The Week in Review XV – “TopTier Friends”

The Week in Review XV – “Top Tier Friends”

I pass judgment on perfect strangers on the way to work. It’s uncalled-for, unreasonable and unmerited really, but it’s a necessary part of my heat-distraction-mantra. OK, who am I kidding? I do this year-round, but at the moment it goes something like this: “it’s not that hot… it’s not that hot… hi – have you SEEN your hair ... it’s not that hot… it’s not that hot…. oooh, buddy – only gay men can wear jorts and look good in them - désolé… it’s not that hot… that guy’s suit is tailored far too well for him to be single – or heterosexual – too bad… it’s not that hot… it’s not that hot …” oh come on – skinny b*tch in jeans is clearly on drugs to be in denim and not be affected by this heat…” and so on.

Anyhow, it doesn’t work, because by the time you arrive at the subway even your sunglasses feel like a constricting, heat-radiating nuisance. And I’m a glasses-on-on-the-subway kind of gal… obviously so that I can stare directly at the strangers on my car in closer quarters and continue to pass judgment. I also think about what it would be like if something terrible were to happen and I was forced to spend the last minutes of life with these freaks on the uptown R train at 10:00, errr, 8:50am on a random Tuesday morning. That’s a bit morbid though.

You know how sometimes you do Sunday morning brunch with your friends and it turns a little too boozy for your own good? (Read: You know how 75% of the time you do brunch with friends you continue drinking until you eventually self-destruct, black out and kick-off the work week feeling like you’ve been run over by an uptown R train full of sweaty strangers lacking sartorial direction?) It was one particular weekend brunch a couple months back that I found myself locked in the back of a molester van in Chinatown with two fellow A-listers while they bargained with a Chinese immigrant over fake, quilted Chanel bags. Ahh, the American dream.

It always starts innocently enough. That day we’d met at the Plaza fountain to run the 6-mile loop in the park. The very hint of exercise made us ravenous. After we finished that landmark triumph in athleticism, we walked over to Sarabeth’s on Central Park South and asked them if we were presentable enough to dine at their establishment so long as we sat outside. It only takes one person to order that first drink at brunch to get everyone else to join in. To her credit, P-Pants also ordered an entire pot of coffee. A few hours later, it became apparent (to us anyhow) that we needed to head downtown to see the latest illegal productions of high-end rip offs, sad as they may be. And why not? None of us had been to Chinatown in years, so it was really a sort of cultural exploration too.

Twenty minutes on a downtown C-train later and we’re in the thick of it, still in sweaty running clothes and still buzzed. This calls for a quick stop at everybody’s favorite mall pizza chain restaurant, Sbarro, to pick up a surprisingly good selection of beers to brown bag for our journey through bags on the black market. When all was said and done, though there wasn’t enough time for Bed, Bath & Beyond, it was actually a pretty nice little Saturday. We saw at least five people get arrested, bought Chanel from the back of a windowless molester van, snagged a few necklaces that broke immediately upon returning home, and got a fake “I’m not a Plastic Bag” bag for $25, when the 3000 authentic Anya Hindmarch ones sold at $15/each as a special promotion to encourage hugging trees.

So, I’ve been rambling on about this to illustrate the point is that there are certain things you only do with top tier friends. It’s that small inner-circle that’s part of the larger circle who you can count on for an immediate and resounding “yes, I’m in” to whatever it is you suggest. They’re the ones you think of first when someone offers you 4 tickets in a suite to see Bon Jovi in his mecca… Jersey. They’re the ones who cause the biggest disappointment should they not be able to attend said Jerseyfest, leaving you to feel lost and let down like it’ll be the hardest thing in the whole world to find someone else to go with you to see these living legends of rock play live while you’re being spoon fed free food and drinks. Only a top tier friend would steal beer from a mentally challenged cashier at the grocery store in Hampton Bays to cheer you up on your birthday when you’re in the middle of a stage-5-breakdown-anxiety-attack, convinced you’re getting fired from your job you love. Not that it really happened, or that Doobie was the one who would have done it if it ever had happened. To her theoretical defense, she told the cashier the beer was free and he just believed her.

I’m convinced no one actually likes all of their friends, so I’m hesitant to believe that everyone doesn’t have some A-team- All- Stars that they favor. Now, it may be difficult to pick them out as we get older and continue to meet new friends. Right now, for example, Facebook tells me I have 588 friends, but I am pretty sure I don’t know 75% of them. I think it might be easiest to break friends down into categories and carve out the top tier from there. The way I see it, you can generalize into about 3 categories of friends:

1. The ones you grew up with. Whoever you grew up with that you still talk to… they are your top tier friends in this category and probably always held that spot. For me, they did. For some, they may be the only friends in this category. Actually, some ppl might not have this as an applicable category anymore.
2. The ones you went to college with. Now, it goes without saying that we all have fond memories with these crazy f**kers, but the gold star friends from this group are the ones you still talk to constantly, who haven’t gone batsh*t crazy after leaving the comfort of the judgmental group en masse. They left the nest and learned how fly, whereas some of the others left the nest, took a wrong turn and ended up in an oil spill off shore and are now dependent on PETA to scrub them clean while Americans watch on CNN, sigh and say, hmm what a shame. That doesn’t even make sense. Anyhow, these are the people who follow through on the pact you made four years ago to travel to Germany for Oktoberfest 2008 and good thing too, because it’s going to be epic.
3. The ones you’ve met since leaving college and entering this so called real world
1. The ones you work with. You spend 75% of your life with these people. It helps when you like them too. It’s even better when you can sit with them on a 3-way instant message conversation all day, snorting laughing, while you plan out the scenes of the fictitious movie you’re writing on advertising and betrayal starring all the classic characters you talk about behind their backs. These are the people who you punk, telling them they need to call a bar to confirm a party, when really you’ve given them the number to the strip club Scores, and they aren’t even mad, just happy to finally be in on the scam.
2. The ones you’ve met in NY (or fill in the appropriate city here _____). This can mix with those in 3a. For me it’s those people with whom I shared apartment 3a on 55^th st… all 25 of them, without getting sick of each other. Seriously. Well, minus the 3-month stint with the hyper hyena girl we got off Craigslist. I thought for a split second that these might be the most mature set of friends you’ve got, and maybe in some way they are. They have no problem leaving really great seats in the Garden long before the OAR show is over because you’ve all realized that you’re the oldest people there and need to go hang out with adults. Mature decision. They also have no problem making a cauldron of rum-soaked sangria on a random Saturday afternoon and then staying out till the sun comes up because you were so into the GNR dance party going on in the living room you didn’t realize it was 9:00am. Immature decision.

