Janey's Lessons of 2006

Here are a couple of things I learned this year:

1) If you find yourself in a situation that feels dangerous to your soul or unsafe for your psyche -- get out. You will contort yourself into knots trying to force a fit and only succeed in throwing out your back.

2) If you are dating someone and the sex is bad -- get out. Life is far, far too short to be having bad sex. The corollary to this is -- if you are dating someone whose company you really, really enjoy, and the sex is bad -- get out while you can shake hands like a good sport and say, "No harm, no foul," and remain friends.

3) Listen to your gut at work. If you don't trust your own gut, have your most spiritually sensitive friend come into your office at lunch or to pick you up after work. Give them a tour. They will tell you things about your workplace that you are in complete and total denial about. The signs were all there for me -- the entryway wall was a flat, featureless black, the carpets are black, the uncarpeted areas are black linoleum. The walls were stark white without a single piece of artwork hanging. There was not a plant to be found in any of the common areas. All of the bookshelves in the hallways were devoid of books. I mean, not one book. There was nothing about the place itself that said, "Here's a happy workplace." Baby Boy's reaction was, "The energy at that place SUCKS."

4) If you see someone struggling, offer to help, even if they don't ask for it.

5) Don't work for scumbags. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

6) Be kind, be kind, be kind to someone every day. And remember that you are a someone. (I reallllly forgot this lesson this year).

The Universe Will Do For You What You Won't Do For Yourself

Ok, here's the skinny --

So I've been taking these miniscule little baby steps to get myself back out into the job market -- halfhearted calls to a couple of headhunters, updating my resume on some job search sites, responding to the occasional ad. It never hurts to see what's out there, right?

2006 was a pretty grim year, jobwise, what with selling my soul down the river to the highest bidder (thirty pieces of silver was the quoted price, I believe). Sorry for the mixed metaphor. Spent six months asquirm in a quagmire of bad management, a grim, humorless and not-brainy-enough-for-me workplace (some days I wondered if any of my coworkers had ever read a book), and a persistent feeling of unease, nearly from Day 1, that I had made a dreadful, dreadful mistake.

If it don't fit, don't force it, honey.

About a month or so ago, I gave up. I just stopped giving a shit. And well, when you don't give a shit, you don't give a shit, right? I believe these words actually left my lips when a job left the shop a day late: "Did anyone die because of this? Are we curing cancer here?" While I commend myself for my Big Picture perspicacity, it's one of those things that you probably shouldn't say to your boss.

On the other hand, I had this one client, who from what I learned on Monday has not been happy for months. Funny, no one saw fit to tell me about it. Ever. In fact, a few months ago, the report that I got was that this client was perfectly happy with things. And the salespeople in the company I worked with seemed to love me. In fact, the emails I've gotten after the fact from two of them have attested to that.

Net-net -- I got canned with extreme prejudice on Monday -- no performance reviews along the way despite my having requested one (in writing), no severance, and after 6-1/2 months, I wonder if I'm even eligible for unemployment. Funny how this happened just a few short weeks after I made a formal grievance to human resources about the "gender issue" at the company, after speaking directly to my manager at least three times about it, and having him acknowledge that four female production people left the company before I was hired FOR THE VERY SAME REASON.

Not to worry, Janey's got an appointment with the EEOC. Just exploratory, you see.

Strangely enough, I feel okay. I mean, my money situation just sucks right now, and it's decidedly weird to wake up and not have a job to go to, but I feel oddly liberated. Like the jailhouse doors were open, the golden handcuffs were yanked from my wrists, and I was pushed back out into the world. "And stay out!" yelled the warden.

But...the funny thing is that when the rug is yanked out from under your feet, you'll find all the things that you had swept underneath it. So I've put on my babushka, rolled up my sleeves and I'm getting down to work. Time to find out what it is that I really want to do with this one very short life I've been given.

How strange to have -- not exactly fear, but a feeling that absolutely anything is possible.

I mean, if I could find my frickin' social security card at the bottom of a box of papers (after going through four boxes of papers), I can pretty much do anything.

And while I was cleaning out those boxes, I found a photograph of myself. It was taken on one of the best days of my life -- the end of the first day of my very first AIDS Ride. I had ridden my bike from Boston to Storrs, Connecticut that day, the last 8 miles uphill. 98 miles, the furthest I had ever ridden in my life in one day. I am sitting in the doorway of my tent, still in my bike clothes, sweaty bandanna on my head, shoes off, and a cigarette between my fingers. I am smiling so hard it looks like my face is about to explode.

I remember how I felt at the end of that day -- I was bold and brave, and in the photograph, I am beautiful.

Now, I can get to work finding that girl again.

Jane's Approved Holiday Song List

With their representative first couple of lines to illustrate just why Jane loves them so much:

1) Fairytale of New York - The Pogues
"It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank/An old man said to me, won't see another one...."

2) Happy Xmas (War is Over) - John Lennon
"And so this is Christmas, and what have you done?"

3) Merry Christmas from the Family - Robert Earl Keen
"Mom got drunk, and Dad got drunk, at our Christmas party..."

4) Merry Christmas to Me/Hard Candy Christmas - KT Sullivan
"December rain is slowly falling, it's colder than it used to be / There's no one here I feel like calling... Merry Christmas to me..." blah blah blah "Here's a toast to what once was, and another year alone..."

5) After the Holidays - Andrea Marcovicci
"Just stay with me till after the holidays, that's when I need you so...Please say you'll wait till after the holidays, then I can let you go... Don't make me face this Christmas alone, after each wonderful Christmas we've known... Won't you be kind and let me believe, you're mine on New Year's Eve?"

Jesus, is that last one mewling or what?

Can't wait for January 6, the official end of the 12 Fucking days of Christmas -- which means, for me, hard core New Orleans and Mardi Gras music can begin!

I am taking requests, so if anyone has any suggestions for less-than-cheerful tunes for my Xmas list, send 'em on in.

Stingy Claus is Coming to Town

So, here we are, down in the financial district, where young turks are pulling down half-mil bonuses (and that's the low-on-the-totem-pole guys -- the big shots are apparently getting zillions).

In the midst of all of this corporate largesse, we got the news last Friday that here in our little duchy, there will be no Christmas bonus. Apparently it's the first time in NINETEEN YEARS they haven't given out bonuses.

Not such a big deal for your Janey, who's only been working in this shithole for 6 months -- I wasn't really expecting one, or if anything, a token, no more. But the people who have been here for years, wow, are they PISSED.

Now, I would be the first person to tell you not to plan your life around a bonus. I mean, it's a bonus. It's not a paycheck. Coming to rely on it is foolish at best, and financially devastating at worst. I mean, I know one guy who actually said these words to me, "How the hell am I gonna have Christmas for my kid? I've barely got enough to pay the bills as it is."

I think in Buddhism this is what is called "being attached to outcomes." And boy, has that caused some suffering here. You can almost hear the phones ringing off the hook at every headhunter in town.

Expect nothing, get nothing, and you'll never be disappointed, as Matt would say. A Buddha from way back.

I Saw Mommy Killing Santa Claus

A guy I work with innocently approached my desk with his cd case open and held out like a prayerbook.

"Jane, I brought in some Christmas music for you."

I threw my arms up in front of my face, as a vampire does when confronted with a cross. After the hissing subsided, I gave him my sweetest smile.

"I'm very sorry, Scooter, didn't anyone tell you? I'm the Girl Who Hates Christmas."

He laughed. He thought I was kidding.

The smile never left my face.

"No, seriously, get that shit the fuck away from me."

He backed away, very, very slowly, and from a safe distance said,

"Wow, you really DO hate Christmas, don't you?"

And now, wafting over his partition, I hear the happy sounds of -- blues guitar.

Point to Jane.

I See Your Twoo Colors

Sports-team clothing should only be made in the team's actual colors.

Since branded logo-wear is NOT a statement of fashion or individuality -- in fact, it's EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE -- I wish people wouldn't try to make it into one.

For Instance: the colors of the New York Yankees are Blue and White. Period. Not cobalt. Not indigo. Not royal. But simple, clean, elegant, and (okay) slightly IBM-ish Navy Blue and White. (also the colors of Janey's college alma mater, lending further support to the bumper sticker credo: If God isn't a Penn State (or Yankee) fan, why is the sky blue and white?)

I don't want to see another pink, or red, or turquoise, or (worst of all) brown New York Yankees cap.

Thankfully I haven't yet seen the bastardization of any of my hometown's colors. I dare anyone who remembers Lambert, Greene, Greenwood, Blount or Ham to try wearing anything but the black and gold.

Why Hanukkah is better than Christmas

This one goes out to Archer, Paula and Rothstein...

1. Christmas is one day, same day every year, December 25. Jews also love December 25th. It's another paid day off work. We go to the movies and out for Chinese food and Israeli dancing. Chanukah is 8 days. It starts the evening of the 24th of Kislev, whenever that falls. No one is ever sure. Jews never know until a non-Jewish friend asks when Chanukah starts forcing us to consult a calendar so we don't look like idiots. We all have the same calendar, provided free with a donation from the World Jewish Congress, the kosher butcher or the local Sinai Memorial Chapel (especially in Florida ) or other Jewish funeral home.

2. Christmas is a major holiday. Chanukah is a minor holiday with the same theme as most Jewish holidays. They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat.

3. Christians get wonderful presents such as jewelry, perfume, stereos, etc. Jews get practical presents such as underwear, socks or the collected works of the Rambam, which looks impressive on the bookshelf.

4. There is only one way to spell Christmas. No one can decide how to spell Chanukah, Chanukkah, Chanukka, Channukah, Hanukah, Hannukah, etc.

5. Christmas is a time of great pressure for husbands and boyfriends. Their partners expect special gifts. Jewish men are relieved of that burden. No one expects a diamond ring on Hanukah.

6. Christmas brings enormous electric bills. Candles are used for Chanukah. Not only are we spared enormous electric bills, but we get to feel good about not contributing to the energy crisis.

