Barbie Lives!

Until yesterday, I never personally laid eyes on boobs that I absolutely, 100%, no doubt at all knew were fake. My innocence was shattered, though, in the locker room of a downtown branch of my gym. As I approached my locker, I noticed a topless woman stretching against the her locker. Without warning, she whipped around and I was confronted with two perfectly molded, symmetrical, round lumps soddered on to a lithe body. Anyone who ever saw a topless Barbie knows exactly what I mean, except that this woman had enormous erect knobs attached to the center of her flesh-covered half-spheres rather than smooth plastic.

I'm sort of proud of myself because I managed not to gasp. I was just so taken aback by the sight of her tits. And I feel bad being judgmental about it, but I really wanted to ask her why she did that to herself. It's her body and she needs to be happy with it, so it's not my business, yet I honestly could not help thinking that she looked totally fucking ridiculous. No matter how small her previous chest size might have been (and I include the possibility that she may have had a mastectomy), I suspect that she was gorgeous before her surgery. Now she just appeared so artificial and fake that it made me weirdly sad.

Now that I've met Barbie (this woman was also blond, with a pleasant face and trim figure), I have a slightly increased appreciation of my flab, and even my chin hairs (not that it stopped me from plucking away last night; maybe if I could grow a Van Dyke or something interesting versus sporadic bristles, I'd leave it alone). Perfection is way overrated.

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.

Is that a Teledildronic Device in Your Pocket, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

(Diagram from Gizmodo.)

The more I learn about people, the more I want to become a hermit. At BlogHer, I wrote about a guy who invented his own robot girlfriend. While "Alice" can consent to having sex with "Zoltan," it seems that dancing the horizontal tango with a robot involves something called a teledildronic device. Sigh. At least Alice doesn't have to wipe up Zoltan's jizz afterward.

My Bounty on Bounty

I just saw a Bounty paper towel commercial that left me slack jawed. Here's the paraphrased scene:

Dad and son stand, leaning over a big brown puddle of what I think is pop (or soda to you non-Midewesterners) and empty glass.

Dad: Wow, that's a three sheeter!

Son: No, it's a four sheeter!

Mom stands in background near paper towel dispenser.

Mom: It's a one sheeter!

She rips off a towel...

Cut to me in my living room. I think to myself, she is going to give the guys who made the mess the paper towel so they can clean it up, right? No way she is going to walk across the kitchen, get down on her hands and knees, and clean the spill while the guys just stand around, right? Right? Back to scene...

A female arm with the same color sweater as the mom was wearing swipes the paper towel over the pop. She then goes on to clean something that I swear is a blob of jizz off of a doormat.

Cut back to me. What the fuck? Seriously, I hope when she wiped up the spunk, she applied for membership in the jizzmoppers union. (No joke - there's really a jizzmoppers union.) At least she wouldn't also have to mop up spilled beverages as well.

Welcome to the Insect Graveyard

Since we live on the ground floor of our building and our windows look directly out onto the sidewalk, Husband and I never open our curtains. While I would prefer to allow the sun to shine in every once in a while, I also am not cool with people inspecting our fine home as they bop down the street. Two halogen lamps keep our living room brightly illuminated to make up for the lack of natural light and chase away some of the cave shadows that seem to form.

The halogen lamps work very well for us in more than one way. In addition to giving us light, they also appear to annihilate large numbers of winged insects. Recently, as I looked at the lamp while turning it on, I noticed that dozens of insect carcasses filled up the clear plastic piece at the bottom of the light.

While I am glad that my lamp kills flies, the unfortunate part is that the graveyard is below a large metal plate, and hence not possible for me to empty into the trash. Now every time I turn on the lamp, I am forced to look at this grotesque scene and contemplate about mortality. Oh, the conundrum!

Totally Inappropriate Comparison...

Although my dental appointment yesterday was mostly without incident, every time the hygienist accidentally scratched my tender pink gum with the sharp scraper tool while cleaning my teeth, I thought about how utterly awful a coat hanger abortion would feel.

Miracles and Non-Miracles

Yesterday, I was offered a part-time program developer job at a small grassroots nonprofit organization in the Bronx! It occurred to me that although I have thus far spent nearly my entire career working with community-based organizations by providing technical assistance and training, I never worked at one. I think this is going to be very interesting. Just as important, the organization does not work in the child care field. Step one away from work that makes me miserable! Hurray!

After my interview, I headed further north in the Bronx to take some pictures of the Lourdes of America shrine for Off the Beaten (Subway) Track. (Yes, a church built a replica of the miraculous healing grotto in Lourdes, France so that parishioners here can enjoy its superpowers. I love it.) Rain fell from the sky in buckets. (Yes, anonymous grammar hawk, I get that this is a metaphor.) I worried that I would not get a good shot, but lo and behold, the second I stepped into the church yard, the rain stopped. I snapped away, filled my empty Snapple bottle with miracle water (the same water source that serves all city residents), and went on my way. As I left the churchyard, it began raining like cats and dogs. (Yes, anonymous grammar hawk, this is a simile.)

Then last night Clinton took Texas and Ohio, giving her the ammo she needs to justify her continued ego trip - I mean, run for the presidential nomination - although it could destroy the Democrats' chance at winning the White House in November by inciting anger, resentment, and bad will all around. I'm not sure how many times I can say this, but damn, I miss Pat Schroeder. What a class act. The thought of a McCain presidency is overwhelmingly depressing, so I will try to not dwell on it.

