New Rule #1,284 (aka The "There is no crying in baseball" Rule)

After The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver made me tear up on the subway yesterday afternoon while on my way to a (useless) meeting, I hereby institute the following rule for myself:

I will not read anything other than:

A) magazines;
B) thrillers (like Bangkok 8);
C) amusing capers (anything by Carl Hiaasen, although his last book reeked worse than a body decomposing on a 105 degree day in the Everglades);
D) satires; and/or
E) politically witty tomes (like Sarah Vowell or Beth Lisick) if:

1) I slept less than 6 hours the previous night;
2) I have not seen Husband in more than 24 hours; and/or
3) I am using some mode of public transportation, such as a subway or airplane.

This rule shall be invoked to prevent embarrassing episodes of me bawling (in public) because I am emotionally overwrought, and the book that I am reading (or the movie I am viewing) took a dramatic turn that breaks my over-feeling heart. Yes, yes. I am all about pretending to be stone cold, what with all my ranting "mothering this" or "cunt-face ass-eater that," but it is all a facade. The reality is that underneath my mean, mocking, hard exterior, I am the biggest fucking softie on the planet. These devastating books and movies (for example, the love story between Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun Fat in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) fucking impact me. I'm a wreck for hours after a book/movie gives me a truly earned sob (not like those manipulative pap movies - The Other Sisiter, anyone? - that Steph so dearly loves but bring "a fucking tear to my eye").

So this new rule is for the good of my mental state, as well as my public image. And don't you fucking forget it, motherfucker. Now I'm off to the Kleenex box and/or Husband's t-shirt to wipe my nose.

Something's Fishy in Here

A good general rule of thumb is to be wary of "fresh fish" in areas in that are not near bodies of water (other than polluted rivers). Disregarding this nugget of wisdom on Saturday, Steph, Husband, and I headed to a sushi restaurant for lunch at the King of Prussia Mall. Right in the entryway was a large fish tank:



I had a difficult time using Husband's camera phone, so in case the contents of the tank are not obvious from this blurry shot, I'll enumerate: those ain't fish. The tank is instead filled with empty bottles of alcohol. (This had no bearing on my poor camera skills, by the way.) Despite this glaring warning to turn back, we asked for a table for three. Here's Steph eagerly awaiting her bento box:



Isn't she adorable? Miraculously, none of us got food poisoning, and somehow the sushi was even OK tasting.

While waiting for my fishy meal, I did some math. I learned about the King of Prussia Mall and decided I must visit this enormous paean to shopping someday when I was approximately 16 years old and working at Chiron Publications. (A bookstore that seems to no longer be there frequently special ordered exciting titles like In the Ever After or Uncursing the Dark for customers, and I processed the orders.) Currently, I am 32. This means that it took me exactly half of my life to achieve my goal and go to this mall. I don't know if that is impressive or pathetic, but I can't say that I felt I accomplished anything important on my trip. It was fun, though.

Re-Thinking My Incompetence, Or Other People Suck Much Worse Than Me

Every time I go to perform my glorified clerical duties at my newish job, I wonder what the hell happened to me.

In January 2002, I began a new job in which I planned a program to bring capital and technical assistance to community groups and early childhood programs around the City. When I was hired for that job, I wondered what the fuck the agency was thinking in bringing on a 25 year old to do this work. Then I remembered that I had three years of experience in that niche field, which was more or less three years more than any other likely candidate, so it made sense. Long story short, I fucked some shit up along the way, but mostly did a very good job developing and implementing the program before I burned out due to challenges to my sanity that were both internal (like money being stolen from my program and used for another, but I'm not still bitter or anything...) and external (like early childhood education is public priority #1,209,988, if that...) to the office.

In the olden days of my rough and tumble child care work, I often felt like an incompetent fool. Not the most incompetent fool around (I encountered enough people who made me wonder how they managed to tie their shoes, let alone do any work), but still a person who had a lot of things to learn. I tried to absorb as much as I could from mentors and colleagues. I also tried to acknowledge to myself that I was good at some stuff, although I semi-failed at that task.

Which brings me to the present day. As I sort through the clusterfuck of a mess of a data collection project, I realize that I may still make mistakes, but damn, compared to my predecessor, I am a model of competence, efficiency, and common sense. I even tell funny jokes (usually to myself, as I tend to work alone) while I fix shit. Go me and my non-profit management skill set! Now, if only that would help me get into an MFA program. (Still no word and hence, no Mars bar eating.)

It's For the Best

As I re-read my blog post from yesterday, it occurred to me that whenever I was rejected by my top choice educational program, it always winds up being to my benefit in the long run. Had I attended NYU's law school, I likely would be a lawyer today. If I hadn't talked Columbia into taking me off the waitlist for the MPA program, I would've gone to NYU, had no debt from grad school (or very minimal debt), and been tapped into a much stronger and connected alumni network. So while my rejection from Hunter stings, I am looking at the positive side of it. It clearly was not meant to be.

Now we'll see if my tarot card reading was right. She strongly felt that I would be attending New School in the fall, and while I woulod be very overwhelmed at first, it would ultimately be a good fit for me. (Of course, she also thought I would get into Hunter, but the vibes from New School were stronger. We all know how Hunter worked out...) Hopefully, I'll get some notice yea or nay from them this week.

In the meantime, back to my exciting data entry and database management work. Thank goodness for mind-numbing repetitive tasks, right?

And I Thought I Am Tall

Recently, I discovered that my brother-in-law's wife is shorter than I am. This discovery engendered a minor identity crisis because I have always been the shortest person in my in-law family. All these years, I thought I was short, but really, I am a tall short person. How distressing to live with such self-delusion for so long!

