Sex, Drugs and Chick Corea

So my husband and I have officially reached adulthood. We are very proud and have decided to mark the occasion by getting life insurance.

I raced home from work on Friday to meet the nurse who was coming over to take our ‘vitals’ for the underwriting process, and called my husband to remind him of the appointment.

Me: Don’t forget the nurse is coming at six. Oh, and drink lots of water because she’s gonna want you to pee in a cup.
Husband: Huh? Um, okay.

We hang up.

Two seconds later my phone rings.

Husband: You never told me were going to have to pee in a cup.
Me: So. What’s the big deal?
Husband: Remember how I went to that Chick Corea concert last weekend?
Me: Are you serious? How much?
Husband: Only like three hits. It wasn’t mine.
Me: I’m aware that it wasn’t yours. I live with you. Remember?
Husband: So should I cancel with the nurse? Or drink some vinegar?
Me: Vinegar? Seriously?
Husband: Why didn’t you tell me we’d have to pee in a cup?
Me: I would have if you had informed me you were still 18.
Husband: They’re going to see it in the test and they’re going to think I’m wreckless and an unsuitable candidate for life insurance, aren’t they?
Me: Not when you tell them it was a CHICK COREA concert. When they learn that tid-bit, they’ll probably give us a discount.

If you don’t believe me, please push play on the above video for a sneak peak at my husband's wild and crazy Saturday foray.

I have had a lot of fun at my husband’s expense over the weekend.

And now that I’ve had my fun, I’ll tell him, THE REST OF THE STORY, in its entirety, here in this blog, where he can not get his hands around my neck.

In our initial phone interviews with the underwriter, which we did not do in each other’s presence, the following conversation took place between the interviewer and yours truly.

Underwriter: Do you participate in high-risk sports?
Me: No
Underwriter: Do you smoke?
Me: Never
Underwriter: Have you ever been arrested for substance abuse while operating a vehicle?
Me: How long do those, um, types of offenses stay on your record, just out of curiosity?
Underwriter: Ma’am, I can’t tell you that.
Me: Well, then I prefer not to answer the question until I find out for sure.
Underwriter: Ma’am, please answer the question.
Me: I was only 21! And, for the record, I DID ask for a safe ride, and I did GET a safe ride back to the cottage, but then my very good friend decided she just HAD to go back to the bar to tell off her no-good, cheating boyfriend who was leaving to go back to Massachusetts the next day and it was almost last call, and she couldn’t drive a stick, and—are you typing? I don’t hear you typing?—and the drive back to the bar is exactly ONE mile on a VERY secluded road. It's so secluded, in fact, that the only things on it are these two TINY little stop signs, which most people in that area think of as more like CAUTION signs. However, I soon learned that the Emmet County Sheriff is not one of those people. So you see, Hello? Hellooooooooooooo? Mrs. Underwriter?

It appears that we are not quite as ADULT as we thought at the beginning of this process. Does anyone know of a black-market life insurance underwriter who could sneak a couple of fully-grown children through the process?

Post script—please read the posted comment from 'flogger' to see just how cool my husband is.

Georgia Getz

I’ve just returned from my very favorite blogger’s site with some very sad news. Georgia Getz (aka www.iambossy.com) is, hands down, one of the funniest writers I have ever had the pleasure to read. I would put her right up there with the Nora Ephrons, the Erma Bombecks, the Tina Feys. . .
And, like those very funny women, she earns her living writing humor. But, and this is very important so put down your wine before you read this next bit, she is also very different from them because when I write to her, SHE WRITES ME BACK!!!
Oh yeah, she does.

I’ll go on in a moment, but it’s very difficult to write WHILST patting myself on the back. . .Okay—finished.

Apparently Ephron and Fey are way too important and busy patting their own backs to return my calls or to say THANK YOU for all the Edible Arrangements I’ve sent, which are not cheap, by the way. And, yes, I do realize that Bombeck is deceased, but she COULD have her mail forwarded. Am I wrong?

