had to fold my ego up into tiny pieces, stuff her into the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet and tell her to kindly keep her thoughts to herself while I stepped out to do a few errands. Even after I slammed that door shut I could hear her screaming “Quit, damn it! Quit right now. Ok, how bout right now? Or maybe now?” etc. etc…

An excerpt of today’s To Do list for your perusal

1. Go to Smythson and take a look at the personal stationery options. Describe the      best ones to Claire over the phone. Do not react as she declares all of my      suggestions “gross.”
2. Source some new and exciting snack foods with under 45 calories each, no sugar, no fake sugar, no dairy, no wheat, no dry ingredient of any kind and no water content. (I’m only lying about two of those things)

Isn’t that enough? No? Crap. Ok

3. Order a car to pick up Jasper at JFK where she may or may not get off a plane      she may or may not have bothered to board in Geneva. Speak to the (increasingly incensed) driver of said car every five minutes for a period of 6 hours until Jasper      magically materializes three flights later - rolling her eyes, snapping her gum (I imagine) and asking the driver if he has any weed (true!).
4. Talk to corporate appropriations about installing a bidet in Claire’s private bathroom. After watching something      on PBS about global warming, Claire decided that going toilet paper free (rather than SUV free I guess) is the least she can do. Apparently you can retrofit existing toilets with a device that leaves you squeaky clean and      Massengill fresh. Explain all of the above to an elderly schoolmarm/warden of a woman in the sub-basement as she glares at me and grimaces in disgust.
5. Take own life/Alt/Move home with mommy/Alt/Ben&Jerry’s + Bloke + Liquor + Possible screening of the inspirational film, Bring It On.

Born Again Virgin No More

 8:45am

Ok we did it. The lady reverted to tramp - a neighborhood with which I am much more familiar. I’ll spare you the details, and will say only that the experience surpassed my expectations. I will also reveal that Bloke got up, went to the bodega and returned with (his idea of) breakfast fixings which he proceeded to prepare and serve, to devastating effect (on both my stomach and my poor, poor kitchen). Though it was a very sweet and charming gesture, let’s just say I won’t be so much as looking at eggs anytime soon.

Despite being grossed out by his culinary shortcomings, I didn’t want it to end. So I uncharacteristically refrained from my normal dine and dash – and rather, lingered – basking in the afterglow…. When I came up for air it had been an entire weekend. Not exactly my usual (ok withholding) modus operandi. Yes, I know it may have been a fatal move. Please do not send me dating advice – I am all too clear. But trust me, I’m not proud. Oh - I also got a portrait of his face tattooed on my left butt cheek, was that bad?

 

Humiliation, My Old Dear Friend

3:28pm

Today was one of those three-steps-back days at the ole office. No, I didn’t screw up or anything truly heinous. It’s just that I’d started to believe that those days of Claire sending me out on demeaning errand after demeaning errand were behind me. Alas, not so. This morning, Claire sent me to Duane Reade, in order to peruse their selection of panty liners. She asked if I wouldn’t mind popping open each box, removing a liner, and rubbing it against my cheek to compare for softness. Ok just kidding. But she did make me go all over the city, searching for a particular brand of goat yogurt recommended by the lady that administers her COLONICS!!!

I’d better be racking up the career-karma points for this shit.

Ode To The Con Ed Grizzly Man Of Midtown

4:45pm

Ali and I went out to lunch today, which is never an easy thing to pull off. But the stars were aligned because both Claire and Joy were away. Ali’s hit rough patch. I guess she’s starting to realize that she’s outgrowing Jule but she’s just not quite ready to leave him. The tacky French maid costume definitely worked its magic and he’s off go-go bars for now. But Ali says that deep down she knows it’s too late. He’s sprung a leak and it’s only a matter of time before she’ll be bailing out buckets of water.

So I did my best to cheer her up by playing “there’s your boyfriend,” with every creepy guy on the street. Why do only trolls with shag backs feel compelled to wear shirts with a neck opening wide enough to display their furry splendor (arctic temperatures be damned)? I guess they’re always hot, seeing as how they come with a mohair sweater factory installed. Anyway, Ali and I were waiting for a light to change when the aforementioned goblin-man-grizzly hybrid pops out of a manhole. It was just like that carnival game where you hit the beavers with the hammer! I don’t know what he’d been doing underground but it couldn’t have been pleasant, because on top of loosing the genetic lottery he was also visibly crabby. “There’s your boyfriend,” I said, before I could stop myself. I have no idea how he heard me over the traffic but he was not amused (nor was he, apparently, interested in being Ali’s boyfriend). “The two of yez are skinny, ugly bitches, why dontcha eat something yez ugly bitches!” He bellowed.

There’s nothing like being loudly dissed by an ogre to give a girl her perspective back. Ali and I laughed our asses off for the next hour, while obediently devouring an obscenely huge lunch.

In Bloke News

9:20am

Things are going so well with Bloke that it’s definitely getting hard for me to keep my zipper zipped. True, I’m still enjoying the sexual tension – though I will admit it is becoming borderline twisted. He took me on a romantic carriage ride through Central Park the other night and it was so dreamy. Yep! And then he helped me diversify my portfolio. Just kidding. Relax. We’ve been going to lots of little rock shows (in a carriage! OK just kidding again), hanging out at the Waverly and Beatrice and basically being big make-out whores. Though it’s been a blast, I do believe my chaste run is winding down. My gut tells me that if I take it any further he’ll start to suspect that something is terribly wrong with my lady business.