Are you being served?

Last weekend, Brad and I found ourselves at a Nice Restaurant. You know the kind – white tablecloths, dim lighting, the soft clinking of glassware, menus that aren’t encased in a plastic splash-guard... ultra-classy. We were there at the behest of his parents, who had sent us a lovely card and gift right after we got engaged and exhorted us to “Go do something beautiful together!” (I suspect that truly ultra-classy people would have gone to the opera; we took it as a direct order to stuff our faces.) (My future in-laws are awfully sweet, by the way.)

So there we were, nicely settled in, our elbows resting comfortably on the pristine tablecloth, when a pleasant-looking waitress came swooping over to take our order.

And then, things got weird.

Admittedly, I’m not exactly up on waitressing trends these days – it’s been a good four years since I worked in a restaurant, and perhaps protocol has changed. Regardless of the incentive, though, one thing was obvious from the get-go: Our waitress was really, really excited to be there.

“Are you guys ready?” she asked, bouncing a little and looking from me to Brad and back with unbridled anticipation. She reminded me of a racehorse at the gate.

I was immediately nervous.

“Er… yes,” I said. “I’d like the…” I looked down at the menu to be sure… “Bacon-wrapped monkfish.”

“Great,” said the waitress, just a little too forcefully, and smiled even harder.

“And a glass of pinot grigio?” I said. It came out in the form of a question. All her smiling was freaking me out.

“That’s just terrific,” said the waitress, this time with even more feeling.

I looked at her. She beamed back at me. The whites of her eyes were showing.

“Um, okay… and we’d like to split the quail, as an appetizer—”

“Great. Awesome!”

Across the table, Brad was looking amused. The waitress turned her full attention on him.

“And how about you?” she asked.

“I’ll have a glass of cabernet—“

“Fabulous!”

Now we were both staring at her. She grinned back and nodded encouragingly, manically, the way that your second-grade teacher does when the stupidest kid in class keeps stumbling over the word “hippopotamus”.

“Um, and the braised short rib.”

The waitress looked directly at him with eyes full of passion, her head nodding with almost violent approval, and said, “YES. GO FOR IT!!!”

And she left.

Brad watched her go and then said, “I guess we have great menu skills.”

But really, do we? Or was something more sinister afoot? Maybe she was just doing it because she has to. Maybe human beings, already approval-seekers, now faced with a neverending barrage of unwanted advice on what we should and shouldn’t put in our mouths, have just become so insecure about food that we actually need this sort of rabid affirmation from waiters that we’re doing okay for ourselves.

It seems like a good idea.

I’ll have to ask my waitress what she thinks.

Tempest in a teapot.

Warning -- major drama ahead.


Okay, confession: I'm not a nice person.

I have, in fact, never aspired to be "nice". Good-hearted, yes. A loyal friend, absolutely. But nice? No. I don't put much stock in "nice". "Nice" is a word used to describe people about whom there is absolutely nothing else to say. (Tell me, readers: if you died tomorrow, would you want your headstone to read, "S/he was nice"? Because personally, I'd rather have mine say, "She once made someone laugh so hard that a raisin came out of their nose".)

Fuck nice. I'd rather be interesting.

Still, I was surprised when I visited Such Great Heights -- a blog that I like and regularly read, obviously -- and discovered that, as a result of this post (and then, after several hours of bloggy drama, this one), I was being heralded by both the author and her readers as the second coming of Regina George.

Clink did not direct-link to me, because she was "taking the high road". But considering that 1) she had to know I would see her post, and 2) in addition, she had to know that I would see roughly 80 people who not only don't know me, but had never read the posts in question, talking about what a vile bitch I am, I am legitimately questioning Her High-road-ness. To me, stirring up something like this without allowing people to even judge the offending material for themselves is just propaganda (although in this case, the propaganda is tear-stained, tinted pink, and all decked out in organza and lace. Pretty!)

I did post an apology, which, I should note, was approved -- but only after the removal of my (intentionally-provided) name and email address, making the mea culpa completely moot.

So since she won't out me, I'm outing myself.

I am the bitch who said something bad about your girl, Clink. It was ME.