Now I considered another category centered on people who know how to act like adults when splitting a bill at a big table. I stopped myself from going there (nope, no I didn’t) in high, desperate hopes that not everyone has to deal with people who don’t quite get it. Seriously, there are few things more irritating than watching that bill come to the table and having people try to itemize what they’ve consumed. It makes me want to crawl out of my skin and float away from the table when someone pulls a bill out from the night before (actually happened once) or tries to say something to the effect of, “umm, I only had a side of iceberg lettuce and 3oz of house wine.” Yeah, hi, I also was at the table you lying lush, and I noticed you put down a lot more than that. My thoughts are: What‘s a couple bucks among friends? , it all equals out over time and at most you’re saving yourself about $10. I get it if you work for some freakish communist who thinks $35K is fair compensation in NYC in 2008. I’d say something upfront too so I could buy myself a $17 watered down vodka/soda later on at the bar. However, if that’s not the case, then WHY would you ruin lunch/brunch/drinks/dinner by making everyone feel awkward, walk out of the restaurant annoyed and inviting unsolicited criticism from perfect strangers, only to hop on that downtown R train thinking, “Well that sucked, and damn it’s hot. I hope something bad doesn’t happen so that I have to spend my final minutes with these freaks. I don’t even have sunglasses.”

DON’T BE FOOLED BY THE PEARLS

VENN

TWIR, XIV: Please Consider the Fact That No One Cares

TWIR, XIV: Please Consider the Fact That No One Cares

Monday, March 24, 2008

You know what drives me absolutely bonkers (among a hastily-expanding, infinite amount of things) are the posers who think it’s trendy to put that green note with the little tree icon at the bottom of emails. “Please consider the environment before printing this email.”

Listen, I am as much of an eco-freak as someone living in a concrete jungle can be; I more than support the cause. I use mass-transit. I own 2 real furs… err, wait? I have a f***ing compost pile of Diet Coke bottles/cans under my desk at work that I feel too bad about not recycling… and will eventually take to a bin… at some point… maybe when I leave the office late at night and don’t mind being mistaken for a homeless person who just dug through the garbage. I stood in line at Whole Foods at 5am in the rain for a “I’m not a plastic bag” canvas bag to use instead of plastic bags at the grocery store, and among other things, I’ve stopped eating mammals* because of the greenhouse gases they produce on the meat-butchering farms where they are raised. (*I reneged this commitment twice in the past 10 months, once at a media party and once after a media party, both times excessive alcohol was involved and come on, sometimes you just need a bite of a burger). I digress. This is not about me.

Back to the e-consideration of Mother Earth. It’s so f***ing presumptuous to think that people are just printing out your emails left and right - like they aren’t already getting 9859285732986 other emails in a given day - to the point that you need to step in and say something to stop them before they print it out. Thank goodness you have that little icon and note there, you arrogant jerk, so that when people get to the bottom of your emails, just before they hit the Print/Kill-a-Tree command, they can now stop and think, “F**K, WWAGD?!?!” (F**K - What Would Al Gore Do)? Well we all know what Al would do; he wouldn’t print that email. If people are really printing out my emails, I would ask them to please consider what they’re doing with their LIVES if they truly feel they need a hard copy form of this sh*t to file away.

Equally annoying as the faux eco-freaks (fauxcofreaks… that doesn’t work does it) are 99% of real estate agents in New York. Living in the center of the universe is great, but for sure the worst possible thing you can do here is move your stuff from one NY apartment to another. I challenge you to find a more agonizing process to go through. Adding brokers to the mix only compounds what is already an extremely painful experience. The whole process is just awfully ass-backwards. And if you’re an in-advance-planner-type, forget about it; start the anti-anxiety meds now. In my case, the last round of relocation started with eviction, which was a special little twist of the knife in the side.

Most brokers are shady. And that’s being kind. Take the guy from Best Apartments who showed us a place in Tribeca. It was a great place in Tribeca proper, as opposed to a Craigslist ad that says something to the effect of “$3150 / 2br - Big true 1 bdrm-flex 2 bdrm, 740sqft, city.water vu, drmn, gr8 area! Tribeca/Soho!!!!” That really means Tribeca/Soho/a sketcy area not remotely close to either of those posh neighborhoods, and watch it, because you’ll likely get mugged at night by a shady character… possibly the broker who is trying to sell you on the place. That brings us back to Best Apartments Buddy. He shows me this apartment and I liked it a lot, however, I was the only one who was able to see it at the time. I gave him $500 to put a hold on it till we could send in the applications. As luck would have it, we found a much better apartment on the day we were approved for this one. We said thanks but no on Tribeca, and he said we owe him $4695 because we decided not to take the apartment. Excellent reasoning. Then he threatened to take us to small claims court, and after we called him out on his BS, he decided he’d just keep the $500. This kicked off what inevitably turns into the equivalent of taking a large sum of money and dumping it in the East River.