Anyway, what’s done is done. I’ve chosen to just get past it and be the bigger girl. What’s important is that Georgia DOES write back. She is fantastic and very important and, though I hate to admit it, she probably writes back to all of her fans. She’s just that cool. Or at least I thought she was until I saw her post for today.

It wasn’t WHAT she said; it’s HOW she illustrated it. Or, rather, it’s what her ILLUSTRATION said about HER. I ask that you all look back to the top for Exhibit “End of a Bourgeoning Relationship.”

Now mind you, just before I logged onto her site, I’d just been daydreaming about the kick-off to weekend WINE-down, thanks in part to a certain email from SB. As the page loaded and the above picture appeared, I seriously had to look around to see if, in fact, GG was in my cubicle, standing to my posterior, and stealing my very thoughts. And, to make it even creepier, Gabbiano is one of my very FAVES, specifically their Chianti. Yeah, I know. So of course I’m all like, Yep, I knew it, BFF’s forever. Could we BE more alike?

And this is where it gets sad. Move your eyes a little northward on that image and tell me what you see stuffed, ever so politely into the mouth of that bottle. GEORGIA GETZ OWNS A WINE STOPPER. Now, for everyone reading this who knows me, I needn’t say any more. For those who do not know me and are still somewhat confused by my dismay over a common household item, let me extrapolate the true meaning of that seemingly harmless object, in my vocabulary: Stopper=Stop-HER. As in, STOP HER from having EVEN ONE MORE DROP, or STOP HER from pouring it directly down her throat, or, and this is so annoying, STOP HER because she has the bottle again and is running naked through the streets.

It’s such a shame, really. I just can’t be friends with somebody who exhibits that brand of self-restraint. She talks a mean talk in her posts. But, as they say, a picture’s worth a thousand proof— I mean words. The worst part is, I was one tile away from finishing my Entire-Dining-Room-Sized mosaic of “Bossy and Miss Ive Forever.” What a waste of wine bottles. Oh well, it’s nothing a few cases of Gabbiano won’t wash away.

Post Script—If you want to see just how seriously cool Georgia Getz, aka Bossy, is, please click on the comments to this post. And please go read
HER latest post if you are interested in peeing your pants.

Today I Love My Job

I love it so much that I’m actually going to do it. I’ve been thinking. You know how sometimes you think really hard and plot and plan and wind up making a really crap decision? And how sometimes, you just pick up your feet and go where the current takes you and, then, when you stand up you realize you’re in heaven?

Well that’s how I feel about my job today. I didn’t plan on becoming an editor. After all, that’s not CREATIVE. But really, it is. I just wrapped my first full-length book-SIZE manuscript and it was, well, not a page-turner, if you know what I mean. But I did turn the pages, many, many, many—insert toothpicks in eyelids—many, many times. I pulled every weed and planted, to extend this horrible gardening metaphor, a little new growth, as well. I’m proud of myself. Izzze did it. And it’s better because I did. How often can you say that about anything? Generally, just ask my husband (hello husband!), whenever I touch anything they have to send a road crew in to clean up behind me.

I was thinking of something I heard the lead singer of Kings of Leon say on Fresh Air about his song-writing process. (Or maybe it was Arcade Fire?—Oh, go to NPR.org and figure it out yourself—I'm a very busy and important woman!) He said, I’ll paraphrase, that writing is okay, but editing is the real creative process for him. He likes to get the clay on the page and then spend hours and hours shaping. So nice, isn’t it?

So I’ll cut this post short, and get back to the ole’ weedin’. Ahhhhh, I love a manic day.

Stay tuned for more synicism and cheek in days to come.

