Facebook Intervention Needed

I'd like to begin by saying I am an admitted Facebook addict - sometimes, to the point where I'm literally refreshing like a dude waiting for a 15 minute gang bang on Xtube to load. But don't get me wrong - I totally understand that this is ludicrous. That in another era, this would have been considered visual and emotional torture. ("Jaimala, come look at photos of Grandma's trip to Seminole Bingo in Tallhassee. There are six rolls and two hours of video footage, one of which may or may not have been shot with the lens cap on - you know how your grandfather is retarded.")

But sometimes, in between obsessively spying on my friends' walls and photos and event invitations, it just strikes me - how the internet has somehow turned eavesdropping, voyuerism and torturous trips through photo albums into something not unlike an out of control Heroin binge.

I don't even know what it is about Facebook - if maybe it's the sheer volume of useless updates, that when added all together form a social networking algebraic principal similar to when you add all negative numbers to create a positive, and perhaps this somehow releases specific social-networking endorphins in the brain - and thus in the end going through some old middle school acquaintance's photo album feels like you've just come all over the place and need a cigarette.

Whatever the case, I do have enough self awareness to worry that I will eventually end up on one of those A&E shows about addiction. That I will give an incoherent, on-camera interview about Facebook while desperately surfing Facebook, and then a substance abuse counselor will somberly gather all my friends and family in some remote motel which I will know nothing about until the "lunch with Mom/exit interview," at which time they will all sob and clutch letters that begin with, "Jaime, we worry that Facebook is becoming like a family member to you. Please X out of your Status Feed and graciously accept this gift of rehabilitation today..."

So. Having said that, I was surfing Ye Olde (or Ye New) Facebook today and noticed a bunch of interesting quirks which I would like to now share with you, my blogland friends. (Sidenote: Do you see how even when I'm blogging I immediately turn to Facebook? As if I'm just dying for an excuse to uselessly roam around the internet for another wasteful two hours? Because I'm at work and my God how did people do that all day without Facebook?)

(See? Obsession. Boredom is partly to blame, but still.)

Anyhow.

Please feel free to chime in if you have any Facebook observations of your own:

What I've Learned From Facebook:

1. Some women live their entire lives in string bikinis. Their days are filled with coolers of beer, illegal fishing off the side of a boat, and many shades and hues and styles of ass-crack. Sometimes ass-crack against a spectacular sunset. Sometimes ass-crack against a lovely meadow. Sometimes ass-crack against the backdrop of another ass-crack. Sometimes a slide-show of ass-crack against a cacophony of breast-crack. And of course, mojitos. Part of me wants to be one of these women, but alas, I do not have a boat.

2. Profile photos allow for dramatic transformations - either into celebrities, toddlers or infants, or else what is either an ultrasound or an epic sea monkey battle (or maybe a combination of both - a fetus fighting a sea monkey army? Maybe with lightsabers? Wouldn't that be totally awesome?) I keep meaning to ask these friends how their transformations actually took place - if only because I wouldn't mind living for a week as either an infant or a sea monkey. Or Paris Hilton. Mostly because you get to poop wherever and whenever you want, and you also get to be carried around all day in a colorful traveling accessory. And who doesn't want to live like that?

Speaking of which...

3. Some people celebrate their poop - sometimes, more than 3 times a day. My poop, by comparison, goes relatively uncelebrated.

4. Lots of people have moved to share-cropping compounds called FarmVille, where every day they tend to livestock, cultivate iguanas, discover mystery eggs, raise cattle, and build stables. Here, everyone is considered equal and all material items and workloads are distributed evenly amongst the villagers. Nobody is richer or poorer than anyone else, and there is always enough healthcare and magic dragon eggs to go around. Which I guess begs the question: was FarmVille created by Obama as part of a secret government plot to rename the United States The Socialist Farmville Republic of That Lesser Country Underneath Canada? (because we all know how you really feel about us, Canada - WE ALL KNOW!) I suppose only time will tell.

5. Actual clubs (Drama! Key Club! Future Homemakers of America!) are now a thing of the past. On Facebook, people mostly join clubs to promote something they hate, which they may simultaneously also LIKE. (i.e: the organizations known as I Hate When You Stop In the Middle of the Street To Take a Picture, Are You Freaking Retarded?; Stop Bragging About Your Honors Student Because Nobody Cares And You Are Dumber Than He Is; If Your Child Screams In A Crowded Movie Theater I Will Physically Beat Him With This Icee - and so on and so forth.) Confusing? Nah. Communities have always been built upon everyone's shared (beloved?) hatred of a common enemy. You think the United States was formed because we so loved the British and their scones?

Okay, so I know there's a lot I'm leaving out here, but I've gonna cut out of this blog post early to surf my news feed. It's been nearly an hour since I've refreshed. Surely you understand.

Grandma's Mojo is the Best!

