TWIR: “Another Day, Another D-bag, Another Dazzling Disappointment.”

TWIR: “Another Day, Another D-bag, Another Dazzling Disappointment.”

I'm an absurdly anxious person with extreme control freak tendencies. I hate everything about flying from start to finish. Do you call a car or to save money, take the very-convenient-to-work-and-home-subway? If you take a car, how bad will NY traffic be at any given time? Will the security lines a nightmare? While I know you can basically take anything you want with you on a plane leaving NY (ironically), will the motherf**kers working for TSA in Florida confiscate the pricey perfume I’m carrying on? And then there’s the matter of strapping myself in to a metal death cage that weighs 200,000 lbs and travels about 600MPH at 37,000 feet. When the end of this incredible journey is finally reached, I’ve got an anxiety-ridden visit in with my parents in the land of strip malls. I DIE… and not in the amazing Camp Zoe sort of way.

To deal with my neurosis on a recent pilgrimage back to mecca to see Superman and the rest of Urban’s wunderkinds take on Tennessee, I did what any rational person would do. I arrived at JFK two hours before my flight and headed straight to the sports bar in T5. After receiving free drinks from the bartender and the creepy, middle-aged men on either side of me, I boarded the plane and heard the pilot announce it was going to be bumpy the whole way to Florida. I instantly popped extra half of an Ativan and as soon as the beverage service started, ordered white wine only to have the steward bring me red vino. Regardless of his colorblind mistake, I opened and poured into a glass… right before he came back with the white I originally ordered. At this point, it only seemed appropriate to open and drink the cold white and let the red have a breather. I had two hours, right?

What seemed like 5 minutes later I woke up as the wheels touched down in Jacksonville to a tray table that had been packed up and the same steward telling me – with a horrified expression – that I’d passed out and he'd tried to wake me up multiple times for wine payment and/or general health concerns? I apologized, not particularly embarrassed or genuinely sorry, and offered to pay Judgy McSteward who, in turn, said something to the effect of, "just get the eff off the plane, crazy lady."

Sometimes while trying to keep up with the ridiculousness in your life, you get caught up in it. You become a casualty of crazy, akin to being a casualty of war. I've also come to realize that for every unbalanced action, a similar and equally absurd reaction is very much possible. For example, at home we have to hand wash dishes as we are unfortunately without a dishwasher. We use these ginormous, white coffee mugs every morning to hold the rocket fuel espresso we make. It makes me slightly insane when the crevices inside have coffee stains and are not cleaned to my liking. (Read: I'm completely neurotic and want everything done my way). However, instead of just soaking the mugs in hot, soapy water a little longer, I spray bleach inside the mugs. And we’re not talking about the veggie-based Green Works. I mean the Bud Heavy of bleach, regular old Clorox. It is beyond a doubt, certifiably demented of me to think that bleach is the better choice to a faint ring of a best friend's coffee left over from yesterday morning.

Romantic relationships will most likely render the maximum idiotic, ill-conceived, and impracticable reactions from people. Take, for example, dating someone’s ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend. In theory, it’s a genius idea. Think about it. Someone else already did a test run and you know that at the very least, your head won’t end up in a freezer or your skin on a blanket (too far?). At any rate, you know this person is likeable and maybe even well liked by your friends if it ended amicably. However in practice, it’s a great big douche move. Think about it. You’re dating your friend’s ex. You’re taking a big sh*t on big book of friend code and in return, getting your friend’s sloppy seconds. It’s a really bad idea. Unless... it all works out, in which case; Mavel Tov!

Unrelated, someone I know seems to have slipped into a torturous pattern of essentially not being attracted to someone unless they work together. I’m sure for that person, it happens to be a totally subconscious, coincidental event. Anyhow, could someone please remind me that person the office (particularly if that office is an ad agency) is the probably the ultimate worst place to meet someone? You’d think I they would have learned by now. I they have not.

A nice, tall, attractive 24-year old boy in Manhattan who claims to want to date you is basically a modern day Trojan horse. (Trojan cult? …get it? He’s young. Anyhow…) Having passed the 24-year benchmark four years ago myself, I should have known better... just like I should have known better than to order and consume my 6th grain alcohol margarita Friday night at Rio. However not really being one for restraint, but instead acting more like the poster child of “gluttons for punishment" everywhere, neither situation really stopped me.