7. Christmas carols are beautiful... Silent Night, Come All Ye Faithful. Chanukah songs are about dreidels made from clay or having a party and dancing the hora. Of course, we are secretly pleased that many of the beautiful carols were composed and written by our tribal brethren. And don't Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond sing them beautifully?

8. A home preparing for Christmas smells wonderful like the sweet smell of cookies and cakes baking. Happy people are gathered around in festive moods. A home preparing for Chanukah smells of oil, potatoes and onions. The home, as always, is full of loud people all talking at once.

9. Christian women have fun baking Christmas cookies. Jewish women burn their eyes and cut their hands grating potatoes and onions for latkes on Chanukah. Another reminder of our suffering through the ages.

10. Parents deliver presents to their children during Christmas. Jewish parents have no qualms about withholding a gift on any of the eight nights.

11. The players in the Christmas story have easy to pronounce names such as Mary, Joseph and Jesus. The players in the Chanukah story are Antiochus , Judah Maccabee and Matta whatever. No one can spell it or pronounce it. On the plus side, we can tell our friends anything and they believe we are wonderfully versed in our history.

12. Many Christians believe in the virgin birth. Jews think, "Yossela, Bubela, snap out of it. Your woman is pregnant, you didn't sleep with her and now you want to blame G-d? Here's the phone number of my shrink".

13. In recent years, Christmas has become more and more commercialized. The same holds true for Chanukah, even though it is a minor holiday. It makes sense. How could we market a major holiday such as Yom Kippur? Forget about celebrating. Think observing. Come to synagogue, starve yourself for 27 hours, become one with your dehydrated soul, beat your chest, confess your sins, a guaranteed good time for you and your family. Tickets a mere $200 per person. Better stick with Chanukah!

Notes from Randomalia

Notes from Randomalia

1) I need to believe that the designers of the world thought they were doing a good thing by re-introducing leggings. I need to believe that they honestly thought that by re-introducing these figure-revealing items of clothing, they would inspire a diet and exercise weight-loss revolution in MOA (that's Morbidly-Obese America). Unfortunately, the results of their glorious experiment have been nothing short of catastrophic, as what we are now faced with is walking up subway stairs behind women whose behinds look like two sacks of curds jiggling in our faces.

2) As for peg-leg jeans, which I'm also seeing in disturbing profusion the past few months, ONLY the models look good in them. Face it, if you aren't a five-ten sylph with boyish hips and no waist to speak of, those super-skinny jeans JUST DON'T LOOK GOOD. And before you start to roll the hem of your jeans above your boots or to tuck your jeans into your boots, ask yourself, "Do I have a 34-inch inseam?" Think about it, have a little common sense -- if you are small, short, or stocky in any way, why would you create a horizontal break just where you want to look longest and leanest?

Repeat after me, ladies, just because it's fashionable, doesn't mean you have to wear it. Or as my mother used to say (usually when she was refusing to buy me something trendy from Foxmoor Casuals), "Wear what looks good on you, and you will always look stylish."

3) Psst! Hey, you! Yeah, I'm talking to you! Just because you have managed to cram yourself into those size 6 lowrider jeans -- that doesn't actually make you a size 6. In fact, I'm guessing by the muffin top bulging around your middle that in real life you're probably a couple sizes bigger than that. So give it up. You aren't fooling anyone. Except maybe yourself. And frankly, you're making the rest of us slightly sick.

4) For the life of me, I still can't figure out the talent/fame equation in the music industry. In some ways I'm hopelessly idealistic, and quite possibly outdated, in thinking that people who have real talent will eventually be discovered and get the fame and fortune that is their due. Maybe that's why people of my generation (tailend boomer/front end x-er) have such nostalgia for our music. Because we know that, frankly, if Tom Petty put out his first album today, he would nosedive into obscurity (too ugly for TV). If U2 were releasing their first album right now, they'd be pulling Guinness pints in some Dublin pub instead of being touted (by me, at least) as the Greatest Rock Band Ever. So when I am fortunate to happen upon my favorite subway busker, usually in the Union Square subway station, I always let a train or two go by so I can listen to him play and sing. His voice is so haunting and his songs have a minor-key plaintiveness that just cuts to my heart. Theo always gets my money, too.

5) I went to bed with a new book last night, Paul Auster's "The Brooklyn Follies" and was so delighted with it that I read it in one powerhouse 5-hour push -- setting it aside with a satisfied sigh at 3:00 in the morning. How is it that I have not read anything else by this man? (hint, hint: Barnes and Noble gift certificates make really nice Christmas gifts for book junkies like me.) When I woke up this morning and saw the book on my nightstand, all I could do was grin at the memory of how happy it had made me for those several hours. Some books are like that -- you greet them with the shy smile of a lover on the morning after.

6) In the "what was I thinking?" department, I have come to realize that I completely made up a story about the retoucher that wasn't true. In fact, I created a person who didn't exist. I mean, come on, this guy a) lives in New Jersey, b) thinks Las Vegas is awesome, and c) drinks Long Island Iced Teas as his cocktail of choice. Any one of those three should be a dealbreaker in itself. See what happens when you don't pay attention? Not to mention, if he was into me, he would have actually called me on the telephone or exhibited some willingness to spend time with me. Oh well, no big loss. He's still kinda nice to look at and he does have a nice butt.

7) Women in Chuck Taylors? Not sexy, honey.

8) I willingly admit to being a snob about a few things. For instance, 'tis the season for women to break out the department store furs. I can spot a department store fur from a hundred paces. I find myself looking at women's fur coats and evaluating them in my mind: Hmm, tails and scraps. Hmm, cheap pelts. Hmm, scraped off the grill of her husband's SUV.

9) Another thing I am a snob about is cheese. Parmesan cheese does NOT come in green cans! That stuff in green cans is sawdust! And another thing -- the people at Polly-O should NOT be allowed to call those shrink-wrapped beige erasers "mozzarella cheese." I feel really badly for people who don't have a local cheese maker where they can get real mozzarella cheese.

10) A subway busker who never gets my money is that annoying guy with the braids who rides the "L" and sings "Stand By Me." I think it's the really loud clapping that he uses to accompany himself that gets on my very last nerve.

11) Back to food snobbery. I once bought one of those 7-11 "cappuccinos" at a highway rest stop, and when I got in the car and took a sip of it, I nearly threw up! It was a thick, disgusting, oily, sickeningly sweet mess that I promptly dumped out the car window. I hope it didn't cause any accidents from the slick I'm sure it left on the highway. And I had to wonder with horror -- do most people in this country think that's what cappuccino is supposed to taste like?

12) On the other hand, some nights I just don't have the energy to eat anything except a can of Niblets for dinner.

I'm Already Out of The Closet on This One

Today is Reveal Your Blog Crush Day!

My very first blog crush is (and he's probably the blog crush of many) Archer.

I mean, what's not to like about a guy who can make me blow coffee out of my nose and make me do the Muttley laugh first thing in the morning. And I'm NOT a morning person.

The Annual Bah-Humbug

I'm sitting here picking the caramel of Christmas music out of my teeth and wondering -- is it me or does this Christmas season seem completely f***ing interminable compared to Christmases past?

I mean, everyone here at my office has their iTunes and radios playing NOTHING but Christmas music, and frankly, I'm about to storm through the joint like Al Pacino, spitting, "Say hello to my leetle friend!" rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

As an antidote to my Mathis-induced diabetes, I had no choice but to to put on Time Zone the other day. There's nothing like Afrika Bambaataa and John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) singing "This is the world destruction, your life ain't nothin', the human race is becoming a disgrace!" to really get you full-swing into the perfect BAH HUMBUG mood.

I mean, really, what are the holidays but an exercise in futility and dashed expectations? Come on, folks, be honest... we spend November and December being bombarded with images of Tiny Tim cooing "God Bless us every one!" and the grinchy heart growing two sizes and snow drifting past picture windows while happy families exchange gifts next to a Douglas fir adorned with a thousand bucks worth of Christopher Radko ornaments.

The reality looks more like Christmas with the Bickersons. Or Christmas with the Drunk Relatives Who Save Up Their Resentments All Year for This One Magical Night. Or Christmas with the Mean Mother-In-Law Who Uses Her Gift to Show You What She Really Thinks Of You (a plastic over the door shoe hanger thing comes to mind for me).

What I'm saying here, people, is that we spend a month and a half trying to pretend we grew up on fucking Walton Mountain, when in actuality it probably bore a closer resemblance to Spahn Ranch, and what it turned us into was a nation of twitching neurotics who can't get through a week without a) medicating, b) therapizing, or c) indulging in some sort of substance abuse of the legal and illegal kind.

Maybe we should all give up and quit trying to get the Christmases we never had. And this year, just have the Christmas we get.

So Much for the "Anonymous" Part

I love when idiots get to be famous so we get to see their idiocy bared for all the world to see.

And I ain't talking about Britney's cooter.

Jane Says "Happy Holidays!" To Her Inner Republican

Well, here's a call you don't want get on a Monday morning:

"Listen, this is [your downstairs neighbor]. The whole hallway is filling up with smoke. I called the landlord..."

"Why'd you call the landlord? Call the fucking fire department!"

Yes, I know, it IS Bushwick, which is to say, Up-holler Brooklyn, so there might be a few DNA strands running just a tad close amongst the old-timers and their kin, but still, people, use your brain. (Janey is smacking the back of one hand into the palm of the other while she says this). Let me say this very slowly and clearly: When you smell smoke, and then when you SEE smoke, your first, your VERY first call, should be to 911. Not to your landlord and THEN your upstairs neighbor. What the hell are they teaching in city schools? That red paint chips taste better than battleship gray? Sheesh!

Anyway.

Turns out our lovely crackhead neighbor finally passed out (after a particularly crack-fueled-and-door-slamming-and-fighting-over-drugs-in-the-hallway kind of weekend. Welcome to Crazyville, where your drug habit and apartment are paid for by your law-abiding neighbors! Not only in their tax dollars, but in the untold hours of their lost sleep!) But before she passed out, she left food cooking on the stove, which the FDNY (goddamnit, I missed them in all their sooty hotness) discovered after tripping over all of her shit which she has strewn in the hallway to get to her door.

