Christmas Check-List

Since I utilize this blog to share everything that goes through my twisted little brain with you people, I thought you'd all enjoy being privy to my Christmas Check-List -- you know, the list of things I have to accomplish before the most festive, and depressing holiday of the year is upon us. The goal is to put a little check next to each item on the list which signifies "task accomplished". Let's see how successful I've been so far this holiday season, shall we?

-- Gifts for Mom, Dad, Step Mom, Sister, Uncle, Godmother, Nephews, Cousins, Aunt -- CHECK!
-- Donations made to worthwhile children's charities -- CHECK!
-- Recipe for spice cake downloaded from internet and ingredients purchased -- half-CHECK!
-- Alienation by friends I've had for years who chose the holiday with the highest suicide rate to prove to be useless and good for absolutely nothing worthwhile in my life -- CHECK!
-- Receipt of guilt from family for not being able to fix irreperable rift between certain key members of said family -- CHECK!
-- Failure to succeed at attempts to be a better person, friend, employee, writer, the latter due to the fact that all creativity and skill goes out the window when one resorts to using lists as blog fodder -- CHECK!
-- Ingestion of 1 gazillion calories in celebratory carbs and alcohol - CHECK!
-- Purchase of 3 Calvin Klein dresses (on sale) to salve hurt feelings over several of the above items, using much-needed Christmas and bill-paying funds -- CHECK!
-- Depressive morass within which to sink, with the help of Bing Crosby and Christmas chocolate, with a vodka chaser. Ok, several vodka chasers -- CHECK!
-- Pre-New Year's resolutions to stop letting the wrong people reside in my life, and to stop caring so much about what these wrong people think when I kick their asses OUT! -- CHECK!

Looks like a pretty successful holiday season so far. Merry Christmas everyone. If anyone is wondering what I would like from Kris Kringle, how about a straight razor and cyanide?

That was a joke. Please don't call any hotlines on my behalf. It's called "caustic humor", everyone. But I could use some more vodka.

Follow the train

So, here's the train of thought that has been choo-chooing through my little brain for the past week or so:

Although the thought of relationships still makes me cringe (and, in some cases break out in hives) lately I keep thinking of all of the idiots that could have been, all the men I've somewhat liked before, all the dudes who couldn't find my car (figuratively speaking, of course), and these thoughts have been leaving me a feeling somewhat akin to regret.

Anyway, I've decided that maybe it's not all the idiots of the past but rather the idea of them that's getting to me. It's the idea of finding a Jim to my Pam, a Tony to my Angela, a Bruce Willis to my Cybill Shepherd. Not just anyone, mind you, but someone smart, someone funny, someone who actually makes my heart beat faster instead of coming to a dead stop for once. Maybe, just maybe I'm ready to let the next dude find my car, sink my Titanic or [insert your own insipid pop culture-laced phrase here]. Maybe I'm ready for love.

Orrrrrr... maybe not. Because it usually doesn't take long for me to snap out of this line of nonsensical thinking. But it's an interesting train to follow while it lasts.

One more blog off the horse

I'm so lucky -- I have friends who actually make me happy. Sounds simple -- don't everyone's friends make them happy? Actually, no. I know a lot of people who hang out with people who actually make them sad, bitter, prone to back biting. I have those kinds of people in my life, too. But as luck would have it, I also have real friends -- who take me out for a beer when life gets rough; who yell "That bastard!" when someone breaks my heart; and who text me from 2,000 miles away just to make me giggle so I'll miss them less. And I'm so grateful. Really, truly grateful.

I promise a surly, sarcastic blog soon. Truly I do. I'm just writing shit as I see it right now. I'll get back on the entertaining, bitchy horse just as soon as I can. Pinky swear.

Being allowed to cry

It's easier to cry over the little things -- the broken date, the petty argument, the stupid boy who didn't mean shit to me to begin with. What's happening to you is too big. Too unbridled. If I start crying over this I might never stop.

I can't talk about it. If I do people might misunderstand, think I'm looking for sympathy. I don't even know how to write this stupid blog. Because it's not happening to me. It's happening around me. It's happening to you.

I wish it were happening to me -- if it were than maybe I could control some of it, stop it from being so big and daunting. You wouldn't be able to say things like, "Look at my worthless fucking life", not if I was in control. I wouldn't let it get that dramatic. I would make all these problems small, and petty, and meaningless. If I were in control we could still be angry about the little things. And we'd be allowed to cry.

I'm sorry this is happening to you. I'm sorry I can't fix it. I'm sorry I'm not crying right now. It's not for any other reason than I can't, I swear.

Advice to men going on a first date with me

Please, please, please... DO NOT continue to rub my thigh after I have repeatedly moved my chair away from yours. It's called "Taking a hint". Why do you think I keep moving away? Seriously. If I wanted your hand there I wouldn't be grimacing and my chair would still be on your side of the table.

Beware of twins prone to panic

This is to prove that although some of us (read: ME) are real bitches, my friends and I really do care about each other A LOT. Even if the following is a comedy of errors.

I was out a couple nights ago with my temporary roomie and my former roomie having a couple of beers in midtown when my sister called to say that she got a cryptic email from our mutual friend, Ronnie. It said, "I just wanted to reach out to you about Christine". Jessica texted and called him back, then called Christine, and then called me when neither one of them answered here. I, in turn, called Christine, Ron, and every single other person we know in common, none of whom answered, except for one, whom I sent into a little panic with my "Do you know if Christine is alive?" questioning.

At some point, amidst all of this calling, my sister finally got Ron to answer the phone and he said he was talking to Christine before he texted Jess, and accidentally typed her name but he really meant to say "I just wanted to reach out to you about THE WEDDING", his pending nuptials, in which my sister will play Flower Girl (and please don't ask why a 31 year-old woman will be the Flower Girl because I don't have time to answer). In the meantime, Christine texted me all concerned because she had two missed calls from me and wanted to find out if I was okay, which I was now that I was no longer picturing her lying in the emergency room.

Which proves that my friends are a caring bunch. Or Jessica and I are just easily prone to panic. Because even if Ron had typed the word "Christine" in that text to Jessica, what made us think it was due to some kind of emergency? Maybe he was saying, "I'm reaching out to plan Christine's birthday party" or "I'm reaching out because Christine told me you like baklava". Could have been anything really.

What not to do... if you're a woman

I had an awesome afternoon. I had to go to go to a 2 1/2 hour client meeting, the first half-hour of which was spent raking me over the coals. Which was super fun, lemme tell you.

It's not worth going into what I did wrong. That would involve explaining exactly what it is I do for a living, and then going on to explain the intricacies of my working relationships with various travel professionals... You're asleep already, aren't you?

The point is I pissed someone off. Basically, I stood up for myself when a bully pushed me in the schoolyard. And now I'm paying for it. The bully in question is of no consequence in the grand scheme of things to me or anyone else whose job isn't based on kissing the wrong asses... and often. Even though he started the verbal shoving match, I'm in the wrong because my client says so. Because to men of a certain age and supposed pedigree, being "pushed too far" can be accomplished with any degree of pushing when it is done by a female. That's what it came down to. I was too young, too female and too smart, frankly, to be allowed to talk to him that way, no matter what he said to provoke me.

The moral of this tale, specifically to be taken seriously by any young, smart, upwardly mobile women who may be reading this? Men suck. Especially middle-aged white men. There have been some exceptions throughout history -- Elvis, Bill Clinton, my Uncle Frank. But by and large, middle-aged white men as a demographic SUCK ASS. And NOT in the good way.

Marty still rocks

Ok, I have a confession to make. I didn't like "The Departed". Not even a little bit. I wanted to -- I'm a New York Italian so my loyalty to Marty runs deep. There were parts that weren't horrible. I liked Leonardo DiCaprio. I liked Matt Damon - he played an asshole really well. I didn't even mind that it was about Boston. But it was poorly written, whatever dialogue coach trained Jack Nicholson should be shot dead and the editor was on crack. It was bad. Very very bad.

If he wasn't the same man who made two of my all-time favorite movies, I'd be disappointed in Scorsese for life. But everyone makes mistakes.

It's kind of a cliche but I actually AM thankful

Ah, Thanksgiving. It was actually a nice, mostly even-tempered holiday. Well, my Aunt Louise had like three conniption fits, seemingly for no reason, but, for her, that's pretty awesome. And for the first time in YEARS we didn't have to deal with my toxic cousins. Which if you knew them -- and the shit they pulled last Christmas -- you would know is a very good thing.

Anyway, I'm thankful today. Thankful for my fabulous friends; my crazy Aunt Louise; my adorable, doting mother (who didn't want anyone to not have their favorite kind of pie so she bought every kind in the store which resulted in six pies for eight people); my sister; my dad; and -- if you can believe it -- even my slightly distempered, most likely inbred kitties. And they are in turn are thankful for the event of their first Thanksgiving because they're enjoying white meat turkey for the first time in their little fuzzy lives. In this prevailing spirit of gratitude I'm choosing to wait until tomorrow to get mad at them for the fact that they got into my laundry hamper and scattered clothes all over the bedroom. Sometimes, I swear, it's like they have thumbs. How did they get the goddamn lid off in the first place?

I should have gotten a ninja dog

Henrietta is currently residing on my shoulders. She is being very affectionate actually. I think she knows I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm only going to L.A. for two days but, to a cat, that's like forever. Not that fucking Juniper cares. She won't even let me pick her up. But she is in a mad heat to get in my suitcase. Something about ruining my clothes makes her very very happy. What exactly made me get cats anyway?

