A Resolution and a Few Words About Mood Music

First, a resolution.

I resolve to stop starting thoughts, paragraphs, and blog posts with "so," and "now." It's become a tic, as if I stepped out of the room for a second to see if the kettle started boiling, and I'm coming back in to resume the conversation. I will work really hard to stop doing it.

About mood music:

Today I'm still doing stuff. A weekend under the porch, as I frequently say.

I cleaned the floors and the litter boxes, and I am in the middle of something so mindlessly banal and yet somehow satisfying, folding shirts. Sorting by color (red stack, black stack, white stack), and use (suitable for work, suitable for weekend, suitable for sleeping, not suitable for public consumption, like this disgusting 15-year-old Arapaho Basin shirt).

I started out listening to Skynyrd and kd lang, then thought I'd get clever and mix up my chore music a bit with something a little more laid-back. Mark Knopfler, "Sailing to Philadelphia." It's a great album, with an inward, contemplative quality, and with amazing guest appearances by James Taylor and Van Morrison, but as I folded and listened, I realized that I was feeling lower and lower with every song. Pretty soon I was sitting here folding shirts and wanting to kill myself.

The point being, if you're me, and music feeds your psyche, and your psyche is hanging fairly low to begin with, DON'T CHOOSE THE BUMMER MUSIC!

Gahhh, time to put on some Earth Wind & Fire or something.

"I Am," oughta do it. That 5/4 bar in "Star" delights me every single time I hear it.

Teetering on the Brink of Summer

Well, happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone. Believe it or not, I went into the office yesterday, and kinda liked it. On the weekend, I can work quietly, uninterrupted, at my own pace, and best of all, with my shoes off. There's a feeling of being naughty when you walk around the workplace in your bare feet.

A long weekend like this is as good a time as any to mentally shift from this odd-weathered and odd-occasioned Spring into another New York Summer.

I would like to stretch out on this rock right here, in this sunny patch, and begin molting. Shedding one's skin just feels. So. Good.

This is such a strange moment for me, because pretty much every single area of my life EXCEPT work is imploding, then exploding, and it's all of my own doing. Right now, I feel like I've been climbing out of a hole with dirt sides, and the rain has started falling -- hard. I got about halfway up, but now oh shit the sides are muddy and I'm sliding back down, just trying to grab onto some roots.

The upside is that apparently, even though the FDA has never published a peer-reviewed study on this, anecdotal evidence shows that the lardy drippings from a cracked-open heart do serve as actual nourishment, without all those pesky calories to fatten you up.

I don't have any recollection of sitting down and eating a meal last week. I had a couple of tomatoes the other night. Some oatmeal for breakfast a couple of days. A cup of yogurt last night. An awful lot of coffee and cigarettes. (Not to mention the no-calorie business travel food, of course.)

So yes, I've lost a few pounds, enough that I got into my size-smaller jeans this week without needing a Quaalude and a can of WD-40. Quick, someone get Jenny McCarthy on the horn to start touting this as the next bad-science bogus cure for -- something!

At any rate, I am trying to be all om padme mani hum Dalai Lama and shit about things, even succeeding sometimes when I remember what he said about a broken heart being an open heart. Also, I read somewhere that you need to always put love ON your heart, so that when it breaks open, the love can fall inside. I just adore that whoever said this could see the inevitability of heartbreak.

I guess what's hardest to let go of is the conversation. It was such good conversation. Dammit.

Oh, and the idea that there was a person out there in the world who was, at that moment, giving a shit about me.

You see, when you're me, you get pretty reliant on knowing that there are people who give a shit about you occasionally. The idea that there was a person who was probably giving a shit about me frequently, and at the same time that I was giving a shit about him was fairly astonishing. When I allowed myself to roll with it, those moments had a sort of zoney, stoned "wowwwww" quality to them.

We're self-sufficient, though sometimes lonely, creatures in my world.

I also had a moment of indecision about the 2,000-some emails, and whether I was tough-minded enough to make a really clean break and purge them.

Well, I can't.

Some of them are almost love letters, you see, and I think you should always keep love letters. Not for the wishing that something would come of them, but for the remembering that someone felt strongly enough about you to put pen to paper. You keep them to remind yourself that you were the person who inspired such words, that at that moment something about you was right.

I have every love letter that Matt ever wrote to me, even the ones that I tore into pieces, in a fat envelope, somewhere.

I always say, when you don't know what to do, just do the next thing. But I think I need to revise that slightly. When you don't know what to do, make a to-do list, then do the next thing.

So right now, I'm to-doing the next thing.

Ask Me

You know, I've been thinking about Don's question and how it really got my brain jazzed.

I kinda like the idea of that.

So, ask me, and I'll tell you.

We're all friends here, right?

CBW is safe.

Ask me.

Sunday, Sweet Sunday

It is a gorgeous morning, and I have my windows open, the fans turned on low, and I'm doing stuff.

Doing stuff is on the list of great healing things. It's right up there with a good night's sleep and banana smoothies (as Anne Lamott avers, and I agree).

Last night I pulled down my summer shoes and put away all of my boots. Well, except for my three pairs of Frye boots, which I wear year-round. So all of my cute sandals are now at my beck and call, but I also now have to deal with my hooves. So, giving myself a pedicure will be on my list of stuff to do today. I'll also give myself a manicure while I'm at it.

I also got out my new bike shoes. Well, they were new when I bought them last year, but since my bike didn't see an inch of pavement, I never even took them out of the box. When I did, I realized that I didn't have clips on them, so that necessitated salvaging the SPD's from one of my old pairs. Both sets were fused in place by rust (I have no idea, so don't ask), requiring lots of forearm muscle and my Topeak Alien tool with its handy-dandy hex-wrench set (I am always IKEA-ready, btw).

Once I got them off, there was the question of all that rust. After pondering this for a few minutes (hmmmm, will acid remove rust from steel?), i went to my little pie safe/pantry. There, I realized that I had used the last of my white vinegar to clean my new coffee maker, so I made a gametime decision.

Into a glass and a bath of balsamic they went, screws and all! And while they're not exactly like new, at least they don't look like something salvaged from Titanic anymore.

So I screwed them into my spanky-new Diadora's, and I'm kind of excited to work on my bike later, then do all those fiddly little adjustments to the clips to make sure they're properly aligned.

Yes, even though I ride a road bike, I run mountain-bike shoes and clips and pedals. I just like them better, so there. Nyah.

Which raises a question I've always had:

If they're called "clipless" pedals, why do we call the things on our shoes "clips?" And what we do, "clipping in?" Isn't "clip" a funny word if you say it enough times?

Okay, I've had my coffee, and now I am going back to doing stuff.

Is It The Wedding Ring?

NOTE: I realized that this was an incoherent mess, so here is the revision.

Don asked "Is it the wedding ring?" in his comment, and the short answer, for me is, "no."

It's not the wedding ring. A wedding ring is not some magical red toreador's cape that signals to me, "I must have that!" I don't set out to "steal" people's husbands or boyfriends.

And I don't steal anyone. It's more like, um, borrowing. Besides, the word "steal" implies a one-sidedness that is absolutely impossible in the situation. No man has come to me who hasn't wanted to be there.

So what is it?

I can only speak to my own experience.

As in any relationship, I have to like the person enormously. I have to trust him. And I have to want to have sex with him.

It's really that simple. The liking and respect are really no different than they are in your more traditional relationship. They just come without all that extra freight of me demanding anything more from someone than he can give.

You know, maybe in a few years or yesterday I'll meet someone with whom most of the pieces fit, and he'll say, I want to give you everything, and I'll ride next to him into battle, flying his colors and we'll take on all comers, together.

But it just hasn't happened for me. I don't know why. Maybe because it isn't in my nature to demand that someone step up to some line I've scratched in the dirt, no one has done it.

And why does a married guy do it? I don't know. Who is anyone to question anyone else's motives? You just can't know.

