Saturday, December 19, 2009

Tissues For Men

I love being at my parents because they have everything in the world (essentially free toiletry shopping for me) in what we refer to as the "bomb shelter." Some people might call this stealing, but they birthed me after all. Right now I have a load of laundry in because I'm scared I'm going to contract Hepatitis from the laundromat by my apartment. So because all my laundry is in the wash, I am wearing my mom's granny panties which come up to above my belly button. I asked my dad for sweats and he gave me Under Armor. I have a serious case of VPL. So my parents have the coolest bathroom complete with a bidet(for my dad who has a preoccupation with his back parts apparently). In the bathroom I can see myself naked in the mirror while I shower. As I love being naked, this can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the mood I am, what I ate last, and what time of year it is. Right now as it's winter, I'm super pale and everything looks bigger when it's white so I shuddered when I caught a glimpse of myself and tried to look away but I couldn't. It was like a train wreck that I can see from every angle. Mental note - get back in the gym after the holidays. Procrastinating is my favorite sport.
At my parents, I get in "trouble" whenever I don't squeegee the shower when I'm done. For this weekend's visit, I was sure to leave my dad a nice butt-print on the shower when I was done squeegeeing. It was initially on accident but then I left it on purpose. Generally when I am home visiting my dad follows me around from room to room and empties every garbage as soon as I put so much as a tissue in it.
Speaking of tissues - new invention alert. My dad asked for a napkin yesterday to blow his nose and I immediately demanded that I get him a tissue instead to which he replied, "Regular tissues are too thin and I end up blowing it all over my hand." While this was definitely TMI, it sparked a new idea - thick tissues for men. Possibly towel-like. I bet every man would buy into it. Advertisers - catch onto this one. I always want to invent something but am never proactive enough to do it. Would you buy tissues for men?

BLIZZARD



This is the note from my mom to my dad that I woke up to. Interesting how she softens the blow with use of the word "might," like merely suggesting "You might want to pick up some milk for coffee." She is as casual about suggesting that he make an $800 purchase as she is about a $3 purchase. I love the demands she places on my dad and even more so, how she goes about it. I also love the urgency and hubbub around this so-called "blizzard" in NY. They announce on the weather that we are going to get 6-12 inches of snow and you would think we are having the snowstorm of the century, like we live in the Appalachians. People are stocking up on food in the grocery stores, shovels are sold out everywhere, my dad goes out to buy a snowblower.
Mind you, they have lived in this same home for 30 years now and seemed to do relatively well without a snowblower until the "blizzard of 2009" when we can't live without it. Btw, we don't live on an acre of land. Like most crowded suburbs, we live on top of the houses next to us, so it's not like he needs a ride-on tractor for a farm. I think it has more to do with the fact that my dad considers bacon a food group, and even though he works out with a personal trainer (ie walks around the gym going "eh oh Joey, how's it goin?" and then does a sit-up), he seems to get rounder and rounder by the day. My mom is scared that any form of strenuous physical activity like shovelling will bring on a mild heart attack. Were that to happen, she would have no one to leave a note that says "Your daughter is getting married, you might want to put an extension on the house." True story. Not the note, but the fact that they put on extension on their house for my sister's wedding. A wedding that didn't even take place in their home, it was for the activities surrounding it.
Well got to go start baking before I get ousted from the "Cookie Exchange" like my Uncle did for not taking it seriously enough. And gearing up for the snowstorm. You might want to go buy a snowblower.