A Toast to Weddings

Our family has a big wedding this summer. My husband’s brother is getting married. And though marriages are about unions and people and love, they often wind up as a mad dash for the Big Day, in the midst of all the pageantry. This, in my opinion, is pretty universal. This also, in my opinion, has no reflection on the couple, as they can usually keep their eye on the prize. It's often the family and guests that get caught up in the EXCITEMENT because weddings are EXCITING, and for all the right reasons. And, as I am about to extricate in the below transcripts, for some peripheral, secondary reasons, too—Like DRESSES!!! In this particular case, the excitement is heightened because the venue is SO LOVELY (at least from what I have gleaned from my Online P.I. skills; see the pic to your upper left; nice, right?) and, therefore, there is added incentive to clean ourselves up a bit more than usual. Mostly, we are just looking forward to seeing the bride in her gown (and she will know this when she sees us all falling into the aisle, fighting to catch the first glimpse of her—we’re not ones for conventions, or manners, really) But, our excitement surrounding the event tends to trickle off into our own lives and manifest itself in discussions regarding our own wardrobe selections for the wedding. To be fair, when I say ‘we,’ I probably mean ‘me,’ as I am often the one initiating the topic. The other women in the family appear to have what I have heard referred to as LIVES. The very existance of this blog attests to the extent to which I am unfamiliar with that particular word. But, for argument's sake, I’ll say ‘we.’

Since the engagement, I have had the following conversations with the women in my family. Mind you, I may have embellished, ever so slightly:

1) An email exchange with Mary-In-Law on the occasion of her birthday:

Me: Mother Mary, remember to do something unruly today.
Mary: I took your advice. Well, actually, I did the opposite. I bought a girdle.
Me: (After wiping sprayed coffee from monitor and keyboard) Niiiiice.

2) A conversation over lunch at the wedding shower, during which Mother Mary made the following announcement:

Mary: (To a table of newly acquainted women) I bought a girdle.

I’m seriously having difficulty containing my fluids around this woman. Have never met anyone with enough class to pull off an announcement like that without batting an eyelash.

3) A conversation with Traci-In-Law shortly after the engagement:

Me: So what do you think you’ll wear?
Traci: Anything that doesn’t have shoulder pads.
Me: What color?
Traci: Anything but peach or pink.
Me: How do you feel about a burlap sack?
Traci: It would be better than shoulder pads, peach or pink. I’m serious.

She could pull off a burlap sack. Really. Please see below for an apt illustration of her 'before' and 'after' powers. She could do that. Really. And she would before she'd be caught dead in shoulder pads, or peach, or pink.






4) A conversation with Becca-Bee about her short-list of dresses:

Me: So how many do you have it narrowed down to?
Becca: Two
Me: Which is your favorite?
Becca: Hmmm. Probably the red one. It’s pretty and strapless.
(Mind you, she’s texting while she’s telling me this, which only supports my theory that she is perhaps the hippest and most coordinated, color and otherwise, post-teen I know. She's Uuber Chic.)
Me: Ooooh. I was thinking strapless, too. I have a hard time keeping them up, though.
Becca: They make tape for that. (Still texting)
Jen: Oh. Right. Then I’ll be fine. Does it come in ten-yard rolls?

An interesting side-note here is that Becca-Bee is daughter to Mary-In-Law. It has come to my attention, while transcribing these conversations, that both girls have a ‘beyond pedestrian’ knowledge of the art of containing unruly body parts. Must schedule a conference.

5) One email exchange with Emmy (out of 10 bazillion) in which we send links to each other with dresses we like for the Big Day:

Me: (See, I DO always start it!) So what did you think? The silver one or the aqua? I’m saving my bottle returns for one of those two.
Emmy: I love the aqua, but we only get five cents on bottle deposits out here so I think that one’s out for me.
Me: But it has pockets!!!! POCKETS!
Emmy: And?
Me: And you know, at the end of the night, when all the drunken guests wander home and leave behind their party favors, like fudge and candy? Well I’ll be WAY prepared if I have POCKETS.
Emmy: Yeah, but I can SO see you forgetting that your TWO HUNDRED DOLLAR POCKETS are chocked full of fudge and letting it melt all over you.
Me: Oh. Yeah. What if I lined them with plastic wrap?
Emmy: Okay, the aqua one it is, then. (If this conversation had taken place face-to-face, I feel fairly certain that this is the point where she would have given me THE LOOK.)
Me: Sweet. POCKETS. So, now, what shoes would you wear with that dress? Green, purple?

