I received a humorous yet distressing email from the editor of the Weekly last Friday. In my never ending quest to write an advice column, he and I had embarked upon what I thought was a friendly dialogue. I assumed he knew and understood me, and then, bam, he insinuated that I just wasn’t naughty enough for the good readers of the Weekly. Ouch! Apparently Savage Love (one of my favorite reads) is a “bit too naughty” while I’m “probably a bit too nice.” I spent the weekend muttering to my husband, “Can you believe this?” and giggling and wishing my mother still had email so I could forward her the news—she would be so proud. But alas, I fear I may have misrepresented myself to the good man. Was it the hair? Maybe I should have kept it red. Was it the shirt? Perhaps it should have been lower cut. Was it my tales of working for the US Senator? Was it the fact that I’m a mommy? I guess all of these attributes, taken together, might say “Suburban Soccer Mom,” but that just ain’t me. As my good friend Emily G. pointed out in her blog, I’m the girl who wears the camo mini skirt and gold shit-kicker Frye boots to a garden wedding. I’m the girl whose favorite film is To Die For and the one who longs for the next installment of Nip/Tuck. I’m the girl with Sexing the Cherry, The Story of O and other erotically-charged book titles lining the shelves of her living room. I’m the girl with enough sordid sexual experience to raise eyebrows. I've catalogued scenes, snippets and observations that I won’t share here, mainly because my mother-in-law is reading this, but they're itching to go in a column ;-). I’m that girl. Short of walking into his office and reenacting the masturbation scene from Madonna’s Blonde Ambition tour, I’m not quite sure how to convince the gentleman that I’m no Pollyanna.
And in other news . . . I wrote the following soon after Pluto was demoted to non-planet status but forgot to post it. It’s even a wee bit naughty:
Millions of school children have been summarily mind-fucked by a band of rogue cowboy scientists. According to these astronomers, Pluto becomes the planetary equivalent of the lacey thong underwear you wore in college and now that you’re married and a little heavier in the hips and the lace has stretched out, well, it just doesn’t fit anymore so you toss it in the bathroom wastebasket and try to forget all about it—the underwear and your lurid past. First of all, everyone knows that you don’t fuck with Pluto. You can tease Jupiter mercilessly, you can punch Venus in the nose, but you don’t ever want to get in Pluto’s business because she’s a vengeful bitch and she will give harder than she’s gotten. Pluto is the Roman god of the underworld. Pluto’s all about birth, death, destruction, annihilation, deep dark secrets and sex, the naughty stuff, which is precisely why I adore her. Pluto was discovered in 1930 amidst the great stock market crash that ignited the Depression. Pluto was just a babe when Adolf Hitler came on the scene and yet in infancy, the girl helped cook up World War II and the Holocaust. When Pluto shows up at your house, you don’t slam the door in her face. You bow humbly, offer her some tea and with quaking voice, tell her you’re at her service. I think it’s cute that those venerable scientists, with their big, engorged PhDs, think they can defame Pluto, sully her reputation and that she’ll just quietly slink away. Pluto’s like the saucy sorority girl who shows up at a drunken frat party wearing too much makeup and super short skirt and then wakes up the next morning to a room she doesn’t recognize, a man she doesn’t know and a sticky wetness between her legs she never asked for. Yes, she’ll leave quietly and do her walk of shame and chances are you won’t hear from her for awhile, But when Pluto finally makes her presence known, it will be to paper the entire campus with pictures of the asshole who defiled her, the word RAPIST in bold on his mugshot. The point would be this: Pluto always has her revenge and usually when you least expect it. She is one wrathful bitch so those smarty-pant scientists might want to take care.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Sunday, September 17, 2006
It’s my party and I’ll celebrate with tapas and cocktails if I want to.
For my 33rd Birthday, I booked a table for ten at a newish place in town, El Vaquero, and hoped to lure people to come help me ring in the new year with silly yet somehow appropriate Hiron’s cocktail invites. They boasted martini and lime colored cards nestled in glass-shaped vellum paper (You must see to believe, the kitsch value was worth the money alone). . . And then virtually no one RSVP’d, save a few very well-mannered friends. Why oh why do Eugenians think they can get away with not RSVPing when the invite clearly states in big bold letters, “Please RSVP?” Emily Post would have a field day with my friends. The RSVP debacle led to a brief freak-out in which I pictured myself, my husband and the lovely couple who RSVP’d sitting in a dark corner of the restaurant, empty chairs strewn about, Birthday hats askew and all of us pretending not to notice that no one else had shown up.