Speaking of large sums of money, another annoying thing brokers do is show you apartments out of your price range. These apartments will be the ones you fall in love with, and of course everything else will seem like a rat-infested sh*thole in comparison. As I said, we saw mecca the same day we were approved for another apartment. This was the holy grail of NY apartments: centrally located, stunning, 2100sq ft and just out of our price range. Fitting right into place as part of the universe’s grand scheme against us, we decided we could stretch a little more for such a fantastic space. How often do you find that much space in NY? OF COURSE IT’S TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. Please. During the application process, the owner of said apartment decided that perhaps the paycheck to paycheck lifestyle wasn’t the ideal tenant situation for him. Did he even take into account the fabulous clothing that explained the lack of available funds in our checking accounts? No. He decides we need an extra month of security upfront, which along with the 15% broker’s fee (another special aspect of moving in NY), brought the grand upfront-cash-needed-total to $30,000. I sh*t you not. Am I wrong in wanting to scream out, “If I had $30K lying around, do you think I would be looking for an apartment to RENT with two other people, asshole?!?!?!?” That settled… onto night #47 in a row of wine for dinner. Those of you who were there know how well that panned out.

Maybe the last worst thing brokers do (can I even say that – it’s probably like picking a least-favorite child) is show you spaces that are flat out unlivable. Under this umbrella falls the 6’x6’ “bedrooms,” underground apartments with no windows, entire apartments with no closets or living rooms, walk-ups that triathletes couldn’t manage every day, and among other things, anything on Avenue D or Peter Cooper (read: Stephen King) Village. The last one made the list while viewing an apartment and looking out the window to an empty playground with empty swings blowing in the breeze. This is the stuff that Law & Order: SVU episodes come from. Anyhow, we saw so many awful apartments it was entirely depressing. Exactly what part of “overpriced bat cave that you can only fit a twin bed into” did you think you were going to sell me on? I am a professional, er mature… I will be 30 in about three years; I need a place that leaves me with a modicum of dignity and enough disposable income to buy at least 3 new outfits each month. Is that too much to ask?

Eventually you get so tired of looking that you settle on a place you can live with and live in. Sure it’s $500 more each month than you’re paying now, it’s a fraction of the size of the fabulous 5^th Avenue apartment you left (after they evicted you and changed the locks) and even after downsizing the copious amount of STUFF you’ve collected over the past 3+ years you still need to get a storage unit for the opposite season’s wardrobe… the point is you’ve finally found a home and you’re not far away from once again feeling settled. It’s then that you get an email from your broker letting you know that within the next 24 hours you’ll need a certified check for the majority of what you make in a year another for 15% of the annual rent, but CONGRATS, because you have a new home! Then, just before you go to print that sucker out to remind yourself of just exactly how far into debt you’re about to fall, you see that familiar little evergreen icon and accompanying note from yet another self-important asshole reminding you to consider the environment before printing this email.

DONT BE FOOLED BY THE PEARLS

VENN

TWIR: XIII "Survival of the Fittest..."

TWIR: XIII "Survival of the Fittest..."

Monday, October 22, 2007

I recently took an online quiz that told me 98% of all women in the United States drink less than me. I wasn’t terribly concerned as I answered NO to the question, “Do you ever have a drink when you wake up in the morning to take the edge off?” Technically it’s true. I can’t help it that tailgates start early, or Essex has a 3-drink brunch special on the weekend. It’s not like I’m making a Jack & Coke roadie on the way into the office every morning. Anyhow, 2% of all women in the US is a decent number. At least it didn’t say something like, “Legs is back in college, Bizz can out-drink you in a head to head competition, and Tink had a hell of a weekend, but you should probably still go ahead and find an AA meeting to crash.”

On a daily basis we brave the elements around us. Be it our climate in crisis, less than desirable social situations, chilly rain drops crippling tri-state transit and causing Lexington Avenue to explode, working with crazies, or wildlife invading our homes (a pigeon flew into our apartment and dive-bombed my roommate in the shower a few months ago). We have to put our best foot forward to deal, get past it, and go get some Clorox to disinfect the hell out of it. This is survival of the fittest.

What I think it all boils down to, is that Darwin and his little theory of natural selection are wrong, at least to some extent… at least I hope so. You do to. Think about it: those individuals with slightly better adaptations, according to the theory, would get more food, be healthier, live longer and, most importantly, have more mates. As time progresses, traits become more obvious, therefore later generations will be more defined and, possibly after thousands of generations, form a new species.

Quick, picture five people you can’t stand to be around and apply that thought process. It’s depressing; but as with most things, it can get worse. How many of those people are married or on the road to being so? It’s almost overwhelming to think about because that would mean someone like “Dogface or Doorknob,” ghosts from office space past, who are as unfortunate-looking as they are ferociously annoying, haven’t been weeded out by now. Both are married and as such, far more along their way to premeditated reproduction than chronically-single Venn ever will be. They fit into the theory, and are therefore the stronger majority, making me, the one with a personality and sartorial awareness past 1994, the weaker minority who will eventually become as extinct as the dodo bird. On so many levels, I can not accept this.

How is it that micromanaging freaks have survived so long? Shouldn’t they have been wiped out in some sort of collective mutinous effort by now? Does it mean the ability to micromanage is a favorable trait, or simply that there are enough people out there, sans backbones, putting up with that crap? I realize the office is not like a dull date, bad movie or some other adverse situation from which you can easily remove yourself. You have to see these people over and over again, day after day. However, coming from someone who had three W2’s in 2006, I clearly don’t stick around and wait for things to improve. I just agency hop or seek out more enticing employment at beer pong tournaments.

Office martyrs, holier-than-thou-attitudes and certain aspects of a dress code (at least in this industry) also cause me to raise a brow. I can’t walk around in designer denim or my Manolo flops on a Thursday, but someone who is plainly, morbidly obese sporting glorified black sweats, is ready to take on the world?

