House of G Gives Advice. To Boys.

Are New York men a different breed than the California variety? Can I get through this post without sounding like Carrie Bradshaw?

I am new to the Tri-State area. I am a transplant from my home state of California. There are differences. But there's an indefatigable maxim pertinent to any state and social setting: when guys get drunk they hit on girls. There is a corollary: when girls get drunk they hit on boys.

In this post I will focus on the former dictum in an attempt to help my genuinely clueless and mostly well-intentioned brethren not screw up the first five minutes of talking to a group of ladies, or one in particular. You can screw up on the first date, or beyond, but if it's the first date you'd like to clinch, please stay with me. I may or may not be relying on a recent outing with lady friends. Like, last night.

How Not To Hit On A Collective Of Ladies (or one in particular)

a) Do not brag about how much you make per day without any prompting [and within two minutes of introducing yourself]. P.S. Revealing your per diem salary rate is weird and unimpressive. Talking about your involvement in initiatives to end genocide in Darfur, for example, means you can extricate yourself from your own ego bubble and personal shit. This is impressive.

b) Do not immediately reveal that you are looking for a wife and to "spread my seed", and that you want to take said wife and products of the aforementioned seed back to Toronto. Toronto is cold. And, not every woman is instantly game to jump on the matrimonial bandwagon. With a stranger in a crooked tie.

c) Do not offer that you hope to have a fortune of $20,000,000 when you retire at 65 to live the life you believe you are entitled to in your golden years, but that "it's really not that much", because "bonuses these days suck". You know what sucks? The patronizing look you gave us when we said that money isn't everything.

d) Do not confess that you are driven to achieve great wealth because of childhood issues that have driven you to fiercely compete with your brother, as your fun-guy-party-mask slips and reveals a vulnerable adolescent clad in Brooks Brothers. One more thing: Cain & Abel stories are so out of context at a beer garden -- especially as you keep talking and we drain our mugs dry. And remember, we only met five minutes ago.

e) Do not express surprise when we demand compensation for a mini therapy session or another pitcher of beer due to your hijacking of the "conversation". Attendance at a beer garden usually involves good brews, merriment, glass mugs that are hard to lift, and maybe even french fries. It doesn't, and shouldn't, involve vomiting deeply personal issues to a group of strangers. Even if they are wearing lip gloss, and might have some empathy....which is quick to evolve into...pity.

f) Do not express even more massive surprise that any of the ladies you are attempting to charm hold MBAs, and then try to recover by asking "but tell me, what do women REALLY want?"

Dear resident of Toronto, with your pretty BlackBerry, and your new-lucrative-according-to-you job at a financial services company in Manhattan:

Desperation, in any form, is never, not ever, really, never, ever appealing. Not even when it's cloaked in a really nice black suit with an awesome tie, or slightly numbed by pitchers of beer. It takes some serious pelotas to just appear in front of a group of ladies, sit right down, and introduce yourself. As a residually shy person, I give you props.

You may be obsessed with making money, and really, to each his own. We all have our obsessions and gaffes and quirks, but my advice - if you want any hope of locating a wife and unfurling your seed - is that it's best to keep the dark stuff, the skeletons, the vulnerabilities, in your back pocket during those initial delicate moments of social interaction with the lip gloss crowd -- rather than splay them out on your Italian wool sleeves, leaving your target audience covered in a thick scum of *too much information*.

My advice: keep it light. Make us laugh. Maybe offer us another pitcher of beer. Don't draw an immediate spotlight to your intentions [we can already guess]. We don't like to pull a verbal smack down on a stranger during a ladies' night out. But, we will.

Best,
The Ladies with the pitcher of Hefeweizen

Valentine's Day

A good friend of mine is a kindergarten teacher. Her stories on the kids are fascinating -- their antics, their parents, their obsession with stickers, and most of all, their truth zingers. There's no honesty more brutal, or deft, than the kind of skinned truth delivered by a 5-year-old not yet conditioned by social graces.

