Threes Company

Two days from now, my sister will be a squatter in my apartment - specifically, she'll be occupying the eight foot space behind the couch, which is actually, by New York City standards, not a bad deal for the money. She's planning to fill this space with an air mattress, which means her room will officially be smaller and more dimly lit than a jail cell. Welcome to Manhattan. Nevertheless, she's excited to move in and I'm excited to have her. Also, it'll be nice to push the couch a little closer to the TV.

Yesterday, I asked her how our parents felt about her moving out - they've had at least one of us living with them since the day they were married (we like to reference me as the surprise and not the accident;) and since my mother is a lot like the tortured Harry Burns from When Harry Met Sally and my father is (I swear it's true, all gay jokes aside) more of an optimistic Sally Albright, the two of them alone together should either be like a continuation of the Rob Reiner movie or the climax of the War of The Roses. And I almost shudder to think which of those it'll be.

"There is no winning! Only degrees of losing!"

"I loosened the bolts on the chandelier. I was going to drop it on you."

(I do love that movie, but thank God there are no chandeliers in my parents' house. Which is not the first time I've had that thought.)

"Are they looking forward to it?" I asked my sister. "Being alone with one another?"

"I think they're both looking forward to and dreading it."

"They'll have to occupy themselves without any outside help," I said. "Or maybe they'll finally leave the country."

"Mom would never travel. Too many germs that don't speak English. She'll watch a lot of Seinfeld and make him do her shopping for her and eventually Dad'll hang himself. Hold on, I'm putting you on speaker."

"Forced suicide? Too easy. Mom would never actually kill him," I said. "I don't think. Has she ever?"

"Have I ever what?" asked my Mother, now on speaker.

"She wants to know if you've ever tried to kill me," clarified my father.

"Oh," said my Mother. "When do you mean?"

"What do you mean, when do I mean?" I said.

There was a slight pause, and finally my sister said, "Hold on, Mom's counting."


In mostly unrelated news, this past Friday I went bar-hopping in the East Village (something I haven't done since grad school), which began with the idea of socializing but slowly devolved into a sad attempt to reclaim my lost youth. I'm not old in comparison to, say, the Earth, but I'm old in comparison to that twenty-four year old still power drinking and getting jiggy with it at twelve am. Meanwhile, I'm exhausted by twelve-thirty and by one I'm practically curled under a bar-stool. By two I've begun nursing a migraine of epic proportions, and by three am the migraine culminates in a melodramatic almost-vomit into a trash can on the corner of Broadway, two blocks from my apartment. Additionally, there are contacts in my phone I don't remember entering, entire text conversations I don't remember having, and a cab ride with some hot guy who I vaguely recall making out with, which may or may not explain the ten dollars I used to have that I can no longer account for. God, I hate being too old to be stupid. Remember when alcoholic amnesia was a badge of honor and not absolute Patheticsville?

"Seriously, I just woke up and he was lying under the coffee table with my underwear. I don't know what happened to the Snickers."

"We did it where? And people were just walking in and out the whole time? No, I don't want to see the photo on your cell phone! Well, why the hell would you let me drink that much 151?!"

"What do you mean I vomited over the railing? When the hell was I on the roof?!"

All true stories.

(Okay, so maybe that shit was always foolish. I just hate that my brain has finally aged to the point where foolishness has ceased being awesome.)

Oh, and did I mention I have a twenty-four year old moving in with me in two days? I think I'll just try and convince her that the place to be is Bed Bath & Beyond, and at least then I'll get some new towels out of it. But no more heavy drinking. At least, not in bars. Not for me. Although Halloween is coming up and my sister will be here and I'd hate to limit my options...

Damn, stupidity is tempting. Especially around family.

PINK: Still a Rock Star

Tonight, I saw P!nk (oh, if only I was cool enough to pull off Ja!me) in concert, and learned a valuable lesson about stress relief: sometimes, all you really need is to sing "now it's full of evil clowns, burn it down, burn it down" with an arena full of screaming, drunken imbeciles.

PS: the giant Tinkerbelle in the photo to the right is actually P!nk, singing upside down in a floating hammock.

Dear Britney,
YOU LOSE.
Love, P!nk.

(Photo by Lisa Gwasda.)

Calling all men of the world...

As I'm sure you've guessed by now, the queen of all tragic rodents has not yet been swept up. At least, not by a man. By the magic of Lost on DVD and the Thursday night NBC comedy block, sure. By the evil witchcraft of the Food Network and every cupcake bakery on the Upper West Side? (and yes, I can find them all blind-folded), absolutely. But by a man? No. Or I should say - not yet. So last month, as a solution (or rather, an inept plot device engineered by someone who has seen way more 30 Rock episodes than is normal) I've decided to go out on 30 dates before my 30th Birthday - hopefully not with 30 different guys, although I'm not about to hold my breath. My Relationship Magic 8 Ball still points to Try Again Later - however much I may have believed, at the age of 18, that at 30 I'd at least be living with someone, even if at 18 I also believed that 30 was the age people started sleeping in coffins.

