Like Cinderella, but with more cocktails

In trying to describe last night at the Washington Opera Ball, the story that best sums it up is the one that ends in the Israeli ambassador's wife offering to give me the name of her dentist. That, more than any moment the entire night, was the time I felt like I was watching myself in a movie. Am I really here? Is this really happening?! Who let this happen?!?!

Some other fond memories:

We were a little late to dinner at the Israeli Ambassador's residence because some (soon to be disciplined) girl at the opera gave us directions to the embassy. Once we finally got back on track, after clopping down a rain-sodden Van Ness Street with my gown gathered under our umbrella, it took our cab another ten minutes to go five blocks. We arrived just as the ambassador's wife was beginning the toast, right in front of another couple who also got caught in the rain. She could not have been more gracious and charming, and when I apologized to her again over the salad course, she waved her hand and said "don't worry about it at all! Of course you had trouble finding us-- this house was designed by the Mossad!"

(And by the way, I totally have a girl crush on the ambassador's wife now. She was so lovely and charming that I really want to go get cocktails and manicures with her and catch up on fun yet not-mean-spirited gossip from the diplomatic corps. LOVE her.)

After dinner we arrived for the actual ball at the Italian Ambassador's residence, called Villa Firenze. The theme of the ball was Venice Nights (or similar). In keeping with the theme, the five-pages desert menu was heavy on chocolates that had been sculpted and molded into various aquatic shapes.



That there picture is of a giant chocolate clam, filled with little fish-shaped chocolates. There was a chocolate pirate ship filled with chocolate booty, chocolate lobsters and chocolate sea kelp. Needless to say, Blake and I referred to this room as "The Chocolate Starfish Room" all night.



The ball was gorgeous. Grandly grandly, spectacularly beautiful. They had a massive tent set up behind the residence that overlooked a valley in Rock Creek Park. I would have taken more pictures, but this was not the sort of event at which one weilds a digital camera and still maintains dignity. All the pictures I took before 11:30 were surruptitiously taken behind the backs of skinny, fur-clad society women and the portly men who do the White Man's Overbite with them. After 11:30, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who looked sadly frail-- I resisted the urge to tell her to sack up, ho) and the Scalias (who were CRUNKED) headed home with all the other VIPs, the band switched from Viennese waltzes to James Brown and we took over the dance floor.



Don't Sam (L) and Blake look great? I, on other hand, look like I'm about to eat some babies. Why does my camera always make me look demonic? Sam, when you email me the photos, will you also let me know what kind of camera you have? Whatever it is, I look cute in its pictures!

The dress was a big hit, though. It was the first evening gown I've ever felt comfortable in, and it looked pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. Compared to many of the older women, though, I was completely underdressed. I didn't have a feather or a fox pelt anywhere on my body. If you've ever wandered though Neiman Marcus and wondered just who buys hot-pink marabou feather stoles... it's the Italian ambassador's wife. Anyone else would have looked like a Fraggle, but I maintain that she was fierce enough to pull it off.

Speaking of the Italian Ambassador and his wife, while we were waiting for a cab home I wandered into one of the side rooms off the foyer. There, in between framed portraits of this gorgeous couple with various heads of state, was a coffee table loaded down with surprisingly pedestrian reading material:


They watch mediocre romantic comedies and wonder about the real-life relationships of the stars! Ambassadors-- they're just like us!

In addition, I can neither confirm or that I stole a roll of Smarties from the candy jar in this room.

So that was the ball! We drank a lot, danced a lot, enjoyed non-controversial yet pleasant conversation with people who would not normally give us a smile. Saw how the other half lives. They live well, indeed. But today I went to Harris Teeter in a newsboy cap and... wait for it... bought groceries. The glamour never ends!

More photos over in Flickr.

"we need a forklift at the embassy, stat!"

When one has to appear in public squeezed into a formal gown that belongs to someone with a much smaller waist and much bigger boobs than she (hi Kat!), a gown that is so lovely in one pose yet so unforgiving in others that she is considering asking the Israeli ambassador if he would mind it if we all eat dinner standing up, a gown that requires TWO pairs of Spanxx (irrelevant tangent-- what is the plural of Spanxx? Spankxxs? Spankxxx? Spankxxxxxxxxx? Curious)...

because when one has to do this, and when one has to do it in, oh, six hours, of COURSE she has Five Guys for lunch. For the second time in a week. This is the mind of genius here, friends. Flawless logic and reasoning all the way around.

At least I won't be getting too drunk tonight. After all this grease, it'd take a barrel of my cousin Kevin's moonshine to get me even remotely tipsy. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to hook up my melted butter IV drip and top this meal off with some deep-fried Twinkies.

in which our heroine strives not to cause a diplomatic incident

Sadly I have to miss blogger happy hour on Friday. But I have one hell of an excuse:

http://www.dc-opera.org/supportus/galasspecialevents.asp

I have the gown, I have the necklace and I have the date (hi Blake! Thank you so much for inviting me to this amazing event!). What I do not yet have are shoes, a purse, or the ability to stop worrying that my lack of experience in proper society will set diplomatic tongues wagging and lead Robin Givhan to eviscerate me for sporting an improper hairdo.

See, I know how behave at nice parties. My parents trained me to be charming and good at small talk. People tell me that I come off as friendly and fun to be around.

However, this is a long way from holiday cocktails with my dad's boss and our interior decorator. This is Society with a capital S. The kind that people with four last names, all of them signifying money and power, sit on genteel steering committees for. The kind you read about in Vogue and the New York Times Styles section, which, if you know me at all, you know I read with great care and devotion. I know how to make lovely, mature conversation and put an outfit together, but, to give you perspective, my other big activity this weekend will be playing drunk kickball. I am nervous.

I think I have the basics covered. No fart jokes. Don't get tipsy and spill champagne on the ambassador's wife. Don't get on my soapbox about gay marriage, higher education funding, or, well, anything. If someone asks how Blake and I know one another, try not to reply "We spent two months pretending to have sex in a church."

Any other suggestions from the more sophisticated souls out there? Protocol I'm not aware of? Proper fork usage? Advice from your own brushes with the other half? Seriously; I'm so excited but genuinely a little intimidated. That is NOT a feeling I am used to.

and on the eighth day, satan's minions pilfered EJ's linen closet

Happy Antichrist Day, everyone! As you know from watching the creepy commercials for the remake of The Omen (those ads make me nervous every time I close my medicine cabinet that something scary and red will be reflected in the mirror, like I'm not jumpy enough about living alone) today is June 6, 2006; or... 6-6-06.

Accoring to Revelations 13:18, "This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six." This has been interpreted in a number of ways, most of them linking the number 666 to all sorts of creepy, apocalyptic, Satanic ideas. Of course, new translations have since indicated that the real number of Satan might in fact be 616, but loud, opinionated religious-types don't do ambiguity on anything, from gay marriage to the Devil's pager number.

I'm what a history professor I had in college might refer to as a socio-cultural Christian-- namely, I put up a Christmas tree and love it when my mom has an extra glass of Chardonnay on Boxing Day and performs Elvis' "Blue Christmas" for all the neighbors-- and so I don't really buy into the idea of a predetermined apocalypse or that the Devil's minions walk among us every day, tempting us to evil.

However, last night something so chilling happened that I have but one explanation for it: the End of Days is nigh!

I walked down the block to the laundromat laden down with four loads, detergent, a bag of quarters and African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade. When I emerged two hours later and walked home, holding my entire summer wardrobe and linen closet in my arms, I noticed a wad of fabric halfway down the street. I bent over it, and, sure enough-- it was several of my socks, sprawled out in a patch of sunlight as if they were trying to tan themselves.

"Awesome," I muttered to myself. "I spend twelve dollars and two hours in a laundromat, and I still have dirty clothes. That's just greaaaaat."

But matters were to get worse, for when I got home and started putting away my laundry, all of my pillowcases had disappeared. Not with the whites, not with the darks, not with the towels, not with my duvet cover. I went back outside. Not on the sidewalk. Down the street. Not in the laundromat. The rest of my laundry was intact, right down to the partners for the sidewalk socks, but all of my pillowcases had flat vanished.

Humanity oft ponders the mystery of disappearing laundry. We joke about sock black holes, or dryers with vortexes to another world or underpants gnomes. But clearly something supernatural and sinister is at work. Four pillowcases do not disappear of their own accord. Yea, be ye not so glib! As the Day of the One Whom We Call Beelzebub descends upon us, the dark forces that suck our laundry have escalated their war on humanity! On the Eve of 6-6-06, they struck a mighty blow to fresh bedding and mildly-obsessive-compulsive housekeepers the world over! Yesterday the forces of Satan came for my pillowcases. Today they will come for our souls.

I mean, there really is no other sensible conclusion, is there?

followed by...

So funnily enough, it turns out that eight hours of tequila consumption followed by a predawn 5K, followed by Five Guys, followed by a five hour nap, followed by a bout of insomnia so great it keeps you up to 6 AM watching season one of Footballers Wive$ on DVD while planning your dream 'round-the-world backpacking trip with your little sister (also inflicted with insomnia, but of the physics-exam-induced type)...