The Undo Button

Yesterday when I woke up, it took me forever to get it together to finally get on a train to go to Long Island. My work holiday "gala," I believe, is what my CEO labeled it, was gorgeous, posh, and fun. He announced an unfreeze on the raises and where our new building is going to be (1 Hudson Place). I also, as predicted, did some networking and got pretty sloshed. No one noticed. I was nursing a massive hangover and I had to go to my parents for the weekend to help bake Christmas cookies for the holidays. Sounds corny but it's a fun tradition, and I always try to pitch in with the goal that my mom won't cry around the holidays this year and cancel Christmas for next year. Also, even though my family can be irritating to the point of Chinese Water Torture, both of my sisters go and I would feel extremely left out if I didn't. (Youngest Child Syndrome.)
So I'm cleaning up my apartment and naturally, I'm jamming glassware into my tiny dishwasher, (I swear it is half the size that dishwashers should be - I can fit a plate and a cup - max - in it - what a waste of electricity), when I add that last cup, and it messes up the whole flow of all the other dirty dishes around it. A glass breaks, a casserole dish moves out of place, I can't get it closed, it was pure chaos.
Immediately the thought that went through my head was, "Damn it, I wish I could hit the undo button and go back to the precarious way it was positioned before I put in that last cup, when it was still rolling closed." You know, how when you are on the computer and you delete something you shouldn't have, or copy and paste over something you didn't mean to, you just hit undo and it goes back to the way it was, the way you wanted it to be. Since I was hungover and alone for the first time in weeks, this sent my mind into a whirlwind of thought. How many times would it be beneficial to just have an undo button in life. Especially for someone like me, that doesn't have a filter and just blurts out exactly what is on her mind. Do you know how many less people I would have offended if there was an undo button in life? I would probably have way more friends (I have enough) and even my dream job if I could just undo some stuff. Ok, let's not get carried away. However, I did get into a pretty big fight with my boyfriend last night and I just wished I could click undo and make it go back to before. There are so many situations I could use that undo button. We could change split seconds that make up for whole life changes. Or is that what people call fate? What would you use an undo button in life for?

Celebrity Sighting


Yesterday I was strolling down my block after a hellish trip to the Post Office, partially because I was shaking from being so hungover, to send a Christmas package to my friend in Afghanistan. I walk past the Actor's Studio and spot none other than MR. SHICKADANCE! The landlord from Ace Ventura. I know the pic leads you to believe it was Jim Carey, that was the point. I was patting myself so hard on the back that I recognized this old man that I nearly knocked myself over. Is it just me or did you all watch that movie the entire summer of 94, on repeat and quote all the lines from it? "Ventura." "Yes Satan?" "Oh I'm sorry sir, you sounded like someone else."

Amazing movie, great sighting, really brought me back. Sorry the pic is so small - I'm new to this whole blogging thing and couldn't find a good one.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Work Holiday Party

Tonight is my work holiday party. I plan to network with other departments in my company so I can exit my current situation, but still work within my company. LIE. Really I'm going to take advantage of all the free food and alcohol and probably get drunk and fall down and get told by HR "someone needs to get that girl in a cab," like last year.

No I will not get drunk tonight. I have to maintain my integrity and a level of professionalism. My company is such a high school though, I'm interested to see how this all goes down. This is my third holiday party with this company and this year it's at a really high-end venue. That's nice seeing as there has been a freeze on raises the past year even though we are one of the few companies still hiring and picking up new business in an "economic downturn". I will not get drunk tonight, maybe if I keep saying it, it will work.

I'll try to post about this tomorrow but I don't think I'll be able to seeing as I don't have a computer at home and I had the foresight to take tomorrow off, (give it a weekend for coworkers to forget my antics and slurred insults) because I just moved into a new shoebox, I mean new apartment and my old computer was as big as an arcade game. Because I am such an adult, I have to wait until April, my birthday, for a laptop. More to come.

Side note - Happy 56th birthday Dad!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

My Dad

There will be many updates on my father in the future. He's probably my favorite person to quote because he's so into himself and so funny.

Let's put it this way. If my Dad was 20 years old today he would be on that Jersey Shore Show. Sure we all detest them but he is a reformed former Queens turned Suburban Guido that has three daughters and a wife that pretty much rule him. We call him Mr. Saturday because when you don't work "Everyday is a Saturday." Another nickname is "Rabbit" because he got new teeth recently and they're way too long. When he gets really excited or does something that he thinks is really funny, the Rabbit comes out.

Today's text from my sister: a quote from him: "Everything about me is great. I got the best house-the pool. I got the nicest mailman. Everybody wants to be related to us."

See below for pic of him. This is him tanning on a cruise that my entire family went on without me. He likes to ensure that, quite unnaturally for a male, the tops of his legs get tan too.