RIP, youth and stupidity.

"I don't even know what you're so friggen worried about, you're still so young," was what my grandmother was quick to remind me at dinner last week - and although I suppose in comparison to her 90 years I seem like a surly little ova, the next words out of her mouth were, "And if I die before I have any great grand-children, so be it. God's will."

(I swear, you have no idea how much wine it takes to get through a dinner at my aunt's house.)

All in all, I'm doing rather poorly thus far - 10 dates, no takers, and five more months to go.

But just to give you an idea of what I'm up against here, let me describe what I've dealt with so far:

- guys who dirty-talk me by asking if I've ever watched cat-porn on TV - as in, two house cats fucking. True story.

- guys who open with, "not that I go around talking about my money, but I'm fine with you getting whatever you want. If you want the deluxe with fries that's fine. I'll pick up the tab - I have a job."

- guys who begin with, "Wow, I was actually kind of thinking you'd be late because of the rain," after I catch him at the bar, flirting with some whore disguised as an innocent, ten minutes before we're about to get our free mini-pizza with beer on. (I paid for that beer, by the way, because he apparently "wore the wrong jeans" - like the ones missing a place to store his balls, apparently - yeah, thanks match.com. But here's a word of advice, ladies: Don't let that guy make out with you after the beer is gone just because you're bored and super-competitive and have a need to show up that girl at the bar because she's taller and blonder. That would just be crazy. And retarded.)

- guys who, when I push back our first date one hour, demand to know "why you are trying to jerk me around by my ball sac." (this gem via text message.)

- guys who don't call, yet send out of the blue, mispelled Facebook make-out pleas, and the next day follow it up with: "I think I messaged you last night? I'm so sorry. My ex-girlfriend texted me out of nowhere and it stressed me out, so I took an Ambien. Thanks for being cool. What are you up to later?"

- guys who get on the wrong train and end up in Babylon. Three hours away.

- guys who come over for dinner and immediately apologize for their appearance by explaining, in these exact words, "My friends and I were drinking. It was Boggle. It got ugly. Sometimes I go a little crazy." He had a huge black eye - like a panda, except not at all cute.

So this is my problem: have all the normal guys been taken? Have I missed my window? Am I sending out digital dating signals which can only be picked up by Douchebag Sattelite? Does true love even exist? Or has some cuter girl already stolen my one true love because she went to the right bar with free pizza - and I went to the wrong bar with free pizza and a guy who keeps his money in the wrong pants? Or is it me? Is that it? Is it the way my ass looks in jeans? Should I buy new jeans? Should I watch more What Not To Wear? SO MANY QUESTIONS, BABY JESUS!

Le sigh.

Why are there never any answers?

Maybe I'll figure it all out during the last five months of 2009 - with 20 more dates to go.

Jewish Holidays and Assorted Insanity

This year, like almost every year previous, I totally forgot about the September high holy holidays - not because I'm boycotting Judaism or anything, but because on my list of daily priorities, religion tends to fall somewhere between "dust top of hallway light fixture" and "sweep out chimney floo." In my mind, Rosh Hashana is merely the all-day feast that gets me out of work early on a Friday in mid-September, and Yom Kippur is its bipolar companion best known for a twelve hour marathon of willing starvation and misery. When I was a kid, that meant no basketball for my Dad and no compulsive cleaning for my Mom and no TV or Nintendo for me, which totally sucked balls. By the end of the day we were all just staring desperately out the window, waiting for sundown, that magic hour when it would all be over, eyeballing the pantry like a group of retarded, stoned people. I still think it's a wonder all Jews aren't bulimics. Thanks for the psychological mindfuck, God.

In any case, when my aunt called last week and reminded me of my dormant heritage and the prospect of free food, I was immediately Jewish again, and after cleaning a bit, I hopped on a train to Long Island.

