the future is a pink jacket

I saw my future in a Kohl's dressing room last week.

I have a bit of a small, inconsequential habit of talking to myself. Not loudly, not so folks can clearly hear but...I might let a couple words slip out if I'm thinking. It's not a crime, yet. I do tend to complain out loud a bit more, if I can't find something in my size. For instance, I might say,

"Oh, sure, size 2. Who the FUCK wears size 2? Seriously? Nobody. So why even stock them? Why is it always on the very infrequent times that I actually buy clothes in a store, that my size is always gone? And look. THESE are supposed to be longs? Really? REALLY? Christ, these don't even reach my fucking ankles. 'Longs.' Hah. What a joke. Nothing fits me, ever. I don't know why I bother trying. There's never clothes long enough for me and my monkey limbs. Ohhhh, but there's always plenty of size fucking 2s to go around. Plenty! Look at 'em all! What the hell is WRONG with these people?"*

On this particular day, however, I was mumbling stuff like, "Uh, that color. Not for me." And "Sleeves are too short." I want that on my tombstone: "Her sleeves were too short."

All in all, pretty benign stuff.

But then, on the other side of the rack, there's this woman. She's got frizzy, salt and pepper hair and a slouchy hat and a pink jacket. I can't really see her face. She's carrying on a conversation, full of sentences and pauses, as if she's talking to someone on the phone. I glance at her briefly, she looks a little disheveled, and figure she's on her cell. Except, I don't see one. She doesn't SOUND particularly crazy, but I think she just might be.

So I gather up some ill-fitting stuff and go into the dressing room.

Presently, someone comes into the dressing room and takes the stall next to me, even though all the other stalls are empty, which irritates me enormously. And this person starts talking. Like she's having a conversation. She describes each thing as she tries it on. She talks about wearing it at a party, and how it will look once on. Each item of clothing, described in painstaking detail. With pauses in between sentences.

Again, these folks with cell phones in the store are hijacking my mellow shopping vibe! I'm listening closely, listening for some sign that she's actually on a phone. Maybe a distant voice on the other end, maybe some muttering about not being able to hear...something? And then she just continues on, rambling about what she's going to prepare for dinner, and this and that...at this point, I look beneath the stall, and notice a pink jacket on the floor.

It's the woman from the clearance rack. She isn't talking to anyone on any phone. It's now clear that she's in the Kohl's, just trying on stuff to pass the time, having a very real conversation with an imaginary friend on an imaginary cell phone. She's chosen the stall next to me, above all the other empty ones. And she's droning on and on to nobody in particular, and I recall all the times my kids have asked me "who are you talking to?"

She's a harbinger of my future. And my future wears a pink jacket.

*actual recorded conversation

today's pet peeve

"Enjoy!"

"Wow. Enjoy!"

"You are invited to view my online photos at the Gallery. Enjoy!"

"They created this amazing stunt with just two rehearsals. Enjoy!"

"I love the sentence about our arms..."flying squirrels in drag!"... LOL! READ ON. ENJOY!"

"I didn't think this was funny but I knew you would.......so enjoy!"

"Enjoy!"

These are just a few things from my inbox. Do you see what's going on here?

It's clearly a conspiracy to get me to enjoy!

Not just enjoy, but there's an unspoken GODDAMMIT after it.

ENJOY, GODDAMMIT!

If I wanted to enjoy! I think I'd know how to do it. I don't really need someone telling me I have to do it. Let the hilarity of yet another round of "people of Wal-Mart" or the alleged latest words of wit and wisdom from still dead Erma Bombeck and George Carlin and Andy Rooney..what's that you say? He's not dead? Really?...let that wild and wacky humor unfold and blossom like a flower in my inbox, revealing itself in such a way that I have NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE but to ENJOY! and LOL!

BAHAHAHA, because certainly, whatever you sent, especially if it's a FWD, is so absurdly comical that I need that reminder. I might forget to enjoy! So thanks for that, goddammit.

i'm only doing this once

Well, I know I'm in trouble when my mother admonishes me for not keeping this up. She's right of course, as (mostly) always.

I suppose if there were something new and wonderful and different to report...I'd do that.

Or perhaps a calamity. A disaster. A tragedy.

Or something sincerely and deeply meaningful. An epiphany.

Maybe all these things have happened and have passed me by and I didn't notice. Maybe that's the tragedy. I didn't notice.