If you live in the L.A. area, let me know. I'll be staying in Sherman Oaks and going out in Venice Beach tomorrow night. Come hang out with me. I'll show you pictures of my cats on my camera phone and buy you a shot.

My horoscope was written by a crazy person

I'm kind of at a crossroads lately. Which has compelled me to read every version of my goddamn horoscope that I can find. The one I read today told me to buy a new business card case. Ex-queeze me? Baking powder? Huh?!? How is that supposed to fucking help me.

I need a cup of tea

I need someone to make me a cup of tea. My late great-aunt Kay was famous for that -- if anything went wrong in any of her nieces' lives, she would make us a cup of tea, lots of milk, lots of sugar, and listen to us cry while she called us her "little angels". She didn't have any children but she felt a little bit like a grandmother to all of us. My real grandmothers weren't around -- my mother's mother died when I was little, my father's mom wasn't really into being anyone's grandma.

Aunt Kay was the perfect grandma -- she remembered every birthday, every event in our lives, with a card and a folded up $20 bill. She knew all of our likes and dislikes, remembered all the highlights of our collective childhoods, and her arrival on holidays was what everyone waited for. The cups of tea were the most memorable though -- she gave all of us milked-down tea starting when we were toddlers. It takes a lot of patience to sit with children, drinking tea, listening to them babble on about school and their friends, while simulatenously teaching them the intricacies of 500 rummy. But she did it. And, when we got older, and she had to hear us make the same mistakes over and over, listen to our surprised tears when the boy she knew would break our hearts, did, in fact, do just that, she never said, "I told you so". That's no small feat.

To this day, whenever my life takes a hard left, I feel the urge for a cup of tea and I miss Aunt Kay. I wish I could have a cup of tea and hand of cards with her right now. Surprisingly enough, the tea is the hardest part -- I can never can get the milk-to-sugar ratio right, the way she made it.

Orange juice is useless

Orange juice will not cure a cold. But I've now consumed an entire half-gallon of it anyway, in the vain hope that my sniffles will start to disappear. It's not working. I think you're supposed to drink jus d'orange to avoid getting the cold, not once you already have it. And it's definitely not a cure for a hangover either.

I've decided two things, with Michael's help. One -- I will no longer take my phone with me for Saturday night outings with Alison; and Two-- I should probably stop drinking with Alison. She and I together are not exactly models of self-control.

Embarrassment is...

... when you're standing at the coffee cart on 6th Avenue waiting for your morning joe, and you reach into your purse to grab your wallet so as to have the $1.25 ready when the coffee man reaches through the little window to hand you the cup, and the force with which you grab the wallet dislodges a row of 5 condoms you saw fit to take from that bar on 24th Street at that recent happy hour with your co-workers, because the more condoms you stuffed in your purse, the more they giggled, and now a whole row of said condoms are at your feet in the middle of the street and before you can reach down and pick them up some nice older gentleman does it first, straightens up and hands them to you saying, "I think you dropped your condoms, Miss", and now the coffee man can't stop blushing and you probably will have to find a new place to get your coffee in the morning because facing him again could be tough. And all of this started because you just had to be the funny girl at the office happy hour.

You forgive me?

I forgave you and you never even apologized. Wasn't that nice of me? But I couldn't not forgive you. I couldn't not take your hand when you offered it because, I thought, "What if this is the last time I see those eyes, feel that hand on my skin? What if this is it and I forever regret this moment, this chance I didn't take?"

You told me you were never mad at me, that whatever happened between us you had forgiven. But I was mad at you. Doesn't that count? I asked why you lied, why you disappeared and you asked why that was important two months later. Two months? Not that long ago -- still very memorable for me. Still keeping me up at night, right up until the moment I saw you again.

You said, "Don't get lost on me again, please," as if that is what I had done. And I melted. I said, "I won't, of course I won't." I held onto you like this was the beginning of something.

And you're gone again. It's three days of silence, already. And somehow I'm amazed. Somehow I didn't see it coming... again.

The human Zagat strikes again

As most of you know, I spent last weekend in two of my adopted home cities -- Los Angeles and Vegas. I had fun -- it was mostly catching up with people I haven't seen in a while. Oh, and acting as the back-up French translator at a Franco-American wedding -- a nice girl named Steffie, who actually makes her living as a translator, was the first -- and better -- one. She knows how to say more complex phrases than "Can you repeat that?" and "I'm sorry, I'm not retarded, just a little hungover."

Anyway, while there I went to a few places that I haven't been before. And since, according to many of my friends, I am the human Zagat, I thought I would share these recommendations to all of you, should you find yourself on the Left Coast anytime soon. Here we go:

Cedar Cafe is a wonderful little strip mall restaurant in North Hollywood. Very yummy Lebanese food, including pickled turnips (which are bright pink and weird-looking, but as Tamar and her whole family have taught me, are oddly delicious). And, on Friday nights, there is a cheesy two piece band, and a scantily-clad bellydancer who, when she got close enough to my Dad, nearly made him choke on his lamb kabob. Priceless.

Little Temple, which I can say with some certainty, is my new favorite LA bar. It's on a seemingly shady corner in Silverlake and on Friday nights there is an old-skool DJ that made me and Jenny very very happy. Over Red Stripes, we were even both the target of the affections of a large guy named Ramon, the cousin of whom Jenny was kind enough to salsa dance with in the front room. He thought telling me he had a great view would get me to traipse back to his apartment with him but he was entertaining.

And, last but not least, Downtown Cocktail Room, not because it is so very exciting but because it is the only establishment of its kind -- deep, cushy chairs; cool, non-abrasive DJ; great martini menu -- that is not in a casino on the Strip. It's actually on the corner of LV Blvd and Fremont, which makes it my new favorite "get the night started before heading to Beauty Bar" spot.

Someone else's everyday

Sometimes you just need a change of scenery. You need a plane ride, a drink in an airport bar, a suitcase, your favorite jeans and enough clean t-shirts to last a few days. You need a friend with a guest room or a couch in a city you don't live in. You need to infiltrate someone else's routine, someone else's everyday to make your everyday seem far away.

There goes my Pulitzer

My computer died. Sad. So sad. I used to yell at it and call it "a piece of crap" fairly regularly. But I still miss it terribly. Now I have to blog to you people before I leave work instead of nestled in my comfy living room chair while giggling at I Love New York 2. And the quality of my blogs is suffering for it. And they were like Pulitzer-fucking-prize material before, I swear it.

Things I can't fix

I'm worried about so many things I can't control these days. Number one on that list is a good friend who's lying in a hospital bed right now. It's the worst feeling in the world when you can't help someone you love. But this situation is definitely out of my control. All I can do is pray, bring him magazines and try not to think about all of the what-ifs.

I don't even like blogging about it but it's pretty high on my list of priorities right now, thus I have nothing else to write about. Maybe if I put it all down in writing I will feel a little less overcome by the whole situation. I don't want anyone's sympathy, though -- I can't accept it, well-intentioned as it may be. Sad as I am right now, this is not happening to me. It's happening to him. I'm just trying to be a good friend, a friendly face, someone to crack jokes at the stupid hospital staff (and they are a little stupid) and the terrible hospital food (and, my God, is it terrible), and make promises to bring pizza and games on my next visit.

It sucks. As some of you may know, I share one trait with most heterosexual men -- when someone I know has a problem I try to fix it instead of just listening to them bitch. But I can't fix this. And it makes me mad.

Metal objects shoved in my mouth

I had to go to the dentist tonight. Which always makes me cry. Literally. I sit in the dentist's chair with tears rolling down my cheeks while he says things like, "Louise, please stop being so dramatic. I haven't even turned the drill on yet."

Somehow I have managed to get a tattoo and several piercings over the course of my life without this many tears being shed. Yes, I realize it is childish but something about a giant face hovering above mine backlit by that bright white light shining at me while various metal objects being shoved in and out of my mouth makes me want to just... pass... out.

Anyway, the whole point of me telling you all this is to garner some sympathy. I normally don't like when people feel sorry for me. The one exception is when the whole leftside of my face is numb and feels like it's been stuffed with cotton. Then I want tons of affection, empathy and other kinds of positive affection. So get on it, people. The novocaine is about to wear off.

People disappearing

There are people who will disappear from your life. And that sucks. But it's part of life, unfortunately. They will be part of your daily existence for days, weeks, months, sometimes years, and then they suddenly, almost without warning, become one of those people you pretend to be glad to see when you run into them at a party or on the street but with whom you no longer have anything in common. And, anyway, the relationship is gone.

I don't know why this happens, but inevitably when it happens to me, even when it's because I've kicked someone out of my life, it hurts me. That little hole in my life becomes hard to fill or I start to beat myself up, because it must be something about me that makes people leave me.

All I can imagine -- because I refuse to believe that there is not a reason for everything -- is that they disappear because either their purpose in your life has been fulfilled or because they no longer have a positive purpose to be in your life and fate takes a hand and just removes them. I hope that it's one of those reasons. But having faith that there is a reason for this kind of thing to happen doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

I'm sad about someone in particular who no longer feels the need to reach out to me. We used to talk every day but it's been a month since I've heard his voice or gotten an email from him. I think that my purpose in his life came to an end. At least that's what he's given me every reason to believe. I wasn't aware of that but I guess it must be true.

I guess we no longer need to be around each other and eventually my heart will stop hurting when I think about him. I'm trying to keep my chin up about that. I'm trying not to dwell on what fun we had together, or how much I looked forward to talking to him. It's hard but I know the reasons for his disappearance will become clear to me over time.

