The Great Relationship Chart Debate: Simple or Complex?
You know, this story is kind of old. I'm guessing it happened circa 2007, because it would have happened right the beginning of what I like to call the "Year of ITBYYYWLGLMBUYMSGIYLMHWTF".1. The conversation must have happened around the time of Pook's birthday because I was in Pittsburgh and it was warm and we were having coffee in the kitchen at the Wilkinsburg crib in the morning. Pook made the mistake of asking me about the state of my relationship with that particular boy, which as evidence by the year that follows was pretty much at the end of its game.
It's been argued that I'm overly analytical. This, of course, in contrast to the rest of the time when I'm decidedly not analytical. But when my brain gets going, sure, I'll concede that there's over thinking there. I got out some paper and a pen and proceed to explain relationships to Pook using this chart.
So, in my graph:
Line A: This is the progression chart of your minimum expectation relationship. It's what you'd need in order to consider it an LTR or even marriage material. It will progressively get better for a period of time and then, like all relationships, it will plateau. But it will plateau at a point where you're getting enough of what you need in order for you to understand that this is the relationship that you should choose and stay in. FOREVER.
Line B: This is what a relationship would look like if all of your fantasies came true. Even after the relationship plateaued, you would wake up every day feeling like you were sunbathing in a field of puppies all of whom sang songs from the Glee soundtrack and carried around trays of vodka cocktails strapped to their backs. You would have found the perfect relationship. And you would want to stay in it. FOREVER.
Line C: This is most relationships, and they suck. They plateau quickly, and well before you're even close to being at a point where you'd be getting what you needed out of a relationship. They feel like you're constantly in an episode of Melrose Place, but without the hot people and perfectly defined abs. Or, worse yet, they feel like every day somebody is reading the instruction manual to a dishwasher to you out loud, repeatedly. You exit quickly. Possibly breaking up via Facebook, or even text message.
Line D: But, this, Line D, this is the trouble point. This happens when the relationship plateaus just below the point where you'd be getting what you really need in order for the relationship to be a valid LTR or marriage potential. But it's close. It's right up there against that line. And the struggle you'll face is this: "What if I never get closer than this? What if this is as good as it gets and, because I'm waiting for a relationship that meets the expectations of Line A, I give up on one that is close in the manner of Line D and then forever after experience only Line C?" Especially for the over-thinker, this can be mind boggling. And it can also be a reason that you (stupidly) stay in a relationship longer than you should.
Pookie, being nothing if not a bastion of patience, listened to me detail the finer points of my relationship graph for well over half an hour. Then he got up, walked over to the kitchen counter, got a paper and pen, and drew this.2
Pook's version of this chart is much simpler.
Line A: Represents the development phase of the relationship.
Line B: This happens when you decide that this is a person that you want to be with, and your fight instinct kicks in to fight for the relationship. You'll notice this line is very short, because it doesn't happen very often.
Line C: Represents the first "flight response" from a relationship. It's called "OH MY GOD THIS PERSON IS NOTHING LIKE ME."
Line D: Represents the second "flight response" from a relationship. It's called "OH MY GOD THIS PERSON IS EXACTLY LIKE ME."
It's true. Pook is a lot more zen than I am, and that's a much clearer, streamlined, "the world is simple" way to look at relationships. However, with a few more years under his belt and a couple more serious relationships, I'm wondering if Pook hasn't started to think that my chart actually catches the subtleties and nuances better. AHEM.
What? These aren't the conversations that you have with your family? Happy Birthday, little brother. That's right, I transferred those charts to jpgs for you. It's the gift that keeps giving.
1I Tried to Breakup with You for a Year and You Wouldn't Let Go and Let Me Be Until You Met Some Girl on the Internet and a Year Later Married Her What the Fuck?
2 I was pretty self-absorbed in my own pontifications at the time, but I imagine that prior to heading over to the counter for said paper and pen, there was an eye roll by Pook. Possibly even an exasperated sigh.
From the Borough of Sixburgh! Six and the City! XLIV: Stairway to Seven!
I only wish I were clever enough to have come up with any of the above. They weren't me. They were people much, much more clever than I.
I promise this will be the only and last time that I write about the Super Bowl.
Before I do - I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR OPINION ON THE GAME AND THIS IS NOT A FORUM ABOUT IT. I don't care if you think the officials made bad calls (ahem, BOTH WAYS). I don't care if you think we didn't win convincingly. Let me be clear: I DO NOT CARE. This is not a blog about the technicalities of a football game. I can point you to any number of message boards if you want to talk about that. This is a blog about an event that made a city, families, old friends, new friends, perfect strangers and even foreigners find common ground. It's a blog about how emotional and wonderful it was to share it with my family. It's a recounting for me of a very happy weekend. You screw that up for me, you'll deal with me. GOT IT?
And so, on Friday night after I was done with work, my wonderful co-worker CK took me to the airport and I made the flight home. I had a layover in DC. On that layover, what you could tell was that many, many, many people had done what I had done and taken the first flight out after work to get into Pittsburgh in time for Super Bowl weekend. Every other seat on the plane was a black and gold jersey. The plane was engaged in chatter about the game, and, not surprisingly if you've ever visited Pittsburgh, what the *food* during game time would be. Sausage was the big winner.
I land in Pittsburgh and there's too much night snow for me to go to my mother's, so it's off to Pookie's until the morning. You know that Pookie and I have had long, rough work weeks when, upon seeing each other for the first time since Thanksgiving, the extent of our interaction is "Awesome to see you, I'm going to bed."
By the way, here is our official sibling picture from Super Bowl Sunday. I'm sure half of you will see it again in the holiday letter this year.
Yep. Saturday, by the way, is a nearly perfect day in ways unrelated to the Steelers. I pretty much sit on the couch and watch CNN all day. My mother brings me food. Doreen comes over and they play Scrabble online while I mock them (I swear to God, they actually put down words and then say "I don't know what that means" and then DON'T look it up.), my mom brings me more food, my dad wanders around, I leave the house only once to visit the Michelle and Dawn and conveniently Brianne. Mostly, I sit on a couch and my mom brings me food.