My friend, who loves her job and wouldn't want any other, also hates Valentine's Day with the kind of passion that, if harnessed, would be enough to shift a pair of tectonic plates. It's the only holiday she wishes were banned from the school calendar. Not because of the holiday's high sugar content, but because it always, always involves pain. She walks away from the day cursing Hallmark and drenched in pathos.

She's explained it to me this way: 5-year-olds are in some ways exactly like adults. They may be smaller and wear cartoons on their clothes, and have an unnatural fondness for apple juice, but they still have feelings and emotions like grownups. They just aren't as equipped or accustomed to managing their feelings and emotions like their more jaded adult counterparts.

[Quick side note. We all know grownups who never developed the emotional fiber to tackle any feeling more profound than fear, which might explain the mind-bending support for Sarah Palin. Could we also blame a case of stunted emotional growth on a long-ago Valentine's Day involving a metaphorical heart stomped to metaphorical gore right over glitter-strewn carpet? My friend would answer with a resounding "Yes".]

This is why when a 5-year-old has a crush, and the crush does not respond in kind (which, arguably can happen on any day of the year, but let's face it: the likelihood skyrockets like a motherfracker* on February 14), said 5-year-old experiences the exact same kind of shattered-to-the-core heartbreak adults get drunk over, and adult poets get really drunk over. But, a heartbroken 5-year-old obviously can't choose alcoholic obliteration, or a myriad of other vices drawing on the over-hyped Seven Deadly Sins, and sugar cookies don't just make it all better. At least not right away.

So every year, among the paper hearts and associated craft provisions, my friend is on high alert for code red heartbreak: the kindergarten version. All she can do is offer kind words, a hug, and pray that any trauma profoundly felt is washed away by the pebbly sands of time. She knows, though, that kids can hold on to the memories of early heartbreak with a fierce tenacity that outlives childhood, roosts comfortably in adulthood, and then occasionally leaks out in one form or another after a few cocktails.

I don't remember feeling wrecked as a kid by Valentine's Day or unrequited love. I was one of the lucky ones; I was never heartbroken before I had braces. And if I broke some kid's heart back in the day, I don't remember. I do remember the heart-shaped, pastel-colored candies that tasted like a combination of mild, mint toothpaste and envelope glue. I remember red-foiled chocolate kisses, sugar cookies, heavily frosted cupcakes, the omnipresent red punch, and that washing baked goods down with that red punch resulted in a weird, unsavory aftertaste.

These days, my Mom is my standing Valentine. She has given me a card and chocolate ever since I could talk, even when I was in college, and even when I railed against the corporate greed of retailers. These days I also conveniently use the day to polish off a box of chocolates, generally in one sitting, and justify my sweet gluttony on the fact that I achieved it on a holiday.

Happy Valentine's Day.

*I don't endorse use of the word "frack"; it's just plain leotarded. But, my Mom might be reading this.

Self-Imposed Hiatus, Begone...And Happy New Year

I finally realized that my break from life (and as a corollary, contributions to this blog) has reached the one month and one day mark. For shame. I've dusted off Christmas, turned my back on (most) sweets, which have debauched my waistline, and am now ready - with drawerfulls of clean clothes - to face a new year.

I'm taking on this New Year with renewed verve, a new plan, a supportive family, freakingly fantastic friends, and a career spigot that has turned up the professional juice. More on that later.

I don't know about you, but in 2010 I'm ready to never hear the surname Gosselin again, and hoping that healthcare reform leads to insurance reform. You can't have your yin without your yang (it would be unwise) and genuine healthcare reform cannot occur or be sustained without some ass-whippin' on the insurance front. I am also smarting over paying $400 for a basic medical test my insurance company refuses to cover.