Yesterday I watched one of my amazing friends dance at our mutual friend's wedding while someone who she had to remove from her life sat at a nearby table with his girlfriend. I watched her hold her head up (even if she ran into the bathroom occasionally to cry). I watched her dance and have fun and not look even look in his direction. And I was so proud of her. I know I can do that, too. I just wish I didn't have to deal with the sadness of these holes in my life when I'm alone. That's what really sucks.

Curveballs are fun

One of my favorite things about life is not knowing what will happen next. I'm not a planner. I book vacations, take new jobs and go on dates without planning... I like just doing the things that pop into my crazy little head. The idea of planning for the future bores the bejesus out of me, frankly. I didn't know what I wanted to do for a living in college, I haven't ever planned for my "someday" wedding (even when I was engaged) and I don't know what I'm going to wear to work until I wake up and yank whatever clothes I see first out of my closet.

But I like that. I like the adventure of not knowing what's going to happen next. That doesn't mean I never worry or I'm easy breezy all the time. It just means I learned at a young age how to do what the alcoholics at meetings teach each other to do -- "Let go and let God." Besides the minute you start to think that plans mean everything is the same minute God throws you a curve ball and reminds you that he's in control.

That being said, everything lately that's been "surprising" me has... well, it's sucked. BUT I still believe in the power of not knowing and not wanting to know everything the future has in store for me. It hasn't fucked me up so bad so far.

My throat is so hoarse

In case you watched the game tonight and you heard one scream that was shriller and more horror-movie like than the rest when Johnny on the Spot hit that three-run home run and you were wondering who could possibly get their voice so high as to attract dogs in neighboring states... well, that was me. I also started screaming like a lunatic (and dropped my beer) when Robbie Cano did his thing in the 6th.

Nelly says, "No, dahling."

I have a very weird loyalty to the lady who cuts my hair. Even though she never, never does what I ask her to. I'll say something like, "Nelly, do you know what would be great? If I had ba..." and before I can get the word "bangs" out she'll say (insert profoundly thick Russian accent here), "No, dahling, no. It won't be good for you, baby. I do very good for you. You will like. Be very cute." And then the exact opposite of the haircut I was thinking of will appear on my head in a matter of minutes.

Anyway, I've been angling for bangs and today I got them. And Nelly pretended it was her idea. But I didn't mind as long as I got them. However, I have never before -- nor will I ever again -- have a hairstyle so akin to a helmet as I do. A good washing should get rid of most of the hairspray and then I'll be golden. I think.

A new chapter

My good friend in Vegas sent me an email I desperatly needed to read right now. It was one of those forwards that, I guess, you're supposed to delete or ignore. But I didn't. I read it. And it meant a lot. It was all about remembering to be grateful and living each day to the fullest so that you can get the best out of life. I don't mean to be corny, but I truly believe that and I've not been showing it too well lately, with all my bitching and moaning. I'm ready to start a new chapter in my life... again. But that's ok. We all need lots of chapters. Or life would be boring. And short.

Make a move, moron

If you like me just tell me you like me. Judging by the sheer number of times I hear from you in a day, I would imagine that you do like me. If you don't, stop calling, stop texting and go back to not knowing I exist. Waiting for you to make a move is a bit like watching paint dry.

I'm really gonna miss drunk guy

Today was the last regular season Yankees home game. They made it to the post-season and we'll probably see them play live at least once more before we officially have to say "goodbye" to baseball season BUT this was our last official Sunday in Row K, Tier 9, Seats 19 and 20. And so, Jess and I would like to respectfully say goodbye to the people we've come to begrudgingly love, the other Yankee fans who have sat beside, in front of and behind us for some many hungover weekends of the past three months.

Goodbye "weird silent couple that never says one word to each other in Row J", namely "bitchy girl with the Coach bag" and "oddly sullen bald guy".

Goodbye "chubby girl with glasses", who today was accompanied by "Red Sox fan who has no reason to be at Yankee Stadium". "Drunk guy #2" spent most of the game facing backwards so that he could torture them the whole game which was somewhat amusing, but not more so than when he fell up the stairs coming back from the bathroom.

And, most of all, goodbye "drunk guy". You were always our favorite, although your poor girlfriend, otherwise known as "drunk guy's girlfriend who wishes he would just sit down and stop embarassing her by getting up and dancing between pitches" is a close second.

See you next season!

Fill in name of boyfriend here

If and when any of my friends become involved in a serious relationship, please, please, please do me a favor. I am completely earnest here. I need your help. Do not... under any circumstances... lean over and say to your boyfriend "Right, FILL IN NAME HERE?" after every sentence you utter? Okay? Please? Do me a favor and just try having an opinion that he doesn't agree with for one minute. Stop asking him for approval on everything you say. And for God's sake, stop answering for him when I ask him a question!

This is an example of the kind of conversation you should avoid when you are out with me and your new boyfriend.

Me: So FILL IN NAME OF BOYFRIEND OF MY GOOD FRIEND, are you enjoying your new job?

BOYFRIEND OF MY GOOD FRIEND: Well...

MY GOOD FRIEND: Yes, he loves it. Don't you BOYFRIEND?

It's not only annoying to have conversations this way... it's also a bit nauseating.

Cranky day

Do not do any of the following things when you're already a little bit cranky.

-- Wear boots that you haven't worn since last winter. They will hurt a little until you break them in again and the pain in your feet will cause you more crankiness.

-- Tell your client or anyone else that you have to impress that you're not awake until you have your third cup of coffee when you're talking to them on the phone at 4:00 pm. They won't understand, will accuse you of caffeine addiction and your crankiness will increase even more.

-- Volunteer to help anyone with anything. You might be the most helpful person in the world normally but when crankiness sets in you will start to resent the person you're helping who most likely is so grateful for your help that they are being really sweet to you. And then you're the bitch who was a crankpot to the sweetheart. You don't need the agita and guess what you'll be when you're done? CRANKIER!

-- Answer the phone when your parents call. We've discussed this in previous blogs. Most likely they are calling to tell you they misplaced the gift certificate you gave them for their birthday or because it just occurred to them that you would be the perfect person to ask how they can get discount tickets for "Jersey Boys". And you will hang up on them and be even CRANKIER.

Hopefully you will use this little guideline for your next cranky day and avoid additional crankiness as the day progresses. And then you will feel compelled to write me a thank you note for my assistance. But wait until the cranky day is over before you do.

Sisters are funny that way

One piece of advice for all of you out there in blog land ... If ever you are at a bar and you let some guy lean in and smell your neck because he's trying to identify your perfume, and then he starts to bite your neck and you're too drunk to stop him, and then your sister sees all of it happening, she probably won't let you live it down. I'm just warning you.

Shaking it off

I've been feeling like a fool lately and that's no good. What's been making me feel so foolish is my feelings for other people. I'm normally not very good at showing them. When I do I always feel like I've allowed that particular person to see a chink in my armor. And if they know they can get past my armor then they can hurt me. Stupid, huh?

Anyway, I'm shaking it off. I have a good life and I'm going to go back to enjoying it, goddammit. I'm going to eat at Auntie Mame's banquet, corny as that sounds. I used to do that really well. Other people used to be jealous of my life. The only new thing I'm going to add to the equation is that I'm not going to be ashamed to cry or show that I can be vulnerable anymore. It's not so bad, right? I am a girl, last I checked. Girls are supposed to be at least a little vulnerable, right?

I should point out that don't think I'll ever be one of those girls who sobs over Nicholas Sparks novels and draws little hearts when they dot their i's, but baby steps, right? I can at least stop worrying that showing someone that they've made me happy or sad means that they will hurt me. Emotions aren't all bad and not everyone is an asshole. Some people won't take advantage of me and hurt my feelings. At least I hope that's true.

I'm going to get up off my lazy ass, get dressed and going shoe shopping now. (Ah, how I love being a cliche.) And I promise to be less of a sad sack next time I write one of these things.

Disdain

I can't do this anymore. And I won't. You make me feel bad about myself and you don't care. You hear only half the words I say and the ones you hear are bastardized versions of what I've actually said. I'm tired of feeling like a bad person. I'm a good person. I don't deserve to be treated this way. I don't expect or want anything from you. I don't have ulterior motives or do anything in order to gain something from the people in my life. The fact that you think that's the kind of person I am proves you don't know shit about me. And I don't care. Spend the rest of your goddamn life not knowing shit about me. You don't deserve more than that.

I've listened to you -- I know all about your family, your problems, your past, who hurt you and how they did it. You don't even know my last name. And I kept telling myself that was ok, I don't reveal more than that to you, how could you know? But I realize now that you don't want to know more than that. You never did. You just wanted what you wanted from me when you wanted it, when it was convenient for you, when the mood struck you. I served no purpose other than immediate gratification.

And I have to make peace with the fact that you will never really know what happened tonight. You'll just think I'm showing "disdain" for you, or whatever it is you think I feel for you when you're feeling sorry for yourself. You won't see that you pushed me away. In your mind, this will be the night that I started a fight with you -- that's how it will live in your memory. That's fine. Just do me a favor and get rid of any other memories with me in them, too.

My cats haven't killed me... whoopee!!

Today I had one of those days -- you know the kind where bad thing after bad thing happens. First you get stuck in the rain and then some moron in the street knocks into you, sending your cafe mocha flying in your own face. Well, you know the drill. Soon you find yourself cranky and irritable and wishing everyone would just leave you the hell alone and why? Because of series of seemingly innoccuous events that would normally only make you pause with a moment of crabbiness have all come together at once to make you a rabid, loony bitch. Well, it is easy to get mired down in that kind of foul mood so I've decided to resurrect a past blog tradition and list the stuff I'm grateful for. You know how I love lists!