Maybe the married man's wife has lost all interest in sex and her husband still has a roaring sex drive (in my opinion, these guys don't need a reason, they need a permission slip. How can you just cut off one of the things that supposedly comes with a marriage vow and expect your partner to nod meekly and say, "Well, uh, okay, I'll just jerk off for the rest of my sorry life?")

Maybe his wife is sick (like, probably-going-to-die and too-ill-to-have-sex sick) and they have an arrangement of some sort, whether explicit or DADT. I know of what I speak here.

Maybe he looks at his wife and doesn't see himself in her eyes anymore. Maybe she has replaced him with their children, or her job, or a social calendar, or whatever. Whatever it is, maybe in the grand scheme of their life together, he is feeling like the last kid to get picked for dodgeball, and what he's seeking a loving connection with someone.

Michael Chabon's wife (her name escapes me at the moment) took a raft of shit in mommy-blogland when she wrote a column daring -- DARING -- to say that she was more in love with her husband than she was with their children. The NERVE of her, right? To declare such a thing, out loud, and in public!

Well, I thought it was kind of nice. Wouldn't it be nice to have someone who looks at you all the time and says, "I choose you?"

Believe me, when my friend is with me, he knows that I have chosen him.

And who knows? Maybe somewhere down the road, it may still happen to me. Just because it hasn't happened so far doesn't mean that I consider it a complete impossibility. Someone may just come along, who looks at me, sees me, thinks I'm fantastic, and says, "I choose you."

And if the timing is right, and the person has just the right tools to tinker with my heart and brain, maybe I'll say exactly the same thing.

Fear of Death

I'm very annoyed with my vet right now.

I phoned her to see if she could call in a refill for Mambo's high blood pressure medication. She was extremely resistant and wanted me to bring him in for a checkup and another battery of expensive tests.

I refused. Adamantly.

Now, you might think I'm completely heartless, but really! This cat is almost 20 years old, he's blind, and deaf, and slouches toward Bethlehem all over the house, and he has high blood pressure and bad kidneys. But he's 20! He's an old man and he's on his last legs.

Now this cat has had a very good life. I rescued him from a shelter in 1992 and he has lived in New York and Colorado. He's been on a plane. I've lived with this cat longer than I lived with my parents.

I've rearranged my social schedule to make sure I could give him insulin shots, I've rushed him to the vet near-death in kidney failure, I've lifted him into the litter box while he was recovering, I've force-fed him antibiotics with a syringe, and I've spent the last few months helping him down from chairs. Over the years, I've spent more money on vet care for him than I've spent on my own health.

I'm a little attached to him.

So I was more than a little offended that the vet laid this huge guilt trip on me because I didn't want to stress him out by stuffing him into the Sherpa, putting him in a car, and subjecting him to poking and prodding and needles and razors, not to mention that I just can't afford a $400 vet visit right now.

She finally agreed to call in the prescription, but first she made me SIGN A WAIVER absolving her of liability in case he DIES.

A waiver! For a 20-year old cat! He's going to die soon anyway! All I want to do is make the next few months comfortable for him. Jesus, he's only got a few months left, do we really need to prolong things?

Honestly. It's like recommending quadruple bypass surgery for a hundred-year old man.

I read a story on Yahoo today about a family whose dog was hit by a car. They rushed this dog, with catastrophic injuries, to the vet, who recommended that the dog be euthanized because its injuries were so severe. The couple decided that it would be too traumatic for their children, so they insisted on taking the dog home. It had broken bones, was yelping in pain, couldn't walk, ate its own feces, and a few hours later, it died anyway.

This story absolutely enraged me. These selfish fuckheads needlessly caused hours of agony and suffering for a creature that was utterly dependent on them because they were afraid their kids would be sad? And then the fucking dog died in agony anyway? Well FUCK them. I hope their kids got a good look at their dog with shit on its muzzle dying in pain.

Has our society become so ridiculous that we can't even accept death, and worse yet, parents feel they have to shield their children from death? Of course we have.

We are surrounded by fear of death. Botox and plastic surgery are fear of death. Self-medicating our problems away is fear of death. Every new "it's bad for you! No! Now it's good for you!" proclamation by the so-called health experts is fear of death. Teaching kids about "stranger danger" (proven to be utter bullshit, by the way) is fear of death. If you have a glass of wine while you're pregnant, you will kill your baby, or at least seriously reduce his chances of getting into Harvard, fear of death! My 78-year old father, asking for my kidney, and me, offering it gladly, fear of death.

Someone once asked Shunryu Suzuki Roshi where we go when we die. He laughed and answered, "To the cemetery!"

We would all be much better off if we learned how to accept death, and taught our kids how to accept death. This does not mean that we aren't still sad when it happens, but Jesus, we'd at least be better equipped to deal with it, and we wouldn't have to cling to the utterly absurd and immature notion that people need to be protected from the fact that it happens. I just don't GET people who won't take children to funerals. What are they protecting them from?

Grow up, people. Pets die. People die. Learn how to be sad, and stop clinging to the insane notion that you're entitled to be happy all the time, and maybe you'll figure out how to be happier most of the time.

And just for the record, when Mambo dies, I hope quietly, in his sleep on his favorite chair, I will be devastated.

I love him, you see.

The FAQ's of CBW

I think I may have jumped the gun by dropping the tale of my SNF right out of the gate. So I'm going to back up a little and tell you a little bit about how I feel about certain things.

Sex, marriage, relationships, morality, honesty and truth.

Stay tuned.

I have a lot to say.

And yes, the story of how John and I started sleeping together is true.

Surprise! Sarah Palin and Her Friends are Stupid and Tell Lies!

Timothy Egan writes in the NY Times about a candidate that Governor Bendy-Straws endorsed:

In the midst of one of the most precipitous political crashes in the Mountain West, Sarah Palin made a mad dash into Boise on Friday, urging the election of a man who had plagiarized his campaign speech from Barack Obama, had been rebuked by the military for misusing the Marine uniform and had called the American territory of Puerto Rico a separate country.

And why not? Vaughn Ward, the Republican congressional candidate from Idaho, has the dubious character trifecta of the Palin brand: bone-headed, defiant and willfully ignorant. When told that Puerto Rico was not a country, he said, “I don’t care what you call it.”

In Teabagger America, being dumb is a Family Value but yanking your kid out of school to travel with her as a human shield isn't?

God, even though you don't exist, please send a microburst down upon this woman's aircraft the next time she is on a plane landing in the mountains.

Secret Saturday Shame

My confession for today:

I have been listening to Billy Joel "Songs in the Attic" all week. And liking it.

I know, I know, Billy Joel is the worst kind of middle-class, suburban pop EVER. It's right up there with the soulless Jackson Browne. (Have you ever noticed that the people who love Jackson Browne's "The Pretender" are always the most douchebaggy white investment-banker types? They wail along with "caught between the longing for love and the struggle for the legal tender," as if it speaks to them in some meaningful way, when really, they'd sell their children to pornographers if they thought there were millions to be gotten in the exchange.)

But I can sing along easily to Billy Joel. His voice is right in my range, and singing alone, loudly, in my house oxygenates my entire body, and not to be too treacly about it, my soul.

Besides, "Miami 2017" should have been New York City's anthem after 9/11, not all that bombastic country-and-western nuke-em-all we'll-kick-your-sand-nigger-ass shit that you heard from every radio.

I mean, come on, Billy saw the lights go out on Broadway! He saw the Empire State laid low! He watched the mighty skyline fall! He saw the ruins at his feet! They turned our power down, and drove us underground, but we went right on with the show!

There, I said it. I like some Billy Joel.

Except "Captain Jack" and "Piano Man." Those songs are just Suburban Evil set to music.

How My Special Naked Friend Came To Be

In 2006, I was working at the Soul-Destroying Job downtown. I was making money, and hitting the trifecta of crying nearly every day. I would cry on the subway going to work, I would cry at my desk, and I would cry on my way home. It was simply awful.

