Month: March 2008

Christ. Well. It happened again.

The rumbling you heard Thursday was not, in fact, a tornado, earthquake, thunderstorm or any other natural disaster. It was my parents, a.k.a. Gloom and Doom, crossing the 14th Street Bridge and trying to drive the straight line to my condo. They didn’t quite make it. Not sure how “drive straight up 14th Street” resulted in a left turn and several rotaries, but it did. At least they didn’t repeat a “Nantucket, 1978,” when my dad made a highway out of a bike path.

After several minutes of my mother screaming that they were lost, and me responding with “Ya just gotta tell me where you are and this time I need something more descriptive than ‘Facing a building,'” they finally pulled into my garage.

You know, when I looked at that SUV, it naively registered in my mind as the jam-packed vehicle of two people who just spent the winter in Florida. But never once did it say, “Everything inside is coming into your condo!” But it did. The doors opened and out of all orifices poured every possible piece of crap that one collects while wintering in Palm Beach. New pillows, new bath towels, chip clips, magazines, catalogs, tissues, toilet paper, paper towels, more fucking tissues, more catalogs, coupons and an invitation for some event going on at the Greek Church on the Upper East Side of NYC right at that very moment in time. Except that we’re in D.C.

Me: Mom, why do you have this invitation?
Gloom: Well, we wanted your brother to go so he could meet a nice girl with a mustache, but he didn’t.
Me: The party is over now anyway. Why do you keep these things?
Gloom: It’s not me, it’s your father.
Doom: It’s not me, it’s your mother! I’m going back to the car to get more stuff.
Me: You guys need help. You’re like those homeless people who have the shopping carts and carry around all the crap they don’t need. It’s not the Great Depression anymore. You don’t have to stock up! How many fucking boxes of tissues did you bring?
Gloom: The last time we were here you didn’t have any.
Me: Yeah, and you bought me 27 boxes!
Gloom: Oh. How many boxes are left?
Me: 26!!!
Gloom: Well what have you been blowing your nose on?
Me: It’s anyone’s guess.
Gloom: It’s not me, it’s your father. He sees a sale and he can’t help himself.
Me: Oh no. It’s you too. It’s definitely you too. You send me more God damned newspaper articles with that fucking red underline and I’ve asked you to stop.
Gloom: Well I underline it so you don’t have to read it all.
Me: THEN JUST READ IT TO ME OVER THE PHONE!!! If you guys keep doing this shit, you’re not going to be allowed back.

I took a Klonopin and went to bed. Actually, no I didn’t. They were in my bed. I went to couch.

Friday afternoon, my oldest brother called from NY to check on Gloom and Doom. After all these years he needs a better name than oldest brother. I need to think on that. I have a few names, but none he would appreciate. Anyway, the prior evening, he and I were on the phone, simultaneously anticipating the arrival of family members: me expecting our parents and he expecting our elusive brother. Oddly enough, both arrivals were Thursday night. Even more oddly, both departures were Saturday morning. We placed bets as to which of these dueling visits would fare better. I would like to state for the record, I won. I can see how you wouldn’t think that but our brother is a gem. And by “gem,” I mean, well, you’ll see.

So, the phone call Friday. Oldest was mad because he got stuck at work and Older was at his apartment waiting for him to come home and play. Just like the good old days. Oldest wanted to blow work off to go hang with Older who is so famous that none of us ever see him. Yeah. Well, it’s a tricky combination of famous and selfish. Long story. Anyway, after I spoke to Oldest on Friday afternoon, I handed my mom the phone. She hung up after several minutes of whispering and the following occurred:

Gloom: He wants to leave work early but his boss called a meeting and now he’s really mad.
Me: Why doesn’t he just say his brother is in town, he hasn’t seen him in four years and he has to go?
Gloom: Well, I told him to just say he’s going to the bathroom and he’ll be right back and then just leave.
Me: You really have no idea of what it’s like to have a job, do you?

Gloom and Doom hauled ass out of my place at the crack of crack on Saturday morning because all the Greeks need their taxes done so my dad had to get home and start sorting out their papers, explaining that supplies to make Baklava can’t be passed off as an itemized deduction, that you can’t deduct part of your house as an office just because you bring your toolbox inside at night and that plumber’s crack is not a disability.