I can tell from my stat tracker that some readers have already found the posts by doing some intelligent googling. Welcome, guys. None of you have left nasty comments or sent me vicious emails, although many of you promised to do so, which makes me wonder if you've read the post about my engagement and realized that there wasn't anything wrong with what was said. Those comments were not about her. They were about my readers (many of whom know me in real life -- I do not write anonymously) wanting this blog, and its voice, to stay the same. That has nothing to do with Clink, and everything to do with my friends liking me the way I am. We should all be so lucky.

And as for the other post? Yes, it was bitchy. That's because I, the author of said post, am a bitch -- insofar as I'm willing to write, uncensored, about things that I find ridiculous. Which include, but are not limited to: frighteningly misguided public art projects, the judgment of a woman politician based on her physical appearance, and the suggestion that one's best friends should be forced to spend $270 on a dress that they will never, ever wear again.

But if doing that makes me "jealous", a "gross whore", or "an asshat"... well then, airing the details of your personal life in the very public arena of the internet, and expecting that people will only react with starry-eyed support and positive feedback, does not just make you (as I would have previously thought) a bit too naive and trusting.

It makes you a fucking idiot.



Which, of course, Clink is not. This is my point. She's a good writer whose personality, voice, and blog happen to be very different from mine. And needless to say, my post about her blog wasn't motivated by hatred or jealousy (although I admit to being jealous of her hands -- she's posted a couple photos of them, and her cuticles are really well cared-for and notably un-chewed). I posted about it because something she wrote made me think, and I thought it would make other people think. That's the reward of good writing; making people think. It is also the risk: sometimes, what they think will be, "What the fuck?!"

You, dear readers--and especially the new ones--are welcome to leave feedback on this post. I don't moderate comments, and I allow you to make them without revealing your identity (even though, as noted, mine is public knowledge). So, speak, if you want to. Tell me I'm a bitch, tell me I'm fabulous, tell me I'm a fabulous bitch. This your forum, and you're welcome to say whatever you want, uncensored and protected by the soft cushion of anonymity.

Just please, for the love of god, do not ask me to be "nice".

The naked truth

I went shopping for a wedding dress yesterday. And yes, I found one (and yes, it’s fabulous), but this post is not about the Finding of the Fabulous Dress. There are, as we all know, plenty of other blogs where you can read about bridal fashion to your little heart’s content.

So, no, this is not a post about wedding dresses. Instead, it is a post about my ability to, in the most spectacular manner, put my fucking foot right in it.

We were at the bridal salon that was the first stop on an intended Shop-Hop – try on a dress here, tease a salesperson there, then on to the next salon. We had been there about 40 minutes and I was ready to go – I’d tried on five different gowns with no real success, the dressing room was cold, and I was tired of standing around in my underwear in front of four other people (my mom, my aunt, and the two bored-looking salesgirls who were helping me into and out of each dress). I started putting my socks on while my mom chatted with the salesgirls.

“We’ll just go and digest what we’ve seen so far,” she said, which is like Polite Person-ese for, We are SO not coming back here.

“Oh, of course,” said Salesgirl #1.

“Yes, definitely,” said Salesgirl #2. “You really have to love your dress.”

Salesgirl #1 nodded enthusiastically. “It’s so terrible if you don’t! We had this girl who bought a dress online and brought it here for alterations – she just fell in love with it, you know, so she didn’t bother trying on anything else.”

“But,” said Salesgirl #2, “Once she had it, she hated it! But it was too late, she had to wear it. So she just stood there while we pinned it and stuff, and she was like, ‘I can’t wait to take this thing off.’ It was so sad.”

“Oh, no!” my mom said.

“That’s awful,” said my aunt.

“It was the only thing she ever tried on?” I said, half-into my pants. “God, that’s so disappointing. That is, like, the same reason you don’t marry your high-school boyfriend.”

There was a gasp. Somebody cried out, “What? Why???”

I looked up.

Salesgirl #1, the younger one – how could I have not noticed how young she was?! – was staring at me with eyes the size of saucers. I froze, awkwardly balanced on one foot, wearing nothing but a bra and underwear and one effing leg of my pants, and tried to assess exactly how much of an asshole I really was.

Had this girl married her high school boyfriend? That would be the worst. I shot a panicked look at her left hand. No wedding ring, okay. No ring at all, actually, which meant that she probably wasn’t engaged.

“Uh,” I said, “I didn’t mean you as in, like, you. I just, uh, meant that it’s, um…. ummmmm it’s sometimes not a good idea to, um, commit for life to the first thing – er, guy, I mean – that, you know… comes along?”