My aunt and uncle still live in the house my father and uncle were raised in, the same one I lived in for awhile before my parents moved us down to the sweaty groin of the United States, otherwise known as The South; the same house where, at one point, ten of us and four animals lived against code in four bedrooms and a den. So heading out there literally feels like taking a trip back to the cluttered era of Barbie and the Rockers, in which all of us kids shared the same Rocker. The little blue clubhouse my Dad built for us is still in the backyard. The wooden deck where we would sun ourselves in summer is still right outside the sliding glass doors. The kitchen where my grandmother put us all to work decorating her dirty novelty chocolates (for sale at Bingo halls across the tri-state area throughout the late 1980s) is relatively untouched. And living in this house, still, is my aunt - a loud, gossipy Italian Jew, and my uncle, who at one point, while working for a Jewish day school, had lovingly nicknamed the bus he drove, "The Yom Kippur Clipper" (complete with an impression of that sound yarmulkes make when wind whips through them.)

Classy folk, my family.

My aunt had set the table for the next day's "actual" Rosh Hashana dinner, which she claimed is the best way to do these things - a week ahead of time. As she explained to me, it takes days to polish the silver and set out the pumpkin centerpieces and organize the name-cards and fold the napkins into diamond-shaped envelopes and set out the M&Ms in saran wrapped crystal goblets (there are two of these,) and arrange the platters in alphabetical order according to which foods they'll hold - all platters clearly labeled with hand-written post-its. She does this every year, by the way. And every year, my uncle comes in after she's set what we'll call the first draft of her table, and says, "watch this" to anyone who will pay him any attention, and switches all the post-its and name-cards and place settings. Hours later, when my aunt inevitably returns to the dining room to finish some food item, we'll hear her agonized cries over the destroyed piece of art that was the dining room table, followed by, "Jon, you asshole."

The night before Rosh Hashana, therefore, is Hands-Off-The-Table night, so instead of eating in we headed out to a nice little Italian restaurant, and afterward, attacked and destroyed my aunt's infamously gobletted M&Ms ("Fine, just eat them all and ruin the ambiance, you assholes.") This period, otherwise known as a Jewish bonding ritual, involves a lot of uneccessary snacking and snarking at one another until someone finally tells someone else to fuck off, and a new dish is taken out and we start all over. I would assume there are more traditionally accepted rituals involved with celebrating Jewish holidays, but damned if any of us can name what they are outside of insults and food.

"Look how much weight you've put on," said my Grandmother to my cousin Sue, who was eating a mouthful of M&Ms. Meanwhile, my aunt was pulling some non-ambiance food out of the pantry (which is alphabetized by taste and genre, by the way) and offering it to us in the hopes of saving her precious display goblets.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," said Sue.

"You misunderstand," said my Grandmother. "It's not an insult. At all. You were always such a beautiful girl. So tall and slender, with real curves. I'm asking you what happened."

"She's almost 30," reasoned my Uncle, who then went over to the pantry and said, "watch this," and proceeded to rearrange all the boxes and jars until the genres mixed unnaturally.

"Do you see what I put up with?" said my Aunt, "He just wants a rise out of me." And then she sat on her hands (I assume) to keep from immediately putting everything back.

"How is that not insulting?" said Sue. "You just called me a fat ass."

"Now you're putting words in my mouth. I never said the word fat ass. Why would I say something like fat-ass? Such a negative perspective."

"She's a beautiful girl," pointed out my Aunt.

"Yes," agreed my grandmother. "And I love her. She's just bigger now and there's more of her to love. Like a different girl. It's almost startling."

"Fuck you," said Sue, downing the rest of her M&Ms.

"Jo, on the other hand-" And my grandmother wagged an oatmeal cookie at Sue's older sister, Jo, "Looks amazing. Stunning. How much weight have you lost? Ten pounds? Have you been eating at all?"

"Fuck you," repeated Sue. "I work all day. I have to make more time for the gym. I know that." She popped a York Peppermint Pattie into her mouth from a wholesale-sized box my Uncle had pulled from the Sweets, P-Z portion of the pantry.

At that point, we moved on to a bowl of chocolate covered cherries, and as it's impossible to feel anything but joy and good humor while eating delicious maraschino cherries covered in creamy milk chocolate (The Dove commercials are true!) we segued onto pleasanter topics, like past holidays, and how we're all becoming old and feeble and developing weird physical ailments; that, of course, prompted me to (foolishly) mention how strange I thought it was that I'd once sprinted around this very dining room in nothing but socks and a diaper, which immediately prompted the "when is Jamie going to use her ovaries" discussion - an often popular topic at family functions - which then trickled into dessert number four - tea cookies with jam and chocolate chips. Delightful.

"Have you tried J-Date?" said my grandmother.

"How do you even know what that is?" I asked. "You don't even own a computer."

"I watch Dr. Phill," she said, wagging a tea cookie at me. "And according to Dr. Phill, everyone's online now. I'm sure you must know that. You have one of those space phones. So how do you expect to meet anyone if you don't even try? You're not working, you're not dating... Are you just choosing to be alone?"