1. I have working use of all of the parts of my body.

2. I have awesome friends, some of whom actually walk away from their desk and put their bosses on hold to listen to me bitch about my day, my love life, the seeming inequality of a world where people like Star Jones are rich and I'm not. I have quite a few friends like that and for their presence in my life I am very grateful.

3. I have cable. Cable makes everything better.

4. I've survived another day without my cats killing me in my sleep. Or peeing on anything I own.

5. I have more clothes than a department store. No small feat.

6. I still have the ability to get drunk. There is nothing more annoying than people who claim to have a "high tolerance". How much fun is it if you're not drooling and tripping over your own shoes at the end of the night?

7. I survived my club years. Which involved some foreign substances and weird acts performed in bathrooms. That's all I'll say about that.

8. Boobs. I have them. Men don't. Trust me, that kills them.

9. I don't have a penis. They just look uncomfortable.

And big number 10. My parents only called me once each today. Granted both of them did while I was at work and both were surprised that I didn't have time to talk but they're pretty cute, truth be told, in their doddering old age.

Juniper hates me

I woke up with a Tylenol-PM-induced hangover and mosquito bites on my legs. I blame my cats. Lately I blame them for everything, mostly because they don't have any response when I tell them whatever is bothering me is their fault. It starts with, "Good morning, kitty, my head hurts. I blame you."

Juniper's reaction to the morning "blame game" ritual is to smack me in the face with her paw... but then again, that's her reaction to just about everything I say. I would be convinced that this act means she hates me but she also spends a good deal of time rubbing her little kitten face against my feet, often causing me to trip over her as I'm trying to get ready to leave in the morning. Wait... maybe she does hate me.

Henrietta doesn't hate me. Henrietta has figured out that I feed her and clean up her litter box and is dutifully respectful and affectionate. But that Juniper... whatta little beotch, huh?

I can't believe I've become the kind of person who blogs about her cats. But there you have it.

Vodka makes it go away

I'm sitting in my apartment, recovering from the lingering effects of last night's consumption of alcohol with a glass of vodka-and-lemonade and thinking about what it is about me that makes it hard for me to tell people how I feel. I'm incredibly verbal -- could talk all night, in fact, and often do. But when it comes to talking about my feelings I'm a big, fat failure.

I try to tell people the good things about them, what they mean to me, how they hurt me and I fuck it up. I don't do it too often anymore for that very reason. But sometimes I have moments of cloudy rationale where I think, "Ok, this time I can pull it off. Honesty is good, right?" And in that moment I scare the crap out of whoever it is I've decided to be honest with.

Anyway, vodka might make the memory of what I've recently said and felt go away. So glug, glug, glug. Talk to you later.

Things I'll never understand

Things I'll never understand...

T-shirts that read "Life's a Beach". And the people who purchase those t-shirts.

People who stand in line for the opening night of movies. Won't that same movie still be playing at the theater tomorrow night, when there aren't 600 people dressed like hobbits or wizards or whatever lined up in front of you?

Why Eddie Murphy dressed up in a fats suit is funny.

Blonde jokes. I mean, I understand them. I don't fully comprehend people who know all of them and repeat them ad nauseum.

People who stand in the doorway of the subway car... Perhaps I shouldn't go to the angry place with that one again.

Those commercials produced by the Cotton Board that show women throwing their clothes off of balconies. No one can wear cotton all the time. It shrinks and it doesn't work in winter. Synthetic fabrics are a must, people.

Why my cat, Juniper, won't let me pet her but will, without fail, find the smallest space between my feet, thighs or knees to sleep in and then get mad when I wake up and move, thereby disturbing her sleep. Selfish feline.

Yay Labor Day!

"How I spent Labor Day Weekend"

By Rhymes With Cheese

This Labor Day Weekend I spent nearly one whole day drinking beer in Ana and Rob's background, while playing 500 rummy and reading funny text messages sent to me by someone sitting two feet away who was attending the very same party. And then I tried to get my nipple pierced and failed -- that took about 20 minutes. Oh, and there was like 10 minutes spent collecting Sweet Tarts, mini Tootsie Rolls and condoms off the ground... they fell out of a giant eyeball-shaped pinata. Oh, and at least 2 minutes was spent convincing Sasha to convince her boyfriend to punch holes in beer cans and drink all of the beer out of said holes. He didn't do it but some other guy thought it sounded like fun so he did it. And it was very funny.

The end

Rescue me from Mrs. Doubtfire

Pet peeve -- classic songs that have been bastardized because of their too-frequent use in bad movies involving babies and animals, and/or commercials. Actually, I don't always mind the commercials so much. If not for OfficeMax "The Rubberband Man" would have been completely forgotten by modern music lovers. And that shit's a classic.

No, I'm talking about songs like "Rescue Me", a great song by a great singer that is now only heard when a filmmaker has to insert a montage into an already over-produced film and the song is used to demonstrate that someone is going through a stressful period in their life and, therefore, needs to be rescued. Not what Aretha intended it to be used for when she recorded it, I'll wager. Pisses me off. Because now every time I hear that song I think of "Mrs. Doubtfire" and I just don't need that in my head.

Perez Hilton here I come (archive from August 29, 2007)

It's interesting when you find out that you are the topic of conversation. I just found out that my personal life is being gossiped about. In a city I no longer live in. Two thousand miles away.

Do you know what started this gossip? I occasionally talk on the phone to someone I met when I lived out there. I went out there on vacation last weekend and I saw this "someone", as you do when you live far away from people you used to be friends with -- when you visit their town you hang out with them. Seemingly normal, huh? Apparently not.

It's a little flattering that my personal life (or lack thereof) could be so interesting as to inspire water cooler conversation. I mean, I feel like a little bit of a celebrity. Maybe next week you'll be reading about my alleged canoodling on Perez Hilton. It could happen.

Stop scratching my furniture (archive from August 22)

My cats are going to miss me. They don't know it yet. If you asked them they would probably sniff and go back to scratching all of my furniture. But they are going to miss me. Because tomorrow I leave for Vegas. Again.

Isn't it funny how much time I spend in the cities I don't live in? When I lived there my friends laughed at me because of all of the money I spent on plane tickets to NYC. Now my friends and family refer to me "always being in Vegas". It's not entirely accurate but it certainly seems that way.

Anyway, I'll be gone all weekend. Getting drunk with Leora and Michael. Because that's really how I should be spending my hard-earned vacation days, dontcha think?
I have got to buy a water pistol. Those little fuckers are leaving nail marks on everything I own.

Use your words

Yesterday someone I talk to on a fairly regular basis told me that I'm "too negative". The person who told me this has always struck me as one of the biggest perpetrators of what I like to call "unrealistic self-image". He thinks he's upbeat and funny. He also thinks he's shy and doesn't talk a lot. I haven't known him very long but of all of the aforementioned characteristics, he only actually has one going for him... he can at times be funny. But it's not usually when he's trying to be -- usually it's when he's not aware of himself and accidentally says something that is so cute I can't help but giggle.

Anyway, I would never have guessed that I could ever been seen as an overly negative person. But it got me thinking. What if I am suffering from "unrealistic self-image", too? What if I think I am fun and funny (which I do... I crack myself up) but really I am Debbie Downer?

What provoked this person to tell me that I'm "negative" was when he said that the hotel I'm staying at with my friends in Vegas next week "should be fun" and I said, "No, not really but we can always go out to the other casinos nearby." Apparently, that was the straw that broke the camel's back and he just had to tell me how negative I "always" am. (By the way, huge pet peeve of mine -- when people say "never" and "always" to describe your characteristics as they are telling you how much you suck. No one in this world is "always" and "never" anything. Whenver someone pulls that shit with me, I'm tempted to turn into their mother -- "That's not accurate. Now use your words. What are you really trying to say to me?")

Anyway, it really bothered me. Made me kind of sad today, actually. I wish I didn't care what people in my life think about me. But anyone who is in my life is no doubt someone I care about (otherwise I wouldn't let them hang around) so of course what they think about me affects me. And this person in particular is someone I've listened to bitch and complain about his life since I met him so it was particularly hard to hear it from him. I've been the one to talk him down from a ledge a few times. How negative can I be?

So, in summation, if I've been a Negative Nancy in your presence, I hope you'll forgive me. But the Tropicana still kinda sucks.

To all street performers

This is a public service announcement to all street performers.

If you don't actually know how to sing or play a musical instrument please do not attempt to do so in small contained areas such as subway platforms and subway cars. Learn to fucking tap dance.

Thank you.

Eight funny things

Yes, I like lists. Yes, you will pretend to like them, too. Well, long enough to read this one anyway.

"8 funny things I've seen this week", by Louise O'Brien

1) A guy with the word "mom" tattooed on his arm in flowery script. And he wasn't a cartoon or transported from the 1940s.

2) This hilariously tongue-in-cheek billboard on the West Side Highway, sponsored by Manhattan Mini Storage of all companies. When interviewed by NY1 every single male chosen to be confronted on camera sounded retarded and slightly priggish, except for the one man who said that Roe v. Wade is not being threatened. He just sounded like a tool. Read a newspaper, wouldya buddy?

3) Justin Timberlake earnestly playing "Dick in a Box" on the piano as an encore at his Jersey show. "One, cut a hole in a box. Two, put your junk in that box. Three, make her open that box." Fucking priceless.