I believe Emmy lost connection with her server around this juncture, as I did not hear back from her for the rest of the day.

6) An email exchange with the Bride.

Me: So what are the wedding colors?
Bride: Black and pink.
Me: So, would you prefer that we wear those colors?
Bride: Wear whatever you want, just as long as you’re there.
Me: So, white's okay, then?

I belive Steph (the bride) also lost connection with her server at this point.

6) A conversation that took place in my imagination with a very, very dear woman in the family that will be attending the wedding in spirit.

Me: So, I was thinking I would wear. . . . and then I could wear. . . and then I wouldn’t have to. . . .and I found a really good deal. . . and I could SO wear it again. . . and (twenty minutes and forty-five dresses later). Sooooo, what do you think?
Gramm: HUSHIE BUSHIE.

I will abbreviate this transcription (yes, I said abbreviate) by not listing the conversations I have had with my sisters, and my mom, and my fashion-savvy friend Jenn, and my boss, and the person who waters the plants at my office. . .

Instead, I’ll skip right to a conversation with the person with whom I myself shared vows— EIGHT years prior.

7) The inevitable conversation I will have with him if I actually muster the brazen courage necessary to buy the aqua dress, pop bottles or no:

Husbee: Oh. You look pretty. Where’d ya get that?
Me: Hmm?
Husbee: I said, Where’d ya get that? The dress. I’ve never seen that before.
Me: This ole’ thing? Hey, look, it has pockets. That means I can carry all your man-gear for you. Isn’t that awesome?
Husbee: Your tactical diversions can mean only one thing.
Me: Hmm?
Husbee: And that is that we no longer own the deed to this house because you have traded it for one aqua-hued pocket-adorned dress.
Me: Hmm? Oh, hey, give me your keys let me see if they fit. How about your phone, and your . . .(slowly backing away) Oh Good God, PLEASE don’t kill me.
Husbee: Let me see the TAG.
Me: Hmm?
Husbee: (Diving for one fast-moving aqua-colored target) Gimme THE TAG.
Me: (Nimble, but not fast enough) Lemme GO!! YOU’LL MUSS ME UP!


So, in conclusion, I guess this means that if you see me at the wedding and I happen to be wearing an aqua-colored garb (did I mention it has pockets?), you might check me for scratch marks or to see if I’m still wearing my wedding band. But if it’s missing, it IS possible that it just got lost in one of the pockets. And, also, if any of you would be willing to let me hold-up at your place till this dress shenanigan blows over, that would be great.

In all seriousness, the dress talk is fun, and plentiful, but it’s also, when I look back over these conversations, one more thing I have had the opportunity to share with really amazing women—all of whom I gained via the afore mentioned wedding band. That said, I will probably not buy that dress and, instead, keep the band, and the man attached, and his wonderful family. Cannot wait to share another monumental event with you all.

To the Bride and Groom . . .And to looking forward to one FANTASTIC night. . .And to many more conversations. . . And to lots more weddings. . . And to pockets.

The True Story of Hotel Iroquois

I’m not gonna lie to you, I often lie on this blog. My life is not that exciting so often what you’ll read, my one-and-only reader, will contain only a germ of my actual life and the rest will be gratis. But not today. Today my dear friend and former roommate, Jenn, sent me a link that is so horribly funny and true and, well, it was like a big honey pot poured over my morning.


Brief Back-story:
Jenn and I met for the first time when we were assigned to share a room as summer employees of Hotel Iroquois on Mackinac Island, Michigan. This was our apartment building. She got there the week before I did. When I opened the door to my new home, a little worse for the wear after a turbulent ferry ride and a mile long walk, uphill, through horse crap, I saw that while my half of the room was bare, the other half had been plastered with red and green sorority deco. I’m not exaggerating. Even a little. If I hadn’t been so exhausted and poop-covered, I’d have turned tail and gotten the hell out of there. Would have been a huge mistake. She’s the best, Best, BEST. Did I already say bestest?