Instead of really taking the time to enjoy the hush and quiet of nearly 2 feet of snow, I snarled about having to go out in it. When the snow weighed heavily on my front bushes, bending them low to the ground, disheveling the lights...I made no attempt to fix them. They're just out there now, hanging with no thought and no attempt to delight.

On Christmas I missed taking a picture of Jeremy when he opened his present from Evan, a "Young and Reckless" t-shirt, some skateboard lingo I have no idea, nor do I care, what it means. But when he unwrapped it, this crooked grin--he refused to outright smile, showing teeth--crossed his face, betraying his cool demeanor and his resolve NOT to let on how much he'd wanted it.

I missed that picture.

Stuffing the stockings with a golden dollar came easier this year because of our trip to NYC, which I'll try posting about later. I had some left over. But the dollars were just a prop, just one more tradition that I had to think about, and DO something about...rather than just enjoy.

I'm glad to see 2009 go, frankly. It got off to a very shaky start and settled into a yearlong ennui that accompanied a general low nagging level of discontent...and also brought about separation and guilt. Sometimes timing is everything. It brought to light the fact that I am not perfect and that I cannot please everyone all the time, and this was a difficult pill for me to swallow.

Even in 2009. The last of my 5th decade. You'd think I'd have that figured out by now. Wait. Is that right? Do I have to do the math?

Anyway. The end of the year was unusual in a lot of ways...new old friends reappeared, some surprises, good and bad. As my family grows smaller, my friends--close and far-flung--are there to fill the gaps and I am very grateful to have them in my little sphere of life.

Sometimes it just takes too much energy to be cynical. So for 2010...well, I don't know how it'll go. I don't want to go into it with any preconceived idea of what I want, what it should be, setting it up already to disappoint as it goes on. This year, I just want it to unfold and enjoy it for what it is.

More time.

big cheeks

Ok, just write, just write, just write.

No politics. That's making me crazy.

My boys think nothing about making fun of the way I look. They especially seem to enjoy poking fun at me and whatever added fat I might have accumulated in the last few decades. They will poke at my belly and make "boing boing" noises; they will howl if I run, pointing and laughing at my rather generous, middle-age bosom; they will flap my batwings with glee.

I go along with this, this ritual of being poked and prodded, because it seems to give them obvious, if not rather sadistic pleasure. It makes them laugh. And moms, you know, we're always self-sacrificing.

The latest round of physical humiliation at the hands of my children came the other night, when I was just sitting there, minding my own business, when Jeremy asks me to hold my breath, with "big cheeks."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

"No."

"Please?"

"Why?"

"Just because, c'mon, just do it. C'mon."

Hard to argue with that kind of persuasion. So I did what I was told.

Jeremy comes up and slaps both hands against my cheeks, forcefully expelling the air inside with a farty-sounding "thwat."

He howls. Evan laughs in a way I haven't heard him laugh for a long time. Hilarity ensues as each child repeats this with my cheeks at least a half dozen times. Doing the math, quickly inside my head, that means I just sat there and allowed my boys to whack my inflated cheeks more than a dozen times, accompanied by cries of "Again!" "Again!" and followed by doubled-over laughter. I mean, they're 12 and 15, for pete's sake.

What other bodily noises will I be expected to make for their amusement as they grow older? I mean, I already taught them how to belch long ago. What more do they want?

head for the hills

Wow, I had no idea I could offend so many people with so...little. It's easy to lob those criticisms anonymously.

So I'll move on.

I'm getting ready to pile 2 big kids and 1 big dog into my big honking, gas-guzzling momvan and head to the Shenendo'h valley for some...well, I'd like to think it was R and R, ...if "R and "R" stands for "arrrrgh" and "arrrrrrrgue".

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will be an excursion that is full of adventure and happy surprises. The boys will be nice and helpful, the dog won't puke in the van, the van will behave and get us to our destinations without incident.

Happy trails.

crotchtastic

ok, godammit, I'm posting.

This week, Jeremy took a spill off his new BMX bike. A driveway took a couple chunks of flesh and sinew and connective tissue out of his knee. I took him to the ER on Wednesday, where they sewed him up with a few stitches. He can't really bend his leg yet, to protect his stitches.

While we were waiting in an ER cubbie, a dad and a little kid entered the cubbie next to us. It sounded like they'd been in a car accident. They seemed ok, but the longer they sat in there, the more excitable and impatient the kid became.