...well, it turns out to lead to some pretty messed-up dreams.



And how was your weekend, friend?

chapter eleventy jillion in my ongoing battle with accepting adulthood

I've officially been too good.

Not good in a particularly polished or exceptional way, mind you; good in a behaving properly, working hard, playing by the rules kind of way. Today I discovered that all my accumulated vacation time will expire in July. My boss' reaction was to tell me to take off a bunch of days in June so that I could get my money's worth. My reaction was to sigh and say, with complete sincerity and in no way a suck-up measure, "I just have too many projects in the air to take them."

Ew.

In addition to work, I've actually been reading for class. Reading the way you have to read in grad school, where you actually read all the words as opposed to the first paragraph and last paragraph of each chapter, taking notes the entire time while swilling belly-swelling amounts of tea. Did you know that the destruction of kingdom of Kongo is an excellent representative of political integration of indigenous African peoples and the Atlantic slave trade? I DO. I know a whole lot more shit, too. Graduate school in the social sciences is entirely about taking the most passionate, inflamatory subjects and bloating them with statistics and circle jerking-PhDs so that the poor student grows to hate academia and prays for the sweet, familiar embrace of white-collar office life. At least, unlike the Atlantic slave trade, TPS reports have not been around since 1441.

I've been such a good little student and good little worker bee that I haven't had time for any of the things that make blog entries fun, like making out with a stranger only to discover he's (eek!) an intern or taking pretty pictures or spilling coffee on famous-for-Washington celebrities in Starbucks. No sin, no scandal, no controversy. Really, since seeing J on Monday, no fun.

I am getting crunked tonight. And I'm not thinking about sugar plantations ONCE. Take that, maturity!

to be fair

Best quote of the day, courtesy author Charles Webb (The Graduate):


"It's not fair to say she threw us out... there was just a difference of opinion on the nudism."

lovely

All weekend, I haven't been able to stop saying things are "lovely."

How was A Prairie Home Companion out at Wolftrap on Saturday?

It was lovely, thank you. Garrison Keillor was a little more bawdy than usual, and did the usual litany of locale-appropriate jokes, in this case politically themed. They had the same lovely gospel singer I saw last Thanksgiving in East Lansing. She's in the film version, which by all accounts is a lovely adaptation. Kristi and I had a fantastic picnic with strawberries, Pinot Grigio, a baguette from Firehook and Brie and a (lovely) cheese with lemon rinds from the cheesemonger in Eastern Market. It charms me to no end that I am on a first-name basis with my cheesemonger. It's such a delightful combination of small town America and Urban Fantasy.

How was it running into J, a dear friend from MIDDLE SCHOOL who you haven't seen since New Year's 2003?

Completely unexpected and lovely! He is such thoroughly good people. He happened to be having dinner outside Lebanese Taverna, where I went with the Urban Family for dinner on Friday night, and we had dinner together tonight. He hasn't changed much from when we were hippie teenagers together in The People's Republic of Ann Arbor, and talking with him tonight was a clear indication of, for better or worse, how much I've changed in the last six years. However that has been, I hope we stay in close touch as long as he's in DC. J is the only person I know here who is completely without guile. Tonight at dinner he asked me in all sincerity,

"EJ, so how do people pick one another up?"

No ego or shame involved, he genuinely thought I had a simple answer to this hideously complex question. Coming from anyone else, I would assume that such a question was loaded with sarcasm or double (triple?) entedres. From J, it was a simple matter of practicality-- he had a very basic question about this very basic yet often-taken for granted process, and wanted to ask someone he trusted what her idea of it was. I found it charming and, yes, lovely.

And, for the record, I told him to get to a non-threatening setting, pick someone pleasant-looking and start a non-controversial conversation. Perhaps I should begin practicing what I preach.

And how was Adams Morgan, where you had this Memorial Day dinner with your old friend?

So apparently, Adams Morgan is really quite lovely when not flooded with pizza crusts and the be-popped collar souls who discard them every Saturday night. Particularly on a warm, hazy night where attractive young people are flooding the cafes, still lightly toasted from a three-day weekend and glowing from the start of summer. "Do we really have to go to work tomorrow?" says the guy sitting across from us.

Yes, friend. But at least we have months of lovely memories to be made.

And I would use another adjectives, if only things would stop being so damn lovely.

in which i shamelessly ape the fug girls for the betterment of today's youth

Thanks to The Tennessean for the pictures and Go Fug Yourself for the inspiration.

Ah, spring. That glorious time when a young man's fancy is naught but from whence he shall venture to college and which chick he'll spend three hours trying to feel up at the prom.

I cannot claim to be an expert on proms. My own prom was marked by a black and purple corseted dress that looked like a costume from a regional theater production of Moulin Rouge and the world's lamest post-prom party at my parent's house. Everybody showed up for twenty minutes to mark that they'd been there, then went to the Holiday Inn on Fuller Road to lose their virginities. And did I mention that my date was the first person in our class to get married without first knocking a girl up? Very good guy, but clearly has a different idea of fun than yours truly.

So while I've only officially attended one prom in my life (there was an incident involving our rival high school's prom, a disposable Polaroid camera and ketchup packets that we'll get into another time), I have some strong opinions about How Today's Youth are Behaving Themselves. Many parents and administrators are concerned with the ostentatious displays of wealth and the immoral behaviors linked to the American teenager's prom experience. However, these issues pale in comparison to the crimes against fashion that many of America's Youth are afflicting upon this once-innocent rite of passage. To wit:

Classic prom picture. The suburban planned community, the young grinning faces, and the insanely bright colors straight out of a severe acid trip. Please particularly note the purple peacock strutting her tailfeather in the middle of the picture, and the orange-clad lass on the right, who seems to be channeling the Infanta of Spain by way of Jessica McClintock. Some work better than others, but the general impression is one of children playing dress-up in a Pretty Pretty Princess kind of way. By the by, this prom's theme was "Midnight in Manhattan." I can think of no better way to express a misapplied yearning for sophistication and glamour.

I don't know this girl's name, but since they're in Tennessee and her hair is rivaling the Smokies in both height and resistance to the elements, I'm calling her Candee. I thought about Candi, but that's a little too stripper for this girl. She's too classy to be a stripper, though she will undoubtedly wind up as That Girl in her pledge class at UT.

I show you Candee and her date for several reasons. One, her date is wearing a white tuxedo that he has coordinated with Candee's dress. Dude, no one looks good in a white tux, and adding a blue satin bowtie does not make your ensemble anything short of a long national nightmare. Not okay. Two, I'm not sure what Date is doing with his tongue, but for Candee's sake I hope it isn't supposed to be practice for later. Three, Candee is borderline guilty of Classic Prom Sin #2: Dressing way too old for her age. The only thing worse than playing Pretty Princess Dress-up at prom is showing up looking like a thirtysomething woman in a too-tight dress who is hollerin' at the bartender for another whiskey. Why do these beautiful girls insist on showing up at the most photographed event of their young lives looking like old whores?

Christ on a bike. How does one so young look so defeated by life already? The tatooes, the cutouts, the expression that clearly says "aw yeah, that was me blowing the DJ in the bathroom just now." Talk about old whore. No wonder she could only get an Ionic column as her prom date.

Sometimes a girl can do everything right for her prom. Tasteful, age-appropriate dress, simple but lovely hair, cute friends to flatteringly flank her in photos...

And then her date watches Swingers and suddenly fancies himself to be Vince Vaughn circa 1995. Classic Prom Sin #3: Men in ill-advised hats.

Did you ever wonder if, had Britney Spears waited a few years to do that whole huge superstar thing, what her senior prom would have been like? Does it help to know that you'll never have to now?

I love how the girl at the end is all smiling "yeah, NOW you think this is the most magical night of your life... just wait nine months, girl."

Not all prom attire is tragic and laughable. Take this pair. Gorgeous. Way to go, kids. Classy, age-appropriate yet mature, tasteful and lovely. And you're both ridiculously good looking. I'm so proud. Younglings, THIS is how you do prom.

But don't worry, I'll let you go with one last cautionary tale:

UGH. That bracelet could not be uglier! What is it made of, Fruit Roll-Ups? And who the hell wears a bracelet on their bicep? And he's wearing JEANS to a formal event! The horror.

There's something else going on here too, but I just can't quite put my finger on it.

tea and sympathy

"What teas do you have?" she asks our waitress. "No chamomile? Okay, mint, please." Her voice is normal by most people's standards, but most people's standards are a lot lower than hers. No brunchtime mimosa for Kisha. Citric acid means aggravating a scratchy throat, which jeopardizes any auditions she might go on this week. Not that she has any scheduled right now, but a working actress always needs to be prepared.

For me, being prepared means making sure my cell phone is charged and that Sadie has not hacked a furball on whatever black pants I dig from the closet. For Lakisha, it means evaluating how today's breakfast drink could impact her career.

