There is no Boy Scout badge for noose-tying.

This morning, Hurley the Golden Retriever started doing some suspicious sniffing around under my dresser. I thought that one of his toys had gotten lodged under there, but then he suddenly shot up, ran along the wall, and started sniffing under the bed— where, when I bent down to look, I saw that he had cornered an absolutely enormous millipede. It was truly horrible, one of those bugs that threatens to end your life simply by its existing in the same room as you, because who could stand to go on living in a world where something so repulsive can take up residence under your bed? So I did what any red-blooded American woman would do: I screamed.

Obviously this had no effect on the millipede – it doesn’t have ears – but I did frighten Hurley badly enough that he accidentally squashed it in his haste to get away from me, which is almost as good.

If I were to make a list of my unmarketable skills, one of the top three would undoubtedly be screaming – right there, front and center, sandwiched in between “Scrabble” and “Guacamole (making/eating)”.

It’s my gift: the ne plus ultra of horrified shrieks. When I’m frightened, the sound that comes out of my mouth is full-bodied, perfectly pitched, bloodcurdling, and reverberative in exactly the way that Jennifer Love Hewitt’s was when she used it to such great effect in I Know What You Did Last Summer.

My family enjoys reliving some of the better screamy moments from our lives together.

“Hey,” my mom will say, “remember when you saw that silverfish in the sink in 1995 and you screamed?”

My dad: “Remember when we were all looking at that huge spider in the creek, and then I grabbed your shoulder and pretended like it was on you, and you screamed?”

My brother, Noah: “Hey, remember when you came home from school that one day and I jumped out at you and you screamed?!”

Of course, I remember all of these incidents. Of course I do. Because I was fucking terrified. The scream is not just a novelty item; it is a result of the very real, body-seizing horror that runs through my veins like antifreeze whenever somebody startles me. Damnit, family, I am not your plaything.

But I remember the last one particularly well, because not only was I terrified, I nearly ended up grounded. In the immediate aftermath of the scream, my mother – who was right behind me as we came in the door – became suddenly enraged.

“God damnit, what’s the matter with you?!”

“Huh?” I asked, still shaking with the post-shriek jitters while my brother ran into the house cackling maniacally.

“You can’t just scream like that!” she shouted. “My God, I thought that Noah had hung himself!”

After some gaping and “But, but, but” stuttering, all was eventually explained. We smoothed things over. And, as with anything else, the novelty of my scream has worn off to the point where my family members no longer actively try to make me do it. And all is well.
Except for this: at the time, Noah was all of seven years old and, to the best of my knowledge, could not even reliably tie his own shoes yet.

Mom, “hung himself”? Seriously?
No, seriously – it’s been ten years, and this still doesn’t make any sense.

Boy, do I ever need a full time job.

I reached a new leisure time low this week.

Believe me, this is a hard thing to achieve. I once spent an entire afternoon dance-vacuuming my apartment while listening to bad techno music and wearing my old swim team bathing suit from 8th grade, and let me just say that when you have something like that in your past, the "I have outdone myself" bar is set so obscenely low that it's near-impossible to reach

(Ok ok, yes, there is actually an explanation for the above -- it begins with idle curiosity as to whether I could still fit into my 13 year-old self's bathing suit and ends with the pounding chorus to "Flying Above the Clouds"-- but I see no point in sharing it considering that it does nothing to change the immutable weirdness of the entire scenario.)

But at last, I have found a foolproof way to debase myself, one that goes beyond even the Speedo-clad vacuum-dancing.
It is called LIFETIME TELEVISION.

Oh my God, Lifetime. I remember this channel once being billed as "television for women", an ad campaign which I suspect was discontinued because it was a giant diss to women everywhere. What makes Lifetime so woman-friendly? Is it the terrible plotlines, the transparent suspense, the vapid villainy? Is it that you are unable to watch any of their movies without spotting some previously C-list actor who, having obviously hit rock bottom, is now playing a psychic soccer mom and/or deranged lady killer? (See LifetimeWow's "Hey, it's that guy!" rating scale for more clarification.)