One of the agents of my weeping was a terrible little man named Paul. He was the facilities manager, and when his face wasn't in the lap of the company CEO, he was busy scurrying around making life difficult for everyone else he perceived was below him on the corporate totem pole. He had obviously, at some point, decided that "managing up" was going to get him further than "managing down," and so he tore through the place in a whirlwind of condescension to the women, officiousness toward the men, and oily sucking up to upper management. As far as he was concerned, it only mattered what one person thought of him, and that was the CEO. To myself, I called him Sammy Glick.

The CEO was himself an ineffectual man with angry eyes and depressive tendencies, who would emerge from his office in the furthest reaches of our floor and walk through our side of the office with his coffee mug, like a wraith who barely existed except to leave behind whiffs of rage in his wake. A nasty divorce had left him with a free-floating hatred of women, and he was fond of saying things like, "it's cheaper to keep her," in the hallways. He had also lost most of his business to a former employee, who left after being promised on a handshake that he would be made a partner after the divorce decree was signed and was instead given the shaft. So Arturo (not his real name) walked, taking with him the most glittering client list in the business, which included the company that I now work for.

I suspect that Arturo's company was spun off by the CEO with that client list in order to hide assets from the CEO's wife, and when the promised partnership didn't come through with the divorce, Arturo simply said, mine. Ugly lawsuits ensued, in which the underdog with the shiny client list prevailed, and the CEO's company has been in a slow death-spiral ever since.

I sat in a cube farm behind John, the largest man at the office. He stood 6'4", with a shaved head and goatee that made him look exactly like the biker he was. He wasn't much of a talker, instead moving deliberately through the office like some 280-pound battleship, letting his size speak for him. Clients loved him.

We liked each other immediately. We both came from blue-collar, Pittsburgh families, and we shared an affection for mechanical things and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He made it clear that he appreciated the way I looked. He once found me hyperventilating in the packout room over the latest Sammy Glick insult. When he asked me what was wrong, I began to cry, and he just stood there, patting me kindly on the back with one hand big as a catcher's mitt.

I think what we were doing was the human equivalent of dogs sniffing each other.

One day, mid-August, after Sammy Glick had administered his latest petty tyrant indignity, leaving the office with his chest puffed out on his 5'4" frame, I wrapped up my work in a rage and left. As I stood, seething, in the elevator lobby with its black linoleum and black-painted walls, John came around the corner. He was leaving, too.

We stood in silence while we waited for the elevator.

"I am not going to be staying here much longer," I said finally. "So if you want to come home with me and fuck me, now would be your chance."

There was no surprise and not even a pause.

"Okay," he said.

And that's how it began.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Hitting the "refresh" button on your email is like trick-or-treating in a bad neighborhood.

I'm dressed up in my Halloween finery, ringing the doorbell in Yahoo! a dozen times a day, and every "refresh" leaves me with that same thunk in the bottom of the bag. With every email that isn't the one I really want, I peer inside my bag and say resignedly,

"I got a rock." (I even say that. Out loud.)

After awhile, I know, I'll quit looking for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Zagnut bars, but right now it's a little bit of a bummer to open the bag and see nothing but homemade popcorn balls wrapped in cellophane mixed in with lumps of slag.

I'm going back to buying my own damned Peanut Butter Cups.

And no, I won't share.

Go get your own.

Randomalia - Just Wondering

1) I wonder why people don't link to other people's blogs when you know they visit all the time. I don't know why, but I think there oughta be some kind of blog link reciprocity etiquette. It makes me feel like I'm doing all the work. It's like, "Okay, I got my rocks off, thanks! Look at the time (pointing at watch), have I got to go!" (Puts on pants and runs out the door.)

2) I wonder why Archer doesn't find me entertaining enough to comment on my blog anymore when he's out there commenting on the blogs of people who are a lot more insufferable than I am. It must be something I said. He used to like me.

3) I wonder why some of my friends, whom I actually know in real life and with whom I have real conversations, with words and sounds and everything, and whom I know read The Boat quite often, never comment here. Come on, people, you're making me look bad! Peanut Gallery and Racer X, I'm talking to you.

4) I wonder why I always say I'm too busy to exercise. The President of the United States exercises for 45 minutes a day. Therefore, I must be busier than the President.

5) I wonder sometimes at my capacity for getting through the hard things. Is it because my mom was a Buddhist Japanese? Do I just have a better bounce reflex? Am I cold and unfeeling? Maybe, just maybe, I'm really a cat in human skin who falls off the edge of the bed, walks two steps, and says, "I meant to do that!" Then I walk two more steps, sit down, throw my leg in the air and start cleaning my butt.

6) I wonder why a really hard cry leaves you feeling hungover? Not similar to hungover, but actually hungover? I wondered this yesterday, because embarrassingly, I spent two hours in my office with the door closed, sobbing at my desk. Thank god my office mate was out yesterday and I got into the office at 7:45, so the storm passed before anyone was here at work (I work in advertising), but still, I cried at my desk, something I haven't done since the Soul-Destroying Job of 2006. Then I spent the rest of the day with no mascara and a craving for a bacon-egg-and-cheese on a roll. See? Hungover.

7) I wonder why people say, "This is really better for both of us," when, if they want to be really truthful, they should say, "This is better for me."

8) Now that I've been on Facebook for a week, I wonder why so many women who are younger than I am, for some reason look like 55-year-old hausfraus. Like this nice lady:


Is there some waiver you sign when you move the suburbs that says, "I agree to get some variation of the dowdy housewife bubble hairdo?" Do they just stop giving a shit after a few years of marriage? I want to put my arm around their tender little shoulders, walk them off to the side, and say, in a Jethro Bodine voice, "See, now, you look like your husband's mom. And your husband don't want to fuck his mom. And trust me, just 'cause he don't want to fuck you, that don't mean he ain't gonna fuck someone else."

9) I wonder why my boss wants to promote me. HAAAAAAAAA hahahahahahahah (gasp!) hahahahahah (wiping tears from eyes). Not only that, she wants to make me a Director! In a Fortune 500 company! (going off in gales of laughter again.) But you know what, now that I think about it, I do understand why. I'm fucking Great At My Job. One of my young mentees (yes, I was allowed to have youngsters to mold and shape, I KNOW) told me that I was very "authoritative," and a guy I work with called me "direct." I saw him swallow before he said it, so I know he really meant, "GOD, you are such a BITCH."

10) I wonder why people carry those 90-ounce bottles of detergent to the laundromat. I buy the big bottles, but I also bought a smaller bottle and a funnel, so my detergent bottle fits into my handbag.

The Story of My Life

"Had the policeman stayed in the car, he'd have been fine. But he made the mistake of getting out again and grinning triumphantly at Sully, who, when he saw this, saw too that he was not through with his stupid streak. I'm about to fuck up, he thought clearly, and his next thought was, but I don't have to. This was followed closely by a third thought, the last of this familiar sequence, which was, but I'm going to anyway. And, as always, this third thought was oddly liberating, though Sully knew from experience that the sensation, however pleasurable, would be short-lived. He was about to harm himself. There could be no doubt of this. But at such moments of liberation, the clear knowledge that he was about to do himself in coexisted with the exhilarating, if entirely false, sense that he was about to reshape, through the force of his own will, his reality."

Nobody's Fool, 1993
Richard Russo

Yay! Andrew Cuomo is Running for Governor of NY

Photo borrowed from Vanity Fair, May 2010

Andrew Cuomo has accepted the Democratic nomination for Governor of New York. Yayyy!

There's a great article in Esquire about him this month, as well, featuring a picture of Cuomo under the hood of his '68 GTO. I knew there was a reason I liked him. He's a man who can fix things.

This is a vastly underrated quality in New York City, at least until your car breaks down on Bruckner Boulevard at 2 a.m. (What are you doing on Bruckner Boulevard at 2 a.m. in the first place?)

Oh, if he wasn't still political poison, I'd say bring back Eliot Spitzer as A.G. and set him loose on Wall Street. Of course, they'd have to put one of those monitoring devices on his dick, but it would be worth it to me to see him have at those greedy mothers.