"Yes," I said, "I'm purposefully endeavoring to have as little contact as humanly possible with the opposite sex."

Fast-forward an argument about the validity of J-date versus Eharmony (neither of which my grandmother had any sort of experience with), and she concluded, "I'm not saying you need to get married right now. I'm just saying, I'm old and will probably die soon."

"At least you're not the fat one," offered Jo.

"Fuck you," said Sue.

And with that, we moved on to Challah and diet soda, and Jo changed the subject, and we proceeded to gossip meanly about all our common relatives who weren't around and were thus easy targets, and after about an hour or so of that (fun times!), I was back on the train to Penn Station - rockin' out to Beyonce and recalling a Rosh Hashana from long ago; one that ended with all of my cousins and I in the foyer of (then my grandmother's house) playing that Halloween game - Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board. We were all deadly serious about it, and had each set two fingers underneath Sue, closed our eyes, and dutifully chanted "light as a feather, stiff as a board," when Jo asked for a sign from the other world and my uncle laughed like Dracula and hit the light-switch, plunging us all into darkness. We screamed, we dropped Sue, and then we proceeded to trample over everything in sight in our terrified, no-holds-barred zeal to get back into the living room. Some of us cried. Some of us told our fathers to take a hike. Dogs were barking, cats flitting all over the place; it was pandemonium; meanwhile, my father and uncle were laughing hysterically. My aunt smacked my uncle in the head and my mother called my father an asshole, and either one or both of them felt bad enough to let us all have a second round of dessert. Thus the evening ended in what I feel is true Jewish spirit- everyone gathered together around six different cakes from Walls Bakery. Again. For the eleventh time. In one night.

Oh, Judaism.

The older I get, the more I believe that religion actually has very little to do with what's important about your heritage.

Too Many Dead Celebrities, Too Little Time

Seriously, Universe. What is going on? First Natasha Richardson with that freak head injury and then Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson on the same day, and now Patrick Swayze? Are you there, God? It's me, Jaime. Please stop killing our celebrities before they can do Dancing With the Stars.

Before I continue, I should clarify that I don't normally sob into my popcorn when celebrities die, although I'm not completely hollowed out inside either (despite what my mother insists whenever we discuss my lack of husband and babies) and clearly, I realize the death of any human being is a terribly sad thing for the family and friends of that human being. I'm just saying, if I don't know you personally, it's kind of impossible for me to have an opinion one way or the other, and I'm definitely not going to your candlelight vigil. (Sidenote: I was once witness to a candlelight vigil for an actress who was still alive. No joke. Idina Menzel fell through the stage the day before her last performance of Wicked, a show I worked many moons ago, and bruised her ribs. The paramedics took her to Roosevelt hospital and gave her painkillers. Hours later, bawling fans were standing outside the theater in their freshly painted, neon green, puffy-paint OUR THOUGHTS ARE WITH YOU and DEFY SADNESS t-shirts, with their green roses and green witch-hats and green candles, and playing, from a lone boom box underneath the poster with Idina's photo and the Tony award stamp on it, an acoustic single from her album, unfortunately [or hilariously] titled, "It Only Hurts When I Breathe." Creepy? Ridiculous? Hysterical? I don't know. She was three blocks away, high on morphine and lying in bed with man-candy Taye Diggs, watching Access Hollywood. You make the call.)

That said, there's something so inherently strange to me about the passing of Patrick Swayze, even though we all unfortunately saw it coming for a long time. This is the guy who pulled Baby out of the corner and taught her how to get her groove on, 1989-version-of-1964 style. This is the guy who made sexual clay pots with Demi Moore. He was such an inherent part of my childhood love affair with the genius Cheese Whiz of late 80s/early 90s cinema that his death is like that of an old elementary school friend who kicked it before I could Facebook him. Vividly, I can still remember watching Dirty Dancing for the first time, my cousin Joelle and I spending at least fifteen minutes beforehand trying to get the blasted tape-deck door of the VCR to STAY THE HELL shut. (I feel like half of my TV-watching time in the 80s was spent yelling at that bastard VCR as it randomly opened and shut like some demon-bitch Jack in the Box.) Dirty Dancing was worth it. Dirty Dancing was just one of those movies. It made you want to put on an ugly, salmon-colored salsa skirt and hop into Doc Brown's Delorean and travel back in time to the fictional 60s so that you could go to Kellerman's vacation resort and do lifts in the ocean at sunset with Patrick Swayze. Because that mofo? was DREAMY. Right? I can still remember dancing like an uncoordinated white girl (some habits you never outgrow) in an attempt to reproduce Swayze's moves to The Time of My Life, except my dance partner was Joelle, who - although slightly more coordinated than me, in that way Autistic kids are slightly more coordinated than Down Syndrome kids - still hit her head on my grandmother's night-table during the chorus and bridge (which may or may not have been my fault as I may or may not have promised to catch her.) I can still remember the sounds of my grandmother clamoring around in the kitchen, making dinner. ("Carl, get the hell out of my way, and don't you dare change the channel, $25,000 Pyramid is on. Go find the girls - are they watching the fucking TV again? This floor isn't going to clean itself.")