Still, I just couldn't help myself when I was scrolling through the TV guide on a Random Workless Wednesday, and came across the following:

"Beth is oblivious to the fact that someone in her inner circle is her worst nightmare in disguise. Her best friend, Claudia, is actually a psycho out to use all of Beth's secrets to terrorize her, steal her family and worse!"

I mean, ooooh, right? Drah-MAAA! And so... well, I watched it.

The movie opens with Claudia (evil) showing up at the house of Beth (good), who is preparing to throw a surprise party for her husband. She comes with coffee, a very complex latte made exactly the way Beth likes it, which neatly establishes that Claudia knows Beth reeeeaally well through the following incredible dialogue.

Beth: Is it--
Claudia: Half-caf no-foam latte with light sugar? Do you think I've learned nothing in four years of friendship?
Both: Ha! Ha! Ha!

This first scene also establishes that Beth is a) diabetic, b) desperately trying to fulfill the quintessential "mother and wife" role, and c) a recovering, uber-remorseful alcoholic whose drinking nearly ruined her marriage. You know, the perfect martyr.

Shortly after this, Claudia decides -- apparently on a whim -- to kill her husband by putting pills in his coffee, causing him to fall asleep while driving. (The car goes over a cliff, and, of course, explodes for absolutely no reason at all.) She then sets about trying to steal Beth's "perfect" life through sabotage and seduction, all facilitated by the putting of pills into people's drinks. A lot. We are treated to a Claudia-dopes-the-coffee scene every 10 minutes or so, to the point where it is really pushing the boundaries of believability that nobody ever turns to each other and says, "Hey, have you ever noticed that you're always falling asleep when you're with Claudia? Oh my God, me too!"

Also pushing it: the scene in which Claudia convinces Beth's husband that she's drinking again by doping Beth's coffee, and then, while she's semi-conscious on the couch, forcing her to drink three-quarters of a fifth of whiskey.

Beth's husband, confronting her after she's regained consciousness: So, I see you're drinking again.
Beth: But... I don't remember taking the first drink. The last thing I remember, I was with Claudia, and I had a cup of coffee. And then I felt so tired...
Beth's husband: Don't lie to me, damn you! Look, the bottle is RIGHT THERE!

Naturally the entire thing ends with a climactic scene wherein Claudia, having murdered approximately half the town without anyone noticing, breaks into Beth's bedroom with a gun. She tries to make Beth commit suicide (what do you mean, that doesn't make sense? This is Lifetime, dammit!) only to be foiled and driven away in a paddy wagon while a shaken Beth embraces her husband and children on her perfectly manicured front lawn.


Later, when I met Brad for dinner, I tried to recap all of this as an explanation of what I'd been doing all day.

His response: "Wait, what? Why were you even watching this?"

I can only conclude that Lifetime is, in fact, Television for Women after all. If only because no man would willingly subject himself to this kind of bullshit, let alone keep track of it.

I am ashamed.

Three unrelated conversations; one common thread of crazy.

Saturday, July 19, at the Connecticut shore. My dad, sitting beachside with a drink in hand, turns to me and my brother.

Dad: Well, I think it's time.
Me: Time to what?
Dad: Why, to put on our walrus costumes and go scare the crap out of those kayakers out there.

(there is a long pause.)

Me: Does it have to be walrus costumes?
My brother: What would you prefer?
Me: Sharks would seem like a more obvious choice.
Brother: But don't you see, that's just the thing! They'd be expecting sharks!
Dad: It has to be walrus.
Me: Ok, ok. Walrus.
Dad: Yes.

(another long pause.)

Dad: (muttering) I have so much more in common with the walrus.



Monday, June 21. G-chat with bridesmaid.

Margaret: Cake Rover. It's like a birthday candle with legs that explores the cake surface.

For craters and water and other life.

me: and if it finds life, you should probably not eat the cake.

Margaret: Or maybe you should. The cakeians can survive in the trash. They can live without heads for nine days.... Survive nuclear blasts

me: i was thinking of the damage that Cake-based life forms could inflict on the human digestive system.