On the day before my 33rd, I did what every self-respecting girl would do: I headed to Macy’s to buy purple eye shadow. Immediately following my trip to the Clarins counter (at some point I’m going to have to write a girly post about how Clarins changed my life) I experienced a drive by shoeing. B was cranky, and it was ten minutes and counting before meltdown so I did stroller wheelies in the shoe section, circumnavigated the floor with lightening speed and tossed two possible Birthday pumps at an unsuspecting Macy’s employee. Meanwhile, B moaned and tossed his head and whinnied like a horse (“Horse,” by the way, is one of B’s newest and most favored words). I chose the pair that said, unequivocally, with their cheap price tag ($22) and their strappiness and their silvery glitteriness,
“We’re your mother-fucking birthday shoes, so fun, and if anyone dares to scoff at our ridiculousness they can kindly piss off.” There was no need for a second opinion but I consulted my son anyway because it’s what we always do-- I find it contributes to mother/son bonding.
“Honey, Honey? Look at me." (Horse head toss from inside the stroller). "Yes, we’ll go very soon. But first, what do you think about these shoes for Mama?" (Shooting my leg skyward so he can get a better look) "Do you like them?” And because the boy has been trained since month five, he looked me up and down, then at the shoes and then giggling, proclaimed, “Yes.” I know there will come a time when my son will size me up, place hands on hips and announce, “Come on Mama, you know you can’t pull that off.” But that day has not yet arrived and until it does, I’m workin’ it.
On the morning of my birthday, B and I headed to Amazon park. The air had that crisp, cool early fall smell and B was content to listen to Liz Phair on the stroller speakers as he watched the bikers and joggers blow by. At the big yellow tunnel slide, the one B is much too small to ride but nevertheless tries to climb up from bottom to top, I tried to teach him the Happy Birthday song. He didn’t seem interested. I was the crazy woman singing “Happy Birthday Dear Mama” to myself while my kid hung upside down in an impressive attempt to dismantle the slide. But by three o’clock, when I was on the phone and standing on our back deck watching B sift sand into the back of his tonka dump-truck, he looked up at me when he heard me describing the evening’s festivities and said, quite clearly, “bird day.”
By 4:15, I was comfortably ensconced in a salon chair with the wonderful Jarrell running her fingers through my hair. When she asked me what look I was going for I told her to make me blonder and to style my hair “like Bridget Bardot—you know, sex hair.”
By 6:40 I was back home, sprinting down the hallway while throwing kisses to my husband and B, who were so cute and yummy smelling, splashing about in the bathtub. I had five minutes to retouch my makeup, throw on my slinky birthday dress and scooch into my new heels. I was supposed to be at the restaurant at 7:00 and a quick scan of the clock told me I’d only be ten minutes late (fashionably so I thought). Leaving my husband back at the ranch to field questions/avert crises with the new babysitter, I said my “ bye”s and “love you”s while applying Chanel glossimer and in kissing goodbye got the lipstick all over B’s left temple.
Lo and behold, people showed up. In fact, nearly twenty friends trickled in as the night progressed, the latecomers scavenging for new tables and chairs. The food and ambience were perfect and the conversation, divine. And the good people at El Vaquero had the sense to put us in the quieter back room, so we had the space to ourselves and avoided the rowdy drinkers that littered the front. Having had only a Superfood shake and antioxidant orange juice for lunch, I took it upon myself to start the ordering.
“We’ll have Camarones al Coco and then Tacos de Pescados and the seared ahi. Oh and the grilled skirt steak tacos and my hairdresser said if I ever ate here I should order the pork flautas because they’re insane,” (I don’t eat pork but I knew others would). “And I’ll start with a Richmond Gimlet, please.” My friend Pete (who is a loyal RSVPer and a trivia master much like my husband) informed me that the Richmond Gimlet, a yummy concoction of gin, lime and lots and lots of mint, originated right here in Eugene. I must say, Richmond Gimlets are not to be missed at Vaquero. The cool of the mint pairs nicely with the spicy chipotle and tomato salsas. There were so many exotic tapas to choose from, but my favorite was the decidedly lowbrow Mac ‘n Cheese with Champignones (mushrooms). Oh My God—it’s a heart attack and an orgasm simultaneously, the ultimate full body experience. The two women on either side of me were drooling and I do believe the only reason they restrained themselves with a spoonful each was because I was the Birthday Girl. Next time, Mac ‘n Cheese for all!