"I'm going to be ok, Dad, right? I'm going to be ok. I don't need no doctor."

mumblemumble, said Dad.

"My heart will make me better. So will my memories."

"Yeah, yeah." Some talk about mom being pregnant.

"And mom...when she has the new baby they'll have to put her crotch back together!" the kid said, loudly and knowingly.

"Oh, Jesus Christ," sighed dad. Jeremy and I looked at each other and stifled a giggle.

That's pretty much how it works when you give birth naturally. Your crotch stretches and contorts to make way for this watermelon-sized being and then, if you're lucky and you do your kegels, it snaps back into shape, ready for adventure.

It has been recently suggested to me that what I had previously posted here would make a teenage boy's blood curdle, to suggest that his mother was somehow injured during childbirth.

While I really, really don't like the idea that I need to edit myself because someone complains about the content here (oddly, since it's pretty clear that nobody reads the damn thing) I have done just that because I admit perhaps I don't fully understand how a teenage boy's brain works regarding his mother. And in the very off-chance that Boo would actually read this entry, I have deleted most of it to shield him from imagery that, I'm told by more than one grown man, might offend him.

I wonder if Madonna has these issues.

Anyway, ER kid, if you're reading this, don't worry about your mom's crotch. It can take care of itself.

ackkkk

Good GOD, I need to post something. But what? WHATTTTT??

I am completely tapped out. Utterly useless. Totally benign. My head is like an empty plastic milk jug.

animeNext!

I'm sitting in the bar at the Double Tree hotel and conference center in New Brunswick, host of the AnimeNext! convention.

Brief explanation: Anime is Japanese cartoons. Like Speed Racer and Astro Boy, but apparently more hip, although, truly, to a 12-year-old girl, Speed Racer was kind of hot, even if the thin lines of his animated lips only moved up and down to accommodate the English language, rather than form themselves around every vowel and consonant.

Manga is the graphic novel version of anime. Both platforms boast many of the same characters, one of the most recognizable being those from the Naruto series or Avatar. Avatar: The Last Airbender, is in live action production, directed by M. Night Shyamalan for release in 2010.

I am here in the bar because it's hot outside and there are a zillion kids moving about, up to maybe age mid-20s, here for this convention, and the lobby is crowded and stifling.

Last year when I brought Evan here for the MangaNext! convention, I was a tad hungover from Halloweening at the Nutty Professor's; consequently I forgot to bring things to keep me amused, like books or the puter or my phone or my driver’s license. So I spent a couple of hours in the parking lot, napping. I am a model of exemplary parenting.

But this time I came prepared and not hungover: I've got the Mac, snacks, 2 books, my filing cabinet so I could file a bagful of bills, and I even cleaned the trash out of the van. I mean, we're here for a good, what, 8-10 hours, anyway, and for the price, it ought to include a hotel room and room service and complimentary massage.

These conventions are extremely well-run and well-staffed. For the fringe element I imagine this thing attracts, I'm amazed at the amount of things they have for these kids to do/see/hear. Most attendees dress as their favorite anime character, or perhaps whatever character's costume is currently on sale, because most of these come from Japan or China and they ain't cheap.

Some of them wear their own elaborate creations; others are bought by parents who are too lazy or uninspired to help their kids make their own. Guilty as charged.

Attendees have these "cosplays," in which they perform skits; they have fighting demonstrations using foam and plastic weapons, and they all go around hugging each other.

This year, Evan is Haku, who was a villager from the land of Water from the Avatar series. His character is rather androgynous and has long black hair. He later became a Ninja after meeting Zabuza Momochi. Haku has the kekkei genkai ability of Ice Release, which allows him to control two types of nature chakra. He can control both Water and Wind chakra; this gives Haku the ability to use Ice chakra, a mixture of the two.

I have no idea what I just wrote.

In any event, this is Evan's character:


He dies early on in the series, so girls yell “Haku!” and come up to him and give him sorrowful hugs. Girls here seem to be especially empathetic to characters that die.

Here's the thing: this is about as geeky a convention as you’ll find. But fortunately you won't find any fat balding Yodas or middle age Sith-types here. It's all kids. White kids, black kids, all nationalities. All oddly dressed, all geeky and probably pretty smart, happily sharing character stories and adventures.