Perhaps it is time to register for cheese making lessons. This way, I'll at least have some concept of how to fulfill my ridiculous plan B, which is to move to a sheep and goat farm in the UK if the US is subject to four more years of Republican rule. My anxiety is like a bull in a china shop mixing kashi with borscht.

Gripes and Grunts

While I could have arrived home from my delightful weekend with Count Mockula before the clock rolled to Tuesday, I decided that I'd save money and take a shared van service from the airport instead of a cab. Sure, it was about 1/3 of the price of a cab, but it also took three times as long to get back. First we drove all over JFK to pick other people up, then we drove all over Manhattan to drop them off. Compounding my misery, the van did not crank the heat up, my feet got numb, and then the driver misunderstood my directions ("Please make a left and pull over to the far corner") and instead drove a block out of the way. At least I had the chance to hear a hilarious "sexy" ad on the radio on how KY heating lubricant will make your Valentine's night extra good multiple times while shivering in the van. Hell, maybe I could've used some to help my feet.

Anyway, before I left for my weekend trip, I carefully checked my punim for any signs of chin hairs. There wasn't even a bud. By the time I got home tonight, I could have been mistaken for a Hasidic guy. How the hell do those suckers grow so fucking fast? And how can I harness my chin hair growing power to help men who worry about receding hairlines? If I could unlock the secret, I'd be a rich woman who could afford a cab home from the airport.

Deep, Dark Secret #423: Uncontrollable Cravings

Food and eating are often on my mind. I hate cooking, but I love food. All kinds of food, from cheese grits at Waffle House to fancy fish at Le Bernadin, are equally valued by my mostly undiscriminating taste buds. From street food to gourmet, all I require to enjoy what I am eating is that it be yummy.

Thus when Suebob wrote up an observation she made at work about food and eating, I was aghast at the situation. To wit:

I was at an all-day work meeting and a box of See's Candy was being passed around.

The woman next to me carefully selected a piece and took a bite.

"Oh, my God, that's good!" she moaned.

She then put the other half of the piece on a napkin, where it stayed until the meeting was over 4 hours later.

She never ate the other half.

I don't get this at all. First off, just reading the post made me want.chocolate.right.now. My salivary glands went into overdrive. All I could think about was what kind of filling the piece of candy had. (I don't know why I assumed it did, but there you go - strawberry creme? caramel? coconut? I'm generally not so crazy about coconut, but sometimes it hits the right note...)

Next, just as most of the other people who left comments on the post did, I wondered who the hell takes a bite of a piece of candy, exclaims how magnificent it is, and doesn't finish it? I don't even take bites of chocolates like that. I shove the whole thing in my mouth, and if it is not good for some bizarre reason, I spit it out because I am infantile. Then I grab another one. And if it was good, I have to fight with myself not to eat more than one. (Or two. Or three.)

Now I will admit something completely repulsive, which may or may not distract you from the morally vacuous admission I will make next. To avoid eating too much of something good at home, I often throw a portion of the food away. However, there are times when I want it back so badly that I actually retrieve it from the trash. I'm not so depraved as to do so if there are nasty things in the garbage, but if the item I want is on the top of the pile, maybe on a clean-ish napkin, I may find myself eating it. Seriously.

Anyway, as I was eating dinner last night (an Amy's Organic Indian tofu and spinach wrap - yum!), I read the day's newspaper. An article in The New York TImes reported on a current case against a guy who is accused of brutally beating his stepdaughter to death a few years ago. The whole thing is a horrific tragedy, and it shook the city to its roots when it happened. So I'm reading this sad article and it mentions that it has commonly been reported that the guy beat the girl to death for eating a yogurt without his permission, but in fact, the snack item that triggered her murder was probably a container of Jell-O pudding. Immediately, I intensely craved pudding. Chocolate, vanilla, tapioca, rice pudding. The desire to eat pudding haunted me for the rest of the night.

Sick, isn't it? Cravings are scary. It's a good thing I never plan to be pregnant. I can't imagine what those types of cravings would do to me, given my current level of patheticness.

My So-Called Sartorial History (No Pictures)

As I was falling asleep on Wednesday night, my mind drifted over to the closet at the other end of my room. Mostly I was thinking about the hideous white peasant shirt that I wore in that picture of myself from 1994 that I posted a few days ago, but somehow that brought me to my super favorite, long gone outfits from when I was in 5th grade.

{Time warp}
My mom and I are shopping at a low end department store. When I spot the pink sweatshirt covered with little hearts overlaid by a huge heart with a giant white cat head wearing a bow in the center, I know it must be mine. The matching pants also have little hearts all over them. In fact, I love the outfit so much, I also buy it in blue. On days that I feel especially daring, I can wear the blue shirt with the pink pants or vice versa. Awesome!!!
{Time warp back to present day}

As I reflect on the Gitano debacle, it occurs to me that I was sometimes, in fact, fashion forward in my Jewish white trash couture. The sweatshirt I am wearing at this very moment has an environmentally friendly message. At the top, it reads, "DO YOUR PART," and has six little scenes with Peanuts characters depicting green acts. The sweatshirt admonishes those staring at my chest to: "Pick up litter for a cleaner environment;" "Recycle to conserve;" "Carpool for cleaner air;" "Don't pollute for cleaner water;" "Plant trees for future forests;" and "Educate for worldwide awareness." If only it also mentioned "Vote for Al Gore to prevent global warming."