Anyway, while on holiday with my sister and her husband, I encountered two objects that made me feel slightly better about my situation.


This literal giant was housed near the giant penis armor of Henry VIII. (That made me feel small, too, by the way. Maybe I should pay more attention to all those spam emails I receive with offers to help me grow my penis larger...) Even with my hiking shoes, my head only floats a bit above the 5 foot mark.


Further, when a chocolate rabbit at Herrod's is about my height, what's to complain about? If Dana were not leaning in to take a bite, I think they'd be about the same height. I could literally eat my height (if not weight) in chocolate. Yum.

My Daytime TV Diet

So Des reports that she subsists on a steady diet of game shows while she is unemployed. While I wait for people to call me back on the various projects that I am working on, I devised the following menu of non-online entertainment:

America's Next Top Model reruns on VH1 and MTV

Project Runway reruns on Bravo

America's Best Dance Crew reruns on MTV

From these fine programs, I learn many things. First, Husband's assertion that fashion designers are misogynists is obvious from watching the shit that the designers produce and judges fawn over on Project Runway. The leading designer, Christian, is a young punk who fails every challenge that requires him to work with a real woman (i.e. - a woman who lost weight; a teenage girl) instead of a 9 foot tall model who weighs 84.5 pounds. Even when he doing his "best" work, I stare at it and wonder why any person on earth would wear something that fucked up and weird. I guess fashion is about making women look like fools and idiots.

On America's Next Top Model, I learned that Tyra Banks is hilarious. I also discovered that I will never be a model for several reasons that go beyond my 5'1" frame that carries 125 pounds. My biggest challenge is distinguishing expressions. Tyra is always demonstrating the difference between something like "smiling eyes" and "mysterious eyes," but they look the same to little old me. Further, even if I had the body, looks, and skills, I doubt I could put on the ridiculous outfits that designers create without severe mockery and snickering.

Thanks to America's Best Dance Crew, I discovered that I do not use complementary expressions like, "That is sick!" or "That's tight!," nearly enough. I also saw that my roller skating and gymnastics skills could be developed more. There are no wider social implications from this show, as far as I can tell. It's just fun.

Who says that television is not educational?

Passing on the Stuffing

At a party yesterday, a friend explained how she passed the time at work by researching on the internet how paraplegic men have sex. (Seriously, how on earth did people kill time at work before the internet?) She learned that men with some blood flow to their penises can engage in a practice called stuffing. Stuffing is exactly what it sounds like: cram it in, and hope that there will be some reaction to the action. Sometimes this works; others, there's just some raw genitals at the end.

Before I even discovered stuffing had a name, I realized that I was metaphorically familiar with the practice. For the last few years, I've been trying to forge a career based on it. Each time a job came along that didn't really excite me, I tried to make the pieces fit and hoped that I'd get some satisfaction from it. There were times when he work made me satisfied, but generally I felt tired and sore from the effort.

Last week, the always insightful Maria Niles wrote a post on BlogHer about the benefits of closing doors. The post hit me. How long have I said that I didn't want to work on child care policy any more, only to take every job that came my way because I feared that I would never work again? Too long. If I was serious, I'd need to really close the door on my child care policy career. It would be scary, but it didn't have to be permanent; I could always walk through it again in the future. My skills won't go anywhere, but I'll never fully explore my other options until I move on.

Two days after I had my epiphany, I went to have my fortune read. The tarot card reader told me that I am surrounded by opportunity, but my biggest obstacle to success is myself.

"You like things to happen in a linear fashion," Katie noted, "and the way things are happening now makes you feel insecure. You have to let go to get ahead."

On Friday, when I got a call and email about a consulting job with the city, my first impulse was to take it. What else am I doing now except trying to get pictures for my book about unusual New York, writing an article for Just Cause, blogging at BlogHer, and finishing up an article about termination for an encyclopedia of sex? If I didn't take the job, I could be homeless, starving, and unloved because Husband would get mad that I didn't work. My heart raced. I was standing in front of the door. All I had to do was call the lady at the city back and make the arrangements.

That's when I decided that I didn't want to be stuffed any more. I took Katie's words to heart, and took a deep breath. Husband would not drop me because I said no to a job to which I had reservations. In my mind, I quietly shut the child care door. It felt good.

Letter to My Body - Sort Of

On Valentine's Day, I kicked off BlogHer's Letter to My Body initiative. The Town Crier kicked off Phase II to the project with a wonderful perspective on infertility. As I've mentioned before, I have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), which would make it difficult for me to get knocked up if I should ever lose my remaining shreds of sanity and decide that I want to have a baby. Clearly, the infertility problem doesn't keep me up at night. The delightful other symptoms of PCOS are another story.

While reading other women's letters over the past two weeks, I nearly bust a gut laughing when One Fat Momma wrote:

I know I complain about getting zits and blackheads even though you are pushing 30, but secretly? I like picking at them, so it’s not such a hardship. I’m probably jinxing myself by saying this, but sometimes I like to live dangerously.

Because seriously? That's how I feel about my chin hairs. Damn, I hate them, but they sure are fun to pick at. When I have insomnia, de-bearding myself makes for an excellent way to pass time. There's something oddly cathartic about plucking hairs. It's certainly better than my nervous habit of peeling away all the flesh on my cuticles.

