25 Going On 21 And 48 Months June 25, 2008

The trouble with trying to make 100 Jello shots for your 25th birthday, you learn, isn’t the selection process of Jello flavors since - deep sigh of relief - there are plenty to secure your very grown-up theme of “rainbow” quite easily. Nor is it the task of procuring all the necessary alcohol because a little more than half a handle of Smirnoff, some Jose and Bacardi should already be on hand in any self-respecting drunkard’s liquor collection. No. When all seems smooth sailing, trouble, you learn, presents itself in the unassuming matter of space.

 
That is, leaving you unsure of where exactly to store the little fuckers while they harden to become - well - Jello.
 
Which is how I came to spend my birthday cleaning an overstuffed refrigerator and throwing away anything I wasn’t able to consume on the spot while trays of Jello shots covered every hard surface in my kitchen and living room once I realized air-conditioning my apartment to “very cold” wouldn’t cut it.
 
Luckily, I subscribe to the understanding that sacrifices must willingly be made sometimes for Jello shots. (Like, as another example, one’s commitment to remembering things the next morning.) So I happily ate slices of cheese and drank gallons of orange juice and wondered why I hadn’t used cleaning out the fridge as an excuse more often to stuff my gullet.  
 
The sight was glorious after five hours. Rows and rows of shiny red, orange, yellow, and green three-quarter filled Dixie cups of boozed-up Jello ready for consumption as far deep as my refrigerator went. Bliss was mine.

Multiple this by five. Rows.

Until I realized my next unforeseen debacle - securing a way to safely transport 100 Jello shots to a bar blocks away from my apartment, where everyone had been instructed to meet promptly by nine to scarf down some margaritas while awaiting the trolley that would take us all over the city.
 
A feat made even more difficult by the fact that water guns filled with tequila,

 
leis and streamers,

 
pointy birthday hats decorated with the faces of Ernie and Big Bird,

 
and multiple coolers filled with beer, more hard alcohol, and Sparks also had to be towed along.
 
This is about when I began to wonder why the hell we didn’t just tell everyone to meet us at our apartment and have the trolley pick us up from there.
 
(In case questions of my maturity level are now being raised, my boyfriend and I had thought to purchase a case of water bottles after clearing Target’s children section of all its birthday accessories because you come to learn a thing or two when it comes to boozing by the time you’re this old. But once we realized we were only two people with four hands - two of which were mine (read: useless) - it was clear that some things would have to be left behind. And so went the bottles of water. And not, say, the pointy birthday hats because God knows we absolutely needed those. Yes. I hope this clears up a thing or two about my maturity level.)
  
Thanks to one very large metal cookie sheet, yards and yards of tin foil and a boyfriend who was willing to carry everything else, we - as in, my jello shots and I – were able to make it to The Blue Agave safely. All the more impressive, really, when you factor in my 5 inch heels, short little dress, and the overwhelming weight I had to carry on my shoulders knowing that I am now closer to the age of 50 than I am to the day I was born and a thank you to co-worker Michael for that little tidbit needs to be said for that.
 
But where was I. Oh, right. The dress.
 

A big fucking thank you to everyone for taking the time to input in my last post. It was pretty great to see how you all voted. Each one, I think, got its fair share of supporters - although the heavy favorites appeared to be 1, 4, and 7. I can’t say who was right, but I can say you all have excellent taste.
 
Unfortunately, when push came to shoving myself into a tight little party dress and why hadn’t I thought to find somewhere other than my stomach for all the food that couldn’t fit into the fridge, I ended up having to wear a party frock that was not one of the seven I begged you to dress me in while I stood around, hopeless and naked, until you did.
 
But! See!
 
Dress #1 - the one I affectionately referred to as my prom queen on acid - was only available in sizes 0 or 12. I think this was God’s way of teaching me a little thing about my love for extremes.
 
Dress #2 would have totally passed muster. Had I been in the mood to look like a naughty nurse for my birthday. In hindsight, I wonder why I wasn’t.
 
Dresses #3, #4, #6, #7 all could not be delivered in time. Shame on me for lusting after obscure designers.
 
And Dress #5 was a little too sexy and elegant for a night I just wanted to look silly and over the top.
 
With time running out, patience wearing thin, and every other customer at Bloomingdale’s getting on my last fucking nerve - I’m looking at you, mom and daughter pair who could not get over how FAT, OH MY GOD, we look in EVERYTHING - I ended up buying this Nicole Miller trainwreck confection:
 

 
(Ed. note: While this very much looks like the picture I would have taken had I known how difficult it would be to find this fucking dress online once I came into work today, I found this picture on the Internet. So I should probably give credit to whomever I ripped it off from. But that would mean having to admit that I found this on a site focused on things like high school prom dress fashion and Kelly Pickler.)
 
It ended up matching the tiara my friend Damien brought for me perfectly. And God bless friends who bring you tiaras on your birthday.

 
No prom queen on acid. But tragic 80s prom queen, maybe.
 
Even though no fault was mine that not one of the seven dresses ended up working out because, let’s face it, nothing is your fault when its your birthday, I do hate that I can’t report back the winning dress since y’all were wonderful sports for humoring my last (shameless) post. So as a peace offering, I will end this post with one of my favorite pictures from the night. Sans blacked out face and all.
 

[Picture redacted due to this blogette coming to her senses.]

OverdrunkBirthday Girl Gripping Trolley Railing To Prevent Death Via Open Windows, 2008

 
For the record though, I was leaning towards Dress #1 or #7.

If You Live In Chicago May 29, 2008

Or a nearby city, county, state, whatever, and you enjoy tequila and champagne.

Or whiskey. Or scotch or gin or whatever you consider your poison.

Hell, if you think you may enjoy sitting around and laughing at a crazy Asian chick that has a tendency of inadvertently bouncing her tits around when she’s excited because she tends to break out in exuberant dance when she’s this excited. Bouncy, exuberant, ready to praise HALLELUJAH TO THE HEAVENS and easy to laugh at as an observer kind of dance.

Come be my drinking buddy tonight.

I have just received the kind of good news that could compel me to go find and kiss the one-legged homeless guy that chose me - imagine, little old me! - to fixate his eyes while openly jacking off this morning during what I had incorrectly assumed would be just another boring office commute.

If only to thank him for convincing the gods that Yes, okay, this time, for this particular episode of her enduring some fucked up shit, we will give her something nice in return.

Since the official news will not be released until 2 p.m. Central Standard Time later today, I can’t go into details yet.

But, holy fuck, I am giddy.

Seriously. Drinks are on me tonight.

And yes. We can all understand that to mean body shots.

In My Fridge March 7, 2008

Is a chilled bottle of champagne sharing a shelf with 24 cans of Miller Lite and some retired milk.

It came “highly recommended”. Like almost every bottle of wine always seems to.

This champagne? It’s made with the same grapes used to produce Cristal, the wine guy at Pastoral sluiced. A French producer who only releases limited batches from this particular vineyard. A must try. It accompanies everything from goat cheese to fried chicken!