Enter evolution of the mind, and a whole lot of stereotyping. I brought all of this up to a coworker (and co-creator of officepwned.com – coming soon). He suggested "ugly” people don’t have to worry about being liked or superficial things traditionally "pretty" people think about, or are stereotyped as thinking about. Instead, those who are less attractive focus on getting ahead in being smart and practical, assuming that handsome people are stupid for working at what seems like a less practical survival tool. He then asked me, would I rather be ugly and always exceed everybody’s expectations (no), because that would cause a shift in the paradigm. Unsightly would become attractive and the whole cycle would start over. Just look at what was considered beauty in the past; those people would be measured as sub-par by today’s beauty standards.

From that I have two takeaways. First, so long as people who could compete on “The Biggest Loser” roam the halls in sweats, someone with a healthy BMI should be allowed in denim. Second, it’s less surprising that the freaks have found each other and paired off, leaving us normal people in the minority. I don’t mean that all married people are freaks by any means; I adore my married friends for so many reasons, one of which is that they give great hope for balance. I’m referring to my office freaks: “Doorknob and Dogface.” Also, labeling myself as normal is dangerous (and far from the truth). Normal pigeonholes you into a corner, held up to performing by the standards of others.

Perhaps D&D are married because they found what they are looking for a long time ago. Maybe I’m not because I have prioritized goals for myself. I could probably fool some unfortunate schmuck into changing that if I made it my purpose to do so… and stopped being controlling… and learned how to compromise. Not really interested, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Part of what might make us both interesting and successful could be the very fact that we don’t compromise, especially in this industry.

Back to D&D. It’s entirely possible they act they way they do because the office is their only outlet for that sort of behavior. What if “Doorknob” is married to a jerk of a control freak and she backs down to him all the time at home? Office space is her safe place to micromanage subordinates and be in complete control of a situation. People extend their experiences across all aspect of their lives in order to create equilibrium. When the person at hand loses control in one part of their life, they might go beyond an appropriate limit in another, attempting to feel in control and maintain that equilibrium. Instincts are still very strong in humans no matter their environment. Unlike animals, we have the capacity to step back, breathe and asses the situation. We should remember that before making our coworkers lives hell, and their accountants deal with 3 different W2’s in April. However, if I’m wrong and micromanagers Doorknob, Dogface and their respective husbands are the ones taking over and forming a new species, then I’m going to need to elevate my alcohol intake to that upper 2% to tolerate coexistence until expiration and extinction.

Don’t be fooled by the pearls.

VENN

TWIR, XII “You can’t always get what you don’t want…”

TWIR, XII “You can’t always get what you don’t want…”

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Am I the only one who realizes that American Idol is a property of Fox Broadcasting Company and not NBC Universal? My neighbors just down 5th Ave at the Today Show certainly don’t. It’s generally one of their most important stories. While I understand the show is extremely popular with a cult-like following, I have to say I remain a little puzzled. I can’t quite wrap my head around the constant promotion of one of your main competitors who consistently achieve higher primetime ratings (largely thanks to Idol).

For the record, inept and negligent recruiters are up there on my list of “Venn’s Top 5,000 Pet Peeves.” I'm not actively looking for a new job right now, but that doesn't change the fact that I keep an updated resume posted on about five different career websites at all times. Am I happy in my current job? Yes. Am I perfectly willing to sell out for a position that would be 50-100% higher paying than my current job? Yes.

To that point, I got a call the other day from someone asking me if I was interested in a sup position with a considerable boost to my salary, and it peaked an interest. I think anyone living here in New York understands the feeling you get that there might be something better out there, and if you’re not at least moderately relentless in looking for it, someone else will snatch it up. With a very guilty conscience, I called the recruiter back for details. This dim wit hasn’t gotten back to me for over a week, when she ought to be pushing me into an interview (considering if I were to land the job she’d get a 20% commission). Now, I’m caught in wanting something that I didn’t want in the first place. Now that I conceivably can’t have it, I need it.

Along a similar line of thinking lie the crazy things that we do in relationships and when forming relationships. Admittedly, it’s mostly the crazy things girls do because of guys, but I’ve definitely come across several severely-unhinged gentlemen who fly their freak flags high when they don’t obtain their desired reaction from females.

I think unavailability has a lot to do with causing people to flaunt their routine stint of crazy. For the most part, this is where the gentlemen come into play. I speak from experience here, recent experience. I’ve seen all kinds lately: emotionally unavailable, recently out of a relationship and lastly, the real special ones who are still in a relationship – married even.

Those least deserving of blame are the ones fresh out of another relationship. They were, after all, just broken up with or just ended a relationship themselves. This does not mean, however, that they are incapable of making someone a little crazy. They could, for instance, share a car service home with you after a business dinner/five hours of mojitos, and finally put an end to the undeniable sexual tension built up over four months of working together but never meeting in person. Then they might come to your dinner party that Friday night, unable to keep their hands off you. A few days after, they might call you and tell you that they can’t stop thinking of you. They might even invite you out on a date the next week, only to cancel the day before over instant messenger rather than calling, and never reschedule. But perhaps I’m simply too harsh a judge, and that’s just par for the course when you’re a 31-year old boy.

Then there are the times when you meet someone, go out with them, and while there might not have been fireworks, you figure you’ll give it another shot…after a little investigating. Given my recent track record, I figured this one had a freak flag too. He’s 34 and VP in our industry, so I knew he likely agency-hopped a bit. That meant someone I know must also know him. My suspicions were, on every level, validated. He’s married, and his wife is due to give birth on my birthday. Special added value there. I found this out while I was down in Florida for a friend’s wedding. I got a text from him and here’s how the conversation went:

Married Guy: How’s the sand?
Me: It’s cloudy here. How’s your wife?
Married Guy: Be nice. Are you going to Atlanta for the National Championship game?
Me: Why should I be nice when I have to find out that you’re married from someone with whom you used to work? And why would you ask me out in the first place? No, going back to NY.
Married Guy: I thought you knew. Sorry. And why? You’re cute, nice, fun & hot – pretty great. And I can get myself messed in the head sometimes, but I never got in a spot like this before. I hope we can talk about it.
Me: Perhaps I should be wearing a scarlet letter rather than my “Beat Ohio State” button.
Married Guy: There’s that cute girl I like so much.
Me: Vomit.