At some point in the day, my Mom suggests that I open my Christmas gifts that are still there...
OH, WAIT. Not only are my Christmas gifts still there, but they are sitting UNDERNEATH THE CHRISTMAS TREE THAT IS STILL STANDING PROUD ON FEBRUARY 4TH. It's true. My mother apparently would like to have it up long enough to have paid only a dollar a day for each day it was up. My mother and Doreen, by the way, but the huge tree up themselves. I am baffled by that. "But mom," I say, "There are young men all over this lovely little town who would have loved to put that tree up for you for $20."
"Yes," my mother says, "I was thinking of going down to the AKL frat house and asking if anybody wanted the gig."
That part of the story was only included so that Pookie could read it and laugh. But anyway...
So my mom has me open my presents. You are not ever, EVER, going to believe what she has purchased for me. A multi-hundred dollar price tag gold Steelers necklace charm. If you look closely in the picture above, you can see it hanging from my neck. She did. She purchased that. And it's perfect. And I've worn it every day since. HOWEVER, I am still not unconvinced that she purchased it only as a way to keep me from feeling as though I'd need to get another tatoo in the event that the Steelers won. But who's the best mom? The mom who buys Steelers jewelry for her kid.
She fed me a lot, too. I love my mom.
But I'm not sure you care so much about my bonding day with my mother. I have a feeling that Sunday is your concern.
The plan was to meet up with Pookie and Honeydunce around 3:00pm and head over to the bar to secure a great table. You may remember that gametime is at 6:30, but people are dedicated. It turned out that the bar the kids had chosen didn't open until four, so we diverted to another local watering hole on the way there. There, the bartender wore a Steelers jersey (but who in that city on that day didn't?) and smoked a cigar while serving us beer. That bar also boasted this as the primary art - NOT put up just for the game. Check out Cowher's face in the one on the left.
I should mention that I arrived at Pookie's place and mentioned that I didn't have a Terrible Towel with me (I forgot to pack it in the rush). UNACCEPTABLE, was his response, and a phone call was quickly made to Honeydunce to procur one, which was also effectively done. Sunday was not a day to be without your towel.
On the way to meet Honeydunce, at every stop light, people were waving their towels out of the window, or looking over at you and giving the high five though the closed car window. If you passed somebody in Steelers gear (by which I mean "if you drove past ANYBODY"), you honked and went ballistic. Here are Pookie and Honeydunce all done up in their Steelers gear before the game.
So, we get to the bar. It's pretty much perfect. It gets so crowded in there during the game that people actually go back to their homes to obtain chairs so that they will have something to sit on. And also, as though another reason was needed to love Pittsburgh, two pitchers of Yuengling, two rum and cokes, two Mikes Hard and a FREE BUFFET and a total bill of $28. Yep.
And also, these guys were there.
Yep.
The first half of the game is awkward. If you watched the game, you know that Pittsburgh had a lead and contained Warner/Fitzgerald pretty well, but it was never a comfortable lead for anybody who understands how quickly Warner/Fitzgerald can light it up. And then ... the Harrison 100 yard interception return.
I WISH I'd taken the prop bet on an interception return for a touchdown by any player. I thought about it. The math made sense given Pittsburgh's defense and how much you figured Warner would put the ball in the air. Bad on me. It doesn't matter though, all the money in the world wouldn't have been the same as that bar when that happened. There was a delayed reaction as people really realized that he'd intercepted the ball on the goal line. Then...you see him running...then you realize that we won't get a play off unless he either goes down right away or returns it for a score...then there's that first cluster in the middle of the field that he has to dance around ... then the leap over the downed tackler...then..then...will Fitzgerald get him before the goal line....NO! HE'S IN! HE'S IN! IT'S A TOUCHDOWN! AND THE CROWD GOES CRAZY!!!!
The bar is UP! Now this is a game. NOW the defense has shown up. NOW. And I just happened to grab my camera as Harrison stumbles to the back of the endzone. If you look closely on the tv you can see it. And the towels were out.
OH YES.
Things get even better. Bruce ROCKS the halftime show. Ferris sends me the classic text "OMG - Bruce Springsteen just teabagged the camera." Very few halftime shows really feel like you're at a rock concert. This one did. And Bruce - he looks GOOD for his age. GOOD.
The second half - WHAT an emotional roller coaster. Arizona finally figures out how to get Fitzgerald free. They start scoring like we knew they could. We get pinned in our endzone. I don't know that I can accurately describe the feeling in the bar. There's a sudden realization that we really may not end up the champs of Super Bowl XLIII. We may walk out of there in tears that night. We may...it's almost unreal to imagine at that point. I spend most of the second half of the game standing outside of our booth, or standing on top of the booth. Every time they score, Honeydunce lets loose with such a string of profanity that I feel as though she really *is* my sister. The mood is not amazing.
And then we realize that we will have the final drive.
The mood, again, is strange to describe. There's a fear, a palpable fear, in the room that we may not win. We don't have the lead, and Arizona has all of the momentum. But we all know exactly how many games we won this season in the last two minutes. It was the majority of the games we won. We know we're capable. Just...on any given Sunday...could this be the Sunday we don't pull off a miracle drive?
It doesn't look good.
But then we convert the third and long and people, well, they perk up. I'd say stand up, except that they entire bar has been standing since we started the drive.
Then Santonio does a catch and run for 40 yards, and we all realize that it would take a fluke to not make a field goal and send the game into overtime, but from the seven yard line, this game could be ours. It could be...
Then. The.Play. Even Steelers haters have conceded it was a perfect throw and a perfect catch. Say what you want about the rest of the game, or the rest of the drive, but in that moment a passer and a reciever connected perfectly on the string, and it was a thing of beauty.
And.the.bar.goes.wild. Immediately, though, there is a hush. We ALL know it's going into review. Cries of "There's NO WAY" that can be overturned and "We have it, we have it" are heard. And then the ref takes the field again and puts his arms in the air, and nothing is the same for the rest of the night. There are the brief handholding moments while Arizona, a team capable of making a killer last drive takes the field. But we know time is against them. And when we take the final knee, I'm not the only person in the bar with tears in my eyes. I'm tearing up right now just remembering it.