The shit about Cristal? Could mean less to me. I’m sure it’ll impress most. But the bit concerning fried chicken? Is what sold me.

Because Hi. I’m Damsel, and I’m a Fried Chickenoholic.

(You: Hi, Damsel.)

We bought the bottle last week. And we remembered to pick up the KFC before we got home. But then we passed out asleep after we attacked the bucket.

So now this bottle of bubbles has been sitting in the fridge - intact - for far too long. As have its shelfmates.

(Not that I’m too concerned about the milk.)

That busy my short term life has been.

But all that changes this weekend. The instant I escape this office and arrive home.

I’m fucking ready to play.

Mikeslist February 1, 2008

The internet can be a pretty scary place for unassuming idiots like myself.

See, I’m the chick who visited The Lemon Party at work when my friend Kevin sent its link to my work email account with the message: I know you love lemonade. As a result, I expect to be fired any day now should a thorough review of my Internet History ever be conducted.

The same chick who unassumingly attempted to complete an online maze in the company of friends, at their request, only to wind up screaming and collapsing into a bookcase while running away from the computer with closed eyes.

It’s a miracle I haven’t been tricked into accidentally playing 2 Girls 1 Cup while presenting a power point presentation during a company meeting.

I’m a good sport, though, and I’m able to laugh at myself. (It’s only fair, really, in light of all the laughing I do at others.) I get that shock sites and online pranks are meant to be inappropriate. It’s what makes them so successful at achieving their intended goals on unassuming idiots like myself.

Maybe that’s why Craigslist makes me more wary than any other website on the internet. It covers too much ground and contains too many layers to it that allow for sick fucks to play nutjob on people like me who aren’t visiting the site to find someone to donkey punch them but simply hopes to uncover a gem of a bookcase or roommate.

That being said, Craigslist can kick ass for many reasons.

It’s a fucking Golconda for unintentional comedy. My friend Sia and I used to hungrily peruse the Rants and Raves section when we lived together a few years ago, competing to see who could find the funnier rant or rave. I still remember one rage-filled Rant a woman posted detailing her hatred for Sketchers’ high-heeled sneaker. It had me laughing for hours.

Many people seem to love checking Missed Connections but not me. I guess my brain has a much easier time accepting some woman’s hatred of a dated shoe brand than two possible soulmates never having met because some guy didn’t have the balls to approach the Tall Brunette confidently sipping her Starbucks on the corner of Belmont and Broadway but did have enough time to weepily post about it on a website.

It’s also the perfect haven to buy and sell things for people who are too lazy for Ebay and countdowns and bids and Pay Pal and waiting for mail shipments. I fall particularly in love with Craigslist when it’s time for me to move out of yet another apartment, more willing to sell all my shit then to move it. Sure, I won’t have basic furniture once I get to my new place, but as long as I have my laptop and some unlocked wireless internet I can steal, I can access Craigslist and buy whatever I may need - preferably from a person who delivers.

The personals section I leave alone. Women Seeking Men, Men Seeking Men, and Perverts Seeking Other Perverts? I’m in a happily committed relationship. Even if I weren’t, I’m not in any particular hurry to end up dead, cut up, and fed to the bottom feeders in Lake Michigan after the guy gets bored fucking my dead corpse.

Let not my avoidance be confused as judgment however. I simply want people to follow the directives - Selling shit? Click Here; Selling yourself? Click Over There - and not try to make the entire site their personal dating website.

Which, inevitably, happens. Hence, my wariness.

See, as a chick, you have to make sure you navigate Craigslist properly. I’m not the type to follow or remember rules very well, but I have some when it comes to Craigslist. I may be carelessly crazy, but I also succumb to fits of paranoia due to a pair of parents who covered the inside of our front door with news articles about girls who had been raped, kidnapped or murdered while I was growing up.

It’s only one rule, actually: Never go buy something by myself and never sure as hell wait for someone to come buy something from me by myself. It doesn’t matter if the person in question tells me she’s a 75 year old grandmother who gets around on a wheelchair - when it comes to Craigslist, I stand by the credo that there lies safety in numbers because too many people seem to think that buying and selling shit from or to a stranger is a good time to make a love connection.

There were the series of guys who asked me if I wanted to check out their beds as I checked out their apartments the summer after graduation when I had one weekto find a place in Chicago before the lease of my college apartment ended. The college student who took my old iPod off my hands last year and asked if I still had the warranty in the same breath he asked if I’d like to make beautiful music together. And a blonde lipstick lesbian a few months ago who asked me if I’d like to ever go to The Closet with her sometime once she was done hauling my old TV down to her car.

Knowing that these people have some very personal information of mine, I always try to turn them down in the kindest manner possible. No matter how hot she was, I’d prefer to not see that lipstick lesbian waiting for me in front of my apartment with a knife the next time I arrived home just because I was rude. And a polite no is normally enough to get these people to leave me alone.

But then I met Mike - or, as I knew him, the guy who wanted to pay a shit load of cash for the Sony video camera my uncle and aunt had given me as a college graduation gift.

It was the fall after I had graduated from college. My parents weren’t acknowledging my existence at the time due to the top law school you just give up - you think top law school just going to wait for you? they top school! people beg to get in and you not go? only idiot defer! a few months earlier and I was determinedly cash poor. I had only just begun my new job and there had been a lot of recent expenses - new apartment, security deposit plus first and last months’ rent, food, cheap handles of alcohol, and the sort. Sia wasn’t able to pay for her share of the apartment yet, and even though the place wasn’t anything special, it wasn’t anything cheap either.

I loved the video camera - if only so my friends and I could film our drunken reenactments of scenes from DeGrassi or Instant Star after getting home from a late night out (Ed. note: I bow at the altar of The N). I tend to really fucking appreciate every gift I receive - the type who has trouble accepting compliments or presents but feels far more moved than I can express. The thought does count with me and I like to hold on to every present I receive and really cherish it.

But it was either the camera or turning tricks in terms of an immediate cash source, so the camera it was.

I posted it for $700 - following the strategy that you post something for the most ridiculously high price you think you can get away with - and waited to see who’d bite.

Mike emailed me immediately.

Subject line: I NEED THAT CAMERA
 
Content:
before my daughter gets any older!!
I am ready when you are.

It managed to scare the shit out of me.

The all-caps subject line I could handle. But the reference to his daughter seemed a cheap ploy. And the “I’m ready when you are” made me sense a maniac or some kind of spammer. Understanding that Craigslist can be a lot like searching those bins at Victoria Secret during their semi-annual sales, I decided I’d only get back to him if he ended up being the one bra left in my size.

Underestimating the market for overpriced, used video cameras in the Chicagoland area, I received far more emails than I had expected. But Mike continued to be the most persistent.

Subject line: Re: I NEED THAT CAMERA
 
Content:
I have class tonight in the loop until 8:45pm

I would really like to do this asap. to not miss another day of my daughter and esp so you dont sell it to someone else!
Is there a way to arrange to do this tonight?
You can call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Another unnecessary reference to his daughter. His love for her seemed sweet but also borderline fanatic. The only justification I could see for needing to film his daughter that badly was he had either kidnapped her from his estranged wife or he was going away to prison. Possibly for luring a girl on Craigslist, chopping her up, and throwing her parts into Lake Michigan after getting bored with fucking her dead body?