Please read on. The owners of the hotel are all women. A family of old Irish women who, I am of the opinion, hate men. They also hate women who, again, my opinion, are living and, even more incredibly, have the nerve to work for them. They’re haters. Again, my opinion. One of them is a lawyer who, just my luck, probably specializes in libel. My opinion, only.

For two girls who loved to break apart human weakness and ogle its parts, they were the best kind of employers. One of them in particular, the eldest daughter, whose initials look a lot like the letters ‘M’ and ‘K,’ was the worst—my opinion. She lived in a beautiful and spacious cottage across the street from the hotel, not surprisingly, all by herself. That part is a fact. When she would come into the hotel you could hear her immediately as she was the only person IN THIS WORLD who would wear three-inch heals that early in the morning on an island covered in horse shit. That is also fact. That pretty much tells you everything you need to know. Let me recap. Hates men, and women, and anyone who works for her who dares to make eye contact with guests, or with horses. or with horse crap, lives in huge cottage by her lonesome, oh, and I almost forgot, is a lawyer who most likely specializes in libel—but that’s only my opinion.

So Jenn sent me this link this morning.

MK is renting her cottage for the entire summer, indefinitely. Apparently, not even IT was good enough for her. I hesitate here because, though Jenn will be disappointed in me for not remaining hardened, maybe she had a calamity befall her. Maybe she’s broke or maybe she’s brok-en. Maybe she got married and has adopted more babies than Angelina and they can no longer fit into that palatial palace. Or maybe she just wants to have some poor, rich family move in for the summer so she can have even more people under her thumb. The attached ad leads me to believe that it is most likely the latter. This sentence says it all:

“Incredibly well trained dogs are welcome with references and an additional fee.”

As tempted as I was to put “with references” in all caps and bold font, I think it’s just the kind of crazy that doesn’t need any feathering, if you know what I mean. WITH REFERENCES!!!

Um, does anyone have the number for the dog-catcher in Detroit, a group of ex-cons who’d like to earn a buck as stand-in referents, and 10,000 bucks to invest in a month you (and MK) will never forget? Please write.

Thirty is the New Lovely

My parents hung this picture in our living room when I was a small child. I remember standing, for long periods, close enough to it that I could see my reflection in the glass that separated our two faces. Like my parents, I was enamored by this image. I would scrunch my face in every possible direction, attempting to somehow ingrain my own face with even a fraction of the life etched into this woman’s.

Last night, six girls from high school got together in a group, something they hadn’t done in fourteen years. I did the math as I drove home. These girls were ridiculously close to TWICE the ages they were the last time they sat together as a group. Unfortunately, as I looked around at the faces, it was obvious that none of us have achieved the above grandeur quite yet. Not even close. Life has been good to us, I think. The fresh faces are a dead give away. Of course, I guess, come to think of it, one could argue that life in a Zuni village is bit harder than life in the burbs. Although childbirth, just about anywhere, comes with its share of war stories—as we heard last night.

I look forward to doing this many more times. The good news is, with more lines comes less accountability for one’s actions and the holding of one’s alcohol. So here’s to more lines and rowdier times!

The Workday Equivalent to the ‘Drunk-Dial’

. . . is, apparently, known as the ‘Caffeinated E-mail.’ However, one important caveat to this otherwise apt comparison is that at least when you drink and dial, the recipient can HEAR the two buckets of vodka in your VOICE and therefore understand that you are not in your right mind. Unfortunately, an email sent during business hours is not granted that sort of immunity. I have come to this conclusion after arriving to work and checking my ‘sent mail’ box from yesterday. At first glance, I was certain I’d unwittingly hacked into the account of an extremely powerful and well-connected person—or possibly, that of a celebrity stalker. I read through the list:

To: Very Important Literary Agent
Subject: Wanna read my bad-ass novel?

To: Very Famous Blogger
Subject: Wanna be my best friend?

To: President of My Company
Subject: Wanna let me run this circus?