There is no hint of self-consciousness in these kids. They mill about in their pink platform boots and swirling robes, colorful masks and wings and orange spiky hair and, for some, tails, among the regular hotel guests. It's a chance for me to see kids who are, at least for today, a little like Evan, and share his interest in this world I don't understand. I love Evan a little more because of this.

shout out

I'd like to give a shout out to Helen Mae, always and forever first lady of Wenonah, for coming to my defense at a funeral of someone I didn't know.

This will make sense to no one but H, and surely Helen Mae probably doesn't have a blog, much less a facebook or a twitter account, and she will never see this, but, just in case: thank you, Helen Mae. You're a classy lady.

the perfect trip to wawa

I stopped into Wawa tonight after Remy's game. They won 6-4, and he wanted what he calls a wet pretzel--a pretzel with that kind of slimy coating on it from the humidity or whatever. And I needed half and half for my morning coffee.

So I parked and went in, and went to the atm because I had to get money out.

I'm standing at the machine and this familiar clangy guitar comes on, rather loudly, for the Wawa...and it goes

der der der der dederdederdederdeder

der der der der dederdederdederdeder

and then the happy drums and tambourine..

The Las: There She Goes.

A modern classic, in my mind, and you don't hear it much anymore. Any song that makes you move your head right and left like that one dancing girl from the dance scene during the play rehearsal in A Charlie Brown Christmas, when Schroeder's playing the piano...she just goes right to left, while Sherman shrugs his shoulders up and down, and Snoopy, well, he's got happy feet.

Anyway, I stand there, making my transaction, grinning from ear to ear, head bobbing back and forth at the atm. Singing. Just a little.

So I get my half and half, searching for one with a late date (they call women like me "milk maids") and then go up to the counter, grinning, to the pretzel thing, get Remy's wet pretzel and place the items on the counter. For once, I am FIRST and ONLY in the Wawa line, there is no one ahead of me, with their hot dogs and Gatorade and too-sweet, machine-made cappufrappuchinos, asking for smokes and a money order and digging through their pockets for change. I am alone at the counter.

The checker says something to me, but I am totally not paying attention. It's the Las, for crissakes, don't talk to me now!

I finish paying, and the song is ending: There She Goes....there she goes...there she goes....

and I left. Perfect timing.

iced

Why is it that a regular coffee can cost, say, $1.00?

Add a few ice cubes, and it's $1.69.

I went to the WaWa recently for an iced coffee. They have a machine that dispenses pre-made cappuccino and "iced coffee." Or something like it. It's all too sweet for me. So I got a cold cup, put some ice in, poured in some extra double mighty strong hot coffee, added some milk and a whisper of Splenda, stirred it up, put a lid on it, stuck a straw in the "x", and headed to the counter.

The counter gal charged me for an "iced coffee."

"Uh, this is just coffee-coffee," I explained.

"An iced coffee," she offered.

"Well, it started out as a hot coffee. Then I put my own ice and milk and Splenda and stirred it up. It LOOKS like an iced coffee, but it's really a hot coffee with ice."

She considered that for a moment.

"Really. I made it myself. It's not from the machine." I looked hopefully at her, sending thought beams into her head that said, "hot coffee with ice, hot coffee with ice...must...charge...hot coffee price."

"Ok." She charged me for hot coffee, no ice.

Sheesh. I don't know when or why iced coffee became so popular. It's like nobody ever drank it, nobody ever thought to put ice into hot coffee, and now you can buy it anywhere. It's like the prostitute of beverages. Overpriced, sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter, and you can buy them at the corner.

clown vomit

I've been MIA for awhile.

Here's what's happened in the last, say, 3 months:

Son: hospitalized twice. Hold your phone calls, he's ok.

Ok. I said 2008 had been the worst year ever, but then, here's 2009, threatening to TOP it.

Now that I have these rather life-changing events in my rear-view mirror, I can try to devote a little more time to caustic comments about my colleagues, shopping, and cultural and political mores.

It's like waking up with a hangover, but I'll give it a try.

It's no secret I hate shopping. I hardly ever shop, and when I do, I generally hate it. But here's one more reason to hate it:

Every shirt out there for women looks like a big, poofy airbag that a clown threw up on.