The guys at the table in front of us? They had brought three bottles of cheap champagne to the bar in case of a win. They opened them and passed them around. That's how we do it there.
Yep. And then it was out into the streets.
A lot has been said about how Pittsburgh feels about their Steelers. About the loyalty it inspires across the nation for people. I'm not sure it was ever better represented than it was in the streets after the win. Families, clad in Steelers gear, with babies in strollers and toddlers on their shoulders came out so their kids could experience this. A sixty-year old mother who watched the game at home with her twenty-something son, all done up, and out to watch the party. Frat boys and indie kids. Drunk people and sober people. People playing the accordian and hundreds and hundreds of poeple just standing in a street and waving a $8 towel over their heads in joy. People reinacting the last catch (including my goofy brother who ended the demonstration by plummeting to the ground). Sure, as is documented, the behavior wasn't perfect citywide that night. But the intent of 99% of the participants wasn't violent and didn't lead to any desctruction, just some party dust left over at the end.
I've lived in other NFL cities. I lived just south of Indianapolis, and that's not a city that's indifferent to its football team. I spent eight years in San Francisco and its sister-city Oakland (okay, that's like the slighltly less smart slutty sister, but still). Those are not cities that are indifferent to their football teams. I met some AMAZINGLY dedicated Giants fans at the Super Bowl last year.
Nobody does this like Pittsburgh. I'm sorry. Say what you want. Nobody feels their teams wins and losses like that city. Troy Polamalu, a guy from Hawaii who went to USC, said at media day, "I cannot imagine any other team having a relationship with its city the way the Steelers do with Pittsburgh." And I believe him to be right.
I worked the next day and then went to the airport. The TGIFridays at the airport was packed with black and gold jerseys of people who had come home to watch the game with their families just like I had. Five of us, all in a row, had done that. Don't ever tell me professional sports are now only a corrupted business. And for the cities and teams where that's true, it doesn't have to be like that. It can be something more if you work at it hard.
Here are some of my favorite pictures from the streets after the Super Bowl. You can see all the weekend pictures here. And I have notes. And I'm actually crying as I wrap up this entry because that weekend was exactly that perfect. And now we're Sixburgh.
10 extra thoughts on the game, the season...etc. 1. I hope Kurt Warner comes back to play next season. I know he's old. He knows he's old, but if you just played as well as he played this season, you've got at least one more in you. You're not done yet. But more importantly, I think his influence on the younger Arizona players is such a powerfully good thing. I think Larry Fitzgerald's best shot at a Super Bowl while he's young is with Warner. And I think Lienhart's a joke.
2. I hope Ken Wizenhunt makes something really special happen in Arizona. I hope he gets the support he needs from the owners and the city.
3. I hope Tom Brady comes back at full force next season. I know it makes it harder on my team, but the league isn't the same without him.
4. People always get into that debate about who got the better deal the year that Eli, Phillip Rivers and Ben were drafted. I think it's Pittsburgh. Not because Ben is necessarily the best quarterback out of the three, but because Pittsburgh got a quarterback who was PERFECT for their philosophy, their team, their system, their fans. Eli (who I think is probably the best quarterback of the bunch) I don't think will ever be able to excel to his absolute potential in the pressure cooker of New York. And Phillip Rivers? See below. In essence, over rated. Ben is the right quarterback in the right situation, and that's probably more valuable than the most talented quarterback in a middling situation. Think about it: Payton Manning is a great quarterback wherever he goes, but does he become PAYTON MANNING in a system more controlling and more high strung and more volatile emotionally than Indianapolis? Is Payton Manning instead PAYTON MANNING if he ends up with, say, the Redskins or the Raiders? Probably not.
5. Somebody in San Diego is over-rated, and don't say Norv Turner because I don't know anybody who thinks he's all that good anyway. So, okay, I'll be the one to say it. Either Lawrence Taylor (whom I will NOT call LT) or Phillip Rivers is over-rated. You don't play in a division that weak with two players who are supposed to be as amazing as those two are and finish 8-8 if those two are both as good as people think they are. I'm just saying...
6. I forgot to mention that one of our favorite moments on Sunday was when the Troy Polamaul Coke Zero commercial came on and every big, burly dude in the bar was like "SHHHHHH. Troy's on."
7. But for my money, the best Super Bowl commercial was the Clydesdales. Here you go.
8. However, I'm not sure there will ever be as great a commercial as the "Rocky" Clydesdale commercia.
9. Just to reiterate: 2 pitchers of Yuengling, 2 Mikes Hard, 2 rum and coke, FREE BUFFET. $28.
1. Listen, I am who I am: So, this exchange happened regarding the upcoming trip to Mongolia.
Me to the Travel Agent What will be the internet/text message availability situation? I know we'll be in the middle of nowhere much of the time, but I figured there would be times with internet access and I was curious about what the mobile phone network in the area is like.
Travel Agent to Me As far as internet availability, the only place you can expect to access the internet will be in UB. It's possible that you will be able to use the internet in Kharkhorin, but this isn't a reliable connection. Cell phones will typically work in the gear camps when you stop for the night, but not while traveling between camps.
Pookie to Me Upon Reading the Above Exchange OMG JOS YR CELL PHONE WON'T WORK BETWEEN VILLAGEZZZ WTF!!!
2. Battle of the Davids: Is ON. We all know that my love child Jason Castro is the album I want to buy, because I don't already own enough poor man's Jack Johnson, but I'm cheering Castro on. Artichoke scares me. He can't possibly be as wishy washy as he seems. It's like, if there were an Incredible Hulk in real life, that kid would be a good candidate. So weird that little one is.
3. It was 105 in Vegas Yesterday: I'm hot, the cats are hot, it's hot to run. This is how much I can't focus on writing: I'm writing about the weather.
4. I really do have so much to write about though ... this crazy story about hand jobs in a club in Vegas, a story about pottery night, I just can't focus.
5. So instead, a haiku:
Boys will make you sad Repeating cycle every time. I like my cats.