And he’s not the only married guy who has recently asked me out. It happened again Thursday night, post tequila-sipping at a downtown bar. I was leaving to go to my roommate and her fiancé’s goodbye party when the gem of a gentleman says to me, “I really enjoyed our conversation, and your eyes are just so inviting. I would love to see you again.” I reminded him he’s sporting a wedding band, indicating he’s both legally and spiritually bound to another in marriage. He comes back with, “Yeah, but unhappily.” With stand-up guys like that out there, I feel the occasional crazed behavior is not only excused, but almost expected.

PS – government warnings should not be limited to cigarette cartons. They should be slapped all over tequila bottles and the glasses the bottles get poured into. Warning: after drinking this you will be unable to speak and borderline socially-retarded.

Those who make us girls the most crazy are the emotionally unavailable or possibly just plain uninterested. Because the universe is unfair, we’re naturally more drawn to these fellows. They are the guys that you become great friends with. You sense a bit of an attraction, so you tell yourself that if something comes of it, cool, and if not you’ve got a great friend, so you’re happy with that too. Of course that plan is good for about three days, till reality hits and you realize nothing is ever that easy. You’re caught wanting something you didn’t think you wanted in the first place.

Begin crazy behavior – provoked crazy – but crazy behavior, none the less. Since you are friends, you still hang out, both in groups and with only each other for company. Your friends adore him, your roommates adore him, and admittedly you do too. You’re stuck over-thinking everything, never stopping to realize that it might just be the control freak in you needing, well, control of the situation. One night on your couch, after a sushi dinner with a side of sexual tension (and nothing to free it) he leaves you with a conversation, via text, to really send you over the unstable edge:

Unavailable: See, two single people can make good decisions.
Me: Yeah, I guess, by default.
Unavailable: Believe me; I’m saving you from a big pain in the ass.
Me: Yeah, yeah.
Unavailable: No, really. This is not a line. I like you too much to subject you to it. We get along too well.
Me: I’m far from perfect.
Unavailable: You’re not perfect? Two issues don’t make a right. (and I kid you not) insert a smiley.

Now you’ve got your guard up. You swear it off. Then, for good measure you sleep with him, thus solidifying uncomfortable interaction and nearly destroying your friendship. After a month of awkwardness on a level you previously thought to be impossible – to a point that it kills all attraction that once was, and changing his name in your phone to “Don’t Call or Text,” you finally admit to each other that things are in fact weird and you’d like them not to be that way anymore so you can go back to being friends. And, by the way, you stop acting like a complete basket-case.

Now, maybe it’s just New York turning us all into control freaks and actually no different than the feeling of needing to find a better job when you genuinely don’t want to leave the one you have. Maybe it’s because you grew up in the South and you’re still trying to overcome the damage that did, i.e. – among other things, the underlying expectation to get your Mrs. degree by 22, be at the alter by 24, retire by 26, and pop out babies within a year or so after that. Is it possible that we’re perfectly content with a single life and just too overly-bombarded by outside factors to realize it? Are we so consumed by trying to have it all that it causes our freak flags to fly high and attract an array of unavailable men. Maybe it’s bad karma seeking revenge for when we acted poorly in previous relationships, i.e. answering the “Oh, how are you and ____ doing?” question with, “Ehhh, things are OK, I guess, but I think I’m going to break up with him soon,” for the entire 8-month duration of your relationship. Or maybe you never wanted any of it in the first place, but must have it now only because some brain dead recruiter won’t call you back and give you the details. Any way you look at it, you can’t always get what you don’t want.

Don’t be fooled by the pearls.

VENN

The Week In Review, XI “It’s a Small World After All…”

The Week In Review, XI “It’s a Small World After All…”

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

There’s something inherently unfunny about working 12 hour days for many, many weeks in a row. That has stopped recently and I’ve since been intoxicated for at least two or threeve solid weeks. Please pardon the delay.

For the record, people who neglect to put contact information in their email signatures are dead to me. I get it; they don’t want to be stalked. I don’t either. Honestly, unless someone is a complete social retard with no friends (picturing a few in this office right now) no one wants to be stalked. But guess what happens when some self-important ass clown doesn’t put phone/fax number in their signature. They have to be tracked down. This means that a small herd of third party people are now involved in the hunt, irritated, and wasting even more time in their already meaningless days. Worse are the people who don’t fix their return setting to include a signature at all. Do they not realize when they randomly get cc’d to answer a question, etc… that their contact info is not anywhere in the fu**ing email? Obnoxious.

For an outsider (I’m assuming – fortunately) the island of Manhattan would seemingly be the last place you’d expect to constantly experience “small world” stories. After all 8.1 million people live here, even more are here working on any given week day, and then there’s the tourists. Not backed by any legitimate statistic, I’d say there are at least a million of them walking around my neighborhood on an average day, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, bugging me to take their picture in front of 30 Rock. I digress. Anyone making the aforementioned assumption would be dead wrong. Those of us lucky/smart enough to live here know that you’re always one stampede of tourists away from running smack into the person you just mentioned two minutes ago.

Perhaps the strangest breed of these occurrences is stepping onto the same subway car as someone you know. At the risk of sounding completely cliché, I’ll say it. What are the odds, right? The first time it happened to me here, I was rendered nearly speechless. Leigh and I stepped onto a crowded car and pushed our way to the side only to find another friend from prep school sitting there on the bench. In this case the chance encounter was particularly positive; we hadn’t seen Meredith in a long time and we spent the afternoon shopping Upper East boutiques together. I dare say that rarely would one of these meetings be a negative thing, save ex-boyfriends, people whose calls you’ve been avoiding, or any emotional terrorists you might find in the eighth circle of Hell, i.e. creatives or either of my old superiors from McPrison. I’ve now come to expect “small world” stories, any way they come.