The salesgirl’s expression, though still distinctly unhappy, eased a bit.

Salesgirl #2 shot me a sympathetic look, and said to her friend, “Well, I mean, you’re not even engaged to him, right?”

Salesgirl #1 frowned and sighed. “No,” she admitted.

“Don’t listen to me,” I said, just before the two of them slipped through the dressing room curtains and left us by ourselves. “I’m sure you’ll do whatever’s right for you.”

The curtain swung closed.

I put my pants on, turned to my mother, and said, “I am such an asshole.”

“Well, she would have had to hear it from someone,” she replied.

Which is, of course, completely true. Just as it is true, no matter how sad said truth, that marrying one’s high school boyfriend is a bad idea in all but the most unusual of circumstances. When it comes to your once-in-a-lifetime choices – the big, only-reversible-if-you-want-a-whole-lotta-grief decisions – ideally, those decisions should wait until you’re at least, say, seven years removed from the period in which you knew with an all-consuming certainty that Jonathan Taylor Thomas was the only man you would ever want.

That’s just sensible.

Which does not mean, when you are 17 and in the throes of your first real romance, that you want to hear about the tear-soaked, heartbroken, run-ragged end that your relationship will likely meet from a smugly engaged 25 year-old who is not even wearing any fucking pants.

Dear Salesgirl #1, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry. (But you're probably way too good for him.)

Things you can do in the Navy

STD news is always fun, isn't it?

CHICAGO (Reuters) - New genetic evidence supports the theory that Christopher Columbus brought syphilis to Europe from the New World, U.S. researchers said Monday, reviving a centuries-old debate about the origins of the disease.

Not that I have anything against scientific research. But is it me, or does the “centuries-old debate” about syphilis sounds like the same kind of blame-game finger-pointing that happens when, after a night of inebriated sex, somebody wakes up with the clap?

European scientist: Those slut-faced New World tramps! They gave Columbus syphilis!

American scientist: Uh, excuuuuuse me, New World tramps? That’s a laugh, coming from a continent that’s full of French whores!

Second European scientist: Whatever! Those Native American bitches were obviously easy, running around in their fucking loincloths with their tits all hanging out!

Second American scientist: Yeah? Well maybe Columbus wouldn’t have come back covered in sores if he hadn’t been a fucking cultural rapist!

First American scientist: Oh, snap!

All I can say is – regardless of who gave what to whom (or whose continent gave what to the world), the article does go on to point out that an epidemic of syphilis swept through Naples shortly after Christopher and his buddies had arrived back in the homeland…

[The] study lends credence to the "Columbian theory," which links the first recorded European syphilis epidemic in 1495 to the return of Columbus and his crew.

… leaving very little doubt as to whether or not sailors are, in fact, total bacteria-ridden sluts.

Not that we mind, as long as they keep wearing those cuuuuuute uniforms.

Oh, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found youuuuu

One of the most unfortunate things about getting older is that, as we age, the concept of mystery undergoes a sort of… unfortunate transformation.

To put it one way, this is what "mystery" meant to me when I was 7 –

And this is what it means to me now.

Yeah, ew.

And Nancy Drew is just the beginning. The mysteries of childhood are just better, when you come right down to it. Things like, how does Santa fit down that chimney? Why is the grass green? Where do babies come from?

All those unknowns come with this great promise of a positive, or at least interesting little solution once they stop being mysteries. Because Santa doesn't exist, but, you get to prolong the fun by making sure your little brother still believes he does. The grass is green because of chlorophyll, and hey, aren't I smart. Babies come from-- WHOA. I can't wait to turn fifteen and do that!!!

Not so as an adult. Now, the only mysteries left are things that fill us with dread. It's all mysterious stains, mysterious disappearances, and that mysterious lump behind your ear that was there yesterday morning but was gone yesterday afternoon and then reappeared out of nowhere except this time it's on your ass and it looks like Richard Nixon.

So I was a little freaked out last week when I woke up and discovered that my boobs had, for no apparent reason, gotten a whole lot bigger. Not like I went to bed with strawberries and woke up with melons, but still, something is up with my boobs. And no, I'm not pregnant. The whole thing is a....

... total mystery.

Which is making me extremely nervous, because I'm pretty sure that I used up all the good mysteries back in 1995 or so.

