Career Girl

SORRY SORRY SORRY

To my 5 and a half loyal readers - my sincerest apologies. I have a week and half of posts sitting here that have not gone out as they should have. They've all been hanging out in typepadland as "drafts" rather than posts. Normally this wouldn't have gone unnoticed by moi for so long - but as you know, my new position is kicking my proverbial badonkadonk and I'm slippin up here and there - FORGIVE!
I am posting them all now - which I know will seem weird - but trust me it would seem weirder if I were to hang on to them and dole them out slowly (I'd rather have all of us on the same page thank you very much).
Love love
CG.

Pretentious Foods

5:50pm

I don’t know about you guys but I have a very pedestrian palette. I am not ashamed to say that down market foods are generally my fave. I’m very dude friendly in this way, and can happily survive in a tour bus eating only fluorescent foodstuffs for up to seven days (at which point I waddle off the bus and pour a jar of multivitamins down my throat). Anyway, I can accept that many of the fancier food out there are legitimately delicious to others. But there are a few things that I honestly wonder if anyone really likes. Or, are they just trophy foods that one has to automatically add to ones menu-rotation once one’s salary creeps toward the mid six figures? 

Things I accept that people actually like (but I hate)

1. Pate
2. Truffles
3. Escargot

 Things I sometimes think people are gagging down in an effort to appear richer

1. Caviar
2. Foie gras (yes I know this is just pate + torture)

Sure, some of you will insist that caviar is beyond yummy - but would you still be singing that song if Beluga were a buck fifty a pound?

And another thing – it just so happens that I don’t automatically find meals tastier when they’ve been molded into a cone. Please explain - when did a cylindrical salad become more desirable than a salad shaped salad? Guess what? I don’t relish the mandatory hunt for structural toothpicks required to ensure my mouth not be skewered, prior to taking a tentative bite.

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Getting warmer, warmer…ok, cold. Cold!

11:45am

So it’s finally warm here in New York City, but not enough to warrant the borderline nudity of my fellow female subway passengers. Dunno about you guys but I actually started dressing down once I move to the city. I’ll never forget the first time that I squeezed in to a teeny tiny ensemble, stepped outside, and hadn’t made it a third of the way down the block before a garbage truck drove up over the sidewalk and nearly crashed into a building so its driver could get a better ogle/holler. So now I tend to cover up a bit more unless I’m doing door to door car service.

Let me take this opportunity to tell everyone that I’m officially over the shorts trend. Sure they look adorable on all of you who tastefully pair them with tights and heels. Sure it’s exciting to mix it up once in awhile. But inevitably, much like the ladies far and wide who embraced the low-rider jeans phenomenon when clearly it was not in their best interest – so too are shorty-shorts a slippery slope. Now, girl – I know you’re hot. I know you sweatin grrrrrl. But how refreshing can it possibly be to have ALL that bare leg sticking to the subway bench?? And honey this isn’t the gym - it’s not like sanitary wipe dispensers are peppered throughout the train to help with sweatiquette. I swear to God, shorts on the wrong gal are a public health risk.

 

The Happening Happening

9:18am

So last night I went to this gallery thing where 20 of us listened to a new electronic musical piece through 20 separate pairs of headphones. The “music” consisted of an adorable Asian girl playing an exotic instrument that I will simply call “nails on a chalkboard”  for a period of 14 minutes, followed by 6 minutes of sampled (bovine) mooing on a loop.

So that’s over. Guess I can die now.

The event was super over attended, and like I said - there were only the 20 pairs of headphones. So the rest of the people in the room were pretty much standing around in complete silence with nothing to do while the lucky 20 of us listened. It was like the lamest invisible velvet rope in the world. Like, I’m in - and the person standing two inches away from me is out.

As is always the case with such things, IN was mediocre-to-crap. Though one did feel a certain amount of pressure to make it look like one was having a swell time. That’s sort of the unwritten VIP-room- rule. You can’t just go around blabbing that IN isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and that OUT, for all intents and purposes, is where it’s at. Can you?

 

Rational Shmational

11:00am

Nothing makes me angrier than a cheerful pair of whimsically decorated Wellies worn by an adult woman. There is something very infuriating about a grownup sporting a pair of pink rubber boots covered with daisies, ducks, hearts or the like. It makes me want to kick said lady in the shins and say, “Toughen up already, there’s nothing cute about this world, chickadee.” Is that wrong?

I’m sure everyone has at least one item of clothing that inspires irrational hatred within them (please tell me I’m not the lone bitch here!?).  Some detest clogs (both crock and non), some abhor Birkenstocks (even the “high fashion” metallic version trotted out by the nice folks over at Kors), and some hate all variety of man sandal… Ok, so those examples were all footwear, whatever.

What’s interesting (ok disturbing) about my Welli-mosity is the ferociousness of the feelings. Each time another Welli-woman skips past in her pink, shiny-glorious splendor, I pray that her perky little tootsies, marinating in their pastel-sweatbox-gulag-of-a-boot contract a vicious case of athlete’s foot.

Fine. OK… I’ll bring it up in therapy. Geez. 

 

 

Gee, Your Hair Smells Like a Rats Ass

9:55 a.m.
One of the best/worst things about New York City is its uncanny ability to pick up on, and amplify whatever kind of day I might be having. For example, on the days when I’m feeling frail - like I can barely bear to leave my apartment, I become completely invisible to other New Yorkers. So much so, that by the time I arrive at work I will have been pushed, shoved, flat-tired, and elbowed into a whimpering mess. On the other hand, on the days I’m feeling Alpha, every single person on the sidewalk miraculously yields to me. I glide effortlessly through the sardine-shuffle-cluster-fuck transfering to the six train. Cabbies give me free rides, photographers snap pics of my outfit for the On The Street section, and once, the Mister Softy dude floated me an Eskimo Pie on account of my overall bad- assedness.
Now that I know that looking fragile is the equivalent of taping a kick me sign to my back, I try to hypnotize myself into the ballsiest possible version of CG.