Ah, memories.

That Patrick Swayze, such an intrinsic part of my childhood universe, could be gone forever, is so sobering - as if a chunk of the 80s was just killed and trampled by the high-stepping Marching Band of Time. (Shut up! It's a perfectly good band nerd metaphor.) This also means both guys from the SNL Chippendales Stripper sketch are now gone, which of course means I've been asking the universe those serious questions. Things like "What the hell?" and "Why the fuck?" The answer, sadly, is we're growing old, my fellow Gen-Xers, and we're apparently dragging a ton of random B-Celebrities down with us.

So in conclusion, God, I want to know when this madness is going to end. Don't you understand we need these people for our reality shows? THEY'RE STILL FILLED WITH PURPOSE! THEY STILL HAVE THINGS TO DO! HAVEN'T YOU EVER WATCHED I'M A CELEBRITY, GET ME OUT OF HERE?

Sigh.

Think on it awhile, God. That's all I ask.

Political Rumblings: Iran

Like the rest of the world, I've been following the election fallout in Iran, which is admittedly much more life-or-death than anything I could possibly complain about in my own life (like how to find a man who isn't gay, or crazy, or hocked up on pills, or hiding an explosive secret - which nine times out of ten is the gay thing unless it's the "I didn't realize it would be legal in Vegas" thing) and it occurs to me, as I continue reading these live blogs and watching videos, how very far removed I am from true political revolution.

Truthfully, as a kid, my ideas about life outside the United States were pretty skewed - as in, without the aid of that newfangled interweb, I imagined other countries like movie sets from 1930s, where villagers wandered about the cobbled streets singing and curtseying to one another and then hiding from the Nazis, like an obscene version of The Sound of Music. This I blame on an adolescence spent in the deep south, where "what are you doing Friday night?" was usually answered with"depends on how much pot you have;" life as a result moved like maple syrup, and was generally humid and unchanging and blonde and fake-tanned and much, much preferred to any other style of living - a culture sustained inside a snowglobe. Anything outside of it was therefore wrong, or lesser, or an other. Like on Lost. I sometimes liken it to the way I felt about Amy Jo Young, the varsity cheerleader who sat across from me in English, who in my band-geek brain was so confident and smart and athletic and awesome that I wanted to punch her in the face with her own hairbrush; Southerners, similarly, always worried that they'd have to defend their popular awesomeness against a perpetually jealous, hairbrush-wielding Universe.

I'm now years removed from South Florida - although I still occasionally find myself at war with the me who lived for years in that palm-tree, douchebag filled snowglobe; the me who has since become acutely self-aware of all acts of douchebaggery - such as my inability to quit complaining about the endless construction on the A-C subway line, or why God has apparently set a plague of rain upon New York City (five days in a row? Really? Are we in biblical times?) meanwhile in Iran, citizens everywhere are rising up in revolution, being thrown into jail or being beaten in the streets for problems that are actually REAL. And so I find myself wishing I didn't have as many fake problems (guys who whine, guys who spend too much time with my dog, guys who are teachers and refer to the children as "those annoying little motherfuckers") and could do more for Iran in a way that is real - although thus far have only come up with adjusting the color on my Twitter avatar (please see How To Start a Political Revolution in 140 Characters or Less, Bitches - page 3 of the Twitter FAQ).

But I also keep picturing the 2008 presidential hulaballoo - how passionate we all were; how my friends and I distributed "Yes We Can" buttons to anyone who would listen; how we posted viral videos of Barack Obama on the campaign trail and marched peacefully in protest of Prop 8. I remember the dual lines of voters that stretched from Broadway and 86th to 8th Avenue and beyond, onto West End Avenue; in the midst of cut pay and brutally cold weather, we all ditched our day jobs and stood on line for several agonizing hours to vote and make our voices heard. And later that night, when we realized that we could, in fact, make a difference, we all made our way down to Times Square, where a joyous crowd had gathered, and we clapped and honked and cheered and hugged and behaved in ways that, on any other night, would have gotten us fucked up and sold for cash in Chinatown. But instead, we were part of something much bigger. The freedom of voting, of making a choice both individually and together - gave us hope.