As an exercise in positive thinking, I have chosen to believe that the Gods of Big Tittedness have just blessed me for no particular reason.

But it turns out that an alien has laid its eggs in my chest, let's just say I won't be surprised.

I am every New York girl.

A couple weeks ago, I was trading dating horror stories with a friend from work. It was a rollicking good time at first (or at least, as rollicking a good time as can be had when you’re talking about broken hearts and bad sex), but then, suddenly, his expression turned somber.

“I wish I could find a girlfriend,” he said, looking into the distance. “Trying to meet someone here is so… hard.”

Even from where I stood – safely ensconced in the warm blanket of a committed relationship – I felt myself nodding in agreement.

Because that’s the thing about New York: even if you leave aside the cliches about feeling so horribly, ironically alone in a city of 9 million, the fact remains that it’s an unforgiving, cold, anonymous place where connecting with anyone takes a lot of work. Which is part of its draw, of course. It’s like a test: one that you pass by taking an apartment in a dangerous neighborhood, buying things you can’t afford, dating 5 men at a time. You come here to bathe yourself in all the game-playing, status-grabbing ways in which this city doesn’t give a shit about you, and as a reward, you get to congratulate yourself for not caring.

Eventually, though, the city starts to feel smaller, and colder. And eventually, being lonely goes from being a novel, “home with my cat and a pint of ice cream ‘cause I wanna be” thing to a "I will never connect with anyone so I might as well get 7 more cats and get fat and DIE" thing.

And your more human self, who you’ve been ignoring in favor of a clench-fisted urban life, taps you on the shoulder and whispers, This isn’t fun anymore.

That’s when you find yourself trading your hard-earned single-person stories with another disenchanted New Yorker, and earnestly wishing out loud that you could just fall in love and be done with it. And that’s why, when the city offers you the chance to fall in love, no matter how inconvenient or ruthless or unplanned it is -- unless you're a complete moron -- you take it.

Lesson learned.

So when the best guy I’ve ever known got down on one knee yesterday and asked me to marry him… I said yes. (Because I am not a complete moron.)(And also, because he is extremely good-looking.)

Yeah, that’s right, motherfuckers – I’m engaged!

Required materials for staff meeting: notebook, pen, agenda, straitjacket.

Since leaving the PR, real-office-job world, there are some things that I've pretty much stopped doing… like, say, drying my hair before going to work. Or taking my job, such as it is, particularly seriously. Or wearing shoes that don’t have a rubber toe. These are the perks of freelance life – I might be currently without a discernible career path, but the tradeoff is a devil-may-care attitude that I last sported around, oh say, age four.

(In fact, all I need now is to get my hands on another pair of the nifty purple corduroys I used to bang around in at preschool, because those pants were the shit, only this time I could probably do without the elastic waistband. And the juice stains. But I digress.)

But there’s this other thing that I don’t do anymore, and that is: go to meetings.

Which I do not miss at all, for obvious reasons. Because a good meeting, by my measure, would last no longer than 30 minutes, revolve around pertinent and interesting information, and be well-stocked with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups...

...whereas real meetings go on for hours, convey no information which couldn’t have been disseminated in a two-paragraph memo, and never have any peanut butter cups.

So months went by, and I – as a non-permanent member of the staff – was not required to attend any (or hardly any) meetings at all, and it was great. So great, in fact, that I never considered whether my Going To Meetings Skills were starting to atrophy.

Never thought I might be gettin’ out of practice.

Never worried a lick that I might, for instance, find myself in the first formal meeting I’d attended since September. And that my coworker’s pen would roll off the table and into his crotch. And that my first instinct—to which I would come thisclose to succumbing—would be to plunge my hand between his legs and retrieve the pen while letting loose with a samurai-style battle cry, something along the lines of AYYYY yai yai yai yai YAI YAI! SHOOOOOOeeeeeAH! WEEEOWWwwwwwwYAH!

Nope, definitely didn't see that coming. Which just goes to show that, just because the possibility of something has not yet occurred to you, that does not mean it will not happen.

And also, that I am either very very creative and interesting, or in serious need of a psychiatrist.

Think about your ass this weekend.

I don't know how I missed this.