Still, when I notice the coarse black hairs on my chinny chin chin, it is upsetting. The extra androgens that cause them - and my slightly-elevated-level of insulin - are not cool. They fuck with my moods pretty badly. I would very much like it if these competing hormones would go away, but I guess this is the one body I got, so I'll deal with it. Plus, there's the added incentive that body snatching aliens probably aren't into bearded chicks, so I got that going for me.

Anyway, 'twas a long day, which explains my late post. I taught my last budgeting class at the local university in the morning, then ran around like an idiot in the afternoon. I also gave in to my curiosity and had my Tarot cards read. It was very interesting, and the cards said lots of nice things. I don't know how much I really believe these things, but it made me feel less anxious. The occult is a fantastic deal for therapy. Long live witches!

Nonstick Cookware and My Sister's Birthday

Was there ever a better invention than nonstick cookware? I think not. I swore that the frying pan I got as a wedding gift was nonstick. Still, even after I sprayed it up with Pam, things tended to stick, especially in the last year or so. (To be fair, the pan came into my life in the summer of 2000, so even if it was nonstick at one point, it probably wore off.)

While at Ikea recently, I invested $6 in two new frying pans. I had no real expectations that these new pans would revolutionize my egg cooking experience, but damn! When the Teflon works, making scrambled egg substitute (97% real egg, plus lots of yellow food dye) is an entirely different ballgame. I can't wait to buy some 100% real eggs and fry them up.

This has changed my whole outlook on cooking. OK, that's a lie, but it does make cleaning up after I cook eggs much easier. I'm sure that all you cooks are laughing your asses off, but this is huge to me. Huge! (And probably explains why, although Meloukhia left me excellent advice and instructions on how to make my own Greek yogurt, I am likely to continue throwing away money at the grocery store, although I very much appreciate her attempt to help me.)

Speaking of exciting news, today is my sister's 28th birthday. Happy Birthday, Chooch! It must be nice having a three day weekend over which to celebrate. I wish I could be there, except for the snow and cold....

Birthplace of Democracy

When I voted in Tuesday's primary, I felt like I did my part for democracy, rather than what we've had for the past two presidential administrations, which is democrazy. While I believe that Sen. Clinton's health plan is superior to Sen. Obama's, I also think that Clinton is a candidate I don't entirely trust. Of course, she's far better than any of the Republican candidates and I will do everything I can to make sure she is our next president if she is the Democratic nominee, but today I cast my vote for Obama. I think he would make a fine president.

However, if in November, we do somehow wind up with another four years of Republican theocracy (theocrazy?) and fiscal corruption, I am moving to an island in Greece. Why an island in Greece? I wish I could say it is because I want to return the roots of Western civilization or something profound like that, but the truth is that I am obsessed with Greek yogurt. Until my friend Mara introduced me to it in early December, I had no idea that yogurt could be so thick and rich. Not to harp on my pudding obsession, but seriously, Greek yogurt is like yogurt pudding. To live among a people who produce such amazing yogurt would be an honor.

Also, I really love feta cheese. This actually makes a lot of sense because I am a Capricorn (aka The Goat), and as the nutty talk show host Mike said to me this summer, "Beavers suckle beavers; sheep suckle sheep. Why should babies drink formula?" Of course, that sentence just me laugh at the time, but now I see its truth: as a human goat, I obviously prefer items made from goat milk. (There's an extremely icky path we can also go down here about making cheese from human milk, but let's not.)

Not understanding Greek is going to be a large obstacle for me, but really, when learning any foreign language, it's all Greek to me. (yuk yuk.) I'll fit right in amongst the furry goats and hairy people anyway. While my dream of living on a goat farm in Greece is tempting, if not extremely smelly, I really do hope that it does not come to fruition. Let's go Obama! It's time for change in the US.

Periods, and Anger, and Cookies - Oh My!

It's true that my food cravings are worse when I'm on the rag or about to be hanging with Aunt Flo. This is probably why I've wanting pudding so badly for the last four days. Also, I suspect it is why I became utterly enraged at something someone wrote on Friday. Usually, I'd probably be angry about it, but not fixate on the statement to the point where I could not focus on anything else.

While I was sputtering about on Friday, I noticed that I was ravenously hungry. Suddenly, it dawned on me that being really angry seems to make need to eat. It probably explains why I ate non-stop for the last year or so that I worked at my former employer. I was furious all the time. It apparently takes a lot of energy to sustain that level of anger. Who woulda thunk?

Regardless of my level of fury, I ate an enormous quantity of junk this weekend. Breakfast was cookies and a granola bar. While in Pennsylvania with Steph, I had an afternoon lunch tea. Then meatballs at Ikea. Then breakfast for dinner at Cracker Barrel. (For the record, the grits at Cracker Barrel are probably made from the same recipe as the gruel fed to Oliver Twist, but damn if the blackberry cobbler is not the tastiest confection this side of the Mason Dixon line.) When I got home, I had a cookie "midnight snack." All I ate on Sunday morning were cookies and string cheese.

Anyway, I was completely amused on Sunday afternoon on my way back from the gym when I saw the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile parked in front of the Jewish Community Center. I ran to get my camera, but by the time I got back outside, it was pulling away.Still, I think it is pretty funny to see the Weinermobile cruising up the streets of Manhattan. Hot dogs. Yum....

Sunday Blahs

It's Sunday. That means I am tired for no good reason and under-motivated. However, it is also my assigned day to post at BlogHer, so I wrote up a rambling essay on how child care workers are completely screwed by our dysfunctional American society that needs women to work but insists that they are bad mothers if they work.