For those of you who don't know, my grandmother (who made MANY guest appearances in my comedy monologues) passed away a few weeks ago. So what you're about to read is my occasionally rambling, always inappropriate online tribute to her - to be followed immediately by the picture of an adorable puppy (what assuages grief better than baby animals? NOTHING. Except maybe baby animals in costume.)

Commence tribute:

My grandma was an old-school broad - seemingly unsinkable, like Molly Brown. Back in the day, she took care of (what seemed like) an impossible number of Morrises - whether cooking daily meals filled with love and chicken ("everyday with the goddamn Chicken!") and far too much Paprika, providing those homeless among us with lodging, or perhaps issuing unwanted social commentary - she was always the family gate-keeper (which I suppose makes my grandfather the family Key Master? Minus the coming of Gozer and turning into a Doberman thing? Or do I just relate way too many unrelated situations to Ivan Reitman films?) Or, actually, perhaps a better analogy is Grandma as ring-master - or that creepy guy who runs the sideshow at the traveling carnival - minus the handlebar moustache and tophat. You get what I'm saying.

That she's gone now is bizarre to me - as if Bev could be susceptible to something as pedestrian as cancer; that's like Chuck Norris dying in his sleep instead of in an underwater boxing match with Satan, God and eight killer sharks like the prophecy of course always promised. (Or like how Lost turned out to be a bad metaphor trapped beneath an ancient wine cork. Really, Lost? The island is just a bottle of Sutter Home? THERE'S A REASON NOBODY BUYS THAT CRAP AT WHOLE FOODS, LINDELOFF!)

(Tribute-interuptus!:)

(Dear Lost, You shredded my heart like so much emotional pornography and then you answered none of my questions, and then, tragically, you died. Yet, I still love you. So. Please bring back Sayid's naked chest and Sawyer's wind-swept floppy hair. Maybe in a spinoff? Sayid and Sawyer: Wet, Half-Naked and Awesome. Okay? Call me, Lindeloff!)

(Finis-tribute-interuptus! - sorry, dudes. A shit ton happened in the past month and I am all over the place trying to catch up.)

Anyway.

My grandma was supposed to live forever (no offense to all of you out there with mere mortal grandparents) - after 88 years of perfect health, a smoker's Brooklyn accent (somewhere between Coffee Talk's Linda Richman and The Exorcist's Linda Blair), not to mention 6 packs of Marlboros a day since the mid 1930s. Seriously, you guys? Anyone who consumes that much nicotine and makes it to 88 should outlive the Earth.

Beyond this, my grandma was always the shit to hang out with - even during those painful months before she died - mainly because she never once felt sorry for herself, never once made apologies, and had an excellent memory and an endless capacity for stories about everyone else's fucked up, retarded bullshit. (Sidenote: "fucked up retarded bullshit" is, I believe, a phrase I first learned from her when I was two.) Basically, you could ask her what she ate for breakfast and instead of an answer, she'd give you every assinine offense any Morris had ever perpetrated against the act of breakfast over a span of at least forty years.

Once, right after I joined J-date (a Jewish dating disaster deserving of its own entry) I called her up and asked her what she thought about romantic relationships. What makes them work, what compells folks to stay together, that sort of thing. And instead of giving me the usual grandmotherly speech about love and all its nauseating granduer, she launched into a seemingly unrelated diatribe about how, to save a bit of money right before the war, my grandfather bought himself a car with no floor; literally, it was just seats and cardboard on a metal foundation - what she called his "quaintly stupid piece of shit."

"Sure, nobody had money during the Depression, but who buys a goddamn floorless car? I was Wilma Flintstone for a year, and I swear, we might as well have been driving a cardboard box with a windshield. And god forbid it rained. I just... can't. even. tell you. But that idiot was adorable in his Navy uniform with his short little legs and those awful jokes. And God, that assinine car. But he made me laugh. If he hadn't, I would have smacked him in the face and gone off in search of Frank Sinatra and been done with it."

we were both adorable in the 80s...

After the war, my grandparents moved to the subburbs and bought a card store - and put my Dad to work at the register as soon as he was old enough, and then my cousins and I as soon as we were old enough - and by old enough, I mean potty-trained and able to form simple sentences. Actually, my cousins and I were (I am proud to say) the best employees no paycheck could buy: by the time we were six we ran the register and the lotto machine; we also sold ugly fake jewelry to anyone stupid enough to buy it, and peddled homemade goods from my grandmother's beloved assembly line of inappropriate nonsense - a random assortment of homemade bags, screened t-shirts with sayings like "I found the keys now where the fuck is the car?!" and chocolate molded candies - Valentines hearts, birthday lollies, Christmas wreaths, naked breasts and assorted novelty penises (which also meant we frequently nibbled on chocolate pornsicles as we rode our bikes around Hewlett Harbor. Of course, years later, when I brought up the weirdness of that - admittedly a source of both pain and hilarity - my grandma, instead of directly answering the question, extended to me a traditional Jewish Guilt Branch - an offering of homemade noodle kugle, matzoh ball soup, and/or barbeque brisket. This is how Jewish grandmothers get away with everything, guys:)

"You used to ask me, 'Grandma, can I do the boobies? Please can I do the boobies?' and it was adorable, Jaimala, and a little weird, except I kept thinking maybe you were really trying to say 'Bubbulah,' like you were confusing a sentiment, but then I realized you only had a smartass mouth. Where you picked that shit up from, I'll never know. But it's not like you had anything else going on at the time anyway... But you know Grandma loves you. Now, eat this kugel I made before it gets cold - I put in extra golden raisins. I know you love those."