Everyone is Right -- Facebook is Stupid

Growing up, we were not allowed to call people "stupid," but then again, I also had to be home before the streetlights came on and would have been killed by my parents for smoking. Since I'm a grown-up now, I'm going to call everyone and everything on Facebook "stupid."

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!

I've been on Facebook for one whole week, and it's already mind-numbingly, stultifyingly, stupid. I want to kill myself when I go to Facebook. In fact, when I look at Facebook, I feel myself growing stupider by the second.

People on Facebook are stupid. They're playing stupid games, some of them ALL DAY LONG. They're sending each other stupid messages and stupid thumbs-ups and making stupid comments OUT IN PUBLIC about stupid things. I've gotten stupid friend requests from people who I never gave a hoot whether I ever heard from them again, with their stupid little messages to go along with their stupid friend requests, and you know what, stupid? I actually, truly do not give a shit what stupid things you have been doing for the past twenty years, because if I did give a shit, I WOULD HAVE STAYED IN TOUCH WITH YOU.

Should I keep my profile up, just so can be an Anthropologist of Stupid?

It's almost as stupid as stupid Twitter.

Best Boarding Policy Ever

I know I cursed American three hours ago, but that was before I had two beers and a long conversation about hockey with the beautiful (think Goran Visnic) Czech bartender Tomas Ptakec, who completely ignored the gorgeous 25 year old girl three seats down to talk passionately about hockey with me, ending our conversation with an admiring, "A woman who really knows hockey, this is good thing. Most women, they do not know hockey like this," at which point the guy sitting next to me chimed in, "I'M impressed."

So when it came time to board, the crew of this flight decided to make their own rules, totally trashing the whole Group 1, etc, protocol. After letting the first class people board, the next announcement went like this:

"Annnd if you are NOT travelling with a rolling bag and are carrying one or two small carryons, you may now board at your leisure."

Leaving the bloated wheelie suitcase crowd to cool their heels. And they were stepping people aside (guys, it's always the guys who think the rules don't apply to them) who tried to sneak past.

It was beyond awesome, it was FUCKING awesome.

American should make this a standing policy and give it an actual name;

PUNITIVE BOARDING.

ORD to LGA 5/26/10 -- A Rambling Post While Jane Kills Time at O'Hare Field

We finished way early today. But for some reason my vendor booked me a ticket that doesn't allow free standby (fuck you, American Airlines!)

So I am sitting here at 2:30 for a 6:00 flight, which means I have three hours to kill (at LEAST) before boarding starts.

But it's okay. After wandering from gate to gate, peering under chairs in what must have seemed a suspicious fashion, I found an electrical outlet so I can recharge my Blackberry, which is what I'm doing now.

The upside is that I managed to wander into the only quiet part of ORD's American terminal, the long hallway between the H and K Gates. It's kind of nice. It's very quiet, it has windows that look over the tarmac so I can do some planespotting (747 wearing Evergreen International livery? Never heard of it!), and most blessedly, I am ALONE.



A virtually empty hallway in the busiest airport in the world.

Okay, so I'm sitting on the floor outside a ladies' restroom.

My mother would be appalled that I am sitting on the floor of an airport.



I bought these boots in 1992, and they're just about broken in.

Too bad. I am BY MYSELF!

Every person I know in the world thinks I'm somewhere else. My family thinks I'm in New York. My coworkers think I'm in Waukegan at the printer. The printer thinks I've boarded an earlier flight and that I'm probably already airborne.

So in essence, I don't exist right now. I'm no one. I wonder if this is how Valerie Plame used to feel?



The sad thing is that I comfort myself by doing work.

777 with Swiss livery, big red cross on its tail.

A half dozen American MD80's nuzzled into the K and H gates like a litter of puppies. I heard they are going to phase them out in favor of new 737s, thank god. I am so old I remember when the MD80s were the shiny new face of American. Now they're all 20 years old and just a little bit tatty. And uncomfortable as hell. The new 73s are MUCH nicer. My brother-in-law has already transitioned over and loves the Boeing.


A darling little white-haired man just came up to me and admired my electrical outlet with covetous eyes. Old man, I will take you OUT.

A situation like this is a gift. I can dwell or not dwell on the thing that has preoccupied me since the beginning of April, I can obsessively refresh my Yahoo inbox or not while wondering why there is no email even though I'm the one who said stop sending me nice emails. I can examine this feeling of "sad yet not sad," and marvel that I am remarkably okay, considering. I can ponder the nature of the universe, staff my favorite imaginary Federal Government department (why, the U.S. Department of Peace, of course.) or sit here like a moron exhaling spit bubbles if I feel like it.

Frankly, I wouldn't mind disappearing for awhile.

Remembered something about the nature of relationships. The speed from friend to lover is exactly the same as the speed from lover to friend. In both cases, it will only move as fast as the slower person wants it to move. I wonder when I will be ready to be friends.

My unfortunate tendency to examine faces is going to get me into trouble. I don't just glance, I acknowledge. Unfortunately this is often read as an invitation to have a conversation. SHOO!

3:58pm. I've killed nearly an hour and a half.

Sorry about this ridiculously self-indulgent post. If I hadn't finished all my magazines this morning, you wouldn't be suffering through this with me.

What I really want is a cigarette and a beer, but since one of those is prohibited, I'm going to go have a beer.

See you at LaGuardia.

Moonbeams and Fairytales

"Courageous, untroubled, mocking and violent-that is what Wisdom wants us to be. Wisdom is a woman, and loves only a warrior." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

The fairy tale came out of me in one massive shplurt between 3:30 this morning and the flight attendant standing next to me at 7:00 saying, "Miss, miss, you have to turn off your phone now," while I waited for the "Publish Post" bar to make its way across the bottom of my tiny little Blackberry screen.

It's what Anne Lamott calls a "shitty first draft" right now, so I'll have to go back and do some revisions, but isn't life just one shitty first draft after another?

I'm in Chicago, it's hot, and I approved the first form on the first pull at 9:00 CDT (pressmen get rewarded for this by salesmen, generally with bottles of Don Julio or Johnnie Black, because a press that keeps running is a press that makes money. Multiple pulls or even re-plating delays not only my job, but every job scheduled to run behind me. A first-sheet approval means that the first side of my form will be finished by noon or so).

Cigarettes are $5.60 a pack here, and Bob and I had a couple of those "no-calorie business breakfasts" of McDonald's Sausage Biscuit with Egg Meals on the way into the plant from O'Hare. Later he will take me to my favorite Mexican joint in Waukegan and we will have that special "no-calorie chorizo and cheese" tortilla thingy.

Take On Me: A Fairy Tale of New York

Do you remember the amazing music video from 1985 for that a-ha song, "Take on Me?" A girl reads a comic book in a Generic Diner. The comic book comes to life and she is pulled into Comic Book World by the beautiful Norwegian boy with the knife-blade cheekbones. Danger and Scariness ensue as they are pursued by Bad Men. The girl helps the boy escape from the Bad Men and then from Comic Book World after a whole lot of Speed-Raceresque villainy, and they live happily ever after in Diner World, the end.

Most people live in Diner World their whole lives. I'm fortunate (or maybe unfortunate, depending on your point of view)to be able to navigate the membrane between both worlds.

Because I am what you might call "unconventional" in a very specific area of my life (well, at least compared to 99 percent of the population), I accept that Comic Book World is where I belong. I know that Comic Book World is where I am safest.

I know the laws of the land in Comic Book World. Everyone is welcome to visit me here, but in general, most people are happy to buy the E-ticket, ride the big rides, pretend to be daring by throwing their arms up in the air while being safely held in place by a padded yoke around their necks, and at the end of the day, they go back to Diner World with their worldview intact.

I don't encourage overnight visitors to Comic Book World. Nighttime is when things rustle in the undergrowth and slouch out of the shadows with dripping teeth and bloody claws.

Look, I emigrated to Comic Book World. It's my choice to live here. In general, I really like it here. I have dominion over the drooling shadow creatures here. While I haven't exactly domesticated them, I do know how to keep them subdued with my calm and assertive presence. The chair and the whip help.

