Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Kids These Days


Just for the fuck of it, I decided to flip on the tube today with the intention of finding out what the 'kids' are listening to. Never mind that the 'kids' don't actually watch television on television anymore. They watch it on OUTER SPACE!

So whilst taking a break from my arduous sunbathing regimen, I painted my toenails and flipped between MTV2 and Fuse during their respective "you pick 'em" blocks and discovered the following:

  1. That new Fiddy joint is HOTTTT. How hot? Let's just say I made it my new homepage song on Myspace! There! I said it! Seriously though? Dude uses the word 'stanky' in a rap. That wins eight thousand pimp points in my . . . uh . . . Official Pimp Book.
  2. Is it me or do all of MIMS' beats sound remarkably the same? Is that like saying that all Asians look alike? Is he trying to be post-modern? Is he trying to make some sort of searing social commentary on the soulless behemoth that is commercial rap by proving that you can remake the same song two times consecutively and still be super famous? Ok then.
  3. That song "Beautiful Girls" by Sean Kingston? The one that talks about how this chick is too hot for his chubby, Rerun-lookin' ass and it makes him feel like offing himself? It makes me feel like offing myself.
Does this make me 'out of touch'? Old and curmudgeonly? Or just in possession of discerning and excellent taste? I'm voting for option three.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Shitness


*Disclaimer: Mom and Dad, if you are reading this, stop.
So today, in an effort to rouse myself from the 'doldrums,' and also because I'm too broke to afford booze, I resorted to getting high on 'life,' specifically endorphins. Ugh, the word alone is enough to make me want to take a goddamned nap. But I figure if I already paid the $90 monthly fee for the damned membership, that money's as good as spent.

I donned my fucking gay workout clothes, which are essentially my pajamas plus sneakers, and got my fat ass to the stupid gym. Are you sensing the undercurrent of rage in this post? Well congratufuckinglations! You're a genius.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. So there I am at the gym, surrounded by hateful healthmongers who are very nearly sweating on me. I plug in my earphones and switch my tv to the Food Network so that I can watch food while I burn lard off my body. The volume isn't working. This is a bad sign. I give up on hearing Giada DiLaurentiis wax on about stuffed shells -- she's got an annoying-ass voice anyhow, how she's always saying everything's so 'crisp' and 'crunchy' -- and start in on my Fergie workout.

Half an hour later, I'm schvitzing like a chazer. I jump off and do my stretches, and wait for the eighty-five-pound ano who's thought to bring her infant child to the gym with her to finish up on the leg-lifty thing. She's too busy making kissy faces at the kid and being all "I HAVE to work off this baby weight!" So I give up and bounce. I am still in a foul mood, perhaps because in my fruitless effort to avoid sweating, I've neglected to get my heart rate up enough to get the little endorphin fuckers flowing. So I decide to treat myself to a shot of wheatgrass, which sometimes has the effect of coke if you drink it on any empty stomach. I'm just coming out of the health food store, having choked down the vile, bilous liquor, when I run LITERALLY right in to my friendly neighborhood drug dealer. Ah, cruel irony! Just when I am beginning to feel all healthy and virtuous, the universe is there to remind me that I'm nothing of the sort.

After some idle chit-chat, I make it home and immediately start to feel the urge to purge. I am not sure if my body is in revolt from the unusually high energy expenditure or simply pissed off I made it drink the equivalent of 2 pounds of leafy green vegetables. Either way, I'm feeling distinctly urpy, and decide that the only real way to remedy the sitch is to bury my face in a plate of seasoned waffle fries, washed down with a 20 oz. coca cola classic. Take that, fitness.

So in sum, my ill-advised attempt to be healthy has, at every turn, been met with reminders of why I'm not cut out for that sort of lifestyle. To paraphrase Fran Lebowitz, I'm better off just chain-smoking and plotting revenge.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Parents Just Don't Understand (Gender-Specific Apparel)


My mom has this cute habit of calling me every time something mildly amusing happens at home in Indiana. Sometimes our ideas of amusing diverge, but even those times are cute in their own way just cause of the breadth of un-thrilling things she deems worthy of a phone call. I think I've just figured out where I get my easy-to-entertain gene.

In any event, today she left me a message that made me simultaneously laugh out loud and make me suspicious as to what exactly goes on at home when my parents have no one to rein them in from their inherent nuttiness.

I requested that my mom buy me this sick shirt from the sexy Libertine line that Target is featuring right now. After she got it, she hung it up with some of my dad's button-downs so he wouldn't forget to bring it with him when he comes out to NYC for a visit next week. She was sitting on the couch lounging as she's wont to do ('nother genetic trait that's been passed down to yours truly) when she heard my dad yell, "What the hell is THIS?"