On another note of American dysfunction, I received a nice letter yesterday from my unsurance company with a detailed explanation of why they rejected my bilateral breast MRI. It turns out that my doctor is a lazy son of a bitch who neglected to submit very basic information such as: the age of my first menstrual period, my age at first live birth, the number of previous breast biopsies including the pathology and my ethnicity. Perhaps this information would make no difference at all, but it certainly is not hard to submit. There are 45 days in which this information can be submitted for consideration. I shall call the unsurance company myself tomorrow. Then I will search for a new doctor. Bah.

Otherwise, Husband and I had a delightful Saturday. We visited Dianne and her precocious daughter and fun husband for the day. Steph also joined us for good eating at a hibachi grill place and two rounds of bowling. We raced back to the City to join Dr. H for her 30th birthday bash, which was fun. (Dianne's birthday was this past Thursday, so happy belated birthday to her!)

Maybe my lethargy is explained by a Diet Coke, cake, cookie, and Jelly Belly hangover? My hard partying ways are catching up to me...

We Apologize for the Delay in Awkward Photos

Here at Case de CUSS, computer issues crop up every once in a while. Sometimes they are not really issues at first, but then they turn out to be issues that leave a computer in several pieces. This usually (only) occurs when Husband decides to "upgrade" something, and while the fix should be simple, it goes slightly awry and takes him 40 times longer to finish than he originally anticipated. The scanned pictures are stored away in the laptop under repair, which Husband advised me not to use unless I really had to.

Hence, eager mockers will need to wait a bit for the pinnacle of my primary school photos, Eighth Grade: Year of the Naturally Enormous Hair. Many of you will be sad to discover that eighth grade ended the Dynasty of Ginormous Glasses because I began wearing contacts. It's unfortunate, too, because not long after my 7th grade photo was snapped, I broke the glasses I wore in that picture. (Long story short: I gave a speech at my friend Rachel's bat mitzvah - although I don't think I wore that sweatshirt/skirt combo, but rather a green dress with black polka dots and a bubble skirt that layered over a straight black skirt which I very badly wish I had a picture of to share, but now I am digressing in my digression - and I took a very deep bow after I was done singing her praises. Unfortunately, during the bow my face smashed into the back of chair and snapped the glasses in half at then nose bridge.) The new glasses I bought were even bigger, but had clear frames. My sister, who is four years younger than me, also wore oversize spectacles in the Sally Jesse Raphael way that was so popular with 3rd graders in those years. (With her permission, I think I need to scan some pictures of Dana in her frames.*)

Anyway, since Husband always eventually successfully finishes the computer projects he begins (once in college he put a new motherboard in his PC, only to discover that the case was too small to contain it and, with his computer geek roommate, devised a solution involving electrical tape and a hammer to get things in), I am sure that my laptop will be running faster than ever by the end of the week. Or 2009. In the meantime, this will give my mom time to catch up and correct my faulty memories.

*Damn, we should start a blog collective to which people can submit photos of themselves in huge glasses. That would be fun. I think I will do so and I'll call it Super '80s Prodigious Eyeglasses X-travaganza (SPEX).

Rich People Stink

Hello from the Admirals Club in Dallas-Ft. Worth, where I am waiting out a two hour layover before boarding the flight to Honolulu. One of the many benefits of traveling with Husband is that I get to observe (and experience) the lifestyle of fancy-schmancy business travelers and the wealthy. What I discovered is that these people stink. Literally. (Proverbially, the top 2% live rather nicely, as the convenient free internet stands in the Admirals Club demonstrates.)

The flight to Dallas-Ft. Worth had two classes: first and coach. On that type of flight first class is really more like regular business class, but the hoity-toity have to accept it and sit amongst the hundred thousandaires or be forced to sit in the back with the riff-raff (where I belong). Anyway, not long into the flight, I used the bathroom. It was not smelling very fresh, even at that point. However, when I went back an hour or so later, I nearly fucking passed out it was so damn rank. I wondered who stuffed the dead body into the tiny room and how it managed to decompose so quickly. When I needed to pee again not long before landing time, I decided to wait it out, figuring there'd be a nice potty in the Admirals Club.

I was only half correct. The fixtures were very upscale, but the two stalls had the distinct odor of fresh diarrhea. (Sure that made me laugh when I typed it, but I wanted to cry in the bathroom while I emptied my very full bladder.) As a person with an on and off digestive ailment, I understand that sometimes you can't help where you have an explosion. However, I am starting to wonder if all the expensive food consumed by the upper class leads to more stink bombs in toilets.

Anyway, other than spilling orange juice all over Husband's seat and iPod during the flight, that's about it for now. Good times ahead.

Actually, I just looked out the window and a large fire appears to be ranging on the tarmac. Scary. More to come.

Sweet December

I'm finishing out 2007 at home in New York, at my parents' house (get ready for grandmother stories next week), back home in New York, and then in Hawaii and Oahu. In that time I will also finish my grad school applications, take the GRE, and watch hours and hours of Hunter on DVD. (Man, the guest stars from season one - Frances McDormand, Drian Dennehy, Ed O'Neil, and Dennis Franz, for example - rock my world.)

Not only am I fortunate enough to have a semi-easy end to my year, but I am lucky to see December 1st at all. As I have complained many times, drivers in the city seem to believe that red lights do not require them to stop their vehicles. They just cruise right through, even after pedestrians get the cheerful "walk" light and venture into the crosswalk. As I mentioned on Ev's post about hitting a deer (excerpt: "As I was standing on the brake, fishtailing towards a ditch, watching the deer's head and neck fly over the roof of my truck while the front half and the back half of the torso broke apart at the ribs, and I was thinking, 'Huh! I never would have expected it to do that!'"), I was nearly run down by a shiny new BMW that neglected to follow traffic laws. I was eating a Trader Joe's 100 Calorie pack of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and I hurled one at the car as he narrowly missed my toes. I smashed against the front passenger side window with a satisfying, if small, noise and shattered into a million pieces. (That's when I realized I should carry little paintballs in my pocket with me from now on...) The other guy crossing the street while I was agreed with me that drivers are fucking maniacs.