Honest to frigging GOD, WHO designs this shit? A bunch of anorexic designers huddle around the table like witches. They take these giant, gauzy potato sacks, wrap the sleeves in elastic, creating these poufy michelin man sleeves, and then perhaps a string of elastic at the bottom, so the effect is rather like wearing a psychedelic trash bag ...oh for the love of GOD, I can't even DESCRIBE what these things look like because they're so ugly.

And you can SEE through a lot of these things. If you can get past the blinding colors and patterned rainbow vomit patterns, you'll notice that you can see bras and skin and everything underneath. So what do you do, wear a camisole? What's the point of wearing something light and gauzy if you have to layer it with a camisole beneath? Kind of eliminates the cooling effect of the cottony-poly-nylon whatever blend of the shirt, yeah?

BTW. Will SOMEBODY please make a short sleeve shirt that actually covers my bat wings? Thank you.

Jeebus, I hate clothes today. Nothing looks good on me. I'm too tall. And not skinny enough.

Anyway. Clearly I am way out of the fashion loop this year. And every year. And I suppose that's where I will stay.

here's your link, Mike!

I'm a bad blogger.

Mike has had a terrible time losing money while trying to obtain a hypoallergenic cat. I've linked to his blog detailing how he and many others have been ripped off by this thieving, conniving outfit. Please see the link at right to avoid his plight.

I can sympathize. When I looked for a dog, all I knew was that I wanted to adopt one, but I had no idea what I wanted. A labradoodle seemed like a good choice, tempermentally, and it was a bonus that they allegedly don't shed. I had a poodle growing up, so I knew they don't shed.

Well.

The adoption organization was on the up and up, fortunately. But what started out as a modestly sized puppy grew up into a beast about 5 times bigger than I'd imagined, like Clifford the Big Red Dog, and sheds like...sheds like...a, oh I don't know. A giant, hairy, sheddy cat. All year, all the time, all over the house.

He's a great dog, and I don't care that he sheds. I like the way his feet smell.

In the meantime, this is what I saw today in the WaWa parking lot at, like, 8 am:

That's right. It's the Green Hornet car, or at least a version of it. It was playing the TV theme song from under the hood.

That was kind of weird to see that early in the morning.

guyz 2 men

A couple of things have been bothering me. I'll start with this one:

The Cialis ads and their ilk bug me just because they seem to be disguised as promos for bad soft core porn movies. But now we have the ads for Flomax. Men together at the ball game, playing golf, kayaking..they're like women wearing tampons. (And how does one "wear" a tampon, anyway? On one's head?) Next thing you know, they'll be riding horses and doing gymnastic splits, to emphasize that SOMETHING SINISTER is going on with their crotch area.

That something, of course, is that they have a weak stream.

A mere dribble of a stream.

I don't know much about urology, but I'm guessing, given all the fun these gentlemen miss out on--like the foul ball catch or having their picture taken with a Hooters girl--because they're always running to the bathroom, that this is a problem. They feel like they have to go all the time, but then don't get the relief of a piss with the velocity of a power washer. They dribble. So I guess I can understand why a man wouldn't want to mount the pommel horse or ride a Harley, if that's how he felt.

But the bigger problem with this is that they're "guys."

These old men are referred to as "guys" in the commercial. Not "men." To me, the word "guys" evokes a certain playful youthfulness and free spirit perhaps belonging to males younger than, say, 50, with adequately functioning water works. Guys are dreamy, they wear baggy jeans and tees and they're in love with love and metal and music. Men have baggage and history and wrinkles and grey and experience.

Sometimes men are wonderful. I'll use the Phillies as an example: Chase Utley: guy. Jamie Moyer: man.

I just don't like the advertising industry taking this fun, happy word and turning it into something that applies to old men who can't piss right. I understand why, of course. It's us damn baby boomers. We don't act our age. Admittedly, the guys I used to hang out with back in the day...I can't bear to call them anything but guys, and they're all in their 50s . They should be men by now.

By rights, then, I am close to being a "woman." But until I hit that mark, I think I'll stay a gal.

embarrassing your kids, part 57

My kids are officially at the point now in their development that they're embarrassed by me even if I do something as simple as look in their direction.

Of course, part of the problem lies with me.

I happen to talk to people in stores. Salespeople, the old lady in the supermarket aisle, the pimply cashier in the Heritages, the kids playing hide and seek around a carousel of women's bras. Not just hi, but, "hi, hey, you look familiar." "Where'd you get that nose ring?" "You smell good." "Did your mom say you could do that?" "I'm sorry; I took your cart by mistake." I genuinely enjoy these brief interactions.