For Those About to ROCK: The Annual Pilgrimage for Pookie's Birthday
I'm not sure if doing the same thing for two years in a row makes it a tradition, but I'm going with it. We've (by "we" I mean shamus and myself) all gone home for Pookie's birthday two years in a row now. So that makes it a tradition. And if we don't do it next year, it will be like, "Oh, we're breaking tradition. We have to go home for Pookie's birthday."
Also, if you would like to see my entire collection of pictures from the trip (including some by shamus and some by Pook and some by Honeydunce), click here.
And yes, there's something somewhat wrong about the idea that we've made Pookie so special that trips across the continent for his birthday are a regular event. I have no answers, per usual.
Firstly, you should know that this was the conversation about coming home for Pook's birthday.
Me So, my DUI hearing is the same day as your birthday, so I guess I'm coming in for your birthday.
Pookie Awesome. My sister is getting sober for my birthday.
Me I'm not. I'm really not.
Day One: This is AWESOME. So, I arrive Thursday night. I have breakfast with mom. I head to court to hang out with MD. Things are done. Things are not done. Things are sometimes frustrating. MD makes me laugh. I head to Pookie's house, where shamus is napping and listening TO THE MOST GOD AWFUL NOISE FUCK I HAVE EVER HEARD. shamus has apparently realized that a cab from the airport to Joel's cost $70. Ouch. He shows me gay YouTube celebrities. This is what we do.
We go to lunch. Pizza and tiny jugs of sugar, or iced tea if you prefer to call it that. We talk to an old lady about a bakery. We go to Jerry's used records. We have cupcakes. shamus cruises the around in a $300 t-shirt. I make the guy at the cupcake store listen to a five minute speech about how I wish I were bulimic because boys would like me better. Shamus does not like cripples. It's a good afternoon. Our sugar high begins to crash, though, and we want a nap, so we head back to Pookie's Hippie Shack.
And ten minutes after we nap ... the Pookie explosion busts through the door. And the world is happy. Though he needs a nap, too. So we all nap.
And then we head to dinner to meet up with Ferris and Honeydunce. There are two things you should know about dinner:
a. It is the first time that any of us are meeting Honeydunce, and while Pookie may not want to hear this, expectations are frankly low since we didn't like any of the last couple of girlfriends of his we met. Or didn't meet because they were noticeably absent at important events. And while we immediately fell in love with Honeydunce, I, in retrospect, feel badly for that poor girl. Firstly, when you put Pookie, Ferris, shamus and myself in a foursome together for the first time in over twelve months, it tends to escalate into an explosion of inappropriateness. At one point, I'll even admit, I go as far as to ask Honeydunce "On a scale of one to ten, how into my brother are you?" What's awesome about the fact that I just wrote that is that Pookie was in the bathroom when I did that and may just now be heating up in embarrassment that I did that to his girlfriend. The poor girl is literally bombarded. And I have to say, she held up like a pro. Like it didn't even phase her. She's the first one I've ever liked. She also had to put up with point "b", which is equally awesome.
b. We happen to be eating dinner in a Thai restaurant that is DIRECTLY across the street from the apartment building where shamus' uncle overdosed on heroin and died. And shamus happens to be sitting in the direction such that all through dinner what he's looking at is the apartment building where his uncle overdosed on heroin and died. For those of you who hang out with shamus and I, you know how sometimes I'll look at shamus and go, "You know, at least I think that the guy I'm dating now probably isn't going to put a shot gun in his mouth and kill himself," and then we laugh at that situation like it's funny instead of tragic because that's how we deal? Well, pretty much throughout dinner shamus would periodically say, "It's AWESOME that I'm having dinner and staring at the apartment where my uncle overdosed on heroin and died," and then we would all laugh like that situation was funny instead of tragic because what else do you do with that?
Honeydunce was a trooper. I love her.
After dinner we head to the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern where Allies has a show that night. Several awesome things, pretty much in this order, happen at the BBT.
- The Pens game is on. With just minutes to go in the third period, the Rangers come back to tie the game. The ENTIRE bar suddenly goes from moderately noisy to DEAD QUIET. Nobody is talking. There is no noise AT ALL. And then, with just a minute or so left, Crosby scores the go-ahead (and ultimately winning) goal and the place goes CRAZY. I feel entirely home.
- Honeydunce introduces me to my new favorite drink, which is vanilla vodka and pineapple juice and it tastes like a pineapple upside down cake.
- I eat six pirogies. Here is a note to self: no matter how much you may WANT the pirogies, they're not going to sit well with you after a Thai meal.
- Beautiful Kim shows up with her finance and somebody else we went to high school with. None of us remember the other kid we went to high school with, but perhaps that is because he probably wasn't hot in high school and now he is HOT.
- Andy and Fred show up and are, traditionally, Andy and Fred.
And then Allies play, and they rock. And my favorite thing about an Allies show is that Pookie spends a not insignificant amount of time playing with his back to the audience, all like "I would be rocking whether you were here or not." And Vesley, whom I hear is about to cut off the mane, hasn't cut if off yet and he lets it down for one song. And the band plays my favorite track, which is a track Pookie wrote after we got home from Hawaii for shamus' 30th birthday the other year. And teenage girls swoon and the Gods of rock smile and all is good.
And Ferris takes us home because Pookie wants to do shamus and I a "favor" by staying at Honeydunce's that night so we can have more space.
I should mention, by the way, that there has been no toilet paper at Chez Pookie since we arrived. I used the last tiny square within the first fifteen minutes. That is all.
Day Two: I got your Kayapolitan right here, and an Ass Cupcake For the record, I have nothing to do with that Ass Cupcake conversation. I am just here to relay the information.
We begin the morning by meeting up with my mother in Cal, PA. By we I mean me, Pook, Honeydunce, shamus and...Doreen Conaway. Yes, my mother's BFF was in full force too. And later in the day Janet Batemen joined us as well, so it was all kinds of generational. I don't have a lot to report because the visit was in general extremely pleasant and relaxed and my mother serves lots of food and I wash my hair over a sink which is CRAZY since she just basically installed a new shower for me and I accidentally mention that I bought cocaine off of somebody that we all know, which, you know, is problematic information on many levels. And we sit outside and it's warm and breezy and smells like fresh grass and then shamus insists on putting his balls near my face and EVERYTHING IS RUINED LIKE ALWAYS.