Another disturbance in the balance of the world happened when I read that The Red Balloon is being re-released. I cannot explain why that fucking movie vexes me so much, but it was always 34 minutes of hell when they forced us to watch it in grammar school. Every damn year. For reasons that are beyond me, my beloved Entertainment Weekly gave it a grade of A. Tarnation!

You're a Woman Now, so Demand to Read about It

Since Husband is in San Francisco for work (poor dude got back from London on Sunday night and took off for the West Coast bright and early on Monday morning), he doesn't need the car to drive to his office in Connecticut. I decided that I will take advantage of the availability of our automobile (which I always think of as his since his work pays for it and I never drive it for a variety of reasons, the primary one being that I hate driving and fear the maniacal NYC traffic) and motor up to see Alex. We plan to work out more details for my idea to put together an anthology of first/early period stories, tentatively titled Congratulations, You're a Woman Now!.

Not long after I first conceived of the need for an anthology of this nature, I emailed my friend who also served as my agent for Off the Beaten (Subway) Track and told him about it. Oddly, he was not nearly as enthused about the idea as I was:

I've read a few proposals for this very idea for an anthology and think it is a tough one. The problem is 1) to put an anthology together for sale you need some pretty big names, or at least recognizable. 2) the subject matter for most people is a bit squeamish, even for girls. I had two female interns read the proposals and both did not like... I could be wrong, so if you're passionate about it, sell me on it.

My initial reaction to his response was not constructive ("Well, those female interns are obviously cunt-face bitches who read shit like Devil Wears Prada while staggering around in their pointy-toes stilettoes getting snatch waxes, so they wouldn't know a good idea if it hit them in their Sephora-made-up faces."), but then I buckled down and realized that what my friend was saying is that I need to show that girls aren't squeamish about their first periods because the topic is fucking funny in retrospect. I think the outpouring of interest that is still emerging on my original blog post is a good indication that people do want a book like this.

Anyway, the goal is to come up with a framework for proposal submissions, a plan for compensation, and a website that organizes the whole thing. In the meantime, the more I hear from people who are interested in reading a book of funny essays about the early days of getting a period, the better. (For an example of the types of writing that would be in the book, see 1980 was an interesting year by Jessica.) The first battle in the war for this book is to demonstrate that it is a commercially viable product.

Call for Submissions. Period.*

Brilliance is inspiring. Two days ago, I read a very funny/mortifying story by Jessica, who is hilarious, about how she learned how to use tampons. It occurred to me that many of us delightful women bloggers have shared these "my first period" stories with the wide world of the web at some point. I love reading them. Everyone has a different experience, and yet they are so easy to relate to and universal in their own horrifying ways. It's good stuff.

As I tried to leave a comment for Jessica about how much I enjoyed reliving her painful adolescence (fucking Blogger ate it), it dawned on me: we should put together a book of essays about getting our periods. Or about coping with getting our periods, as some of the better stories don't involve that first fateful day of doom. Maybe a book like this already exists since it's not exactly an original concept. (A quick search on Amazon for books about menstruation yielded only treacly guides for girls and anthropological and cultural studies and criticism, but not fun essay books. I jaunted over to Barnes & Noble and saw nothing on the topic, either.) Even if it does, we can spin the book as the first book of essays about getting our periods written by non-famous blogging women. (How can any publisher resist?)

If this idea interests you, speak up and I will investigate how to get this off the ground. Since I love reading all your blogs (and the writing of my non-blogging friends, several of whom I think would come up with really awesome essays), I know this will be great. If not as a book (for which you'd get paid for your contribution!), then maybe we can have one of those blogging carnival things that always happen but I don't understand at all. We'll call it Bloody Bloggers Day or something.

*Apologies for leaving out the two or so men who read CUSS. Maybe you can write a funny essay about your first nocturnal emission or something equally embarrassing. Actually, that would be an awesome book/blog day, too...

Koala in the Bush

After I watched Des get the awesome tattoo across her shoulder last month, my desire for a tattoo of my own increased to new levels. Tattoos are so cool! Des and I discussed my interest in a tattoo later that afternoon, and I confessed that I was still reluctant to go under the pen for two reasons: the permanency of tattoos and my irrational fear that I will not be allowed to be buried in a Jewish cemetery although I do not believe in God and think that cemeteries are a waste of land. However, if I ever did get a tattoo, I thought I would want a koala bear, since it is an animal I relate to. (Koalas are sweet and cuddly looking, but in actuality, they are vicious little assholes.)

A few weeks later, Des posted this picture of a koala on my infrequently used MySpace page:

She noted, "Can't you see the evil gleam in his eye?" Seriously, the critter is perfect, and it inspired a suitably ridiculous and excruciatingly painful plan.

One day, I will get my snatch waxed. After it heals a bit, I will get the koala tattooed on my crotch. Then my pubic hair will grow back, hiding Horatio (that's what I named the koala) in the bush. Oh man, just thinking about that makes me laugh. (And wince.*)

*Have no fear, any parental figure who reads this. The odds of me carrying out my brilliant scheme of personal decoration are negligible. But I do like thinking about it.