I picked this gem up in the early '90s at Venture, a Chicago-area chain store. Venture is like the poor man's Wal-Mart, if that makes any sense. (It doesn't, I know, but just go with me here.) As Venture's days dwindled, the store didn't even bother re-stocking shelves. Unfortunately, this phase lasted for years before it finally went out of business. (For reasons that befuddle me to this day, it was also my sister's favorite place to shop.) Before its painful demise, Venture had some bitchin' clothes. Now I like to think of it as the Target of the 1980s, but at the time I shopped there for outfits, it was way uncool to admit that you bought clothes there. I always lied to the snooty little assholes who asked me where I got my shirt, saying, "Oh, I think it was Marshall Field's." (For non-Chicagoans, Marshall Field's was a nice department store that Macy's recently took over and decimated.)

Anyway, thanks for sifting through another self-indulgent blog post. I hope it brought back equally amusing/horrifying childhood fashion memories of your own.

Cutting to the Chase

For a variety of reasons, I recommed not holding a bris on a very cold day in Chicago. (Insert your own immature shrinkage joke here.) My personal bias against frosty bris events is that I will have to drive to them. Since I don't normally drive, I will forget that cold weather means that ice forms on windshields. Then I will be 10 minutes late to the bris because I didn't budget enough time to scrape the windshield clear.

When I finally did arrive at my friend's parents' apartment for the bris, there was a little sign on the door telling people to leave shoes and boots in the hall. As I removed my non-snow appropriate leather boots, I heard the baby crying. "Shit," I thought. "I'm missing the first bris I was ever invited to." I knocked on the door and discovered that the ceremony was just starting, but no cutting was yet happening. The baby was just crying for no reason. Or maybe it was because he saw the contraption that babies get strapped into for the procedure. I'd cry, too.

Since I arrive late, I hovered in the doorway behind the table that the circumcision was being performed on. The mohl (a rabbi who specializes in foreskin removal, which I possibly spelled wrong) took the baby's pants off. His little socks came off at the the same time, and the mohl put them back on, explaining that he didn't want the baby's feet to be exposed and cold. We all shared a hearty laugh. Then the baby was strapped into the stabilizing contraption. He didn't like this and began crying. More things that I could not see took place, although at one point I noticed a clamp thing. If I had a penis, I'd probably cross my legs at that point. The baby's crying never intensified, so I was surprised when he was declared kosher (not the mohl's words) a few seconds later. Grandpa gave baby a wine soaked cloth to suck on, and soon the kid was peacefully asleep. Happy words were spoken by a non-mohl lady rabbi, the guests sang a happy song in Hebrew which I knew half the words to (they also sing it at the end of Jewish wedding ceremonies), and then the eating commenced.

After hanging around for a while, I left the bris and headed over to Granny's. Since she usually keeps the temperature in her house somewhere in the 80s so that she can hang around in her "diaphonous dusters" (as my mom described them) with no undies on, I brought a t-shirt to change into. I was quite surprised when she answered the door fully clad in a sweatshirt and pants. "I turned the heat down a bit so you wouldn't be too hot," Granny explained as I hugged her. (When I told this to my mom later, she said that I must be my Granny's favorite person in the world, as she turns the heat down and dresses for nobody.)

We had a very pleasant visit, except for when I found out that she leases three telephones from AT&T for $27 a month. The woman struggles with money, and she's throwing away over $300 a year on phone rentals?!?! I felt like she was a victim of elder abuse (who else fucking rents phones?), and made her promise me that she would cancel the lease and return the phones if I bought her ones. Sigh. Then I ate too much chocolate, which was left over from the stash we brought her back from our August 2005 trip to Israel. Although it expired in June 2006, it was still delicious.

Tomorrow morning, I plan to share a fashion epiphany that struck me last night as I was dozing off. (Not long after that, I decided that I needed a snack and nearly died in the kitchen, where I swear my feet froze to the floor, but I digress.) In the afternoon, I'm taking Bubbe to lunch and then to return a down coat that she bought a few weeks ago, which she insists all the feathers came out of after only two wears. (I believe this based on my own coat.) I also hope to pick up a new pair of Dansko clogs. Then I'm going to see my friends Rachel and Jenny for dinner. Sadly, Sister and Sister's Husband will not be coming in from Iowa, as it is supposed to snow like a mad motherfucker. Bah.

Come Light the Menorah

Hanukkah begins tonight at sundown. Over the last few years, Husband and I have become less and less interested in Hanukkah. We managed to get each other one small gift this year. I hope he will like the $10 glass Mets mug that I picked up last week. I have no idea what he is giving me. I'm sure it will be far more clever than a $10 glass Mets mug.

Husband and I may not be taking the religiously insignificant holiday of Hanukkah seriously enough for the likes of the Holiday Sales Industry. Cartier, Macy's, Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Barney's all have ads on pages 2,3, and 5 of today's New York Times wishing me a Happy Chanukah. They all spelled it "Chanukah," too, which makes me wonder if the Times issued some sort of guidelines for luxury good purveyors who wanted to sell me shit. Macy's, Lord & Taylor, and Bloomingdale's went an extra step and wrote little Chanukah poems and greetings. The sentiments bring a fucking tear to my eye, I tell you. Tiffany's has an ad, but it doesn't wish me anything. Instead, it reads, "'Tis the Tiffany Season," and depicts a "dreidel in sterling silver, 3" high, $200."

After seeing all the ads, I realized that I never again need bother look up when a gift-giving holiday officially begins. (Last night Husband and I debated whether Hanukkah kicked off tonight or tomorrow night, and I googled it.) From now on, I'll just look at the ads in the paper and go from there. None of the department stores or jewelers would let me forget an important religious occasion, would they? How thoughtful of them.

1994: The Year of Hair

Damn. My friend from high school recently posted this photo of me in his Facebook album. I think this was taken in 1994 somewhere in suburban Chicago.