Oh, wait, and this is after I had to call ACS on Thursday to report that when I came home on Wednesday night, her 2-year old was in the apartment, apparently alone, and crying out, "Let me out! Let me out!" Nice, right?

You know what, if I didn't have the cats to worry about and no renters insurance (not to worry, I'll be getting that this week), I would say, let the bitch burn herself up along with that piece of shit felon boyfriend of hers. The world would be well rid of both of them.

I'm just sitting here with a little cloud of steam coming off the top of my head, nurturing my inner Republican and wondering if we can get Eliot Spitzer to get the state legislature to pass some sort of Mandatory Eugenics for Welfare Shitheads law while he's governor.

After All, It IS The Season of PEACE

Forget about Salman Rushdie and the fatwa, forget about the crackpot fundamentalism, forget about how he was yanked off a British Airways flight two years ago for no other reason than his name. Forget about everything but the MUSIC.

He can change his name and he can change his hair and change his beard, but he will always and forever be CAT.

PS, not to mention that at the time this video was shot, he was smokin,' smokin' hot.

The Eighth Grade, Part I

Lately I've been walking around feeling like my Inner Eighth Grader is exposed.

We've all got one. I don't know what everyone else's Eighth Grade was like, but I'll tell you, mine was about a miserable as the Eighth Grade could get.

In the Eighth Grade, I was chubby and bespectacled, and not very attractive.

I had bad teeth. I had too many teeth for my mouth, so my teeth were crammed into my face with two canines that never descended to the same level as my other teeth. Giant snaggly sabreteeth. It would take the sacrifice of four healthy molars and two years of orthodontia before it was revealed that I actually have a perfectly acceptable smile.

Later on, I would gladly give up four bone-impacted wisdom teeth in a general-anaesthetic surgical procedure to keep them from re-adjusting that four-figure smile that I know was a financial hardship for my parents.

My dentist to this day complains that I have an extremely small oral cavity which makes it hard for him to reach my back teeth. I leave his office on 57th Street with the muscles of my jaws stretched so far that I am, literally, slack-jawed.

No man that I have ever dated has ever complained about my extremely small oral cavity.

But when I am smiling with every muscle of my face, my upper lip will pull up on the right side as if it remembers the huge canine tooth that it used to snag.

I was also very, very brainy and bookish in the Eighth Grade.

So. A fat, glasses-wearing bluestocking. Can you guess what the Eighth Grade was like for me?

Oh, wait. I was in the band, too. But I didn't play a cool instrument like the flute or the drums. It seemed like all the girls who played the flute were pretty and petite. And the boys who played the drums were delinquents-in-training who were just cooler than all the rest of us band geeks. They smoked and chewed tobacco that they spat into empty milk cartons and sat at the back of the bus. They carried their drumsticks in their back pockets like switchblades and were prone to whipping them out to rattle out paradiddles on desks and cafeteria tables.

I played the clarinet. An instrument that you played sitting rigidly upright with your right foot tapping rhythm on the riser. Quite possibly, with the exception of the oboe or bassoon, the most un-cool instrument that you could play. Even the instrument's case looked uncool -- like a little briefcase that I was toting around school. We clarinet players looked like actuaries on our way to the office as we entered the band room.

So there I was in the Eighth Grade, a fat, glasses-wearing, clarinet-playing bluestocking.

I did have a small coterie of friends -- Tina and Beth and Susan. Tina and Beth were both Flute Players. They were pretty and petite. Tina was the most developed girl in the Eighth Grade and Beth was one of the prettiest girls in school. I couldn't figure out why they wanted to be friends with me.

Susan played the violin and piano and she was serious and studious. She was the first person I knew to buy "Never Mind the Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols." The four of us sat in her bedroom and listened to "God Save the Queen." We were mystified and delighted at the same time.

We used to ride our bicycles to each others houses and camp in Susan's backyard next to the trolley tracks, scaring each other with stories of Green Man, a Pittsburgh legend.

We had our own code that we used to write each other notes.

On Friday nights in the winter, along with every other Eighth Grader at our school, we went to the Corrigan Drive Skating Rink and made aimless circles of the rink, coming in from the cold to eat french fries and drink Cokes.

We all agreed that the cutest boys in the band were Mike P and Ricky P. Mike was a drummer and Ricky played the trombone.

Somewhere along the way, in the Eighth Grade, I acquired a Tormentor.

But He Got The Trains to Run on Time!

None of my friends west of the Hudson River would believe me.

Cintra Wilson says it better than I ever could.

I hope Bill Bratton is out there in LA rubbing his hands gleefully in anticipation of rattling the skeletons in the closet.

Lameness Post-Mortem

Okay, so it was lame. But since I NEVER turn down free booze and food (such as it was - do a sushi station and a make-your-own taco station plus a band of roving waitrons wielding platters of weenie croissants really count as food? Survey says, NO) I dutifully put on my shiny party outfit and cabbed it into the office. Just what a New York City Girl wants to do on a Saturday night.

Now, for the uninitiated, or those who didn't have the pleasure of reading the NY Times last Sunday, yes Virginia, Saturday night IS the most "over" night of the week for New Yorkers. We are not going out on Saturday nights any more. We've ceded that night to the bridge & tunnel crowd. We stay in so the Todt Hill Express bus can drop the Red Bull and vodka crowd at the edge of the meatpacking district to slobber all over each other and hope in vain to catch a glimpse of a b-list celeb or maybe see Lindsay Lohan publicly humiliate herself once again.

Once you read about a "trend" in the Times, you can pretty much guarantee that it's either completely over or on the tipping point of over-ness. There's nothing quite like the Paper of Record to breathlessly relate the "latest thing" which we who actually live here have been quietly doing for at least five years. Or maybe they do it on purpose... you know, keep the thing on the down low until we have exhausted all its coolness, then put it in the Sunday Styles section so people from New Jersey can feel hip. Face it, once people from Staten Island and New Jersey are doing it, it's got the stink of "over" and we quietly move on to other pleasures that we diligently keep secret from the rubes. Why do you think we all moved to Brooklyn? We're actively TRYING to keep away from you people.

So anyway, back to the "party." As far as office parties go, I guess it was okay - inoffensive and bland, culturally stultified and blah blah blah. People got very, very, very drunk. But if people are getting very, very, very drunk and NOT misbehaving, what the hell kind of fun is that? What happened to "drunk and doing stupid things"? There are lots of tales of massive hangovers that have carried into this morning (my own included) yet not one whiff of bad gossip.

I liked the piano player. When I tried to bolt at 9:30 she begged me to stay because I was the only "cool person" there (her words, not mine) and we would go out after the gig. So, against my better judgement, I stayed... and stayed... Many glasses of bad red wine later, Missy PlunkPlunk of Pianoville decided to just go back to Brooklyn, meaning I had stayed past pumpkin time and gotten drunk for NOTHING. Not to mention that I observed that she is very chummy with the Retoucher formerly known as Hot, who has of late been demoted back to buck private and put back in the category, "Doesn't really exist for me any more here at the office."

Trust me, it's better that way. I've made my observations, and the coins have dropped from my eyes -- and kids, your Janey got played. But good. She fell right into the "sensitive guy" thing that she is usually immune to (how many times have I told you I'm not interested in those guys who are in touch with their feminine side and that I much prefer a guy to be in touch with his masculine side, thank you very much?). Her spidey sense was completely OFF and look what happened.

The player got played. I hate when that happens.

But again I say, it's better this way. Especially since --

Ahem. Ahem.

As I was saying, especially since I have been having some truly amazing sex with this other guy. (Not Baby Boy.) Since August.

You've heard me complain about many, many things, but have you heard me bitching about not getting laid? I don't think so.

But it does make me want to offer a little bit of advice. From a hussy to all the wives and girlfriends out there. Girlies, if you want to punish your man by withholding sex, keep this thought in mind: If you won't fuck your husband, and he is tired of trying to get you to fuck him, at a certain point, he will stop trying. And he will find someone who will fuck him. Some days I feel like I should have a tattoo on my forehead. It will say, "EXHIBIT A."

Well, a co-worker and I ended up on the LES at EmKay's bar, which was doing ROARING business, I must say, and he plied us with many more glasses of good red wine.

Let's just say, Sunday wasn't pretty. I woke up and confronted evidence that I had eaten HOT POCKETS. Not one, ladies and gentlemen, but TWO Hot Pockets. A quick check of the cell phone revealed that I somehow managed to avoid the deadly drinking and dialing, but oh, my head! And I had an brunch party to go to. Lord.

I made it to that, and the crowd was much, much more my style -- artists and fags and one very sweet dog, and not a pair of pleated pants to be seen in the whole place.

Ended the weekend with a much needed nap interspersed with old videos (the annual exhumation of "White Christmas," "Holiday Inn") followed by a "Law & Order" marathon. Is there a better way to spend a Sunday evening?

Okay, I Trust the Lawyer

Archer, I will never, ever, question you again!

November and the Treadmill

Ok. I never do this, but this has got to be the cutest damn cat ever seen on YouTube.

Hooah

I'm inordinately tickled that Archer has re-listed me on his blogroll.

It feels kinda like that scene in "Mean Girls" when the mean girls invite Lindsay Lohan's character to eat at their lunch table.

Christmastime is Here

I've gotten the mushy Andrew Gold-y "Thank You for Being a Friend" crap out of the way, now here's what I did last night after talking to the aforementioned concerned friends...

1) Sat down for a long time and did a Smoking Meditation. In the old days, this used to be called "sitting and brooding," but in my new Buddhist aspirational mindset, I've renamed it the Smoking Meditation.

2) Decide to enhance the Smoking Meditation by adding the Polish-Off-That-Half-bottle-of-Aglianico Meditation as well.

3) Decide that since I ended the day feeling bad I should make myself feel worse by calling East Village Guy. Surprisingly, he sounds happy to hear from me. We have a nice chat with plans to get together next week.