(That's really how they get away with it, guys - offerings of delicious golden raisins.)

Nevertheless.

My Grandma was just a bad-ass broad; she took care of the books for the store, she sold her own erotic candy, she ran the family business as if it were both business and day care - and, awesomely enough, every once in awhile, she sold cards and assorted novelties to the entire Long Island mafia (one of her many, many stories - that the mob met in the office building across the street and we were their sole chocolate supplier - for what exactly, I have no idea. But can you imagine that meeting?)

"Tony, thank you for the comprehensive power-point on cement shoes vs. red hot pokers. I admit I was unaware of our extensive Instrument Of Death expenditures. But now, before Vinny goes over our quarterly budget by cracking open the wall safe behind the trick bookcase and disabling the array of protective security lasers, please enjoy some tea and sandwiches and some milk chocolate genitals on a stick, courtesy of Bev from Carl's Cards across the street."

(Grandma's special story cocktail: 1/2 gross exaggeration mixed with 1/4th shit learned from old timey movies, spritzed with 1/4th actual truth, but always served to us with such commitment. The more I think on it the more I realize she would have made one hell of a long-form improviser.)

I hear mob bosses are suckers for chicks in bathing suits...

Fast forward about twenty-five years.

Although it had been (I'm almost embarrassed to admit) several years since I'd asked my Grandma for anything - we Morris women are known for our pigheadedness, also for our creative use of both English and Yiddish curse words - I called her up a few months before she died, needing some advice - either her hard-nosed opinion or an old-school kick in the ass - whichever she was willing to offer. I was broken hearted and feeling sort of helpless - like a kid painting chocolate testicles only half-heartedly, wondering if this was all there would ever be to life (remember when y'all were six and wistfully painting pubes on chocolate penis molds? No?)

Basically, I was having what I've since lovingly (or frustratingly) nicknamed "The Old Maid Freakout" - paranoia that my window to find a non-crazy, non-gay, non-asshole had closed. And then who the hell would I have to make bad jokes with and push a floorless car with? Surely you single women out there know what I'm talking about - usually, it ends with a pint of Phish Food, six glasses of wine, an incoherent rant directed at the dog, and mispelled drunken sexts to every retarded horndog guy in my iphone address book.

"Love doesn't fucking exist," I'd said. "And who wants to be repeatedly hurt in some fruitless, crazy, Moby Dick search for something that doesn't fucking exist? That's like I might as well go looking for Jon Hamm to give me an engagement ring - or leprechauns with Lucky Charms or talking Pound Puppies or babies who can break-dance and do you see where I'm going with this? It's all make-believe, Grandma! Everyone goes on and on about how love is just like magic but you know what? Magic isn't real. So how can love be real when magic's not? It's all an illusion! Or a paradox! Maybe? I don't know, but it's something goddamn similar!"

Then, after I took a much-needed breath from Ye Old Maid Freakout, this is what my 88 year old Grandmother had to say - in a voice strained from chemo, and for once forgoing a story in favor of actual advice:

"Don't act retarded, Jaimala. Love isn't magic - it's just hard to find. And you have plenty of time. So I think I speak for both your Poppy and myself when I say that we were worried you might be a lesbian - not that you can't be whatever you want - but really, for years we thought you were a lesbian. At least it's a relief to know you'll be able to have babies someday. Not before I die, but someday. So make yourself happy now but then, definitely, have babies. Okay? Just look at it this way: if Grandma can quit smoking, surely you can marry this Jon Hamm you love so much. I can't imagine he wouldn't want to marry you, Jaimala. What's not to like? You're my granddaughter. Just don't worry so much - you'll be fine. You have plenty of time. Everything ends up the way it's supposed to."

Oh, Grandma. Wherever am I supposed to get these pearls of wisdom without you here?

So wherever she is now, and perhaps it is outside of space and time (where a shirtless Sawyer and a shirtless Sayid are undoubtedly shuttling her around the Ever After - and come on, let's be serious - even Grandma appreciates the hottness of Sawyer and Sayid in their groovy VW van - and why can't that be the pilot of the spinoff, Lindeloff??) I hope she's watching over me. And I hope there are endless, heavenly cartons of cigarettes, and secret mob meetings, and inappropriate chocolate candy pornsicles, and of course, hot cars WITH floors (Cadillacs!) and lots of laughter (as there always was). But most of all, I hope she knows I'm grateful for all the bizarre experiences she contributed, which ultimately helped make me the awesome lunatic I am today. Thank you for everything, Grandma. I miss you.