Those sunglasses were my mom's from the 1970s. (One of the lenses cracked or I'd probably still use them today. They rock!) Today I'm about 30 pounds less than I was when I was 18, and now that I look at this shot, I think about half of that weight came off when I cut my hair. (I do miss those long, long pigtails.) Another 6 or so pounds came off when I had my breast reduction. That surgery resulted in my shoulders looking about half as broad as they did back then. Craziness.

No, No, NO! Not Cosi!

My non-blogging friend Sara (as opposed to my friend Sara who blogs) recently mentioned off hand that Cosi bread is atrociously unhealthy. Not that I go to Cosi often, but every once in awhile I do crave me a nice flatbread sandwich. They give baby carrots on the side, so how bad could it be?

I'm sure you know that questions like, "how bad could it be?" should never be posed because the answer is inevitably "very bad." If you were in my apartment with me when I decided to look up the nutritional information of various Cosi sandwiches, you would stop me, noting, "Ignorance is bliss." Then you would gently pat my hand and we would laugh. So where the fuck were you yesterday afternoon? (I know, I know. I can't really blame anyone for the impending disaster except for myself.)

My favorite Cosi item, the tuna sandwich with excellent cheddar, is nearly one thousand calories. Help me! My eyes are bleeding in horror! (Fortunately, the blood is metaphorical so that I can see to type this.) Dude, if I am going to consume 956 calories and 55 grams of fat from one item, it is going to be from a big, fat slice of cheesecake (the kind with a thin layer of sour cream on top - yum), not a motherfucking tuna sandwich!

This really ruins everything. Pout.

This is How They Do It

(Cue Montell Jordan's "This is How We Do It", click on track 3 for a background music clip...)

A long time ago (the summer of 1997) in a galaxy far, far away (a state government office in Chicago, IL), I worked at an internship that was life altering. During the summer (and the one that preceded it), I discovered that a career in public policy was an excellent way to drive positive change for society. This observation led me to realize that I didn't really want to be a lawyer, and I subsequently dropped out of law school on my third day. I also learned what it was like to have effective bosses and the type of supervisor that I hoped to become someday. Unfortunately, this only made things more challenging in the future when, save for Alex's husband, every other person I worked for leaned toward the well-meaning-but-incompetent school of management. Finally, I learned how conservatives lie so effectively.

One afternoon, I was reading a research brief published by Robert Rector (my boss called him Robert Rectum for good reason) at the Heritage Foundation. The report claimed that food stamps made poor people fat by allowing them to eat too many nutritionally rich foods. (Don't laugh. I know this is insane, but it actually said that.) As proof, Rector/Rectum included a chart from the FDA or some other government agency (HHS?) showing the nutritional intake of children at or below the poverty level compared with kids with upper class incomes. The text describing the chart claimed that in all categories of vitamins and minerals except one (and I don't remember which that was), poor kids got more nutrients than wealthy kids. I looked at the chart. The information on the chart said exactly the opposite of what Rector/Rectum described. Since the evidence (poor kids are not accessing healthy foods) did not fit their goal (cut food stamps, regardless of the consequences), the Heritage Foundation just wrote what they wanted to and assumed people would quote the text without verifying the facts. What scared me is that they are right: the media and elected officials continue to rotely spew out misinformation, which is then accepted by others as accurate information, and thus the lies become facts.

It's terrifying. Recently, Rudy Giuliani used dubious numbers from a conservative think tank (ie - a batch of lying liars who produce lies) about prostate cancer, which was repeated verbatim - without analysis or comment - by most mainstream media outlets. Sure, some op-ed pages later tried to set the record straight, but by then a lot of damage was done. The falsity became an accepted fact. In the supposedly liberal New York Times, columnist David Brooks printed a white-washed (in every sense of the word white) report on a racist act committed by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 campaign. Reagan chose to speak about states' rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964; a town that still protected many of those who were involved in the killings. "States' rights" have long been code words for anti-civil rights legislation, because how dare we tell states that non-whites have rights? (Except you don't hear much about states' rights when the right-wing tells states that they have to obey the anti-abortion laws of other states, as the Republicans have tried to do many times by entering legislation that says that states without parental notification laws must follow the laws of states with parental notification laws under certain circumstances, but I digress.) This forced two other columnists to waste their next scheduled columns setting the record straight: Reagan knew exactly what he was doing when he went there and said those specific words. But the strategy worked. Not only is there misinformation out there, but it took time and effort away from other issues that could have been addressed.

The pen is absolutely mightier than the sword, especially when it is a poisoned pen and the ink gets on us all. Insidious, invidious, and utterly brilliant.

Husband and the Furry Guy

I told Husband all about my wacky time in the sex shop with Des on Thursday evening, including how the store sells a mesh tank top for men.

"You would look like a furry animal caught in a net if you wore that," I giggled.

Husband made his exasperated/indignant/mortified face, which involves frowning intensely while narrowing his eyes and jutting his chin forward. "It's not funny. I am a furry dolphin!"

"Caught in a tuna net?" I laughed.

"Obviously!" He batted his eyelashes and sighed.

I do so adore him.

I'm Bugged

Sometimes I suspect that I am under electronic surveillance, but when I say that I am bugged, usually I mean that something is annoying the shit out of me. This is not infrequent, especially when I read or hear the news. However, this morning as I was reading the op-ed section of the New York Times at my dining room table, I was bugged in a far less typical manner.

A tickling sensation spread over the outer part of my left foot. "What the fuck?" I thought as I looked down and shook my leg a little. For a second, it seemed as though the pink satin ribbon near the edge of my pajama pants was brushing against me and causing the feeling. Then the roach ran out from under the cuff.