After five more emails, I finally wrote him back and let him know that we could meet the following day after I left my office. Sia promised she’d meet me after work to accompany me. Mike and I chose a public place and I was able to wrangle an extra $100 from him when he learned other people were also interested. I felt fairly comfortable and besides, I was in no position to turn down $800 cash, even if I did sense that he may be slightly crazy.

He turned out to be a perfectly normal guy. 20-something, not bad-looking and polite. I sensed that he had made up having a daughter. He took the camera. I got the cash. We said our goodbyes and I never thought about him again.

Until two days later when I received another email from him.

Subject line: Thanks!
 
Content:
First and foremost I wanted to say thanks for hooking me up. I am quite happy with my new camera. I am already doing all sorts of stuff with it. I can’t thank you enough. Sorry about the way I had to run off but I was really pressed for time.

Also, I cant help but to comment on your striking beauty. A combination of that and what seems to be a fun personality has me compelled to ask you if you would be interested in hanging out sometime? I know I am really busy but maybe we can catch a movie, grab some food. I don’t know if its your sort of thing but I really like to check out museums and such. I couldn’t help but notice your [redacted] area code, maybe I can show you around a little bit.

Let me know what you think.

- Mike

This time, my immediate reaction was laughter.

Blame my overbearing tendency to self-deprecate, but ’striking beauty’ is just fucking hilarious shit. Angelina Jolie evinces a striking beauty. As do Natalie Portman, Aishwarya Rai, and Charlize Theron. This blog is anonymous but newsflash: I’m not any of these ladies.

Maybe because my father was always too busy beating up on my personality and my brain while I was growing up, but I wasn’t really a girl that had enough energy to focus on body image issues as well. Other than a couple kids who made fun of me in elementary school for my squinty eyes and yellow skin, I escaped childhood and college blissfully not overanalyzing my looks or how they compared with others. I guess my mentality was always: This is what I look like. Whatever.

In other words, poor Mike had gone barking up the wrong striking beauty’s tree. I forwarded his email to some friends, and plenty of jokes were made for the rest of that day and weeks afterwards about my striking beauty. Shit like: ”[Damsel], Would your striking beauty and you like to run over to Taco Burrito Palace #2 for some strikingly delicious Mexican food?” 

My friends also cracked quips about what sorts of things Mike might already be doing with the camera and what exactly he might want to show me, but I told them my striking beauty didn’t want to hear any of it.

I debated writing Mike back to let him down gently -  he had, after all, seemed like a pretty sweet guy. But feeling a bit wary, I settled on ignoring his email and hoped that he took the hint.

Which he did. There were never any follow-up emails and I again successfully never thought about him again.

Until today. Yes, today. Two and a half whole fucking years later.

I arrived at work, opened my Gmail and saw a Facebook friend request from this same Mike with a message.

“Remember me?”

The name instantly hit me as familiar. Somehow, even after years of rampant alcohol intake, my brain has maintained its near perfect visual memory capabilities. And thanks to Gmail’s slightly intimidating Search capabilities, I confirmed my suspicions when I entered his name, pressed Search, and the old emails from the fall of 2005 appeared.

My office blocked Facebook last summer so it’s impossible for me to check his friend request right now and peruse his profile briefly to see if he’s still in the Chicago area before I refuse it. Because - at this point - I’m not finding his shit so funny anymore.

Maybe it’s time for me to check out Craigslist and see what they have available in terms of bodyguards or thugs who can help a girl get the hint across to a guy that his attention is no longer acceptable. 

If any site selled that shit, it’d be Craigslist, right?

We Slept With Enchiladas January 22, 2008

I would be lying if I told you I didn’t fall asleep very early Sunday morning with a Chicken McNugget in my hand and barbeque sauce covering the corners of my mouth.

I want to place all blame on Streeters, a Chicago beer pong bar that remains open until 4:00 in the morning. Or its nearby neighbor, 24-Hour McDonald’s. But really, it’s my fantastic skills at the game of beer pong and my complete inability to say no to just one more game.

Heavy wears the crown, I know.

It’s just that so little in life is more satisfying than beating a pair of ex-frat boys wearing matching black button downs (Ed. note: A seemingly new douchebag direction from the popular and overplayed striped button down?) who like to shoot pussy-weak bounce shots to try to get ‘er done and move their hands around a lot in a “What’s up NOW, biatch?” fashion.

And I have an addictive personality. I like to surround myself with things that make me feel good.

I miraculously awoke Sunday morning not nearly as hungover as my body was due. (Ed. note: Falling asleep with nuggets in my hands and barbeque sauce covering my mouth were probably not unrelated reasons for this.)

My boyfriend and I talked about all the various things we’d like to get done that day. Him: Work. Phone calls. Reading. Me: Shower. Laundry. Regaining semblance to a functional human being.

But instead? We stayed in bed all day.

All flippin’ day.

Him, playing online poker. And occasionally asking me what he should do with a certain hand. And me responding that it’s fake money so he should just GO ALL IN GO ALL IN I’M SERIOUS JUST GO ALL IN DON’T LET PAPASAN1221 WIN THIS POT. And him clicking on “Fold.”

Me, reading the Economist’s coverage on American politics and the primaries. And googling Mitt Romney and the word “squillionaire”. And wondering how I can ever become a squillionaire myself if my father was not the governor of Michigan and I am not at all capable of financial transactions and know-how.

And occasionally purring.

And asking my boyfriend to rub my tummy.

(I’m kidding. Maybe.)

We napped. We sexed. We discussed social issues (Me: What do you think a squillionaire is? Him: Not sure. Why don’t you look it up? Me: Do you think it’s a made up word for … beyond millionaire? Him: No. That’s called a billionaire.) We napped again.

And with a large baking pan of homemade enchiladas and a jar of the best hot salsa in this world, Mrs. Renfro’s Habanero Salsa (Ed. note: Like the world’s best ice cream and the world’s best potato chips, this is actually not up for argument) in our bed with us, we had sustenance and we had each other.

It was a day my body, my mind, my soul sorely needed.

Six continuous days of no sleep? I certainly hope the door hit you on your way out.

The ever-growing hamper of dirty laundry and ever-more-necessary functional adult behavior will just have to wait another day.
  
 

Sleepless In Chicago January 18, 2008

Sally Fields hawks a drug named Boniva to me in between CNN’s news stories of a fiery bus crash in Nevada that left 25 injured but none dead.

Oh the fucking high life of an insomniac.

A faint beeping sound is audible whenever the song that plays on repeat on my laptop briefly pauses, its end met but its start yet to begin again. The be-be-be-beeps are barely audible but abundantly annoying. My damn neighbor has gone out of town again and forgotten to shut off his alarm clock.

What irony.

Alarm be-be-be-beeps on loop. Song on loop. Commercial breaks on loop.

Insomnia on loop.