And now, as promised, here's an adorable puppy. In costume. (That's right. I went there.)

Frenemies

So there I was, randomly clicking on the profiles of old classmates (as you do at work when the only other option is work) and I came across my former middle-school nemesis - *Mindy Ruddy - Mindy "Let's Chase The Short Chick With The Weird Accent And the Poufy Clothes Down Wellington Trace And Into A Tree" Ruddy - with a hyphen now in her name. Also? An adorable photo of two adorable children and one adorable husband playing with adorable pumpkins on a bale of hay against the background of an explosive South Florida sunset and blah blah blah - what the fuck?

Seriously. Are you for real with this shit, Karma? On the list of Things That Cannot Possibly Be Right With The World (war, famine, disease, global warming, violence, yeah yeah I know) a prosperous Mindy Ruddy has got to be in there somewhere. Because seriously guys? She was a BITCH.

But here's the thing: back in the day, I was told that all bullies suffer from terrible self-esteem ("they hate themselves more than they hate you!") and while this may in fact be true, I was also promised that all bullies would eventually end up hating themselves so much they'd drop off the face of the Earth to become meth-heads and/or prostitutes; this was the Great Nerd Liferaft offered to me by well-meaning adults in the middle of my Secondary School Shitstorm - that one day, when we both grew up, Mindy Ruddy would go crazy on smack and lose all that pretty blonde hair in a prison license-plate accident, and I would finally lose the glasses and the gumby legs and the propensity for vomiting on my sneakers EVERY FUCKING TIME we ran the mile (finally I just forged a DR's note that said I had my period), and I'd get married to a hot guy worth seven figures who thought of me as his trophy wife. In my head it was a completely plausible nerd fairy tale....

...Except the truth is Mindy does not have a prison record and I do not have a hot husband, and this means I was inadvertently mindfucked by some well-meaning adults and some supposedly well-meaning fiction. And now I want to jump in my Delorian and go back to 1996 and be all, "NOOOO! Don't believe the lies, young JLM! That hot Asshat is gonna grow up and marry another hot asshat! You might as well get your jollies in now and embrace your weirdness and for crying out loud quit doing your hair like that!" (Permed and framed by bangs that were modeled after high-tide rolling in. ugh - I KNOW - it's like I never even had a chance.)

But this is exactly the problem with fairy tales, isn't it? We go around perpetuating these stories about girls who have narcoleptic fits only to wake up to a hot guy on a horse totally macking on them. Or girls who leave their glass shoes just lying around at parties and get a ring out of the first guy who accidentally trips over one and brings it back. (Why do you think we spend our entire adult lives fucking obsessed with shoes?) Or mean girls (who once made me trace my own face on the sidewalk with chalk!) by virtue of karma, growing old and fat and ugly and prison-like and addicted to drugs. These are LIES, people - and yet we continue to tell them anyway - as if fantasy is some great heirloom to be passed down. Or maybe for adults it's some Shadenfraude thing. Either way, I would have been much better served if someone had just said to me, "Look, Jaime. It's very likely Mindy will be 'bitchy-hot' long into her childbearing years, so just continue to be asmartass and don't apologize to assholes. Eventually your weirdness will serve you - either as a writer or an improviser who performs in the basements beneath old abandoned Chinese restaurants. Either way, chill the fuck out. And by God in heaven, vests with plastic flowers on them are NOT COOL!"

(PS: my mother and I fought over this vest from Contempo Casuals for days, and although I won it was ultimately a win for NOONE. Just picture Holiday Inn Express lobby flowers hot-glued to polyester. I actually have a class photo in it - I promise you blogland, I WILL find this photo...)

Anyway.

From now on, why don't we just tell kids the dead-ass truth?

"And then she kissed the frog and realized that certain frogs are highly poisonous and most are unwilling to commit."

"After pricking her finger on the spindel, the princess was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital where she was diagnosed with lock-jaw and tetanus. Following the four hour wait in Triage, the prince ditched her after royally proclaiming, 'Fuck this, where's that bitch with the seven midgets?' meanwhile the princess blew an entire royal paycheck on antibiotics because Health Care for Princesses and Magical Creatures offers shitty coverage and no prescription co-pay."

(Ugh, seriously, guys? Mindy's kids are so adorable it's unnecessary. Damn you, Karma. This is all your stupid fault.)

In the end I suppose it's not nearly as appetizing to tell the truth - even if it sure would save us a lot of heartache. Also, I guess discovering what is true and hideous in the world is actually how you become an adult - like someone kicking out all your baby teeth and replacing them with Broken Dream Invisiline.