So if the boys are with me when I launch into some inane conversation with total strangers, they cringe and look at me as if to say, oh GOD, no, not AGAIN, she's talking to the cashier, god, we'll never get out of here, why does she have to do that, can't she just buy her shit and go? Why does she have to turn a simple transaction into a tea party?

I don't know if they really think that, but they look it.

But the latest thing, this little...thing I do now that I don't recall doing before, is dancing in public. In stores. While shopping.

It goes something like this: so we're in PetSmart, Jeremy and I...I'm lamenting--out loud, to no one in particular--that they are out of Kitty Wonder Boxes. In between whines, I notice that the Police are on the speaker: Every Little Thing She Does is Magic. Well, that's a happy little tune. And if you remember the video, toward the end, the guys are at the control panel in the studio, and they start to dance, and you see Stewart Copeland, in his tennies, dancing in the background (yum, Steward Copeland.) He's tall and blonde and cute and doing this funny dancing thing in the background, this kind of loosey-goosey jumping that passed for dancing back in the day.

So when they get into the chorus, I mildly start doing the Steward Copeland dance. There's plenty of room in the aisle, so I dance a little more animatedly.

There's nobody around, but Jeremy's horrified nonetheless.

"MOM. Stop dancing! What are you doing?!" he hisses.

"It's the Stewart Copeland dance. You wouldn't know it," I say.

"But MOM. Stop!"

"What? What? Am I embarrassing you?"

"YES."

"Oh, c'mon. Where's your sense of humor? C'mon, lighten up!"

He walks off.

Another time we're in the Hot Topic store, and Jeremy is with me; he's looking for some stupid punk thing. There's a song that comes on...as soon as it starts, I start nodding my head, you know, in that way people do. I've never heard the song before, but I really like the beat. In moments, I'm shaking my shoulders a little, then there go the hips and the feet and I've got the hands going around in front of me and I'm doing this little shimmy in a very small space between carousels.

Jeremy, of course, is mortified; this time there are people nearby, who seem oblivious to my ugly and perverse gyrations. Then it hits him how ridiculous I look and he starts to smile.

"You like that song?" He's amazed I might like a song playing in Hot Topic.

"Yeah. I like the beat. In fact, I'm going to ask a salesperson who does it."

"Oh, no, Mom, don't do that..."

Too late.

He slinks off to look at hats while I ask the pimply sales dude with the nose ring to find out what song it is. I'm pretty certain he doesn't get requests like this often.

He politely takes me to an album in their selection: It's NERD. The song is Laugh About It. Never heard of them, never heard of the song.

Jeremy and I return home. I immediately download the song before I forget it. I start to play it.

"Hey, is this that song you were dancing to in the store?" Jeremy asks.

"Yeah. It's ok, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I like it." He smiles, and considers his mother. She might be nuts, but maybe nuts in a good way.

So long 2008, you worthless piece of shit

Hah! Ok, THAT was a little harsh, but seriously, 2008 was absolutely THE worst year of my life. Ever. I mean, there's a backhistory to all of this that I'm not laying out here, but truth to tell, the tumor didn't help. It completely changed the family dynamic. This is the "new normal" as they like to say, but I'll just add that the new normal sucks. But it's probably no suckier than the old normal, which sucked too.

Anyway, I do get out from time to time, and recently I attended an art opening at this...well, for lack of a better word, hip..gallery in Philly. A coworker was showing some pieces, so I wanted to show my support for his pieces.

It was a First Friday, kind of an art crawl through the city, and stuff is free. So the place was mobbed with snotty art students and posers and actual artists and me, this middle age freak from NJ. I was pretty clearly out of place, but it didn't matter, really: I was completely invisible.

(Used to be I would walk into a bar or somewhere, and I'd turn a head or two. Now, I'm just a cypher. I walk into a place and the sea doesn't part, the talking doesn't stop, the earth doesn't shake anymore. Nothing. Nada.)

But acompanying this middle age anonymity is the knowledge that a growing part of me just doesn't give a shit what people think. So that's kind of cool. I left the show and headed over to National Mechanics, a bar that Mr. Master told me about. He was going there later with his friends, and I wanted to hang out in the city for awhile.