I’ve slept very little in the past two weeks. Any slumber for my body has been fitful. Or drunk-induced, which isn’t sleep at all but an opportunity for my body to demand a temporary break from its hand that likes to steer vehicles of alcoholic beverage to its mouth.

These have been a series of days that have seen me drinking more than usual.

Even now, at 5:34 a.m., I sip on liquid comfort.

You’re starting to think that homegirl here may have a problem.

To you, I ask: What took you so long?

I sit on our Room & Board couch and stare ahead at the CNN Morning Express that plays on the Sony Bravia 52″ LCD Flat Screen. It reminds me of when my father would sit me in front of CNN for 30 minutes everyday before elementary school. I would always conclude that 30 minutes was excessive, the news stories eventually repeating themselves before that time period ended.

I notice the same thing this morning.

I’m my own Son of Man painting, the apple a drink instead. An outward appearance of modernity and well-to-do but the scene interrupted by what is in my hand: a red plastic cup containing a homemade screwdriver. It’s really Grey Goose with a side of orange juice, only a dash of the cup filled with the non-alcoholic. But I still like to think it’s not entirely unhealthy.

“Head under water and you tell me to breathe easy for a while …,” the laptop tunefully sings. 

I nod because that sounds just about right.

How wonderful life could be if a steam of music always played in the background. Like Ally McBeal strutting down the sidewalks hearing music inside her head at Tracy Ullman’s urgency. No matter how sad I am, music uplifts me. It acts as a tangible expression for something very intangible.

I decide it’s time to switch to Ben Harper.

Burn One Down; Another Lonely Day; Forever.

Music is my senses. A VH1-friendly girl power song isn’t entirely representative of me right now.

There’s an arresting reason for why I haven’t been able to sleep much lately.

The person with whom I share my bed is struggling right now. I won’t go into details - the reason he’s hurting isn’t my story to publicize. But every time - every single time - I look over at him asleep, I want to cover him with my kisses. I want to wrap my arms and hold him tight and whisper over and over that everything will be okay. I want him to feel the strength of what I feel for him. I want him to know he’s not alone. That I - me of all fucking people - have enough happiness and optimism and hope for us to share.

He has that effect on me.

Sleep can be a reprieve, though. I know this. Oh how I know this. A vacation from the energy of being alive.

So I let him sleep, undisturbed.

And I sit on our Room & Board couch and stare ahead at the CNN Morning Express that plays on the Sony Bravia 52″ LCD Flat Screen. 

Bobby Fischer is dead, the TV announces. My face scrunches trying to remember more than just the cover of the Searching for Bobby Fischer VHS that my parents probably still own among their movie collection. Another memory that involves my father, a chess genius who had hoped to get my sisters and I interested in the game.

I hear the sheets and comforter crinkle as my boyfriend tosses and turns.

It’s impossible for me to lie in bed next to him as he sleeps when I’m unable to. I’ve never been very good with forced bed times, even as a young girl. The quiet and the dark and the ceiling begin to press down on me and the weight is unbearable. I like to fall asleep accidentally. The process of getting into bed at a certain time and lying there until sleep eventually happens is not my style. It seems less than peaceful that way. It requires some kind of patience I don’t have.

It’s impossible, too, because my boyfriend is the most beautiful sleeper I have ever seen (Ed. note: Gag away, but if a misfit like me can acknowledge this, then it’s hardly a sentiment of mush but just a simple observation. Aight?). He looks like an adult-sized Precious Moments Doll that I want to pet. I know it’s only a matter of time before I cave and become that girl who watches her boyfriend sleep for pronounced periods of time. And coos.

Plus, it’s impossible, three, because I have Restless Leg Syndrome.

Forced stillness may as well come delivered with a machete because that is what I will need to amputate my batshit crazy legs off my torso if constrained to stay still for too long (Ed. note: When did my life become a Grey’s Anatomy episode?).

So I choose the couch and the distractions of modernity.

I’m a night owl. Unlike my freshman year horror of a roommate who had claimed to be a night owl on her dorm housing matching sheet then got paired with me - a true night owl - and gave me shit every single night for not being asleep by 10:00 p.m. like her. I like being awake late into the night. Some friends even nicknamed me Hoots in college, a shortened version of Hooters. The result of 1. My hooters. 2. I’m a Hoot! 3. My night-owlness. 4. Friends who thought they were extremely clever. 

But insomnia is a different story.

It’s a result of too much on my mind. It happens when I need life to pause for a moment. If I don’t sleep, it means no palpable passage from old day to new day. It means I’ve stopped time. It becomes easier to stay awake and watch TV and listen to music and browse the internet and hope that three different distractions can be enough to fully use up my mind.

And hope that will be enough to distract my heart.

I pain doubly when he hurts. Pain 1 because this person who legitimately only deserves to feel happiness is sad. Pain 2 because I feel helpless. Not helpless in a frustrated, burdened sort of way. But in an ”I Wish I Were the Puppet Master Of This World” kind of way, wanting with all of my energy a power to create changes that I know are out of my hands.

He knows this and feels guilt. It only makes me want to say Hush and wrap him with even more of my heart’s muscle. To let him know it’s okay to just be. To never worry how he’s around me. To know that I know I’ve leaned on him so many - too many - times during our relationship and I’m more than ready and capable to do that for him. To know that he’s the most selfless person I’ve ever met and I need him to be selfish right now. That both of us need him to take care of him right now.

And that he needs to know it’s okay if that means he sleeps with as much peace possible.

While I stay awake, sleepless in Chicago.

Waiting for daylight.

When all is bright and life feels lighter just strutting down sidewalks to the beat of the music playing in my head.

Almost Famous December 18, 2007

He asked if I preferred blondes or brunettes.
  
Sprawled on a red couch ill-fittingly crammed into a dark corner of an otherwise bright room, his question hung unattended a little too long in the air.
 
I attempted a smirk. ”I guess I like guys who are tall, dark, and handsome.” 
 
I immediately regretted uttering something so bromidic to a musician whose lyrics I worshipped.
  
“Well, I’m flattered,” he chuckled. “But I’m not curious about your preference in guys.”
  
Crush crushed? Check.
 
Growing up, there were always the girls who chose the objects of their affection easily, first the boy crawling into the cheese castle on Monday; by Friday, the boy hanging upside down from the monkey bars. These girls are now the ones who saturate my Facebook Mini-Feed with stories of their engagements to a boy I just met two and a half months ago! True love at its finest, I’m sure.
 
Even at an early age, I was careful with my heart and I was picky as hell. The only boy who’d do as my boyfriend was Mark-Paul Gosselaar. And should he be too busy with Kelly Kapowski, I had Kirk Cameron in mind as a back-up. I didn’t think it was too far-fetched. I always got either one or the other as my husband when playing MASH. (Ed. note: MASH! for! adults?)
 
Then, in fifth grade, I met a boy named Mark. And he was tan and blond and blue-eyed and seemed like the closest Zach Morris substitute an elementary school could offer. So I agreed to be his girlfriend. We dated for three weeks and I dumped him after our first kiss because his upper lip had tasted salty from sweat. To his defense, he had just finished playing kickball during recess.
 