4) Sitting in the front row (thanks Tamar!) at Justin's NYC show with Emily and watching her stand up every time he came to our side of the stage because she "didn't want him to be offended that she wasn't standing up for him." He tooooootally noticed, too, Em. Good call.

5) Getting a text message from Katie telling me that Emily and I are dead to her because we were at the aforementioned Justin show and she wasn't.

6) My co-worker, Amy, doing an impression of a guy she went on a blind date with dancing badly at a U2 concert a few years ago.

7) Me smiling at the baby being held by the people walking up the stairs ahead of me at the Bryant Park station and not noticing that my shoe came off until I tripped on it and nearly cracked my head open.

8) That same evening, walking DOWN the stairs at the Lowery and tripping over my own stupid skirt. Peasant skirt, heels, reading a book while walking -- deadly combination.

Classless

I am thoroughly ashamed of myself, dear readers. Yesterday I, bastion of good manners and hater of all rude people, ditched someone. We were in the middle of a date, I excused myself to go to the bathroom where I started to sob uncontrollably about something completely unrelated to the date, and I left him sitting in the darkened theater waiting for the movie to start. And for this I am so guilt-ridden and bathed in absolute shame and horror, I cannot even tell you. He told me in a text message a bit later that I am classless and I am inclined to agree with him.

I don't know why I'm telling all of you this. It only makes me look bad and any fans I have will surely start reading someone else's nonsensical blog instead of this one just to punish me. But I had to tell someone. And who do I trust more than my blog readers?

My sister and my friends -- who love me no matter what stupid, insensitive things I do, inexplicably -- met me at our favorite bar in midtown, where I kept up the crying for a few more minutes and then just proceeded to feel bad about myself... which was followed by feeling very drunk, thanks to Ali.

I can't possibly convince the guy that it wasn't his fault I left him there (although I did apologize and tell him he's right, I am classless). I can't explain that I'm so tired of crying over this other stupid, completely unrelated thing that's going on in my life that I don't even want to think about it anymore let alone talk about it and that if I had come back from the ladies room with tears all over my face I would have had to explain why I was crying and I just couldn't do that. No one would understand that. And I wouldn't expect them to.

All I can say is, if he's reading this, I hope he knows that I know I'm a jerk. And I won't be accepting dates half-heartedly anymore because it's just not fair to the other person. I've learned my lesson -- even if I can't learn how not to be classless. And I do believe in karma and I know that the next time someone I like does something mean and insensitive to me that I had it coming.

Translation device

When he says, "Why don't you ever call me?"

It actually means, "If you call me, I will either start a fight with you or not answer because if you call me that means you're needy, even if you are only calling because I gave you implicit instructions to do so. But I don't want to do all the work -- or any of the work in this relationship, if I can help it. So here's the deal: I can call you whenever I want and you should be there to talk to me. And then I'll pout and ask why you don't ever call me. But when you do I'll be completely unavailable. 'Cuz that's how I roll."

When he says, "You're mean to me."

It actually means, "You're telling me something I don't want to hear right now, something I've aggravated you into saying because I decided to start a fight rather than just have a pleasant conversation with you. Because if we just have a pleasant conversation we might just be getting along which might mean you're getting close to me and we can't have that. No sir!"

When he says, "I need you to tell me what's bothering you."

It actually means, "I have little to no interest in what is actually bothering you. If I have to know what is bothering you then I have to care about you. And if I do that then I'm not really a man. A man ignores you and makes you beg for attention but expects you to be ready to talk or text or just be there when he needs to hear your voice. And I am a man! But I want you to think I care so I'm going to pretend to listen to you now. And then I'll hang up and forget you even exist until the next time I'm drunk and horny and can't find anyone else to put up with my shit."

When he says, "I would never purposely hurt your feelings."

It actually means, "I want you to think I'm the kind of guy who keeps your feelings in mind. But I am completely oblivous to the fact that what I do hurts you, even when 'what I do' is as obviously hurtful as ignoring you, and yelling at you and calling you a 'drunk'."

When he says, "You're so cute when you're like this."

It actually means, "I love when you're drunk and flirty and not, you know, real. It's fun especially when you're far away and nothing really matters to either one of us except me making inappropriate comments about your breasts and you giggling at every stupid word that comes out of my mouth. This is way better than when you actually want to talk to the real me when we're sober. That's not fun at all."

Raise the fare, I dare you

If you're happy to see a blog entry from me you can THANK THE FUCKING NEW YORK MTA. I understand that rain is a powerful precipitant BUT it rains A LOT on the East Coast. Do you mean to tell me that one of the most populated cities in the world with the one of the most frequently used subway systems DOES NOT HAVE AN EMERGENCY PLAN IN PLACE FOR WHEN IT RAINS?

I'm going to try to get on the train again in a few minutes. I draw the line at 1 1/2 hrs spent on a subway at a time when it is AFRICA-HOT outside. It's just a little personal rule I have.
I swear, if those bastards even THINK about striking again this year they will have me to deal with and it WILL NOT BE PRETTY. And raise the fare, motherfuckers. I dare you.

Things I have to stop doing

Accepting dates with people I have no interest in.

Falling in love with the wrong people, thereby forcing myself to accept dates with people I have no interest in.

Watching shows like "I Hate My 30s" and "Scott Baio is 45... and single. The first one makes me want to kill all other women my age just to get them to stop bitching about our collective age and the second makes me want to kill all men over 30 for being the reason other women my age are so annoying.

Grabbing my friends boobies. It entertains me but it embarasses them and it gets creepy boys all excited.

Talking to my cats. Until they come out from behind the goddamn sofa and talk back they do not deserve the benefit of my friendly conversation.

Being a racist. I'm not actually a racist but the other day when I told some crazy lady she was in my way (standing IN the fucking doorway -- don't make me go off on this again) she called me an Asian-hater. I just thought I hated rude, insensitive people who stand in fucking doorways while people are trying to get on the train. But, no, thanks to her perceptive observation I now know that I hate Asians. I'm surprised that after 31 years living in New York City I never knew this before -- thank GOD I met crazy door lady when I did.

Writing sarcastically about racism in my Myspace blog. Because some people are not gonna get it and will probably think I really hate Asians.

Drinking so goddamn much. 'Nuff said.

Tiny little claws

I would like you all to be the first to know that tonight I welcomed the two new members of my family -- Henrietta and... well, the second kitten doesn't have a name because I wasn't really expecting her. I thought I might take two but I thought I was getting a boy kitten as the second, and I was going to name him Rufus. My cousin Frankie spit-tagged that one so I got two girls.

I'm trying to get inspiration from her behavior thus far. My aunt and uncle have been keeping these kittens for the last four months -- the mama cat lives with them. Henrietta wasn't easy to get in the cat carrier. We chased her all over the house. But the other one actually climbed the walls to avoid getting in the carrier. She was a like a cokehead being forced into rehab. Ya think I can name her "Junkie"? Or "Coke-Fiend?" Maybe "Lohan"?

Anyway, now they're curled in two little furry balls in the back of the cat carrier, not even breathing for fear that I will touch them or make them seperate from each other. Or maybe they're in there plotting my imminent death. Probably I'll fall asleep and they'll come in the bedroom and slit my throat with their little tiny claws.

I guess two cats at once was a bad idea but I kept imagining Henrietta sitting in my boring apartment all day with no one to play with. She got used to playing with five other cats at my aunt's house. How would she adjust to being all alone all day? At least now she has her very own sister.

I'm gonna go close the door to my bedroom now. Lohan's a wild one -- you never know what she might do and I have clothes that I'm really attached to in there.

Reasons why I am allowed to punch other commuters

I need to get this off of my chest. If you feel the following message applies to you, consider it a public service announcement from New York to you.

It is IMPOLITE and ANNOYING to stand in the doorway of the subway car because you don't want to move into the car and have to be close to your fellow passengers. In fact, it doesn't even matter WHY you don't want to move in. I don't care if you're getting off in two stops. I don't care if you can't speak English and you don't understand me politely asking you to move so I can get on or off the subway. JUST MOVE. You don't belong there. We allllllllllllllll are more comfortable leaning on the door than we are holding onto the pole crawling with bacteria in the middle of the car. But we can't. Because people need to be able to walk THROUGH the door and you standing there PREVENTS THAT. My new rule is if you are standing in the door that means you are some kind of masochist and we, your fellow straphangers, are all allowed to punch you as we are forced to squeeeeeeeze past you.

You are also asking to be punched if you lean on the pole that other people are holding onto, squeeze into a seat your fat ass can't fit in and spend the entire ride with your leg on top of mine or decide that your elbow belongs in my side while you read the newspaper. This isn't your living room. If you want all the room in the world as you commute to work in the morning spring for a taxi.

I think I need a vacation.

Reasons why I am allowed to punch other commuters

I need to get this off of my chest. If you feel the following message applies to you, consider it a public service announcement from New York to you.
It is IMPOLITE and ANNOYING to stand in the doorway of the subway car because you don't want to move into the car and have to be close to your fellow passengers. In fact, it doesn't even matter WHY you don't want to move in. I don't care if you're getting off in two stops. I don't care if you can't speak English and you don't understand me politely asking you to move so I can get on or off the subway. JUST MOVE. You don't belong there. We allllllllllllllll are more comfortable leaning on the door than we are holding onto the pole crawling with bacteria in the middle of the car. But we can't. Because people need to be able to walk THROUGH the door and you standing there PREVENTS THAT. My new rule is if you are standing in the door that means you are some kind of masochist and we, your fellow straphangers, are all allowed to punch you as we are forced to squeeeeeeeze past you.
You are also asking to be punched if you lean on the pole that other people are holding onto, squeeze into a seat your fat ass can't fit in and spend the entire ride with your leg on top of mine or decide that your elbow belongs in my side while you read the newspaper. This isn't your living room. If you want all the room in the world as you commute to work in the morning spring for a taxi.
I think I need a vacation.