And THAT, my friends, is why fair election is so important - freedom of choice is what sustains a nation, and the desire for it will always be more powerful than the need to terrorize. So welcome to the 21st Century, Ahmadenijad. Wake up and smell the Twitter.

Tales of my Grandfather

Last month I flew to Florida for my grandfather's funeral, and as is typical for any Rodent family function, we all took part in a bit of inappropriate story-telling - interspersed with some bickering, some eating, some out-and-out fighting, and some hot-boxing of the Ford Focus in the parking lot of a TooJays (never let it be said that a Ford is good for nothing.) As a result, I now know way more than I ever needed to about the lives of my grandparents - such as how to correctly be hidden from the Nazis (hint: ceilings are good for storage), how my grandmother was successfully "wooed" by my grandfather (he chased her down a boardwalk until she had nowhere else to run, and then he tricked her into posing for a photograph), how the two of them overcame boredom (by getting kicked out of assisted living facilities for general maliciousness ), and how my grandfather had once instigated a bar-fight, just for fun. ("It was his birthday," according to my grandmother. "And we were broke. It was the 70s. What else was there to do?")

Flashforward to yesterday: my mother and I were talking on the phone about my Grandpa Murray, and as I was winding my way down Broadway, we somehow segued into the fact that I hate walking anywhere near the TKTS booth on 47th, where crowds like to congregate and change directions every thirteen seconds like Pac Man characters - and she responded with this absolutely insane story about my grandfather.

"He was on his way back to the house with your grandmother," she said, "When some guy in a Gremlin made an illegal left-hand turn in front of him. So your grandfather follows the guy until they get to the next red light, and then he gets out of his car, knocks politely on the guy's window, waits for the guy to roll it down, tells him him to fuck off, rips the door clean off the car, and then just drives off with your grandmother."

"Wait," I said. "You're saying he just... ripped the whole fucking door off the hinges and left?"

"Well, he wasn't going to take the door with him," reasoned my mother. "How would he have done that? Ridiculous."

At this point, of course, I needed to ask that all-important question:"Why the hell?" (which is also known as "What the fuck?")

"He was a fighter," said my Mother. "An iron worker. His parents were immigrants. What else do you expect of a man who manages to claw his way to 90?" And then, as if this should further clarify everything for me: "It was the 70s."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"Shit was crazy back then."

"Are you kidding me?" I said. "How do you just... rip the door off some poor asshole's car?"

"You become a bodybuilder first," said my mother. "Although your grandmother told him she didn't think he could do it. She lost that bet."

This fucked-up conversation (like many) of course segued into talk of how blood is crazier than water, and ended with my mother asking, "Aren't you proud to come from such stock?" which left behind the disturbing image of my grandfather as some crazed Donkey Kong - so contrary to the image I'd had from early childhood, of the big softie who'd let me dance on his feet while improvising songs peppered with Yiddish insults, mainly about how my heft would eventually kill him. (The Chorus: "You're so heavy, Oiye vey - I'm falling off my feet, Oiye vey!")

This, of course, made me wonder whether I should question my own inclinations - such as the urge to punch every pedestrian with an oversized camera and/or child on a leash between sixty-sixth street and the village. Or the urge to say, "What do you think 'out of mediums' means, douchebag? Think hard - there might be a quiz." But even more importantly, if my DNA is destined to always be torn between gentle absurdity and psychotic cartoon gorilla behavior, what does that mean for my chances of being properly matched at eHarmony.com? (Fucking online dating.)

Anyway.

This I will ponder for the remainder of my Monday.

Recession In The City: Every Day is Festivus For The Rest of Us

As I poured over my resume and cover letter (for the eightieth time in a day) I found myself thinking fondly about my old job, and my old desk (where, beneath my monitor, I had set up an entire "nun bowling" figurine scenario, of which I was particularly fond), which got me to thinking about the movie, Office Space, and poor Milton with his red swingline stapler. All that poor dude ever wanted was to staple shit and watch the squirrels mate - And look where he ended up.

This thought segued into further thought about my own situation, and how, one day when I'm accepting an academy award for best original screenplay, I am going to read two acceptance speeches. The first will comprise all the people I wish to thank. The second will comprise all the people who can fuck off.

Admittedly, this fantasy devolved even further (me at my high school reunion with six Oscars, me at the 2019 Oscars challenging Angelina Jolie to a duel, me becoming the next Real Housewife of New York City) until I had to step back from my own brain. For one thing, I'll never beat Jolie in a duel if I don't start training immediately. For another, I can't go back to my old job and burn the building down. I simply don't have enough matches. Finally, I'm worried I sound like a villain from Austin Powers, determined to destroy all who have wronged me, except I don't have any sharks armed with frickin laser beams and am thus left to wonder what else in my home might be more awesome with laser beams (answer: everything), and as I cannot afford laser beams and have no other suitable tools for villainy, I find myself wanting to punch people I don't even know, simply because they can afford to eat.