Every now and then, however, I'll put my hand through the membrane into Diner World to test the temperature, and someone will come along and snatch me through it. When that happens, I'm like a newborn panda, naked, hairless, and blind. I lay gasping on the floor, trying to get my bearings and reaching out for someone to help me to my feet. I alight there for awhile, wobbly-legged, ever watchful and ready to bolt.

I don't bring everything I have into Diner World. I leave the Most Important Thing behind, to be safeguarded by the toothiest creature.

Usually the ones pulling me out into Diner World are just my friends. They live in Diner World, and I'm happy to join them there. And I think they're happy when I do emerge every so often. I believe it may be because they truly love me and worry that the creatures on the other side will someday snap and devour me.

Sometimes, however, I am hasty and forgetful, and the Important Thing is in my hands when I go through the membrane. I'm always a little dismayed when this happens and I look around for someone I can trust.

Here, I say, hold this. I hand the Important Thing to the most trustworthy-looking person.

Be careful, I say, that's fragile. Don't drop it.

But the citizens of Diner World just don't know how to hold on to the Important Thing. How could I expect them to know this? Of course they think because it is protected by monsters in Comic Book World that it can't be harmed in Diner World. In this, they are wrong, and they will, inevitably, drop the Important Thing.

Though dismayed, I am forgiving. I carefully sweep up the shards of the Important Thing and hold them protectively close to my body.

I say, I have to take this back. You don't have the proper tools to repair this. I begin to slide back into Comic Book World.

Will you be okay there? He always asks. Can you fix it?

I tell him not to worry, that the creatures and I understand each other. As I'm sliding back through the membrane, I can feel his worried eyes on my back, so to reassure him once I'm through, I always turn and give him a cheery wave and my biggest, brightest smile. Then, squaring my shoulders, I disappear back into the thickets of Comic Book World, with my hand on the shoulder of the drooliest, scariest beast, who is calm under my fingers and looks up at me with something approaching adoration.

He will help me to repair the Most Important Thing.

What The Devil Am I Supposed To Do Now?

I just realized that the last seven out of eight, yes, SEVEN out of eight, posts on this blog all have something do with hockey. It's official, I'm a puck bunny.

But I think this can be stopped, Godfuckme, but I'm at a spork in the road. This used to be a blog about sex and food and sex and movies and sex and music and sex.

Now it's all about hockey and all the age-inappropriate toothless skating boys I've been ogling since October.

I'm mortified, and I do apologize.

I know exactly why it's turned into a hockey blog, and I'll bet you do, too. Because your Janey is not getting laid. In fact, your Janey hasn't gotten laid since sometime around Thanksgiving. Sheesh, I know married people who are getting laid more than that.

I mean, six months is a really long time to go without sex.

So I need to check the hockey stuff a bit and start spicing it up again. My questions for you:

1) Should Janey take a new married lovah and start talking about sex all the time again?

2) Should Janey take up with her old married lovah and start talking about sex all the time again?

3) Should Janey start working out again in order to expend all this libidinous energy and write about THAT? This will backfire. If I start getting all fit and stuff, then I'll have much more energy and want to have more sex, and thus have less time to write about sex.

4) Should Janey get her bike back on the road in order to expend yet more libidinous energy? Could also backfire on the having sex part, though only for the first week or so. Terry saddle, sensitive girlparts, even in the Pearl Izumis, you get the picture. The upside is that my powerful thighs will regain their majesty, before which men fall to their knees and weep.

I need a nudge in one direction or another, because although masturbation is loads of fun, I'd like to invite someone else to join the party now and again.

More on Duncan Keith

From Chicagobreakingsports.com

Keith lost four teeth on the bottom and three on top and said afterward he had a long night ahead of him at the dentist.

"I took one breath and it felt like my whole mouth was missing so I knew there were some teeth gone," Keith said. "I saw a couple fall out and I had one in the back of my throat. I could feel it and coughed it out. A bunch of them disintegrated it felt like.

"That sort of thing happens. I'm not the only guy who's ever lost bunch of teeth or been hit in the mouth with a puck or stick and I'm sure I won't be the last guy."

Despite the damage, Keith returned a short time later and assisted on Dave Bolland's game-tying goal and finished with a game-high 29 minutes 2 seconds of ice time."

That's rock and roll, baby.

Deep Thought of the Day

Sometimes, when something happens to you, the healthiest thing you can do for yourself is shrug your shoulders and say, "Oh, well."

For instance, right now I'm watching the latest incarnation of the Broad Street Bullies celebrate because Philadelphia is going to the Stanley Cup Finals.

All I have to say to that is, "Go, Hawks."

Oh, well.

But This Can Jolly Me Out of a Snippy Mood

Maxime Talbot, Bill Guerin, Jordan Staal. Three flavors of delicious, all in one place.

The Curse of Hossa

I know you were excited when the Pens got knocked out of the playoffs, because you thought I'd quit writing about hockey. Well, you know what? Jane's in a shitty mood today, so my response to that is this: fuck you, the horse you rode in on, and anyone who looks like you.

Now, where was I?

I'm pretty excited for the Chicago Blackhawks, who won the Western Conference finals today, sweeping San Jose in 4 games. Another epic fail for the Sharks.

Except for one thing.

HOSSA!

The 'Hawks should be worried. Hossa is the Kiss of Death for any team with Stanley Cup Aspirations. Just check out his record:

2002-2003 Ottawa Senators – Defeated in 7 games in the Eastern Conference finals vs. the NJ Devils. The Devils went on to win the Stanley Cup that year.
2004-2005 Played in Europe due to the lockout.
2006-2007 Atlanta Thrashers – Eliminated in Round 1 of the playoffs by the NY Rangers
2007-2008 Pittsburgh Penguins – Defeated in the Stanley Cup Finals by the Detroit Red Wings
2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings – Defeated in the Stanley Cup Finals by the Pittsburgh Penguins



On the other hand, how can you not love Duncan Keith, who took a puck in the mouth, lost 7 teeth, got a couple of shots, and came back out to play? That, my friends, is heavy metal. Dio, rest his soul, would approve.

The Canadiens are going to need a miracle to pull out of their 3-1 freefall tonight against Philadelphia. This is a difficult series to watch, because while I like the Canadiens for the plutonium balls they've exhibited to get this far, I can't stand Montreal fans.

The only fans more odious than Montreal fans are Philadelphia fans. In fact, the only thing I can see that Montreal fans have going for them is that they're not from Philadelphia.

So if it's a Hawks-Flyers Cup Final, my cheers are for Chicago.

Fuck Phoenix Again!

So now the city of Phoenix has until December 31, 2010, to come up with a local buyer for the Phoenix Coyotes, or the NHL may move them back to Winnipeg.

The catch is that the NHL must approve the buyer. So if, say, Larry Flynt offered a billion dollars for the team, the NHL would probably reject that offer. First, he's not a local businessman, and second, the NHL probably prefers not to be associated with an owner who has made his fortune peddling beaver shots to the public.

Though I do kind of like the name "Phoenix Beavers" for a hockey team.

I mean, Pierre Balsillie, the Research in Motion (RIM) guy who is responsible for the Blackberry on which I am writing this, has opened satellite offices in buttfuck cities all over the place because he so desperately wants to own an NHL team. Bettman and the League shoot him down every single time.

I don't know what he did, but the League sure doesn't like him.

"RIM Phoenix Beavers" has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

So maybe Arizona's racist immigration laws won't be the downfall of the Phoenix Coyotes, as I so fervently hoped. Maybe the franchise will collapse under its own weight and end up back in Canada (WHERE IT BELONGS, for God's sake!) after all.

Then again, I wouldn't put it past that old coot John McCain to make his wife buy the team for Arizona in a last-gasp plea for votes. He'd probably throw in an offer for all of the NHLPA player reps to tit-fuck Meghan if he thought it would help him win.

I Hate That Commercial

Has anyone seen the creepy Michelin commercial? The one about the "sad stretch of road?"

I don't know if they show this commercial during anything other than NHL games, but since I watch a hockey game, ahem, now and then, I've been grossed out by this commercial for months.

