SO MUCH BETTER THAN ER

If I still believed in the Judeo-Christian God, I would pray to Him that I never, EVER have sex as bad as Meredith and George did tonight on Grey's Anatomy. The horror! The HORROR! I have not the words to describe how INCREDIBLY AWFUL AND PAINFUL IT WAS TO WATCH, THOUGH TYPING IN ALL CAPS MIGHT SOMEWHAT CONVEY THE AWFULNESS. I could try to describe it but I would fail, because nothing in English can capture how TERRIBLE it was. Maybe there's a phrase in another language for "nonviolent yet still awful sex that should never, ever happen." German is really good for those kind of phrases.

The irony is, before we watched the episode, we were talking about how much we miss sex. Apparently, we needed to be more specific. We miss GOOD sex. At very least, the kind that does not make you sob while your partner goes down on you.

But Kim let me borrow Season One on DVD, which I'm watching as I type this. Mmmm... Patrick Dempsey... elevator...

That's more like it.


Oh, and Ellen Pompeo: young lady, get your hair out of your pretty face and eat a pizza. Your stringy bangs and scalpel-like collarbone are turning me into my mother. AND STAND UP STRAIGHT, MISSY.

hold onto that feelin'

Do you ever have those really random nights where you look around you and think, "how the hell did I wind up here?" Like, just to pick an example at random, when you decide to go rollerskating in Odenton, Maryland and find yourself singing "Don't Stop Believin'" for your turn at karaoke at a really lame birthday consisting entirely of NSA employees, none of whom you know?

Yeah, me neither. No seriously, my ankles hurt a little this morning.

And on an even more serious note, readers of the lovely and talented Sharkbait know that she's been going through a very sad time after the death of her aunt. Well, her aunt left behind a husband and their seven children, whom she home-schooled. Sharkbait's uncle, now a widower, works two jobs and rarely sees his children. Since his wife passed away, he would like to quit one of those jobs and spend more time with the kids. However, they have medical bills to pay, school bills to come (the kids can no longer be home-schooled), no insurance... it's an untenable and unimaginable situation. She and his family could use our help, and I encourage you to email Sharkbait, known in the real world as Jessica, at findingsharkbait at gmail dot com for details.

the long-awaited but heavily censored bar mitzvah pictures

From the Bat Mitzvah. And yes, those are bubble Star of David necklaces everyone is wearing. Let the hate mail commence.



Early in the night, when The Birthday Kids still look relatively human.




My college friends had my mother secretly email them pictures of 13 year old EJ, which they turned into T-shirts...


... and posters. You guys are ASSES. And I love you.


It's not a Bat Mitzvah without the Electric Slide.

Oh PLEASE let Adam's future law firm stumble across this picture!

"Hark! Let's away to the tequila shots!"

"Um, Libs, you have a little... nevermind."

I think my favorite moment of the night was when some people drunkenly cornered other cast members from Company and held them captive for ten minutes, talking about how much they looooved them and how they were sooooo much better than the actress in the making-of DVD of the show.

I would rarely post so unflattering a photo of me, but it's the only one including Geoff that doesn't look like it was taken at a gay rave.



Um, I don't recall that dance from bat mitzvahs I attended in middle school.










So yeah, the Bar/Bat Mitzvah was awesome. And just for fun, here's a photo of a patriotic chicken:

make 'em throw stone at virgins

Okay. So let's see here.

Drunk in the Woods was awesome. We did indeed, get drunk in the woods. We also got Drunk in the Hot Tub in 17-Degree Weather (Coors Lite, playing Fuck Chuck or Marry? while our hair froze), Drunk in the Central Southern Virginia Vineyards (Cabernet Franc, asking directions to what Dan the Wine Guy termed an Italian restaurant and which actually was a Pizza Hut) and Drunk in the Extremely Accusatory and Recrimination-Filled Five-Hour Game of Risk (pretty much every beverage in the house, no further explanation of activity necessary).

Since getting back from Drunk in the Woods, I have been offered a new job, accepted said new job and am giving notice at current job as soon as I work up the nerve to tell my boss that not only am I leaving but that TODAY is my last day. Things are that toxic around here, friends. I already have my bags packed. Literally. My ActorFest New York 2003 canvas tote is stuffed full of collected business cards, hand lotion and a steak knife I once brought in when I brought lox and a quarter-baguette for lunch. My boss is very, very lucky that in the following months I forgot that I'd left that knife in a drawer.

I'm so nervous I'm practically scratching at my face just to have a distraction. I couldn't be happier about leaving, but things are so nasty right now that I dread any further comments from my boss, even though I rationally know that I'm moving on to bigger and better things and that he can't hurt me or my career anymore. That all said, I'm not the hugest fan of confrontation and I'm really not the hugest fan of dealing with people who behave irrationally.