As for the sparkling conversation, Emily G and I talked Spain. I tried to recall, on gimlet #2, the correct order in which I visited various cities in Europe when I was studying in Salamanca. She wanted to hear my favorites (Barcelona, Munich and Florence) and we compared notes. She remembered marvelous street fairs in Spain, which I suggested might have been Carnivale, and she loved the whole Swiss “The Hills are Alive” Sound of Music tour, which is just so perfectly her. Back on the far end of the table, Wendi and her husband Robin and I talked Spain too, Sevilla specifically, and how we longed to get back. I think our predilection for talking travel has something to do with being Moms to small children and knowing the closest we’ll be getting to Italy anytime soon is the pasta aisle at Safeway. How joyous it was to be having adult conversations about adult things! And Susan, my new friend recently arrived from Sacramento, dressed up beautifully. And so did Arian, with her pretty black frock and new sophisticated short ‘do that I initially failed to notice, tsk tsk. Anne Marie, an always generous friend whom I call first in a babysitting pinch, not only watched B so I could get my hair colored earlier that day, but also attended my dinner bearing a gorgeous bouquet that now sits on my dining room table, the gerber daisies almost as big as sunflowers. There were many more friends who I’d like to toast, too many to name here, but you know who you are and thanks for showing up and enjoying fabulous urbane dining with me.
As we stepped out into the night air following our six shared desserts and my delicious spot of port, Pete pointed to my feet and said, “You’re like Dorothy in those glittery shoes. Ok, now click your heels three times.” I did it and then took a long celebratory stride that landed my kitten heel right in a sidewalk grate. I wish I could claim I looked like Marilyn Monroe in that iconic air-blowing-up-the-skirt scene from The Seven Year Itch. But I didn’t, I just looked stuck. Arian helped me yank myself out of the grate and we all moved on. What Dorothy says may be true, there really is no place like home. But I really must get out more often.
For my 33rd Birthday, I booked a table for ten at a newish place in town, El Vaquero, and hoped to lure people to come help me ring in the new year with silly yet somehow appropriate Hiron’s cocktail invites. They boasted martini and lime colored cards nestled in glass-shaped vellum paper (You must see to believe, the kitsch value was worth the money alone). . . And then virtually no one RSVP’d, save a few very well-mannered friends. Why oh why do Eugenians think they can get away with not RSVPing when the invite clearly states in big bold letters, “Please RSVP?” Emily Post would have a field day with my friends. The RSVP debacle led to a brief freak-out in which I pictured myself, my husband and the lovely couple who RSVP’d sitting in a dark corner of the restaurant, empty chairs strewn about, Birthday hats askew and all of us pretending not to notice that no one else had shown up.
On the day before my 33rd, I did what every self-respecting girl would do: I headed to Macy’s to buy purple eye shadow. Immediately following my trip to the Clarins counter (at some point I’m going to have to write a girly post about how Clarins changed my life) I experienced a drive by shoeing. B was cranky, and it was ten minutes and counting before meltdown so I did stroller wheelies in the shoe section, circumnavigated the floor with lightening speed and tossed two possible Birthday pumps at an unsuspecting Macy’s employee. Meanwhile, B moaned and tossed his head and whinnied like a horse (“Horse,” by the way, is one of B’s newest and most favored words). I chose the pair that said, unequivocally, with their cheap price tag ($22) and their strappiness and their silvery glitteriness,
“We’re your mother-fucking birthday shoes, so fun, and if anyone dares to scoff at our ridiculousness they can kindly piss off.” There was no need for a second opinion but I consulted my son anyway because it’s what we always do-- I find it contributes to mother/son bonding.
“Honey, Honey? Look at me." (Horse head toss from inside the stroller). "Yes, we’ll go very soon. But first, what do you think about these shoes for Mama?" (Shooting my leg skyward so he can get a better look) "Do you like them?” And because the boy has been trained since month five, he looked me up and down, then at the shoes and then giggling, proclaimed, “Yes.” I know there will come a time when my son will size me up, place hands on hips and announce, “Come on Mama, you know you can’t pull that off.” But that day has not yet arrived and until it does, I’m workin’ it.
On the morning of my birthday, B and I headed to Amazon park. The air had that crisp, cool early fall smell and B was content to listen to Liz Phair on the stroller speakers as he watched the bikers and joggers blow by. At the big yellow tunnel slide, the one B is much too small to ride but nevertheless tries to climb up from bottom to top, I tried to teach him the Happy Birthday song. He didn’t seem interested. I was the crazy woman singing “Happy Birthday Dear Mama” to myself while my kid hung upside down in an impressive attempt to dismantle the slide. But by three o’clock, when I was on the phone and standing on our back deck watching B sift sand into the back of his tonka dump-truck, he looked up at me when he heard me describing the evening’s festivities and said, quite clearly, “bird day.”