"So how is it going?" my mother asks. My mother has adored Lakisha ever since the two of us raised hell in our high school choir and got away with it because of Kisha's talent and my smartassness. Because both of her two daughters considered and ultimately rejected theater as a profession, Mom has a lot of pent-up worry about show biz that she now channels to Kisha.

"Well..." Lakisha pokes at the lemon slice floating in her mint tea. "Pretty good. My show finished this week and I have some auditions coming up. I might do a workshop this summer, but since it will be unpaid I'll find other stuff. And of course I'm auditioning a lot."

"Pounding the pavement." Mom smiles with as best an understanding she can muster for how hard it must be.

"Oh yeah, we spend probably eighty percent of the time auditioning," she replies. "But you can never predict how it'll turn out. Like for the last show I did, the director told me I had it from the start even though I was practically dead from strep. Like when I was auditioning for colleges-- EJ, remember?"

I nod. I do remember. I'd already gotten into college and had unofficially quit high school, while Kisha kept plugging away at dance and voice and dieting and exercise and scene studies. Working ten times as hard as everyone else, never asking for favors or sympathy, and still not getting to where she deserved to go.

"And other times, you think you've nailed it and it just... doesn't happen." She mentions an audition for a national touring company that she had almost two years ago. It would have kickstarted her career. She didn't get it, and it's still with her. Mom and I nod in sympathy, both of us unsure of what to say next.

She was always so light and free-spirited. Completely positive and the opposite of self-conscious. She wore goofy like nobody else could because she was little and beautiful and enormously talented. She's still all of those things, but the goofiness is gone.

Some of it has to be age. Losing the loose limbs and freedom from responsibility that comes with being a teenager. What once we passed as charming would now raise eyebrows of concern. I do a lot of things better now than I did at fifteen, but being free and silly is not one of them.

Yet still. It's more than age. She's spent four years preparing for this and two years in the business, and the change in her is palpable. She's still beautiful and smiles easily, but no longer grins. Her face wears the rejection it has seen.

Every day we are rejected in little ways. Whether it is for a seat on the subway, a conversation with a boss, by a stranger in a bar or a lover who is too tired to whatever, everyone faces someone who sizes them up and says "No. Not here. Not now." Most of the time it's subtle enough that we don't realize it, or are able to call it something gentler. Lakisha doesn't get that luxury. When she hears "no," it is rejection on many levels. Her looks. Her talent. Her ability to make a living.

She's one of the lucky ones. She's barely had to wait tables or temp. She's only been at it for two years. She's talented enough to make it. Most of all, she has the passion for it. She loves her craft enough that love of it will sustain her through hard times. But talent and passion will only take her so far, and she knows it. Luck has to come in somewhere, and there's no telling if and when it will rear its head.

Later we're strolling down 7th Avenue towards Times Square. I have to catch a train back to DC and she has to be at Wicked to sell souvenirs to the gawkers. She tells me about a temp job she had in an office. "It was so nice to be able to sit and read email and just be normal. Sometimes I really wish I had that all the time, like you do."

"The grass is always greener, isn't it," I say. It's not a question; it's an observation.

"Yup."

I'd love to ask her a million questions. She's living a life that I once dreamed of having and is a part of a world that I, like a breathless groupie, am geeked about. She knows and works with people I read about in the New York Times and Broadway websites. She is blase about actors and projects that make me giddy.

But she's blase because she has to be. Because to her, it's all just another day at the office. Because to care too much about the glitz distracts from the brutal, hard work that she must do. And so instead of prying questions, I silently offer her a little sympathy with her tea. Even though she would never ask for it.

they are our closest living relatives, after all

Posted on CNN this afternoon:

Wine keeps Hungarian apes feeling fine

BUDAPEST, Hungary (Reuters) -- Monkeys and apes at the Budapest Zoo drink their way through 55 liters of red wine each year, albeit in small quantities each day, to help boost their red blood cells, the zoo said Monday.

Budapest Zoo spokesman Zoltan Hanga said it was the 11 anthropoid apes who drank most of the wine in 2005.

"Obviously, they do not have it all at once and get drunk, but they get it in small amounts mixed in their tea," Hanga said.

"And it's not Eger Bull's Blood or some expensive wine that they are getting but simple table wine, as it's mainly good for their blood cells."

Bull's Blood from the town of Eger in northeast Hungary became one of Eastern Europe's best-known wines under communism.

Now, if only we can get some primates who thrive on a steady diet of vodka gimlets and ill-advised drama, I can completely justify the last six years as being in the best interest of my long-term health.

start spreadin' the news

But EJ, didn't you just have a long weekend with your mother in an East Coast urban center where you both drank and ate too much and took long walks around neighborhoods of red brick townhouses gossiping about everyone in the family?

Well, yes. But now we're doing it again in New York!

See you on Monday, kids. Please keep your fingers crossed that my mother will not wear something from Talbots to Buddakan on Saturday night.

not at ALL tasteless

I'm sure that when Tony Snow used the phrase "tarbaby" in a White House press conference, he was merely referencing the president's passionate interest in the novels of Toni Morrison and not, y'know, being all ignorant and racist and stupid. Nope, totally intentional literary analogy.



Maybe this is a new trend of African-American women novelists influencing national policy. I can't wait until a lonely female member in the throes of a midlife crisis trots out an argument for illegal immigration based on the sexiness of a hot Jamaican dude she met on vacation.

stay away from the light, denny!

Dear Shondra Rimes,

I love you! I hate you! I can't reconcile my feelings towards you because you do things like give me Denny and then you go and kill him in the most awful way possible for everyone involved, myself included!

And then you do things like bring me Chris O'Donnell. Do we need to talk about my crush on Chris O'Donnell? Okey-dokey. I have passionately lusted after Chris O'Donnell since the age of ELEVEN, before I really even knew what passion or lust were. Looking back it was extremely inappropriate for someone of that age to have such a reaction to black rubber, but he was still so boyish and wholesome it was somehow okay.

Mlaaaaaah...

But then you do things like making Meredith have elbowy, pointy sex with McDreamy at the prom and now she has to choose and Burke got shot and Denny is dead and George still has a subpar haircut and you insist upon slapping so much makeup on the beautiful Sara Ramirez that she looks like a tranny hooker and it's just all much to take!

God, I love your show. Don't ever change. Have a great summer!

Your friend,

EJ

PS: Please, please make Ellen Pompeo eat a meatball sub. Like, every day. She looks like hell. Seriously, eating disorder cautionary tale.

and fab five freddy guards the pearly gates

Last November I removed some entries from EJ Takes Life because they depicted a member of my extended family in a wholly accurate and therefore wildly unflattering manner. However, since every visitor to Trager's heard me cracking up when my parents called to relay this particular story, I have no qualms about posting it on the Internet. This is particularly so because the family member involved has an email address but a) does not not know how to check it and b) is not entirely sure what it is. If you need more evidence, my little sister already wrote one story from the weekend, and it is so not fair that the brat got contacts before me AND gets to write rude stories about the family without recrimination (love you, Jen!).

Picture it: my father and this family member (TMF for short) are chitchatting about helicopter parents, that annoying and growing group that refuses to allow their precious babies to grow up and make mistakes and therefore hover about, calling a university professor when they feel Johnny's D+ in Calc was ill-deserved or making the PTA into a nightmare of Competitive Childrearing straight out of The Art of War. TMF squints her eyes and asks "But isn't it even worse on the kids when the parents don't love them enough to pay attention? They just abandon them to the elements?"

My father patiently explained that, despite the hand-wringing, the Youth of Today are generally less messed up than the Youth of Yesteryear. Teen pregnancies are down, drug use is down, and with a couple of notable exceptions, American young people are generally upstanding, non-boat-rocking little citizens. God, how boring.

TMF thoughtfully pauses for a minute and then states "Y'know, I've thought about this a whole lot. And I think the reason kids today are behaving is... the Second Coming."

...

My father, to his enormous credit, didn't crack up laughing or drive into a tree or tear out his hair. He simply took a deep breath and said "TMF... I gotta tell ya, I really don't think kids today are that concerned with the Rapture."

And TMF responds:

"The 'Rapture?' What's that? What the heck are you talking about?"

It's really lucky I wasn't in the state where this conversation took place, as I undoubtedly would have swung out from behind the glass of chardonnay that is always present when this family member visits to bray "It's when Jesus descends from Heaven to tell us that Blondie is the one true God."

snakes in an office

So everyone on this here Interweb has been all a-twitter about Snakes on a Plane, the Samuel L. Jackson movie costarring the fat guy from Goodburger, a whole bunch of highly unrealistic-looking and hostile snakes, and yes, the already oft-quoted "I want these motherfucking snakes of the motherfucking plane!" He's such a badass.

I realize that every other blogger wrote about Snakes on a Plane months ago. They already had their ironic t-shirts and homemade parody trailers, and then they got over it. Where three months ago Snakes on a Plane was the height of semi-ironic hipster glee, now Snakes on a Plane backlash is the new cool thing. Therefore, I acknowledge that I am totally behind the curve and am not nearly so cool as everyone else. This is, of course, nothing new.