Margaret: eating them might just be the best solution. Because even though they can live in fallout conditions, they can't survive stomach acids.

I have experience.
me: you can't even eat clams.

Margaret: I know.

Margaret: But I can eat cakeians. They don't contain the Cryptonite that is inside nasty little clam shells.
Margaret: Clams. My Cryptonite.

Wednesday, June 23, 4:45pm. On the phone with Brad.

Brad: So I'll see you at 6:30?
Me: Yes.
Brad: Ok.
Me: What should I wear?
Brad: What?
Me: Pants?
Brad: What?
Me: Pants?
Brad: What?
Me: Pants!
Brad: Pants. Yes.
Me: Okay. I'll be there. I'll be in the bar wearing pants.

Well, now I've done it.

I've hit that point where I am so obscenely absent from blogging that my own mother -- a woman who was born before blogs even existed -- is asking when I'm going to post again.

Oh, hi. Mom, and everyone else, I'm here. I'm here, and I'm sorry. Sorry for disappearing for a number of days, sorry for doing so without so much as a note, sorry for leaving you with nothing but an incomplete marital rating scale to remember me by in my absence. (Oh yes, it is incomplete -- I was kindly linked to the full chart, and as it turns out, upon turning the page, I can score a whopping ten points on the merit side for "Reacts with pleasure and delight to marital congress." Who knew?! Actually, this fact was also pointed out to me by my mother, who should undoubtedly win whatever fabulous award is reserved for mothers who can call their daughters and say, without a hint of irony, "Oh no, dear, look, you would be an excellent wife by 1940s standards, because you LIKE FUCKING!")

In my own defense, I've had an eventful week since I last posted. For instance:

- I had my hours reduced so that my work schedule is now just 3 days a week, on Monday-Tuesday-Thursday. I have since been trying to pretend that a) I am not afraid of starving to death, and b) that all this extra leisure time will result in my becoming marvelously productive and writing many articles for magazines, and possibly also a novel, and maybe a screenplay, and c) that it is perfectly reasonable to have a beer at 10:00 in the morning on Wednesday, as long as the sun is behind a cloud.

(Thus far, I have done a pretty good job with C.)

- On my first random Workless Wednesday, I cleaned the entire apartment, which included mopping the kitchen floor and sponging the toilet and scrubbing down the mildewed shower tiles with a toothbrush. I also spent an alarming amount of time thinking about Simone de Beauvoir and how, on top of how unpleasant it really must have been to be Jean-Paul Sartre's girlfriend, she and her housework manifesto were really in a unique position to illustrate the special Sisyphean hell of which all those existentialists were so very fond of talking. (This may or may not have directly contributed to my desire for alcohol.)

- Oh, AND... I had my bridal shower. And that, readers, was some debauched shit, right there. Do you want to know about bridal showers? Do you really want to uncover the sordid mess that results when fifteen women crowd into one room and celebrate your impending marriage by presenting you with unbelievably fabulous kitchen utensils? Do you really want to see what kind of total madness ensues?!

And by total madness, of course, I mean ribboned hats made out of paper plates.


Yeah, that's me -- the one with the mouth open in protest, while my dearest friend to the left grinningly straightens my makeshift bonnet. Who could possibly blog when all that was going on? Who?!

You think about it, readers. You think about it, because I have to go write approximately 10,000 notes thanking my friends for all the lovely spatulas.

The one where Brad wonders if he's making a huge mistake.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the 1940s. The fashion, the film, the work of Graham Greene and Edward Hopper… it all just seems so cool, a truly neat time in history. Particularly if you can ignore the unpleasant spectacle of World War II looming in the background and focus instead on how fabulous everyone’s clothes were.