As you might imagine, she was even more startled when she saw him in the doorway with my shirt halfway on, puzzled as to how he was supposed to wear it.

In addition to being about a foot shorter than my dad, I am also a girl. This particular shirt, as you might be able to tell from the picture above, is clearly not a unisex item of clothing. If the puffed sleeves and big girly bow wasn't a tip-off, you'd think the candy-striped fabric might have clued him in to this fact. Alas. My dad is officially a cross-dresser. And possibly senile!

And yet the only thing I'm really concerned about is whether he stretched the goddamned thing out trying to put it on.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Codename: CoffeeBoob


I officially have a problem, and it is called Gimme! Coffee.

Gimme! Coffee is what I would like to consider my local coffee shop. It is located a mere four-ish blocks from my house, serves up the most insanely good, strong coffee and espresso drinks I've encountered, and is never not teeming with hot, tatted-up rocker boys. Why just last week I encountered not one but TWO of my recent crushes ordering themselves up some iced Americano's (the preferred coffee beverage of hot dudes everywhere).

As an aside, I'd like to point out that it's not always ideal to run into your crushes at the coffee joint, because you are usually in one of two extreme states of being. By you I mean me. Either I am comatose and sub-lingual with squinty eyes that resemble those of a newborn baby rodent or I am on my second cuppa, which likely means I'm crazed and sweating and behaving like a junkie in need of her fix.

Which brings me to this problem I mentioned above. I am addicted. ADDICTED. Yes, I am aware that caffeine is a drug. Yes, I'm aware that people become addicted to it. But when I say addicted, what I mean is . . . .

Picture it: Brooklyn, New York on a rainy misty morning in late July. Yours truly is struggling down the street carrying not one but two large cups of soy latte, both with extra shots. Because each "single" shot is a triple ristretto (um, yeah), this means that each cup I hold in my little hand contains what amounts to SIX shots of espresso. I have resorted to buying TWO LARGE COFFEE DRINKS because I NEED TO KEEP UP MY BUZZ. I am preparing to consume TWELVE SHOTS OF MUTHER FUCKING ESPRESSO.

I secretly hope that the counter people think I have, like, a friend or a boyfriend for whom I've been kind enough to brave the crap weather in the name of a cuppa joe. Because no one -- NO ONE -- in her right mind would need to consume that much coffee by herself in immediate succession, let alone insist on procuring it in the midst of a fucking thunderstorm. Certainly no one in her right mind would think it necessary to don rubber boots and trip down the street carrying two large cups of coffee whilst trying to also manage her wind-ravaged umbrella and attempting to make sure her dress doesn't fly up and flash the pizza shop across the street, all the while trying like a maniac to simultaneously sip from one cup, then another (so as to not make one cup feel inferior to the other!). And so on, down the street.

Needless to say folks, I arrived at my apartment a few minutes ago with the front half of me drenched from improper use of umbrella, and I had coffee and soy foam on my nose, chin and boob area. Junkie. I kid you not.

And here I sit, sucking down cup numero uno, already thinking about cup #2. And wondering how much time I could realistically let pass before arousing suspicion or concern amongst the baristas when I go in and order another cuppa. Perhaps I should estimate when the shift changes?

These are the crazed thoughts I'm having right now.

Well at least I'm in good company: Rumor was that Balzac drank like 80 cups of java a day. He even wrote a treatise called "The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee."

Oh, and then he died of caffeine-related health problems! Whoops!

Friday, July 20, 2007

I Was A Teen-Aged Hair-Don't


Lots of us can attest to having had poor judgment as teenagers. One in a series of misbegotten decisions I made between the ages of roughly fourteen and nineteen involved the travesty of attempting white-girl dreadlocks.

Now don't misunderstand. I was by no means a hippie. There was a fleeting moment between middle- and high school when it was touch and go . . . I really liked those jangly bell anklets that the hippie girls wore and I once went to a Grateful Dead concert -- albeit just the parking lot, where all manner of vendor sold yummy veggie pitas, tie-dyed t-shirts and nitrous balloons. But at some point or other, I came to a fork in the road: Would it be pot and Phish or whiskey and mosh pits? At the urging of my bestest friend Sarah, who was already sporting spiked dog collars and heavy black eyeliner and obsessing over Crass b-sides -- despite the fact that she lived in the biggest mansion on the East side -- I chose the latter.