"AAAAAHHHHHHHH!" I screamed.

Husband remained in his chair, frozen, while I ran into the kitchen for the roach spray. "Want a newspaper?" he yelled?

"I'm looking for the spray!" I barked back. Fuck it. I grabbed a big paper towel and dashed back into the dining room. Husband was standing over our invader holding a section of the paper. (Usually he runs away screaming, so I was very proud of him for aiding me by monitoring its movements.) I pounced and nailed the fucker (the roach, not husband), but I didn't kill it. I sprang at it again. It ran towards Husband. He lifted his slipper and stomped it. This was most impressive for him.

I scooped up the smooshed, gooey, juicy roach with the paper towel and took it to its watery grave. After flushing it down the toilet, I mopped its guts off the dining room floor. Then I shuddered, thinking about how a roach was on my bare foot. Nasty!

Weirdly, yesterday I had composed an essay about women and the fear of bugs to post on BlogHer today. (Cue the spooky music.) Next time, I think I will write about how much women love it when money randomly comes out of their shower heads instead of water.

My Eyes are Still Stinging

Based on anecdotal evidence, adults seize upon Halloween as an opportunity to display their "wild" sides. Nationwide, the availability of "sexy" costumes in stores seems to be higher each year, sometimes making it impossible to find anything remotely covering unless you make it yourself. In New York City, however, this unfortunately provides a convenient and unacceptable excuse for individuals to not wear pants/skirts. Or underwear.

I knew I was in for a night when, on my way to a community Halloween party in the East Village, I observed several women whose costumes consisted of shirts. How men's dress shirts with sparkly purses as accessories are costumes is beyond me. I dodged several of these mysteries along with countless "sexy" pirates until I met my friends (one was Mighty Mouse and the other a vampire disco guy) and we went to a gay dive bar where no one really wore costumes. My cronies loved that I was going to a gay bar dressed as a bride.

After I drank a stiff Diet Coke (it was flat), we headed to the party. It was an all day event at a community theater center. Scott and Mark had already been there for a little while before they left for stronger drinks at the bar, and they warned me that a naked man was wandering around the party. I spotted him as soon we entered the lobby. "Oh, shit!" I told my friends upon seeing his extremely furry naked torso. "I know this guy!" He was the naked guy contestant in the Mr. Lower East Side pageant that I attended in October 2005.

The whole night I marveled at the weirdness of recognizing that guy. Many other men were wearing minimal amounts of clothing, but I thought that Naked Guy had the biggest balls to go full monty. After I downed a watery glass of apple juice at the bar, it was time for the costume contest. Who could beat the Naked Guy?

Unfortunately, Naked Guy with Elephantitis of the Scrotum could. When he walked across the stage with his softball-sized nut sac, I realized that I needed to wash my eyes out with soap when I got home to rid myself of the vision. Further, I had a bad feeling I knew him, too. At the same Mr. Lower East Side pageant, the previous years' winner of the title "Best Nut Sac" was a man spoken wonderously of as "Tommy Nut Sac." I suspect that was who I set my eyes on during the costume parade.

Now there's inherently nothing wrong with men who have sacs that are 15 times larger than normal ones, I just don't want to see them live and in person for the most part. (That's what medical history museums are for!) I was fairly repulsed when the guy won for "Best Erotic Costume." A naked man with a giant sac does not equal erotic in my not-especially-selective book. The stiff Diet Coke and weak apple juice just weren't enough to make me lower my not-so-high standards.

Busy, Busy, Busy and Ewwww

Not that other people aren't super busy and finding time to blog, but this weekend was a little bit over the top for me. Yesterday Husband and I left at noon for the wedding of his coworker. It was supposed to take two hours to drive there, but thanks to weather and traffic, we arrived 3 hours and 15 minutes later, just in time to see the wedding party posing for post-ceremony pictures. We killed time at a bar across the street until the reception began at 5 pm.

After four hours of food and fun at the reception, we headed home. This time it took slightly under two hours. However, that means that I spent more time in the car in the lovely dress that I spent too much money on at Filene's Basement than I did at the wedding itself. This is not entirely bad, as it was sort of low cut and I felt self-conscious in it. Still, it was cute. Hopefully I will get to wear it again sometime soon and take a picture in it. In two weeks, I'll be at yet another wedding, but am going to wear something else.

Today, Husband left for a business trip to London and Milan. (While I hate that he will be gone this week, he is giddy that it is another chance for him to accumulate frequent flier miles that we can use for personal travel in the future.) I took the bus to exciting Hellertown, PA, where I met my friend Steph and spent a freezing afternoon at the Dorney Park amusement park. Happily we capped the evening off at Waffle House. Even burning my waffle and putting cheese under the grits so that it melted onto the bowl as much as the grits ("What did you expect?" Steph asked as I grumbled about the stupidity that would lead someone to put cheese on the bottom. "This isn't the South; they don't understand.") could not spoil the deliciousness of the meal.

My bus back to New York was 30 minutes late. It seems that the highway between the first stop and Hellertown was reduced from three lanes to one. When the bus arrived, the driver proudly told me that he "applied some K-Y Jelly to slide through traffic" to get there. Um, that is an image I didn't need. And you probably didn't, either.

$&%#@!