Everyday life of an ordinary oblivious American

I spent the entire afternoon wandering midtown Manhattan with my client's digital camera taking short videos of "everyday life for an ordinary American consumer" -- people getting in cabs, getting on buses, buying lunch, queuing up at Starbucks, buying unreasonably priced seperates at Banana Republic. It was a bit annoying but I found out something rather surprising about my fellow New Yorkers. You know how people are supposedly paranoid about terrorist plots? Not so -- I filmed office buildings, public transportation, the freaking giant and highly bombable 42nd Street Library -- you know, the one with the big lions. No one even blinked - not even when I was filming them. And I did film lots of people -- I followed people down the street to Pret A Manger. I filmed some guy sitting on the library steps reading a newspaper. I was right next to this other guy leaning against the plate glass window of Starbucks and I filmed him for like 15 seconds.

If someone started filming me I might shove their camera up their nose. But that's just me. I get annoyed when I see newscasters reporting "man on the street" segments -- they're always in the way while I'm trying to get to work.

Maybe these people didn't notice I was filming them? Maybe they are the most oblivious people on the face of the planet? Maybe they are so wrapped up in their little worlds that they don't care why some strange girl might be filming them? It just scares me that these are the same people who are expected to alert the authorities if they see a suspicious package left on the subway -- 'cuz they might not notice it to report it.

Says the girl who just last week walked into a closed subway door because she didn't look up from her book in time to notice that, although the train had stopped, the doors hadn't opened yet. Yeah, that was me.

Leave the sign alone

This was the sign that was laminated and taped on the wall on the door of the bathroom stall in the ladies' room at my new favorite bar, Dusk.

"Ladies, if the toilet paper runs out, please inform us so that we can replace it. The fact that we are men means, only, that we don't come in here that often and not that we are insensitive... If you like this sign enough to steal it (god knows why but you won't be the first) please don't... Please, please, please don't make me go to Kinko's again."

The other day, as I was walking back from getting my daily lunchtime salad, I spotted a rolled up pair of lacy purple panties in the middle of 7th Avenue the other day. Spotting them forced me to think about little to nothing else all freaking day. At one point did the woman wearing those panties decide that she just didn't want to wear said panties any more? Were they riding up her butt and she just couldn't take it anymore? Did she decide she just need a little air up there? The possibilities are seemingly endless, don't you agree?

In my family, baseball is like a religion. In fact, I'm pretty sure my mom would be more likely to accept an interfaith marriage than if either my sister and I were to marry, let's say, a Red Sox fan. Needless to say we take our season tickets very seriously and we are loathe to miss one of our regular Sunday home games. So you can imagine how hungover we had to have been this morning when Jess and I couldn't get our asses to the Bronx to make the 1:00 pm game time. And what a game to miss.

We celebrated Ron & Joe's engagement party in Jersey yesterday with grain alcohol and chicken parm. It was fun to see everyone. In fact, I had so much fun I think I'll wait a while before smacking Ronnie in the back of the head for making everyone RSVP in April as if he was trying to get an accurate head count for a state dinner with the fucking QUEEN. I mean, he is a queen but that is beside the point.

Afterwards, I ended up at Sullivan Room. If, like me, you are a former club kid but in your old age you would rather shave your head than set foot in another club, check this place out. Good DJs, low-key vibe. Just don't do what I did and drag your drunk, sorry ass all the way up the stairs and out into the street before you realize you left your bar tab still open and your credit card and ID with the bartender. On my way back up, I realized that the banister was no longer secured into the wall and I nearly bit it walking up the stairs. Would have been an interesting, albeit not surprising, way for me to kill myself.

In other interesting developments gleaned from my nightlife experiences, lately I'm like catnip to boys who are bit too young for me. Must be something in my perfume.

I nearly drank myself into a coma last night and now I have to go to Jersey for an engagement party. Thank God I love the people who are getting engaged otherwise I would not bother stopping myself from puking on their lawn.

Last night one of the grooms (there are two) texted me to tell me to bring a bathing suit. What the hell kind of engagement party is this, you ask? The kind thrown by Evite by my dear friend Ronnie -- who, although usually detail-oriented and slightly anal retentive often forgets to mention crucial elements to his guests until the last minute. I bought a dress and heels for this shindig. Bathing suit?

I swear to God, if I wake up one more Saturday with snippets of memories of things I did and said floating around my sad little brain, I'm going to run off and join a convent or something just for the fact that it would give me new stories to tell. My life is like one long episode of... some show in which the main character drinks herself into a stupor and then has seemingly meaningful conversations about love and life with people she barely knows and wakes up the next morning to a splitting headache and the nagging feeling that she embarassed herself and her friends somehow. It could be called "My So Called Hungover Life" Or "Sunnyside, Queens 11104. Or "Saved by the Beer...The Hungover Years". I'll work on a title and get back to you.
Something tells me I wouldn't even make it through pilot season.

Morphine makes Mom sleepy

My poor mom. Another national holiday in the hospital. I swear if she was stolen she couldn't be sold for spare parts -- 'cuz none of them work.

As most of you know, she was in a bad accident about 7 years ago and since then she's been in and out of the hospital with various lingering injuries. She gets these cortizone shots for the pain in one of her knees (which by the way, she hurt long before the accident -- because clutziness toootallly runs in the family) and -- wouldn't you know it? -- she had some kind of allergic reaction to it or some kind of infection because of it and we had to rush her to the emergency room on Sunday night. I say "we" but really I met her there -- when she was being packed into the ambulance with my aunt and my crazy uncle in tow I was at Yankee Stadium watching Andy Pettitte get his ass handed to him. Oh, and did I mention I was drunk at the time? Anyway, that's been my week so far.

I hope you all had a better Fourth of July than I did. I spent it watching my mom sleep off the effects of a morphine drip, drinking tea in a hospital room. But at least I didn't have to go to work.

I heard, tore your faces right off

You know that scene in Beetlejuice when Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin come back from visiting Juno, the caseworker, and they think they're in another room of the hallway they've been walking down and then they realize they are back at their own house but it's completely different than when they left? I relive that scene every night -- I wake up, look around in the dark and don't recognize my own bedroom. It takes me a minute to place my own furniture, come to the realization that the long skinny thing on the floor is my bra where I dropped it before I went to bed and then I can relax because I know where I am.

I guess changing addresses three times in less than a year will do that to you.

Perspective

Another terrorist plot thwarted. Or so I'm told. I didn't watch the news today. I watched old episodes of "Rescue Me" on the internet and sat around my apartment feeling depressed.

There's at least one moment during every day of my life where I realize what an ass I am. I find myself cursing the fact that I can't change the way I think or the way I behave. I get older and supposedly wiser but I still sit around, watch news reports of people in real trouble, read books about sad things that happened to people that they just didn't deserve... and still I feel like crap because of the shitty little miseries in my life.

It's disgusting and it has to stop.

I thought you all would like to know that I'm aware of the problem. That even if I can't change, can't become less of a retard -- at least I know that I am one.

Why I'm not going out tonight

Because I just bought a six-pack of Magners.

Because I organized a happy hour last night and was struck with the idea that six pomegranite martinis were a good idea... which they were not.

Because "There's Something About Mary" is on, followed by "Parenthood".

Because bars are full of idiot men who are full of sperm that meeting me makes them feel like they have to get rid of just as soon as they possibly can. Not all men, mind you -- just the fucking idiot ones.

Because I just yelled at the guy who called me from my credit card company and told him he's welcome to call me five times a day for the rest of the week but there is nothing I can do about the fact that I won't have the money to pay him until next week.

Because jammies and a t-shirt are more comfortable than a slutty tank top and heels, and my bed is way more comfortable than a bar stool.

Because I'm not going to meet a guy like Denis Leary in a bar... but he is on TV.

Because I'm sitting here writing to you people, that's why.

Your grandmother

I realized today that I've become the kind of person who steals Splenda packets by the fistful from the coffee shop by my job and filling my desk drawers with them, along with honey packets from Cosi, and brown paper napkins from every conceivable deli on the West Side. They rest there happily next to a box of Twinings tea. In essence, I have become... your grandmother.

Proud to be a New Yorker

Showing someone else my city reminds me how much I love it. As you all know, I've been winging a lot about moving -- should I have stayed in Vegas? Should I have never moved there in the first place? But Michael was here this weekend and I showed him around the Theater District and Times Square, the West Village and little bit of Chelsea. Which was fun because I never do that anymore. When I was younger and the city was somewhat exotic to me (my mom didn't know I took the subway into the East Village after school and hung out with squatters and burn outs -- she thought I was at choir practice, tee hee) I used to wander around for hours. Now I go where I'm going and come back home.

It is a beautiful city. Talking to Michael, I've come to the conclusion that I might not be done with Vegas or the West Coast. I don't think New York is permanent for me -- I think I have to try something else before I get too old and boring. But it's fabulous to be from here and I owe Michael a big "thank you" for helping me remember that. Even when I'm yelling "Let's go already" because the number 1 express is moving at the speed of molasses and the tourists getting off the train in front of me can't seem to remember that they are bipedal organisms capable of forward motion. Yelling because the people in front of you aren't moving fast enough is all part of being a Nu Yawka.