Though, you know, that move on his part is really only fair since in Hawaii that one time I stuck my bikini clad butt right in his face. We're even now. Here are some pictures of the day.
Joel, shamus and Honeydunce head back to nap. I take a trip to Chez Woo to visit C-Woo and Tyler and Cienna. Those kids are getting ridiculously big. Cienna is so articulate now - she can have a full conversation with you if she feels so inclined. She's also quite good at getting her way. She'll stand in front of you with a book and big eyes. If you don't read it, she'll just open the book and put it on your lap. Eventually you realize that she's headstrong like her mama and she's going to win. And Tyler is just a flirt. Who likes food. And hockey. We know which parent he takes after. And it's so nice to catch up with C-Woo because she's one of the only people I know who will listen to some of the retardo decisions I'm making right now and not just say, "You're a moron." It's almost like she expects them, which is a good and bad thing.
After that but before a non-existent nap that I had planned on, I meet up with shamus and Ferris for more cupcakes. We take our cupcakes and our coffee and go sit on the steps of a church in Squirrel Hill. I first start explaining that part of the reason that I don't move back to Pittsburgh is because of the lack of eligible men to date. I mean, I'm not going to die alone or anything because I've got some cats and some gays, but I might like to find somebody ... someday. This confession immediately turns into a fun game for the boys called "What about him?" "What about him?" sounds a lot like this:
"What about that douchebag in the track pants and sandals?"
"What about the old guy?"
"What about the punk rock teenager? Oh, wait, he's a little old by your standards."
"What about the guy with bad hygiene?"
And on and on. Then, a conversation that I don't even understand begins to happen about eating cupcakes out of asses. I mean, I don't even pretend to acknowledge what was said. That is all.
We make it back to Pookie's. There is no nap time. There is change and roll out time. So I change, and we roll out. To official birthday dinner, which is at this place.
Joining us at dinner are Moon and C-Woo. B-Funk mystically disappeared on us, but that's how he rolls.
I have many favorite parts of dinner. In no particular order:
- Well, one could not overlook the invocation of "ass cupcake" throughout the entire meal. I'm still unclear as to whether "ass cupcake" is a term of endearment or a verb. I'm not sure I want to know.
- Oh yes, Honeydunce steals Ferris' move and the unicorn is brought out in full force. That's really just funny every time. It's like the jackal, but not.
- Political debate 2008, at which point I move seats. In this argument, Moon argues, shamus may or may not argue (I couldn't tell), C-Woo tries to argue and is shut out and really they're all pretty much on the same side in the end, which is the strange part.
- "Oh, I knew your last boyfriend, I was out on the trail with him when you two were breaking up! He was pretty upset." This is by far my FAVORITE moment. It was actual perfection. If I could have reached across and kissed Moon for giving us that moment, I would have.
I'm not sure if this means that we rock, or that we're middle-aged, but we closed that tapas and martini joint DOWN.
And then ... off into the night.
The Last Morning: On a scale of one to five ... We spend the last morning before shamus and I fly out at the 61c having coffee. We play this game: "On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate Pookie's life so far in the category of (insert category) by the age of 31?"
Pookie doesn't like the game and decides that we ALL have to play if we're going to play.
The next category up is "fashion."
Ferris is wearing a Mac OS X t-shirt. His excuse is that he's headed home to do yard work.
Me I give Ferris a 2.5 for fashion.
Pookie I'll give him a 3.5. It makes a statement.
shamus I give him a stupid point dumb.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, pretty much sums us up. Stupid.Point.Dumb.
Till next year, when hopefully my DUI will be resolved and we once again turn Pookie's birthday into a federal holiday.
Remember the time you lived on the hundredth floor of the high rise at Pitt and you wanted to steal the donkey from one of those plastic, light-up nativity sets in somebody's yard and then tell people to look up in the sky at your window at midnight to see your illuminated ass? And then remember how we were driving to the Uniontown Mall and we were headed up that steep hill in Brownsville that leads to the Dairy Queen and we saw one (a light-up ass in a light-up nativity set) in somebody's yard? And remember how I wanted to get out of the car and steal it and even made you pull the car over? And then you told me not to steal it because I'd upset Jesus, and then, even though you don't care so much about upsetting Jesus (baby version or otherwise) your conscious took over and you still wouldn't let me rip the ass off because stealing from somebody's nativity set was just wrong? That's because you're a much better person than I am. That's why you're mom's favorite. It's cool.
But I don't think that I care that you're a much better person than I am, because I make way more cash dollars than you do. And the only way that you're going to Hawaii next year is if I pay for your ass, SUCKA.
FYI - I am too old to go to midnight movies on a school night. I am tired today. I am on cat nap number four and it's only noon. But you're going to ask me what I thought of The Golden Compass, aren't you? I mean, you know, I think it was as well as they could adapt that book to a movie. It was nice to see a lot of the fantasy characters and the armored bears come to life. But you know, when you love a book like I love that book, the movie is NEVER GOOD ENOUGH. But I do think it's worth seeing. It's short - only two hours. Nicole Kidman looks STUNNING in every shot and it better get an Oscar nod for costuming. It was worth feeling like ass today.
1. I Fall Somewhere Between....So Pookie sent me this link. I fall somewhere between "Lover Boy" and "Hunk Next Door." Yes, that's clearly a recipe for disaster. Apparently, I want a man who looks cool while washing his car in the driveway but also really, really, really needs me. In actuality, I want neither of those things.
2. Broken Social Scene - I've been listening to them a lot lately. I think that they are neither the "Lover Boy" or the "Hunk Next Door." That is all.
3. Holiday Check In - By the end of the weekend, unless you work for Pregame.com (in which case I am holding your stuff until right before your holiday party) or live in Pennsylvania, you will be DONE! Letters went out the day before yesterday. Everybody in San Francisco is finished. Everybody in LA is finished (more or less). By the end of the weekend, if I need to mail your package, you are finished. I feel, you know, pretty good. And tired. And a little broke!