But really, Karma, would it be so terrible if you could just make all of Mindy's pretty, pretty blonde hair fall out? Like in The Craft when Neve Campbell does that kickass glamour on Christine Taylor and she goes totally bald and starts bawling in the locker room shower? (Remember how that movie was awesome?) Or maybe just make sure one of Mindy's adorable little girls ends up glasses-ridden, obsessed with Mel Brooks and super fucking bad at running the mile. Pretty please, Karma?

(Also, a money tree and David Duchovny circa 1998 would be good, too - for me. Not for Mindy. Clearly.)

* names changed to protect... well, me.

Change is Good For Spring (Spare Change or Otherwise)

It's finally Spring, bitches!

This means it's time for new beginnings - also Cadbury Eggs, bunny-shaped Pez, chocolate baby chicks and delicious Marshmallow Peeps (and what is the word for those Kosher jelly rings? They're like tiny raspberry-candy donuts covered in chocolate? Just delightful. How is it I've been Jewish this long and don't know? That's like not knowing foil-covered chocolate coins are Gelt. Blasphemous.) Anyway. Where was I? Oh yes. So Spring is the season of delicious change. And this year, in the spirit of really starting new, I've decided to change some long-held bad behaviors of mine.

But for the sake of thoroughly explaining all this, let's map out my bad behavior like an algebra equation. Which means if Highly Suggestible is "X" and Remarkably Low Impulse Control is "Y," then X+Y=Lifelong Social Retard.

To elaborate further: I am not exactly the queen of containing myself when an idea is put in my head. Like if you were to suggest to me how wonderful a donut might be, I would last maybe a minute before running out to buy half a dozen donuts (chocolate frosted with sprinkles, Bavarian-creme-kruller, devil's food, strawberry frosted, black-and-white marble and Boston Creme - shut your mouth blogland; my philosophy is always have a gameplan in a Dunkin Donuts - otherwise it's baked good anarchy.) Of course, fast-forward five hours and I'm lying on the couch in a state of either pre or post-vomitness - then fastforward nine more hours and I'm consuming donuts like nothing happened - or doodling on a steno pad what is essentially a giant donut with arms and legs exclaiming, "You know you wanna eat the crap out of me!" (Sometimes I pin these to the wall of my cubicle.)

Anyway.

The point is, I am constantly far too tempted by the donut. And by tempted I mean in a way that knocks out logic and will-power and normal reasoning skills - like when I run the air conditioner and vacuum at the same time and it knocks out the whole fucking apartment because god forbid the super should replace copper wiring laid out in the frakking 1970s. (Is it possible the Super in my brain is also a lazy son of a bitch? Now that I think about it, other things never seem to work right either. Damn you, Lazy Building Super In My Brain! Why must you be so inept and at the same time, so imaginary?)

Moving on.

It's probably no great shock that my Algebra Equation of Bad Behavior has long been a source of trouble for me. For instance, when I was a senior in college and my friend Laura, at a house party, suggested to me that our combined lack of idiotic college badassedness might be a thing to regret after graduation, I immediately tossed back about half a gallon of 151 (that's rum with a flame-retardant barrier over the lip - literally one step from sucking gasoline out of a hose) and then I selected from the crowd a drunk boy who I thought might be game to - shall we say - mack on my awesomeness.

"Hey you hey hey you yeah you hey no not you not you yes YOU wanna make out with me?" was what I slurred to pretty much the entire room before I finally grabbed my friend James, yanked him into a corner and climbed him like a spider-monkey; literally, I wrapped one leg around his legs, knocked both of us into a side table, and then, after a half-assed drunken display which involved my mouth and a stuck zipper (it's better I not describe that part in more detail), I excused myself to the porch to vomit into a houseplant.

From that point forward, many post-college-football parties seemed to end this way - with my drinking until wicked-retarded and then striking out (spectacularly) with some guy until I eventually excused myself to go vomit off, over, into, or at something. (Once, after six Goldshlaggers at Club Cairo and a boy-wistful conversation with my roommate Tiff, I drunkenly hit on my friend Brian - who immediately reminded me that he already had a girlfriend - and then I vomited over the railing of the roof deck. Another time, after a shot contest in which I downed more than 10 Red Eyed Sluts because it was suggested by my friend Renee that women should not be afraid to out-shoot [out-shot?] the men they want, I made a pass at Brian - who STILL had a girlfriend - and crawled into Tiff's bathroom, where for the next hour I pushed tissues into her sink, named all of them "Brian" and then vomited into the cat's litter box.)

So to build upon the original equation:

X+Y=Social Retard
WHEN
Social Retard= Substance + Want To Mack On Hot Guy
OR
Value of X is bad idea
Value of Y is well-meaning friend

Of course, now I'm older and wiser (whatever that means) and sure I've stopped going to college football parties, sure instead of complaining about my lack of badassedness I now complain about the pain in my legs and back and how that untalented fetus Miley Cyrus is ruining music for everyone (because she is), and sure I'm "so mature and so over it all," but really, 20 year old retard me has been floating around inside mature 30 year old adult me for awhile now.