Hour the first. Clothes ripped off, heat cranked and a bed becomes re-occupied. Talking. Giggling. Laughing at the rest of you who went to work this ordinary Tuesday. A Tuesday unlike any other, except that he and I both tossed responsibility out the window in exchange for an indulgence in emotional and physical intimacy.

Hour the second. Talk. Giggle. Dive under the covers for some NC-17 brand of fun. Wait. Better make it X.

Hour the third. Buzzing cell phones. Unselfishly checked in with people who needed each of us. Called back the ones I wanted to. Didn’t call the rest.

Hour the fourth. “Hi Mom. Yeah, I’m enjoying my day off. What am I doing? No, I’m not sleeping, exactly. I’ve been up for a while. How are you and dad? Uh huh. Charleston, huh? So, uh, how soon before you’re in D.C.? Oh. Good. I mean, err, yeah, Thursday’s fine. Well. Drive safe. No I don’t have any plans for today.”

Hour the fifth. Basmati rice, peas and potatoes paneer and spiced lentils. Unidentifiable dessert. Half price Easter chocolate at Target. Whose idea was it to get out of bed? Mine? Damn. Let’s go back. Dueling cell conversations, he on his with work, me on mine with work. Patsy in labor.

Hour the sixth. He wonders if he’ll miss me when I’m gone later. I think so. His cock ain’t gonna suck itself.

Hour the seventh. How good does that feel? Do you want me to keep going? Turn this way. There. Much better.

Hour the eighth. TV on. Forensic Files. Can someone go get Sammy and Thora? I’m not going home anytime soon. Patsy had a C-Section.

Hour the ninth. Wonder to self, “What has Sixes been up to with the blog today?” Envision her in a Marie Antoinette outfit screaming, “Let them eat cake.” Not sure why this is the image to pop into my head. Positive that “E” is assisting in the revolution. I think there was a virgin sacrifice.

Hour the tenth. Zzzzzzz…

The eleventh hour. Turn over. Move your leg up here. Where’d that pillow go? I want to put it under you. Don’t stop, don’t ever stop.

Hour the twelfth. Pretend we’re on that lie detector show. Okay, you’re hooked up. Now I get to ask you any questions I want. Ready?

Lucky thirteenth hour. Pass the half price chocolate since it’s obvious we’re not going to dinner. Ipod and Marilyn Manson. American Idol. Paula Abdul is a trainwreck.

Hour the fourteenth. Where’s my bra? Please kick me out of bed. My dogs hate me. Call me when you’re home.

What’s that they say about home is where the heart is? I’m home. I’ve been home all day.

My friend Holly, rescuer extraordinaire of all things dog, has had trauma at her house. Sammy’s girlfriend is in trouble!

There was a dog fight between a foster dog and Sammy’s girlfriend Annie, who is now at the vet in ICU!!! Annie’s neck was ripped open, her back was ripped open and the wounds are so bad the vet is giving her a 50/50 chance to live. Annie is at East Paulding County Animal Hospital and you can confirm by (770) 445-7300. (Sammy is a refugee of Paulding County too.)

If you can donate even $5, $10 or more, please send via paypal to luv2befun@aol.com.

Friday I had big plans (to go to the gym) but narcoleptically (the red line indicates thats a made up word) fell asleep around 7:00. When my mom called at 9:00 from the Palm Beach Mall to ask me something about god knows what, I could barely form my mouth into words. It’s times like these that having those furballs o’ love is a pain in the ass. I put on my sweats and took them on a very short walk.

When I left my building, I had to maneuver around a guy who was snorting coke or meth right out of a piece of folded paper. Right in public. Right in front of my building. I promptly texted all my drug friends: “It’s official. You don’t have to hide in seedy bar bathrooms anymore snorting off the back of the porcelain bus. Coke is OUT OF THE CLOSET! Snort in public!”

Then I crawled back into bed. I can’t recall when I’ve been this lame. Wait. Sure I can. It was last week when I realized I knew all the words to a country song that starts out with the line, I had a one night stand with my best friends baby sister.