I’ll stop here —a sign of mature, rational restraint which, evidenced by the 17 or so more outgoing emails that are not listed above, I must have misplaced yesterday, in the A.M. Bloody Starbucks. And it wasn’t even my fault (read: denial is the first sign of addictive behavior).

To the best of my recollection, this is how it went down: I ordered a S-O-L-O espresso, as I always do. However, the very N-I-C-E man at the drive-thru window explained to me that he had accidentally made a D-O-P-P-I-O. Actually, judging from the claw marks on the interior of my truck, it was more than likely a T-R-I-P-L-E---O. The fact that I, for the moment, still HAVE my job, makes me quite certain that it WAS NOT a Q-U-A-D-R-U-P-L-O.


I was reading Dooce yesterday and she was saying that she was not tempted by the espresso machine in her kitchen. Though there was much more to her point, I could not get past that phrase, “espresso machine in my kitchen.” It remained lodged in the forefront of my red, dehydrated, coffee-saturated eyes all day. It called to me. I went straight home and cleared a spot for it on my kitchen counter. (Read: in a mad frenzy I flung all things non-espresso producing from every countertop). I stood, polishing its future local, dreaming of all the things that the two of us (my pink Francis Francis, model X7 and I) would accomplish together. The first thing on our list: relocate all home furnishings to the ceiling, as that’s where I would be spending most of my time. Have, however, reconsidered that purchase since checking afore mentioned email account.

Have refrained from all coffee related beverages today. Inspired by Dooce, I have decided to cleanse and renew by body, in seek of a calmer outlook. Must run. Am out of my new beverage, recently discovered in office fridge. Is called R-E-D B-U-L-L. Is very fruity and deliciously refreshing. Will, no doubt, calm my nerves from yesterday’s debacle and restore order to my cyber etiquette. The other great thing about new fruity beverage: is easy to keep track of how many ounces of liquid consumed in one day by counting number of cans on desk. Thirteen. . .fourteen. . .Does anyone have Jennifer Aniston’s email address? No?

The ACTUAL Worst Place for a Paper Cut

Have finally made it to the office this morning after one hell of a time doing so. Do you know that dream where you’re trying so hard to get somewhere and you just can-NOT? In my version, I'm always standing at my junior high locker with that little piece of paper you get on the first day that has the combination and directions—right, all the way around to the left, then back to the right. Anyway, in my dream I’m standing and turning that blasted combination well into sixth period. Kids come out of class, they go back in, bells ring, and, still, I stand, turning that little circle. Oh, and half of the numbers are rubbed off. And the hallway stinks. And, in the back of my mind, I have the nagging feeling I’ve signed up for eight classes even though there are only six periods in the day. Must stop writing about this now because I think I’m getting close to cracking the code (or do I mean combination?) and would hate to be forced into the position of learning something about myself.

So anyway. This morning I got up late and realized I did not have time for both my run and a shower, and, in truth, these are two activities that really should exist as a pair. Shower without a heavy sweat? Anticlimactic. Heavy sweat without a shower? Just plain gross.

So I opted for the ‘just plain gross’ morning and went for the run. I DID clean up, as best I could, with a frenzied mass of baby wipes and talcum powder which I believe I’ve had since birth. Stuff has a fantastic shelf life. Really.

Then, for the ‘icing on the cake,’ or, the. . .(and this is where it would be great to know French). . . ‘the piece de . . .’ You get it. So I spotted a rogue InStyle magazine on my coffee table, which is odd seeing as the only magazines I generally have lying around feature things like the latest trends in locker combinations, and I grabbed it and sniffed it, and, sure enough, the thing was saturated with perfume samples. Very excited with myself for ferreting this out, I flipped through to the first one I saw. Pleasure. Tore it out and rubbed it all over myself, even places I’m sure my doctor would not have approved.