Bravo to the Jezebelles for having the guts to offer up their bee-hinds in the name of the feminist cause... although I have to say, if your goal is to make a point about the unfairness of Celebrity Cellulite Tabloid Terror Watch by posting a photo of your ass, it's a tad undermining when your own ass photo shows no cellulite whatsoever.

Still, this got me thinking.

What if we all did this? What if every woman with a blog declared war on the concept that a woman's face and body are fair game for public criticism? What if we all posted photos of our asses, cellulite and all, and said, "Deal with it, fuckers!", and then sat back without a single word of apology?

I suspect, and I am nearly 100% serious, that it would make a hell of a statement.

I hate you, Murphy... and your stupid law, too.

I'm not completely up-to-speed on the nuances or origins of Murphy's Law, but I believe it's best expressed as, "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong” – which can, of course, be tweaked for specific application depending upon the particulars of your situation. So if you're uninsured and don't have access to a doctor, for instance, then you're guaranteed to end up needing one (thus accounting for the extraordinary number of people who seem hell-bent on breaking their legs in foreign countries.) And if you're uninsured but do have access to a doctor, but only because that doctor is your father, then it goes without saying that you will immediately need a doctor, and it will be due to a mortifying medical problem that you would rather die than discuss with he from whose loins you sprung.

So it should come as no surprise, Murphy’s Law and all, that I found myself home for the holidays with a medical condition that could only be described as "A Serious Problem With The Ladybits".

No, no, I’ll spare you the details. I have a sense of decency, after all. But hey – though it might take a real sicko very special person to blog about this stuff, it does happen sometimes. (And if you’re a girl, and you’re all, “Whatever, it doesn’t happen to me,” then you, young lady, are very fucking lucky. Or, more likely, a big fucking liar.) Just suffice to say that I was very uncomfortable and it was really screwing up my Christmas, okay?

Ahem.

Anyway, after I'd spent three days of skulking around the house, sighing and whimpering and making pained faces, my mother looked up from the newspaper and said, "Honey, is something wrong?"

"I'm having a horrible problem," I said.
My mom frowned and looked worried.
"With my va-jay-jay," I added, hastily, hoping to clear the air of any concerns about possible alcoholism or drug use.
"Oh," she said.
"And I can't go to the doctor."
"Hmm."
"And it's HORRIBLE, did I mention that?"
My mom patted my arm sympathetically.
"Maybe you should talk to Dad about it," she said.
"I can't," I said. “Too mortifying.”

It wasn't just my own mortification that I was thinking of. Once, when my boyfriend was breaking up with me, I had called home only to find that my mom – who usually lent an ear in these situations – had gone out somewhere. Instead of doing the civilized thing (hanging up, eating massive quantities of chocolate, and watching Sliding Doors until she called back), I ended up unleashing the full brunt of my heartbroken misery right then and there, complete with sobbing, sniffling, and unintelligible gibbering. My poor dumbfounded father attempted to quell the onslaught of female hysteria by making sympathetic noises, until I wailed, “I just don’t understand, Dad! Why doesn’t he love me?!”

Dad (who absolutely deserves an “A” for effort in this situation) muttered something about the boyfriend being a moron and then added, “Your mother is, uh, better at this stuff than I am.”

It was the most uncomfortable conversation I had ever had with my father – and it didn’t even have anything to do with sex organs. I would have preferred shooting myself in the foot to forcing my father into a dialogue that began with, “Hey Dad! Something is horrifically wrong with my ladyflower!”

No. I could. Not. Do it.

Of course, that didn’t stop my mother from turning to my father later that day and saying, “Your daughter is having a problem with her hoo-ha!”

The conversation that followed included a lot of muttering, no eye contact, and a level of discomfort that outpaced the Hysterical Phone Call by approximately 3 billion percent.

It also led to my mother appearing later that day, brandishing a family toothpaste-sized tube of ointment and instructing me to put it… well, somewhere.

I don’t want to talk about it.

(Hey, doctors – now that you’ve mapped the human genome and developed a vaccine for HPV, d’you think you could come up with a treatment for Ladypart Problems that doesn’t involve turning the Lady into an antibiotic-filled human profiterole? Thanks.)

So wrong.

Still, in spite of all the angst and embarrassment and gross-out comparisons to cream-filled desserts, I was cured by Christmas morning.

And that, my friends, has got to qualify as a Holiday Miracle.

(Also, it should go without saying that my parents are the greatest people in the world.)