I haven't gone to a bar with the knowledge that I may actually end up sitting there alone for...well, decades. But I walked in, noboy noticed, and I sat at the bar and ordered something girly.

Pretty soon the guy next to me started making conversation. His name was Steve and he was some kind of accountant. He looked eerily similar to Dane Cook. He was chatty enough, so what the hell, I talked to him, right? I don't care. I'm always very civil to men in bars.

Well, first he pegged me for 32--at which I laughed uproariously-- and explained his choice of age: he always figures a woman's age and then subtracts 10 in the hope of getting lucky. Steve, for the record, was 24. Technically old enough to be my son.

But something told me Steve just wanted someone to talk to, not a romp in the hay. So I continued to talk to him. Then Mr. Master came in with his friends. Yay, Mr. Master. He bought me a shot, and I went and talked to him.

Then, Steve came over with a shot...for Mr. Master. And I could now see that Steve is really short. Mr. Master was puzzled by this. I don't know what bar protocol is about buying shots, but this smelled sinister to me. Was it poisoned? Was Steve feeling jealous? Mr. Master thanked Steve, and Steve returned to his seat. I asked Mr. Master what THAT was about.

"He's trying to impress you."

"You're kidding, right?"

"No. I bought you a shot, and he's trying to impress you by buying me a shot."

"But...maybe if he wanted to impress me, he should buy ME a shot." Clearly, I don't know protocol.

This went on for a while: I would get up and talk to Mr. Master, and go back to my seat at the bar next to Steve, who henceforth will be called Dane Cook. I did this several times and the last time I returned to my seat, my leather jacket--and Dane Cook--were gone.

I looked around the immediate area--it was jam-packed by now--and didn't see it. I stood on my tiptoes, making me, essentially, taller than most everyone in the bar--and didn't see it. Several minutes went by, and I determined that Dane Cook must've made off with my jacket, that fucking weirdo.

"Sonofabitch made off with my jacket!" I exclaimed to Mr. Master.

"What? Really?"

"Well, I don't know. It's gone. He's gone. Somebody took my jacket."

And then...through the crowd, little Dane Cook pushed through, looked up at me like a puppy and with a hopeful grin, held my jacket up for me.

"I went to the bathroom and took it with me, because I didn't want you to lose it."

Now, I couldn't decide which was the icky part: him taking my jacket into the bathroom with him, and if so, where did he put it and what did he do with it in there? Or him taking my jacket into the bathroom and then bringing it back to me in, perhaps, the hope that this little ploy might get him laid by someone old enough to be his mother?

Could it be that he was just...being nice? This gave me pause. I considered him and those hopeful doggie eyes. I just wanted to pat him on the head. But instead, I said thank you, very politely, and ignored the urge to crack wise about it and instead, forced myself to view Dane Cook's motivation as pure and his action as genuine, if icky. I then headed out, well into the next morning, to catch the train back to NJ.

I liked that bar.

halloween treats

This year for Halloween, we again went to the Nutty Professor's to eat and drink and hand out candy. Rather, the menfolk sat out front and handed out candy, while the women, who have collectively had it about up to HERE with their respective husbands, sat hiding on the back patio bitching and drinking and chowing down on chili, meatballs, etc. Basically the opposite of what usually happens at coed parties.

Well, the Nutty Professor and I pretty much split a rather large bottle of wine. By that time it was curfew, and we moved all the food and booze over to the Norton's, kids in tow, and were joined by various other neighbors who weren't quite ready to call it quits on a Friday Halloween night.

I continued drinking fizzy drinks and downed a few of Ann's loaded jello shots. After a few of those, the talk among women turns to men and sex and penis size. Even a bunch of droopy 40-odd something year old women feel a little naughty talking about that, especially when their respective husbands are in the same room. Their ears perk up when they hear women boisterously yelling "penis!" across the room.

But sometimes the conversation needs a starter, which I'm pretty good at. So my first question to the assembled group of ladies was the Phillie they'd most like to boink. This, of course being the world champion Phillies..world FUCKING champions, according to Chase's most eloquent and loudly cheered speech.

Chase won the vote, of course, by cursing at his parade speech, which made him seem a little less stoic and a little more dirty. Cole Hamels came in second, largely due to the fact that he's cute and he won major points for marrying an older woman. Jayson Werth came in next because he's like a big huge mischevious puppy who might enjoy slamming you up against a wall. And rounding out the list was the old man, Jamie Moyer, who has the benefit of experience, and sometimes experience and knowledge outperform youth and stamina.