Let me just say this, rather than giving you the gory details, there is a reason perfume comes in BOTTLES with SPRAY DISPENSORS and NOT on small, rectangular pieces of paper, COVERED with SHARP EDGES. I am now sitting, legs crossed, ever so GINGERLY, typing this warning to all other PERPETUALLY RUNNING LATE CHEAP BASTARDS like myself. Please wake up on time. Please take a proper shower. And please buy perfume in a GENUINE BOTTLE DISPENSOR. Serious pain here, people, and not the type of wound you’d willingly show your doctor.

Have also been secretly wondering if STD’s can be passed through paper cuts. The girl in the ad for Pleasure (the irony of this name, I assure you, is not lost on me) appeared to be wasting away from some horrible flesh-eating disease. Must go Google ‘flesh-eating diseases’ and ‘models’ and ‘perfume sample paper cuts’ and ‘uber-loud alarm clocks’ and 'the shelf life of talcum powder' and. . .

Matters of the Heart—and Other Body Parts of that Region

In my final semester of undergrad, I found myself staring down the barrel of an impending marriage proposal. I was waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweats, nightly, after a recurring dream that always ended with my lungs collapsing as I walked down the aisle. Each time, I awoke to find my hands clasped to my sternum, in an attempt to resuscitate myself. Then I’d check my left hand to confirm that, in fact, it was still sans ring-with-a-rock.

Like all females do when faced with dilemmas of the romantic persuasion, I sought advice. I seriously didn’t know whether it was the guy or the institution that terrified me. If it was the former, the answer was obvious, not easy, but obvious. If it was the latter, which I believed it might be, I wasn’t sure which advice, of all the sage wisdom one gets regarding fear in a lifetime, to take. Don’t think—just jump; don’t walk away—run like hell; Just plug your nose—and swallow. Everyone close enough to me in whom I could confide had a different opinion. The more I sought advice, the more I faltered.

One day I was having tea with my grandmother and her friend, Corrine. (We’ll call it tea, as that’s what my grandmother would want everyone to remember her as having drank by the cupful). Corrine was 92 at the time. She had immigrated from Ireland in her teens and certainly looked the part—little, scrappy, red hair. I laid my dilemma out for them and asked that they give it to me straight. Corrine pulled me, by the hand, off the balcony and into her living room. She pointed to the west wall, which was entirely covered with black and white photographs of what could feasibly have been, from the looks of her waste-low bosom, her immediate descendants. She waved her hand over the collage and said. . .
Well, actually, she began pointing to each one and telling me all about them and what sorts of bones they had broken, and how much that had cost her to fix, and what they had done for a living before they'd been fired and had started hitting her up for cash, and. . .you get the picture (see my pun?). And then she asked me to bring the bottle of ‘tea’ out to the porch when I was finished looking.

I have a point here, I think. Oh, yes, here it is. DON’T ever ask for advice on matters of the heart. EVER. You ALWAYS know all by yourself if you sit quietly in the midst of the sum of its parts. If you’re waking up in cold sweats, you already know the answer. In the end, it wasn’t anybody’s advice that helped. What did help were the pictures, the boobs and the booze. By this point, sorry Grandma, we all know it wasn't tea. Corrine had admittedly had a crap marriage; so had my grandmother. So do most people. The pictures just helped me tease out the inevitable trajectory of my impending nuptials. They made me realize that it was not the abysmal rate of success within the institution, or the wall of babies, or the ridiculously low-hanging breasts that scared me. It was that, as glamorous as all that sounds, I knew someone who caused me to wake up to cold sweats would probably not be worth droopy boobs. I did not marry him.

If you want to know if you’re with Mr. Right, break into an old woman’s (preferably Irish with a gravitationally challenged rack) home and stare for a few moments at her shrine of a wall. You’ll know if he’s the one if you can imagine building your own with him—without clutching your sternum for air or checking to ensure that the current latitudinal position of your breasts is still north of the equator.