I note it here and now because the phrase "Snakes on a Plane" has become something of a staple for me over the last few months. The exact meaning is roughly equivalent to "c'est la vie," or more specifically, David Sedaris' definition of "c'est la vie," which goes something along the lines of "yes, monsieur, life is indeed a bucket of shit, but this is our bucket of shit." It's a lovely little Zen kind of mantra that makes frustrating or obnoxious situations far more tolerable.

"Can't take time off of work to go to Lollapalooza?"

"Snakes on a plane."

"Frighteningly low bank account and a week of nothing but pasta for dinner stretching ahead?"

"Snakes on a plane."

You get the picture.

All this is by way of mentioning that this morning my boss met me an intimidatingly high stack of documents, gratingly boring instructions and an apologetic look. As she sat them on my desk, I sighed "snakes on a plane."

She looked at me with incredible confusion, and I realized that to someone who doesn't spend way too much time on Kotte.org or the Gawker Media Empire, what I'd just said could not have sounded any stranger. I started to stammer out an explanation:

"Um- there's a movie with snakes-- Shaft is there... and--"

The look of confusion on her face was only getting more intense, and was now tinged with worry. I'm sure I sounded as though I was just randomly pulling words out of the air and giving voice to them. With great effort I stopped talking and exhaled.

"Sorry. I haven't had my coffee yet."

She backed out of my office with a look of almost maternal concern, and has been showering me with compliments and praise for even teeny accomplishments all day.

Snakes on a Plane... future B-movie, Zen mantra and winning strategy for professional development.

brat-alert

I've tried several attempts at making this very braggy post into something cute and writer-ly, but none of them seem to take.

So I'll just be a brat and say that I spent last night drinking (way too much) wine and champagne, slurping oysters and clacking around the Library of Congress with some girlfriends. And for a gal like me, who is equal parts wino and history nerd, there is little that beats reclining in a club chair in the Senate Member's room with a glass of really excellent Pinot Noir as the sunset glances off the Capitol right outside the window.

And the fizz in the champagne is that last week I paid all the rent and the bills for the month, and have only $53.14 to live on until payday next Friday. One minute I'd been Googling area stores to see who has the cheapest house brand kitty litter, the next I'm saying things like "ugh, who would drink Arnold Palmer's wine at this event?"

Although, really... who would drink Arnold Palmer's wine, period?

This is what I love about Washington, and American cities in general-- if you have a decent outfit and know someone who knows someone, you can be a total pauper but still wind up doing something disgustingly decadent out of the blue. God bless special interest groups and their swanky, alcohol-soaked affairs.

Of course, life is not all coffee-encrusted lamb chops served by tuxedoed waiters (surprisingly tasty) (the lamb chops). Tonight, I'm going to run three miles and then eat me some chicken noodle soup. Living the dream, people. Living the dream.

BOOBS

I'm running the Susan G. Komen National Race for the Cure on June 3 and am asking for your donations! Please click here to donate to Team Boobilicious, also featuring the delectable Libs and Kimmy, as we bravely don our pink t-shirts and run 5K for a cure to this terrible disease.

Remember, boobs need good support!

thank you for being a friend

It's midnight and I've been in heels, a sundress and pearls since 3:30. Damn Derby and its fashion requirements. My toes hurt, but I'm having a good time. For some reason everyone was born this weekend twenty-something years ago and I've been celebrating one thing or another since leaving work on Friday. Now I'm at Cap Lounge for the birthday of my old roommate J, a guy I love dearly even though he and I have nearly strangled one another at times. He's one of the few people I really have ever fought with, and while it scared the bejesus out of me, I think we're better friends for having gone through it.

I twirl the the straw in my gimlet as K fills me in on wedding plans. I know she's worried about being That Girl Who Only Talks About Her Wedding, but I secretly enjoy hearing about it. I don't know about that whole "marriage" thing, but am a big fan of parties with pretty dresses and bands and open bars.

J lurches over to us. He's damn fun normally, but is even more entertaining when drunk, all grabby and affectionate and foul-mouthed. He's spent a significant portion of the night trying to go up V's skirt. It's a lot more charming than it sounds, I promise.

"Emmmmmmmmmmm," he slurs. "Emaleeeeeeeeee. I looooove your blooooog. I reads it all the tiiiiime and when you don't update I get all saaaaaaad."

When J gets like this it's best to hug him and play along. "But I can't update anymore!" I tell him. I have to shout to be heard over the Arctic Monkeys blaring from the speaker and the jackass in the Nats trucker cap currently slinging his arms around K and B. "J, I can't update because everyone in my life reads the damn thing. I can't write about my friends because they all read it. I can't write about college because I work at my alma mater. I can't write about politics because if I ever go back into political work or journalism then there's a public record of my uncensored opinions."

I've gotten started and I can't stop. Cap Lounge basement after thirty consecutive hours of drinking is not the time or place to be voicing these thoughts, but I suddenly can't stop.

"I can't write about my family because they've asked me not to. I can't write about the people I hook up with because I'm looking for something real and when I find it and the guy finds out then he'll read about them. I can't write about work because I'm not stupid. I can't write about my mistakes because I don't want to dwell on them and I can't write about my successes because I don't want to brag. I think about what to write here all the time but when I sit down to type, nothing comes out because I. Can't. Write.

"I want to write something substantial. I hate the idea of being just another yuppie girl blogger writing about her cocktails and boys and bitching about her boss and whining about how confusing life is when you're trying to be a grownup. But I can't write about anything that matters because the consequences are too big. I can't back it up and I'm bored and I'm scared."

J cocks his head to the side in a gesture that would seem thoughtful from someone a little more sober. He puts his hand up to his chin as if to ponder, but misses the first time and hits his ear. Then he leans in and rests his chin on my shoulder so that he's speaking directly into my left ear.

"Awwwwww, EM!" he yells. I jump back, spilling my gimlet on the bar. He sets a paw-like hand on my shoulder and breaks out into a huge grin. "You can always write about me!"

And so I will. Happy Birthday to a dear friend.

And that'll do for now.

what i've been doing besides not blogging

* Discovering the music of the next Jason Robert Brown: www.pasekandpaul.com. These are the kind of kids who make you so ashamed you haven't done anything with your life, since they're still in college and have hot Broadway actors scrambling to perform their songs, but the songs are so good it doesn't matter. I especially recommend "I've Gotta Run," which is clearly the new "Stars and the Moon" of the group.

(I bet that three people at most have a clue what I was just talking about, and at least one of then was Jen. Shall I bust out a reference to tick, tick... BOOM! and call it a day? Well, EJ can't decide. Zing!)

* Registering for class. Yup, I'm going back to school. For real this time. Well, sort of for real. It's kind of messy. Let's just say I'll be in class in three weeks. And that, if all goes according to plan, I'll be a third of the way done with my masters in history by the time I actually become a candidate for the degree. In the meanwhile, should you have questions about post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa in the Atlantic context, I can hook you up.

* My yen for lefty protests pretty much died when I left the People's Republic of Ann Arbor for college, but I'm pretty sure that attending a rally to save Darfur wearing my "Give me your thirsty, your drunk, your befuddled masses" kickball t-shirt was the nail in the coffin containing my youthful idealism.

* Going back to school means finishing up fun reading for a while, so there's been a lot of that:








* Realizing with great horror that Rachael Ray and I have the exact same haircut. Since I despise Rachael Ray and actively wish her pain, this is completely unacceptable. Look, if you're going to call it "EVOO" instead of "Extra-Virgin Olive Oil" and then every time you use it say "And now time for some Extra-Virgin Olive Oil, or 'EVOO' for short!" THEN IT'S NOT REALLY SHORTER TO SAY "EVOO," IS IT, YOU ROTTEN WHORE?

AND HOW COME YOU'RE SO DAMN PERKY? AND STOP PUTTING MAYO ON EVERYTHING.

My hatred for Rachael Ray really deserves its own post. For now, suffice it to say that I cannot, will not, share her slightly overgrown bangs and shoulder-length layers.

itchies

I've been a little mopey about some stuff lately-- family stuff, money stuff, friend stuff. Nothing disastrous, but lots of nagging itchies that just won't go away.

And then when I checked my Facebook updates, I saw that my friend Aaron had a new blog. Oh, and that apparently he's in Togo. With the Peace Corps.

And reading his stories somehow made the itchies stop itching:

http://aaroninafrica.com/

Back to work. Happy Monday, kids.

and i saw an episode of 90210 for the first time in like five years

I stayed home from work today with a distinctly nasty sore throat. Apparently when one is starting to feel feverish and have difficulty swallowing, she should perhaps not go to Black Cat for the Islands concert. You'd think I might have learned my lesson about weeknight rock concerts after a Sunday night The Go! Team incident that (admittedly, after a day of kickball) left me shuffling around like Ozzy Osbourne. But no, we here at EJ Takes Life like to learn things the hard way. Plus, we're getting too damn old for our own good.