In 2010, I do not care if Kathy Griffin F-bombs her way through primetime TV every night for the next 359 nights, hope that one of my favorite books, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is awesomely adapted to the big screen, that my friends the Linnebur-Smiths sell their house so they can move to New York City, that my sister kicks ass on her upcoming test, that Angelika Makkas won't rescind her invitation*, and that when I wake up tomorrow chocolate in all forms will appear repulsive to me.

I wish for many, many more things, silently and brazenly, but I mostly wish this: May this New Year bring you and yours more of the good than the bad, lots of love and gut-aching laughter, the kind of change you hope for, and many spirited and synchronous moments that convince you the universe is nothing if not on your side.

And with that, I leave you with two new songs to get the year started off on a portentous musical note.

Godspeed.

Parallel Lines - Junior Boys

Sometime Around Midnight - The...

*Vampires must be invited into a mortal's home in order to enter. Otherwise, they remain barred, in all their pale undeadness, at the front door. Upon having an invitation rescinded, vampires are physically forced to leave a mortal's hearth and home. It's only fair. Mortals get to keep their sacred spaces vampire-free if they so desire, while vampires get immortality and astonishing strength (apparently).

If you remain as unapologetically enamored as I am of the Twilight series, I highly recommend two things: HBO's True Blood series, and Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels. Those two recommendations lead me to this: I have one more New Year goal: To read enough Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky to make up for all the vampirically-themed forms of entertainment I continue to pursue and digest. It's only fair. Part of me can be intellectually if bleakly engaged, while my more torrid side continues to be delighted and thoroughly entertained. By vampires.

A Non-Train Wreck Family With Multiple Children

My Mom and I were discussing a family with six kids, and how composed the Mom of six is, despite the fact that she also homeschools them. I will repeat: she homeschools six kids. Alone. Herself.

I have a hard enough time wading through the aisles of the local Target during an afternoon of wailing children, snot-leaking noses, and helter-skelter scampering. I'm not the only one. There is a look that Moms get when they've had enough and wish it were more socially acceptable to leave their children in the parking lot, locked in the family car. The look of the harried Mother transcends race, creed, and fashion sense -- even if it's somewhat blunted by a popcorn infused Target.

I am pleased to report that all six kids are genuinely good kids, in spite of or maybe because of, their homeschooling. They are courteous, well-spoken, and friendly to each other. In other words, they would never be offered a reality TV contract. They are the kind of children those who wish for children hope they actually get. Still, the act of homeschooling (anyone), much less six polite kids, is an initiative I would take on only after a host of tortures had been laid upon me and I still had one more to complete. My admiration for this Mom of six is H-U-G-E. I'd like to buy her a drink, but I bet she'd prefer coffee.

I quickly fashioned a fantasy of what my childhood would have been like if I had been homeschooled, but did not get far. I remember clashing vehemently at the age of nine with my mother over how to proceed with my fractions homework. I don't think a homeschooled childhood would have been bucolic. Very likely it would have sucked ass.

I turned to my Mom and said: "Can you imagine if you had homeschooled me and Booger (my sister)? You would have blown your brains out". My Mom looked up, paused thoughtfully and said: "No. I just would have had a mental breakdown". And with that she returned to her crossword puzzle and I resumed eating my ice cream. But, with a little bit more hope for how the world will run when I am old, gray, and the whippersnappers have whippersnappers of their own.

¡Bacon!

Dating sucks, and I'm taking the rest of the year off, but that's OK because I have bacon.

A few days ago I bit into a BLT and was immediately reminded of the rapturous way poets describe the sweet arrow piercing of falling in love, because this is how I felt about my sandwich. People in their prose, and poets in their way, have chronicled their ardor in different ways, but the basics remain the same: the senses swim around in dopamine juice as the heart swells, straining against its encasement of ribs and sternum.