After Lord knows how many bottles of wine and sleeping for fifteen straight hours on Sunday night, I think I need another vacation. Deep breaths, EJ, deep breaths.

There, that's slightly better. It's like my Daddy used to tell me: "Make 'em throw stones at virgins." To this day, it's the best professional advice I've ever gotten. You can't control how other people are determined to treat you, but you can control your response to it. If you're in a lousy situation, the best way to get the upper hand is by keeping your cool and letting the other person be the bad guy. Make 'em throw stones at virgins. I'm telling ya, east Tennesseans really have a way with the euphamism.

decoding the universe, part the second

My friend R called me last night on his way to Valentine's dinner in an existential tizzy. I love R because he's the ideal combination of caveman guy and overanalytical girl. Neither of us would ever hook up with one another in a million years, and so we get to be as messy and neurotic around each other as we damn well please. Our friendship is a great sounding board on which we can try out ideas for our relationships before actually attempting them in a space with consequences. Plus he gives great IM and has helped me move in the summertime, and therefore has my undying loyalty.

But I digress. R was curious about my theory that the universe is full of signs and sends us signals about our behavior. More specifically, he wanted to know why the universe was suddenly throwing ex-girlfriends in his path left, right and center. He ran into one old girlfriend out and about, and only to see her quoted in a Post article the next week. An article on Valentine's Day and relationships. A quote in which she paraphrased something he told her when they dated. And did I mention he ran into her while going to see his new girlfriend? And that the quote of hers was about a movie that I had just purchased on DVD A MERE FIVE DAYS AGO?

If you couldn't sense my sarcasm towards the end of the previous paragraph, my point is: if you take this "sign" thing too seriously, especially in a company town where everyone under 35 is a member of at least one online friendship network, you're going to make yourself insane. After a certain point, it's not the universe speaking to you; it's just that everyone yuppie twentysomething has occasion to ride the Red Line a few times a week.

Now I find this turn of events intriguing, but not as interesting as their wildly disparate views of the occasion on which they ran into each other. They wound up on the same Metro train one day during rush hour and said a brief hello.

Man response: (thought that went through head when he saw her) "There's [Old Girlfriend]. Oh, she's talking with someone. Don't want to interrupt."

Woman response: To email him the next day (I'm paraphrasing here): "How is it that you're still not civil to me three years after we stopped dating? THREE YEARS! Can't we at least acknowledge each other? This isn't a big town!"

Man response to woman response: "Uhhhh... huh? Sure. OK."

Hearing R describe this scenario last night, and reading the written summary of it in my work AND personal inboxes this morning, I was reminded of the Dave Barry book my mother gave me for Christmas.** It's such a classic example of how men and women are capable of looking at the exact same situation and seeing two completely different things. One woman's rude snub is one man's polite deference.

Who knows why this is? Who knows why men and women can be raised in the same environments and yet view common experiences through completely different lenses? It's a grand question, one that no one, certainly me, will ever be able to fully answer.

But why is the universe throwing ex-girlfriends in your path, R? It's telling you: "Look at who you had to wade through to get where you are! Don't fuck it up with New Girlfriend! It's scary out there!"

Easy as pie, baby. Throw me a challenge next time.




**True Story: My mom met Dave Barry on one of her business trips last year and asked him to autograph a copy of his book Dave Barry's Guide to Guys for her daughter EJ. While signing, he asked her how old her daughter was. "Twenty-three," my mom replied. "Ooooooh," said Dave Barry, handing the signed book back to her, "she needs to lower her standards."

patience, child

Forgive my lack of updates. My laptop battery died on Saturday. Plus, I was busy becoming a woman.

Oh, you'll see.

a collection of things that would once have been lame away messages, but no longer are used as such because i haven't been in college for two years

So who else thinks that Nick and Santino totally hooked up during filming for Project Runway?

I am so not listening to you when you tell me I should never write because you are not only a hideous writer yourself, but a severely self-absorbed jackass.

I might have to go see Final Destination 3 because it features both my favorite Canadian teen soap opera star AND someone named "Texas Battle."

AWWWW, G-DUB!

Two days until we put the "Bar" in "Bar Mitzvah."

Ten days until Drunk-in-the-Woods.

maybe because my party clothes are so binding

Alicia Silverstone spoke the stone-cold gospel truth when she said "I know it sounds mental, but sometimes I have more fun vegging out than when I go partying."

Because if I were out then I would have missed out on my mother, who yes, is in fact a member of Facebook, telling the story of how she was inadvertently invited to a toga party at State. More specifically, I would have missed the immortal and completely serious quote:

"The invitation said togas mandatory, but because it's winter in Michigan that pants are allowed. I find that quite considerate."