Where's my freakin' tiara?

Michael is in New York which makes me very happy. I saw him on Thursday night, when I took him to a greasy New York diner and the Virgin Megastore, and last night he met my favorite couple, "Mr. and Mrs. Crazyfriend", the adorable Ana and Rob, when we all went out for someone else's birthday to The Village Pourhouse.

That party will make for the 2nd time this week I've had to pay for a paper bracelet in order to drink, which seems to lead me to try to drink like I'm competing for the title of "World's Drunkest White Girl". Since there is no such contest (and no tiara or sash involved) -- and truly, I'm only competing against myself -- someone should tell me that before I proudly sashay up to people to deliver my platform on world peace. But no one ever does.

At some point I got so beligerent in my belief that, as the "World's Drunkest White Girl 2007", all attention should be shone on me, I called my friend in Vegas twice in a row until he picked up. When he did I started to sputter about the lack of attention being paid to me and he, after laughing so hard at my inability to form a coherent sentence that he nearly wet himself, said, "I'm on the phone with the store trying to buy a new refrigerator. Can you please wait for me to be done with that before you start getting all crazy-like?" Which I... did not. But it was nice of him to say "please".

I can define "amazing" any way I goddamn please

Amazing things I learned today. Well, "amazing" might be a stretch but I'm reaching here -- you people get mad when I skip a day with this fucking thing and I'm tired of the annoying complaints so you're forcing me to reach for material.

Anyway back to my "amazing" list.

1) My grandmother married a loan shark so she wouldn't have to work at Woolworth's anymore.
2) My father is only 57 but he can't remember what he told me just yesterday.

3) I have a seeming inability to remember that I don't like someone while I'm on the phone with them. Especially if I used to like them.

4) I don't own a calendar. Granted, I knew this before but it became glaringly apparent today that I need to own a calendar -- what day is it? No clue.

5) I care too much about people who don't give a fuck about me. Again, not news -- it was just a fact that made apparent to me again this afternoon.

6) There is no instrumental version of the song "Keep it Gay"

7) Michael has seen "Phantom" too many freaking times.

8) Several dozen people who I've known for years think I still live in Vegas. This, I'm told, is my own stupid fault which I believe could be true.

9) I have oddly shaped big toes.

) I've become fascinated with the show "Big Love" purely to replace "The Sopranos", which left me sad, bereaved, utterly disappointed. Is David Chase under the impression that I waited 7 seasons to watch Tony eat an onion ring and Meadow park her car?

That's it. Fire up your pens. I'm ready for the "what a lame blog entry" complaint letters.

Flattery is no longer top of mind

It's funny that yesterday I referenced a hangover in this very blog and now I actually have one.

The beer garden was fun. Thanks to Christine, Caroline and Ben for showing up and watching me drink my weight in Hoegaarden, and of course, my lovely sister for watching me fall off the bench we were sitting on, and then picking me up and putting me in a cab. The cab driver laughed at me the whole way home -- apparently a 31-year old girl with a skinned knee and no eyeballs to speak of (mine were rolled up into my brain where he couldn't see them) is funny.

And a special shout-out to the 23-year old Italian kid who couldn't believe that I didn't believe that he thought I was the "girl for him". My sarcastic "thank you" is specifically for him taking my phone, calling himself with it so my number would be in his phone and then calling me every hour on the hour from 11:00 pm until like 4 in the freaking morning in an attempt to convince me to let him "come over for just like a half hour". I stopped answering after the 2nd call but I have to assume the subsequent calls were for the same purpose. Flattering but annoying -- I don't have a plug next to my bed so my phone charger is plugged in across the room. After I had to peel my drunken ass off the sheets more than once to get up and check my phone, being flattered at the attention was no longer top of mind.

The definition of insanity (reprint from June 16, 2007)

I've been thinking a lot about the definition of insanity. I'm not sure if it's the real definition but it's the one everyone always tells you -- "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." I feel that way lately.

I've been moving a lot. Not just moving moving -- as in my recent move across the country and subsequent move back -- but moving as in not sitting still. I'm going all the time. On a plane or a subway or in an airport -- sometimes these are the only moments when I have the chance to sit still. This has never been a healthy way for me to live. But, back to the insanity defense, I keep going and going and never stopping to look around, and then expecting things to turn out differently.

I take on whatever comes at me and think about the consequences later. I don't worry about how the next big change or chance I'm taking will make me feel until the it's already underway. Then I feel like crap. Like right now, I'm looking around my new apartment and wishing for something else, wondering why I made all these changes in the past year when change doesn't agree with me. Because I'm never sure what I'm going to do next, I'm often treading water in my life. I don't have a clear idea of what my future holds -- I mean, who does? -- but more importantly I have no idea what I want my future to hold.

Anyway, the gist of this stupid blog entry is I'm sort of floating right now. I don't feel anything going on my life like it's really happening to me. It's like being hungover -- there's really no cure for it, I just have to wait it out until I feel better. And when I feel better it won't be because of anything I've done -- it will just happen and I'll be ok.

I wish I had a funny one for you today, guys. I really do. I'm headed out to the Beer Garden this afternoon -- maybe I'll feel better after that.

Don't rush flan or blueberries

My boss signed our whole company (all 12 of us) up for a cooking class at the Whole Foods downtown. We made gazpacho and chicken mole verde -- my team made the best meal, if I do say so myself, because they had a culinary genius on their team (uh... me!). We were told we were going to make flan but we didn't have to which is very good because our instructor told us while he was showing us caramelization techniques that you can't talk or check your cell phone while you're making flan, and you can't impatiently stir at the caramel hoping it will hurry up and be done. That kind of leaves me out of the "sure to make successful flan" club, dontcha think?

Anyway, on the way out of the store our group was trying to get past all the people waiting on line with their purchases and I bumped right into a guy who seemed to be in an awful hurry to get his stuff home. He was tapping his foot, sighing impatiently. I looked at his purchases out of curiosity. Do you know what he was buying? Blueberries and pita bread. What could be the fucking rush?

Trying not to throw up

I spent most of today moving. Moving and peeling pieces of tape off of my face. The second part of that sentence is more interesting than the first so I shall elaborate. The movers were peeling huge strings of packing tape off of those blue blankets they use to wrap furniture in and leaving large balls of it on the floor. I couldn't exactly help them with anything else (weak wrists and I'm, well, the opposite of graceful) so I thought I would clear up the huge tumbleweeds of adhesive that were gathering around my new apartment. I picked one up and while opening a large trash bag with my other hand inadvertently hit myself in the face with the giant tape ball. I peeled it back and immediately checked to make sure I still had eyelashes and eyebrows (I did, phew!) before I then checked to see if the movers saw me do it. I mean, how embarassing! Seeing as how I just made it the subject of the first paragraph of my blog, I guess I'm over the possible embarassment.

I'm trying not to be pissed at the state of my apartment. I'm trying to just feel grateful that I finally have an address. But I am pissed. I'm living in someone else's apartment -- it is a legal sublet that I am renting in a co-op building. Before I moved in, the owner told me that he scrubbed all of the appliances and fixtures until his "hands were raw" -- direct quote. So imagine my surprise when I found all of the following within the first ten minutes of walking into this "clean" apartment:

1) a half-used box of butter in the butter bin
2) actual mold growing under the crisper bin
3) a smelly bag of ice and two half-filled ice-cube trays in the freezer
4) three dead bugs and their still living friend in the sink
5) a pile of ants feeding on another of their friends in the middle of the living room
6) potting soil under the radiator, and seeping out onto the floor
7) a large hole in the area under the sink, with a bucket and bowl covered in someone else's hair
8) more q-tips than I cared to count on the bathroom floor

Well, you get the picture. I couldn't sleep there -- it was too gross. So for the rest of the week, I'm going to go to work from my mom's house and spend my after-work hours cleaning my new apartment and trying not to throw up. Why oh why did I ever leave Vegas?

To everyone I drunk-dialed

This is a profuse, profound, utterly sincere apology to everyone that I drunk-dialed (or texted) last night. While reciting the "beer before liquor" epithet usually ensures that I will not mix vodka, tequila, beer and white wine, it didn't work yesterday and, since Rachel's little shindig started in the afternoon I was RIPPED by about 10:30 and had to be forced into a cab. A few minutes prior to this is when the texting and ill-advised dialing began.

If I drunk-dial you it is intended to show you that I really like you. And since most of the people harassed were in Vegas, their nights were just getting started so maybe it wasn't such a big deal. But I'm sorry anyway. Sorry and embarassed.

Thank you for not hanging up on me. And I promise to not do any of the following any more:

a) drink so much I can't walk down the street without veering into oncoming traffic

b) call you to remind you of our friendship and my profound feelings for you after imbibing the contents of my friend's liquor cabinet

and c) send you text messages when I am no longer in control of my basic motor functions, thereby ensuring that no one in the future receives a text similar to the last one I sent last night, which read "m& sta sorry". What the fuck that means, I have no idea.

Full disclosure and keg stands (reprint from June 2, 2007)

Rachel is having a bbq and I'm trying to get Jessica's lazy ass off the couch to come with me. Yes, it's all the way in Brooklyn and yes, we will probably be roped into doing keg stands, but I still think we should go. Because I don't go out as much as I used to and far be it from me to turn down free alcohol. My last name is O'Brien after all! Jess would rather watch the "Kate & Allie" marathon we found on WE. Could we beeeee bigger weiners? I don't think so.