For me, as for most kids who did not actually grow up on the streets of London or New York in the late Seventies, "being punk" was merely a sartorial exercise, much as we professed to believe in anarchy and, like, veganism and not bathing. And so it was that Sarah and I began to experiment with all of the various and sundry punk styles we could think up. Manic Panic hair dye was used liberally. Accessorizing with safety pins became de rigeur. Wearing owl-like eye makeup was non-negotiable. We were very pleased with ourselves. Our parents not so much.

I can't recall exactly when I discovered that the dreadlocks that the pretty, earthy hippie girls at school rocked functioned doubly as an acceptable punk hairstyle, but I think I came to the realization with equal parts surprise and relief. Up to then, I'd resigned myself to being the most white-bread punk rock acolyte of our little social circle. Sarah shaved her head, Joe got a tattoo, J.R. had a mohawk, held in place with Crest toothpaste. I told myself I was content to represent the more sedate end of the style spectrum, but in truth I was scared I'd end up looking like an idiot, or worse, a poseur.

But dreadlocks. That I could manage. A few weeks into my sophomore year I floated the idea to Sarah, who was enthusiastic. I quickly set about researching ways to give myself the desired look, and was told by more than one stanky punk with whom I associated that dreadlocks required a long-term sabbatical from hair-washing. I was not down with that.

Luckily I had other resources. After surveying every one of the black girls in my geometry class, I found that dreadlocks could be achieved simply with the application of a mysterious and magical beauty product known as Murray's Bee's Wax. Joy!

That very weekend, Sarah and I hit up Sally's Beauty Supply, procured the Murray's and got to work in Sarah's bathroom.

I must remind you that these were the days before Google. We could not simply enter search terms and get a detailed how-to on dreadlocks. We also didn't have the presence of mind to ask for instructions on how to create them, beyond merely attaining and applying the Murray's. So we improvised. We began slathering the balm onto medium sections of my hair and twisting them into coils. After getting through about half of my head, we noticed that the effect was not quite what we were after. The hair was too smooth, not nappy or ratty enough: it looked more like a series of cornrows than the artfully mussed locks I dreamed about. We tried in vain to tease them into fuzzy ropes, to no avail. We determined that we'd used too much product and not enough elbow grease to physically rough up the hair, so I set about washing out the Murray's, optimistic that we could start over and get it right the second time.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Murray's Bee's Wax, the "bee's wax" is a bit of a misnomer. The shit is essentially dressed-up Vaseline. You see where this is going. I washed and dried my hair, and quickly discovered that it had almost no effect. Every strand was essentially coated in petroleum jelly, rendering the water and the suds completely innocuous. Moisture began to bead on my head as on a duck's feathers. I shampooed again. Nothing. Again. And again. And again.

Oh. Fuck.

I came to the grim realization that I had completely screwed up my hair with a sense of humor undercut by the terrifiying knowledge that I'd be forced to go to school the next day with hair so slicked in grease that I resembled an animal dredged up after the Exxon-Valdez oil spill. I trudged home from Sarah's and ransacked the utility closet at my house for any cleaning product I thought I could safely use on my head, hell-bent on finding something -- anything -- that would at the very least make my hair marginally less disgusting.

No fucking dice. Monday rolled around and I tried foolishly to camouflage my hair's unfortunate condition. I pulled it back in a loose pony tail and hoped people would simply think it was still wet from the shower. I divulged to my friends the truth of what happened, and spent the week attempting a low profile in the hallways, rushing home as soon as the 3 o'clock bell rang to begin the hours-long process of washing, drying and rewashing my pathetic strands.

Halfway through the week, fate reared its comparatively ugly head: As I was walking home from school, a red Honda Prelude pulled up beside me, and Anthony Panzica leaned across the driver's seat and yelled "Want a ride?"

Dear god why? Why now? Why must the hottest guy in the junior class, whom I'd ogled from afar , notice me and offer me a ride home on a day when I looked like a drowned rat?

"Sure, thanks."

The half-mile drive was painfully silent. I considered telling him the whole sad story of my hair, to at the very least offer an explanation for my freakish 'do. But I couldn't get up the nerve. As he sped away from my driveway, I shook my fist and cursed the heavens Scarlett O'Hara style.

And so the week wore on. My parents laughed and shook their heads. I laid my oily head on my towel-protected pillow at night and winced, replaying every humiliating encounter I'd suffered that day.

After a full week with no demonstrable change in my hair's condition, it dawned on me that perhaps I should get some professional help. I consulted the wretched Murray's Bee's Wax label and found a 1-800 customer service number. Why hadn't I sought their help earlier? Because I was retarded, that's why.