4. Birthday Madrid Trip: Dear Lis,
How DO you do it? I am already stressed out about trying to keep everybody happy on this trip. Love, Jos
5. Remember When Pookie Had No Computer? How long ago that seems. Now, my day is a series of IM's from him that include links like the one above and endless YouTube videos. But I don't care, because he sent me this YouTube classic, which took a HORRIBLE day (yesterday) and turned it around for me:
There's so much good in this video: - The Clap Track that EVERYBODY does, even those seemingly random females - The look on Rick James' face after he obviously just snorted coke - The shirtless guitarist behind Eddie Murphy - The way Eddie Murphy consistently looks away from the camera because HE IS TAKING HIS MUSIC SERIOUSLY
And, the best part, as pointed out by Pook, is how Rick James rushes out and grabs a bass guitar during the last ten seconds of the song -- as though it is suddenly needed.
iPhones, Strippers, Counting Crows and Breakdowns: Friday Five!
1. True Tales of the iPhone & Strippers: How does the iPhone change your life? Like this. So last Sunday night, PPG had a party, and at the party there was supposed to be a stripper. And the specific type of stripper requested was "A Black girl, big on the top and big on the bottom." At 2am, I got a call from the clients that the stripper who had showed up was a small, Asian girl. So I had to get out of bed at 2am and head down to the strip to deal with swapping the girls out.
And when I get down there, I have to sit for half an hour while I'm waiting for my big-bodied Black stripper to arrive. And I'm bored. So I get out my iPhone.
I have this very dear friend Jen whom I love, love, love. Jen and I boxed together. Jen and I traveled to Budapest together and maybe next week I'll scan all of the wonderful photos of us at a fertility festival in Pesc or in a bathhouse in Budapest or recovering from a crazy birthday party we had in a place called Old Man's Pub. I love Jen, but a few years ago she moved to Russia to "do the good work" that she does. We still keep in touch. There are gaps, but then there are a flurry of emails and it's always more like resuming a conversation than starting a conversation.
So, I'm sitting there, miserable, waiting for the big-bodied Black stripper to arrive and I decide to check my email on my iPhone. Jen has emailed me a link to this - an article in the New York Times about her husband, who is also doing "the good work" as a lawyer in Russia. And because I am on my iPhone, I open the link and read the article in full glory-sized screen with amazing graphic resolution. And then because I am on my iPhone and it is the middle of the night here so the middle of the day in the Motherland, I can text and email with Jen real time for a little while, which we rarely get to do.
The iPhone. It brings me and my dear, dear friend in the Motherland closer.
2. Another Story of Vegas Party Planning: On Saturday, I also have to hustle my booty out of bed in order to deal with a limo "situation." The situation is as such: It's all very complicated. Because of the complicated system of "tips," kickbacks, payoffs, under the table money and such, what typically happens is that we meet up with the limo driver about 20 minutes before the client does to make sure that everybody was, is about to, or will be taken care of. Yes. This is my life.
Anyway, the limo driver that we're using on this particular night is not a limo driver that we've ever used before. He's in his fifties, originally from New York, a fun guy. We have a good time hanging out while waiting for the client and talking. We talk about the limo driver's daughters - who are, and this is important, MY AGE.
As the clients are coming out, I say to him, "Can we call you sometime if we need an extra driver?"
And he looks at me and says, "As pretty as you are, you can call me any time. How about dinner next week?"
Now, when you are female and you touch the "entertainment" industry in Vegas in any way, there is only one response you can give to this. It's to smile nicely and dodge the situation. Which I do.
And then...driving home. I have a breakdown. I call RJ and launch into the following:
"OH MY GOD - A FIFTY YEAR OLD JUST HIT ON ME. I DON'T MEAN HIT ON ME IN THE INAPPROPRIATE SMARMY WAY, I MEAN IN THE LEGITIMATE, HE THOUGHT IT WAS APPROPRIATE TO HIT ON ME KIND OF WAY. IS THIS MY FUTURE? AM I THIS OLD? ARE FIFTY YEAR OLDS GOING TO HIT ON ME? OH MY GAWD. MY YOUTH IS OVER."
I mean, ignoring the fact that I'm going out with a 27 year old who JUST TURNED 27 THIS WEEK. That was my reaction to that. I haven't been right since.
3. Speaking of Dating People Who Are Too Young for Me: You know you're going out with somebody too young for you when you say the following at their birthday dinner. "I know that you're too young to remember this, but Counting Crows was actually a pivotal band for me."
4. And...Go! Starts Now. I sadly watched last night as $1200 exited my checking accounts for air tickets to San Francisco, Austin and Pittsburgh. I had a twinge, but then I remembered how much fun I'm going to have on all of those trips. So, basically, I alternated between stress and excitement. That's pretty much my life right now.
5. Something Else to Look Forward to: Apparently, Captain Morgan and I are going to dress like slutty elves for Pookie's annual Christmas party. I'm going to see if I can convince Dana to join us. We'll see.
And...GO! A Friday Ten In Which I Give Up on the Rest of the Year
Ha! Do you like how I stopped the Africa updates right before the three single best days of the trip (lions, gorillas and zebras?). I actually have a rare 20 minutes of down time right now when I should be trying to clean out my inbox, but let's just update instead. There are many, many things going on right now.
1. I LOVE STRESS: I mean, I probably don't love the way that it ages me, but I do thrive on it. The good thing about the current levels of stress is that it comes at a time of year when I habitually get manic anyway. I'm averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night right now. You would think that with 20 hours of awake time a day I'd have time to answer people's emails or return phone calls or not bail on social engagements. Ha! Here's what I'm balancing right now:
- A stressful job transition that's also resulted in some bad mojo for some people who work/ed with me. So I'm basically working about 12 hours a day, on a good day. Literally, my day starts at 7:30am. Around 4pm, I go to the gym for a couple of hours, and then around 7pm I start working again. Usually until around midnight.