So this morning, when the wind from the arriving train kicked up my hair, I tried to take it to a glamorous place, imagining that I looked like one of those old Scavulo shoots where the models were always shaking their tresses over a fan… til I noticed the Rodenticide posters everywhere and realized that the wind in my face was almost certainly kicking up toxic chemicals, particles of rat droppings, and (hey, since I’m going there), particles of dead, recently poisoned rats. And just like that my runway moment was o-ver and I was little miss poopy-pants again.

Anyway, the city’s antenna is NOTHING compared to Claire's sick, sixth sense.  If I'm having a bad day, she can smell it, and she loves nothing more than taking it to the next level. So, mere moments after I arrived at work with my rat shit blow-out, Claire sent me out  to fetch her some fat-free Total yogurt. As soon as I stepped outside, a two-hundred-pound man slammed into me, knocking me on my ass and spilling his coffee (iced, thank you Jesus) all over me - pretty much drenching my entire outfit. The best part was that even though I looked pathetic, with ice cubes literally falling out the bottom of my shirt, I knew I still had to get that fucking yogurt.

The Ballad of Natasha

12:00pm

Today I just can't get it up to do any actual work.  For the last two and a half hours I've been browsing for Russian brides. This years Top Model got me obsessed. As I peruse, I've been calling up every gay guy I know and begging him to please get one.  I cannot imagine a more perfect arrangement!! Some poor girl could get the hell out of there, and in exchange I'm sure she'd be willing to do a couple loads of laundry and sling a mop. Especially when she figures out that she doesn't have to give it up to some nasty old, saggy butted, pregnant gutted man living in his Ma’s basement in Queens.

(I Don’t Wanna Go) On the Good Ship Lollypop

2:20pm

Well the clock is ticking for Naomi. Remember how she said  spring would be ready to launch by the end of the month? There’s only a week left and she’s starting to crack. Sadly, like many women before her, she’s taking it out on her eyebrows. You can actually tell a lot about a woman’s mental stability by looking at her brows. If I had adequate time I’d whip up an eyebrow decoder graph – but alas, I have to take a cab 50 blocks to go pick up an order of those green beans that Claire likes from La Esquina. So here is the abridged version (you are welcome):

Sparse Brows = anxiety disorder.

Caterpillar Brows = diagnoses range from simple case of the fuck-its, to homicidal conspiracy theorist.

Overly Contrived Brows (male or female) = major sexual dysfunction (can occasionally be fun).

Paralyzed “Platypus” Brows = insecure narcissist (an unfun time will be had by all).

Naomi’s eyebrows have been manically yanked out entirely, and then drawn back in with a shaky hand. They look nervous – like two miniature (failing) lie detector tests. It really is the icing on the cake as far as her overall look goes. I mean at this point, she’s running the risk of being mistaken for a performance artist every time she leaves her apartment. Allow me to paint you a picture. Today, she was wearing… a sailor dress. Yes a woman in her mid-40s wearing a sailor dress. Where does a grown woman even get a sailor dress outside of a fetish shop? I hate to say this because I know it’s sick and wrong, but the only conclusion I can draw, is that somewhere in Manhattan is a store that specializes in clothing for the mentally handicapped adult, Shirley Temple Black fan. Sure it’s a niche market, but this is that kind of city!

I honestly have no idea how Naomi will play her cards. For me, this kind of thing would be no big deal, we’ve all had to face our boss at one time or another and say “I’m really sorry but I just couldn’t make it happen” But that  shit doesn’t fly with Naomi. For her, saying no is gonna hurt. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to take some of us out with her. Oh well, whatever happens, it’ll have to be soon.

7:45pm

About to get out of here and just noticed that Naomi is still in her office. She’s been the last one here every night this week. I imagine her plucking by the light of the monitor, as she prays to her Claire shrine for guidance. But seriously, what the hell is she up to in there?

Mmm Mmm Campbell's Soup, Possibilities.

1:15pm

So I've been living on a can of soup for lunch every day for the past two weeks, as I try to atone for some serious damage that I did at Stella McCartney. I recently calculated that I spend a minimum of $150 every two weeks on lunches. These are the kind of details that torture my Midwestern parents; they think that kind of shit is rent, which it would have been in 1972, in Wyoming, on the wrong side of the tracks. But here and now that amount won't cover my gym membership and it's roughly one fifth of the sweater that I bought at Stella.

So anyway, I am obviously looking at many, many more weeks of soup party. An unexpected upside is that I've already lost four pounds. Unexpected downside, I'm what you would call a little but punchy. I am doing my best to send out warning vibes (my eyes say, "Try to engage me in friendly chit chat at your own peril.") and so far so good, everyone's giving me a wide berth. So help me God, if anybody comes close to my desk right now I'll bite their arm.

Here's an interesting experiment. Gather women post -dramatic weight loss, and place them in stress inducing situations. Start small, like - Line At The Bank, or Crying Baby At The Movies. Then, just turn on the hidden cameras and watch. My guess is the scene would be total Incredible Hulk style rage-a-thon. You take somebody's drug of choice away and it is not pretty. I guess I didn't realize how much I was getting out of chewing. That totally reminds me of the model earlier this year that was busted for eating the Kleenex during her pre-fashion week diet. Girl, I feel ya.