By 4:15, I was comfortably ensconced in a salon chair with the wonderful Jarrell running her fingers through my hair. When she asked me what look I was going for I told her to make me blonder and to style my hair “like Bridget Bardot—you know, sex hair.”
By 6:40 I was back home, sprinting down the hallway while throwing kisses to my husband and B, who were so cute and yummy smelling, splashing about in the bathtub. I had five minutes to retouch my makeup, throw on my slinky birthday dress and scooch into my new heels. I was supposed to be at the restaurant at 7:00 and a quick scan of the clock told me I’d only be ten minutes late (fashionably so I thought). Leaving my husband back at the ranch to field questions/avert crises with the new babysitter, I said my “ bye”s and “love you”s while applying Chanel glossimer and in kissing goodbye got the lipstick all over B’s left temple.
Lo and behold, people showed up. In fact, nearly twenty friends trickled in as the night progressed, the latecomers scavenging for new tables and chairs. The food and ambience were perfect and the conversation, divine. And the good people at El Vaquero had the sense to put us in the quieter back room, so we had the space to ourselves and avoided the rowdy drinkers that littered the front. Having had only a Superfood shake and antioxidant orange juice for lunch, I took it upon myself to start the ordering.
“We’ll have Camarones al Coco and then Tacos de Pescados and the seared ahi. Oh and the grilled skirt steak tacos and my hairdresser said if I ever ate here I should order the pork flautas because they’re insane,” (I don’t eat pork but I knew others would). “And I’ll start with a Richmond Gimlet, please.” My friend Pete (who is a loyal RSVPer and a trivia master much like my husband) informed me that the Richmond Gimlet, a yummy concoction of gin, lime and lots and lots of mint, originated right here in Eugene. I must say, Richmond Gimlets are not to be missed at Vaquero. The cool of the mint pairs nicely with the spicy chipotle and tomato salsas. There were so many exotic tapas to choose from, but my favorite was the decidedly lowbrow Mac ‘n Cheese with Champignones (mushrooms). Oh My God—it’s a heart attack and an orgasm simultaneously, the ultimate full body experience. The two women on either side of me were drooling and I do believe the only reason they restrained themselves with a spoonful each was because I was the Birthday Girl. Next time, Mac ‘n Cheese for all!
As for the sparkling conversation, Emily G and I talked Spain. I tried to recall, on gimlet #2, the correct order in which I visited various cities in Europe when I was studying in Salamanca. She wanted to hear my favorites (Barcelona, Munich and Florence) and we compared notes. She remembered marvelous street fairs in Spain, which I suggested might have been Carnivale, and she loved the whole Swiss “The Hills are Alive” Sound of Music tour, which is just so perfectly her. Back on the far end of the table, Wendi and her husband Robin and I talked Spain too, Sevilla specifically, and how we longed to get back. I think our predilection for talking travel has something to do with being Moms to small children and knowing the closest we’ll be getting to Italy anytime soon is the pasta aisle at Safeway. How joyous it was to be having adult conversations about adult things! And Susan, my new friend recently arrived from Sacramento, dressed up beautifully. And so did Arian, with her pretty black frock and new sophisticated short ‘do that I initially failed to notice, tsk tsk. Anne Marie, an always generous friend whom I call first in a babysitting pinch, not only watched B so I could get my hair colored earlier that day, but also attended my dinner bearing a gorgeous bouquet that now sits on my dining room table, the gerber daisies almost as big as sunflowers. There were many more friends who I’d like to toast, too many to name here, but you know who you are and thanks for showing up and enjoying fabulous urbane dining with me.
As we stepped out into the night air following our six shared desserts and my delicious spot of port, Pete pointed to my feet and said, “You’re like Dorothy in those glittery shoes. Ok, now click your heels three times.” I did it and then took a long celebratory stride that landed my kitten heel right in a sidewalk grate. I wish I could claim I looked like Marilyn Monroe in that iconic air-blowing-up-the-skirt scene from The Seven Year Itch. But I didn’t, I just looked stuck. Arian helped me yank myself out of the grate and we all moved on. What Dorothy says may be true, there really is no place like home. But I really must get out more often.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
September 13
It’s still my birthday right now, hour-wise. I was born on Thursday September 13, 1973 in the early afternoon, somewhere amidst a fun-filled year of Watergate, The Exorcist, The Godfather. Gravity’s Rainbow and the great OPEC oil embargo. My mom could have aborted me. I was among the first babies to be born in the Roe era—literally 9 months after that momentous Supreme Court ruling.