So as much as I hate wake-up calls (emotional, metaphorical, iphone alarm, that guy who delivers packages to my desk at 9am and fails to grasp that it's 9am and nobody should be like a Skittles rainbow, dude!) I'm also of the mind that change is good. And eventually, change is absolutely necessary. Like when you reach that point in life where you realize you don't need to think or try so hard. Or when you realize that - hey - my own instincts are pretty good when I just trust myself - and not someone else. And so what if it took me 30 years and several hundred vomits into plants and litter boxes to realize this; the important thing is I can now be like Scrooge McDuck in Mickey's Christmas Carol: "There's still time! I haven't missed it! I can still change!" (Merry Easter and God bless us, everyone!)

Which means Spring is totally the season of my spiritual and emotional growth (as I say this, I'm bending paper-clips into animals and murdering them by hurling them over the wall of my cubicle - great start!!) But the truth is, I'm already learning. As in - from every experience and person and situation. (Craziness!) Also, I've learned that I don't need to eat every donut in front of me just because it is the donut in front of me. Furthermore, I deserve better than some thirty-five cent fast food desert. Like some Cadbury Egg with luscuious creme filling and rich milk chocolate- who needs that? I CAN and WILL wait for something better.

(Oh god but I love Cadbury eggs so much....)

Why must everything I want always have to be so crazy unhealthy despite its shiny deliciousness? That just feels like punishment from the Heavens, yo.

Ugh. Change is hard. Wish me luck, blogland.

Boys, Boys, Boys: The Things I Tell My Dog

Nothing like snowmageddon 2.0 locking me inside with my yappy dog for three straight days to encourage a bit of productive (painful?) introspection. And nothing like a bit of hot chocolate and some bad 80s pop (still synthesizer-filled but still oddly satisfying) to accompany the resultant brain-spill/writing exercise on the subject of boys - specifically, my very first boyfriend, Matt.* (Hold on to your hats- this one is filled with tales of epic high-school loserdom.)

Oh, the disasters of youth.

(Beware: re-creation of youth ahead.)

To begin with:

Having always been the smallest and goofiest, uprooted from Long Island to South Florida at the age of thirteen - probably the worst age ever for anyone, even without a transplant to the land where your grandparents literally go to die - I suffered through years of incessant bullying; everything from prank-calls to prank-dates to being chased into public restrooms while being barked at, literally, like a dog - my adolescence, no joke, was John Hughes epic; it was Oprah prime-time special epic.

So eventually, seeing no other way out, I clung to my best friend Jane*, who was adorable and blonde and had lots of admirers and pageant crowns and trophies and sequined dresses, like a Madame Alexander doll with a baton. Which meant that when she joined the marching band I eagerly joined with her - even though I lacked things like experience and musicality and talent... also I occasionally had problems, you know, not injuring myself when I walked. Still. I actually learned to play the clarinet and spin a six-foot flag (and even in my old age can still toss a mean quad - look out, boys!); I also developed a slightly mean-spirited wit and an oversized wardrobe that often made me look like an angry midget basketball player. I read a lot of Edith Wharton and Star Trek novels. I kept Mulder and Scully collector's barbies on a shelf next to Princess Leia from A New Hope. I was always prepared for any occasion with a Mel Brooks reference. (Actually, that's still true.) I was admittedly a little defensive and mean.

I was, in short, a nerd.

Thus it came as a huge shock, my senior year, when the captain of the drumline - that's the bandnerd equivalent of the captain of the football team, for you non bandnerd laymen - inexplicably began showing up wherever I was; before first period, after practice, in the bandroom, after school - there he was like some nerd groupie - this tall guy whom everyone liked, who was so talented and charming you couldn't help but crush on him, even if my go-to move was to ignore him and/or tease the shit out of him like some retarded asshole. Me in my baggy jeans and huge t-shirts and my thick wool socks from Target, my horribly awkward jokes, my obliviousness when it came to guys; I'd see him and immediately say something like, "Why the lopsided new haircut, LaSalle*? Did your blind grandmother shave your head?"

Yeah.

Nevertheless, he'd call and we'd talk about silly things - moving to Europe after high school, hopping on a jet plane and taking off to Amsterdam, where I would take a World War II tour around the city and Matt would smoke weed at bars and get "European drunk" with hot Dutch girls. That he even talked to me about such things, that as a result I knew which bra size he found most fascinating (34-C - oh god, I hope he's not reading this) was seriously the coolest thing ever.

Then one Saturday, at the Auxillary car wash, when the other twirlers and I were busy scrubbing down Ford Expeditions in our inappropriate bikinis, getting tipped by middle-aged rednecks who would watch us and dirtily ask us to please pay special attention to the mud flaps, Matt showed up out of the blue and brought me lunch - a Number Four Combo from Checkers - a "move" I of course missed, thanks to the double-cheeseburger.