Mr. X had made mention earlier in the week of forgotten opera tickets he was in possession of, but I had plans with a friend. I said, “Didn’t you read ‘The Rules,’ bitch? You’re supposed to ask me like months ahead of time.” Then he said, “That doesn’t apply to the easy girls like you.” Oh yeah. Anyway, I sent telepathic messages to my friend to cancel and she did, so I texted Mr. X with the news: “I’m all yours tonight.” He was at Great Falls walking around thinking about how wonderful I am. He won’t admit it, but he was.

He texted back: “This reminds me of something.”

Insert: Gushing Waterfall

He’s speaking of what goes on between my legs when he’s in the same room with me. Hey. That’s not my fault.

So, just because my mom shops at the Palm Beach Mall doesn’t mean I’m part of the opera set. Usually you can find me falling off a barstool at some dive. But we got dressed all fancy and by fancy, I mean I found a place to wear my shoes!

If you have never been to an opera at the Kennedy Center, let me explain what youre missing: It looks like the Upper East Side threw up in there, with a Palm Beach side dish, a Greenwich Connecticut dipping sauce and the Hamptons for dessert. Its as snooty as it gets. Its email address is hoity@hoitytoity.com. Its domain name is blueblood.com. Okay. I’m done. Wait. No I’m not. It’s pearls and Chanel suits. It’s standing around in the front rows staring backward at everyone else coming in so that you can call out to someone you might know and so everyone will see you have front row seats. It’s first names like Henderson and Claire. Now I’m done.

I spent the better portion of the second act masturbating Mr. X through his pants. He used his Playbill to disguise this fact from the Countess sitting to his left. Classy.

We made our exit and discussed some dinner. The rain prompted his suggestion that I change my clothes. No sense in ruining a perfectly good silk DVF and hooker shoes.

When it comes to eating out, I go to the same three places over and over. Mr. X says that you have to try something new every time you eat out. I think thats a good theory. So instead of the regular sushi place, we went to another one. At the restaurant, Mr. X was wishing for the owner to come over and talk to us. Thats his thing. He likes to talk to the owners to find out everything there is to know. In this case, there wasn’t a lot to know but it was funny anyway. The owner sat down and started telling us story after story. His first story was about a waiter he fired for talking too long to the customers. Then in an ironic twist, his next 148 stories included how he got his name from I’mmigration, how the Chef sucked so he closed down for a week, how his dad was killed in Pol Pot, how we should drink his special martini, how he dyes his hair with “ladies dye” from CVS and that you can catch it at two for $10 on sale. Our favorite story was by far the one about a customer he kept saying looked like a hairy cretin. We just assumed that this was his way of saying the customer was an ugly monster.

At the end as we were trying to escape, he said, Yeah, that one wook wike hairy cretin. You know. She wun for Pwesident.

Boy. I thought calling her a manipulative bitch was bad. Before he told one of his last stories before we ran out the door, he turned to each of us and said, “You Jew?” The Asians have a whole new take on hate.

When we got back to my place, the following conversation:

Mr. X: What time is it?
Me: 11:53.
Mr. X: Really? The restaurant closed an hour ago.
Me: Yeah, and we were held hostage by that guy’s stories for almost an hour.

Anyway, he’s a funny little man (the restaurant manager, not Mr. X) so you should go to his restaurant. It’s on 18th and Willard, across from Regent Thai and just north of the much-despised-by-the-locals, Lauriol Plaza.

Might I restate for the record: I do not like leaving the house.

It isn’t personal, it’s just that bad things happen when I leave my house. See, but then your lover calls you and he wants to actually, gasp, leave the house this weekend (how dare you!?!) and next thing you know, you’re walking around in the rain, jockeying lines at a few choice restaurants, finally settling on the restaurant with no customers. You know that restaurant, right? There are plenty of them in D.C., dangling on the edge of bankruptcy yet somehow making ends meet year after painfully slow year.