The thing is this man/horse is unbelievably appealing at first glance with his tall stature, southern accent, affinity for SEC football, possession of seersucker pants and an endless supply of crisp shirts. The total package looks tempting at first. But once you get up close and pick it apart, it turns into a big f**ing mess that blows up in your face. And there you are crying at the bar, feeling like a fool because in addition to you, this baby Trojan colt also hooked up with half the girls in the office! And what did you get out of it? A monster hangover.

At some point you stop feeling bad. You have Jameson on the rocks with your friends on a Sunday night at a speakeasy in the West Village. (You whip up a pointed blog post). You reach a limit. A best friend and fellow New Yorker reached one a few months ago with a man she met on a plane. They went on a date where his truly awful shirt caused her to raise an eyebrow. However, not wanting to screw up that second chance karma, she entertained a second date. She showed up horrified to him in sweatpants and a shirt she described, while shouting over the phone as, “a shirt that was actually, originally designed to not have sleeves!!!”

And while yes, perhaps we’re overly critical bitches, and clothes can be changed, sometimes you have to ask; Is it worth it? Looking back, if all you ever really had was an adolescent g-chat buddy who talked about himself always and occasionally slept over, it’s not worth the anxiety, the tears or the potential damage to relationships with real friends. That big, wooden horse can stay locked outside the gate because I’m hoping on a plane to New Orleans with some of my favorite people on the planet. And to quote one of them, “the mustometer will be redlined all weekend.” So to my dear friends heading to NOLA, I’ll say this: Saddle up, because I’m putting myself in the running for the weekend game ball. And I’ll be starting out with an Ativan and some red and/or white wine high in the sky Friday morning.

Don’t be fooled by the pearls.

VENN

Keeping Up With Crazy, vol. 1

You want to see crazy people? Go to a sandwich/chopped salad place around 1:00pm in a mostly commercial area of NY. Want to amplify your crazy? Go to what I consider to be the only one with decent food in the entire financial district, Patuca, and you find yourself in the epicenter of hungry people whose drive for at-desk-productivity outweighs the quality of life that comes with taking a lunch hour… or people like me, who would rather go back to their desk and singlehandedly try and watch everything hulu.com has to offer than sit in City Hall Park and enjoy the lovely weather, er, fog/rain.

Personally, I find crazy people fascinating, so I quite enjoy the priceless people watching in a hot, crowded deli. Before you even get into what really makes people tick in these places, there’s usually someone dressed as though they clearly forgot they had to be in public for most of the day. I understand that office thermostats are often set around 30* below, but that does not give you carte blanche to walk around looking like the bastard child of the Easter Bunny and Batman.

By that I mean, I saw a woman walk in wearing a teal “sweater” with elongated sides all around which I am assuming are meant to wrap around you for extra warmth, but the problem was that you couldn’t even see armholes. It was as if she cut a hole in her childhood security blanket and set out to her adult day. I mean, this thing would have put living room throw blankets to shame. A snuggie would be more fashionable and frankly, more trendy. I wanted to take a picture of the crazy woman in her bat cape, but I stopped just short of snapping it, in part because my blackberry camera has a flash that would have gone off and attracted attention and in part because of something that rarely happens with me. I stopped and thought, would I want someone to do this to me on an off, ahem, hungover day? No, no I wouldn’t.

Enough empathy for now. Back to my comfort zone: picking apart mannerisms of perfect strangers who never did anything to me. Thank goodness for the protective glass covering the salad ingredients. I have to believe that were it not there, people would point to their desired ingredient not stopping short of sticking their swine flu carrying fingers in there for a sampling.

Crazy happens during ordering and there’s really no reason. I get how it can be unnerving to wait in a long line and then have to depend on someone who might not speak the best English to put together your precious lunch. (Note to self: the ability to speak Spanish would really come in handy here – way to go on growing up in Florida and studying French for six years). Anyhow, think about it; there are about 20 options of various salad/sandwich toppings. Even if the person serving you doesn’t exactly speak the queen’s English – or have a green card – when their job is to make salads for people all day, every day, what do you want to bet they understand the words “tomato,” ‘cucumber,” “beets” and “delicious goat cheese?” And frankly, worst case scenario they screw up and make you a new one? You’re paying $15 for lettuce. They’ll start from scratch.

Speaking of $15 salads, price point is another thing that cause people to go bonkers. I don’t understand it. I stood in front of a troll woman in the sandwich line the other day that, of course, was clawing over protective glass covering to scream out complex orders of tomatoes and sprouts. Well, this troll woman was none too pleased with the amount of avocado on her sandwich, quietly suggested they give her more and then turned to me I guess looking for sympathy and gave a little, “harrumph!” Umm, hey lady, do I strike you as a person who would give a shit about the amount of avocado that the sandwich guy allocated to your sandwich, because I don’t. So please step far enough out of my personal space to notice the sporting of the wayfarers inside, the earbuds in-ear and the BBM to Casey in hand and know that I’m not interested in anything having to do with your lunch.