4) Decide that it would be a good idea to cheer myself up even further by decorating my house for Christmas. This entails climbing a very tall ladder to pull down boxes of lights and ornaments. Hold on very very tightly while climbing the ladder because I feel a little wobbly in the knees. Remember that all I ate yesterday was cereal for breakfast and a half slice of pizza for lunch. Only dropped the stuffed Rudolph-Hermie-Snowman figures. Nothing breakable is lost, though I do knock a hammer off the top of the refrigerator.

5) Decide that I can't decorate without Christmas music and pull out all my Christmas CD's. Decide putting on festive-yet-sad Christmas music requires opening 2nd bottle of Aglianico and sitting on the floor surrounded by cd's and playing DJ for an hour and singing along with The Carpenters Christmas Portrait at the top of my lungs. "O Holy Night" big favorite.

6) Put on Dad's favorite Perry Como Christmas album and cry sentimentally for a few minutes.

7) Decide now would be a good time to do the Smoke-Half-a-Joint Meditation.

8) Decide to frame bookshelf in Christmas lights. Retrieve ladder and hammer from kitchen floor and reach for box of nails from top of refrigerator. Am able to locate most of them except the ones that rolled under the fridge.

9) Only pound thumb twice hanging lights.

10) Am fearless administering oral antibiotic to Mambo.

11) Decide that 10:30 is a really good time to go to bed. Mambo and Madison agree.

11) Pass out.

Whoever You Are, Thank You

Blogging, it appears, is a very good way for my friends to stay in
touch without actually having to stay in touch. Since it's a place
for me to brain-dump, all too frequently what I post on the fly makes
me seem like a cross between Charlie Brown (depressed), Bill the Cat
(ack!) and an ADHD teenager (ohmigawwd spastic).

But those crisis posts which get thrown up are a virtual Bat Signal.
Commissioner Gordon shines it into the vapor, and like clockwork, my
cell phone starts buzzing, flashing, and vibrating.

The pack starts circle and check in, mostly along the lines of:

"Are you OKAY? What's going ON?"

It makes me bow with gratitude that I have such lovely friends.

Gassho.

Here's What You Learn

That 24 inches of personal space that good Japanese girls maintain?
They exist for a reason.

They exist to keep you out of the arms' reach of people who may be
dangerous to you.

I am a complete and utter fool.

No more right now because I am feeling like a shrivelled little
raisin inside.

I got nothing.

Happy Thanksgiving

Here are a few of the things for which I am grateful:

1) The wonderful family that I have been fortunate to have found in New York City. They are my support, my touchstones and my guiding stars.

2) My three sisters, without whom I don't think

Just So You Don't Think I Exaggerate Its Lameness

The purpose of a company holiday party -- or at least I've always thought -- is to reward your employees for the prior year, to give them a chance to get out of the office and to mingle socially -- in a different setting.

The keywords being: IN A DIFFERENT SETTING.

Apparently that's not the case here at Stalag 40, which (from what I always heard) had great parties in great bars and everyone got crazy and really let down their hair.

Seems that this year the bosses have decided to cheap out. The party is next Saturday night, HERE AT THE OFFICE.

Wait a cotton-fuckall-picking minute.

So basically, we come into the sweatshop for five straight days, then we're expected to -- GET THIS -- come into the office ON A WEEKEND, for a SIXTH STRAIGHT DAY?

Are you fucking kidding me?

I'm Doing It Again

Oh my god.

I am sitting here at my desk and my dad called and I just spontaneously started crying.

this place is killing me.

Ironic

I'm signed up to receive a "Daily Peace Quote" from Living Compassion.

Today's quote is:

The greatest tragedy in life is not death; the greatest tragedy
takes place when our talents and capabilities are underutilized and
allowed
to rust while we are still living.
- Amma

Petty Bitch

I'm talking about myself.

Here's the story:

I have great, great, great music. I love old 60's and 70's music so much, and have about a thousand cd's at home. And over the course of the last six months, I have lovingly carried cd's into the office and loaded them onto my iTunes here at work.

My playlist has brought a lot of joy to many, many people here. Or so I have been told.

But you know what I realized?

I was musically slutty.

You know how you try to look at other people's playlists and get a sense of who they might be? ("Oh my GOD, he has Kenny Loggins on his playlist?" Okay, so my hardon for the hot retoucher wilted a little bit when I saw that one. Of course, his hotness prevailed over Kenny Loggins and I had to admit to myself that - ahem - I love Kenny Loggins.)

Well, I realized today that I had loaded close to fifteen hundred of my own songs onto my iTunes, which any one of these chuckleheads could listen to on the network. And I further realized: crap, sharing my playlist with THESE people -- that's like group sex with a bunch of folks I don't even like.

So in a quiet fifteen minutes or so, I very deliberately did two things: I dumped over a thousand songs from my playlist AND made my sharing password required.

So yes, I am a petty bitch. I took my toys and left the playground, so to speak.

Dear Hot Retoucher, it's not you, it's me.

Dear fellow sweatshop employees, it's not me, it's you.

Happy Trailllllllls

Before I sign out for the evening, I do need to reassure y'all that I'm not just sitting around kvetching about the awfulness of this place, I am actually doing something. I'm in touch with a client who needs a new PM, I'm in touch with a headhunter or two...

My resume has been updated and is ready to fly in a heartbeat.

I'm not really one to stand around when things get this bad.

Do you know what I realized today? I have been working here for six months and I don't have a single friend here. Not one. And I know that stuff isn't supposed to matter, but sorry, to me, it does. I'm supposed to be a grown up and all mature and stuff, but unless you've been the fat, homely, unpopular kid who got her own personal tormentor in the 8th Grade, then you just keep quiet.

I've never worked in such a place before. I mean, I have a trail of friends from past jobs that stretches back nearly two decades. It can't be me. I'm not THAT unlikeable. Annoying as hell sometimes, a real pain in the ass occasionally, but I didn't think unlikeable would figure into it.

I told my sister what happened and she started to cry for me. I'm tearing up right now because it brings back all those hurt feelings again, so I'm going to stop here. I guess I'm not done crying about it.

Look.

Here's Janey: If you have deliberately hurt my feelings and made me cry, I will be afraid of you from then on. If you have stood by and watched someone hurt me, I will never trust you again. In all cases, you have lost me. Forever.

Friday Night Follies

Now, being a girl who was feeling really, really bad about herself on Friday afternoon, I made a little phone call to EmKay. It was a "come over later and bring wine" booty call, which I made balls to the wall from here at the prairie dog farm.

Sometimes you need a little attention from a man to make yourself feel better.

I know it's kind of cheap, sort of like eating a Big Mac when what you really want is a fat fillet from Luger's, but I needed some comfort lovin' the way other people need comfort food.

He wasn't going to be able to come over until after he closed the bar, which meant I was letting him into my building at 4:30 in the morning.

Now, the good thing about EmKay is that given our years and years of history, I didn't feel particularly compelled to have to primp and pretty myself up for him. It would have been a nice thing to do, but I didn't. He's lucky I took a shower before he came over.

So anyway, he comes over and we drink wine, smoke a little, laugh, listen to music, drink some rum, smoke a little more, listen to some more music.

For a few minutes we went into the bedroom and then didn't even take our clothes off. Somehow, sleeping with him just didn't feel like the right thing to do.

But it was surely so comforting to be with him, just laughing and talking and laughing some more.

He did try to do all the gettalittlecloser moves, but I just wasn't feeling it.

"What do you think?" He asked me. "Has it just been too long?"

"I honestly don't know," I replied. "I am just loving what we are doing, right here, right now, so, so much."

Isn't that weird? I, Janey Horntoad, didn't want to have sex with a man WHOM I ADORE WITH EVERY CELL OF MY BEING AND WHO ADORES ME RIGHT BACK.

You know when you just have that soul-deep love for someone that will never go away? There's no nostalgia or hopefulness that you will recapture the fire or passion of what you once had, but a recognition that what you have now is a whole lot of the same thing without all of the attachment and jealousy and drama.

It was stupendously awesome.

We just look at each other and we really, really see each other -- we know the good, the bad and the gargoyle-esque about each other. And we just...love each other in a way that seems to me to be so goodhearted and friendly and well, simple. Each of us merely wants the other to be happy, and we are each other's biggest cheerleader.

And my god, that man can make me laugh like no one else.

One of my meditation teachers told a story that went something like this:

She had a dream that she was teaching, and someone approached her and asked, "Why do people love us?"

And she responded, simply, "Because we see them."

And that, my friends, is what EmKay and I have, in a nutshell. I cherish that so much.

I'm a Swinger

And by that I mean I am covering the swing shift this week, 12 to 9, for the night production guy who has taken his daughter to Hell -- er, I mean, Disneyworld.

Since it's a holiday week, I expect it will be fairly slow and quiet, so brace yourselves for a flurry of posting.

Not That I'm Fickle or Anything

But yes, I changed my blogskin again. I just hated that nasty orange thing. This seemed relatively inoffensive.

I wish I had a cool anime character like Dawn

Because I'm the World's Biggest Pain in the Ass

So I got one of those annoying chain emails from one of my housewife breeder friends. This one was a recipe chain letter. You know, send a recipe to the top person on the list and send the letter on to 10 friends.

Here is the recipe that I sent to some stranger:

My Favorite Recipe, by Jane Doe:

Grey Goose Dirty Martini

Ingredients:

1 1/2 oz Grey Goose Vodka
3/4 oz Dry Vermouth
Splash of Olive Juice
3 Olives

Mixing instructions:

Chill martini glass well by filling it with ice and water. Discard the ice and water.

Pour the vermouth into the chilled glass and swirl to coat the inside of the glass. Discard the excess.

Put the vodka and olive juice into a cocktail shaker with lots of ice. Shake very well and strain into the martini glass.

Add olives.

Imbibe.

Enjoy.

One More Thing

Oh, yeah, that thing with the Hot Retoucher?

Ain't happening. A non-starter. Stumbled out of the gate. Any other cliches y'all want to throw in here? The mad, mad makeout session, followed by HR's email to me that he wanted to come into the city and hang out with me some Saturday night, followed by, well, nothing, just leads me to feel like I been playyyyyed.