So, you eat delicious food in between conversation of how good you look and how you look somehow different tonight (uh, yeah, that’s cause you’re, like, in love with me) and then you giggle over things only the two of you find funny as you make your way home, arm in arm, still in the pouring rain, where you fire up the DVD player for a hilarious movie you’ve been quoting lines from to your lover for months. Then you cap off the night by having very destructive sex which somehow results in your contour leg pillow (shut up I have back problems) flying off the bed straight toward your heirloom china (read: Ikea glass you bought in 1997) which rolls off the nightstand oh so very slowly before it hits the floor taking the precious raspberry Crystal Light^TM with it, and smashing all over your fluffy sherpa rugs (fake, uh, hello, PETA member here) into thousands of shards which either of you could have easily prevented had you chose to dis-en-fornicate.

That’s okay though, because now you can cross “cleaned up broken glass while naked with cum dripping out of you” off your list of things to do, right?

The rest of your weekend blurs into a blur of a blur as it chugs along.

There was a stop at Home Depot where you took on another home improvement challenge because your dogs keep slipping on your bamboo wood floors and you are tired of the vet and med bills related to their arthritis so you just cave and buy wall to wall carpeting and plan to cover up the most beautiful part of your home for your mutts. Don’t forget there was also a hardware purchase for your ailing sliding door which your dogs also managed to royally fuck up in their fury to get out the door fastest to bark at whatever dog might be down on the street barking back. You spit and swore at the door (and the dogs) until you got it repaired and back on the track, hoping you never have to come home from work to the sight of that door dangling over your balcony again.

There was an unbelievable coup at the shoe store (and no, I don’t normally wear my jeans like that:)

And then, an unbelievable sighting of something so blatant that it warranted screeching on the brakes, parking the car, and tracking someone in your stilettos with a redhead at your side, while you record evidence of someone else’s someone else on your camera phone so you can show another someone else who needs to know, exactly what they need to know.

Then, for a variety of reasons, the rest of your weekend, becomes what you always joked it would:

I don’t charge for my services, though. You may think that I get my payment from the satisfaction of helping friends with their problems. No. Not really. I just enjoy that “a-ha” moment where they tell me I was right.

Mmm hmm you know that’s right.

My hilarious friend Kerrie bought me a hilarious present. In November. In San Francisco. Amazingly enough, despite the number of times we’ve seen each other since then, the gift never made it into my hands. Until, that is, two weeks ago.

She got me a book. But not just any book, oh no.

This is the BESTEST PRESENT EVER!

“Odd Velvet” was added to the Harper’s Bazaar, Lucky and Elle magazine pile of things I need to read. But it didn’t stay there for long. Brimming over with excitement at the fact that someone finally wrote my biography, I cracked that puppy open and settled in for hours seconds of reading.

Naturally they began by explaining the origin of my name:

That’s funny. That’s nothing like the day of my birth at all. The way my mom tells it, she woke up and got my oldest brother off to first grade, then alerted my dad, who was at work, that she was going into labor. My dad, in a seemingly ridiculous moment to most but completely understandable to my family only, saw fit to stop at the bank first. For some reason he had my older brother with him – a very mischievous three year old with a full head of bushy 70’s Greek hair, red corduroy overalls and a penchant for eating his own poop. As my dad was checking on his fortune and belatedly mentally calculating the cost of yet another child, my brother ran up the spiral staircase of the bank, shredded a few hundred deposit slips and threw them over the balcony, showering my father and the tellers. My father, always excellent in a crisis, said, “Gotta go. Wife’s in labor.”

Unlike Mr. Smith when he goes to Washington, no one has ever been stupid enough to let me speak for two days. Though, they did allow me to say my lines when I was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz in our standing-backyard-only, much adored, Nursery School Production.

There was nothing old and dark about our house. In fact, when I was in first grade, my parents, expert schedulers of construction projects, decided to pull an entire wall off the back of our house to build a glassed in porch. In January. In Connecticut. During a season of blizzards. I can recall eating that cream of wheat crap every morning with a big sheet separating my polyester pajamaed, seven year old body, from several pedophile construction workers and the elements of a 1980 Connecticut winter.

This is turning out to be nothing like my life story at all. Now I know how Tom Cruise feels about those “unauthorized biographies.” Wait. No I don’t.