It was a good show, but Black Cat crowds tend to the annoying side of reverential. Nineteen-year-old virgins in hooded sweatshirts stand stock still, perhaps occasionally nodding along as they vacantly gaze at the band. Hands in pockets and carefully positioned to be no more than eighteen inches closer to the nearest bystander, they dutifully applaud or, if especially daring, will cry out "Fairfax!" if the lead singer happens to ask where y'all are from.

It's rock and roll as interpreted by Millennials, and I gotta say, I do not approve of what the kids are doing today. What happened to youthful indiscretion, ill-advised moshing and life-threatening injuries sustained in pursuit of music? Kids, your parents partied harder than you when they were your age. Loosen up! Dance a little! The music is peppy and fun and has a good rhythm! Let the music move you! Or, y'know, at least move.

Or maybe you all are trying to be responsible employees and not get yourself sick so that you have to spend all day on your couch sucking on cherry Halls while watching Alias on DVD and telling your cat "That's Jennifer Garner! Mommy has a girl crush on her!"

perspective, people

While I do happen to think Cynthia McKinney is batshit crazy, this is not really that bad. Anyone who has worked in politics knows that being called a fool is practically a compliment. I still have warm fuzzy memories of an earlier boss calling me, at various points during my tenure, "incompetent," "retarded" and my personal favorite, referring to me as "the idiot assistant" while on the phone with the editor in chief of a national magazine.

And people ask why I don't work in politics any more.

the roosevelt at DC9

Because pimping your friend's band is one of the best (worst?) blogging cliches:

On behalf of DC's own up-and-coming rock band, THE ROOSEVELT, I'd like to invite you to our show on Tuesday, April 25 at DC9 (1940 9th St NW). We'll be performing with two other DC bands, Let's French and Kitty Hawk, both of whom are outstanding local acts.

WHO The Roosevelt, DC's next not-so-big thing

WHAT Show at DC9 with Kitty Hawk and Let's French

WHERE DC9, 1940 9th St NW, WDC

WHEN 9:00P, Tuesday, April 25, 2006

All the cool kids will be there.

my pride and prejudice moment

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single girl, in possession of a goodly sum of drinks, must be in want of someone she says she can't stand.

Or, as someone told me last night, "You can't plan chemistry."

for these gifts we are about to receive

When I called to wish my mother a Happy Birthday last night, something momentous and earth-shattering happened (and yes, her visit here was lovely. We ate like it was going out of style and gossiped about everyone in our extended family and went to the Spy Museum where she was an incredibly good sport and crawled through the ducts to "spy on Castro").

My mother asked for my advice.

I know.

I KNOW.

My dad is both a notoriously late shopper and an impassioned gift giver. This means that he wants to give the girls in his life things they will love, but, because he doesn't have a clue where to start shopping, he waits until the last minute and then calls someone else in the family for advice while standing in a pool of his own panicked sweat in Marshall Field's.

Since the advent of online shopping, gift-giving in our family has become a remarkably impersonal yet efficient process. We email one another the exact links for items we find desirable with the exact color, size or amount indicated. Family members then coordinate amongst themselves exactly what they will give one another. True, this system does limit the surprise factor (like the time my sister chose to mark the birth of Christ by giving me a DVD of Superfly), but it also limits awkward moments and ill-advised purchases (like the time Dad inadvertently bought all of us sex toys).

So the system generally works. Dad isn't as big a fan as the rest of us, and he does tend to try to spoil our mom. To her credit, she does not encourage this. In fact, she will sometimes attempt to gently tell him that while she loves the thought, she simply does not have use for another Lladro figurine. Her interests in frugality, however, sometimes trump timing and decorum. This is exactly what happened when he gave her her birthday present.

To be fair, this was partly my fault. I'd told him to wait to buy something for her so that I could collect data from this weekend. True to form, she hauled me into Ann Taylor and pointed at a purse. "That," she said, "is perfect. Tell your father that he can get me that for my birthday." Subtlety is wasted in my family.

I informed my father and he dutifully went to Ann Taylor, credit card in hand. However, they were sold out. Thrown by this wrench in the machinery, Dad went next door to Kay Jewelers and purchased pearl earrings. Then he went back to Ann Taylor and special ordered the bag.

I learned all this when on the phone with my mother yesterday. "He gave them to me and my first thought was 'I already have two pairs of pearl earrings! Who needs three pairs of pearl earrings?' I mean, I only have two daughters, and you don't even have pierced ears!"

"And you said this to him when he gave you pearls?" Pleasnopleasenopleaseno--

"Weeeell..."

"MOTHER. REALLY."

"I know, I know. I don't think it was the right thing to say. What do you think I should do?"

"Go back in time and graciously accept the nice gift from your husband? Was he hurt? Is he giving you a hard time?"

"Well, not really, but when he took them back--"

"Wait, he took them back? Right after he gave them to you?"

"Well, they were expensive and I don't need them! So yes. And he didn't seem devastated, but he looked a little hurt. Believe me, I'm beating myself up enough for the both of us."

"OUCH. Well, you could..."

I proceeded to rattle off a list of suggestions informed by a lifetime of women's magazines and mediocre relationship milestones of my own. Buy him something, leave him a note, tell him how inspiring their oldest daughter found it that they could go through a significant and awkward moment that involved money and emerge just fine from it, laugh about it, get it out in the open, etc.

I could tell none of these were sticking and she was growing more anxious about the whole thing when my dad walked in the door and she put him on the phone for a second.

"Dadman, heard you all had a little incident last night."

"Shoot, yeah. Oh well, it's just stuff in the end." He sounded upbeat and genuinely happy to be having this conversation.

"So you're not hurt or anything? You should just know, Mom feels really badly about how she handled it."

"I was DEVASTATED." Uh-oh, he's in community theater mode. "I was torn to pieces; how could she love me and treat me in such a way?! No honey, of course not. Shoot, she made me take them back and now I can buy her a fifteen dollar bottle of wine and sock the rest away for a golf trip. Now, I'm gonna go take your mom out to dinner on her birthday. And, I may even kiss her a little bit."

So really, my only advice should have been: marry a great partner and the rest will take care of itself.

celebrity baby smackdown!

I can think of no better way to mark one year of blogging at EJ Takes Life than to dedicate this post to little Suri Holmes Cruise. "Suri" is apparently a Persian name and is also taken from the ancient Hebrew saying "Suri-ously, this child is fucked."

In a truly fantastic turn of events, Brooke Shields and her husband also had a baby girl today. If we travel back in time to the gentle, 2005 days of Tom Cruise's descent into a PR cautionary tale, we will recall that he mistook "promoting a summer blockbuster" with "publicly advise Brooke Shields on how to treat postpartum depression with Centrum." Clearly, the universe is not without a sense of humor.

Fifteen years from now Suri Holmes Cruise will be diverted from the L. Ron Hubbard-approved path to Scientology Level MCIVXXXIILM or whatever the hell they call Heaven by the (equally unfortunately-named) Grier Hammond Henchy, who will lead her astray on down a road paved with Midol and Benadryl. A classic Hollywood tale of too much, too soon. From there it's only an ill-timed snort of nasal spray until they're photographed leaving the Chateau Marmont after a threeway with Moses Paltrow Martin.

Well, good luck, Joey Potter. You're gonna need it.

i will follow you into the dark

Because there can't be too many photos of the Mall at sunset.




When Ben Gibbard is the subject, a blurry photo becomes art.

attack of the bobos!

This afternoon I ordered artisinal bread over the Internet.

Somewhere in Bethesda, David Brooks is spontaneously orgasming.

twisting my stomach into knots

No posts for the weary. They make me work at work now, and then I clean when I get home. I clean because my mother is visiting in three days, a subject I wrote a very neurotic post about only to have Blogger delete the entire damn thing. Suffice it to say that I have Mommy issues, and that they have made me do really insane things like bleach-wipe the insides of my ventilation ducts (never mind that my mother is A. not staying in my apartment and B. I haven't seen her dust or 409 anything in over a decade). Suffice it also to say that I am fed up with Blogger and its adolescent mood swings. My one-year blogiversay is coming up and I just might celebrate the occasion by migrating to a new server-- any recommendations (or cautionary tales) from the peanut gallery?

Tonight is Death Cab for Cutie and Franz Ferdinand. It's gonna be freakfraggin awesome, if a little nostalgic (whither fall 2004?). Stay tuned for blurry photos and recaps of white people dancing in the aisles of their forebearers.

I will neither confirm nor deny that tonight, at an undisclosed location in suburban Virginia, a certain opinionated brunette was known to have performed a karaoke rendition of the Tiffany classic "I Think We're Alone Now."

All missions in Operation Attain Mature Adulthood are in full active swing. That is all for this briefing.

angrily slammin' it

Every morning I get to my office at 8:30, check email, check voicemail, check in with my boss and then run around the corner to buy a cup of wildly inconsistent coffee (one day my vanilla latte has absolutely no vanilla syrup, the next it's so sugary it might as well be from a gas station)(but it's an independent place and not Starbucks, so I feel the pull to keep buying from them despite the varying degrees of taste). Then I sit back down at my desk and sip at my coffee while reading the daily news on my favorite website-- IMDB.com.

