Regarding Unemployment

Me: Guess who got approached about doing another freelance gig? That would be me. Looks like I might be able to make this freelance thing work after all!

TYM: Nice! Then you can go back to being my sugar mama. Being the financial backbone of this relationship is really trying, you know.

Regarding Richard Belzer

Because The Young Man is a Very Important Person in the tobacco industry, we scored an invite to the launch party for Bracco Wines, Lorraine Bracco's brand at the Hard Rock Cafe last night. It was an evening of free food, free wine and celebrity gawking.

The first celebs we saw were the Sopranos crew: Pauli Walnuts, Uncle Junior and Johnny Sack. Then we saw Joy Behar and Susie Essman, followed by Major Mike Bloomberg. As Bloomie is TYM's hero, he was quite excited about seeing him.

Shortly thereafter, I got excited about seeing someone, too. A medium-sized dark-colored, long-haired mutt, to be exact. Yes, I'm one of those girls that talks to and pets strange dogs on the street. I was preparing to launch my affectionate attack on the unsuspecting pooch when I noticed who was holding his leash -- Richard Belzer.

Now, I have no quarrel with Richard Belzer. I've always dug him on Law & Order: SVU (which is, in my opinion, the best L&O, past or present). I enjoy his dry sense of humor. He comes off a bit like a cranky conspiracy theorist on Real Time With Bill Maher, but since I don't often expect much from the entertainers on the panel, I don't much mind.

All that said, he went to a wine tasting party at the Hard Rock Cafe with two dogs on leashes. Wearing sunglasses, both indoors and at night. I briefly wondered if he'd gone blind, and if the dog I was gearing up to pet was, in fact, a seeing-eye dog. (Trust me, I've made that mistake before, usually way too late) It didn't appear to be the case, so I'm left with no explanation other than his future being really, really bright.

It's also worth mentioning that I dribbled powdered sugar from a zeppole all over the front of my sweater and managed to have a left boob-cannoli collision. I'm really fun to take as a date to fancy places. Klassy, even.

Overheard in Baltimore

Abby: So I went to put (2 1/2 year old) Sam down for his nap and he started chomping on my head and saying, "Mommy, I'm going to eat your brains! Rawr rawr rawr!" I said, "Your Aunt Jess taught you that, didn't she?"

Yes, yes she did. Anyone need a babysitter? I have a lot of time on my hands.

A New Direction

One of the reasons I wanted to go to cooking school is that the life of a dot-commer isn't very stable, and I have a knack for getting laid off. Like I did today.

I knew it was going to happen at some point. Big company buys little company. Little company is based in Portland, Oregon, and has two stray, random full-time workers in New York who are in a different time zone and aren't really a part of the team because of the distance.

In fact, I knew it was going to happen soon, because I caught my boss lurking around in the tools I use to do my job, trying to figure out how they work. I told TYM last night over a lovely Sri Lankan dinner that I thought I might be losing my job, and he told me I was just being paranoid. I'd hoped he was right.

When I couldn't access email or any tools this morning, I didn't even make the connection. Then I got the call. I think it was an odd way to treat an employee who'd been there for two years, happily, but business is business. In reality, they screwed themselves by doing it that way, because my to-do list isn't going to get to-done.

Now, the question is, what to do? Find another job, or chill out until I finish school? I guess I'll let the Flamingos help me figure that out this weekend.

Love Is...

...an ecard depicting harcore porn in my inbox this morning, and a bonsai tree. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Regarding Hair Color and Libido

Me: You know, that picture makes me miss being a blond

Miss Tanya (fellow fake redhead): Is that your natural?

Me: Close to it

Miss Tanya: Different kind of attention when you're blonde

Me: Totally

Miss Tanya: Dudes think redheads are crazy and horny

Me: And they think blonds are dumb and horny

Miss Tanya: We're all horny

Me: Apparently

A Treat

So I was looking for the Official Flamingo Mix CD® earlier this week, as the 10th Annual Flamingo Reunion® is upon us starting Friday, and I am PUMPED! I couldn't find the CD, which bummed me out, but I did find a picture of me with a large group of television news professionals circa 1998, complete with a cooking celebrity who makes me ultra-stabby. Click on the image to see who it is! (P.S. Drue! You're in there, too!)

Before I go...

See? I knew that was going to happen. I was going to make a big dramatic "All I want is to be left fucking alooooooone" and then I would just HAVE to post something. Well, my tea hasn't kicked in yet, so here I go.

I have a history of sleepwalking. I did it ALOT when I was a little kid. Mama Cavefish would find me wandering aimlessly about the house in the wee hours of the morning, inquire as to just what, presume, I thought I was doing, and then when I answered that I was looking for the golden anvil that the unicorn left in the basement for me, well, she'd realize I was actually asleep and escort me back to bed.

In adulthood, my sleepwalking has been fewer and farther between. About every three years or so, I do it a few times in one week, and then I stop aburptly as I'd started.

Sleepwalking can be hilarious, but it can also be quite scary. Once, I woke up in the living room, fully dressed, with my roommate asking me just where I thought I was going at four in the morning wearing cutoff jeans shorts in the middle of February. Where was I going? I'll never know, because thankfully, I never got there. Once he came home and found me in his bed, and when he tried to wake me I angrily told him to get out of my room and leave me alone. He slept on the couch that night, and started locking his door the next.

Saturday morning, I woke up bright and early to go to class, and the first thing I noticed was my hamper at the foot of my bed. The thing about that is, my hamper doesn't live at the foot of my bed. It lives in the closet in my office. It never leaves the closet in my office. I live alone. TYM was not sharing a bed with me that night. The hamper was full, and therefore too heavy for the cats to have dragged it in, plus, the closet door is always closed. There was only one explanation: I was sleepwalking.

I spent most of my subway ride into Manhattan trying to figure out what I was planning to do with the hamper. It briefly crossed my mind that I may have tried to pee in it. Don't ask me why that crossed my mind, as there really isn't any explanation for that train of thought. When I arrived home later, I was happy to discover that I did not, in fact, pee in my hamper. That didn't solve the mystery, though. I don't ever actually remove the hamper from the closet when I do my laundry, so I probably wasn't trying to do laundry. If I was, than God, how boring am I?

I just had a thought as I typed this. The lightbulb in my bedroom had gone out earlier that day. Maybe I was going to try to change it by standing on my hamper? If so, I obviously abandoned that plan, and thank goodness for that.

Any theories? And no, I didn't take Ambien and I wasn't drunk and blacked out, just to answer those questions in advance. Go!

Where's Jess?

So here's the deal, puppies. I'm currently working full-time, going to school, interning three or four mornings a week, freelancing for Cosmo, watching American Idol, eating bacon and trying to get my shit together both literally and figuaratively. I've been a shitty emailer, texter, caller and hanger-outer, and I spend a lot of my little free time sleeping. You might say I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment.

So what this means is, updates are going to be few and far between, at least until I finish school at the end of April. And then sleep for a week. I'm even skipping my birthday this year. I'll still post announcements, dumb conversations and Rear Window-esque theories about my landlords as they arise, but since I'm not interacting with the rest of the world all that often, don't expect too much.

So I'm going to go finish up crying, because I just read this, and then I'm going to take a shower, and then I'm going to drink some Yogi Bedtime tea so I can fall right to sleep (it works!) and get up at six in the morning to go bake hundreds of cookies. Good night, and I'll see you when I see you.