And so it is with bacon. With each bite the heart beats itself a bit bigger (I suppose this is literally true if one were to eat bacon at every meal). With each bite a haze of happiness appears. With each bite a symphony completes a movement. Each bite introduces maybe the only true contentment in an aggravating day, or punctuates a particularly blissful one. It is the sole reason why I will never commit to becoming a vegetarian, despite the many and compelling reasons for why it would be advisable.

Dates and romantic attachments may come and go, but bacon will have your back as long as you fry/bake/microwave it properly (respect the bacon, and it will respect you). Of course I won't go into bacon's pesky details, like the USDA's silent treatment on recalls, the debate on sodium nitrite, colorectal cancer, or slaughterhouses. I will, however, allow Sarah Hepola of Salon.com to have the final say:

"Loving bacon is like shoving a middle finger in the face of all that is healthy and holy while an unfiltered cigarette smolders between your lips."

Yum.

P.S. How to say, "May I have some bacon" in a few other languages:
German: Darf ich bitte Speck
Chinese: 我请你们熏肉
RussianL Позвольте мне, пожалуйста, свиной
Greek: Επιτρέψτε μου να έχει κάποια μπέικον
Spanish: ¿Por favor me puedes dar tocino?

Dear Life, Thank You

I suppose 12/31/09 would be an apropos time to stare 2009 in the eye and reflect upon the good and the bad throughout the year, and after coffee and an introspective interlude, formulate a renewed hope and set of aspirations for 2010. But, frankly, I'll be busy that night, sitting on my sister's couch in my nicest sweats, with Season 3 of Dexter and a bottle of Pinot Grigio.

As Thanksgiving approached, I've been pondering how the really truly shitty moments in a year, or their longer counterparts, episodes, can re-cast good moments, even lukewarm OK moments, in a much shinier light. So, I hereby proclaim that on this Thanksgiving Day I give a hearty gracias for the bad times. And, I mean bad times: true job suckage, super early conference calls, the kind of sharp and prolonged stress that causes insomnia and the curse of acne, and times when my checking account brought me nothing but a piercing woe.

Amidst a challenging job search, an anemic bank account, and the adjustment to becoming a member of the Boomerang generation (adults who return home to roost with Mom and Dad), I've also got to give my sincerest thanks - and I feel this thanks all the way down, deep, deep, down, in the cartilage that forms my kneecaps - for my family, friends, laughter, the Twilight Series, HBO, the incredible music that came out this year, and the good friends who despite my being me, were still generous with their time, their $, and heartfelt advice. 2009 demonstrated to me, more than any other year thus far, that after a prolonged gloom, much like after the harshest and most destructive of weather systems concludes, the sun shines again.

Don't just take my word for it. Herewith, a brief glimpse for what others are thankful.

"1. Bacon, in all its savory, sweet and succulent glory
2. Beer, despite all the deplorable things I do when I drink it
3. A decent metabolism that allows me to chronically overindulge in #1 & #2
4. The acute understanding that I'm just another expendable, semi-gelatinous, carbon-based, resource-annihilating whore-ganism in the greater game of nature
5. Phreedom to do my life on my terms
6. Phamily who always have a home for me and shower me in this magical stuff called "unconditional love"
7. Phriends who know my dark side yet trust and defend me
8. Traveling the world but calling Amurrica my home
9. The hope of silent sunrises
10. The comfort of an unknown future"

"Well of course [I'm] thankful for another day above the turf...I am grateful to have been relieved of the bondage of self..that I am free to do whatever I desire to within principled boundries...that I am surrounded by fellow members of my tribe who love and support me--that I didn't gain weight when I quit smoking, and most of all for my assistant who makes it possible for me to only work 4 hours a day...lol."

"I am very thankful for my family and my awesome son."