The gossip is usually at least a day old, but the language is priceless. IMDB has a truly delightful way with verbs. Celebrities are forever "slamming rumors," "racing to contradict allegations" or "angrily lashing out." Oh, the action of it all! Simple pull-quotes are wildly exaggerated. To take but one example:

"Heath Ledger is desperate to have five more children... [he] is convinced having six children will bestow endless fame and fortune upon his family!"

The quote this came from? "Six. That's close to the figure we're talking about."

Reading IMDB's gossip news, I'm struck by the linguistic banality of my own writing. I've never hotly confronted anyone, and am fairly sure that I've never slammed rumors of any kind nor been embroiled in any wrangles. I'm not even sure what being embroiled in a wrangle is, although it sounds pretty fun, if a little messy.

Maybe I should start blogging in the manner of IMDB News: "EJ hotly contradicted reports that she bracingly overslept this morning. Hair akimbo, she angrily slammed rumors that she cares more about ten minutes of extra sleep than blow-drying her fair locks. 'Yeah,' she said to a reporter, 'I was tired this morning.' Fans scrambled for more information, shrieking in angst and running wild through the hills slaughtering innocent woodland creatures when her publicist would neither bash nor assert these allegations."

boom boom boom

There is literally a spring in my step.

Climbin' up on Solsbury Hill, I could see the city lights...

I'm literally bouncing in my flipflops down the bumpy brick sidewalk. The world is full of news good and bad. Dear friends are in love and getting married. Someone has died. I flounce my way to the drycleaner. The sudden sunshine makes mundane errands positively joyful.

I was feeling part of the scenery, I walked right out of the machinery...

The Hill is full to bursting with the smell of cherry blossoms. When you live in Washington in the spring you don't stop to smell the flowers; the scent halts you in your tracks and shakes you by the shoulders. It's not just the blossoms. Every other front yard has suddenly exploded with flowers and the gardeners who tend to them.

When I think that I am free
Watched by empty silhouettes
Who close their eyes but still can see
No one taught them etiquette

The streets are filled with people. Children racing plastic trucks down the street, their yoga-pant clad mothers walking behind them in gossipy pairs and threesomes, always keeping one eye on their shrieking kids. Twentysomethings, the men in suits that always look a little too big for them, walk from the Metro with a cell phone or an iPod bud attached to their ears. Retired couples putter in their front yards, watering plots of tulips and impatients.

It's days like this when I love this city and this neighborhood the most. Then OOF I trip over a loose brick in the sidewalk, snapping me out of my goofy reverie.

I will show another me
Today I don't need a replacement
I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant...

I wander through Lincoln Park. The steak marinating in the fridge needs at least another fifteen minutes, and I've already run all my little neighborhood errands. I've never been an outdoorsy person, but over the last year I find myself craving sunshine and grass. Sunshine and grass in a controlled manner, of course. The kind where families of every color play together on the jungle gym, where friends meet to kick around a soccer ball after work. A park. So simple, but so wonderful. Is there anything better than a sweet oasis in the middle of a crazy, messy world?

My heart going boom boom boom...

Now thunderstorm clouds have blocked the sun and are starting to race overhead. But they're not here yet. Right now it's just me and the dogs and the happy strangers bonded by our joy at just being in this moment. And, of course, Peter Gabriel.

When the storm does come I'll stand on the street to brace myself against the wind. And then I'll go home and eat my steak and drink my wine and be just as merry.


"Hey" I said "You can keep my things,
they've come to take me home."

ch-ch-changes

So much happened this weekend. I mean, so much. And because kickball has started and I have a good quarter of a keg coursing through my body, I won't attempt to do it justice here and now.

But it's great to know that no matter how much seasons turn, people change and the road of life continues to bend, there is one constant in this ever-evolving world:





Tori Spelling will always have TERRIFYING cleavage.

thursday remainders

In the interest of saving cash I found myself at home on a Thursday, watching The OC for the first time in at least a year. And of all the comedy, intentional or otherwise, that has ever been on this show, nothing can top Mischa Barton pretending to hesitate over a bump of coke. It's like Peter Gallagher hesitating over having bushy eyebrows.

New recipe: Slice off the top quarter of a head of garlic, drizzle olive oil on it and roast uncovered in a 450 degree oven. While it browns, roughly chop 1/2 white onion and cook over medium-high heat until soft and golden-brown. When just becoming transluscent, add 2 tablespoons balsamic vineager and a dash of red pepper flakes, then turn the heat up to high. Cook until balsamic vineager is reduced to syrupy consistency. Slice up a sweet French baguette, smear roasted garlic on pieces and top with balsamic onions. Consume with red wine (I had a 2003 Lake Anna Claret-- fantastic) and when done, brush teeth for at least 45 minutes.

RIP, Lulu's. I'll be sure to pour out a Rohyponol-laced Hurricane in your memory at some point during the weekend.

I never thought I would say this about tiling and grout, but my new bathroom is BITCHIN.

"Guilt and politics are both the enemies of sex." I would venture even further than the article mentioned and posit that a man's level of skill in bed is inversely proportional to his political leanings. Overwhelming anecdotal evidence and a quick perusal of Casual Encounters on Craigslist suggest that, for whatever reason, conservative men tend to be less conservative in bed. This debate has been around forever, but I think Tucker (for once in his career) uttered a succinct and spot-on summary of an issue. And, more importantly, I happen to completely agree with the point. Ugh, I can't believe I agree with Tucker Carlson on something.

who knew celebrities swearing would be so cool?

This is fantastic. I mean, wouldn't you like to live in a nation where state-sponsored television advertises its programmes by having their actors recite their favorite cuss words (and where by spelling it "programmes" one is using proper grammar and not being a wanker)? That is a relationship to entertainment I can get behind, unlike that of a nation that spends its days downloading wmv. of Scott Stapp being blown by groupies yet two years after the fact still reflexively cringes at the thought of JANET JACKSON'S NIPPLE OH THE SWEET HUMANITY OF IT ALL.

Janel Maloney, I've never seen this side of you before. I like it! And Zach Braff... lovely. To think we had you cast as a one-trick pony after Garden State.

And this is very NSFW, as was discovered when I was hooking up my new speakers today. Hey, the woman who shares my wall spends all day BOOMING about expense reports. In my office, when we get loud we mix it up.

splurge

For about two weeks now, I've been significantly freaking out about money. Transferring the deed of my car over to my name and the subsequent hike in insurance payments (because I am a twenty-four-year-old single female living in an urban center who had ONE speeding ticket in her ENTIRE LIFE and it was for 32 IN A 25 MILE ZONE AND IS TOTAL ASS BUT WILL COST ME AN EXTRA $34 A MONTH FOR THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE and I'm sorry I got all shouty there BUT REALLY) means that a significant chunk of my paycheck is now spoken for. Yes, I got a raise when I got my new job. But I still don't make a lot of money, and need to save for books and tuition. It'll work, but it'll be tighter than I'd like.

So I've been trying not to spend cash on things I don't need, and with the exception of a used hardcover edition of Lake Wobegon Days, it's been fairly successful. And even with that, Cranky Jim gave me a frequent shopper discount. Lord knows I've probably paid a mortgage payment for him over the last few years.

Lean Cuisine for lunch. Drinks from the free kegs at kickball. Netflix for entertainment.

But sometimes a gal's gotta say to hell with the budget. Sometimes when she's walking home from a really busy day that started a very busy week, she'll pass by a group of adorable children selling homemade jewelry and Easter cards from a pint-sized card table across the street from where she saw that guy peeing in the churchyard a few weeks ago. And... sometimes, even if she isn't exactly rolling in dough these days, she's gotta splurge:







Best twenty-five cents I ever spent.

the sexual life of history majors

"Whatever, K wants to do it on the Guttenberg Bible."

"HAHAHAHAH."

"It's not like I'm turned on by bibles-"

"But printing presses make you hot?"

"It's like it's a prop, okay? All forbidden and stuff."

"OOH. I know where B wants to do it.

"Where?"

"Remember when we were driving back from Drunk-in-the-Woods? And we stopped at the Stonewall Jackson Shrine? And there was the rope bed that he died in?"

"YES! She totally does! She wants to have sex in Stonewall Jackson's deathbed!"

"Ew, you guys, that's so gross. I do not."

"You know how some fathers and sons drive around the country going to all the baseball stadiums? Well, B can drive around the country and get laid at the shrines to Civil War military figures."

"Ooh, I've got an even better one! Is the barn where Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over the lantern still standing?"

"I'm intrigued."

"B, your next trip home to Chicago is going to be a lot more interesting."

"Wait, there's a fire station built over it now. Oh damn... oh yeah..."

"This is both incredibly ironic and SO HOT."

*ping!*

I'm not that judgmental a per--

BAHAHAHAHAHAH!!

I'm sorry. I couldn't even finish typing that sentence without laughing. It's just so blatantly not true. Of all the not true things that ever were, are or will be, this is the most untrue of them all. It is the Triple Crown, the Olympic Gold Medal, the first moon landing of falsehoods.