Basically, it shows how these Michelin tires help you stop sooner, so you won't run over helpless little cartoon animals. The car skids to a stop, in front of a screaming bunny. Behind the screaming bunny are the squished bodies of a bunch of other cartoon animals. The car skids, the road flaps like a sheet, and all the little cartoon animals -- the ones that have been SMASHED INTO THE PAVEMENT -- flap up into the air and are brought back to life. The commercial ends with all the happy little cartoon animals dancing with the Michelin Man!

Every one of them still has tire tracks across its mid-section.

Disturbing.

Too Many Words About a Grocery Store: The Miracle on Graham Avenue

Last week while running errands, I discovered, with openmouthed dismay, that my favorite little neighborhood organic grocery had disappeared. Simply de-materialized, leaving behind the spindles of its awning and newspapered windows. There was a handwritten note saying they would re-open down the street, soon.

Soon? What in the world is "soon" to a girl who wants her cream-top yogurt and the good granola? Soon, as in, maybe someday in the visible future? Soon, as in, we are still paying off the Department of Buildings? Or soon, as in really, never? (An all-too-frequent happenstance in New York City.)

This morning, I approached my laundromat, and discovered to my surprise and delight that Khim was back!

Oh boy, and how!

Where the old market was so small and crowded that you had to carry your handbag directly in front of you or lay waste to entire shelves of goods, and if two people met in the aisle, one had to back all the way out to let the other pass, the new one has literally increased in size tenfold.

After dumping my delicate underthings (okay, that's an overstatement, since you could build bridgework with my bras) into a machine, I rushed across the street for an inspection. There I spent a speechless wash cycle wandering the aisles, gaping like a Cold War Russian at the sheer plenitude.

I suppose if you could ever induce me back into Whole Foods I probably wouldn't be so excited by this little borough grocery store. I've been inside WF exactly three times, once in Denver, once in Chelsea, and once on the LES, and three was quite enough. It wasn't the store itself so much as the people shopping there that I found so grating.

If you want to have your liberalism validated, you go to Whole Foods. If you want to have it tested, you go to Bushwick.

But in a neighborhood with a couple of dingy grocery stores, where you can only be mystified by the poor and obese folks who load their shopping carts with sugary cereals, giant bottles of soda in colors not found in nature, and every Entenmann's baked good known to humankind, with nary a green thing to be found, this brightly-lit oasis of things that grow! Out of the ground! -- walking into this clean-smelling miracle of a store, I feel like Dorothy stepping out of her farmhouse. I swear I heard Munchkin giggles from behind the tomato display.

This little grocery is set up as competition to Whole Foods. See, the encroaching hordes of the Bugaboo Brigade currently hop on the L train to go to Whole Foods in Union Square, 15 minutes away. You see them on the train with those stupid paper-handled bags (that aren't worth a shit for reuse, if you ask me), making the trek back to Brooklyn. Most of them get off at Bedford Avenue, Lorimer Street, and Graham Avenue. Lately more of them have been getting off at my stop, a fairly recent development.

So if Khim's is offering some of what WF is offering, at literally half the price ($2.99! For Brown Cow Yogurt! The big one! $1.99 a pound for vine tomatoes!), these folks will be able to get their dose of ego aggrandizement from a local merchant, and the rest of us will have fresh and wholesome food available to us at reasonable prices. Hey, I don't care what your reasons are, but as long as you're supporting the little local guy, I'm all for you doing it.

But should someone warn the Stroller Corps that they they're probably going to be shopping next to actual, you know, poor people?

Hockey Joke

Before I call it a day on blogging about hockey.

Go into a bar and order an "Ovechkin."

When the bartender asks what that is, explain:

"It's a White Russian without a cup."

Badump-bump.

I'll be here all week, folks, don't forget to tip your waitress.

Attribution: I read that on some comment thread on some hockey blog, at some point after the Caps were eliminated, so to the person who made it up, thanks and sorry I didn't catch your name!

I'm Ready to Talk About the Heartache

We know how you feel, Jordan. Now come over here and let Mama make you feel better.

No, not that heartache. That one's for me and me alone.

I'm talking about the fact that my Penguins knocked themselves out of contention for another Cup in the 2nd round of the playoffs.

The Pens just didn't look like they were all there from the last handful of regular season games all the way through Rounds 1 and 2. Too many line changes, not enough chemistry between linemates (except when Geurin, Crosby, and Dupuis were matched up), Evgeni Malkin and Sergei Gonchar practically disappearing at times (hello? You guys are a couple of the highest-paid players in the League, you make a combined $14 mil a year, show up and EARN it, dammit!), Jordan Staal not getting the support on the wing that he needs and deserves, not to mention a potentially season-ending injury at the skate of PK Subban...I could go on and on, but the list is too depressing.

My friend Ed is a big Rangers fan, constantly frustrated, because in his words, "sometimes they go out and play like they're the best team in the NHL." He could have been talking about the Penguins. In fact, toward the end of the season, when I was scratching my head at the bush-league level of Pens play, he kept telling me not to lose faith. "They can lift their game at will," Ed told me. And occasionally we saw that happen. It just didn't happen often or consistently enough.

After playing over 300 games since the 2008-09 season, plus sending their 5 stars to the Olympics this year, the Penguins just didn't have enough gas left in the tank for a playoff run into the Cup final. Had they made it, it would have been on vapors, prayers, and with the assistance of angels.

Unfortunately, those things were in short supply this season in Pittsburgh, and the Penguins have packed up their lockers at Mellon Arena for the final time, to face a long summer of golf and soul-searching, to see what changes need to be made, and hopefully get enough rest for 2010-11.

Here are my thoroughly inexpert predictions for who we'll see and who we won't next season:

1) Cool your jets. Crosby, Malkin, and Staal are all staying put. They eat up a HUGE chunk of salary cap space, but c'mon, you've got a Richard trophy, a Conn Smythe trophy and a Selke finalist on your first three lines. Do you really think Ray Shero's gonna mess with them?

2) Sergei Gonchar is probably gone. He enters free agency this year, and the Pens really can't afford a $5 million dollar a year, 36-year-old defenseman who doesn't produce like he used to.

3) Bill Guerin -- gone. Billy G has been crucial to the Pens' success these past couple of seasons. But let's face it. He turns 40 in November. The old man has GOT to be plain exhausted. He can't go out and fight ALL the fights. In my fantasy, Bill puts on a tie and gets behind the bench to work on the Penguins' lame-ass Power Play. I know, it's a fantasy, but it's MY fantasy, and I can do whatever I want with it. Plus, I love Guerin in Pittsburgh. Handsome or not handsome (Bill is on that cusp of ugly-gorgeous), he raises the hotness quotient of the team immeasurably.

4) Ponikarovsky was an experiment that failed. Buh-bye.

5) I'm still on the fence about Jordan Leopold.

6) I guess I wasn't paying attention to Mike Rupp throughout the season, but then again, he might be one of those guys who steps up and shines in the playoffs. I mean, his first playoff goal, ever, won the Stanley Cup for the NJ Devils in 2003. So the kid's got something (kid! Hah! Guy's 30, which makes him a kid in my book but practically a senior citizen in the NHL.) Anyway, I loved his play in the playoffs, and for some reason I was really confused and got it in my head he was some kind of defenseman. Maybe it was because he plays without a shield on his helmet, maybe it was his broken-up face, maybe it was all the fights. Surprise! He's a working-class center. Keep him on the 4th line, I like him there.

7) Sigh. Matt Cooke. The player you hate to love. We have our own version of Sean Avery in the city of Three Rivers. Bad reputation but a more-than-competent, quick and agile playmaker. Shit! He was a real contributor to what little success the Pens managed to scrape up in these playoffs.

8) Fleury ain't going nowhere. Flower won the Stanley Cup. Had a so-so season and dismal playoffs, but he won us a Cup. That counts for something. Plus, he's just so purty.

Well, here's where I bid adieu to the Penguins for the season.