"-Thankful for another wonderful year of life.
-Thankful for the opportunities to travel and see knew things with old friends
-Thankful that I can survive 48 hours with my family (maybe)
-Thankful for a 4 day weekend"

"I'm thankful to live in a country where I can go to college (twice) to pursue the career I want to have. I'm thankful I have a loving husband who is my soulmate. I'm thankful I have two loving, strong parents and a brother who is my best friend. I'm thankful for all of those in my life that help keep me sane and make life worth living. I'm thankful for my poochy, Winston. And, I'm really thankful for food and sex. God is a genius. Oh, and I'm definitely thankful for Stephenie Meyer for letting me lust after seventeen year old vampires and werewolves. *Sigh*"

"I am thankful for kick-ass friends and family...a dog that entertains me on a daily basis, and the knowledge that I'm FINALLY on the right path in life. Better late than never right? oh yea...and for my health, and home, and job. whew!"

"I'm thankful for people who think beyond their own lives, their own families, their own countries and have the balls to act with that bigger picture in mind even (especially) if they may be fired, vilified, or voted out of office for those acts. And for burritos."

"I am thankful for living in America despite all of its faults and mindful of the access and privilege I am provided because of this. I am thankful for a healthy body that functions despite my badness (and I do mean BADNESS!). I am thankful for my wonderful friends and family who love me despite myself and I am thankful for kittens without which I would know no pure joy and unconditional love!"

"I am thankful that throughout so many phases and stages of my life, and in so many settings, I have found myself surrounded by good, honest, intelligent, caring and fun people."

"I am thankful that so far life has pushed me in certain directions and pulled me back from others - in time for me to learn, but not drown ... I am also so very grateful for living so close to this part of the Pacific Ocean ... the sun set today made me feel comfortingly small and in wonderment ..."

A special thank you to the dear friends who kindly shared their thoughts. You are my counterparts, not just on this post, but in life, and I feel pretty fucking lucky.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Bedroom Muses

During a summer in the early 90s I worked as a journalist intern for my hometown newspaper. One of my mentors, for all her daytime professionalism and reserve, could not completely suppress what she was in her off hours -- a Good Time Girl*. She seemed to recognize I was one in the making. She slipped me a cassette. It was Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville.

None of the tape covers in the collection I owned were like this. Liz Phair, draped in a dark cape, her mouth open in a forceful "O", had paired her intimately revealing lyrics with a cover that gave peek at the upper tip of her left areola. The tape cover sat at the very back of my sock drawer -- musical contraband.

I credit Liz Phair with the truce my naiveté feverishly made that summer with my heretofore dormant irreverence and inclination toward highbrow snark. A Catholic education had previously curbed but not quashed the inevitable. Liz Phair used the word "Fuck" all the time and repudiated anything demure or - gag me - princess-y. I unabashedly sang her words in my car with the windows down -- as long as my parents weren't around.

I found out later that Liz Phair wrote and recorded Exile in Guyville in her bedroom. She had taken her destiny into her own arms and completed the ultimate DIY project: a still to this day critically hailed debut.

I have a special place in my heart for musicians who don't wait for recording contracts, but charge up their Macs, ask for donations, sling espressos, walk dogs, and employ Web 2.0 strategies so they can put their music out into the ether, and preferably in your ears. These are the artists who are a pleasure to support because they are bypassing traditional means of mass producing and marketing their music. (So when one in particular makes your eyes go wide with delight, be sure you tell the world about it.)

Merrill Garbus is the one-woman show behind tUnE-YaRdS. She classifies herself as "experimental", and describes her music thusly:

Your mom when she gets really mad but instead of whoopin' yo' ass she starts making crazy-ass beats with the pots and pans AND yo' ass.

This makes me want to get my Mom really mad -- around some strategically placed kitchen gadgetry.

Fiya - Tune-Yards

*Good Time Girl: A member of the female species inclined toward activities one would confidently term as "fun", or "a good time"; a member of a group engaging in goodhearted, if slightly irreverent -- fuck, who are we kidding? -- completely irreverent dialogue that may or may not involve a round or four of spirits, uninhibited dancing, and potentially watching the sun illuminate the dark, giving rise to a brand new fun, er, day.