- November is NOT party season in Vegas, but we're determined to make our revenue goal, so finding people who want to party in Vegas during one of the months of the year when NOBODY parties in Vegas is hard.
- You know it - it's holiday season. I have a shopping list of 120 people plus a card list of about 300, and you know that the majority of that card list gets that custom, special letter that Pookie and I do together which is 3x the work of a card and 10x the expense of a card. And you also know that of that 120 people a lot of them get things that I make, and though I made 35 of something during the summer, that's still a lot to do. The good news is that I have "the spreadsheet" completed. The bad news is that I also have three months of late birthday presents that need to be sent out as well. Viva!
- I AM OUT OF SHAPE: Which means I'm running like a beast. I'm not sure how it happened. I was underweight before I left for Africa, but still in good running shape. I didn't gain weight in Africa, but I also didn't run. And then when I got back, I didn't get right back to running, and I ate a lot of pizza, but it wasn't all that out of control. But when I went for my first run back this week, I was sucking air at four miles. Not good.
- AND THEN I HAD A PANIC ATTACK ABOUT MY SCHEDULE. Literally, a breathing issue panic attack. I did my calendar, and I realized that between the time I got back from Africa and the week after New Year's, I had only two weekends where either I didn't have an out of town trip scheduled or I have people in town. One of those weekends is this weekend, and one is either the weekend of December 8th or December 17th, depending on which weekend I do "Holidays in LA." After Africa I had Halffington in town, then the eight million nieces PLUS Jess's bachelorette, this weekend is blissfully off. Then November: the first weekend Matty and Jess get married, the second weekend I am going to Vancouver, the third weekend there are LA girls in town, and the fourth weekend I'll be in New York for Thanksgiving. Then there is December: the first weekend I'll be in Texas for Paul and Kari's wedding, one of the next two weekends I'll go to LA, then I'll be home in Pittsburgh for the holidays, then I'll be in Arizona for New Year's. When I looked at that schedule, I had a panic attack. Because, if you're following, I have no down time during the week right now. There's nothing I'd want off that schedule though. So I'll just buckle down and make it happen.
Here's the most awesome thing about that schedule though. So the other day I was having lunch with this boy I really like (and who I think really likes me) and he said, "Yeah, I'm going to be out of town the next two weekends."
And I immediately made my pouty face like I was so offended that he wouldn't want to spend time with me so badly that he'd leave a weekend clear. And he looked at me like I was the world's biggest hypocrite and said, "We're both really busy people. That's how it is with people like us."
AND I TOTALLY CONTINUED TO MAKE MY POUTY FACE LIKE I WAS 100% IN THE RIGHT. Which is, you know, ha ha ha ha ha ha, because if the question had been reversed and he had asked me what my weekend plans look like in the near future, I would have been all like "Yeah, why don't you talk to me in January. That's when it looks like things clear up for me."
Awesome.
And so I am stressed. My plans this weekend involve locking my door, closing my curtains, turning off my personal phone (but leaving work phones on, sigh) and chilling out - even if chilling out means that I'm actually doing work, just doing it in the comfort of my (now clean!) home. There will be crockpot action. There will be outings to the gym. There will even be laundry (which I find peaceful and relaxing - the sound of the dryer running in the background while I look at spreadsheets). There will be reading. There will be holiday crafting. THERE WILL BE ZELDA. And by 7am on Monday morning I will be refreshed.
And by 10am on Monday morning I will be in exactly the same stressed out, maxed-out place I'm in right now!
Listen, this is me saying I love everybody, but anybody who knows me knows that I go dark in November and December, and this year will be worse because of additional factors. Don't hate. Just know that when I'm not emailing or calling, I'm wishing that I were. If you are on Facebook then you get more action from me. That's all I'm saying.
2. A Little Ditty for the Marketers: Yeah, sorry, this is only funny if you've ever run a marketing department before, but since a lot of you have...
Me So, you know, I would need the data on x as it compares to y in order to decide what I wanted to do with that situation.
Other Person Um, yeah, the only way to get that data is manually.
Me You mean, like, read it and enter it into a calculator?
Other Person Um, yeah.
Me But...but...it's housed in a database!
Other Person Yeah, but there's really no way to easily ... let me just get you a calculator.
Let me tell you, there's some automation about to happen here. I can't think of a LESS useful way to spend my time than manually transferring data.
3. A photo that makes my photos look lame: It's seriously like Mr. Holland's Opus in Pittsburgh. I'm not even joking. My little bro just out-ghetto'ed me. "Mr. J" wins. I don't even know what to do with this.
4. Car! Detailed! Yes, finally. For those of you who have been following the saga, a can of Pepsi exploded in my car earlier this summer. The car needed to be detailed before that, but after the can of Pepsi exploded, it REALLY needed to be detailed. You know how sometimes things make it on to your to do list and then just keep getting moved to the bottom because it's such a hassle?
Then a couple of months later, I accidentally left some batteries in the car during the high heat and they leaked. Then the car REALLY REALLY needed to be detailed. However, not so much, apparently, that it rallied my ass out to get it detailed.
Then LAST WEEK I was on my way to a meeting and I hadn't eaten yet so I tried to eat sushi in the car. And at a red light, I went to open the little packet of soy sauce and it exploded all over the inside of the car.
But you know what finally got me motivated to get the car detailed? My tags have been expired for OVER A MONTH NOW because I've been too lazy to get my smog check done. The last time my tags were expired I totally got pulled over for a moving violation and had to eat the other $150 fine for having expired tags. So I finally got my car into the Saturn dealership. Exciting!
And then today I mailed in the smog check and the tag registration and was so excited that those things could be moved off my to do list.
And then I got home and opened my mail, only to find out that my lack of paying attention had meant that my driver's license had expired and I forgot to renew it, so I'm now driving on a suspended license. HOT.
I am a HOT MESS people.