And let's hope for a Blackhawks-Canadiens Final. I'd love to see two Original Six teams battling down to the wire. And secretly, even though they destroyed the Washington Capitols and the Pittsburgh Penguins, I'm quietly rooting for the Habs.

They're scrappy.

And you know Jane loves her some scrappy.

Photodump

Veronica at Ruby's, May 2010, Coney Island, New York City, New York, USA, the World. The guy in black leather in the background was the drunkest man on the boardwalk that day.





Coney Island 2010 -- Doesn't everyone love a good smootie on a hot summer's day? And yet, they managed to spell "daiquiri" -- an arguably harder word -- correctly.





My sister's cat Sprucy, either playing the cello or just being downright unladylike.





Some random church in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, NY

Jane Went to Church, and Other Things I Did Last Week

(Photo: Community Church of Syosset, October 2007, taken by yours truly, Jane Doe)

"Peace is a natural innate state of mind waiting for us to come back to it.
Happiness is a butterfly which when pursued, is always just beyond our grasp, but which if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
- Nathaniel Hawthorne

You know, the best thing to do when you don't know what to do, is just to do the next thing.

I can't stand drama, so having my own personal soap opera playing out was quite uncomfortable for me. Usually I'm the detached bystander observing other people's drama, and I was a little out of practice in dealing with it myself. To be frank about it, I was completely knocked on my ass.

At some point I realized that I can't protect myself from everything, so I gave myself a slap across the face and said, "Snap out of it!" The universe isn't personal, folks, as much as we would like to imagine it is. Shit will happen, whether we like it or not, and you can either deal, or not deal, cope, or not cope.

Last Saturday night, sitting in my house with Roni and consuming vast quantities of wine, could have been labeled "Exhibit A" of not coping, and I was well aware of that fact as we were playing Blind DJ and drinking a $150 bottle of champagne.

Don't you love when people use the excuse that they drink in order to cope with life? I always want to tell them, "Um, actually, you're a falling-down, fighting-in-bars drunk so you can AVOID having to cope with life. Ya dumbass."

I decided it would be better to keep myself occupied, otherwise I would be susceptible to all sorts of mischief, so I decided to accept every invitation that came my way.

Thursday, I attended a completely lame industry event. Now, this paper company used to throw one of those annual parties that people anticipated for weeks beforehand, and gossiped about for weeks afterward. Two years ago, I went to this party after a day on jury duty, and I found everyone was swilling cosmopolitans like the Russians were in Jersey. My friend Karin and I corralled a dozen people at the end of the party to go around the corner to a bar, where we all proceeded to party like it was 1999. This year, last Thursday, it was a very low-key, boring event, full of odious advertising agency types, and where I knew one person (thankfully, it was Stevie Eyelashes, my cutest vendor, who is working on a couple of big projects with me right now, so at least that made it partially worthwhile), and I left after about 45 minutes, having done the polite showup.

Friday night I was invited to a party for my friend Sean, who just got his doctorate and who is celebrating his 10th year as pastor of the Community Church of Syosset. I truly thought it was going to be another "put in a polite appearance and bow out early" events.

No one warned me that I would have fun! Most of Sean's congregation consists of little old church ladies, with a smattering of little old men, and strange as it may sound, I LOVE old people. No, I don't just love them, I ADORE them. They have the best stories. For some reason, the little old church ladies love me, too. Them, and babies. Go figure. Repeat after me -- why do people love us? Because we see them.

The former pastor, a guy named David Jarvis, provided the entertainment, playing cabaret piano and singing old songs. We all (well, the old people and me) sang along, until David demanded that I get up and sing. He literally pointed at me past three tables of people and shouted, "YOU! You in the red! You know all the words to these songs! Get up here and sing!" It was a Bill the Cat moment -- ACK! I resisted just a little bit, then stood up and as I walked by Sean I gave him my best hairy eyeball and whispered, "I am JUST drunk enough to do this for you." Then I sang an old World War II song, one that was my parents' song, and all the little old church ladies got misty-eyed and sang along. (Then I got misty-eyed thinking this was just the kind of thing Dad used to do with my uncles -- I remember them standing around my grandfather's woodstove, drinking beer and singing "Up a Lazy River.") Even Judge Pratt, one of the church elders, appreciated my singing. I've always loved Judge Pratt; even though he's 82 years old and a Republican, I find him to be one of the handsomest men I've ever seen.

Rode LIRR home with David Jarvis and his young partner, Cameron, who told me that they are getting married in Maine this week! I love that.

Saturday I slept in and puttered around most of the day. Took the aforementioned nap which ruined my sleep on Saturday night.

Got up on Sunday and walked in the AIDS Walk with our company team.


(Jane is somewhere in this giant group of people. The great thing about this picture is how the photographer couldn't get everyone into his shot, and ended up hijacking an SUV yellow cab so he could stand on its roof)

We fielded a couple hundred folks, and I invited my friend Irene to walk with us. It was a completely gorgeous day, and I have the farmer tan and sore calves to prove it. It's been 10 years since I've participated in one of these charity events, and I had forgotten how good it felt to be amongst like-minded people doing an activity for a good cause. The last such event I participated in was riding my bicycle across Alaska to raise money for AIDS vaccine research, which admittedly was a different animal altogether, but the same sense of community and kindness permeates all of these events. I had forgotten about that feeling, and it felt good to be reminded.

And yeah, motherfuckers, I rode my bike ACROSS ALASKA. Shit, I used to be cool.

Properly diverted for several days, I went down like a redwood on Sunday night, and emerged into this week, maybe not all sleek and shiny, but a little less bedraggled.

Sometimes all it takes to get over stuff is to do other stuff.

I Was SO Much Smarter Then

Just spent a bit of time cherry picking my old blog, and I have to say, I was writing the SHIT out of that situation. I think I may have been smarter then. Maybe working in fashion has made me a dummy.

I like what I wrote on June 18, 2005. (Lord god of hosts, that was five years ago!)

I was pretty smart.

How Am I Supposed to Pay Attention to the News?

(AFP/Getty Images/File/John Moore)

I'm slowly emerging from the news embargo, because to be perfectly frank, I got a little retarded. (I know, go ahead, my sister yelled at me too. "You can't say that!" she gasped, to which I responded, "You know, you're right. Let me correct myself. I got a little Triggy." You can't please anybody these days, can you?)

So I open up Yahoo! today, and this is the photo that is accompanying an article about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

I ask you. In particular, I ask you ladies. HOW can we be expected to read about important news and actually give a shit about it when the picture next to the article looks like an Abercrombie & Fitch ad?

More importantly, when's the next flight to Louisiana? No one looked like THIS on "Deadliest Catch!"

Come Play with Mermaids

Roni and Janey at Ruby's, May 2010

My mermaid costume has arrived! And while I'm totally psyched, I don't understand why all costumes have become "(Fill in the Blank Character) as a Hooker."

Seriously, every woman's costume is now, basically, a Hooker costume. Even little girls' costumes are Baby Hooker costumes. I work with a guy whose 9-year-old-daughter told him she wanted to dress up as a "Sexy Pirate" for Halloween. The sad part of it is, he didn't sound particularly upset about it. In fact, he sounded kind of amused. Now, if I was a parent and if I had a kid who wanted to be a "Sexy Anything" for Halloween, I'd be calling ACS on my soon-to-be-ex who currently has custody to find out just why a 9-year-old thinks this is normal.

But you know what? Right now I couldn't care less if your kid wants to dress up like a Baby Hooker.

MY MERMAID COSTUME IS HERE!

So the day that Roni and I wait for ALL YEAR is just around the corner. Come out to Coney Island, folks, and have a beer with us (and the rest of the mermaids) at Ruby's.

I'll be the one dressed as a hooker with a tail and long red hair (hey, the votes are in, I'll be a redhead on June 19th).

Thank You

To those of you who heard my whimpering from under the porch, and reached a hand under the boards to stroke my muddy paws and say, "There, there," I say thank you.

To everyone who peered internetically, and telephonically, and textally, into my crawlspace to make sure I was still alive under there, and still Jane under there, though a little battered, I say thank you.