But lately, especially in the years following my move to New York and entrance into the adult world of career and dating, my fondness for the 1940s has developed from admiration for its sartorial personality into something much more full-bodied. I went from enjoying the spectacle of the era to sort of, uh, wishing I lived in it. I realize the irony of posting this on, of all places, a blog, but the fact is that I often wish I could live out the rest of my life in a world where the internet does not exist. The Internet makes things difficult. The endless stream of information, the impossible-to-keep-up-with pace of the new media, the way that online anonymity allows people to indulge their most brutal, sociopathic behaviors without repercussion…

Well, the 1940s didn’t have any of that shit. Add to that the cool swing dresses, the guilt-free cigarette smoking, the nonexistence of date rape drugs, and the fact that, once married, I would be free – nay, expected – to eschew any sort of real job so that I could spend my days cooking roasts and shopping in my little white gloves?… hell, it’s like a recipe for Fantastic.

Oh, and if all that isn’t enough to convince, allow me to offer up three more words of argument:

Men.
In.
Hats.


Take a look at that. Now try to tell me you aren’t ready to turn in your membership in the 21st century for a lifetime supply of seamed stockings and finger waves.

And frankly, though my decidedly un-vintagey feelings about women’s rights and my propensity for swearing might have worked against me, I always thought I’d do pretty well at being a mid-20th-century wife. There are lots of reasons why, but the three most compelling were:

1) I am a good cook.
2) I can, given adequate time and inclination, keep a house clean.
3) I look terrific in hats, especially silly little ones that are adorned with silk birds and tiny, completely nonfunctional net veils – which, based on what I have seen in films, is one’s only real responsibility when cooks and housekeepers are so very easy to come by.

Unfortunately, my vision of perfect post-WWII wifery was rudely shattered when I came across this wife assessment scale from 1939.


Although not yet married, I was still able to assess my own wifely value using this chart. And imagine my surprise when I discovered that, according to its standards – which were vetted by scientists – I do not possess the characteristics that make for a Superior wife. I’m not even average, for Pete’s sake; instead, I found myelf somewhere at the bottom end of the Very Poor scale (which is hilariously, pharenthetically titled, ‘Failures’) due to major accruance of points on the demerits side.

Fails to sew buttons or darn socks regularly? Check.

Doesn’t like children? Check.

Also: Wears red nail polish, is slow in coming to bed, flirts with other men at parties or in restaurants. (Oh, sure, judge me. I don’t care. That waiter at Applebee’s the other night was HOT.)

I would probably also get black marks for busting around the house in dirty aprons and failing to keep the seams in my stockings perfectly straight, if I owned either one of said items. And although I earn back one or two points on the merit side under “good conversationalist”, “plays a musical instrument”, and “dresses for breakfast” (for which I am taking credit based on absolute face-value interpretation, in that I generally do not eat breakfast naked, or at least not if we are going anywhere nice), my total score was NEGATIVE TWO.

A number which, barring the sudden appearance of offspring whom I provide with a class-A religious education and put to bed personally (does it count if I “personally” tell them to get the fuck upstairs and tuck themselves in while I sit on the couch and drink scotch?), is unlikely to change anytime soon.

I confess that I’m a little disappointed. I mean, damn, 1940s! The Lady Eve made you look like so much fun.

Smokin.

As apartment-dwellers, Brad and I never really get to do the home improvement thing. We have no house to renovate, no yard to maintain, no garden to plant. We do have this wall -- one wall, which could ostensibly be knocked down and rebuilt -- but the ultimate usefulness of messing with the wall (nonexistent), the possible repercussions (full-scale collapse), and the probable reaction of our landlord (attacking us with knives) make doing so less-than-appealing.

So all told, unless you count a single afternoon we spent spackling over holes in the wall after Hurley the Golden Retriever decided he really loved the taste of plaster, we never get to do anything of the Weekend Warrior variety.

In general, I don't think either of us really misses it. We're both usually happy enough to be free of responsibility and spend our Saturdays drinking beer in front of the television. But occasionally, and particularly on long weekends, and particularly if one or both of us has been watching too much HGTV... well, the lack of any sort of "project" can make us both a little desperate -- leading to the formation of plans which are highly questionable at best.

Brad, to me, last week: Hey, you know what I want to do on the fourth of July?

Me: What?

Brad: Build a meat smoker out of a flowerpot!

Me: Yes!

Brad: And cook a pork shoulder!

Me: AWESOME!