Of course what I just said is BS because after she started snorting off like the woman troll she was, I kind of needed to know how it would pan out. Clearly not needing more avo on her sammy, she barks at them to add more, so they do. She then completely loses her cool when they charge her an additional $0.50, as per the board that says: Additional Toppings $0.50 each. Right. I mean, am I the only one who finds it embarrassing to cause a stir over the difference between a $6.75 and $7.25 sandwich? I get that the eating out adds up, but honestly, if you’re concerned about saving money, buy groceries and bring in your lunch.

Lastly, perhaps what’s most troubling is that I actually think about it this much. I mean, none of this matters, but when you go to the same place nearly every day, there’s a lot of time to observe. And I’d be lying to say I didn’t love crazy people. On that note, I asked a friend last week if she’d rather go to Iran right now for a month or spend six months in a small town in Tennessee having to watch Fox News and attend Baptist church. She, of course, said Iran and added, “I’d wear those robes around and no one would know how fat I am.” She’s not fat, not even close. However, I suspect she’s not the only one who would make that same choice, crazy as it may be. And strangely enough, I love living in a city with people who would choose chaotic and violent rioting over a certain cable news channel… even if they crowd my personal space while barking off salad orders in an overpriced deli in lower Manhattan.

The Week in Review: Foreign Territory.

When leaving the ease of a familiar routine or the comfort of a shared 600 sq ft of space in the sky you call home, it’s safe to say that you won’t know what to expect. What you expect might not be what comes to pass. Now this can be as spectacularly exciting as it is extraordinarily disappointing. And somewhere in the middle of the is-she-self-medicating-highs and cut-yourself-on-purpose-lows, you realize that this is life and if nothing else, at least it’s interesting.

Let’s start at, well, the beginning of this theme I hope to pull together into a complete thought by the end. I’m going to say something, and then I’ll hold a minute for you to pull it together. I gave up alcohol for lent. …………………………………………………….. It wasn’t my idea. My good-Catholic-girl-BFF-roomie decided to give it up for lent. Like a lemming, I followed and said; yeah I’ll do that too.

When you give up alcohol, one thing you most certainly don’t miss is the hangover. One thing you do miss, however, is the alcohol. This is why I caved and as I began to write this, I opened up the finest bottle of $8.99 sauv blanc that the wine store downstairs has to offer. For the rest of lent, I’m just hoping to cut back and be healthier, which will no doubt turn into some concrete resolution to maybe, “lay off at least four out of seven nights a week,” and then evolve into, “seriously, no more day drinking… during the week.” At least I am aware that my rationalization sounds about as sensible as, “well I’ve shut down the meth lab, but I still shoot up once a month or so to keep my edge.”

Regardless of my lack of ability to commit to a measly 40 days of self-started prohibition, I can still celebrate the end of Doobie’s sobriety at brunch on Easter Sunday. Because that’s what the deprivation is all about, right? Making one of the two Whiskeypalian-raised, requisite church appearances per year and then following up with liquid lunch. Needless to say, this venture into foreign territory panned out just as everyone expected it to. No one had faith in my 40 days of sobriety. Then again, I’ve never given anyone much of a reason.

The next undertaking into the unknown panned out with an unexpected ending of the most unpleasant nature. I recently ventured to San Francisco for the first time to visit a friend of mine. To say I was excited to see him is a gross understatement. Two days in, to say I wanted to teleport myself back home to New York, or get hit by a bus, is also a gross understatement. On the bright side, I saw two cousins and a dear friend from high whom I hadn’t seen in nine years (who took me through the “gayborhood” as he called it, and accounted for such a pleasantly surprising highlight of my trip out there). On the down side, I travelled 3000 miles to find out that the boy I fancied recently started seeing someone else. Special. Again, on the bright side, I had some unexpected, self-directed acting lessons. What the hell else are you supposed to do with a full 48 hours to go than put on a happy face and act like you’re having fun? I’ll tell you. Average about 1000 TMs per minute to Doobie/Chanita/Casey/Jamie/Chantelle/Michael detailing what you’re really feeling (unadulterated misery) and outlining what you’d really like to be doing (drowning yourself in a bucket).