The topic of swearing is on my mind lately. In addition to polishing off my book about unusual things to see and do in NYC (which, in all of its 42,000 or so words, does not include one swear - can you believe it?!?), I'm working on a writing portfolio to submit as part of my graduate writing program applications. It's a story about the (in retrospect) hilarious awfulness of puberty. Not surprisingly, I developed a foul mouth at a young age. Although I was otherwise a wimp, my willingness to say really bad words made me at least a little bit intimidating. Kids build the best defense systems they can. Swearing became an odd badge of pride, and I only got more creative with my cursing over time.

However, in a funny post about swearing by Heather over at BlogHer, she cites a study that finds that women are penalized for swearing. The study found:

The study also points to gender issues and an apparent double standard of men's swearing compared with women's cursing. "Female swearers are often perceived to be of a low moral standing," the researchers noted. Men, on the other hand, can generate reverence from swearing, though they tend to tone down the use of profanity in front of women.

Can you believe that fucking shit? Motherfuckers revere men for their creative use of swearing, but bitches like me get fucked for calling someone a assfuck shitbrain? Low moral standing my ass. And if any cockface thinks that he needs to temper his language for my tender ears, he can suck my big fat dick. If that is not a big steaming pile of maggot infested shit, I don't know what is.

Actually, I think I got away with swearing at work because I look so sweet and innocent. Instead of responding to my inappropriate comments with horror, my co-workers found it amusing that such invective emanated from my little face. By the end of my tenure at my last job, I was completely out of control with the shit that came from my tongue. That was as much the result of my utter frustration as anything else, but I was curious how much shit I could say before anyone called me on it. No one ever told me to tone it down. Interesting.

Living Among the Deluded (or Stupid)

Until recently, which involves a construction boom and the ongoing construction of thousands of luxury condominiums around the City, 85% of the apartment ownership options in New York were located in cooperative (co-op) buildings. Co-ops are rare outside of NYC, and basically work like this: the building itself is a corporation. Anyone (for example, Husband and myself) who wants to "buy" an unit within the co-op really buys shares of the corporation. Those shares are determined by the location within the building (e.g. - a ground floor apartment in theory has less shares than the penthouse, as it is less desirable to live off the lobby) and size. The buyer of the shares is assigned a proprietary lease for the unit, and pays a monthly maintenance fee to cover the building's costs. The fee is determined dividing the corporation's costs by all of the shares, then multiplying the per share amount by the number of shares for each unit.

Sometimes co-ops will charge a special assessment in addition to the monthly maintenance to cover the costs of capital projects, which brings me to the point of my story. Our building has an enormous amount of deferred maintenance because people didn't have enough money in the past to shoulder the assessment. The elevators are not code compliant, and are years beyond their useful life. Other "small" issues, like fault-line size cracks in concrete also need to be fixed pronto. Hence we received a letter saying that each shareholder will receive an assessment in the upcoming months, payable over a few years, so the building can be made safe.

Here is the part of the story where I rant. Several shareholders went ballistic when they were told that they'd have to shoulder some of the costs of repairing the building they occupy. Last night, an emergency meeting was called to discuss the matter. Issues raised:

Crazy person: Refused to believe that the elevators were dangerous and asked to see the engineering report. When given the report's executive summary, he insisted that he needed to read the full 50 page report to support its conclusion that the elevators exceeded their useful life and were not code compliant.

Selfish asshole*: Stated that he bought his unit 16 years ago when the prices were much lower, and therefore should pay less than the people who bought their units for higher prices in recent years. Also loudly complained that he cannot afford to renovate his kitchen because his kid was in college, and thus did not see the need to pay to make staff areas safe.

Fucking idiot: Howled that she didn't understand why we just couldn't divide the total amount of the repairs evenly between all 120 units in the building, as it was unfair that people with larger shares (i.e. - nicer apartments that are worth more) are charged a higher proportion, which of course is the point of co-op organization.

Oh, how I hate people! (Note: I live in the fucking lobby and never use the elevator, and I am not complaining that I will be paying an extra thousand bucks a month so that the assholes upstairs can use it safely.) In the end, I refrained from killing anyone and instead volunteered to use my dormant skills from my experience working in agencies that finance the rehab of affordable housing for low-income people to help the Board with the projects. The rants will be a-flowin'.

*This guy pissed me off most. First off, he was lucky enough to get a good deal on his large apartment and when he sells it, he will undoubtedly quintuple his profit, even with a real estate crash. Does he plan on holding the price down so that another middle-income family can afford it? No? Then fuck you. Second, the reason the repairs cost so much is that they were not when ten years ago, when the need first arose, because people didn't want to pay for it. This shit does not decrease in price over time. Hence he helped create an even bigger expense by deferring, and using his own logic, should in fact pay a higher share of the cost. I'm not even going to go into how absurd it is that he publicly stated that the building employees deserve to deal with shitty conditions because his poor family can't have a fancy new kitchen. What a fucking asshole.

The Dangerous Post for Gender Stereotyped Kids' Products

I was thinking about reading The Dangerous Book for Boys because it looked interesting. What kind of activities did the British authors recommend? Fox hunting? Poking bunnies in the face with sticks? Actually, I guess rabbit-poking is not terribly dangerous, as the little beasts tend to run away rather than fight back, but it seems like something that a manual written to get boys back in touch with their masculine side might suggest. After all, petting cute furry animals gently is for sissies and girls.

My curiosity about the book never got me to the point of reading it, though. I am just too peeved at the notion that these activities (like tying knots) are "for boys." If this was not a clever publicity ploy, I don't know what is. Title a book that has basic fun kid activities as "for boys" instead of "for children," sit back, and watch the ensuing furor. Conservative pundits can talk about how we are finally recognizing that "boys will be boys" (maybe date rape is an activity?) and feminists like me can moan and groan about how much we hate assholes. It's a win-win-win situation!