I think any day that a terrorist plot is thwarted is a good day to go drinking. Don't you agree? What better way to celebrate our good ole American freedom than by chugging imported beers with a bunch of people I barely know in Broolyn?

And, of course, the other thing we have to celebrate is freedom of the press, the same people who are stupid enough to tell all the terrorists in the world in detail exactly the plan that was thwarted and exactly the intelligence (and I use that word lightly) our government has in place to stop said terrorists. Because I'm sure that won't inspire more of them to come up with half-baked plans to kill all of us. When people are trying to blow tourists to smithereens in one of the nation's busiest airports, full disclosure really should be the first order of business.

In case you didn't figure it out, that last paragraph was mostly sarcasm.

Folding under questioning

On my way to meet the tenant board for the interview from hell (more on that later) I was on the 7 train with a guy wearing a Barry Bonds jersey and another guy wearing a shirt that read "Ban Bonds". They argued the entire way from 42nd Street to, I would assume, Shea Stadium. (I got off the train in Sunnyside so I really wouldn't know). When they started debating whether or not Roger Maris legitimately broke the home run record in 1961 since he played in more games than Babe Ruth, I was tempted to chime in because, and please note this for future reference, Maris' record is completely legitimate and he was the recognized record holder up until Mark McGwire broke it in 1998, regardless of the fact that there are some "baseball purists" (read: "assholes") who beg to differ. But if I had made that point, I would probably still be on that train redfaced and yelling, and would have completely missed the interview I mentioned earlier.

About the tenant board interview... Let me just put it this way, if I were in the mafia, I would be the bagman (no violence for me, thanks) who cracked under police questioning and had to either be taken into witness protection or get whacked on Tony Soprano's boat. I spent the last sweaty hour sitting in a hot basement with four grown men, three of whom couldn't have been nicer and one of whom decided to read my very embarassing credit report line by line and then define the words "recycling" and "security" for me in some detail. Maybe he thought I rode to the interview on the little bus -- I was tempted to respond with something like, "So when you say I have to recycle all plastic, does that include condom wrappers? And what about 40-bottles? Because there are usually a lot of both of those things in my apartment. I like to be hospitable to all the strangers I buzz into the building."

He also said if that I could have a cat but if I get engaged they have to meet and approve of my fiancee. I asked if he wanted to meet my cat, too. I don't think he got that I was kidding because he just kept talking. I told my dad who said that if I get engaged he wants to meet the guy before Otto from the tenant board, which seems reasonable.

There are bigger losers than me... I just don't know them (reprint from May 27, 2007)

There are people in this world who are bigger losers than I am. I just don't know them.
Saturday night of a 3-day weekend and my nightlife invitations include dragging my candy ass to Brooklyn to go to the Catty with Jenny OR try to get in touch with Shara to find out the name of the club she's going to with Bonita from Florida. Brooklyn is seeming more and more likely, mostly because Jenny is easier to get a hold of and I haven't seen her in like a month. At about 9:30 pm, after a shower, as I'm deliberating on what to wear, watching hip hop videos on FUSE, the cider and Irish nachos I had with Jess earlier in the day start to make their presence felt and I FALL ASLEEP WITH THE PHONE IN MY HAND. Wake up at 3:00 am to find one missed call and four missed text messages basically asking, "Hey loser, where the fuck are you?"

This was actually supposed to be a public service announcement. Don't ever feel like you, yourself, can be categorized as a loser. Have confidence in the fact that you're probably not. And if ever you do start to feel like you just might be, conjure up the picture of me, in a towel, sleeping with a ringing phone in my hand and feel better about yourself. Because at least you're not that bad.

My interview persona (reprint from May 25, 2007)

That slow-ass tenant board finally called. I have a meeting with them next week during which they will decide if I can live in what is now beginning to seem like a lame, over-priced apartment in Queens. But it's better than staying with my family. All of my friends feel sorry for me -- homeless, sleeping at my mom's, getting sixteen calls a day from her asking if I'm coming home for dinner, which, because she's getting older is increasingly being served at 5:00 pm. I hate when people feel sorry for me -- makes me crazy.

Keep your fingers crossed for me with the tenant board, 'kay? Maybe I'll be able to pull off my interview persona, the one that has made so many foolish people give me jobs. Or maybe they'll take one look at me and say, "Ms. O'Brien, perhaps it is better if you look for another place to live. Something about you says that you're the kind of person who would find herself overdrawn on her checking account because she just had to blow hundreds of dollars on Marian Keyes books and platform espadrilles." Which has happened -- but just that one time.

Africa withdrawal (reprint from May 23, 2007)

South Africa changed my life. At least I think it did. It's hard not to gain some perspective about your crappy little life when you're looking down on the world from Table Mountain or seeing where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for twenty-seven years or visiting a shanty town where four grown men live in a shack with no running water every day just because it means they might have a better life than they did in Zimbabwe. It was eye-opening, let me tell you. All the shit I was bitching about before I left suddenly seems a little silly.

I wasn't quite ready to come back. I came home a few days earlier than I had originally planned -- some meetings I was supposed to attend in Johannesburg wound up being cancelled so they sent me home on Monday. I'm still converting dollar amounts to rand in my head and I woke up this morning expecting to see the V&A Waterfront out of my window. I'm going through Africa-withdrawal or something.

Off to Africa (reprint from May 9, 2007)

I leave for South Africa today. I'm so scared. I'm also sad about something completely unrelated to Africa so I hope this rather long, arduous trip will be a good distraction. I'll try to check in and blog from there -- I've never been there before so I'll probably have a lot to say. But if I can't send me messages anyway -- I'll read them when I get back.

I won't catch typhoid (reprint from May 6, 2007)

Squishy pajamas and a hangover. The hangover is the reason I am in pajamas at 6:00 pm.

The Yankees won. But Phelps is in trouble. Oh, and the Rocket is back.

I leave for South Africa on Wednesday. I have band-aids on both arms where I got the shots that are required before you can go to Africa. They are shots to prevent polio and typhoid and a host of other diseases I didn't think people got anymore.

My mail is beginning to trickle into my mother's house, meaning I am officially no longer a Las Vegas resident.

Parties with people I don't know are some of the most fun parties I've ever been to. Saturday night was no exception. Cuervo was a bad idea but the rest of the night was fun.

I know my cell phone is working but it seems only the weirdest people have the number. But I finally got my credit card company to stop calling.

Random observations. Not particularly well-thought out. Not particularly insightful. Just the facts as I see them.

Working for a living (reprint from May 3, 2007)

The guy next to me at the bar snapped his fingers at the bartender. She was holding five full Corona bottles splayed between her fingers like a bunch of flowers. She looked at him, made a snotty face, put down the bottles and put her finger up in the universal hand sign for "I'll be just a minute". And he complained to his friend, "What a bitch?"

I felt some solidarity with her, like, Hey buddy, I've been her a lot longer than I've been you.
Could you do her job? You in your fancy suit with your perfect, almost femme hair and your imperfect face that becomes beautiful to the girls you date because you are single and have a good job. But really she (the bartender) is better than you because she works for a living. And no, I'm not exactly like her so I can't say for sure what's it's like to be her, because she is beautiful with shiny hair and a perfect C-cup (because she would have to be to be a bartender in Manhattan, now wouldn't she?) but still she works for a living, and I get that because I did, too, for a long time. And, even when you're beautiful with shiny hair and boobs, you're still kind of invisible when you serve people for a living. She will go home with swollen feet and no medical insurance and you will probably go home to a wife in Scarsdale.

I've been thinking about quitting my "career" and becoming a bartender, so that's where those thoughts came from.

I'm a teenaged boy having an identity crisis (reprint from May 1, 2007)

I'm reading this great book and the writer (a guy) writes from the perspective of a few different, equally weird people of both genders. In reading one of the stories about a teenage boy (and while still suspended in the state of disbelief where I believed the character in a novel was a real person) I realized that this kid thinks the same way I thought when I was a kid -- and the way I often do now. In reading one of the stories about a 30-ish female writer I realized that this woman thinks the same way I think now -- and the writing style is eerily similar to my writing, fiction or otherwise, which is often written from the perspective of a 30-ish female writer. Which means one of two things -- 1) I think like a man writing in the guise of a woman or 2) I am secretly a teenage boy.

My cat! My apartment (reprint from April 29, 2007)

The Yankees are trying to kill me. That's all I have to say. They are trying to make me curl up into a tiny ball under one of the blue plastic seats at the stadium and just DIE. But I forgive them. Because deep down I love them. Even if they cause me gastrointestinal distress and nervous eczema.

Tonight is my last night in my sublet-life on the Upper West. Tomorrow, after one last vacuum of the rug and dropping off the sheets at the Chinese laundry next door, I have to give Katherine her apartment (and her cat) back. I've become quite attached to both of them. If not for the photographs of Kitty's family everywhere this could be my apartment. Maybe I will hide behind the door and wait for her to come back, club her over the head and take it. Then I won't have to look for one myself. Good idea? No, disposing of the body could be tricky.

In a little more than one week I'm leaving for Africa -- I will be there through May 25. If I haven't found a permanent place to live before I leave I will a) get my deposit back from those crack-head, slow-ass decision making people at the tenant board in Sunnyside and b) shoot myself. Maybe not in that order. I canNOT live on my mother's couch for too long. I will become a murdering, marauding LUNATIC if I do. I nearly killed a Japanese tourist at Yankee Stadium today for telling me to sit down. I'm like two steps away from a breakdown as it is.

I probably should have stayed in Vegas.