In a slightly less PG version of running into someone on the same subway car, or working in the building across the street from two of my sorority sisters, we have my Saturday night. Kim and I found our A-game, put on our drinking boots, and headed to the bar. Whoa cheesy… and yet not edited out. Anyhow, sucking down bourbon at bar #1, with its five other patrons, we get a call to go meet Erin’s bachelorette party and soon find ourselves in a cab headed to Naked Lunch. For those of you unfamiliar with the place, it’s a normal sized bar that on Friday and Saturday nights packs in more people than a U2 concert at the Garden. They play a delightful mix of 80’s and hip-hop, so as you might imagine, it’s an obvious pick for b-days and bachelorettes. Either that, or it’s 3am and someone remembers how much fun they had there the last time they were there, on the verge of blacking out.

On the way down there, I tell Kim, “Maybe we should harass this boy I met in the Hamptons last summer. He and his buddies don’t really go out at less than 100% and he lives nearby.” We stumble out of the cab and hop in line. A few minutes later I mention to Kim that I think I know the guy standing a few people in front of us. He turns around. It’s “Ben Hamptons.” Small world. We go in, pay, and separate, as our friends are in different areas of the bar, but don’t worry. It gets better.

A few bourbon drinks and some really inappropriate tequila toasts later, we are reunited and get to chatting. He asks where I went to high school. Being that he is from the Midwest, I question why he would care, but let him know I went to Bolles in Jacksonville. He says he knows one other girl from Jacksonville, that she works on his desk at Merrill and asks do I happen to know Erin. Funny, that’s whose bachelorette party I just met up with. Funny, he’s going to the wedding. Small world.

It also came out in conversation that he’s skilled at the art of the flying trapeze, but who isn’t these days? Seriously, upon mentioning that to my KatieBee’s fiancé, he said he also learned how while vacationing at Club Med resorts as a child. He just neglects to freely advertise the talent. Small world.

Anyhow, this is a boy I met in the Hamptons in August (at the Drift – those of you who have been there know what an important detail that is). I didn’t speak to him until September, when, after an entire day of watching football and drinking beer, I was finally cocktailed enough to ask what he might be doing. Immediately following this feat of liquid courage, an extremely intoxicated Mandy was making me promise to eat pizza and drink water in order to be allowed to go down to the party, for which I desperately needed a wingman. I was given an hour to “make it or break it” at this party. We walk in the front door, through the fog machines/strobe lights that were going at full blast, and Mandy and Ellen know everyone in the room, everyone that wasn’t a hired Hustler dancer, that is. Again, small world.

In maybe the only major metropolis in the world undefined by one particular industry, we actually have a built-in system that kind of perpetuates these chance meetings. If advertising is any indication of how other industries work, they’re all completely inbred. Everyone knows everyone. Then figure in the clients, etc… that each industry services. Then figure in the friends you have across all of different industries to whom this city plays host. You get a lot of crossover. So maybe we’re all just connected through a few mysterious direct dial/ fax numbers that some self-important asshole refused to put in his/her email signature, and the longer we work here in some kind of professional capacity, the more likely we are to run into each other in line at the Naked Lunch.

Don’t be fooled by the pearls.

VENN

TWIR, X “Home for the Holidaze – Part Deux…”

TWIR, X “Home for the Holidaze – Part Deux…”
Sunday, January 7, 2007 at 11:21pm

Contrary to what many people think, text messaging is not an acceptable alternative to actual conversation as a permanent means of communication. I’m not saying that it’s never appropriate. I mean, no one actually likes all of their friends, so I don’t begin to blame people for texting them rather than calling if the message is short. And certainly, it is fine for the first round of contact after someone takes your number at a bar. I definitely don’t fault some boy for being wary of calling the crazy girl he might have thought was cool at 2am – I’d be scared to call me too. However, I think it’s reasonable that at some point, we as adults (you know – by default because of age) stop building relationships by spelling them out on a keypad, and start talking into the receiver… but not for too long. Long conversations on the phone are just irritating.

I honestly don’t understand people who give up caffeine. I go through about five cups a day without thinking twice. There were these skinny girls in the kitchen the other day talking about a friend of theirs who totally gave up caffeine and then went into Starbucks and was accidentally given real coffee instead of the decaf garbage she asked for. Apparently she couldn’t breathe all day after that, nor sleep that night. How can you work in New York and not have caffeine? I don’t understand how there is even a market for decaffeinated coffee, and why anyone would go into Starbucks to buy it. I put it on the same bizarre level as non-alcoholic beer and cheese-less pizza. Moral of the story: don’t give up caffeine/that which makes you function like a normal human being.

I know I’ve mentioned before that holidays give me anxiety. For once in my life, I’m really not exaggerating or just being dramatic. My ride to the airport alone justifies it. In spite of my advertising salary leaving me with bundles of leftover money each month, I called Super Shuttle to take me to the airport. Big mistake, lesson learned. It was an hour late and went to the wrong address on Lexington, but the driver – who was about as mild-tempered as Bob Knight and looked like he was going to have a heart attack and die at any minute – assured me that the rest of the pick-ups were right around us on the East side of Manhattan, and we’d be through the midtown tunnel to JFK in no time.

Not the case. We go from 47th St to 34th St to 57th St to 23rd St to FDR Drive down to Alphabet City and then supposedly we were on our way to the airport at long last. Now, to give you an idea of the general mood of the van, he has picked up four other girls, also in their mid-twenties, and a woman who speaks no English. We’re all raging at this man, pushing him closer and closer to sudden cardiac arrest. Every time he put another piece of luggage in the van, he’d wheeze and say, “Jesus Christ, what do you have in here?” I’m sorry, is it not your job to drive people to the airport? I’m having trouble understanding why it is you’re finding it surprising that my suitcase, which comes up to my natural waist, is heavy. I have no tolerance for ignorance and stupidity on that level.