I blathered more about the book and Tonka trucks (their new slogan: "Built for Boyhood") over at BlogHer.

Pouring Chemicals on Your Legs Is, Like, so Cool!

Feministe reports that Nair admits to marketing to ten year olds. Thank goodness! I was getting worried that the adults in their lives were letting girls get too comfortable with the shaggy, "angry feminist" look. Next thing you know, they might not want hot wax poured into their vulvas and asses because they might find pubic hair weirdly acceptable. I mean, my parents never bothered me about shaving, and look how fucked up I am. In fact, I am so degenerate that I went to the gynecologist today with hairy armpits, hairly legs, and a bushy cooter. If only Nair was marketing to me twenty years ago, I might known that as "a citizen of the world," "a dreamer," and "fresh" person, I am "so not going to have stubs sticking out of my legs." Or arms. Or snatch.

Crack is Whack

Supposedly, the horrific crack epidemic that swept the nation in the 1980s ended in the early '90s, but I have found much anecdotal evidence that the US remains full of crackheads.

My first (and most solid proof) derives from the fact that there are still people out there who think that the Iraqi war is going well and we should just do what we've been doing thus far and things will be just fine, thank you for the refreshing crack-laced lemonade, dear. Sure, I see fewer and fewer letters to the editor in The New York Times supporting this position. (Even a year ago, they ran about even with pro and con letters.) My assumption is that there are no, if any, good-for-the-brave-and-fearless-leader-Bush-for-his-wise-invasion letters coming in or the paper would print a few. On the other hand, I just read a story in New York magazine about Col Allan, the editor-in-chief of The New York Post, and the man is clearly on crack when he talks about Iraq. (Actually, most of his insane behavior indicates that he is a crackhead.)

Other anecdotal evidence on the nation's continuing crackhead mindset stems from comments I see on the blogs I read. Por ejemple, yesterday I was reading a new response to the little essay I wrote about Jewish feminist leaders. To sum up, I wrote about how Jewish women advocated for social equality in the US from the 1850s on. It did not compare Judaism to other religions, nor did it have anything to do with the Holocaust. Yet someone responded, apropos of nada, that Jews are probably more equal than Christians, and further, she was miffed that her family received no thank you letters after her grandfather helped Dutch Jews during WWII. Obviously his actions show that he was not on crack, but I can't see what on earth this has to do with American Jewish women and feminist leadership. I know that anyone who has a blog who ever wrote anything remotely political or personal or maybe even about a sandwich they ate that day has received these what-the-fuck? comments.

Americans: listen to Whitney and lay off the crack, because it seriously makes you crazy.

I'm in the Army Now

After an hour, the subway train finally pulled into the Bay Ridge station in Brooklyn. I ambled up the stairs and decided to check the large area map on the mezzanine level of the station to make sure that I really knew how to get to John Paul Jones Park. Turns out that the crappy park map that I printed was correct, and as I turned to leave the station I noticed that the map indicated that the Harbor Defense Museum was in a green area adjacent to the one I planned to see. Score!

John Paul Jones Park is known colloquially as Cannonball Park because of the enormous black cannon pointed at the Verrazano Bridge. "Stay out, Staten Islanders, or suffer the consequences!" I laughed to myself when I saw the cannon's position. Surrounding the monster weapon are 29 cannonballs, each one the size (although not weight) of a beach ball. Of course, there are no signs explaining what the cannon and its ammo is doing in the park pointing at Staten Island, so my theory seems as reasonable as any.

I studied the scene for approximately 2.5 minutes before moving on and noticing a strange monument to Giovanni da Verrazano, "the first European" to stop by, and some random Italian-American man who spent his life promoting the humanitarian contributions of Italians. Chuckling, I continued toward the Harbor Defense Museum. Let me say that it strikes me as hard to randomly find oneself on an Army base, but as fate would have it, that's where the museum was. Huh. Who even knew that there were active Army bases in the City? You learn something new every day.

Lesson #2 of the day: regular folks can't buy things from stores on Army bases. I was pretty hungry after Irwin, an eager World War II veteran ("I invaded Sicily," he announced when I walked into the museum), "showed" me around. Mainly, he liked making fun of early Americans, noting that the Continental Army at first consisted of illiterate farmers, bums, and drunks. "The British couldn't understand how these rednecks managed to kill any of their soldiers," he confided. Thirty minutes later, Irwin hustled me out and I headed to the base store, where my attempt to purchase a 69 cent pack of Fig Newtons was smacked down when I could not produce proper ID.

I settled for a vending machine (which didn't discriminate against civilian money) and wolfed down a 3 Musketeers bar as I headed back into society. As I passed by a large rock with a plaque placed by the traitorous organization known as the New York Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy noting that General Robert E. Lee lived on the base from 1841-1846, it took all my willpower not to spit on it. Instead, I made faces at the rock, shook my head, and muttered a lot about how utterly fucked up the US is that we honor traitors at our military bases. Given our national history, it almost makes sense that we are at a point where we send the people who live on this base to die in Iraq so that our leaders and their cronies can enrich their pockets.