Normally, of course, this plan would never have achieved fruition. After a couple of days, somebody would have come to his or her senses and said, "You know, darling, I've been thinking about building a meat smoker out of a flowerpot, and on further reflection, to do so would be insane." And that would be it.

But this time was different. The first-floor apartment in our building was empty, leaving us access to the backyard, and more importantly, it was the fourth of July -- the birthday of American independence. And we were both wholly convinced that there was no better way to assert said independence than to build our very own possibly-illegal contraption for the cooking and consumption of meat.

This conviction took us all the way to Home Depot, where Brad strode purposefully around in a self-assured, man-in-his-element sort of way while I randomly pulled things off shelves with intermittent, celebratory shouts of "GONNA COOK A PORK SHOULDER!" Thirty minutes and about $75 later, we left the store armed with all the components of a flowerpot meat smoker and a renewed sense of purpose. We may have even high-fived in the parking lot.

The haze of DIY joy continued throughout the drive home, during which we turned to each other repeatedly, gleefully squealing, "This is going to be SO COOL!", and then again while Brad outlined his plan to get up at 5:00am on Saturday to start the smoking process. I, meanwhile, was daydreaming about wearing a pink apron and serving picture-perfect pork sandwiches alongside german potato salad (which I do not know how to make), with strawberry-rhubarb pie (which I am too lazy to make) on a rustic picnic table (which we do not own). All in all, we were both convinced that nothing could possibly go wrong.

And nothing did, at first. On Saturday morning, true to plan, Brad leapt out of bed at 5:00am and disappeared. I woke up for long enough to acknowledge a) his departure, and b) that I had a raging hangover, then went back to sleep.

I was awakened at 6:00, when Brad came lurching into the room, bumping into things and speaking in ellipses-heavy bursts like a dying cowboy in a spaghetti western.

"Can't… do it… too much… smoke… gonna vomit," he groaned.
"What?"
"You… unplug… smoker… please," he said, then shuffled over to the bed and collapsed face-first into the mattress.

I was barely with-it enough to remember to put pants on before walking downstairs, but as soon as I opened our apartment door I was shocked awake by the overwhelming, choking odor of hickory smoke. Fearing the worst, I ran down the stairs and through the empty apartment on the first floor, then burst through the back door of the building fully expecting to find a five-alarm fire raging in the yard.

Instead, I found our DIY smoker sitting demurely just beyond the door, with only the tiniest, most delicate tendrils of smoke wafting from its terra cotta body, as though to say, "Who, me?"

With the crisis averted, and Brad finally able to stand up without turning green, we pulled up a couple of chairs and sat down for the well-earned luxury of watching the progress of the smoker.

A well-earned luxury which, as it turns out, is only marginally more interesting than watching paint dry.

And after seven hours, three fire scares, and approximately 12,000 conversations about whether the smoker thermometer had stopped working or was just moving really, reeeeally slowly, we finally did what any other sane couple would have done in the first place: We took our (admittedly beautiful, deep-brown, smoky) pork shoulder upstairs, put it in the oven, and spent the next three hours watching the Harry Potter movie marathon on ABC family.

On one hand, the endeavor was by no means a total failure – I mean, we DID build our own smoker, and we DID smoke the pork, and some friends DID come over to eat it .

On the other, the fact that I fell asleep at 6:00pm after eating only one fucking sandwich and right in the middle of the Polyjuice Potion scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is still pissing me off.

I don't play well with others, but my penmanship is SPECTACULAR.

I had an employee review last week.

If you know me in real life, you probably just groaned out loud.

I'm sure that you will be shocked -- shocked! -- to hear that I do not do well in employee reviews. I have had approximately one good employee review in my entire career history, back when I was 21 years old and the only thing my job required of me was to show up, stick post-it notes on books for several hours, and not accidentally set anything on fire. And I am actually reasonably certain that they would have forgiven the fire thing as long as I cleaned it up afterward.

Since then, things have gone horribly downhill.

I realize that this is at least partly my fault, given that I have a problem with things like "authority" and "proper attire" and am generally incapable of the sort of reasonable behavior (i.e. putting up with endless B.S.) that is expected in an office environment. However, given my near-perfect track record of catastrophic employee reviews, it also seems that I have had amazing luck in working for people who have serious issues.