Like I was some sort of pre-divorce ego stroke or something. Which really just sucks, and yes, it has been definitively proven that I am a moron who does not learn. People say nice things to me and I believe them.

But, if there's one thing Janey knows, it's when to cut her losses. She may not have Fuck You Money to walk out on her job, but she has enough Backdafuckup Spirit to not let one more person mess with her head and heart. I'm so tired of walking around holding my entrails in like someone out of Saving Private Ryan.

HR said this: He isn't ready.

Janey's response: Well, I am.

Thanks for playing.

Peace ------ out.

The Soul-Destroying Job, Part 936

Is this really only the 2nd or 3rd post about the Soul-Destroying Job? It's just that it feels like I've bitched about it for 936 straight days. And I feel like I have been there for 936 years.

I made the decision on Friday that you can't fight City Hall, and so I need to get the fuck out of this toxic, toxic waste dump of a company. Since the powers-that-be at this particular City Hall don't seem particularly inclined to do anything to change or improve the culture of "If You Don't Pee Standing Up, You Have No Value Here" Janey needs to stop attempting to grow a penis and move on to a place that has a more, um, how do you say, current attitude toward women.

I hate this place, so, so much. I have never, ever in my life been so unhappy at a job as this.

I just need to do a brain dump here, a list of a few recent transgressions:

My boss, one of those "I really need to feel like one of the guys and I will abdicate any managerial responsibilities in order to do that" types, allowed the farewell lunch of a departing co-worker in my department to be scheduled at a strip club. If that isn't retarded enough, they neglected to invite me along. So, not only have they chosen an inappropriate venue for said "farewell party," they also really, really hurt my feelings by excluding me.

He once called me "a good worker." I beg your fucking pardon? A GOOD WORKER? I am a BRILLIANT production manager, not some scarf-folder at Old Navy or a factory worker screwing in the same bolt all day long at General Motors.

At the same time, someone must have once given him a gift subscription to some middle-management newsletter, which he diligently reads while sitting on the can, so he can absorb and throw words and phrases like "teamwork" and "innovation" into his conversations at the office while diligently fostering a divide-and-conquer, mediocrity is king, all-fear-all-the-time mentality.

There's this one guy at the company, a real Staten Island guido type, with that dry-look Frankie Valli hairdo and chest-out machismo. Trust me, I've seen the calluses on his knuckles from where they drag on the ground. Because of this one person, FOUR, I repeat, FOUR female production managers before me have left the company. Now, I know this because my manager himself told me this. Strangely enough, all of this troglodyte's accounts have been assigned to little old Janey. The company managed to hire someone to replace the aforementioned departing co-worker (thereby proving my belief that you CAN convince people that you regularly walk into doors or fall down stairs because most people just aren't paying that much attention). I made a (what seemed to me) reasonable request that Johnny Baggadonuts' accounts be assigned to the new, MALE production manager. One would think El Jefe would make this connection:

1) Johnny Baggadonuts has been directly responsible for FOUR women leaving the company.
2) Currently Johnny Baggadonuts' accounts are assigned to Jane, who has complained vigorously and multiple times about the same gender-based issues that the other women had.
3) I have hired a new MALE production person.
4) I can save myself from having to find ANOTHER production person by transferring Johnny's accounts to the MALE production person.

Instead, the stupid motherfucker sticks me with the Troglodyte's accounts. While out the other side of his mouth, he is mouthing platitudes like "I have a daughter, and as a woman and a minority, I wouldn't want her to have to encounter attitudes like this."

Ladies and gentlemen, I have had it.

Janey is soooooo GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE.

Psychiatric Counseling Sought

I received an email from a friend this morning, with the following
subject line:

"Mastectomy Bill in Congress"

And here is where my twisted mind went without so much as a hiccup:

"Chemotherapy Joe visits Senate"

It's Not Me, It's You

I can't for the life of me remember where I got this, so I can't
attribute to anyone. But I laughed again when I saw this:

The Classic Breakup Excuses and Their Translations:

1. It's not you

Translation: It is you, it is 100% you.

2. I like you as a friend.

Translation: You are ugly.

3. I don't think of you that way.

Translation: You are very ugly.

4. I'm just not looking for a relationship.

Translation: I am looking for a relationship, but not with you.

5. I don't want to ruin our friendship.

Translation: I would rather slit my wrists than go to bed with you.

6. I need space/I need to sort myself out.

Translation: I don't love you any more, and come to think of it I
probably never did.

Wolf Cookies for Breakfast, Snake Heads for Lunch

I've been feeling wretchedly misanthropic for the last couple of days and I think I need to crawl under the porch for awhile.

The things that I usually tolerate with a grin and a giggle and bounce are now the things that bug the shit out of me/enrage me/make me want to cry.

I hate everyone right now and myself most of all.

There's no music in my soul. Believe me, I've been listening. It ain't there. Not even that single cello playing plainsong to
accompany my blue mood. Just dead air. I couldn't even get my guitar tuned last night. Gave up after a half hour of trying. Who knows, maybe it was in tune, and I wonder if I HEAR things differently when I feel this glum. As if what I hear is merely a
reflection of my mood. Everything was jangly and tuneless.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I am crabby beyond belief. YOU go several nights running with your sleep interrupted by a drug-
addled crackhead welfare-sucking asshole and see what YOUR temperament looks like.

Then, a woman I work with looked at my new haircut (which I love, thank you Roni, for keeping me stylish and current) and pronounced it (AND I quote), "ummmm...interesting." I beg your pardon? That sounds to me like women-who-hate-other-women-bitch-speak for "ugly." You know, if you're going to be insulting, be ballsy. Do it right out where everyone can see it, put it in my face, don't give me this passive-aggressive bullshit. And frankly, if we're going to sling style insults, this one might just want to step off. I mean, I can take insults about my appearance from someone who's dead-on fashionable or
stylish, but from a caftan-wearing blob with no style to speak of, dyed orange hair and goat hairs on her chinny-chin-chin? Fuck you. Hurt my feelings, will you? Hmph.

I just needed to unload that.

Now I'm going under the porch for a few days.

Side Comments That Have Nothing to do with Politics

In the meantime, today I am feeling...

1) Exhausted
-- because Nancy the crackhead neighbor was at it again last night. The yelling, the screaming, the slamming of the doors. When I first moved in, my lefty-liberal heart bled a little -- I thought to myself, "Maybe she yells because she doesn't feel like she has a voice." (Mimes finger down the throat). Now the bleeding heart has scabbed over and I think, "Maybe she yells because SHE'S A CRACKHEAD ASSHOLE." Now I look at her two year old with a jaundiced eye and think, "Future felon."

2) Cranky
-- because I'm exhausted. If I lose one more hour of sleep because of this waste of humanity, there will be a murder. "Hello, Archer? I'm at Rikers. I killed a crackhead and I'm not sorry."

3) Horny
-- because, well, because I'm always horny. Frisky. Bushy-tailed. It must be because I never got married. Do they make you hand in your libido when you sign the marriage license? Because, frankly, I work with a bunch of men who are always complaining about how their wives won't put out. It's one of the questions I've always wanted to ask. That and the blow-job question. "Excuse me, ma'am? Were those blow-jobs merely installment payments on the engagement ring?" I've asked my married friends that questions and haven't gotten a satisfactory answer yet -- why do the blow-jobs stop as soon as "I do" is uttered? (I was reminded of this by a recent post of Archer's).

4) Chagrined and embarrassed.
-- because I am starting to think that taking the HR home two months ago was a big, big, big mistake. Because now there is someone at work who KNOWS WHAT I LOOK LIKE NAKED.

It would be one thing if the seeing each other naked had continued past that one night. This -- well, I'm not sure what this was. I haven't had a one-night stand in YEARS. I know, I know. You'll fuck another woman's husband but you won't have a one-night stand? Call me nutty. Then I go and have a one-night stand with someone I have to freakin' see every single day. See, I can't even do that right!

And it's not like I can sit him down and say, "You know, HR, I have to confess to being embarrassingly drunk that night, and parts of the night keep coming back to me in flashes that make my entire body flush with (humiliation? erotic memories? who knows?). But I do remember really, really, really having a good time, not to mention whispering an awful lot of filth in your willing little ear. But, honestly, HR, there are a few, teensy, weensy vodka-soaked holes in the evening, and maybe I don't remember all of the things you said to me, but I do think I remember you asking if I would wait three months, and now, two months after the fact, I don't know what that means or even if it means anything anymore. I mean, you've got a whole shitload of crap to go through with this divorce and everything, and here I find myself - AGAIN - waiting like a good pet. Sort of. And, well, I wouldn't mind that so much if I could only REMEMBER what it is I'm waiting for, or if I'm meant to even still be waiting, so could you please just let me know? Either way, I'm okay with what you tell me."

Unless, HR, you tell me that you are getting back together with your wife, then I'll have to quit my job because surely at some company event down the road I would meet her, and every time I saw her I would be thinking, "I had your husband's penis in my mouth."

Dancing on the Republicans' Graves

SCHADENFREUDE

SCHADENFREUDE

SCHADENFREUDE

MAN, I love that word.

Yesterday we partook in a referendum on stupidity.

Like so many of my friends, I'm doing a rude, skirt-flipping cancan at the side of the graves of the Republicans. Tossing in the occasional moon to add further insult.

Macacawitz of Virginia is now the last domino that needs to fall, then I'll turn it into a pole dance.

Mr. Bush, can you hear us now?

For One Brief Shining Moment it Was Camelot

But leave it to one weirdo to ruin it for everyone.

Yes, folks, the comments moderation has been turned on again.

I TOLD you I'm a psycho pest strip.

The Gene Pool Out of Which Janey Crawled

These are my parents.

This photo was taken on an August day in 1947, when Dad was 19 and Mummy, 18.

He was part of the American Army of Occupation in Okinawa, Japan. He grew up solidly blue-collar in Carnegie, PA (where we pronounce it, correctly, "Car-NAY-gie." Trust me. You can call the Carnegie Foundation in New York and they will confirm that down there in da 'burgh, we got it right. Take that, you New York snobs.) His father was a coal miner.