A brief escapade with a boy named Eric in the eighth grade was my next venture into dating. His many notes signed “I love you” scared me, and after I missed attending all of his baseball games during the summer before high school, he dumped me and I knew I was through with liking or dating just anybody. (Sidenote: Eric eventually grew up to be a phenomenal baseball player recruited to play at a Big Ten university. I like to think I played a part in that by not attending any of his games that summer before high school and really allowing him to focus on his sport.) 
 
The only thing someone has ever truly needed to capture my attention is to be interesting. But interesting is a hard quality for most guys to pin down when the girl who is to fill the role of interested defines it more by a gut recognition than anything rational or tangible in words. 
 
Most of my high school years were spent lusting after a boy named Ben. Tall and lean, a soccer player and a musician, I was content to keep him at crush’s length. But a small high school is not a place for secrets, and he - along with my friends & his friends; my classmates & his classmates; and every teacher in the school - soon learned. And one day, after forcing my friends to circle the high school’s hallways near the upperclassmen lockers like the old men you’ll see around 20somethings in the Viagra Triangle, he beckoned me over to his locker. And smiled. And began talking to me.
 
But I never let it go further than talking and flirting.  
 
I can’t remember why anymore. Maybe it was the result of years spent unconsciously learning the disappointment of expectations not met, a soul permanently rifted by its innate optimism that always pushed its owner, me, to believe that things would be better with my dad the next time and always waiting for that next time to be this time. I liked the hope that I felt when I was around Ben. The excitement of possibilities. The belief of a happily ever after. But I was also too chicken shit to actually let anything happen to get there.
  
He - the famous musician - should have seen I was too puerile to be answering whether I preferred chicks who are blonde or brunette; too naïve and far too young. Trying too hard to wear a clothe of sophistication and worldliness disguised with stilettos too high and makeup too thick that I had not yet earned. I loved this musician; I thought I knew this musician. Yes, I was that girl. I had spent nights during my senior year of high school falling asleep and falling in love to his voice and his words, almost shocked to learn months afterwards when finally looking at a picture of him that he was young and tall and achingly cute in that musician type of way after only knowing his voice.
 
And now I was in his presence and the question of whether I preferred blondes or brunettes still hung in the air.
 
It felt all wrong.
 
I ran away that night, heart disturbed, another life lesson learned. I left a little more cynical and a little more skeptical. Another shove closer from idealistic small town girl to whatever it is I’ve become.
 
Today, he’s all over the tabloids most of the time. He’s Just Like Us! and dates models, actresses and pop stars.
 
Today, I know more. I could answer brunettes and understand what I might get myself into.
 
Even though this night happened only a handful of years ago, it’s almost always someone else who has to remind me of it. And not too long ago, my friends and I, bored at our respective jobs, challenged each other to search our alma mater’s newspaper’s online archives and publicize the most humiliating results on Gchat. Many amusing, embarrassing, nostalgic references were found to our past, but a letter written to the editor by Freshman Year Me won the battle for most mortifying. A letter in which I defended the music of this musician, a letter that I had not intended to be publicized at all but a personal email that had been sent to the article’s author in a wave of personal conviction to persuade him to change his mind. A letter that wound up published.
 
I don’t embarrass easily, but this time capsule in letter form encouraged cringe. The pure honesty and unabashed passion; the lack of sarcasm or ironic belittlement; the lines of over-enthused love. It felt like a smack to the face.
 
It is, also, a bittersweet reminder. Of the girl I was and the things I miss about that girl. A girl, who in the presence of a musician she loved and idolized, was able to walk away from a situation that made her feel uncomfortable and demeaned. I can’t say I would have done the same were I in that situation even a year ago.
 
So the letter makes me laugh and blush all kinds of red. It fills me with embarrassment and it makes me flinch. But it reminds me of who I was and who I can still be. My friends joke that one day, when I pass, my tombstone will read “Here lies the girl who thought listening to [redacted]’s music was [insert favorite line from the letter].” But maybe, I can be the girl who lies there, the one who walked away when asked whether she preferred chicks who are blonde or brunette, by a douschbag musician who ate his fame all too happily, and kept a little part of her integrity in tact that night.
 
The girl who only sometimes wondered what it would have been like to say she slept with a famous musician.

The Company Of Unlimited Sangria December 14, 2007

There will be a party tonight featuring plenty of tapas and unlimited sangria to the background of forced laughter, awkward conversation and silent urges pulsing in my fingertips to pull any fire alarms I see to end the occasion early.
 
Even in the company of unlimited sangria.
  
Drinking - heavy and plentiful drinking - was a thing my 18 years of locked up angst adapted to quickly and efficiently once I arrived at college. The stream of long nights blurred with dancing and seducing, phone number exchanges and searches for misplaced cell phones, 24-hour Burger King runs and 10:00 a.m. discussion sections for my Modern Germany class dressed in my outfit from the night before provided distractions of allure and a rush of constant movement that never faded for me.
 
Graduation from college didn’t change the quantities consumed, only the settings. Rather than plastic red cups of keg beer at Phi Delt’s off-campus apartment, it was now a bottle of red in my apartment while sitting on my couch and secretly crushing on Santino. Walks of shame past Hillel and the engineering buildings turned into 6:30 a.m. cab rides and a quick stop at McDonald’s for hash browns before arriving at the office. A break-up with a college boyfriend just days after graduation only pushed me to move harder, move faster during those months as a newly inducted player of the real world. I just needed to move.
 
Then came the news of the upcoming office holiday party. My first. I considered my options - newly guaranteed employment, top-shelf open bar, and my own personal patterns of non-stop double-fisting even around unlimited alcohol - and became nervous. Moderation and I have never been words synonymous. 
 
Tales regaled by a roommate of her co-worker who arrived at work the day after theirs only to be handed a box of his things by security and a message that he had been terminated for his gin & tonic-influenced words and wandering hands only frightened me further. Instant sympathetic recognition and thoughts of Fuck! Could that be me?? as responses to this story made me understand that extreme measures had to be taken to prevent me from being this man when my own office party happened in a few days.
 
So, on the night before this office holiday party two years ago from present, I called my friend Brendan to inform him that the goal for the night would be to get me so drunk that the mere sight of alcohol would discourage me from consumption the next evening among my coworkers. A goal that began as a joke and very, very quickly became reality. Sake martinis at Japonais, liters of wine at the (then) newly-opened Quartino, gimlets - gimlets! - with the escargot and cheeseburgers at late-night spot Bijan’s Bistro, and I was tanked. And to encourage matters, my now boyfriend who was only a boy I had just met a few weeks earlier when Brendan had dragged me to his apartment party had joined us by this point. Who welcomed the challenge to get me so drunk that the mere sight of alcohol would discourage me from consumption the next evening among my coworkers. Which soon led to wild giggling over the waitress’ indignation at our order of “ESSS-CAR-GITS” and drunken French blabbing of how our serveuse de coquetels needed a sens de l’humour and forced Brendan to find us too caustic to humor any longer and leave.
 