Restoring balance and perspective in my universe, I ventured back to the birthplace the next weekend for a dear friend’s wedding. Now, this was a weekend I’d been dreading for reasons other than the wedding, much of which is just general anxiety generated when I’m not in a major, metropolitan area. It turned out to be better than I could have imagined. There’s nothing like a few nights (read: gallons of wine) among friends from the home front to make you see how, in the eternal words of Bob Marley, everything’s gonna be alright. And there’s nothing like seeing a best friend live out the wedding she always wanted to make you see what happy really looks like. And there’s nothing like Elmer’s school glue for children to adhere the ripped leather back to the heels of your shoes after sinking into the lawn all night. Unexpected highlight of a casual wedding, where the bride and groom are actually already married before the ceremony: taking your wine glass down to the river with you for the service.

My last and most recent expedition into the unfamiliar actually wasn’t that unfamiliar. Like any good New Yorker in training – 5.5 years to go till the title is legit – at lease renewal time, instead of doing the easy thing and staying put, we decided to surrender to the soul-sucking process that is moving in Manhattan. Getting evicted a mere year ago wasn’t enough. It was time to set out and spend $6 grand I don’t have, but would need in order to call a new neighborhood home. Or would I?

In an unexpected turn of events, the second apartment we saw was a go. It was cheaper than our current place, in real Soho (not “Soho”/a refrigerator box in an underground tunnel by the Spring Street E train), the rooms were equal size and my ginormous couch would actually fit up the one flight of stairs you had to climb. Too good to be true? Yes and no, but mostly not really. One hiccup was that they wanted us to each make about $30K more than we currently do. Let’s be clear about something. If I had a $30K addition to what is already a comfortable salary, I would be looking for a more expensive apartment. Still, to end the search at apartment #2, we were ready to move forward. That is until I went out for cocktails in celebration of the return of a dearly missed NY transplant in from Chicago for the weekend. After a few rounds and a quick, “ja, I’m moving again” conversation, I learned a valuable lesson: good things can come from shitty bars, in particular Black Bear Lodge in Gramercy. BB will forever have my seal of good karma approval, for it is there where we started the conversation that led to getting the best apartment ever.

The best apartment ever is the entire 5^th floor of 118 Hudson. It’s situated in Tribeca proper above Bubby’s and across the street from Nobu and Mr. Chow. Yes, I’m culinary name-dropping. The elevator opens up into 1700 square ft of space and there’s a washer/dryer in the unit. Enough said. But is it? No, because the finished roof deck wasn’t mentioned yet. And it plays host to a tiled bar, fridge and a grill that, unlike others I’ve seen in NY, would not be easily confused as part of a “kitchen-set” accessory for a child playing with dolls, not to mention there are lovely panoramic views of the Tribeca skyline. Not to be outdone by apartment amenities was the process itself. I’ll lay it out for you: we looked, we wanted, we took. No broker, no fee, no deposit, no lease. Just an amazing space in a low rise building full of guys who are all friends with each other, and perhaps soon, with us too.

For a glass-half-empty kind of gal like me, this foray into good luck was a welcome change. An old coworker recently told me, “The sum total of splendor in the universe is always the same. It just keeps changing locations,” and I take that to mean that my luck will once again become depressingly shitty. I find strange comfort in that, probably something to do with familiarity of the situation. I was also recently told getting your heart broken makes you feel alive. Alive? Maybe, but only because you’re painfully aware that you are. I liken that tidbit of advice to telling someone it’s good luck to see rain on their wedding day. File that under, “you’re definitely being told this for the sole purpose of trying to make you feel better, not because anyone actually believes it.” Finally, I was most recently told - by a psychic I saw this weekend on W Houston – that July and August would be good months for me. While that has potential, as it coincides with a mini Fire Island share I just got in on with one of my most favorite partners in crime, I also think it was Miss Cleo’s last ditch effort at selling me on more “psychic services” since I would only shell out the $10 bare minimum. You see, I’d never gone to see a psychic before and I didn’t have a whole heck of a lot of faith in what she said, but none the less, it was interesting enough to try something new. And maybe continuing to try new things is the big take-away here. Putting yourself out there could be the very thing that makes you realize how much you actually love everything you left behind, chief among it being white wine. And no matter what happens, New York is always there to fall back on. So whether you’re coming back from a foreign land, foreign coast, foreign borough (less likely), or a foreign state of being, i.e. sobriety, nothing compares to the homecoming with that skyline. And seeing it from a new neighborhood is certainly a refreshing point of view.

DON’T BE FOOLED BY THE PEARLS.

venn.