I suppose my point is that in situations like this, it's better to laugh than to punch people. No - seriously.

Steve Jobs - take away the "jobs" and he's just "Steve."

Just like any typical American these days, I find myself feeling a bit like Harry Burns from When Harry Met Sally - insisting on reading the last page of any book first, just in case of unexpected death by Malaria. (What if insidious, exotic mosquitos rise up like the Terminator and take over the subway? In a life without health insurance, I can assure you that hostile, mosquito-based-illnesses are a totally valid concern.) In any case, I found myself reading the last in a series of articles on The Huffington Post today - courtesy of their News Articles That Make You Want To Maybe Build A Batcave And Wait Out The End Of Days Section. Apparently, Apple shareholders wouldn't mind booking a private place, like maybe Hogwarts' Room of Requirement or Punky Brewster's treehouse or 1985, for their next board meeting - no cell phones allowed! No handhelds allowed! No emailing allowed! No streaming to the website allowed! Clearly, this can mean only one of two things. Either 1 - finally, FINALLY (please god let it be true), Sonic the Hedgehog has come to iphone and now the iphone is too awesome for its own meetings, or 2 - Steve Jobs is driving everyone crazy with his newfound facebook-for-iphone obsession. I can only imagine the kinds of shit he posts to Twitter.

Tragic Snark: The Oscars: Let's Get This Party Started!

Dudes, I'm not gonna lie - The Oscars totally had me at Hello. Perhaps more than any other stupid awards show (except for the Grammys which - let's face it - is its own mail-order basket of douchalicious crazy, and here's a question to ponder for next year, Grammy organizers: what does your party say about you when the best dressed person in attendance is Kathy Griffin?) Anyway. As I was saying. The Oscars are... the greatest acknowledgment of art. High Art. The highest... Oh, fuck it.

So, okay. I don't really give a shit who wins tonight; at the end of the evening, all of those wealthy bitches will go home with free lasik eye surgery coupons regardless of whether they get a statue (meanwhile, I'm still wearing an outdated prescription and polishing off my third Twinkie, which reminds me - I'd like to thank Hostess Pastries for such unprecedented, sponge-cake-creamy goodness, Mom and Dad for the blind thing, and of course, God - both for affording me the ability to recognize Retarded and the right to mock it when doused in sequins and desperation - thank you, all of you, from the bottom of my heart. )

Moving on.

Here we go with a few fashion highlights (or "Fuglights" as it were...)


Miley Cyrus apparently decided to come dressed as the sun. Or Jem, Barbie's Prom date. Or She-Ra. Or her grandmother's cubic zirconian Brooch. Of course, in a perfect world Miley Cyrus wouldn't be allowed at the Oscars at all. Or anywhere else. Still, she is the picture of tinfoil sunshine.


And here we have... Angelina Jolie. Oh, world - I cannot tell you how so very, VERY over Angelina Jolie I am. Sure, she's married to a man who is literally The Walking Multiple Orgasm, and together, the two of them have adopted all of Africa, but now that she's become Queen of the American Celebrity Monarchy, every time she opens her mouth to blabber in her Weird Regal I-Am-Jolie-Speak, I just want to slap her across the face and say, "Bitch, please. You used to wear Billy Bob Thorton's blood in a vial around your neck."

This year, Regal Weirdo Jolie's dress is pretty, but.. uninspired. But my guess is those green earrings will get a lot of attention. I might just have to pick some up next week at Kmart. Oh, the pressure to be like Jolie. Damn you, Jolie.

Oh, Vanessa Hutchins. I only have one question for you. Why.... are you here? And why... did you borrow Scarlet O'Hara's mourning gown? (Okay, that was two questions.) Did you lose a bet with Janine Garafalo and Elvira? (Okay fine, three questions.)


Amy Adams, where... do I even start? First, I loved you much better in Enchanted, when you were wearing cotton-candy colored drapes. Second - did you not get that memo about red hair? And red dresses? Maybe before the next awards show, you should have a word with Agent Scully.


Beyonce, you are my favorite - did you steal this off a depressed lawn chair outside your Great Aunt's house? Also, why are you hooked arm-in-arm with Sasha Fierce? (You know she's not real, right?) Finally, I know this dress shows off the crazy (CRAZY!!) awesomeness of your biceps, but your gold headlights are pointed in two totally different directions.