The first thing the Murray's rep said to me after I 'd described the issue was, "Are you Caucasian?" I shit you not. It was at that point that I finally realized the error of my ways: I was not black! My hair was not the texture of a black person's! Yes. I am a master of the obvious.

The lady chuckled to herself and laid out the steps whereby I could begin the process of getting my hair back to its natural state.* I hung up and got to work immediately. Within an hour, my hair was all but normal.

In the twelve-odd years since I experienced this hair fiasco, I have approached each haircut and color and style with trepidation. I admire the people who embrace follicular experiments without fear. But outlandish hairstyles simply ain't for me. I learned that the hard way.

*In the unlikely even that you find yourself in my position, you must literally melt the Murray's off your hair, using a hair-dryer and a comb to methodically diffuse the grease. Don't say I never warned you.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

GROOOOOSSSS


It's just past noon and already today is shaping up to be one of the all-time record holders in terms of yuckiness. Specifically, sweating. Let me share my feelings with you on this topic: I HATE IT. I HATE SWEATING more than just about everything in the world. Yes, more than rosemary, yippee dogs, close talkers, anorexics, fabric stores and fascists. Well maybe not more than fascists, but it's neck and neck.

The dumb thing is it's not really even that effing hot out. It's merely thick and humid and pea soup-ish. I happened to be wearing my spectacles today and kept on having to remove them in order to wipe off the condensation on the lenses. And have I mentioned my OCD when it comes to facial sweating? I rarely if ever leave home without a supply of facial moist towelettes. I am aware that this makes me something of a freak and that for someone who is currently in financial dire straits, it does not follow that I ought to be spending five to seven dollars biweekly on the fancy, sensitive-skin variety of towelette. But whatever, eff you.

On this particular day of days, I was on my way to see Dr. X* for an annual physical and was running late, so I was unable to go through the normal ritual of making sure I had packed at least two towelettes in addition to my various lip balms, sunglasses, reading material, keys, wallet and cetera. WHAT A DAY TO FORGO THE TOWELETTE CHECK! I was dripping, I tell you! What started as a girlish glow, a glisten even, became a full-fledged schvitz bonanza. It was unpleasant.

In case you're worried about my health, Dr. X seems to think all systems are go, except for the fact that I smoke a little -- JUST A LITTLE!! -- and abhor exercise. I freely admitted this to the doc, because there's really no point in lying to him, even though I want him to love me forever. (See asterisk.) This admonition regarding cigz and exercise could very well have categorized every single doctor's visit since I was twelve, being that I have historically abhorred exercise (even when I was going through my adolescent quasi-ano phase) and have being puffing the fags since '91. I made sure to tell the doc that I DO do all my own walking, which I thought ought to count for something. I mentioned my recent sleep trouble, which hasn't been all that troublesome what with my blessed Ambien by my side, and he retorted with that same "exercise would help that" line. Pah, I said. Also, I don't like sweating. Really. Truly. Don't.

Are you sensing a theme here?

By the time I had trekked up to Union Square, having by then consumed two large coffees -- the equivalent of roughly six espresso shots (more on this later) -- I was actually seeing little speckles of sweat form on my chest like some lady with menopause or a fat guy with high blood pressure. No. NO. MOIST TOWELETTES WHERE ARE YOU WHEN I NEED YOU?? If I'd been in a really OCD mood, I'd have stopped at the nearest Wal-Greens to purchase my Oil of Olay babies, but I was trying extra hard to be abstemious and plus I was on a mission: to visit Barnes and Noble (or Narns and Bobble as I like to call it -- aren't I silly?? But seriously it sounds way better that way) to purchase just about every magazine ever published. For research. RESEARCH I TELL YOU!

Ugh. I was so sweaty that even in the oppressive air conditioning of B&N I couldn't regain my cool. I was actually forced to mob my brow with my just-laundered but still unsatisfactorily sanitary cardigan, which then made me paranoid that I would have little pieces of brown lint all over my face and people would think I had gotten in a poo fight with a Bonobo monkey.

After buying the entire fucking magazine section, I left with every intention of retreating to my little apartment with my little air conditioner and my stack o' mags.

BUT ALAS. As I exited I realized that I was face to face with the Union Square Market, and since I've been trying to force myself to eat fruits and vegetables more, I could not very well pass up the opportunity to peruse and purchase some of the agrarian bounty of the season. Mind you I was still sweating but making a ferocious effort to tell myself I was not concerned about the ocean of perspiration gathering in the little ditches below my specs.

Well in case you care, I bought some cherries. And some cheese. Not cheez. Cheese. So much for the leafy greens I aspired to. By the time I'd gotten my quarter-pound of raw milk havarti I was so thoroughly wet (get your mind out of the gutter!) that I couldn't bring myself to stop by the heirloom tomato stand, let alone peruse the purslaine (sic). I walked quickly towards the subway, praying that the L train would not require a long wait and that I'd soon be heading towards my marginally cool apartment where I could disrobe and aim the AC directly at my little face.

No such luck. A full ten minutes of near-hysteria ensued. I resorted to removing my glasses entirely in order to reap the full effects of the woefully weak fans, which made me even more disoriented. Those ten minutes were the grossest in recent memory.

For those of you who are wondering, I made it home in one piece. I am typing this in the comfort of my cute, cool, orange-blossom scented room. I do not plan on leaving until the disgusting humidity outside lifts. Or until I feel like getting drunk. Whichever comes first.


*Dr. X is my physician and crush object. He is sexually ambiguous enough to not make me nervous when he palpates my boobs, but is big and burly and strong and has a kind face and I daydream about hugging him. Ah, Dr. X -- I gladly put my life in your hands!

Ode To Cheez


Have you guys devoted any serious time to the weird and wonderful world of faux cheese? No? Well you OUGHT. Not only is it a fascinating feat of scientific progress and textural aesthetics, it is scrumptious. It is one in a long list of highly specific things that make my loins quiver, and that is an accomplishment in and of itself.

Of course, there are all manner of fake cheeses on Mothership Earth, and these cheeses, or cheezes rather, are much like humans in that some are better than others. Some please and delight while others offend the senses and generally make me want to Ralph Nader.

Let's consider the mother of all cheezes: Cheez Whiz. Who invented this incredible culinary masterpiece? Why the Wizard of Cheez of course! That beneficent magician of processed, mucus-like goodness first bequeathed his discovery unto Kraft, which proceeded to unveil the thenceforth indispensable kitchen staple in the red-letter year of 1953.*

Historically speaking, Velveeta was Cheez Whiz's predecessor, created and brought to the cheez-loving public in the year 1927 -- the height of the Great Depression! Ah the socio-economic implications wrought by this food discovery. In two words: Who cares?

My thoroughly uninformed but nonetheless correct opinion is that despite a longer career and undisputed status as the superior accompaniment to chips and Rotel, the V-train is inferrior to Cheez Whiz in the category of "thick, viscous" liquid cheezes.

One must, I suppose, touch on the strange and culturally relevant innovation known as E-Z Cheez. Despite it's name, E-Z Cheez bears little or no relation to the departed West Coast rapper and former member of N.W.A Easy E. But it is doubtless a portrait and product of its time (the Eighties of course) : a fluffy, vapid cheese imposter barely contained in a "futuristic" spray can. I confess that I was caught on more than one occasion swirling the stuff directly onto my tongue the way Sheena E. might have foamed up her coiffure. But I was but a child. I lived and learned.

I will always have a special place in my heart for Merkts Cheddar-Port Wine Cheese Food, which I consider to be part of the old-guard. This is faux cheese for the upwardly mobile. This would not be out of place at a fancy cocktail party, served with Triscuit (or "thrice-baked") crackers. I especially enjoy the mottled alien color in which this Cadillac of cheezes arrives. The borderline offensive pink hue that is supposed to represent the "port" within the screaming orange "cheddar" is particularly enticing. My Grandma Patsy ave shalom used to serve Merkts at social gatherings. She was also a master of Tapioca pudding and Chicken Diane, but that is for another story. The point is, she was a classy lady and she gave Merkts the thumbs up. So who are YOU to judge? Nobody is who.

Nowadays I take my faux cheez where I can get it: Perhaps it comes in the form of a wimpy, milky sauce on my Annies Organic shells. Maybe I get it in powder form (much preferred these days) on my daily quota of Cheezy Poofs (brand name withheld). Occasionally I break down and order chili con queso at whatever sub-stellar Mexican chain restaurant I happen to be dining at, though I passed up the opportunity to do so yesterday during an impromptu trip to On the Border in beautiful Huntington, Long Island for reasons I'm still grappling with. I suspect it had to do with my attempt to be abstemious in light of the knowledge that I would later that evening be indulging in another of my great loves -- to be explored at a later date -- the humble potato.

Friends, the world of fake cheese is wide and I am but one "womynn" (as our militant feminist friends say) with little to no ambition when it comes to thinking deeply about something for longer than 40 minutes. So here is where I'll leave you:

A great philosopher onces said: The cheese stands alone.

Another great philosopher said: If you Cheez-It, they will come.

Think about it. I haven't.

*I have fabricated a portion of this statement.