300.2

Why? Do you ask? Is my blog called 300.2? Let me start with the back story. I am 25, and in a current state of duress. When I was in middle school we prepared for high school. In high school we were striving to obtain scholarships to get into college. Little did I know that all my overzealous extracurriculars which resulted, much to my dismay, to get me voted "most involved" by my senior class, were going to gross me $3,000 total, most of it coming from my elementary school, named after a Native American Indian. Is that PC? Apparently that's how they roll on Long Island in regard to naming shit. Thanks for the 1.5% help off my college tuition. Anyway from there counselors helped you choose your major in college and that was ultimately to prepare you for the real world: a job. Well finally I realized that in "Freshman year of life," no one holds your hand the way they do in the past and you're ultimately preparing for retirement. So now here I am, in Junior Year of Life, age 25, at a job that isn't what I thought it was going to be, and a credit card debt like I'm raising a small family - with a chronic case of hives.

Don't get me wrong, from the outside looking in, I'm really not a nervous mess. I have lots of interesting and engaging, and did I mention hot and popular friends, a good looking boyfriend and a pretty dysfunctional, yet supportive family. However, the uncertainty of the future and utter dissatisfaction with my current situation (what? You don't come out of college making $75k a year and I have to PAY $700 to get a cavity filled - what is the point of insurance? - I nearly passed out when my hot young Asian dentist told me - and normally I'm quite adverse to Asians) has resulted in an overall anxious feeling from day to day. So I start breaking out in hives when I am doing nothing that should make me break out in hives, everyday things. I decide, like most New Yorkers, that I have to dump my problems on a complete stranger and need to take advantage of the little insurance that I work so hard for at my not-so-great paying and not-so-challenging job. I enlist the help of a friend in grad school for none other than therapy and determine I am going to interview therapists. That's what every non-crazy does right? Til it just feels right, like a mate. At least that's what we're led to believe "you'll just click" - bullshit.

I finally settle on this heavy lesbian who is actually a social worker. However as our sessions go on, she is a little too opinionated and not so flexible with my schedule. I want to come every other week, after all I have a shore house and after treating my body like a garbage disposal all weekend, I want to relax on Mondays rather than rehash suppressed childhood memories. Priorities people. After each session I come home in a catatonic state and tell my boyfriend about how I loved her this time and the next I hated her because she told me what to do and was yawning too much. Sorry do my problems bore you? Oh wait you are getting $350 an hour to listen to me bitch so damn it you will pretend you are interested. The next session I go back and she wants me to refill the insurance forms (Insurance Companies rule the world btw) because my penmanship is comparable to writing with your feet. I never mastered the art of fine motor coordination, I also can't paint my nails and tried to get my boyfriend to do it once because he claims he is "artistic," (ie took Art in high school). He tried to paint them like you would a canvas and that was the end of that. So I have the form in front of me and my info is already there. Being the invader of privacy that I am I immediately scour the paper for any details I can take in. I want to know what she is scribbling all session. I deserve to know. How dare she judge me? Then a few lines down I see it.

DIAGNOSIS: 300.2

That's my diagnosis every session. Immediately I'm mad at her for diagnosing me with any kind of crazy. "Who does this lesbian bitch yawner think she is?" I'll diagnose her with a big F-A-T. So I scribble it down in the memo section of my blackberry, where you should keep important notes like "don't forget meeting with really important exec tomorrow" but instead I write things like a song I hear that I like or the type of wine that I am guzzling at my friend's apt and seemingly enjoy.
I can't even concentrate during our session, as the different types of 300.2 diagnoses run through my head. "Chronic Put downer of others to make herself feel better" Is that a disease? I always just thought making fun of people was amusing. "Psycho Personality Disorder." Did I tell her the truth about the story with my boyfriend? Surely I edited it for a therapist's ears. Don't lie, anyone that goes to any doctor lies to them, I know it's not in our best interest but it's certainly in the best interest of my ego. I'm trying to impress here. Even if I'm less than impressed by you, I must feel superior.

I get home and immediately google it. General Anxiety Disorder. That bitch.

I stopped going to her the next month.





Stay tuned for more rants on living in a big city, being 25, and hating your job. For now I am going to drink my sorrows away with my friends because that's what you do when you're 25 and broke.