Super driver gets a call from Super Shuttle’s dispatch and starts talking very quietly on the phone. Since he’d previously been talking at the level of Satan doing a special performance at a Black Sabbath concert, I knew something was up. He has agreed to pick someone else up. We head to Sutton Place to get this woman we now all hate. By this point, the woman who speaks no English has started to freak out because she’s fairly certain she’s going to miss her international flight. She starts to have a major anxiety attack, saying over and over again, “I feel bad. I feel bad.” To attempt to calm her down, we basically turn the van into a make-shift Lamaze breathing seminar. Unsuccessfully.

Being the Thursday night before the Christmas holiday, we hit traffic on the highway in Queens. Our driver, trying to avoid imminent mutiny, decides to drive on the shoulder of the road at – no joke – 90MPH. This is not easing the worries of the panic-stricken passenger in front of me who continues to tell us, “I feel bad” and flail about van, crying on the shoulders of the people next to her. Next thing we know she’s leaning forward, dry heaving, much like a cat with a hairball. The girl behind me throws her a shopping bag and she proceeds to vomit in it, while holding it in someone else’s lap. Special.

By the time we get to JFK, she is so wound up that she can’t identify her own luggage. The driver runs into the terminal yelling for a medic, we all jump out and scream at her till she tells us which bags are hers, and then I scream at the driver to just leave her with the police, that they’ll know what to do, and that he’d better damn well get us to the Jet Blue terminal ASAP. It is now 8:49PM and I have to check luggage and board my plane at 8:55PM. I make it, but I’m sure it took at least another year off my life getting there. All that stress, and I hadn’t even left New York yet. Oy vey, my friends, oy vey.

My family is crazy. I know that everyone’s family is crazy to a point, but I think mine might be popping a few more crazy pills on average. This is why I drank my way through the nine days I was back home, which by the way, is far too long to be at home once you’ve moved out. I actually found myself wishing our office wasn’t closed. Lesson learned there too.

My problem was that I drank my way through that week-long holiday with my family, rather than going out with friends. I only left the house to be social with old friends twice. The first time involved an old roomie from NY (who I miss terribly) and two friends from back home who actually live in NY now. Way to branch out, Venn. The second time involved the Jags/Pats game on Christmas Eve day, and my aunt, her manfriend and two kids came too. Even though I wandered around drinking beer for most of the game, behavior had to be monitored, and Christmas Eve dinner with all the crazies was looming in the not so distant future.

As has been tradition since 1992 (post Hurricane Andrew when the majority of the Miami sector of the fam moved to Jacksonville) Christmas Eve dinner was hosted chez Venn. I wasn’t really feeling well, so I started off with a screwdriver thinking that the OJ would brighten my spirits and the vodka would numb me to what I was about to endure that night and the five days after it. I was just trying to be resourceful.

My great-aunt had recently fallen down while shopping and banged herself up pretty bad. Now, I do feel terribly bad for her and wouldn’t wish that upon anyone, but I don’t, for the life of me, understand why old people want to talk incessantly about injuries and illnesses. It’s gross. She wouldn’t stop; she even brought pictures of what she looked like before the bruises started to heal. She also brought along her cousin, who is old, a bit eccentric, and losing control of her bladder. Perhaps I should say lost, as she did manage to wet my mother’s newly upholstered furniture before dinner. By the time we sit down to dinner, everyone is good and liquored up, which set the scene perfectly for my father to be extremely rude to my mom’s sister and her kids. Thanks, Pops, that’s not awkward or anything in a room of only 10 people.

Christmas Day. I think that for most families, the whole sit around and open presents thing lasts a few hours at best. In mine, try 12. No joke. Dinner time comes, and I might as well have been intravenously consuming wine all day long. Trust me, you would too.

The same ten crazies from the night before are sitting around having a casual dinner and watching football. My aunt starts to tell me about how Ohio State is going to bury Florida. I don’t know what’s actually going to happen with that game Monday night, but I know that was about the absolute worst thing you can say to the wino who is fanatical about Florida football. I argue up a storm with every stat ESPN.com has given me in the last threeve months. Mom/June Cleaver breaks it up and makes us stop. My aunt’s manfriend, who played football for Michigan back in the day, also tries to say something neutral. I respond to this by telling him I think the Big 10 is overrated. Dad tells me I’m being rude, and I run off from the table. Dad intercepts me at the front door, telling me once again how rude I am. In case you weren’t already thinking I should be involved in either a 12 step program, or hauled off in a restricting white jacket to a padded room, be fooled no more. I start yelling at my Dad, telling him that I’m not the only rude one, that his behavior around his in-laws on Mom’s side is awkward and embarrassing and that I’ll never bring a boy home, ever. This shouldn’t be a problem anyhow, considering my chronically single state and lack of ability to meet someone of an appropriate age, or who is appropriately available or I actually like. However Dad was still apologizing days later on the way to the airport, so it’s nice to know that I was not only able to make a scene, but crush his feelings. Way to go.

Fast forward four days and I’m back in New York. It’s good to be back. Maybe a little too good. I really think I’m becoming one of those people who don’t like to leave Manhattan, or maybe I’m still just scarred from nine days in back in the birthplace. At any rate, NYE came and went. In my life I will never be able to have pineapple juice again, and I have vague yet disturbing memories of some guy following me around the bar when really, he looked like he should have been at a Star Wars convention.

After the holidaze, I’d very much been looking forward to going out to Arizona to watch my Gators play for the crystal football. However, my dreams for the ultimate road trip were cut short when I found out that my rep got me tickets to the wrong game. Little did he know that the Fiesta Bowl was NOT the BCS championship game. Ass clown. In case you’re wondering, yes, he feels like a total putz. Somehow it has evolved into him becoming scary, stalker rep. He’s since offered to buy all other kinds of tickets and fund my night of drinking for the game, there by inviting himself to Gin Mill with NY Deeg. When I said no to that, he asked me if I liked Chris Leak. I said yes. He said, “say no more,” and hung up the phone. Who knows what that means. We’ll see, I guess.