After about ten minutes of me silently shoveling fries into my mouth like a fry dispenser, he finally made his big move:

"I like you," he said. "I think you should be my girlfriend."

Around a mouthful of cheeseburger: "I'm sorry, what?"

"Go out with me," said Matt. "You're weird, but it's cool. I like you."

Still waiting for the punch-line of this bizarre joke, I repeated, "I'm sorry, what?"

"Look, I don't think anyone else has asked you out. They haven't, have they?"

"Not really." I shrugged, trying to pretend it didn't matter that the furthest I had ever been with any boy was when I'd let the foreign exchange student see up my skirt in the teacher's lounge at the ninth grade dance (he'd told me I was pretty and then he let me eat his chocolate bar). "Well," I babbled, "There was this one guy in this AOL role-playing chat-room that Nik* and I like - The Pub in the Lake? His name's HanSolo25. Well, that's not his NAME name, but you get what I mean. I think he lives in Michigan. He typed a rose at me last time we talked - well, before I got kicked off. Dial-up ruins everything."

Sheepish, I shoveled a few more fries into my mouth.

Matt's left eyebrow shot up. "Whatever," he said. "Just go out with me, okay? Why not? We march together and we talk all the time anyway, and you're cool when you're not saying something completely retarded. Let's go out. Sound good? I'm stealing some of your fries."

And so it went - the first time I got asked out, for real, by a boy who wasn't gay.

I turned my head and mouthed "YES!" to myself. This was all going to be totally great, I thought. Totally, totally great.

I turned back around and nodded my head, yes.

Jubilant, Mike gave me a nuggie - it was a done deal. We were boyfriend/girlfriend! (In the gutter outside of a Checkers - right before he donated a whole $1.00 to our bucket for me to wash his dirty-ass car.)

It was a stunning romantic moment.

Later that week, after convincing myself that having a boyfriend would probably be just like working really hard on the Algebra II homework I never understood either, I got up each morning at 6am, tried on nine different unfortunate skirts from 5-7-9, and posed in front of the bathroom mirror, testing out equally unfortunate turns of phrase. Absurd things like, "Hi, can I reserve this seat next to the Snares? I'm Matt's girlfriend." Or, "Hi, can you scooch a bit? I'm dating the drum captain, thanks." Or, "What's up, single losers? See that hot guy over there? We totally make out. Totally share saliva. Bet you didn't see that one coming - BAM!"

(Oh, seventeen year old me - why can't I go back and slap you?)

Matt, meanwhile, was just confident enough to pass for slightly arrogant, also no less than eighteen feet tall, while I was shy and quiet and just tall enough to legally sit in the front seat without a booster (missing the limit in Florida by about two inches - holler!) Matt was known for being talented on Snare Drum and I was known for having thrown up on the bus on the way to Medieval Times - twice. The world I had come from was one in which I'd once waited by the fountain at the Wellington movie theater for hours, not realizing that I had been asked out as a joke. Matt, meanwhile, had already gone through plenty of girlfriends, and as a single guy, he constantly swam in a sea of stupid and flirt. My world was not Matt's world at all. Nevertheless, I liked him and it didn't matter - after all, Jack and Rose had made it work in Titanic, right? (until the Titanic sunk and Jack froze to death - why wouldn't you get on the damn lifeboat, Rose?? -and then Leonardo DiCaprio didn't even get nominated for a goddamn Oscar... oh shut up all of you, you know you saw this movie 17 times when you were in high school, too.)

Fast-forward a week.

After what ended up being our first real date - not actually a date at all per-say but a group of band dorks hanging out in front of the Winn Dixie on a Friday night - Matt pulled into my driveway, killed the engine and turned to me, his face expectant. For a second, I thought of my grandmother's matzoh ball soup and that moment right before digging in. Being both Jewish and a late bloomer, I'd only ever looked at food with that same expression of primal anticipation. If someone had told me that eventually I'd want to put anything other than food in my mouth, I'd have laughed in their face - unless they meant Leonardo DiCaprio (delicious) or David Duchovny (also delicious); at that point, I'd only ever seen kissing on TV or from a non-creepy distance; I'd only ever hung out with my gays and the other nerds and a few couples who'd once used my study group to make out - ultimately, I was the brainy, clueless Velma to Daphne and Fred's obvious fucking around in the back of the Mystery Machine.

"I wanna take you home and I wanna cook for you," was the first thing Matt said - in a slightly creepy voice. He still had that look in his eye - like he was thinking which condiment might make me taste better.

"What?" I said, hugely nervous. "Okay, yeah. Okay."

(Was he going to kiss me, I wondered? Is that how this worked?)

Matt took off his leather band-jacket - with a flourish that nearly resulted in injury - and added,"I'm Italian. We're very passionate about our food. We're just very passionate in general. About everything. You know?"

"What?" I repeated, and flattened myself against the car door.

(Now? Was it going to happen now??)