For instance...

In 2004, just before my review, I was asked to go through a stack of roughly 300 manuscripts dating from about ten years ago with the sole purpose of removing all the paperclips. I was reprimanded for a lack of professionalism after referring to it as "the most important job in the world."

In 2005, I was reamed out by the head of my department for not showing my immediate supervisor the respect that an assistant ought to. My pointing out that I had been promoted to associate nearly 6 months before didn't seem to help matters, although I do still have the pencil she threw at me when I left.

And in 2007 (I was granted a reprieve in 2006 when I changed industries and went to work for a smaller company), I walked into the meeting prepared with a list of my various accomplishments from my first year of employment, determined to end my employee review losing streak by showing what a fabulous fucking worker I was.

Unfortunately, my assertive vision was replaced by the following conversation:

Boss: So, it's been a whole year.
Me: Yes, and in that time, I--
Boss: Well, I'm afraid to say that your performance has been uneven, at best.
Me: Your FACE is uneven at best.*

*I may or may not have actually said this. I also may or may not have gone to the bathroom and cried afterward.

Since then, and since leaving the world of corporate employment to be a freelancer, I had been pretty much spared the employee review. I was dealing largely with individual clients, which works a lot better for someone who is generally predisposed to hate everybody; if somebody pisses you off, then you can just choose not to work with them anymore. This is not to be undervalued. There is a beautiful, beautiful freedom in knowing that you don't have to kiss your employer's ass just so they can write "plays well with others" on some HR-issue form in a year's time.

So I was pretty freaked out when, out of nowhere, my current boss sent me an email with a subject line that read "3 Month Review" and asked me to meet him for a drink after work. It was all I could do not to run across the room and shake him, screaming, "I do not DO employee reviews, motherfucker! What part of 'freelancer' did you fail to understand?!"

Several hours later, I was sitting across from him in the Harvard Club, simultaneously desperate for a drink and yet afraid to order one lest it soften my defenses. I'm now glad that I didn't, because otherwise, my boss might be dead now.

"So," he said. "It seems that you're not fully engaged with your work."

(This, at least, is a criticism that I'm familiar with; the question of my 'engagement' has come up numerous times throughout my working life, and it always boils down to the same problem -- namely, that while I might be completing my work flawlessly and on time, I have never been one to bounce off the walls with delight at the sheer fabulousness of being employed.)

"I'm surprised to hear you say that," I said, while my other-dimensional second self smacked her forehead with frustration.
"Well, yes," he continued, and then, before I could say something reasonable about the natural ebb and flow of projects, he dropped the bomb: "And I thought you might be padding your hours."

In another dimension, my second self threw a glass against the wall and began screaming obscenities.

This is because my boss, who is otherwise a perfectly lovely man, very specifically turned down my offer to work from home at an hourly rate -- a relatively standard set-up for a contract employee -- and instead insisted that I keep regular on-site hours. That's 10 AM to 6 PM, in an office: a set-up which I hate, but nevertheless agreed to because a) I liked him, and b) a guaranteed paycheck is always a nice thing.

Apparently, however, my boss also maintains an other-dimensional second self who believes that one can keep freelancers on hand, always present and ready to work, but only pay them when they are actively engaged in some project or another.

At the risk of preaching to the choir, this is not the way it works. Rather, if you insist that your freelancer be on-site and available to you during a regular workday, then you are buying said freelancer's time for the duration of a regular workday. Even if all your freelancer does is plant her ass on an office chair and wait, endlessly, for work to come in. Your freelancer does not like this either -- and you can trust me on this -- but nevertheless, as long as you are requiring her ass to be in that office chair, then you are required to pay for that ass.

I'm hoping that we have it all worked out; it remains to be seen whether I get dragged in around September and told that my "engagement" is still not up to par. If so, though, I'm pretty sure that my other-dimensional second self will have no choice but to murder my employer's other-dimensional second self and then dispose of the body by feeding it to a gang of monkeys.