Leave us - me and this boy who caused butterflies and sparks but a boy I had just met a few weeks earlier - to end up in his bed. Leave me to slur that my mouth was too dry for kissing and leave him to run to the kitchen to bring me a 24-ounce glass mug of water that I could barely lift to my mouth. Leave us to have sex for the first time. And leave me to text my coworker at 4:30 in the morning something involving many misspellings, exclamation points and pleas to bring me suitable work attire the next morning for me to wear.
 
She found me cowering behind a pillar in the lobby of our office building the next morning and burst into laughter at the sight of me, hungover and hair messily pulled into a ponytail held by a miniature red and white scarf that I had stolen from the snowman soap dispenser I had found in his bathroom (Ed. note: I learned many months later that the snowman soap dispenser had been sent in a care package from his mother). She threw into my hands a Bloomingdale’s Medium Brown Bag stuffed with clothing and told me that I had better replace my jeans right away. Because our office? Is a very professional setting where I may be able to pass off a hungover face and a messy ponytail held in place by a miniature scarf stolen from a snowman soap dispenser but jeans? Jeans were completely unacceptable.
 
I scoured through the shopping bag and considered my options. Faced with the decision between a pair of brown pants that ended right above my ankles and a black skirt that ended right above my knees - a pair of pants that ended below the ankles and a skirt that ended below the knees of my co-worker who at 5′2″ is 5 inches shorter than me - I erred on the side of slutiness rather than unfashionable, and chose the skirt.
 
And for the rest of the day, I sat in an unlit office with my head unable to move beyond a 45 degree angle from my neck. I grimaced at comments of my festive appearance. And silently cried on the inside when 65-year-old Susie asked me where she could get hairties that looked like little scarves for her granddaughters.
 
But I made it to the office holiday party that evening that began at 6:00 p.m. And while coworkers ordered glasses of white and sipped on scotch, I drank my water and averted my eyes away from the bar. And when the younger attorneys and staff decided to move the party to Suite Lounge on Wells and told me I was not allowed to go home that early, I went along. And shot the Lemon Drops. And drank the Carrot Cake Martinis. And sipped the Chambord + Sparkling Waters. And realized that my body had become so accustomed to alcohol running through it’s internals that it no longer presented any discernible effect. My coworkers talked brutal about other coworkers, danced on table tops, screamed profanities at cab drivers, and I watched bewildered, shocked that I had felt worried about my possible behavior.
 
It prepared me. And reinforced the life lesson that one should always get drunk when the opportunity is available. So when the night before last year’s office holiday party came, I spent it indoors, away from Sake Martinis and Gimlets, and went to bed early, like an athlete preparing for his big game the next day. But the party was no festive occasion because an older attorney at our firm, the father of the managing partner, had passed away the night before. And while the party was still held, it was no time to chug down the endless drinks I had prepared my body for. Naturally.
 
One more year has passed from that day and the night of another holiday party is now upon me. And yesterday evening - the night before tonight’s holiday party - I went to dinner with the same boy I spent the night before my office holiday party two years ago, the boy who is now (finally!) my boyfriend. We enjoyed their delicious focaccia with taleggio cheese, truffle oil (Ed. note: I would bathe in truffle oil for the rest of my life if I could somehow afford this to happen) and herbs to start. The New Zealand snapper with shaved fennel, pomegranate, celery leaves and coriander followed soon after and was consumed in minutes, prepared to perfection. The meal also saw a bottle of Portugeuse Bruto Rosado. We made jokes that the bottle was for me and we should get a glass of something for him. But by the end of the night, my boyfriend had drank more of the bottle than me. And after our bill was paid, we ran over to Sepia for a nightcap to celebrate the anniversary (Ed. note: My boyfriend and I like to celebrate atypical anniversaries. We’re kind of forced to because of the very odd way we came together. We agree to look at it as humorous). Avec had been perfect as always, and Sepia was wonderful. But my happiest moment of the night was when we ended up in the same bed we had ended up in two years ago. And instead of feeling disgustingly drunk, I felt calm, content, and giddy.
 
And of course there was sex. Sex that I could remember today.
 
So this evening poses as my third chance. Dressed in my own work attire and not a bit hungover, it’s one more opportunity to indulge my insatiable thirst for alcohol on the company dime. And perhaps it’s a product of age or feeling less like I’m desperately running from my demons and more like I’ve gained some control over a life and behavior I once thought of as uncontrollable, but it’s a thirst I’ve seen become less insatiable over the past two years.
 
However, it’s still a party with coworkers, where the setting will be of forced laughter, awkward conversation and silent urges pulsing in my fingertips to pull any fire alarms I see to end the occasion early. And because drinking oneself obscenely drunk is still not technically illegal - unlike pulling a fire alarm when there is no fire - you can damn well bet that much of that unlimited sangria will be ending up in my stomach.

Thick (Pigment-Tainted) Skinned December 6, 2007

There’s a tattoo on my left hip of a black bird set against a round yellow sun flying towards the unknown.
  
Or towards the right half of my rack depending on the limitations of your imaginary prowess. 
 
It’s been there since the day after my college graduation, when I arrived at The Tattoo Factory on Broadway and Montrose ready to have my nose pierced and ended up on a cot with a very tattooed and very pierced woman hunched over me with a motorized round-tipped needle injecting color pigments into the skin over my left hip. It was a decision made in impulsive seconds, and please don’t let people tell you otherwise, it hurt like fucking hell. To the point where the very tattooed and very pierced woman hunched over me had to ask me to stop shaking, and I had to inform her that I didn’t know I had been. I understand now why so many people get them while absolutely hammered.
  
Seeking the crazy and doing the crazy has always been an unconscious addiction of mine. Unconscious, because I don’t deliberately mean to or crave to or intend to. Some people may conclude it’s because I am crazy. But I’m not convinced it’s that simple. Probably because I’m crazy.
  
The tattoo sits on my hip because the tattoo was and is for me. I wasn’t interested in a spot of skin where I or anyone else would have to see it all the time. I considered the back of my neck, but it felt too extraterrestrial. My right shoulder blade and the underside of my left wrist also crossed my mind, but I couldn’t imagine how I’d ever be able to see it if it was on my right shoulder blade, and although I really liked the idea of my wrist, it felt too goddamn trendy. I still like the idea of the underside of the wrist though and will sometimes take a permanent marker at work and draw something there to see how I like it. It’s not something easy to explain to co-workers when they happen to catch a glimpse of whatever I drew.
   
I’m not sure how I chose my left hip in those impulsive seconds, but I’m fine with where it is.
   
I tend to forget that it’s there. When I strip off my clothes and happen to see it, the black bird set against a round yellow sun flying towards the unknown (or my right tit depending on the limitations of your imaginary prowess), I enjoy that I chose a fragment of me that isn’t always visible. Because when I do see it, it has impact. It serves a healthy dose of visual reminders.
   