"I make some amazing ziti," Matt added, waggling his eyebrows.

"Huh?" I managed, growing increasingly frantic that I had somehow missed the euphemism and thus ran through my mental rolodex of well-known and lesser-known sex words - could a piece of ziti possibly resemble anything dirty? A penis, maybe? A very tiny penis?

No, that couldn't be right.

"You're gonna love real Italian cooking," Matt went on. "It's so good - so much better than Olive Garden. That's poser food. Real Italian makes your mouth water until you're hungry for more. And then I'll give you more. You know?"

Another eyebrow waggle.

And suddenly I absolutely couldn't wrap my brain around this weird version of Matt - with his spaghetti-talk in the creepy voice with the waggly eyebrows. Had I missed something? Had I missed my moment? Was this kiss supposed to happen before or after the Italian sex metaphors?

At this point my brain was working so hard I accidentally smacked the back of my head against the passenger-side window.

"Oh, shit. You okay, J?"

"Um," I said. "Yeah. Yeah, I am. No, I am. No worries. No worries!" Then, in a heart-pounding daze: "My mom makes pretty good meatballs - they're so awesome. Like just round and juicy and... with like, tomatoes. Uh. I should really try them sometime. I mean, no - you should try them sometime. I mean we like latkes and kosher things too. Because we're Jewish. Um. That's not what I meant."

Which of course garnered only one possible response: "You have a concussion, Morris?"

"No," I said, my eardrums ringing. "Sorry. I don't know why I said that. I don't have a concussion."

I shifted into what I thought was a sexier position - still smooshed against the window, but now with my palm upturned by my cheek.

(When was this going to happen? Now?)

(NOW?)

Matt shrugged and moved in ever closer.

(NOW???)

"You like meatballs?" he asked, his hands pressed to the window on either side of my head. "Because let me tell you, I could put them in your mouth..."

And finally, finally grateful to have latched onto one thing I DID understand - a bad dick joke - I managed, "Is that your big line, LaSalle? You're gonna put a meatball in my mouth?"

Which is when he FINALLY moved in to kiss me - my first kiss ever ever EVER- and being both petrified and excited and at the same time somehow picturing my mother's meatballs, I kissed him back with what I had convinced myself was the passion of Kate kissing Jack (shut up people, it was a cool movie back in 1997 and you know exactly how many times you replayed that stupid Celine Dion song.) In reality, so much effort went into this kiss that I accidentally leaned onto the horn - BEEEEEEEEEEEP - scaring the shit out of both of us, and then - in the midst of my panic - biting him in the tongue and throwing him forward into the dashboard, where he hit his head.

Commence nerd freakout:

"Oh, God," I managed. "I'm so sorry! I'm so, so sorry! I was thinking...I don't know what...meatballs?"

(Why I said that out loud I'll never know.)

Matt rubbed at the side of his face, now imprinted with radio buttons, and backed away.

"I'm so, so sorry," I repeated, my embarrassment now a live, nuclear thing. "I'm so sorry. I'm just, I'm so new at this, like I haven't kissed any, I mean at all, no - not at ALL, of course I've kissed guys, um, you don't know him, the guy I kissed I mean, you don't know him, and I...I mean we could still be, um..." I struggled for a word, and after a few blank, panic-filled seconds, I landed somehow on "Juicy?"

And buried my head in my hands.

Another stellar first.

"You are fucking weird," Matt finally declared. "Really weird. I just don't get it. Sometimes you're awesome and sometimes it's a shame. You'd be hot under other circumstances." And off my horrified expression: "Oh, come on. Don't look at me like that. I bought your ticket tonight, didn't I? That shit cost me eight dollars."

BAM! ROMANCE!

Not long after this First Kiss Of Disaster, Matt and I decided to go back to being friends - ah, how short young love can be. On the one hand, I'd crushed on him for so long and he'd actually liked me back - the first boy to ever really like me or want to kiss me - and man I wanted to hang onto that. On the other hand, we were completely inept as a couple, he kept wanting me to be someone less weird and I kept wanting to be myself - also, could have lived without him demanding I pay for his prom ticket and tux. Oh, high school - you crazy bastard.

And thus, I let him go.

It was a bittersweet end to an awkward first experience.

As an adult, I'd like to believe that the awkwardness of my first experiences will be directly proportional to the greatness of what will happen when it all goes right. Or at least, that's what I tell the dog as I stare into the endless avalanche of snow blocking my front door.

And even if cute boys still, to this very day, make me so nervous I occasionally turn back into that overgrown SuperNerd who babbled about tomatoes in a parked car, I suppose I also have to remember that one of these days, I'll meet that guy who digs SuperNerds and is into all of me, and not just pieces.

(Which is gonna happen before I'm eighty, right?)

(Right?)

Sometimes, I wish my dog had a few answers.

(And not just because I want life's answers, but because a dog that could talk would make me so much money.)

* real names omitted to protect the old and not-so-innocent

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.)