HA! My parents never asked anyone politely in the house. In fact, I can recall several confrontations with our white trash neighbors that resulted in “Stay off our property or I’ll have you arrested” declarations. Christ, who wrote this book? And I know what you are thinking. “White Trash” and “Connecticut” is as oxy of a moron as they make ’em. Yup. You’re correct if you are using the 2008 Connecticut as your barometer. But we’re talking 1984 Connecticut. It was a totally different animal back then. It was pre-Stew Leonard’s tax evasion scandal. We were still innocent. And we didn’t have nearly as many New Yorkers.

Ok. Last page. Usually the last page is the foreshadowing of things to come. Ooh. Can’t wait.

Hey. That is NOT a riding crop. It’s my jump rope. Yes. My jump rope.

I was awake for several seconds before I would succumb to opening my eyes. I hate waking up in the middle of the night. It irritates me in that way that fingers on a blackboard irritate the world. And if the day’s Crystal Light inventory made it through my bladder and chose the middle of the night to come out, I’m even more irritated. Putting a foot on the floor mid-slumber is more painful to me than running 5 miles mid-day.

I braced myself and opened my eyes to confront the clock.

3:37 a.m.

Damn.

3:37 a.m. is a lonely place to be. I never enjoy waking up at hours like these. I always hope the race to fall back asleep is won sooner rather than later.

No such luck. This was not one of those “awake for 3 minutes and right back to sleep” nights. No, this was “the last 4 hours were more like a nap, and so now that you’re rested, let’s talk.”

I don’t want to get up. I want to lay here in the warm bed with the dogs and…wait. Where are the dogs?

It is unseasonably warm outside. Thora, understanding the simple law of “heat rises,” chose her bed on the floor instead of mine. Sammy is where he always is, in his bed guarding a harem of bones he’s collected over the years, bones he moves from room to room with a diligence so impressive you would think he was being paid for it.

When I rolled over and looked at them, Thora stared at me. She whimpered to come up on the bed. I called her up. She turned three circles and lay back down with a sigh, a sigh that said, “I was sleeping and I heard your eyes open so now I’m awake and you don’t have to be alone and if you want to talk, well, go ahead.”

Sweet Thora. She’s so in sync with me. Or I am with her.

{Cue middle of the night, brain vomit…}

Speaking of being in sync, I wonder what he’s doing. I wonder if he’s awake. If he is, I wonder if he’s watching TV. Or reading. Or working. No, he’s probably sleeping. Hey, wait, he didn’t call me back last night. Let me check the phone. Maybe I slept through it. I’ve been known to sleep through things before. I’ve been known to sleep through things recently.

I clicked my light on my cell. 4:19 a.m. How have 40 minutes gone by? No missed calls or unread texts. That’s odd. Usually there’s some sort of goodnight call. Am I losing my touch? Did the time away together cure him of wanting to see me for a while? Have I lost my appeal?

The middle of the night is lonely for sure, but it can also prey on the most vulnerable parts of your self-conscious.

The night, stealing my precious sleep hours, continues. The night will steal an hour from me this weekend in Daylight Savings. I don’t want to lose any more time than I have to.

Buzzzzzzzz.

Out loud I say, “What the fuck!?!” On the phone it says “1 new text.” I rarely get middle of the night texts. I’ve never received a middle of the night text when I was laying awake, willing someone, anyone, to call me so I didn’t have to be alone anymore.

I opened the text. 4:29 a.m.

From him: “The fire alarms just went off. Well that was fun.”

From me: “I’ve been up since 3:30. Can’t sleep. Looks like you are up too.”

If someone is thinking about you at the exact moment you are thinking about them, were you ever really alone?

I sent the kids to the neighbor’s and snuck out of town this weekend. I envisioned snapping hundreds of pictures to provide a photo tour of my weekend, but the camera never came out of my bag. Somehow, I just didn’t feel like sharing…funny, considering my life has always been an open book. Though, someone once said to me with regard to the plethora of men in my life and their respective place on this blog, “If you really loved him, you wouldn’t even want to share the details.”

Truer words were never spoken.

I will say that my one goal for the weekend, besides the obvious, was to lay in a hammock with him and read Hemingway. That goal was achieved two hours before the one picture to mark the weekend was taken.

He took this from the wrap-around balcony of room 305…the room to which every hotel employee we came in contact with said, “OH, 305!! You’re gonna LOVE that room.”

We did.