Lastly, Kim deserves a pat on the back. If only we were all on a large gambling barge and had a bottle of Hennessey, we could celebrate properly. Little inside, I know.

Don’t be fooled by the pearls.

VENN

The Week In Review VIII, "Home for the Holidaze…

The Week In Review VIII, "Home for the Holidaze…
Tuesday, December 5, 2006

I started writing this when I was very hung-over last Friday. There really is nothing quite like sitting in a cubicle, hungover. Add mortified to that. Hung-over and mortified, in a cubicle. I can't tell you the story b/c I don't remember enough of the night to know specifics. I was out sans babysitter, with co-workers I've only known for five weeks. I'm sure they have an excellent opinion of me now considering I have the mentality of a 20-year old frat boy when I drink. I can only imagine that I said something inappropriate, tried to make out with any male that walked by, and then passed out at the table. I know for sure that the night involved lots of wine, no dinner, me boasting/proving my ability to chug lots of beer at an impressively fast rate, not being able to open the front door to my apartment which caused me to stumble through the Italian restaurant downstairs, go through their basement and up the elevator to my floor, and finally, waking up around 6:20am, in my full set of clothing – shoes included – from work the day before, lights on, door opened. I've since realized that chugging beer is an art that ought to be learned, perfected and retired in college. It was fairly miserable Friday.

While on the subject of misery… in the grand tradition of bland, fattening food, another Thanksgiving came and went a couple weeks ago. It's good to be back in New York, even if there are approximately 50million tourists here right now. I sometimes feel guilty (for 15 or 20 seconds) for getting happy chills coming off the plane in NY and sighing when I get off the plane in Jacksonville. Then I remember this is the center of the universe and Florida has strip malls.

For so many reasons, going home for the holidays gives me severe anxiety. I'm a girl who doesn't call home but once a week on a good week. You can imagine that actually spending five or more days in close proximity to the parents is a potential disaster. They play nice on the phone for the week leading up to your homecoming, and then lightning flashes, the switch gets flipped and I find myself in a nightmare of a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde situation where I'm constantly getting lectured, given a suggested curfew, and forced into activities I have no interest in doing.

I don't have a brother or sister to help defend either. There's no man to man coverage of the parents; it's two on one. And when you add in extended family for holiday gatherings, all attention is focused on the kid who moved 1000+ miles away from home. However I could probably get a life-sized cardboard, cut-out photo of myself, a tape recorder and field their questions Ferris Bueller style. After they comment on the way I'm dressed or have styled my hair, the questions are always the same:

1. How's New York? Great, I love it. I'm really happy there.

2. How's the job? Until recently, I would tell them that I'd rather scrub the bathrooms at Yankee Stadium with my own toothbrush and I was certain that my AMD bore the mark of the beast somewhere, but now it's: I actually just started a new job and things are going well. I'm working with great people, and I haven't idly threatened suicide once in over five weeks on the job.

3. (I bet you can guess what follows the moronic giggle I need you to imagine) Are you dating anyone? Which really means, are you going to get married and start popping out babies? No, no I'm not. Maybe one day I'll meet someone of an appropriate age, who I'm actually attracted to, when my BAC level isn't 1.0, maybe. Until then, don't hold your breath on grandchildren…in fact, just don't hold your breath on grandchildren.

4. When are you moving back down South? Remember when you asked me if I liked New York? I'm pretty sure that I told you I'm happy there, so please tell me why I would leave? I'm a terrible driver, I can't even imagine what sushi would taste like if I were to get it delivered, and I think I'm switching my political party affiliation, so I'm probably not welcome here anyhow.

Food is another key factor in me being less than thrilled with the holidays. Christmas food is better than Thanksgiving, but as far as I'm concerned that's like saying drinking sour milk is better than a fried turd. I find it all bland, fattening and fairly disgusting. Think about it: there's a reason people only eat cranberry sauce in the shape of a can once a year. It's gross. And honestly, if I am to ingest that much fat and that many calories, I'd just assume it not be from green bean casserole. Gag me. I'd rather it be from something both worth it and delicious, like dipping lobster in butter sauce… or pizza… or McDonalds.

I get it though. Tradition is important, but please, at Christmas, tell me truthfully how many of you go crowd in a manger and watch a live birth take place. In fact, please tell me where to find a manger. You can't. The land has been sold and a strip mall has gone up in its place.

Now, I know everyone talks about this in apparent "disbelief," but I'm genuinely bothered by the fact that the second you wake up Friday morning after Thanksgiving, you can't do anything without stumbling across cheesy Christmas displays, decorations and music. Why do people lose all sense of style when it comes to holiday decorations? Perfectly normal people will put light-up, plastic crap in their yard and wire their homes so that they flash. Some don't stop till their property resembles Times Square, a place I'm pretty sure is representative of Hell on Earth. Why anyone would want to replicate that in their front yard is beyond me. If I worked retail, I'd kill myself listening to holiday themed music on repeat. Come live in my apartment, right off 5th Ave between Rockefeller Center and the Park, and tell me what about the 94589673984793845793576 tourists outside right now makes this the most wonderful time of the year. Maybe that's why I'm so attracted to those of the Hebrew following. They don't do this crap AND they get eight nights of gifts. Plus they've got Adam Sandler and a song that references OJ Simpson to represent them. We've got something about Mommy kissing Santa, a song that when you think about it, is pro-adulterous relations through the eyes of a young Santa-believer.

On top of everything I've mentioned so far, add in the cost of getting back home for the holidays. For Thanksgiving and Christmas, on an advertising salary, I spent just under $1000. Thank goodness it's not just acceptable but more like a code of behavior to drink your way through the holidays. Otherwise, instead of straight up with two olives, I'd need my martini shaken with straight up rat poison.

Don't be fooled by the pearls.

GO GATORS,

Venn