File Under "Accomplished" - A Photo Story

(Incidentally, this little photo story will give a fair tour of the mess that is my living room. I only mocked my parents' house in the past because I could completely relate to it.)

My writing desk was my dining table for years. Then we got a new one, but instead of throwing this table out, I moved it into the living room to use as my writing table. Initially, this was very good. Then my writing table became my dumping table. (FYI - My friend Dianne painted that portrait of the CUSS logo for me. Isn't she awesome?) Not much writing is done at my writing desk as a result. After months of writing at the fancy new dining room table, thinking if I could just put my files somewhere, I could use the writing table as a table instead of storage unit, it occurred to me that I could buy a filing cabinet. Two weeks later, I ordered one from Staples.

It arrived yesterday in a tidy box. I committed to building the filing cabinet on Friday morning. Here I am hard at work in the middle of my living room. Husband was working from home, and he was so amused he decided to take a picture. (Note the hideous purple leather chairs that he insisted on buying from Craig's List. The blue sofa came from a thrift store. Our temporary second rabbit, Jacques, chewed a whole on the corner of the puffy top which is covered by Husband's green blanket that he got for college in 1994. At the front of the room, behind the gate, is Tycho the Giant Rabbit's apartment.)

About an hour and one minorly major fuck up (I forgot to put in the bottom on one of the drawers before I attached all the sides - oops), the file cabinet stands complete. What a jolly laugh I shall have if it is not large enough.

My (Not So) Dumb Ass

Since the book is done for now, I am turning my attention to my applications for graduate creative writing programs. Yes, I am psyched that I wrote a guidebook/travelogue, but next I want to write something with a plot and characters and all that jazz. To do that, I gotta learn more about writing and shit.

One of the schools I am applying to requires the GRE, which I never took. (When I hustled off to policy school, the places I applied to took my LSAT score, sparing me the agony of learning GRE math.) The admissions decisions are not really based on test scores, but I still need to do well enough that the university at large agrees to let me enroll in the case that I am admitted to a writing program. I bought a study book from Kaplan and took my diagnostic exam this morning. For the 12 math questions, I basically guessed on every one. I managed to get half correct. The verbal portion went much better, although not the results were not sterling at 75% correct. I did unusually poorly in reading comprehension, so I'll chalk that up to a fluke. More studying to come.

I also learned this morning that Nov. 29 is officially recognized by the United Nations as the International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People. Fuck that. The same New York Times article mentions that "711,000 left Israel-controlled territory in 1948 and 1949" and in 1948, "856,000 Jewish residents left Arab countries." The World Jewish Congress submitted a memo to the United Nations Economic and Security Council in 1948about the danger facing Jews in the Middle East in response to a 1947 draft law composed by the Arab League "that called for measures to be taken against Jews living in Arab countries" including "imprisonment, confiscation of assets and forced induction into Arab armies" as well as beatings, officially incited violence, and programs. However, the memo was buried by the Lebanese ambassador and president of the council.

I don't need a good GRE score to understand how unfair and biased the world is.

Arghhhh! *Slurp* (Part II)

As we chuckled over Husband's hilarious email about a possible air pirate eating soup in the Admirals Club lounge at Heathrow airport yesterday, Husband pointed out that "Arghhhh! *Slurp*" is also the sound that a pirate makes when giving a blow job.

Clearly, when we met as college freshman, Husband had to be somewhat demented or he would not have wanted to date me. At the same time, I wonder (at times with pride) how much I have dragged him down into the gutter with me. Regardless of my influence, the man makes me laugh.

Trick or Treat?

I adore Halloween. Even when I worked at a regular job, I wore a costume (my traditional German dirndl) to work on the holiday. Needless to say (but I will), none of my other co-workers dressed unusually those days.

For the vast majority of women, however, a milder version of dressing up for Halloween takes place every single day when they put on their faces before leaving the house. I'm not saying that make-up is bad or people shouldn't wear it as it obviously helps a lot of women feel better about themselves, but it is in many ways no less a mask than a dirndl is a piece of clothing. I am too cheap and lazy to care if I look like shit.

So it is funny that on the eve of Halloween, I found myself in a Sephora cosmetics Emporium in Times Square. (A double horror!) My friend and I were walking home from dinner and as we passed the store, she remembered that she needed a lip pencil sharpener and asked me if I minded stopping. I am always up for an adventure (yes, I consider entering a make-up shop) so inside we went. While I marveled at the tremendous variety of appearance-approving tools and tricks, I noticed a sale rack. And like a seven year old in a goblin costume, I dug through the bins for goodies. Since I can't resist cheap shit and "deals," I bought a $2 lip gloss stick and $4 sparkly eye shadow.

I tested my new face out when I got home. The lip gloss was a little darker than I thought it would be, making me look like a drank a glass of fresh frothy blood. The eye shadow was the perfect accoutrement to sitting on the couch and watching DVR'd episodes of the delightfully craptastic CSI:Miami. I washed the magic off before I went to sleep at 3 AM. As the soap threatened to get into my eyes, I thought about how parents punish kids for using dirty language by washing their mouths out with soap. Could one also wash their eyes out with soap after viewing less pleasant images, like pictures of Paris Hilton? Interesting.

Happy Halloween. Hopefully your day will not include any costumes so horrible that you'll want to wash your eyes out with soap.

A few days ago, I read a blog post somewhere (my brain is beyond fried, so I have no idea where, sorry) about how women want to be taken seriously and not judged solely based on their looks. This statement made a lot of sense to me. Then I read one of the comments, in which the writer begged to differ that women don't want to be objectified. Compelling evidence was presented in the number of plastic surgery procedures conducted on women each year. When I read that, I sighed because I can't really disagree with that point entirely.