Even the Little Cat, in her kitty way, seemed to know when I was burritoed in my fuzzy blanket and weeping that what I needed was a display of exceptional cuteness (flopping alongside my head, purring madly, and patting at my wet face with her paws) to lure me back out into the sunshine.

I'm now laying in that warm spot in the dirt, catching my breath. It's okay to step over me for a few days. Pretty soon I'll be on my feet again, and you know, if you throw the Frisbee, I'll chase and gambol just like I always do.

Oh, Those Nutty Sorority Girls

I'm not sure how it happened, but apparently sorority girls now behave like 'roided-out jocks when they are drinking.

In my day, we just got drunk and slept our way through fraternity row, with the occasional swimmer or gymnast thrown into the mix to keep things interesting. All we had to worry about were the visits to McLanahan's Drugstore or the Ritenour Health Center, or a long car trip to Harriburg, to deal with the aftermath.

What has happened to maidenly self-respect?

Kids today.

Even Republicans Don't Want to Party With the Racist Idiots in Arizona

So the RNC has chosen Tampa as the site of its 2012 convention instead of Phoenix. They say it's because Tampa can better accommodate the number of conventioneers who will descend on the city, but the real reason is that they'll feel more comfortable in a city that has more white people than Phoenix.

Tampa also has more strippers and male prostitutes, which makes it a natural choice for the Republicans.

Can't you see the RNC slideshow showing the pros and cons of each city?

"Well, here's a screenshot of the Craigslist postings for male hookers in each city. As you can see, Tampa has three times as many rentboys for hire as Phoenix. Phoenix has, well, a hockey team. For the time being. It's gotta be Tampa!"

Haha, Arizona! You just suck!

Best Closing Line for Any Article, EVER

You have to read the article.

Soliciting Opinions on a Very Important Matter

This is important.

Since I'm going to be rocking the almost-full mermaid this year (that's topless-LOOKING, not actually topless, you bunch of pervs), the wig MUST cover my secondary girly parts. This means I have to retire the turquoise Louise Brooks, which barely hits my chin.

If you wanted to see Jane in a different mermaid look on June 19th, would you rather see her with novelty (probably blue) hair, curly red Dirty Ariel hair, or naughty blonde lady Godiva curls?
Votes and input, please.

The Moment When I Realized I Have Become A Douchebag

Was approximately 5 seconds after I hit "send" on this email:

I have a work thing tonight and a party on Long Island tomorrow night, and Saturday is catchup day with chores, then the AIDS Walk on Sunday morning…do you want to have coffee on Sunday afternoon? So swamped today with meetings, but I’m pretty free tomorrow, so if you want to call me during the day, we can touch base to schedule…

Where are my hammer and wrench? I am officially a tool.

Look

Don't worry, I'll be back. And I will be fine.

The crying and vomiting are pretty much done, I just need to work through the sad.

And no, I'm not going to come back all earnest and what-I've-learned and crap like that. Fuck earnest. It's sanctimony's ugly cousin.

You want that, you'd better be ready to buy me a drink first.

I just need time.

And maybe to get laid, and soon.

It Appears the Worst of the Storm Has Passed

But I might still bolt back under the rubble.

Fuck Phoenix -- Arizona Shouldn't Get an NHL Franchise

OK, this is worth crawling out from under the porch for, for five minutes.

Please write to the NHL, on this form and tell them that they need to yank their troubled, ownerless franchise, the Coyotes, out of Phoenix.

Please tell Gary Bettman (the commissioner of the NHL, who doesn't seem to think Canada or the Northern US should have another franchise, while he keeps expanding into cracker America NASCAR sunbelt markets that wouldn't know a hockey puck from a moonpie) that instead of making a deal with the city of Phoenix-fucking-racist-assholes-Arizona, they should put this franchise back where racial profiling isn't government policy.

Bring back the Winnipeg Jets!

OH, and write to the NHL Players Association, too.

Now crawling back under the porch.

This Blog is Temporarily Closed for Internal Maintenance

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

Marjery Williams, 1922

The 2009-2010 Detroit Red Wings: Eulogized

Or, not to put too fine a point on it, fuck you, Detroit.

Enjoy your golf, suckers.

The only thing missing from this lineup was Marian Hossa, and he's down in Chicago getting ready to unleash the Curse of Hossa to ensure another team doesn't win a Cup.

On another note, to the Pittsburgh Penguins, I didn't mean you should crumble like a teacake in the rain to Montreal. I mean, it's freakin' Montreal, for God's sake.

Get it together, guys. Really. I can't believe you let these guys force a Game 7, unless you all were going intentionally for the circular serendipity of playing the last game at the Igloo, ever, against the team who played in the first game, ever, at the Igloo.

Series tied, 3-3, by God.

In The Meantime, Unrelated to Anything But Maybe Related to Everything

Something is up lately.

I don't know if it's our latest almost-terror attack, or the scary new group of reprobates who hang out in front of my deli (that they are drug dealers is obvious but that doesn't make them scary. Here's a New York City street lesson for ya: the drug dealers aren't interested in your purse -- the junkies hovering around the dealers want your purse. Learn to recognize a junkie in an eyeblink. Avoid them.)

Maybe it's that I'm just so tired.

But for some reason I have had this weird, uneasy feeling, migrating between the middle of my chest and deep in my gut. Sometimes it feels like I can't get a good breath all the way into my lungs.

I'm not sure where it's coming from, but I keep looking up to see if someone's getting ready to drop a house on me.

Maybe I just need to keep my back to walls, eat facing the doors of restaurants, stay behind the yellow line, and keep my claws good and sharp for awhile.

Round 2, Game 6, Penguins at Canadiens

OH PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE, Pittsburgh, please close it out tonight. Frankly, I'm exhausted and I need a few days off from hockey. Can someone throw a bucket of water on Halak and melt him already?

Chris Kunitz tried to take out Hal Gill on Saturday night with a stomp on the back of his leg ("who, me?"), so maybe Crosby can make some rain in this series yet. I'll take a drop, a sprinkle, anything. Do you believe the Montreal Canadiens have completely shut down the number one scoring center in the NHL? The planets are out of whack, folks.

We'll see what happens tonight, update later.

In the meantime, here's some Chris Kunitz humor from Down Goes Brown to pass the time.

Musical Obsession of the Day: Rufus Wainwright, "Go or Go Ahead"

What has happened to love?

Anne Lamott is Awesome in Her Awesomeness

How do I love Anne Lamott? Let me count the ways.

I love her for pricking the balloon of self-important motherhood. I love her for doing it in public. And I love her for being brave enough to do it in Salon.com, where the comments section and the dreadful Open Salon are filled with the gooey types of "You haven't experienced loooooove until you've held an eight-pound shitting meatloaf in your arms," folks who are going to pillory this article.

I can't wait to see the comments section fill up.

But right now I have to get ready for a dinner guest, so I'll have to save that for tomorrow morning.

Lest We Forget, the Penguins Lost to Montreal on Thursday Night

I know, I can't believe it either -- I didn't post about Thursday night's embarrassment of a hockey game, which the Penguins lost.

There were beers involved, what can I say?

The highlight of the game, for me, came when I thought I saw a ghost on the ice. Then I saw it again.

A Viking in a sweater emblazoned with the big double ones, which caused me to drop my drippy chicken wing and grab Ed's sleeve in my grubby paw and bounce up and down on my barstool, squealing like a teenager at a Justin Bieber mallstop.

"Staal! Staal! Staal's dressed! They're playing Staal!"

I agree with Pensburgh, this will become the stuff of Pittsburgh hockey legend. See, Staal took a skate blade across the top of his foot last Friday, and had surgery that night to repair a SEVERED TENDON. And he played 6 nights later? Come ON. That's heavy metal.

And fucking sexy as hell.

Staal IS the Gronk.

The Pens bring a 2-2 series back to Pittsburgh tonight. I must go out and get some Guinness for this, and see if Roni wants to come over and watch. You're invited, too.