Have Struck Land

Today, I ordered a landline. Tomorrow, by 10 in the AM, Eastern Standard Time, I will hear the sweet music of an audible BRRRINNNNNNNGGGG throughout the ENTIRE house. I am giddy. For some reason, I have attached all sorts of romantic nostalgia to having a REAL phone in the house. It’s like it’s Christmas, but the 1950’s version. I can already see myself standing in the kitchen, phone pressed between ear and shoulder, wiping flour from hands on red pintucked apron, half bent in laughter at friend Suzy or Jane or Rita's incredibly witty joke, Golden Retriever passing through, rubbing against me and getting half tangled in the cord as I lovingly extricate him. And then I remember—I don't have dog. And I don't have a Suzy or a Jane or a Rita, witty or otherwise. And I don't have an apron, pintucked or otherwise. And I don't rightly know what pintucked means or if it's even available in red apron-wear. And, perhaps most importantly, I don't have a phone with one of those cord thingies. And do they even make those anymore? And why in God’s Green Earth am I working so hard at moving backwards in technology when it's doing nothing but make me yearn for smelly dogs and flour-covered aprons that are tucked with pins?

Well, I think it's this. It's not that cell phones don't rock, because they do. But they, well, CHANGE the home-time dynamic. Don't they? A landline in the house means no more tearing through the house and (that's only if you actually hear the thing) digging around in a Texas-sized purse for a muffled Justin Timberlake ring tone. Ever flipped open your phone to "Bringing Sexy Back," only to hear your mom's voice saying "Hi, Honey" an instant later? I wouldn't recommend it. Also, what about the lost art of intercepting calls intended for other household members and keeping them on the line way past the appropriate welcome and greetings by telling them about how much you paid for gas that day as compared to the day before that, and the week before that, and the year before that, until they have a veritable spreadsheet of gas prices embedded in their brain. C’mon. Those are good times.

The weirdest thing is, when I ordered the line, the guy didn't try to upgrade or sell me ANY extras. He asked if that was all, a bit incredulously, and then got me the hell off the phone as soon as possible. Young punk. And then it hit me. I'm that guy who takes the fifty-year-old pipe fitting into a hardware store and gets handed the one dusty replacement relic they have in the back along with a sour look and a "Don't worry about it; we can't charge you for it cuz it's not even in the computer, Pops." I'm him. That's me.

And that’s okay. Hey, does anyone remember how to make your own phone ring? You know, how you punch in a few digits and then hang up and then it rings? Remember that? Will be doing that A LOT tomorrow. Who wouldn't love a landline? Who?

Maybe next week, I can order a very cool number. Will have to call the young punk back and see if I can get myself something more along the lines of "Pennsylvania Six Five Thousand." And then maybe I can sign up for service with these girls and not have to talk to the young punk ever again.

The 'Steve McQueen' of Handshakes

This morning a man offered me his hand to shake. The F-150 parked behind him and the low, guttural, one-syllable bark in which he announced his moniker gave me every reason to expect a Full Monty, brace-yourself-for-this-one kind of a union. Instead, he grabbed the end of my fingers, pinched them with—I think— no more than three of his own, and executed what could best be described as a drive-by attempt. The fact that I had, in fact, braced myself and leaned into the motion with all I had, left me kiltering between "yes this is me on my ass" and "oh, sorry I'm licking your boots so early in this relationship." That's okay. He DID at least LOOK like Steve McQueen, so we'll just chalk it up to too much booze too early in the morning—cuz that's still manly.


In all seriousness though, gentlemen, you should know that when you're going in for a shake with a lady, no matter how fragile she appears, better to break two of her fingers and knock her into next week than to flop like a fish in her palm. Trust me. She will judge you. For a girl, the Richter scale measurement of the handshake is directly proportionate to the size of the . . .

Always better to leave this kind of impression:



Than this one:

The First Post

Have been staring at this blank page for TWO days. Keep walking away, coming back, upper-lip curled, hands on holsters . . . and still—nothing. So have decided to type my todo list to get this thing a-goin'.

Today:
-Look very busy at work for two more hours, while actually only staring at another blank screen
-Crawl under my desk
-Search the carpeting for a rogue, mood-altering pill
-Give up

Tomorrow:
-More of the same


Stay tuned for more rivoting days ahead. . .