Onto the Field

It was a weekend of sports, and it was a weekend of losses. Friday night, Husband and I watched the Mets blow their first game against Philadelphia thanks to lazy and sloppy play. We did, however, get a kick out of the free fake mustaches distributed to 20,000 extremely lucky fans in honor of Keith Hernandez, former Mets player and cokehead, and current TV announcer who sometimes talks with food in his mouth. Saturday, we attended the game in person to encourage them. Other than the free cute hats that were given to a lucky group of 25,000 fans and the quality time I spent with Husband and the in-laws, I would say it was not the best use of my time. Sitting in a windy, shady part of the stadium, I froze my ass off as the Mets once again played like shit. Finally, on Sunday, I witnessed the Giants suck ass, although at least the seats we had (second row behind the 20 yard line on the Giants' side) were excellent and I got a free useless calendar that I threw out immediately. Also, being at the Giants game prevented me from watching the Mets play worse than your local Little League team, so that was some avoided aggravation. Good times.

This weekend also saw a personal kick-off to the GRE season. To apply to the Hunter College MFA program, I must face my nemesis. I did answered 125 questions from the verbal portion (I haven't faced my biggest challenge yet, which is the quantitative section) and did mostly OK. I played the antonyms section like the Mets, though. It's bit hard to identify the correct antonym when I don't recognize the word at all. Out of 30 words, I didn't even have the foggiest idea what 15 of them meant. I guessed well on one of those. Yeah.

Britney Spears Makes Me Cringe

Wow, I've never seen anyone so unenthusiastic at her own comeback. I'd feel sorry for her, as it can't be easy living under all the constant, relentless, glaring scrutiny, but at the same time, there are people in the world who will work hard all their lives and never see a fraction of the income she's made. Retiring gracefully is a skill she should be taught. OK, it's too late for "gracefully..."

(I had an embedded video of her performance, but it appears to have been yanked. Surf around and I'm sure you'll find it on the net, but why get depressed over that when you can think about global warming or the Bush administration? Oh - because neither of those topics have horrific weave. Right. Same reason I am all over this shit.)

Saturday Afternoon Picture Show

I'm feeling much better today, so I'll share semi-gross photos. Yay.

Last weekend, my cousin and I indulged in a vat of Monster Cookie Dough. Monster Cookies are basically oatmeal, peanut butter, and generic M&Ms. It tends to be delicious. However, this batch of dough went through an unfortunate defrost-refreeze-defrost process that caused it to look like the results of the shit bucket test ( see Part I and Part II for more details and no pictures) I took a few years ago in attempt to figure out what was wrong with my digestive system.
Although it seems like I am about to eagerly eat diarrhea, I think I look pretty fucking adorable in this picture. It's so rare that I am happy with photos of me.

As for my latest bodily failure, here's my broken tooth:*

It was finally fixed on Wednesday by my hot dentist's significantly less hot dentist father. At least the snaggletooth Jewish white trash look is gone.

*For the record, it did not break as a result of eating the generic M&Ms in the Monster Cookie dough. It broke for the 4th time in three years because my mouth is too little and when I clench my teeth when I am pissed off or merely eat, it seems to put too much stress on the little guy from the bigger tooth above it.

Shhhh...

Remember that Bjork song from a few years ago, "It's So Quiet?" It came out when I was in my second year at NYU, and the newly installed video machine in one of the dining halls played the Busby Berkeley-style musical production constantly, alternating with Tupac's "Kalifornia," and Weezer's "Sweater Song." I tried to get the machine to play some song that was from the soundtrack of "Clerks" that was so great that I forgot what it was called or who it was by, only that the video had many of my favorite scenes from that ever-so-fine film. (God, sometimes I miss the mid-90s.)

Video or not, it has been quiet on the 'net this week, hasn't it? I mean, I write a screed over at BlogHer calling "pro-life" leaders terrorists (something I wholeheartedly believe), and pretty much no one blinks an eye. (Not to denigrate the fine people who agreed with me, but I expected outrage, sputtering, and disgust from the other side.) Comments on CUSS, usually limited, are even fewer than usual. So it goes. Optimistically, maybe people are on vacation?

Then, in a weird twist, I find myself agreeing with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal! Husband reads the Journal daily for their financial reporting, which is claims is excellent, and both of us find the op-ed pages and movie reviews to be beamed in from Uranus. (It was discredited as a planet for a reason, folks. Ha ha ha!) I don't understand how I find myself in bed with conservatives when it comes to Israel, but I hope they keep their pants on.

The world is a mysterious place.

Corned Beef on Wry

"Eat kosher corned beef!" the sign in the delicatessen window across the street from the Bronx bus stop I was at commanded. I snickered in my head because I am infantile. When my silent laughter subsided, I resolved to do as I was told after I visited the Judaica Museum at the Hebrew Home for the Aged, on my way back to the subway, and before I went to the dentist in Brooklyn and received a face full of Novocaine, rendering any corned beef - kosher or not - impossible. (In fact, the right side of my face is numb through my ear as I type this. My only consolation is that the dentist is fucking adorable.)

The Museum was nice. More important for the purposes of this story, the deli was kosher. I knew in my heart of hearts this meant that they would not have white bread. No Jew worth his circumcision eats corned beef on white bread. When I tried ordering corned beef on white at a deli a few weeks after Husband and I started dating, both he and the waiter stared at me. The waiter shook his head in disgust, and I wound up with a roll.

"Who orders corned beef on white?" Husband marveled as the waiter scurried away from the embarrassment I caused.

"I do. The bread gets all mushy and yummy..." I explained.

Husband wrinkled his schnozz. "That what rye bread is for."

"I hate rye bread," I wrinkled in response. (They say people in successful relationships mirror their partner's body language, you know.)

Husband stared at me for a good minute and then spoke slowly. "Are you sure that you are Jewish?"

And that, my friends, is how Husband learned that he was dating Jewish white trash.

Back to the present day, I stepped into the narrow entryway of Loeser's Delicatessen.

"What kind of bread do you hav