Well, we all had a nice time thinking of boinking our favorite Phillies. Then I posed another question: If you had to pick someone else's husband here to boink, who would it be? The crowd hushed. As if they'd never thought of it before.

Nutty Professor took a sad look around the large kitchen, where the men were assembled in various pockets of manly conversation and said, "I'd rather die. I'd rather die than have sex with anybody here." I didn't buy this at all.

"Surely, there must be SOMEONE else's husband you'd consider?" I pursued.

"No. No. I think I'd rather just die."

And so I followed up with the other ladies in the group, and nobody would admit to ever ever considering sleeping with someone else's husband. At least, not one of those in the kitchen.

Was this because that's not something you would admit in front of your neighbors? Or are the husbands such a motley, horrific group of men that one would rather die than sleep with them?

Yeah, pretty much.

smile and say hi

There's a certain code of etiquette that we use to move about in the maze and hallways of the cube farm.

First, before you leave the cube and attempt to enter the hall, you must look quickly right and left, much like you would if you were driving before turning onto a road. Because there are actually quite a few people who are shorter than the cube walls who you can't see if you just go barreling out into the hall. And then you'll mow them down when they've just returned from the coffee room with a cup of hot coffee.

I am not one of these shorter folks, rather unfortunately; you can always tell where I am in the maze because my blond heads bobs and weaves and sticks up over the walls. There's really nowhere for me to hide. Unless I slump down, which I sometimes do so I won't be seen coming in from lunch 2 hours late.

Then there's hallway etiquette. You have to decide: Will you say hi to people you pass in the hallway or not? Here's a test:

Ok, here's Joe walking down the hall toward you. You like Joe, you're friends. Do you
a)say hi, chat, complain about the man, do the Wild and Crazy guy walk toward each other, high five, terrorist fist jab
b)ignore him

The correct answer is a.

Here's Linda walking down the hall toward you. You don't really work much with Linda; you kind of know who she is but have no personal connection with her. Do you
a)smile and say hi
b)ignore her and look far off into the distant horizon, pretending to be in so much of a hurry to get to your destination that you can't take the time to smile and say hi
c)pretend you're examining your nails or you're rustling papers about and couldn't look up in time, thus avoiding her gaze without the guilt that might have come from simply ignoring her. But if you feel guilty immediately after passing her, you make an insincere attempt, after you've walked past her, to acknowledge her presence by turning halfway around and lamely saying "oh, hey, Linda. Hey. Sorry, I didn't see you there."

The correct answer is a.

Here's someone who works in the same building somewhere; you have absolutely no idea who it is. Do you
a) smile and say hi
b) grimace and say hi
c) head nod with or without saying "hey" (this is mostly reserved for men)
d) see how long the hallway is and panic, thinking that there's still time enough to act like you've forgotten something and turn around and go back to your cube and then return to the hallway after the person has passed, thus avoiding that uncomfortable situation where neither of you knows each other and forces out an insincere smile and mumbles "hey."
e) completely and totally look directly past the person at a point far off on the horizon, thereby eliminating that person's presence within your personal space and thus diminshing their self-esteem by just enough for them to go home and return to work with a loaded rifle
f) stare them down as they walk down the hall, forcing them to acknowledge you with an insincere smile and a mumbling "hey."
g) stare them down as they walk down the hall, and then, as they pass, realize that they are NOT meeting your stare and are ignoring your presence within their personal space, and then get pissed off because they're so rude.

The correct answer: all of the above.

It gets complicated, making this quick thinking-on-your-feet type of decision who to say hi to and who not. You don't want people to think you're some kind of friendly, perky freak who may actually be trying to create a positive presence in the workplace.

qtip

Ok, so if they don't want you to put Qtips in your ears, why did they make them so long? And with a cushy cotton tip on both ends?

a man in a bowler hat part 2

Ok, this is a little spooky. I saw the same man, with the same bowler hat, walking down the same street today.

In other news, Remy happily gave me his latest armpit hair update this evening. He discovered one hair in the other armpit, and a growing army of them in the first. He's up to about 1/2 dozen.

He reported no new growth in the pubic region.

Jeebus, my kids are fucking weird.