Sure, there are a lot of reasons why women undergo plastic surgery. Even I submitted to the knife, although it had nothing to do with how I looked. (Only plastic surgeons do breast reduction procedures and I needed to unload half my chest before my damn shoulders and back caved in from the weight dragging me down in front. I honestly thought I would look worse after the surgery. I'm happy that I was wrong.) Can we really separate out the effects of living in a world that so values feminine beauty and sexiness (demonstrated by only a very small variety of body types) with someone wanting plastic surgery for her own self-esteem? I don't know. For example, there are a number of women I know who chose to get breast surgery after having a baby so that they could look like they did before pregnancy changed their bodies. That doesn't strike me as buying into some beauty myth since they were just trying to return to themselves.

It's hard not to want to look good in a world that places so much value on looking good. While I put about zero effort into my appearance, it doesn't mean that I don't obsess about it, too. I know that I will never have a flat stomach and lean thighs. It is just not my body type, and wrangling myself into a shape that is unnatural for me would mean that I could never eat ice cream, cake, or cheese. No thanks. At the same time, I cringe when I look at my "big" hips in the mirror or when I notice my bulging thighs when I am sitting down. I don't care enough to wear make-up, shave my legs, do my hair, or strut in high heels let alone get plastic surgery, but I'd be lying if I said that I don't want to be considered attractive.

Are there any women out there who don't worry about their looks? Do women care much more about how they look than men? Statistics tell us that increasingly this is not the case. Still, I have to agree with both the blog poster (we want to be judged on our abilities) and the commenter (we want to be objectified). We live in a world that splits women in half. What we want and what we can achieve within its social structures make us schizo. As a result, generally, most women want to be judged for their abilities and objectified. It's fucked up.

Vim & Vigor or Vinegar & Piss?

It's obvious that I have a lot of anger towards other people that I consider to be morons. (Another reason why it is such a bummer that I do not speak Yiddish. A book review in yesterday's New York Times notes, "Yiddish parses the stupidity of others in a thousand ways, and find distinctions matter." Damn, that makes me laugh and beam with pride. This shit is in my genes, even if I don't speak the mama loshen - mother tongue.) Something happened yesterday that made me rethink some of my rants.

My friend Logan is a certified sex educator, completing her PhD in Human Sexuality at NYU. She has worked with hundreds of New York City school kids, covering the full range of the socio-economic spectrum, and wrote an awesome book about how to talk to kids about sex. A few nights ago, she was on TV discussing birth control. Her honesty about what kids are up to these days and her frank approach to helping kids make safe, rationale decisions about sex caught the attention of a conservative blogger. Needless to say, the kuneh-laiml didn't agree with her and took it upon himself to launch a written assault on Logan's character. His minions chimed in, and reading their nasty attacks literally made me ill. (I'm not going to link to him because if people click through and he tracks referring links, I have no doubt that I will get hateful comments, and I don't want to deal with these shmendriks.) Later, Logan received an email from a yold who ranted about how he can't wait to meet her in person because she's a horrible person and he's going to sue her for sharing her ideas that result from the fact that her parents don't love her. He ended his misspelled and grammatically incorrect missive by noting that he didn't "need a college degree to make him dumb." (Obviously not.)

At first, I felt morally superior to conservatives because I don't write such vile personal attacks on my bl.. oh wait. I do. Maybe I am not better than these judgmental douche pipes who confuse "having morals" for "being a shithead." While I am pretty certain that I've never gone as far as these right-wingers do in character assassination, I still call them names. (Sometimes even in Yiddish.) On the other hand, I've never sent anyone an email threatening to sue them because I think their ideas are stupid, and certainly not insulting their children. Hmmmm....

What Does "Sweet Romance" Smell Like, Anyway?

Recently when I spoke to my friend Steph on the phone, she repeatedly referred to someone who pissed her off as a douche bag.

"What scent of douche is he?" I asked.

"Hmmmm..." Steph pondered.

"I bet he is licorice," I answered, laughing hysterically because I cannot imagine anything more ridiculous than licorice scented douche. Then I realized that I actually have no idea what scents douches come in, so I decided that some research was in order.

A search for "douche" on drugstore.com yielded the following:

Vinegar and Water

Fresh Baby Powder

Tropical Rain

Island Splash

Sweet Romance

Seriously. Not only is douche horribly unhealthy to use, but women want to smell like "Island Splash?" Do women who douche (and the people who love them) take a deep whiff and think, "Ah, nothing smells as good as Sweet Romance snatch?" And I suspect that even my friends who like waxing off all their pubic hair and going bare would be creeped out at the idea of a hairless poon that smells like baby powder.

What is the world coming to when a lady can make her cooter smell like tropical rain, but not licorice? Yeesh.

Pitch Perfect

Yes, the title of this post could be another reference to baseball, but I swore I was not going to bore people with my Mets obsession any more, and I intend to keep my word. Instead, this post is about the tour that I took this morning of the Steinway piano factory. I may be tone deaf, but I do know any awesome tour when I take one.

I knew it was going to be good when I was handed goggles upon my arrival. The tour goes right through the working shop floor, and it was incredibly cool to see how grand pianos get put together. The guides were funny and passionate about the history of the factory and also the neighborhood in general. Plus, as a part of the tour, I got to take home souvenirs - a piece of veneer and a rejected hammer from the key mechanism. Throw in the goggles, and this rocks the house.