Getting the tattoo played the unintended matching bookend to how I began college, when I dragged my newfound friend Jamie into the tattoo and piercing parlor right off the subway stop we had exited to do some shopping during the first week of our freshman year. The sign distracted me, and not too long after, my belly button had been needled and I had fulfilled my need to do something crazy, something symbolic. I took the ring out a few months later because it became a nuisance and there’s a scar there now that I like a lot better than I ever liked the piercing. 
   
The tattoo, on the other hand, can’t be removed so easily. Luckily, that’s not a problem. For me, who has been known to have a problem with all types of commitment, it’s freakish that the decision to mark myself permanently only took a few impulsive seconds. It felt right. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.
   
I make a lot of stupid decisions, and I don’t delude myself into thinking that I’m doing anything otherwise when I make them.
   
Like that night my friend Sia and I jumped into the shiny red Benz with that guy and his two friends three summers ago after we had escaped the awful ex-frat boys’ clutches of The Apartment in Lincoln Park. We had stood idly in front of the bar, smoking, and caught the eyes of this guy and his two friends who were walking towards their parked car. A guy that I realized only after I was in the car was the very same guy I had met three years earlier in front of my dorm back at school, he a Georgetown student visiting his friend. Who I spent the entire night with, listening to his stories about playing soccer in Monaco and growing up in Serbia and deejaying in Ibiza during his summers. A guy I was hungry to be with because, while he was sexy and exotic and interesting, my heart had just been torn apart by the end of a two year relationship and I desperately wanted a distraction that wanted me. The same guy who called many times after that night, the same calls I ignored over and over again. Yes, that very same guy. Because life likes to have a lot of fucking fun with me. A lot of people would judge this behavior as fucked up insane, and maybe it is. But I trust my gut intuition. At heart, I know right from wrong, the crazy from the fucked up insane don’t go there crazy. And my friend Sia was the same way. So we knew what we were doing that night. Even though it may have been incredibly stupid. 
 
But getting the tattoo? It was significant. Memories and emotions, even the most poignant or the most painful, have a way of lessening in intensity as time passes.
 
And I never wanted to forget how delicious that freedom felt, that awareness felt, the day after I graduated from college.
 
Because I relish freedom. The many years lived under the totalitarian hand of my father and spent shouldering crushing weights of expectations contribute. But, ultimately, my lust for freedom is a part of my innate make-up. I’m not lazy, self-entitled or jilted enough to blame everything on my dad or my childhood. My two younger sisters both had the same childhoods – albeit a softer version than my own – and one grew up to be all kinds of laid-back, quiet confidence, and thinks before she does. The other is a jittery ball of nerves, anal-retentism and excitement. The crazy, the hunger for the different, is all mine.
   
Please don’t ask me about law school. But certainly ask me if I want to take a 6-day/5-night cruise with you a week before the ship departs and I’m clicking the Book Now button at the Celebrity Cruises website before you’ve finished your question. Tell me to go say hi to Derrick of MTV reality fame while at the Cubs game because you’re a huge reality TV fan but afraid to go do it yourself and I will. I’ll even get us invited to hang out with him and his friends after the game. (Ed. note: It took me 15 minutes to find a link to this fucker because I kept spelling his name as “derek” into Google. Then “angry polish guy,” when I didn’t like my results. Finally, “chicago angry polish guy.” It reminded me of when elementary school teachers would tell you to look up a word in the dictionary to see if it was spelled correctly and you wanted to kick them after you spent 20 minutes searching for sykologee. Then sycallogy. Then sykallogee. Because how the hell is a 6 year old supposed to know that some English words like to fuck with you?) 
  
Impulsive. Free-spirited. Spontaneous. There’s a lot of different words for it, but they all fall under the bigger umbrella (yeah, ella ella eh) of wanting to live life at a faster pace.
   
Everything gets one try by me, even those things that don’t deserve even one try. Like prairie fire shots. Or reasoning with Ohio State fans. Or grabbing dinner with ex-boyfriends (you know, in the spirit of giving them one more chance). I’ve avoided most drugs because I respectfully fear my addictive personality that much, although I haven’t avoided as many as I should. And I say fuck everything in moderation, including moderation because I only want moderation in moderation.
    
Some people may see all of that, make their judgements about me, and move the hell on. See my black bird and jump to their conclusions.
 
But this black bird goes beyond the surface. 
    
I swag guilt around. I’m much harder on myself than I’ll ever be on anyone else. I replay fights or serious conversations in my head and think about what I should have said or what I could have done. I replay jokes in my head and think about how they could have been funnier or, let’s be honest, less awkward and offensive. I put up walls to those that I’m closest to when I need them the most. There’s a far too cynical and far too sarcastic shell I hide behind. But beneath that, in the interior, exists a naïve, enthusiastic idealist. I’m smart, but I don’t always remember life lessons. I’ve given too many chances to too many people who never deserved them. I’m selfless to a fault when it comes to pleasing my friends and family, but I sacrifice my own health or wants or needs in the process.
       
I hate resorting to astrology (See! See that cynicism there?), but I fill the Gemini role in its most classic, trite definition. (Today, by the way, is my half birthday. Okay, I’m done.)
     
I envy people who can look at the world in such black and white, such superficial and simple terms. It has to beat the millions of synapses in my brain that seem to think it’s all a lot more fucking complex than that. 
   
Life teases me by showing me how simple it can be sometimes. Like when I’m sitting on the couch in my apartment, wrapped in my down comforter, next to my boyfriend and he looks over at me and smiles or winks at me with his baby blues, and I become stupidly happy. The kind of happy that feels unfair to feel. The kind that makes a small part of my brain tell me to be wary because things that good aren’t meant to last forever and ever. The kind of happiness I fear is impossible to materialize with words so that my boyfriend can know just how right he is.
   
I’ll hear that I should just embrace it. That I deserve it. But that in itself isn’t a good enough reason for me to enjoy this happiness. Everyone deserves happiness. I will embrace it and appreciate it, really appreciate it, because life is complex. It’s sad, and it can hurt you, too. I feel fortunate that I get to be happy because I know how much it hurts to be sad. I know how much rougher some other people may have it. And even thinking about that makes a part of me feel guilty that I get to be happy because I know guilt. Parents who immigrated to the United States to provide their future spawn a better life invented guilt.
    
I hope to be a wife and a mother someday. To still have close girlfriends who I meet for brunch every Sunday. To own a beautiful home and decorate it to my heart’s content in a tasteful but creative fashion, eclectically mixing classic pieces with high-end European items. And a cowhide print rug.
   
I like being able to decide in a split second that I’ll go to the bar tonight or fly away this weekend. I like feeling unfettered. I want to sit on my couch, wrapped in my down comforter, and sit next to my boyfriend who - unprovoked - looks over to smile or wink or kiss my forehead and I want nothing to happen to change that perfection.
    
The real reason I have to live in the very, very present all the time - to be able to only have to make decisions about things that will happen right away - is because it starts getting too complex and too complicated if I try to look outside a 24-hour window.
   