And I also would have missed out on spending an hour watching TV starring my favorite newly engaged couple. I love Mandy Moore. Just adore her. I feel like she would be really excellent to go to Anthropologie with, and I'd try on a $78 t-shirt and feel all sorts of yuppie guilt about wanting to purchase something so silly but she'd not only talk me into it by telling me how awesome I look and how much I'll wear it but will be so convincing that I will somehow feel right with humanity about buying something so incredibly self-indulgent.

Okay, I'm leaving my apartment now.

the thing about jenny

The thing about Jenny is that everyone else calls her Jen, right down to the campus newspaper that quoted her extensively in an article about dormcest and floorcest and is now one of the first things to come up when you Google her, which just delights me to no end, but I get to still call her Jenny because that's mah prerogative.

The thing about Jenny is that she's so incredibly self-possessed and carries herself so well, I can't believe she's only nineteen today. She has the poise and dignity of someone ten years older, someone who has already been elected head of state and can pull of signing an executive order to bomb a rogue nation while wearing a ball gown.

The thing about Jenny is that she drop dead freaking gorgeous. It is very clear who got the best pick of the genes in our family.

The thing about Jenny is that she's drop dead freaking brilliant. This girl got a 5 on the AP BC Calculus test when she was 16. I know. I KNOW.

The thing about Jenny is that even though she's so smart and pretty and kind and good, she still has a lot of little kid in her. Every so often (like twice a day), she'll just kind of space out and not quite BE in the moment, even though she still participates in coversation and appears to be processing oxygen. We call it Going Off to Jennyland. I imagine that Jennyland is a lovely place, filled with rainbows and unicorns and fluffy pink cotton candy clouds.

The thing about Jenny is that she is the WORST dancer in the world. She's gotten significantly better, but is still known to injure those around her (and herself; the girl bruises like a peach) whilst completely ignoring the pesky details of rhythm and beat. She's also once got into a car accident in the parking lot of a Starbucks, but these flaws, nay, quirks, just serve to make her more endearing.

The thing about Jenny is that she's also a great listener, possesses the world's driest sense of humor, starred in a cable access dramadey that still has a cult following at Michigan State, is capable of eating seventeen pounds of macaroni and cheese in one sitting without it having any effect on her ass, takes great pictures and, most amazingly of all, has no ego about any of it. She has no idea how fantastic she is, and that makes her all the more fantastic. Frankly I kind of hope she never gets it, because the ego that girl should by all rights have would be roughly the size of Lichtenstein.

The thing about Jenny is she rocks, and I couldn't be luckier to have her as my sister and my friend. Happy bithday, Jennnnaaay.**


(**This would have been published yesterday, on your ACTUAL birthday, but Blogger was down for maintenance.)

the nightmare in the middle of superbowl XL

What did you all think of the Superbowl? I don't especially care about either the Seahawks or the Steelers (or, for that matter, pro football), but I did find the halftime show amusing. Who knew that The Rolling Stones are now being sponsored by Tim Burton?





And it's not that I haven't enjoyed all these articles talking about the renaissance of my hometown. (Okay, so I'm not technically from there but we ALMOST moved to Detroit instead of Ypsilanti when I was a baby, and really, Ypsi is just like the scrappy little kid tagging after the big bad thug of Detroit, wanting to be just like it and hang out on street corners smoking blunts in broad daylight, kind of like Anybodys in West Side Story but with more guns and sans the elegant and groundbreaking coreography and oh my God, I really do have a gay man inside me *END TANGENT.*) But really, these articles are just grasping at straws. Methinks it will take more than the presence of a Borders to revitalize downtown Detroit... like say, a willingness to redefine the entire economic focus of the region and a population that doesn't flee the inner city like refugees?

scenes from quizzo

Scene 1

Player 1: Is it just me, or has Bush not said anything of actual substance in 20 minutes?

Player 2: "TERRORISTS BAD. AMERICA GOOD." [pause] Anyone wanna do shots?

Scene 2

Player 1: So [Player 3] and I were talking upstairs-

Player 3: And we were thinking: what if Kevin Federline were, like, the ultimate practical joke?

Player 1: Yeah! Like he's actually some artsy dude with black plastic glasses who decided to drop out of Tisch and play the most phenomenal prank on a thoroughly jaded public. And "PapaZao" is really a test of just how far he can take the joke before we all catch on!

Player 3: No, that'd totally be thesis quality. They'd give a PhD for a project that was so involved as to include actual offspring.

Player 1: Y'all ain't ready for my post-post-postmodern irony!

Scene 3

Player 4: I feel like one of these articles comes out at least once a year.

Player 1: [reading aloud from article] "'It’s not like, Oh, I’m going to hit on her now. It’s just kind of like, you come up to a friend, you grab their ass,' she explains. 'It’s just, like, our way of saying hello.'" Oh, [Player 5] I'm so sorry I didn't finger you on the way in! I still love you, don't worry.

Player 5: No worries, we'll catch up later.