Leslie Mann - so amazing in Knocked Up - apparently doubles as a Solar Wind panel. Good to see celebs willing to go Green for the environment.

Tilda Swinton came dressed as two completely different garbage bags, with cinches set in strategic places. And by strategic, I mean unfortunate. But maybe this is symbolism - the black and eggshell of the dress represent the good and evil in our world and the changing tides of personal responsibility and... No, I can't. It's just ridiculous. Also, I think the dress understands I'm talking about it and could probably take me.


Amanda Seyfried - today on Unwrapped, Holiday Edition.

Other Related Items:

1. Hugh Jackman + Beyonce Knowles + Marching Band + Dancing Boys + High School Musical + Mamma Mia + the look on Penelope Cruz' face = NO
2. Ben Stiller + Joaquin Pheonix's Ted Kaczynski beard = Awesome
3. 5000 categories + old people who can't read teleprompters + speeches + cut to Brad and Angelina = Time I Will Never Get Back
4. Judd Apatow + Seth Rogen + James Franco = GOLD
5. Slumdog Millionaire > Benjamin Button
6. Winslet > Jolie
7. Silence > Vanessa Hutchins
8. Nose > Sarah Jessica Parker

The Office: No Work Is Good Work

Oh, reruns - how I hate you so. In a perfect world, there would never be reruns. (Or war. Or famine. Or Ann Coulter. Or blue cheese dressing. Seriously, people? It looks like baby puke.)

Sadly, Baby Shower is my least favorite episode of the year - seconded only by the episode in which Meredith turned into Elisabeth Moss from Girl, Interrupted, and Michael proved to the world that clearly, he has never watched a single episode of Intervention.)

The premise: Michael plans a baby shower for Jan's Mail Order Sperm Baby, justifying to the office underlings that because he and Jan once lived together, the baby must be his. (Hint, Michael: That only works on the Tyra Banks Show.) He even goes so far as to plan out birthing scenarios with Dwight (who, let's face it, is a much more likely candidate to mother Michael's children) in a cold-open that I may never forget, if only for the sight of Rain Wilson pretending to push a giant watermelon out of an invisible vagina. If only I'd had that visual back in high school.

Moving on.

More Plottage: New HR-Rep Holly Flax (AKA: The M.C. Hammer to Michael's Vanilla Ice) tries to put out friendly feelers for Jan, who prefers to chomp up friendliness with her Eye Teeth. Meanwhile, Jim is frustrated that Pam's still in NY and Pam is frustrated that Jim can't talk louder than a bunch of crotchety washing machines. Consequently, Pam calls Jim to gush about some tampons and this one friend she has at art school that...whatever. I went to get a Ring Ding. Anyway, nobody cares, including Jim. (Although it is indeed better than listening to Jan sing about whores and preachers banging like monkeys outside the church. As an aside, I sure hope little AssTurd enjoys getting the milk for free when everyone else has to pay 120 freakin dollars - or $12.50 on TDF if you're smart and go for the discount because HEL-LO, nobody goes to see Chicago on Broadway anymore. Like at all. Ever. Sorry Melora Hardin.)

So. I'm not sure what's up with this weird, uneven mix of slapstick and subtlety this year - if last night's episode were a person, it'd be that confused chick on What Not To Wear who pairs leggings with Converse and weeps because she doesn't understand why velvet and plaid don't live together in harmony; obviously, there's a pretty girl inside her somewhere, but how far beneath the camel-toe and the over-the-top Hypercolor and the desperation to be as irreverent as 30 Rock?

But maybe this is just the unavoidable side-effect of popularity: when you start getting requests to air episodes immediately following the Superbowl, its only a matter of time before you've got to hit someone in the crotch with a football or set Meredith on fire. And that's fine. But can we perhaps come to some sort of happy middle ground? Maybe limiting the number of vandalized copy machines Michael throws down the stairs? Or the number of cars he drives into a lake? And if Dwight is really going to do battle with a $1500 Indestructi-Stroller for the duration of the episode, can we at least pretend that someplace in the Dunder Mifflin Universe, these douchebag actions have equal but opposite douchebag consequences? Granted, I spend about 90% of my day either looking up cute baby animals on the internet or shooting at cute baby animals on the internet, and let's face it, anything's better than work - no really, ANYTHING - like there's a list I've actually made up that includes jail, hanging out in a bomb shelter with the cast of High School Musical, and getting punched in the face by a fifth-grader - but my guess is the line would be drawn when I started throwing strollers off of buildings (which I only ever do when money is involved.)

But where was I?

In the end, to quoth Kevin: "It sounds like jail is better than Dunder Mifflin."

Yes, it occasionally is - but only if you're Ryan.