I hunger for success. To turn the world upside down. To make a mark and make things better. To live up to that pesky potential everyone tells me I have so much of. Sometimes, if I decide to go there, I start judging myself for not going to law school immediately after undergrad. Had I, I’d be months away from a J.D. right now. Maybe planning to work at centers that overturn wrongful convictions. Or assisting at shelters for battered women and their children. Perhaps immigration law or non-profits. And definitely making sure that we women always have the fucking right to choose. Then I start feeling very heavy. I hyperventilate and I have to quickly turn the denial function to “On” inside my head.
   
But after I’ve calmed down(ed a few glasses of scotch), I remember that I did the right thing for me two years ago. I remember how important the last two years were. There’s more to learn and gain and develop, but things are moving.
    
And if I need to go there, the tattoo on my left hip of a black bird set against a round yellow sun flying towards the unknown (or my right tit) reminds me that I, for the first time in 22 years, made a decision for me. The right, necessary decision for me.
    
I’ve considered getting another one lately. I’ve heard that’s how it starts, that it can be addicting once you get your first. For me, the idea to get a second one started as a prank, telling my boyfriend I needed a second tattoo for pure shock factor. Because he doesn’t like tattoos (Ed. note: Or, as he spun it, why mess with perfection? He’s good, yes?). And I like getting reactions out of him. Because I’m a little punkass. But he completely surprised me by asking what it would be with genuine interest. And after my confused and slightly disappointed stammering about how I thought he did not like them, he told me that he likes anything that makes me happy (Ed. note: Very good, yes?).
   
So the need - the intangible surge to do something monumental, significant, different - is starting to build up again. Not just for the sake of crazy and not just to call my boyfriend’s bluff. It’s an urgency to do something memorable. To remember another important lesson I’ve learned, this one in the past two years: To not get carried away with the settling. To keep fighting. To always stay hungry.
   
But it’s not going to be the fighting pig with boxing gloves on its hooves standing in front of a trough that just materialized in my mind after writing those last few sentences. I may be crazy, but I’m not that fucking crazy. 

Sometimes The Devil Wears BCBG November 5, 2007

Last Friday, while attempting to return a pair of pants I had recently purchased, I called a BCBG Assistant Manager at Macy’s a bitter bitch of a cashier to her face. I’m not proud of this, but it is the situation I found myself in after a series of escalating events that I think we will all agree was entirely her fault.

“The tags aren’t attached,” she pointedly remarked to begin our fun exchange, as she held the tags in one hand while another sales clerk processed the return. ”Our policy is that we can’t allow any returns on any items where the tags aren’t attached.” She paused and smirked. ”For sanitary reasons.“

Sanitary reasons? A valid concern apparently for a pair of pants that still displayed creases from sitting in a folded position. A pair of pants that displayed no wear and had been purchased not even a week before. A pair of pants being returned by me, a girl, who may occasionally go a couple days without showering, but is overall very clean and presentable. We all have our list of adversaries, and in the past year, pants have quickly become a part of mine. Sartorial karma, I imagine, working overtime since that morning I stole a boy’s pair of pants that weren’t my own to wear to work after oversleeping at the victim’s apartment. (Ed. note: There really had been no extra time to return to my apartment or stop at the Ann Taylor’s Loft near my office.)

“Right. The tags. Sorry about that. I didn’t get to try on these pants when I bought them because the store was closing and the woman who was helping me mentioned she had already cleaned the dressing rooms. I wanted to save her some trouble so I just bought them. I thought they’d fit so I ripped the tags off without thinking before putting them on, but they’re too big,” I began to explain in my best oh-us-gals-and-the-troubles-we-face voice.

I had in fact briefly considered attaching the tags back onto the pants before arriving at Macy’s, but then had concluded that Macy’s would not make a big deal of unattached tags.

Seeing her glance down at the tags, and subsequently raise her eyebrows that were squeezed into a dress two sizes too small, I knew that my next mistake was suggesting that the pants were too big.

“Well, like I said, the tags aren’t attached.” She stopped to glance at the receipt. ”I see that the person who sold you these is our manager. I have to assume she told you about our return policy, and that you have just decided to disregard it.”

To sum, homegirl - all in less than five minutes - implied that I am unsanitary and a liar.

It’s customary for American consumers to fudge the truth when returning items. It’s especially grating, then, when you are not lying even a little bit, and, in fact, the woman who sold the pants to you who apparently is also the manager never explained the return policy to you and even said that you will of course be able to return the pants hassle free if they don’t work out in light of the fact that you did her a favor by not insisting you try them on even when there was half an hour left till close, and all you want is to get your money back so you can just buy another goddamn pair of pants, of work appropriate pants.

“Well, okay,” I said, as I tried to breathe deeply and remain calm. “I wasn’t aware of the return policy. I’m really sorry. I brought the tags along with the pants, thinking that would be sufficient. You can see that I bought them not even a week ago. Would it be possible for me to just speak to the manager?

Generally, the speak to your manager line is the one threat that we American consumers who have ever had to deal with shoddy cable service, cell phone service, car rental service, or any other type of customer service can use at our disposal to show that we mean business. (Ed. Note: I just noticed these things all start with a “c”. You know what else starts with a “c”? CRAP.) It’s a line so passive-aggressively scathing that I’m surprised I haven’t yet read a news article describing a crime scene where “Why don’t you just speak to my manager?” was found on the wall, spelled out in blood, the latest victim of a customer-services-employee-turned-serial-killer.

Unfortunately, I had briefly forgotten all of these connotations, and I had simply asked to speak to the manager because it was she who, apparently, had sold me the pants. I foolishly thought that since the pants had been bought so recently, there was some chance the manager may remember me and the pants could finally be returned and I could go back to an existence of not wanting to bash my head repeatedly against a hard object.

I saw her mentally think Oh no, you didn’t. 

“She’s been moved to a different store location.”

Of course she has, I thought.

“Well, can you offer any suggestions as to what I should do?”

And to our BCBG Associate Manager’s horror, the other sales clerk suggested I return home, attach the tags, and come back. She even winked at me while saying this.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” our BCBG Assistant Manager sneered.

Some retorts of I’ve told you I won’t allow a return! to my question of whether I could have my pants and the tags (the tags! the tags!) back from the clutchs of her hands that were squeezed into a dress two sizes too small, and her threats of I have no problem calling mall security after I told her I simply wanted to leave the store with my pants later, I hissed that Marshall Field’s would never have treated their customers like this and stormed off.

To the elevators that weren’t working.

To having to press the button over and over.

To having to stamp my feet impatiently.

All in the view of the BCBG Assistant Manager. 

To having to walk past her to get to the escalators that were on the other end of the floor.

To muttering that she was of bitter cashier-land and to her declaring she was of grand assistant manager-dom. 

To riding down the escalators and plotting revenge maneuvers I knew I’d be far too lazy and forgetful to follow through on.

But lest you think otherwise, I am a good Midwestern gal who was raised the right way when it comes to manners and direction. So when I got back home, I attached the tags back onto the pants just like the BCBG Assistant Manager had taught me and went to a different Macy’s to return the pants, all with a smile on my face.

Some may say I’m a bitter bitch of a coward. To them, I say I’m now $168 richer even.