I share my September 13 birthday with some amazing luminaries. Jean Smart, the Designing Woman who played the sharp-witted First Lady to the buffoon-like President in last year’s installation of “24,” Claudette Colbert, Jacqueline Bisset, Lauren Bacall, a slew of writers (Roald Dahl included) and Milton Hershey, the genius who brought you Special Dark. But my favorite fellow birthday girl has to be the singer and miraculous poet, Fiona Apple. Fiona is crazy talented and just plain crazy. I remember the 1997 MTV music awards when she, this tiny wisp of a thing, took to the stage and delivered a heartfelt speech wherein she called out the music industry moments after it gave her a great big Grammy—“This is bullshit, and you shouldn’t model your life on what you think we think is cool . . .” It was so stupid and beautiful and brave. Ms. Apple is my heroine, with her potty-mouth, bad attitude and scathing lyrics: “You fondle my trigger then you blame my gun.” “It won’t be long ‘til you’ll be lying limp in your own hands.” I truly do love her and therefore will be channeling my inner Fiona for my 33rd year. I failed to locate a mascot, totem or idol for year 32 and it will go down as the year I tiptoed around my snarling husband and worked my ass off to appease a screaming one-year-old. Otherwise, it was me dodging the cat’s claws and teeth as I opened up the back door to let her in. Oh, and I finished my thesis. I can’t believe I nearly forgot that I finished my thesis and graduated from Sarah Lawrence with an MFA in nonfiction. Ok, so something good happened in year 32. Still, it seemed the hierarchy in our home went much like this: Husband. Baby. Cat. Rabbit. Laundry. Litter Box. Mama. I was the fake smiling robot who made everyone dinner. I was one of those dead-in-the-eyes housewives from the 50’s, like Julianne Moore in The Hours or, I don’t know, a Stepford Wife with no soul.
But that was 32. This is 33. It’s a palindrome. It has to be fabulous . . .just like my fabulous party last night. I’ll write more on that later. Right now I’m off to drink a gallon of airborne to stave off this weird post-party ick I’ve got going. Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me. This year will be oh so much bet-ter. Happy Birthday to me.
It’s still my birthday right now, hour-wise. I was born on Thursday September 13, 1973 in the early afternoon, somewhere amidst a fun-filled year of Watergate, The Exorcist, The Godfather. Gravity’s Rainbow and the great OPEC oil embargo. My mom could have aborted me. I was among the first babies to be born in the Roe era—literally 9 months after that momentous Supreme Court ruling.
I share my September 13 birthday with some amazing luminaries. Jean Smart, the Designing Woman who played the sharp-witted First Lady to the buffoon-like President in last year’s installation of “24,” Claudette Colbert, Jacqueline Bisset, Lauren Bacall, a slew of writers (Roald Dahl included) and Milton Hershey, the genius who brought you Special Dark. But my favorite fellow birthday girl has to be the singer and miraculous poet, Fiona Apple. Fiona is crazy talented and just plain crazy. I remember the 1997 MTV music awards when she, this tiny wisp of a thing, took to the stage and delivered a heartfelt speech wherein she called out the music industry moments after it gave her a great big Grammy—“This is bullshit, and you shouldn’t model your life on what you think we think is cool . . .” It was so stupid and beautiful and brave. Ms. Apple is my heroine, with her potty-mouth, bad attitude and scathing lyrics: “You fondle my trigger then you blame my gun.” “It won’t be long ‘til you’ll be lying limp in your own hands.” I truly do love her and therefore will be channeling my inner Fiona for my 33rd year. I failed to locate a mascot, totem or idol for year 32 and it will go down as the year I tiptoed around my snarling husband and worked my ass off to appease a screaming one-year-old. Otherwise, it was me dodging the cat’s claws and teeth as I opened up the back door to let her in. Oh, and I finished my thesis. I can’t believe I nearly forgot that I finished my thesis and graduated from Sarah Lawrence with an MFA in nonfiction. Ok, so something good happened in year 32. Still, it seemed the hierarchy in our home went much like this: Husband. Baby. Cat. Rabbit. Laundry. Litter Box. Mama. I was the fake smiling robot who made everyone dinner. I was one of those dead-in-the-eyes housewives from the 50’s, like Julianne Moore in The Hours or, I don’t know, a Stepford Wife with no soul.
But that was 32. This is 33. It’s a palindrome. It has to be fabulous . . .just like my fabulous party last night. I’ll write more on that later. Right now I’m off to drink a gallon of airborne to stave off this weird post-party ick I’ve got going. Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me. This year will be oh so much bet-ter. Happy Birthday to me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)