I'm well aware that it's not my best feature, but damnit, it's fun. Every New Year I vow to try to be more open-minded of other people's choices of words, clothing, beverages, significant others, etc. etc. But then someone orders a Sex on the Beach, or uses the phrase "grow as a person" or cuts me off on 395 while sporting a license plate reading "VA QTEE" and *Ping!*-- a little barb, unintended but totally warranted pops in my head, and all thoughts of trying to be a better, more easygoing soul just are pushed out by the URGE TO JUDGE.

An expert in judgment, such as myself, can also take things to the next level and judge others FOR being judgmental and then contradicting themselves. To avoid being hypocritical yourself, it's generally best to have defined and constant categories for judging the judgers. For example, I judge anyone who is anti-choice but pro-death penalty. *Ping!* People who claim to be open-minded but use "gay" as a pejorative adjective ("Dude, she made you watch Ghost? That's so gay!") *Ping!"

I also judge people for judging others' taste in music. I have to work a little harder at this one, as I myself am often tempted to issue an edict on the taste of others. But generally I feel that music is such a fluid and ever-changing world that one has to be overly invested in so they can keep up with what's up and coming. Three years ago Death Cab for Cutie was a hot rising indie act, now a lot of people consider them to be overexposed and cliched. Yet the music hasn't changed a bit (except for "Someday You Will Be Loved" from Plans and do NOT get me started on how much I hate the lyrics of that song, God! they are so condescending and if a guy ever left me a note saying "someday you will be loved" after a one-night stand I would hunt him down and remove his testicles with a garlic press). I don't have a lot of patience with people who claim to like a style or a group, and then lose interest as soon as people who don't read Pitchfork twelve times a day discover it. It's snobbish and all about the image. The composition of the buying public doesn't change what's on the record, and that's all you should care about. Listen to what you like, and the hell with everyone else.

So I judge those who judge music. And I judge those who say one thing and then contradict themselves. All this is by way of telling you that when I burned all the songs from my sister's iPod over Christmas, I didn't know exactly what I was getting and that while I was walking to work this morning listening on shuffle, up popped an all-male, all-freshman a capella group's arrangement of John Mayer's opus "Love Song for No One" and the first thing that popped in my mind was "Dude, this is the GAYEST THING EVER."

*Ping!*

Crap.

kilter

"I know you can be overwhelmed, and I know you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?"
"I think you can in Europe!"

So say the geniuses of 10 Things I Hate About You.

Meanwhile, I know you can be off-kilter. I certainly am right now. I just left a bar (which we cabbed to and where we paid cover, thus a significant investment in the night) for no good reason. I was suddenly seized with this overwhelming feeling of... something. Not tired, exactly, and not sick. Like that weird out-of-body feeling when you take two Tylenol PM and then stay awake longer than you should. This strange "omph" that hit me out of nowhere. I tried to rally; grinding up on E and the girls to Nelly and throwing back my gimlet, but just couldn't get it up. I left after just over an hour. Not trying to be dramatic here, but it was unsettling. Like the urge you get when some sixth sense is trying to push you out of harm's way. It really freaked me out, so I left.

Has this ever happened to you? Some feeling just comes over you that you have to get out right now? And if so, how does one get ON kilter?

SOME people have st. patrick's day and their alma mater playing Duke this weekend

So, SOME people were going to guestblog for me today, but SOME people got way too busy with their brackets and alcohol consumption (right, like I'm actually going to believe you were working today). I apologize for SOME people, and hope that you weren't waiting with bated breath for SOME people to tell a really disturbing yet hysterical story involving a Chinese massage parlor.

Since I don't plan to be sober for the next 58 hours, I'll instead leave you with last year's account of St. Patrick's Day. It's a little more terse than accurately reflecting the fun I had, but I wrote it before I met this brutally hot Irish construction worker on O'Connell Street. Ladies, if you're ever talking with a guy and ask him "so how many tattoos do you have?" and he has to pause to tally... go home with him. Seriously. Don't say I never taught you anything.

promises, promises

I am such a bad blogger. It's not my fault! They actually make me work at the new job! I almost didn't finish my bracket in time, much less have time for the navel-gazing you all come here for every day (although I DID finish my bracket and I'm now tied with B for #1 in our pool which is so unexpected and awesome and never going to be repeated that I'm going to totally brag about it way past the point of obnoxiousness). And I tried to write last night, but the Most Insane Game of College Basketball Ever kept making me jump off my couch, both startling Sadie into hiding under my shoe rack and repeatedly knocking my laptop over.

Today will be more of the same, but you all can expect a fun surprise later on today. Trust me, we're going into this weekend with a bang.

And Kathryn and I-66, many (belated) thanks for another great happy hour. I had fun seeing faces old and new, but especially want to say hey RoarSavage and Kris. It was fantastic to finally meet both of you! One of my favorite things about this blogging shiz is seeing how other people write when they're (mostly) completely uncensored-- what their styles are, their subjects, their intended audience, the quirks and phrases that make each writer unique no matter how much we all "borrow" from one another. I really enjoy the writing of these two in particular, and it was great to see that they were just as fabulous off the page.

So seriously. Check back later today. It'll be good.

apparently you can't say "douchebag" in the washington post

Thank you, Metro Express! You have no idea how it brightens my morning when I flip past actual news to the Blog Log and my own words are peeping up at me (especially on 40 degree mornings when I left my heels at the office and have to wear flipflops for the commute). I (and the Intern Hata) really appreciate the mention.

But what really blows my mind is when there are two pre-8 AM suprises relating to the Metro. Linda Cropp was doing a meet and greet outside the Eastern Market Metro this morning. Now, normally I care enough about DC politics as I do soap operas... mildly diverting if I have a severe fever and a lot of time on my hands, but otherwise way too messy to follow. And at least on soap operas, the people involved are fun to look at.

But I've done Metro meet and greets with candidates before and I know they suck. Most GOTV efforts suck, but anything involving the candidate herself is extra high pressure on the poor staffers. And GOTV especially sucks when it's unexpectedly cold and you're surrounded by crabby commuters occupied with envy of their New York compatriots who get to bring coffee on the subway. So I smiled and shook her hand, and even deigned to take a flier. It could have been a lot worse, after all. If Lyndon LaRouche ever tries to ask for my vote before I have Starbucks in my system (or for that matter, if he just ever tries to ask for my vote) I am not responsible for any damage that may occur.

Hope to see you all tonight at Happy Hour!

and you think your interns are dumb

Ever have an intern who had to be taught how to open a spreadsheet? Or maybe he told the chief of staff "watch out, I plan to have your job in a year?" Or maybe a whole herd of them were hogging the bartender's attention ordering Smirnoff Ice and loudly complaining about having to work 20 hour weeks? Ever been waiting for the Metro with a 19-year-old sporting a security badge and smothered the urge to inform him that, as you are standing at the platform at BALLSTON and are therefore nowhere near the United States Capitol, he should remove said badge IMMEDIATELY lest he look like a total douchebag?

Have I got the site for you. No, I do not run it. Yes, I know who does. Vent away, friends. Vent away:

myinternsaredumb.blogspot.com

my name is ej and i'm a target-holic

So how gorgeous was it this weekend? What'd you all do to enjoy the sunshine? Me, I spent money I don't have on stuff I don't need!

The advent of spring means tank top season, and so I ran to Target yesterday to pick up a package of wifebeaters. I left eighty minutes later and $127 poorer. Target is lethal like that. I should not be allowed in there unsupervised and in possession of a working credit card. Among the unplanned items I purchased:

* DVD of Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle
* 26 plastic hangers
* Purple gaucho pants
* 1-inch barrel curling iron (please note I already own both a 3/4 inch and a 1.5 inch model)
* Men's XL flannel "Vote for Pedro" pajama pants
* Stuf by Hillary Duff washcloths

I think you get the point.

Seriously, is there a support group for people who have no self-control at Target? If there isn't, I'd gladly start it. We'd only go there at preassigned times, as to resist the bored whimsy that often strikes when there's nothing good on TV and we think to ourselves "I really need a Wet-Dry Vac and some new mascara." We'd go in groups and unplanned purchases would have to be defended by the shopper and voted on by the assembled party:

"I need this Bocce ball set because it's marked down from $89 to $73."
"But you live on the eleventh floor of a city building. There's no grass within five blocks of your home."
"... Did I mention it was on sale?"

There would be no visit to the DVD section. No good could come of it. We would decide what we wanted to own and order it on Amazon. And upon checkout, we would be required to give a final inspection of the contents of one another's carts, harshly determining the necessity of proposed purchases.

I really feel that there's a market for this.

memoirs of a functioning junkie

I have a little game I've played with myself for the last month. It's called "Where Were You In Europe One Year Ago Today?" It's a fetching little way to escape the mundane details of day-to-day existence. If faced with some unpleasantry, such as paying bills or mounting work deadlines or absolutely no one worth eyefucking, much less actual fucking, I escape to the dock at Nyhavn or the Viktualienmarkt or even the world's most insane train ride through central Italy, just because it was novel and scary and exhilarating.