My mother was born and raised on a tiny speck of an island in the Ryukyus called Miyako. Her parents married, had a son, divorced, then remarried and set about having four more children. My grandfather was at one time moved by the government to Japan, where his name was changed to S****mura (more Japanese, less Okinawan) and he was a palace guard for a time for Emperor Hirohito. My mother was famous not only for her beauty, but her intelligence.

What is invisible in this photo of that gentle-seeming girl is her fire. My mother is possessed of something that she passed down to all of us, what we call The S****mura Temper. When we are angry, we get "small mouth" and a stubborn jut to our chins. Sometimes we wave our arms and yell. Unlike my mother, I am incapable of sustaining fury -- it blows in and blows out with the ferocity of a July thunderstorm in the mountains. Even now, on days when her mind is fully engaged, my mother will still give me that look -- a mix of condescension and ire that tells me that I'd better watch my p's and q's.

Every time I look at this photo, I feel like Princess Leigh-Cheri inspecting her pack of Camel cigarettes in her attic. (Go read your Tom Robbins. Uh-oh, spagetti-oh.) Something is revealed to me every single time I look at it.

First and foremost, look at these two people and you will never, ever, EVER again question any one of my issues and insecurities about how I look. Looking at these incandescent teenagers, I imagine I can understand how, say, the children of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will someday feel. Looking at them, I know how Alexa Ray Joel feels.

Look at them! They look like movie stars. I call this photograph, "The Movie Still," because it is so perfectly posed and evocative of that specific time, that specific place, that it almost doesn't seem real.

He is tall and handsome, sandy-haired and square-chinned and what you don't see are his bright blue laughing eyes. From his brushy crew cut to the bottom of the photo, everything about him says "GI Joe." The Army tans, the web belt, even the deck of smokes in his front pocket.

And my mother, well, she's in her wedding finery and doesn't look so much like a Japanese doll as a dewy flower. She is so young she still has baby fat on her face. As the years passed, this would melt away and reveal elegant planes and angles in her features. She is nestled into the crook of his arm, trusting that he will take care of her and save her from becoming the thing she dreaded most -- an Okinawa housewife.

She has no idea of what lies ahead for her, or perhaps she would change her mind and decide to stay in Okinawa. All she knows is that this boy walked into his barracks, saw her ironing shirts, and fell in love. He pursued her. He chased her with the single-minded devotion of a hound. He drove an Army truck up and down her street to try to catch glimpses of her. He went to her father and asked for her hand in marriage, probably in his best broken Japanese. And after her father told him "no" the boy went off to the hills with a bottle and a gun and his despair. Soldiers had to bring him to his senses.

Now will you let me marry her? I've shown how I love her.

No, you've shown that you're crazy. There's no way I'd let you marry her now.

And my mother sat with her father and told him what she wanted. She was headstrong and in love. Finally, my grandfather relented.

You must, he told her, do what you feel is the right thing for you.

So she married him.

My father, he knew the Army was going to send him home. In his youth and passion and his belief that love can conquer every obstacle, he had written an impassioned letter to the Inspector General pleading his case. Pleading his love for this tiny island girl.

So, a few days after this photo was taken, after they had been married by an Army chaplain, the Army put my father on a plane to return to the United States.

Without her.

In the meantime, the Inspector General received his letter. Like his daughter Janey would one day, my father had a gift for blarney and a way with words.

When my father's troop transport landed in Manila for refueling, there was a message from the Inspector General.

Find this soldier, he told his underlings, and put him on the next transport back to Okinawa so he can get his wife and bring her home.

Next August, they will celebrate their 60th anniversary.

Mimi LeDuck

Last Tuesday I went to see a preview of Annie Golden's new musical, Mimi LeDuck. Okay, it's off-broadway, but it's still Annie Golden, and she's always worth seeing no matter what she's doing.

And I'm not just saying that because Annie herself gave me the free ticket. (One of those friend of a friend deals.)

Go and hear her sing. Her voice is some sort of miracle, you know? Unfortunately, the material does not live up to her voice. She really needs a musical written just for her. Somewhere along the way, she seems to have fallen in between the cracks -- the wrong look, the wrong age, the wrong time. With her voice, comic timing and stage presence, she should have been a big star. A big, big star.

So back to the show.

The producers exhumed Eartha Kitt to play the landlady of the boarding house. I have to admit being a little worried that CatWoman was going to use up her last life and drop dead onstage, but that worry was only surpassed by my concern that Tom Aldredge (aka Hugh DeAngelis, Carmela Soprano's father) would expire before he could catch her, and there would be a heap of elderly mouldering flesh onstage and the 2nd half of the story would be ruined.

(Well, maybe that would ruin it for some people. Probably not for me. Me, I loved the suspense of watching Eartha wobble a couple of times on her high red heels, wondering if the cast could improv a broken hip into the plot.)

The high point of the night, besides the Eartha cliffhanger, was meeting an actor from my very favorite musical of all time, 1776. William Duell played McNair, the Congressional custodian. Out of nostalgia, I went home and watched the DVD again. Verrrry interesting, if you watch in the context of our current administration.

So, anyway. I did love the theme of Mimi LeDuck -- casting off your humdrum life to follow your heart and your dreams. It was very, very relevant to me and where I am in my life. But, alas, the songs just didn't live up to it. There wasn't that one song that sticks with you.

I'm the biggest, most sentimental sap on the planet (besides my dad), so if a musical doesn't jerk my tears at least once, then it's just not working.

Final Analysis: For die-hard Annie Golden fans only. Book & music need work.

And then they crawled right back up into his belly

Fucking John Kerry.

So the guy makes a ham-fisted joke.

First of all, a New England patrician making a joke is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS a mistake. WASPS and folks of their ilk should never, ever try to be funny. Because, as everyone knows, they are genetically incapable of it. They lack wit, and their timing always sucks.

And of course, he bumbles and fumbles and blunders and blows the joke, leaving it open, of course, for the Republican Manufactured Outrage Machine to latch onto it as a slur against the troops.

So now the portion of the American public, the ones who don't actually think, but who need to have their thoughts handed to them, who buy into all the shit that Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman and their minions pump into the media, and which the media sheep have dutifully reported, buy into this bit of hogwash: John Kerry insulted the troops!

Then, to add insult to injury, Senator Wishy-Washy backs the fuck down? Jesus Fucking Christ in a sidecar, the least he could do is step forward and say, "Yeah, I said it. So What?" Then he should blast the Media Pansies who fed into the right wing Manufactured Outrage Machine instead of saying, yo, Numbnuts, this is actually what I was saying and if you actually paid attention and reported it in context, you would have gotten it.

But, nooooooo, now Kerry's out there mewling and apologizing and begging forgiveness like a candy-ass.

I hate candy-asses.

Almost as much as I hate WASPS.

My apologies to any real numbnuts, pansies, or candy-asses who may have been offended by this.

I don't care what anyone else says

I saw John Kerry on George Stephanopolous last week and is he pissed.

I wanted to ask, "Hello? Have we met? You resemble a guy who ran for
president a few years back but that guy was a much bigger pussy."

Holy War Bride, Batman!

Thank god for the occasional compassionate commander

If Dad hadn't had one in 1947, your Janey wouldn't exist today!

Congratulations, Senator Kerry

Nice to see you've grown a set since 2004.

Archer, I'm Asking you In Public

Please marry me.

Any man who can make me blow coffee out of my nose and cackle like Margaret Hamilton the day after Halloween is worth doing the dirty deed for.

Happy Hello, Weenie

The little kids running around in their costumes look so cute I just want to eat them up.

Preferably roasted at 450 with rosemary and garlic and some new potatoes on the side.

Daylight Frittering Time, The Chauffeur, and An Unexpected Gift

Since we're not saving daylight, does that mean we are frittering?

Yesterday I chauffeured my breasts to the Upper West Side for a playdate with Baby Boy. Not that it was planned -- I was kind of at a loose end because I couldn't track down Hawkins for our planned brunch, couldn't scare up EmKay for a plan B, so on a whim I rang the little Italian to see if he wanted to get brunch and catch a flick. Lots of good films out there these days that we both want to see, you know.

Turns out he was having a Lazy Sunday Afternoon -- one of those lie around in your pj's and watch videos kind of days (okay, so he got more done between 7 am and 2 o'clock than most people get accomplished in a 12-hour day, he earned the lazy time).

As soon as I took off my coat, he announced he had a present for me. Ummmm. Can someone explain to this guy that we aren't dating anymore -- I broke up with you! You're not supposed to buy me presents! Turns out, he found an amazing necklace with a hand of Fatima charm that is perfect-perfect-perfect for me. I'm touched and charmed. Actually, what I am is tickled to death. I haven't had a man buy me a present for no reason in god-knows-how-long. I mean, it's just not the kind of girl I am. For some reason, men don't seem inspired to give me shit. I think I've mentioned it before. How does one become a woman that guys want to buy shit for?

No sooner do I flop down to watch the movie with him than he's on the Girls. Horny little tit-monkey that he is.

We did a little wrestlemania, then I walked him down to his meeting and got on a train to the Lower East Side to grab a Cuban sandwich and a beer at EmKay's bar. By this time, it was 7 o'clock and I *still* hadn't eaten anything, so I was stahaharving.

EmKay asked what I had been up to during the afternoon -- I mentioned that I had been hanging out with the Italian.

"Ohhhh," he said with a knowing leer, "so that explains the glow."

I can't help it, I've always given off a post-coital glow that is as obvious as a 5-year-old's drawing of the sun. It's probably more like the stink lines on a cartoon character, but there you have it. You can always tell when I've been up to somthing no good -- or rather, up to something really, really good because I get this happy buddha quality about me. When I used to leave the married guy's office after a particularly good romp, I used to get smiles and leers and second looks all the way home.

I'm just a horny bastard.

PS - I'm back into my skinny jeans after 3 years.

A Wee Miracle, My Not-So-Little Secret, and Crash-Readiness

I LOVE when I have little enlightenment moments. Sometimes they'll occur when I'm having a conversation with someone and I have to wonder, what does the other person see on my face as it's happening? Do I get that starey still look like C-3PO when they turn him off? Or do I get that meditative middle-distance gaze? Or that hyper-attentive listening like an animal thing?

Anyway, today I bounced into work because a miracle occurred last night while I was sitting at home. I was watching TV and noodling around on my guitar, just sort of zoning out, when all of a sudden I focused on what was happening with my hands. I started paying attention and realized that I was playing something I had never heard before and making it up as I went along. Holy capo, Batman, I said to myself! Well, what it turned out I was meant to be writing was NOT a lover's lament about being the Other Woman.

When I opened myself up to what I am supposed to be writing, it turns out to be... a lullaby?

Well, I'm just gonna go with it. See where it takes me. Exciting.

So this morning I ping the Hot Retoucher (from this point forward, HR) with an email, heedless of my "new rule" that we shouldn't contact each other through our work email or through my "name" email because god forbid anyone here at the office should think we're friends. (Side note, if anyone ever asks, I'm gonna say we've been at it like knives since a week after I started. That should shut them up). I'm excited. There's not only the realization that this actually does live in me -- but the more important realization that for the first time in my adult life, I am allowing myself to be... an artist. Just acknowledging.

I have to thank Baby Boy for this. Okay, so the sex was a disaster, but he's the first person who ever introduced me to someone with "oh, she gets it, she's an artist too." (Too bad about the bad sex. How does bad sex happen? He's actually a hyperactive little hottie and we were attracted to each other but somehow couldn't make the parts fit together right...)

So anyway, I guess HR decided that avoiding each other was as ridiculous as I though it was because he actually came right over to my desk to ask what was going on.

So we chat for a bit. It's kind of hard to do in a place as grim as this (oh, there is news on that front, too... I thought I wrote my own death warrant yesterday but it actually turned out to be something good... more on that another time)

Somehow the conversation gets around to monogamy. And he says, "Well, you don't believe in monogamy." Hmm. I'm not sure about that. I know I believe marriage is a bunch of crap. But monogamy? I'm not sure anymore. The most serious relationship I had (with EmKay) was devoted and faithful and passionate for five years. But -- when I'm not in a relationship, monogamy as a concept doesn't even exist in my life. And for some reason, society expects people who are NOT in monogamous relationships to be celibate.

Isn't that a load of crap? Because I'm not in a relationship with anyone, I am supposed to forego my natural and very healthy urges and shake hands at the door? I don't think so.

But as for monogamy -- that's my little secret. And I think it has been the real reason why I won't get involved with anyone. I talk the cynic... but the cynic hides the most hopeless romantic. Not that I wish some handsome stranger will come along and sweep me off my feet... but secretly, I want to be THAT GIRL again for someone. I don't want to be someone's dirty little secret -- I want to be someone's Sunday-morning girl. I don't ever want to be the styrofoam peanuts that fills in the empty spaces of someone else's life, I don't want to make it tolerable for someone to go home and sleep next to THE PERSON HE PICKED for another week. I want to be the girl who gets picked.

So that's part of my dirty little secret.

I also realized that all these years, I've talked about EmKay by telling people how lucky I was.

"I'm one of the lucky ones," I said (probably with insufferable smugness), "I've had the Great Love of My Life." If capital letters could be spoken, I was doing it. "A lot of people aren't so lucky -- they end up settling for someone who can just give security and babies." Frankly, I'm surprised that I haven't been slapped, hard, and frequently.

The FLAW in my thinking is this: I believed that you only get ONE. I believed for all these years that I walked up to the buffet, filled my plate, sat down and ate, and that was all I got. I'm sorry, no more shrimp or lobster for you, miss, you've already been through the line once.

Oh, honey. (I just want to call myself honey and pat myself on the knee.)

Oh, honey, didn't you know this is an all you can EAT buffet?

Notes from Randomalia

I've grown weary of my own mewling, so here's a little lighthearted stuff for you:

1) How many men sent their wives off to the theater alone last Thursday, the night the Mets blew it?

2) Don't people realize that synthetic waterproof fabrics hold odors? That stink on the subway is YOU, Mr. Helly Hansen/NorthFace/Columbia! Wash your damn coat.

3) I'm very, very sorry to see the following 1970's fashion trends have returned in full hipster force: Gay-porno-star moustaches, bushy sideburns, and most woefully, a hairstyle I can only call "The Garfunkel."

4) I would love to see one of those tatted-out, full-sleeve hipsters get beat up by a Hell's Angel. Just on principal.

5) When I look at myself in store windows as I walk down the street, it's not because I think I look hot. I am just afraid that my skirt might have somehow gotten tucked into my underpants.

6) One day last week the L train was so crowded I had to let FIVE trains go by before I could fit onto one. I tell ya, the ghetto must have been completely empty that morning.

7) I haven't actually met my new neighbor but I've suspected for a while that he is gay because of the loud dance music he plays at 8:00 in the morning. At first I felt bad about stereotyping like that and told myself "Maybe he's some heterosexual who happens to like dance music -- this IS an Italian neighborhood after all." This morning when I left, he was blasting and wailing along to Cher. "Do you be-leheeve in lahf after luhv?" I don't feel bad for the stereotyping anymore.

8) Walleyed people have a moral obligation to tell you which eye to look at when you are talking to them.

9) How do drag queens dress up on Halloween? Do they wear business suits and khakis?

A Little BackStory

So, someone who before that drinky Friday night basically didn't exist for you except as "the hot retoucher" extends the hand of friendship. You aren't sure where it comes from, but okay, you say to yourself, I'll play along.

But being your mother's daughter, you're a little suspicious (You maybe are a little too fond of exclaiming "Estoy sospechosa!" when things seem a little too easy). But with your dharma vows to try to remain open to all of your experience, and a generous plop of your father's gregarious nature larded through you -- you are, in fact, a USDA Grade Triple-A Prime, Luger's-quality cote de beouf of Aiko larded with Marty -- you shake that hand of friendship.

Things get warm and personal. Maybe a little too warm and personal (you do tend to have, as Anne Lamott might say, some teeny, tiny boundary issues).

You've been spending a lot of time working out your shit, slowly, often painfully. You have had a strange and terrible and wonderful summer, and as luck would have it, the strangeness and terribleness and wonderfulness seem to have worked a miracle and maybe pried open your heart a bit. As luck would also have it, you happen to have a spot open for a new friend. You believe that maybe this opening of your heart and the opening for a friend are perhaps no coincidence.

So, you reach out, and you take the hand of friendship that is offered to you, because maybe, just maybe, you have been having a really hard time with the politics of the place where you work, and no one has really made any effort to be particularly friendly to you.

You, a gregarious person who thrives on building partnerships and friendly relationships in order to be successful at business, you find that some days at 6:00 you barely make it to the corner of Trinity and Rector before you find yourself weeping with loneliness. You don't tell anyone, even your best friend, how you sit in the park some days across from the Hole In the Ground after work and cry and cry in despair at the idea that you made the most expensive mistake of your life.

You didn't notice till later that it is an office populated by loners, everyone huddled like strays over their bowls ready to snap at anyone who comes too close. In fact, no one ever asks the bland polite questions that co-workers ask each other, like "How was your weekend?" "How are you this morning?" No one asks where you come from or where you worked before. It's as if someone smote the ground with a magic wand and up you sprung, wholly formed and without any warning to anyone else.

You look into your boss's eyes and you see a cipher. He frequently mouths management words like "teamwork" but what you are really seeing is just another scared person who feels desperate to protect his own position. But that's for another entry. We're talking about the hand of friendship here.

And don't forget the person offering the hand of friendship is in the middle of an ocean of shit all his own. But for our purposes, this isn't his story. And since you can't know anyone else's experience, we're just gonna let this one be all about you. But maybe, just maybe, he looked into your eyes and saw that maybe here was another gentle soul to whom he felt safe offering the hand of friendship, because maybe he needed one, too. Maybe (and this is pure speculation and making shit up now!) he had been feeling a little lonely at the place, too. Maybe he looked into your eyes and saw that friendship with you is actually a pretty safe place. Who knows? Like we've said, now we are making shit up.

"Oh, fuck it," you say. Because there's something gentle in his eyes that you like. Here is someone in this workplace who actually seems interested in you, the person. Not you, the co-worker. In fact, you, the person, seem to delight him, so you just decide to go with it.

You are thrilled that you might, just might, be able to stomach the job if you know you have a friend there. Just one friend at the workplace doesn't seem to be too much to ask. In fact, after a few minutes of conversation, you realize that if you had met this person outside of work, you would have chosen him to be your friend.

The rest of your life is nothing but your friends. If someone were to ask you, in your life outside of work "Do you ever get lonely?" you would be honestly puzzled. Loneliness seems an anathema to you. It's pretty hard to feel lonely when you know that you are walking the earth loved.

But wait, you should have been more careful.

Because what you didn't see, as you were reaching out delightedly to take the hand of friendship, was the fist that was forming behind his back. And before you can even blink, you find yourself hard on your ass on the floor, touching the bloody lip in wonder and your tongue throbbing from where you bit it when you sat down so hard.

And what you hear, in your mind is a voice that sounds remarkably like your mother's:

"I told you so."

So, what you do is what you've done your whole, entire life. You wipe the blood from your lip, blink back the tears, roll down the shutters over your eyes and your soul, and make sure you are dusted off. You pick the gravel out of your palms and back away slowly, because you have learned.

A Letter from Cheri (my favorite Zen teacher)

Gassho,

How're you doing? How's it going?

Did you look to see? Did you stop to check in and then answer the questions? If not, will you do so now, please, and pay very close attention to what happens as you do. Ready? How're you doing? How's it going?

Actually to look, to see, and to come up with an answer requires a full stop, doesn't it? I find myself closing my eyes in order to eliminate the distraction of sight as I look. Because even though my eyes turn and focus, they are not what's looking. The eyes, having the habit of looking, scan around with the attention, searching out where the answer lies.

Did you see where your attention goes to find the answer? Did it check around in your body to see how you're feeling or did it shoot up to your head for an assessment? Or was it some sort of combination, a conclusion reached by checking in with the "felt sense" of emotional reaction to bodily sensations?

The real question is how do you know how you're doing? Where do you look, who/what does the looking, who does the deciding, who announces the results, and who gets the information?

Each time I met with my teacher he would ask with a certain intensity, "How are you?" It took me a shockingly long time to realize he wasn't looking for "Fine" as an answer. Once I caught on our whole time together grew from my response to that simple, profound question.

At Kripalu (Yoga Center in Lenox, Massachusetts), during the past weekend workshop on fear, I found myself talking with people about the role of fear in the cycles of expanding and contracting energy. On the radio show on Tuesday evening we were talking about the backlash that follows moments of conscious awareness or insight. When I heard myself say, "There's nothing that will bring on an attack of self-hatred faster than happiness," I knew this was the topic for this monthly email.

Conditioned human beings in the waking-up process are constantly checking (or being checked?) to see how they're doing. This checking can come in the form of a review (at the end of the day, following a meeting, or after a particular interaction). It can also take the form of second-guessing, or anxiety or insecurity over performance, or through a comparison to others or against standards such as "where you should be at this stage of life," or via that simple question: How are you? How you are in that moment is dependent on how you came out in the evaluation, yes? You may have been going along not particularly aware of standards or performance, and then a well-placed question produces a self-consciousness that determines your state of well-being or a lack thereof.

This process of "energy management" (high energy when you score well, low energy when you don't) is going on all the time in subtle, often unconscious ways, not just as a result of questioning that is fairly easy to catch on to. That scanning happens
"subliminally," causing a person to decide it's time for a cup of coffee or a "treat," or to feel bad, without ever being aware that that looking-concluding-deciding-acting sequence has happened.

One of the admittedly oddest aspects of Buddhism (to Westerners) is the construct of "hungry ghosts." In the East where Buddhism was spawned, people understand that there are many realms of consciousness, many planes of existence, and this human orientation is just one, not necessarily the most special or significant--except to us, of course!

What is a hungry ghost? It is a creature with a tiny mouth, a very long, thin neck, and a huge belly. It is constantly trying to get enough sustenance through the little mouth to fill that enormous belly. What it ingests is human emotion, in
particular human suffering. So, there are these creatures hanging around human beings waiting for emotional upset to happen so they can have a meal. And they don't always wait! You're going along and suddenly your attention is directed to something
upsetting--a judgment, a comparison, a criticism-and you can feel your energy deflate. If you think of energy being drawn out of your body and consumed, you will have a sense of what the notion of a hungry ghost is trying to convey.

Here's what I'm suggesting. The expansion and contraction of energy is a process. It's not accidental and it's not random. You are present, aware, expansive, life is good, you're feeling good about yourself and life. What happens next? What comes in to produce the contraction? Fear? Anxiety? Judgment? Feeling bad about something you said or did? Just notice. Watch the movement. You're feeling full, full of energy and then, whoosh! Something comes along to capture that energy and leave you feeling empty, deflated.

Once you catch on to how you go from expansive to contracted, you might choose to observe the movement from contracted to expansive. And it is a movement, a series of steps that takes you from the one to the other. Again, it's not random or haphazard--it is very specific and observable. Up and down. Up and down. We look for reasons. Why am I suddenly down? What happened? What did I do? The answer is you didn't do anything. You were distracted, your attention strayed from HERE for a moment, and you
slid into contraction. Your energy just got consumed.

What to do? Nothing. Just notice and enjoy how it feels not to have your life-force siphoned off. The noticing is all it takes. As soon as you get HERE, the energy is once again yours.

Gassho,
Cheri

The Poison of Fear at Work

I got an email from someone on Friday that elucidated the way thing are at my job, and frankly, it's nothing that I haven't observed myself, and I really really want to work at holding myself out of the fray and remain authentic.

My heart demands it.

I'm either lucky or unlucky in that the minute I do or say something that feels inauthentic, something in my heart contracts a little.

Since I started there in May, I have mostly remained an outsider. Which has occasionally bothered me (shades of not being one of the popular kids at school), but has afforded me a tremendous opportunity to observe behaviors, management styles, and all kinds of interactions.

I usually get away with this by cultivating a sweet, simpleminded expression on my face. People will do and say the most outrageous things in front of you if they think you are clueless.

Anyway.

The all-pervasive condition that I've noticed here is an air of fear. It permeates the workspace with a metallic stink that is so permanent and ingrained that most people aren't even aware of it. But I look at things. I see things. I pay attention. And what I see is a lot of people scurrying around afraid to make a mistake, or voice a concern, or even raise their hand to make a contribution that would benefit the company.

It is a quagmire of status quo, that's the way we've always done it. You can't swim through a tarpit. They're still finding mastodon bones at LaBrea, if I'm not mistaken. No one is willing to risk making a change because they want to make sure that making a change will be successful.

Now, this is management by fear. What the top level of management doesn't seem to get is that change is, inherently -- IN AND OF ITSELF -- risky. It's the classic risk/reward proposition. Take little risk, get little reward. Take a big risk, chances are you'll get a bigger reward.

And rather than address problems DIRECTLY, what happens is this: See a problem, then create a cloak-and-dagger scheme to make someone fuck up to PROVE that they are a problem. Rather than taking the person aside and doing that shocking thing known as a performance review.

I know, I know. I was fortunate to work for one of the most progressive private companies in the country. But its progressive management style meant that we were a little 100-person publishing company generating $125 MILLION in gross revenue each year. That's $1.25 million PER EMPLOYEE. We worked like dogs, but we were rewarded and praised and we knew that we had the power to change our own jobs if it was for the good of the company. That was an amazing experience.

Then I was running the little green printing business. And because it was just me, if something didn't work, process-wise, since I couldn't fire myself, I could just change the process to something that worked. Every single one of my vendors loved my ass, cause I was thorough and professional and realistic about schedules. And I had a process that worked.

So here I am in a traditional, patriarchal "society" where no one really feels they have a stake in anything except keeping their own job security. So what's the incentive for people to think outside their cubicle? None whatsoever. And I am watching a once-great company slowly choking to death on its own fear.

More later.

Wow, That Really Hurts My Feelings

Please, will someone run me over four or five hundred times with a steamroller, then maybe expose me to radiation for a year, put my feet in the stirrups of a runaway pinto and drag me face-down along Main Street, then run me through a hot wash and dryer with a good linen-setting ironing afterward?

Because, clearly, I need to get a little thicker-skinned. Maybe like a rhino or a crocodile or something. I need to toughen the fuck up, that's for goddamn sure.

Here's what I'm gonna lay all over you:

Now. Apparently.This person at my office, with whom I had tentatively
begun a friendship, has decided that we can't even be open about our FRIENDSHIP.

WTF?

So. Here's the life lesson in this: Just when you think you can't make yourself feel any worse about having to be someone's dirty little Wednesday-afternoon secret, stand back and wait a while. It WILL get worse. When someone has to keep the fact that you might be friendly with each other a deep dark secret, well my friends, let me tell you, it makes you feel lower than worm poo.

You see, I'm used to being proud to call someone my friend, and to have them be proud to call me theirs. I am so delighted with my friends that I can't WAIT for them to meet each other.

Every time Roni introduces me to someone new, she puts her hand on my arm and says, "This is my very best friend," in a warm and loving tone of voice that conveys to the other person that she really, really loves me.

Am I excessively thin-skinned? Or is this the kind of thing that should hurt my feelings?

You tell me.

Once Again, Someone Said it in Far Fewer Words than I Could

"Our bodies, our minds, and even our souls are the abodes of love, not love itself. Love exists everywhere around us and permeates everything---it is the treasure of this world, and by its very essence it cannot be kept captive inside our own coffers. True love exists beyond the people we love. When we understand this the expectations we place on others diminish: We are loved by existence itself, and so we don't need to feel rejected or hurt when a partner or friend isn't able to love us the way we wish. When our feelings depend on no one, we have attained a high state of realization---our love is our own, our happiness is our own; we are responsible for the way we feel and there is no longer any need to ask others to provide us with these states. This is an important step on the path of love: Link your spirit to love itself, open your heart to existence, choose love as your spiritual journey and you will never be disappointed in humans."

- Rumi


In other words: Don't hoard the good stuff! There's enough for everybody!

Enough! Enough! Enough!

Enough with the meme's already! I don't give a shit what you have under your bed, whether you wear boxers or briefs, or if you lost your virginity on the 2nd floor of Alpha Sig in 1983.

Don't we do enough navel gazing as it is? Isn't the fact that we are out in the blogosphere evidence of our INCREDIBLE self-absorption to begin with? I mean, really, folks, few and far between are the blogs worth reading. Come on, even this. Most of this is nothing but morning-papers-level crap with the occasional funny thing thrown in. And I mean most blogs just suuuuuuuuuuck out there. Have you ever clicked on the "next blogs" button on the blogger homepage? We are the most narcissistic bunch of buttmunches on the freakin' planet, completely self-referential and we think that other people out there in the blogosphere are interested in what we have to say.

Here's what people are interested in reading about in other people's blogs:

- saying funny but incredibly mean things about George Bush's idiocy.
- sex.

Maybe I'll go back to writing about sex. At least it was fun to read, though a few of my friends mentioned that it did make them a little squeamish. File under: Things You Never Wanted to Know, i.e. the ingredients of hot dogs, your parent's favorite position, and the details of Janey's sex life.

But I have say, I never want to see another blog about:

- your new fucking baby. YOU HAD A BABY. You didn't invent childbirth. Kathie Lee Gifford invented childbirth.
- your new fucking house. YOU BOUGHT A HOUSE. Yeah, so did I once, and you know what? If a bank is willing to give ME money for a mortgage without making me give a hand job to the loan officer, then pretty much anyone in the world can get a mortgage.

Of course, my friends are exempt from this crankiness because everything they write is fascinating and creative and hilarious as shit. (it's okay, you guys can pay me later)

Oh. And Archer. He's just the funniest blogger I know. Plus, I'm shamelessly trying to butter him up to leave his wife and marry me.

You know what?

Having done the rants here, I actually feel a little better.

Go Home and Watch Project Runway Better.