5. Can we talk about SMOS briefly? You know how every year around this time, when things start to get crazy busy in my world, I start this lecture about how "I REALLY need to do something to slow the pace of my life down?" And then I go into this whole inner turmoil about how I would benefit from slowing myself down, but my nature is to live fast and big and I'd hate to have missed out on any of the things I would have missed out on if I didn't live that way? Well, can I say that in many ways this year I failed to slow the pace of my life down (see the two month schedule above as Example A). However, SMOS has totally made me slow down at least a section of my life. I have the most lovely, wonderful, beautiful men in my life right now. And if I had been going at my normal pace, I'd be well ensconced in another relationship by now and would have missed out on a lot of wonderful things I've learned. So, I'm saying, SMOS is the best thing I've ever done for myself. I did have a little bout of "single insecurity" going on the other week. And Shimmy reminded me that that's the point. As she said, "You need to become secure in the insecurity." She is so zen.
Slowing my life down will, once again, be something about myself that I try to work on in 2008. The other one will be trying to be at my best even when I'm not motivated or not inspired, which is something I learned this year is a weakness of mine. That is all.
6. I went through a phase this week where... I couldn't stop lusting after Luda. Yep. Sure did. I mean, like, talking about how hot he was all day long to anybody that would listen. Then Pookie drunk IM'ed me, and he sent me a copy of "Sexy Motherfucker" by Prince. And then I couldn't decide who I thought was sexier. Here, ponder for yourself.
7. The best thing you won't hear on my public playlist this week. You won't hear it, because I can't find a copy to put on the playlist, but there's a 2 DISC cd set of mashups of Britney and/or Madonna songs that made it down the girl chain from Ang to Shimmy to me. All the mashups are good, but there are two I just leave on repeat and listen to over and over again. One is a mashup of Missy Elliot's "Pass That Dutch" with Madonna's "Holiday", and the other is a mashup of "Holiday" with D-Child's "Make Me Lose My Breath." AND THOSE TWO MASHUPS ARE SO GOOD. You should totally try to find them online somewhere if you can. I can't stop listening.
Also, why do we love D-Child? It's because of lyrics like this: "Ooh Two things I don't like when I'm trynna get my groove - Is a partner that meets me only halfway, and just can't prove - Take me out so deep when you know you can't swim- Need a lifeguard and I need protection- To put it on me deep in the right direction. Ooh You understand the facts that I'm trynna give to you- You movin' so slow like you just don't have a clue- Didn't momma teach you to give affection? Learn the difference from a man and an adolescent It ain't you boo, so get ta steppin'"
Secondly, here's a conversation Halff may not have wanted to be made public. He and I are in the car (unfortunately pre-detailing job) listening to said cd (disc 2!).
Halff These mashups are way better than the original Britney and Madonna songs.
Pause
Halff and I Simultaneously Except for "Holiday." That's a great song on its own.
What have we learned? Mash any song with "Holiday" and everything gets better.
8. Cat Blog! This is honestly how fat Sly is. This is how he's sitting: He has his back paws on one chair, his front paws on another chair and his HUGE GUT is actually hanging between the two chairs. I am a bad mom!
9. Because I need a number nine ... Listen, I'm going to come clean here. Because the Rockies are Ry's favorite team, I always put $5 on them to win the World Series at the beginning of the season as a show of faith to him. The odds at the beginning of the season were, like, 30 to 1. I'm sorry. I know so many of you are Red Sox fans, but mama wants a pair of $1300 snakeskin Versace shoes she saw the other week. Go Rockies!
10. And a playlist! When I get super stressed like this, the music sounds more like a nightclub. Why? That's so obvious. Because nightclubs are where I reduce stress. Here's what we're listening to in Jocelyn world right now.
"Do It Well" - J-Lo: OHMYGOD! How much do I LOVE the new J-Lo single WITH a breakdown from my boyfriend Luda? I've been warned that if I don't stop playing and dancing to this in the work environment there will be a boycott, but IT'S SO GOOD. I work to it, I do laundry to it, I run to it. It's the best thing EVER. Or at least recently. You can't even listen to this and then listen to "Gimme More" and take Britney even a little bit seriously. I LOVE J-LO.
"Lose My Breath" - D-Child, "Pass That Dutch" - Missy Elliot and "Holiday" - Madonna: Okay, I can't give you the mashup, but I can give you all three singles and you can imagine. And dance. You can imagine, and then you can dance.
"Sexy Motherfucker" - Prince: "In a word, it's you I want to do." Or, better yet, "I want to get to know you, tell me what you do, what you eat...I might cook for you."
"Sexy motherfuker, shaking that ass, shaking that ass."
"End of the Night" - Luda: I mean, I could have picked any song here. He sounds smooth and sexy on anything. That is all. If for no other reason, this song is on because of these lyrics: " By the end of the night you gon' be wantin to marry a nigga Cause I make 'em erupt like volcanoes, you just shake and you shiver Get 'em up, get down, turn around and put your face in the pillow Cut 'em up like Jason, just face it that boy Luda's a killer Half man, half gorilla, beatin all on my chest Pleasin all of your flesh, squeezin all on your breast Givin you reasons to rest, and ain't never say no to papi Wake 'em up like Folgers cause I fold 'em like origami Hey mami let's get it poppin like Orville Redenbacher The way you move once you started nothin could ever stop ya Sweeter than Betty Crocker, and I'm ready to belly flop ya Just mention today but for now I forever gotcha"
Yep.
"Great Pumpkin Waltz" - Vince, Guaralid: Okay, so you'll only get a snippet here, but I've been listening to the whole thing. You know how I love my Peanuts holiday dvds.
Oh, God, come on, that's awesome how I just transitioned from Luda rapping about dirty sex to Charlie Brown. Give me points!
Special Extra Bonus Item! So I can't sleep (shocker) so I log into Facebook because I notice that AshleyPooh has tagged a new photo of me. It is a photo of me and my niece Stephanie "recovering" on my couch the night after all of these photos were taken. Nice, Ashley. Thanks for bringing this picture to the public. I really think the comment I left Ashley on Facebook says it all, which is, "Why would you post this? I look like I just spent five days doing crack."
Which is also what I felt like because my body doesn't recover from staying out all night two nights in a row as quickly as it used to. But I have no pride, so I'll share.
Madonna Tribute - Cast of Glee
permalink baby