What's been surprising me is that I don't play this game more often. As recently as September I was in serious backpacking withdrawl, practically having the shakes from being stuck in the same job, with the same people under the same roof every single day for the foreseeable future.

Travel addicts, especially solo travel addicts, are like all other addicts. We're thrillseekers who crave the fix of the exotic. We're impulsive and selfish. We remove ourselves from old support systems until we hit rock bottom. We travel because we want to forget our lives, sometimes permanently. We leech off others by absorbing their unfamiliar conversations, cuisines and cultures.

The kind of travel I love isn't always pretty. It's often messy and terrifying, and always scrappy. Scrappy. Perfect word for what I love. Improvisational and free, being responsible for no one and nothing but your own survival and comfort.

The kind of travel I love tests the people I love. When you cut ties and set off own your own, others don't always want to do the extra work to maintain that love. Looking back, I can't say I blame them. Who wants to rely on a blog and the occasional email for friendship? Who wants to put forth the extra effort to be a companion to someone thousands of miles away? From a purely practical standpoint, I completely understand the impulse to put me on a shelf until I got back.

For the most part they took me back when I returned. So now I'm here, firmly entrenched in a pattern of daily life. There are people I owe things to, be it money or time or an open mind. There is a cat that will be more than happy to remind me if I forget to feed her. For the first time in almost a decade, there are no big shifts on my horizon. No move, no new job, no relationship upheaval, no shows, no big change. I'm the picture of steadiness (or will be when I use my tax refund to pay off the good people at AmEx).

On March 8, 2006 I had a staff meeting. Then I drafted a whole bunch of reports and color-coded my filing system.

On March 8, 2005 I decided I was bored with Roman statuary and bratwurst and went to Amsterdam for a week of the sort of debauchery I will not mention on the Internet. Except that I will and he had a HOT accent and there was much Heinekin and THC involved. And Arcade Fire was there, too.

But today I'm also going to the DC Independent Film Festival with some friends and then trying a new restaurant. Exhilarating? Not really. Safe? Well, it's not exactly rappelling down a sheer cliff face. But it's new to me. And it's certain to be lovely, because my friends are lovely people.

I met a lot of travel junkies while I was backpacking. People my age who wander the world with a knapsack and a passport, tending bar or picking fruit to keep them in hostel payments and clove cigarettes. They all had battle scars and glorious stories, and all but one of two of them would someday go home, wherever that might be, and pick up where they left off. Because that kind of life, no matter how brutally pure and intoxicating it is, can't be maintained. People aren't meant to live without strings. I don't meander through Irish bowers in my head all day because doing so keeps me from living. Like it or not, I'm acknowledging all the tedium (but a lot of really pleasant stuff, too) that fills the days. Dare I say... maturing? Accepting being an adult?

Junkies usually either crash and burn or sober up and acquire that glassy-eyed, be-rehabed look. I'm hoping I can be like the mythical alcoholic who functionally has a glass of wine. Maybe even one who sometimes gets plastered and does regrettable but entertaining things she fuzzily remembers, but still thrives.

planning my mother's easter weekend visit to DC

Mom: So what would Jesus do at Drag Brunch?

EJ: Well, I'm guessing he'd knock back the sacramental wine and stick a twenty in the tranny's panties.

Mom: *speechless and horrified*

EJ: And maybe after we do the Spy Museum you can shotgun while I drive the short bus to Hell.

it's hard out here for a girl who wanted brokeback mountain to sweep the oscars

Dear Members of the Academy,

Seriously? CRASH? I know it's set in LA and you guys love watching your town onscreen, but didn't you find it just a touch... oh, I don't know, condescending, overbearing, pedantic, unrealistic and simplistic and not to mention TOTALLY INSULTING to have a film about comtemporary racism be made entirely by white people?

Although, well-played on Best Song. You guys always award actresses for playing hookers, but then they disappoint us by showing up in clothes that (well, sometimes) cover their goodies. Just put the hoes onstage! Way to cut out the middleman!

I enjoyed the tasteful tributes to film noir and what I think was musical films... I happened to miss that intro because us girls were hollering really loudly upon finding out that one of our ranks doesn't get the appeal of George Clooney. Side note: do you guys also think that if George Clooney and Oprah ever teamed up, they could conquer and run the entire planet? Can we appoint an Academy committee to explore the logistics of such a campaign?

And thanks for choosing Jon Stewart. He can come back next year and that'd be just fine with me.

Your friend,

EJ

PS: Giuliana DePandi, what the hell was up with your nipples? Were you icing them every time the camera panned to Isaac Mizrahi, knowing that he wouldn't be allowed to fondle anyone during this awards show and therefore E! would have to find some other way to have really tasteless breast action in their red carpet coverage? Or was it really just a chilly spring afternoon in Los Angeles?

it's the people that you meet when you're walking down the street, it's the people that you meet each day!

Mention gentrification in DC and you're likely to be greeted with either angry tirades or guilty feet-shuffling. I'm somewhere in between. Do I like that long-time residents are being pushed out to PG County by skyrocketing rent in my neighborhood, or the blatant current of racial conflict that runs through what we politely call "transitioning neighborhoods?" No. But nor do I care for the dulcet ring of gunshots echoing down the street. If I did, I would still be living in Detroit, thankyouverymuch. No, I go for the neighborhoods that are a good five years past gentrification; the ideal combination of urban reality and being able to walk down the street without having a knife plunged into my ribcage.

I love my neighborhood to the point of obnoxiousness, but gritty it ain't. Where visitors used to troll for crack, they now troll for organic vegetables. I like that my block is sunshiney and full of young families with impossibly cute cubby-cheeked children bouncing in expensive slings on their daddies' chests. I like that I have enough friends in a five block radius that I can, at any time of the day, pad over to someone's house in my sweatpants for some guilty pleasure television. And, because I am a total geek, I really love that we have conversations like:

"Do you wanna stop by the liquor store after work?"
"Which one?"
"The one by Mary Landreiu's house."
"Do they sell the hard stuff?"

But frequently I feel a pang for the Eastern Market of yore. The Eastern Market of my freshman year of college, when we were warned by overearnest orientation leaders that it was Not A Good Idea to go there alone or after dark. The Eastern Market that held the now-defunct shady Las Placitas franchise, makers of the world's strongest margaritas and willing to give them to anyone old enough to order them. The Eastern Market, where, stumbling back from yet another night doing our part to keep up morale in the armed forces at the Dirty Pigeon, we'd pass people smoking blunts out on their front stoops in the same manner my Grammy used to sip a cup of coffee on her patio.

I was on the phone with my mother yesterday walking home from work, telling her about my new job when, lo and behold, I noticed a gentleman relieving himself on a tree across the street. A tree in a churchyard. At 5:30 in the afternoon. Mid-stream, he caught me looking at him and shifted slightly as to better conceal his junk. But, unlike every other guy I've ever accidentally locked eyes with while he was urinating in public, this one didn't start ranting and raving. And hey, if you're going to live in a city then people are gonna pee on the street, and if people are gonna pee on the street then quiet and unobtrusive peeing on the street is the best way to go.

And this morning, I was stopped from crossing Penn because of a motorcade. I was prepared to be all internally huffy, because in college we'd forever get stuck behind a stream of nineteen towncars because Clinton wanted a burger or a Bush daughter had to pick up her forgotten credit card from Smith Point, and we'd whine and be all "Ugh! Motorcades are so annoying!" but secretly feel incredibly cool because hey, college sophomores everywhere are late to class but WE were late to class because the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WAS DRIVING BY US. WE WERE SO MUCH COOLER THAN YOU.

So I'm waiting for the familiar whine of sirens to pass, thinking how weird that a motorcade would be driving into the city from Southeast at 7:45 in the morning, when I suddenly realized: not even a diplomat would travel in a white caged-in school bus.

Organic vegetables, public urination AND early morning prison transports. I really do love my neighborhood.

the roosevelt wants to be YOUR band

What are you doing on Friday night? Why, you're going to come hear my friend R's band, The Roosevelt.

WHEN: Friday, March 3 at 8:45.
WHERE: Grog and Tankard
COST: $7 at the door (yeah, I know, but a chunk of it goes to supporting local bands and is therefore money well spent)

In encouraging me to spread the word, R suggested I use some GOTV strategies from campaigns past. Even though I'm pretty sure Ron Wood would never utter that particular combination of words, their music is damn good and R is a damn good friend who sat through three hours of show tunes to see me make out with a gay man. For this reason alone, I wouldn't miss his set. Check them out!

The Roosevelt: "American Drunk"
The Roosevelt: "When I'm Good"

let's be honest

What I say I'm going to give up for Lent:

- Drinking two pitchers of Miller Lite the night before I start my new job.

- Self-indulgent, navel-gazing blog posts.

- Making lists of things I know I'll never check off.

- Buying albums on iTunes just because I read about them on Stereogum.

- Watching reruns of Law and Order: SVU (because I live alone and always wake up in the middle of the night petrified that I forgot to deadbolt my front door but too scared to go and check).

- Softbatch chocolate chip cookies.



What I'm actually going to give up for Lent:

- ...

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: