On love, and nylon

You know those imperfect pantyhose they sell for mad cheap in giant, smelly ghetto stores? In the package, they look just like any other pair of pantyhose. But you know they are not. One foot may be too big, and you'll have a little nylon puddle in the place where your calf meets your foot. Or the waist will be crooked, and one half will peek out over the top of your skirt. Or they'll have that weird crotch fit, where it feels strange but you can't quite figure out why. So you open up the packages, trying to identify the "imperfection" and figure out if it makes that particular pair wearable or unwearable.

That's what dating is like.

You go, girls

Looks like pervs will be thinking twice before indulging their catholic school girl fantasies after this. Nothing has made me happier all day.

Celebrate good times, c'mon. Doot doot doot doot. Doot. Doot. Doot. Doot doot doot doot. Woo hoo!

I know it's late in the day, and I'm sure y'all already know about this, but it's National Oatmeal Day. I will be observing this fine holiday with, of course, oatmeal, oatmeal raisin cookies, an oatmeal bath and an oatmeal and avocado face mask tonight.

You know those stuffed bears that are beige-ish with a funny texture? Julie calls them Oatmeal Puke Bears.

Dining, rabbits and such

If you happen to live in this fine city and have not yet tried the Mexican Goodness that is El Maguey y La Tuna, then I suggest you do so immediately. The boyfriend and I had a lovely late dinner there last night after scouring the city for Halloween costume pieces. My costume is coming together quite nicely, save for the under-the-cheerleading skirt hot pants and Britneyesque-furry scrunchies I can't seem to find.

In other news, this poor girl went and broke her Rabbit. I feel her pain. I, too, am among the rabbit-breakers of the world. When I say that (not that I say it that often), I get raised eyebrows and knowing glances, and I know what people think. I just couldn't get enough of the Rabbit. I used it until it burned out. Well, kids. You're about to get a little lesson in vibrators. You cannot, I repeat, CANNOT put Duracell batteries in them. Why, you ask? They are too powerful and will burn out your motor. Also, make sure you always check that it is, in fact, off when you turn it off. Just because it ain't vibrating, doesn't mean it ain't running. And, take it from me, leaving a vibrator running indefinitely WITH Duracell batteries in it will cause your Rabbit to die. Never to be revived again. 100 fabulously-spent dollars down the drain. I hope you all have learned something here today.

Halloween planning

the boyfriend: So Jess, what are you going to be for Halloween this year?

me: Dead cheerleader. Yourself?

the boyfriend: I don't know. I was going to be Roy [of Zeigfried & Roy], but I don't know. I think everyone's going to be that.

me: Umm... I really don't think everyone is going to be Roy.

the boyfriend: [skeptical silence, doubtful glance]

me: Remember last year when you said everyone was going to be Hunter S. Thompson and that's why you couldn't?

the boyfriend: Everyone was!*

*Everyone was not.

Definitely NOT a rock star

I don't often black out while drinking. Sometimes, if I don't eat first, I may forget some important details. Occasionally, if I drink my weight in gin, some things may escape me. And, as I learned Saturday night, it can also happen if I drink while being on several medications for a sinus infection. I did, in fact, wake up on the couch, fully clothed and was then forced to get into bed, wake the boyfriend and ask if I was sleeping on the couch because we had had some sort of a spat. Luckily, we hadn't. What really happened is that, upon our return from Williamsburg, the hungry boyfriend had gone grazing at the corner deli while I proceeded to pass out on the couch. In my snoring, drooling state, he decided it would be better to leave me there than to wake me from my drunken slumber.

I'm a BBC American

I continue to be baffled by the fact that the US networks keep taking absolutely brilliant television programming from BBC America and turning it into slop. The US version of What Not to Wear is unwatchable, Coupling is downright tragic and The Office promises to be absolutely wretched. It's one thing to copy someone else's idea and make it your own. It's another thing entirely to do the exact same thing someone has already done, only worse. Gus Van Sant's Psycho, anyone?

Party of one

You don't get the same level of service as a party of one as you do as a party of more than one.

So I had a very lovely weekend in the Hamptons avec moi. I walked on the beach, watched breathtaking sunrises and sunsets that nearly brought me to tears, wrote volumes, ate fudge -- it rocked the casbah. I decided to try new things - one of which was dining alone. I have dined alone before, but only when the boyfriend is working, so it doesn't really count.

My first attempt was breakfast. Much to my chagrin, when you're a "party of one" for breakfast or lunch, they want you to sit at the counter. I went to two places and rejected their counter offers, and then finally settled on the pancake house across the street from the popular pancake house. I'm not much of a pancake eater anyway, and it's really hard to mess up eggs and home fries. My solo dining attempt was thwarted by a 40-ish surf instructor who wanted to either talk me into surfing or talk me into sleeping with him. Frankly I think he was going for both. He joined me before I could protest, talked a LOT and I somehow ended up outside of a surf shop doing ankle exrecises with my shoes off post-breakfast (don't ask). After I declined his offer to drive me to the lighthouse, show me his favorite beach and stop by my hotel room for a visit, I was free of Anthony the surf instructor. I had some leftover pizza back at the hotel so I had that for lunch and got myself psyched for dinner. Alone.

I walked a half mile to the Surfside Inn to stake out the location, and then hung out on the beach to watch the sunset. Once that was over, I headed in. How many? One. The host looked at me oddly and offered me my choice of seats. My waitress, when she approached, seemed dismayed to only have one person at the table. I ordered a glass of red wine so that I'd have something to do with my hands because I was a little nervous. Then she came to hurriedly take my order (didn't tell me the specials, which I found out later when I heard her tell another table), caesar salad and lobster ravioli (which she brought out before the salad was done). The food was delicious even though I was rushed through it. I was feeling really good about being out to dinner by myself. Very independent and very grown-up.

Well, until she sat a huge table next to me and forgot to bring my check and I sat there while they whispered OhmyGodWhat'swrongwiththatgirlshe'seatinghereallbyherselfShemustbecrazy. Then I really just wanted to go back to the hotel and hide under the covers.

Q and A

Q: What makes you and your friends any less bitchy and catty then the girls who's bitchiness and cattiness you talk about all the time?

A: Well, duh. We're funnier!

A memo to the people who write the voiceover scripts for Meg Ryan movie previews

Meg Ryan movies are never, ever sexy. Quit it.

Meet me by the sea

In an effort to stave off what promises to be a spectacular nervous breakdown, I'm taking my first solo vacation ever this weekend. My mother is quite certain that I am either suicidal, or will succumb to the charms of a roofie-bearing pirate who will have his way with me and then toss me into the sea. Whether or not I will be chopped up into tiny pieces first has not been decided.

Either way, I'm going to Montauk, firstly because it's super-cheap this time of year, and secondly, because I can walk around with an affected British accent and say things like, Darling, I simply HAD to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city and dash off to the Hamptons. The sea air always does WONDERS for my sense of clarity. I'm afraid the boyfriend might suspect me of planning a romantic rendezvous with someone who is not him. Lucky for him, I'm having a hot and heavy love affair with my new laptop, the only object of lust who will be joining me on my trip.

So the plan is this: eat, drink, write, lounge, figure out my life. I've kind of written the movie version of my weekend. There is a dashing stranger with a mysterious past who tries to woo me and fails because I remember my love back home. There is the crusty old man at the neighborhood bar who is wiser than anyone gives him credit for. He says one statement, totally unrelated to me, that changes my life forever. There is that moment where I, wrapped in a blanket and gazing out to sea, suddenly figure out the answer. For some reason I cannot stop thinking about Sandra Bullock, who I hate, in Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, even though I thought the book was much better.

It ain't peeing in a cup, but it'll do

I'm like the G.W.A.R. of strippers.
~ Creamy Stevens, roommate and burlesque dancer extraordinaire, on her fondness for acts which require fake blood. If you'd like to see her in all her sanguine glory, she performs every Thursday night.

On the progression of madness

As you read this, I'm rapidly going crazy.

Really crazy. Big crazy. Sylvia Plath-crazy. Maybe it's a brain tumor. A kid on Law & Order went crazy and killed someone because of a brain tumor. Maybe I've always been crazy and was better at hiding it before - even from myself. Or maybe, just maybe, for no apparent reason I just woke up a couple of weeks ago and started to go crazy.

Whatever the reason...by my calculations, I'm going to be hanging from my fire escape singing showtunes and throwing marbles at the neighborhood kids in about 9 days.

Conversation whispered last night at Croxley's

me: those guys think i'm a red sox fan. the dude in the red hat just high-fived me.

the boyfriend: so what?

me: so what? i'm a yankees fan. now i'm going to look like a big liar when i cheer for the yankees.

the boyfriend: shh

me: shh? why shh?

the boyfriend: you're not even that into baseball. don't embarrass me.

me: me being a yankee fan embarrasses you?

the boyfriend: yes.

me: we're in new york!

I always knew I should have been born with a penis

So apparently, I'm a dude more often than not. I could play with this thing for hours if I didn't have so much goshdarn work to do.

Boys in the wild

I had the pleasure of spending yesterday afternoon at a sports bar in the neighborhood. Six TVs, gallons of beer and dozens of males wearing caps, visors, jerseys, t-shirts and/or sweatshirts bearing the emblem of their favorite team, or rather, their favorite team playing that day. I got to observe these strange creatures in their natural habitat, and was both frightened and surprised by the behavior I saw.

It began with the boyfriend. He walked in and, much to his chagrin, neither the Red Sox nor the Patriots games were on the screens before him. He asked to have the set nearest the door switched and was denied. He alternated between standing still and pacing nervously for about 20 minutes, until an employee of the bar said he would show the Red Sox game in the back room. We moved in, got some Bloody Mary's (which I still can't bring myself to like no matter how hard I try), and ordered some steak and eggs (him) and sausages and eggs (me).

The first thing I observed was the little regard for others. Each male sports fan (MSF) wanted their game shown on the television closest to their desired seating area, regardless of how many people were already jumping up and down in an ape-like fashion in front of said television. Soccer players fresh from a game came in with huge bags, put them all over the place and didn't even move them when it was obvious they were in the way of, not only patrons, but staff. MSF's took chairs from tables where people were seated as opposed to tables with no one seated without asking. The unisex bathrooms reeked of puddled urine and the bar reeked of wings and farts. MSF's who had never laid eyes on one another hugged, high-fived and discussed each and every factor that could possibly have an effect on the events of the 30 seconds to come.

Without getting into the bizarre nature of Red Sox fans too much, I will share an anecdote. The boyfriend has a Marty Barrett baseball card which must be with him during all Red Sox games and was stationed atop the salt and pepper shakers on our table. In a frenzy, he knocked the card from its perch and failed to notice. Not 30 seconds after I pointed out Marty's fall and he was safely returned to his salt-and-pepper home, the Red Sox hit a home run. He thanked me for noticing the card, thereby saving the day and ensuring a Red Sox victory. This also made up for his belief that I stole said baseball card the day the Red Sox lost last -- thereby losing the game for them.

While seeing the MSF's in the wild was certainly an eye-opener, I don't expect I'll be going back any time soon.