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.