After the two hour tour of the factory, I wandered around Astoria and Long Island City for awhile. I "investigated" several bakeries (Tsoureki - Greek Easter bread, also known as epiphany bread - is way yummy; crappy cheap tartufo is not) and munched a souvlaki on a stick on my way to the special graffiti warehouse. During my meanderings, I remembered why I currently have the best job in the world. (Maybe that was my special bread epiphany?) Yay!

Kiss and Make-Up

Suebob wrote a very insightful essay about forgiveness, which ends with in a typically Suebobian perfect fashion that left me chuckling and nodding in recognition. Forgiveness is not one of my strong suits. A long time ago, people told me that I should find out what I am good at and focus on those things. Turns out that I am excellent at holding grudges. Not long after I read Suebob's post about forgiveness, Steph called.

"You know what's crazy?" she asked me, and then not waiting for an answer, she went on. "MySpace had a survey and one question it asked was about how many people you hate. Lots of people answered that they don't hate anyone because it's too much effort."

"Yeah? Well, they are lying," I replied.

"Seriously," Steph said, "It takes much more effort to try and not hate people."

"Amen to that," I laughed.

I thought about this all as I was trying to sleep earlier this evening, and failing miserably. I have a gig tomorrow to do a workshop, and for no reason at all, I kept fixating on how much more respectable I'd look if I wore a little make-up so that I didn't appear to be the living dead. On the other hand, I'm no better at doing my face than I am at the live-and-let-live philosophy of life, so I suppose I fail on both ends of the kiss and make up spectrum. So it goes.

The Hills, SI-Style

This may sound crazy, but hear me out before you call to have me committed: Staten Island may very well be the most interesting borough in New York City. On a visit to the most suburban, whitest (approximately 80% of the population versus 57% in Manhattan, according to the 2000 Census) borough, I was shocked to discover many things.

Forget Lauren Conrad and her stupid exploits on the MTV reality show, The Hills. Staten Island is also very hilly, and the hills are alive with the sound of music - rap, salsa, and hip hop blaring from car stereos and apartment windows. Also, there are a number of Latin American restaurants and soul-food joints that tempted me with delectable aromas as I sweat my ass off climbing up and down the hilly, winding streets. I replenished my fluids with a refreshing ice tea that I purchased at a gay-friendly (hello, rainbow flag!) coffee house across the street from Ira's Curiosity Place and Mood Swings, two store specializing in antique junk and other random crap.

The site visits for the book I am writing about attractions that are off the beaten path are nearing completion, and of all the places I trekked around in, Staten Island surprised me the most. Not that I was not consistently delighted by the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan - I totally was - but I expected to be. Staten Island definitely has its hidden quirks, which makes it as fascinating as its more diverse borough cousins.

Into the Woods

If you are ever looking for a place to escape from the urban environment of Manhattan, but have no interest in leaving the island, the north end of Central Park is woodsy and quiet. If you really want to get away without going anywhere, you must head to Inwood Hill Park. This is where I found myself on Friday morning.

Someone from my book club told me that there is a rock in Inwood Hill Park that marks the spot where Peter Minuit bought Manhattan from the (a?) Native American tribe occupying it in 1628. Since I had no idea where this was, I thought it would be wise to head to the nature center/visitor center first. The Urban Park Ranger on duty (ha! I said doody!) gave me a map and told me which trails made for good sightseeing, but no poison ivy. Yes, I said trails and poison ivy.

All went well at first. The rock was easy to find (and also marks the spot of what used to be the oldest, biggest tree in NYC - a tulip tree that grew to 160 feet high with a circumference of 20 feet and lived about 280 years before it died in the 1930s). As I set off on the trail, I marveled at the beautiful woods that seemed like they might be easy to get lost in, although the ranger assured me that all roads eventually lead out of the park since it is not that big. I also reflected on the various little personal problems I've been having lately.

Before I knew it, I was lost. Or sort of lost, but how could I use my cell phone to call for help if I was really lost? What would I say, "Hi! I'm lost in Inwood HIll Park by some trees and rocks?" What if I wandered around in circles until it got dark and then coyotes (who I am certain do not live in the park) ate me? In the back of my mind, I was pretty sure that homeless people were found living in the woods, and worse, a few years ago a woman was murdered there.

After panicking for a minute, I decided that I would just retrace my steps and eventually I'd find the haven of the urban jungle. I also committed to return to the park with another person next time. It's funny how I don't think twice about venturing out into all sorts of places in the City, but I freak out completely when I'm turned around a bit in a 196 acre park and/or when little things in my life don't go as planned. I just like concrete and maps, I guess.

"CSI: Miami:" Keeping It Logical

CSI: Miami is my favorite craptastic show with over-the-top bad acting by David Caruso, ludicrous plot resolutions that never live up to the first 47 minutes of the criminal investigation, and hot actors. Last season's production quality, with its "new fangled" flashy split screen action for no good reason, nearly drove me insane. I was seriously considering not tuning in again this year, even if it meant missing out on Caruso's infamous removal and replacement of sunglasses as a substitute for facial expression. (That never fails to amuse me.)

Hence it was with much excitement that I read in Entertainment Weekly that Rory Cochran, whose character Speedle was killed in 2004, is returning to the show as that character. Producers have verified that Speedle is indeed going to be back. This is no twin-of-Speedle type of bait and switch. How on earth a dead guy will join the CSI team is beyond me, but my friend Steph (who adores Rory) and I are bursting with anticipation.

And that, my friends, is the exact cheese I love about CSI: Miami. The show is like Humboldt Fog spread it thick on a cracker and I eat every damn crumb.