[y a w n] um, what was the question again?

Is sleep better than sex?

Since I haven't really had either via natural means lately, I really don't know. Should it bother me that I'm not really all that bothered by this?

off to the xanax kingdom

I'll be spending the next few days in Disney World with my sister, brother-in-law, and the Supreme Nephew of Whiskypants. Darling Niece of Whiskypants is staying home with my parents as she is too young to be exposed to the Xanax Kingdom without sustaining damage.

We'll be staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, with Savanna view, which is cool is a slightly strange way. My nephew and I will have Sunday all to ourselves as his parents have to attend a non-child-friendly wedding (in Orlando??? also strange...) and I will be responsible for fending off the friendly advances of all Disney employees in character costumes. The Neph fears the Easter Bunny, Santa, and folks dressed like Mickey Mouse. Can't really blame him, and I hope this means we have no reason to fear his getting into Furries. Ick.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and will be sending you super-fantastic post-gorging shopping vibes while hitting that spooky It's a Small World and the Mad Tea Party. I expect to return in dire need of an adult beverage...

to date or to anaesthetize and retrain

So, a friend (Nunzio, I'm beginning to doubt you, buddy), highly recommended this book to me by telling me that I reminded him of the heroine. He happened to be carrying the book with him at the time, and I was all flattered by the suggestive graphics on the cover. (See picture at left.)

Let's take a gander at the blurb on the back cover: "..Cassie doesn't have time to waste on men who don't meet her standards. So she has three handsome men with potential chained to cots in her basement... After lessons on color coordination, behavior on dates, and, occasionally, sex, her charges will eventually be loosed upon a city of grateful women... With an endearingly amoral heroine [emphasis mine] ...Cassandra French's Finishing School for Boys is a shockingly funny, original, dead-on satire of the dating game."

The author, Eric Garcia, does a fair job of taking chick lit and making it his own. Apparently, he has also written a bunch of mystery books where dinosaurs are still alive and among humans, but in disguise. Weird. He also wrote Matchstick Men.

Anyway. As most of you know, I do not have a basement, so there's no way I resemble the heroine. I live in a studio. There's barely enough room for my shoes. Now, I have definitely dated more than one guy that could have benefitted infinitely from a beating with a cat-o-nine-tails or morphine-induced karaoke lessons, but I really don't have the energy to go about retraining the many retardulous men running amok in the dating world. And, as previously stated, I do not have a basement.

On the other hand, I like the idea of this book being a sort of cautionary tale for the jerks of the world. 

weekend whirlwind

Damn, I'm tired. Once again, TAS ran my ass nearly into the ground. That girl is just amazing.

It was a fantastic weekend. Beautifying, cultured, literary, drunken, silly, and, once again, literary.

Upon arrival, we rushed up to Bergdorf's so that TAS could get a haircut, and I stopped off at the Laura Mercier counter for a little touch-up. The makeup artist took one look at me and decided a touch-up wasn't going to be enough, so she made me beautiful instead. Then we headed up to the designer shoe section where I had never seen so many Manolos in one room. It was pretty close to heaven.

We then went to see one of TAS's friends sing, and went out for dinner afterwards, where I got to meet the author of one of my favorite books, My Lurid Past. She was damn funny, and now I'm gonna have to go out and get Jane Austen's Guide to Dating as well. (Why didn't I remember to pick that up at Strand on Sunday???)

Saturday was consumed by a charity event. A pub crawl for charity. Saying "charity event" makes it seem more dignified. Anyway. I tried very hard to pace myself, but it was rough. TAS brought along a fun colleague, and she called her two brothers to meet us out later as well. They were quite flirty, but not our types. (At one point, the elder brother - who must have been quite in his cups at this point - turned to his bartender buddy, pointed at me, and said, "This one is coming home with me later." I thought he was joking and laughed heartily. Turns out he wasn't. Eek.) We were meeting up with the Freckler later that night, and were able to get one more drink down the hatch before deciding we were thoroughly done.

Sunday was spent checking out the Union Square DSW (their selection is unbelievable), Strand books (finally picked up Kite Runner), etc...

This time, I took Greyhound/Peter Pan. It was clean, quick, and not smelly. If you have an ample backside, the trick is to pick a seat next to a very small person. Trust me on this.

harbingers of bad stuff

I'm having a bad karma sort of week. Very bad karma. Horrible sinus headaches, bitchy colleagues, super boring dates, running out of gas (I'm feeling especially stupid about this last item)... It makes me wonder if I should even get out of bed tomorrow, but I have bought my bus ticket (taking Peter Pan this time as the Chinatown shuttle has proven less reliable of late) to NYC; TAS and the Brooklyn Freckler are expecting me. I have a pending date with the cosmetics counters at Bergdorf's and TAS is taking me on a pub crawl with a bunch of firemen on Saturday.

So, please send good karma/happy thoughts/super-sexy-luck in my general direction. Thank you.

so, i can't be a feminist and date at the same time?

The New York Time's Maureen Dowd has written a rather controversial piece about modern dating. Essentially, smart and professionally successful women are far less likely to find husbands/long-term relationships or have children. Success = sexual/familial kryptonite.

"At a party for the Broadway opening of "Sweet Smell of Success," a top New York producer gave me a lecture on the price of female success that was anything but sweet. He confessed that he had wanted to ask me out on a date when he was between marriages but nixed the idea because my job as a Times columnist made me too intimidating. Men, he explained, prefer women who seem malleable and awed. He predicted that I would never find a mate because if there's one thing men fear, it's a woman who uses her critical faculties. Will she be critical of absolutely everything, even his manhood?

He had hit on a primal fear of single successful women: that the aroma of male power is an aphrodisiac for women, but the perfume of female power is a turnoff for men. It took women a few decades to realize that everything they were doing to advance themselves in the boardroom could be sabotaging their chances in the bedroom, that evolution was lagging behind equality."

Um. Ok. I always knew that it would take a special sort of guy, I just had hoped he actually existed. Just kidding. I know there are enlightened men out there who seek strong, successful women instead of unpaid glorified domestic help. In fact, had a date with one last night.

We're going out again on Tuesday, but now I'm confused about if I should let him pay for dinner. Dating rituals tend to conflict with the tenets of feminism. (Also, does it mean that I'm a bad feminist if I like it when the guy pays for dinner? Oy!)

the church ladies

For years, my family had been C&E (Christmas and Easter) people. I mean, we were active members of a liberal church as a young family, and made it through confirmation classes, the potlucks and volleyball games. Then, my sister and I went away to school, dad got lymphoma and became mistrustful of crowded places, and we all tired of the church ladies. You know the ones - they're judgemental, petty and gossipy - pretty much the opposite of what Christ imagined.

While at college I encountered the early part of the conservative christian movement, but I was way more interested in my sorority parties than Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Then, here in DC, I was introduced to folks who attend those repellant reactionary mega churches out in the suburbs. More than anything, I was struck by how unchristlike the majority of those people were. This post from Waiterant really kind of helps explain how ugly the conservative movement can be - how twisted their message is...

So, now, I sometimes go to hear a friend (TMS) sing at her church. And I would consider going back if I had children and found a neighborhoody place... I hear the Episcopalians have a pub in their basement, which sounds like my sort of church.

My new best friend...

* oof *

I used to say that it was a good idea to get out of DC at least every 90 days. Things get a little too serious and self-absorbed inside the Beltway, and I think this limits perspective.

Since Friday night, I've been helping my family move into a HUGE house out in the Midwest, and helping to care for my niece and nephew. Moving household, even if it is just a couple miles away, can be rather traumatic for small children. My sciatica is bothering me, I've been sleeping on the world's worst sofa bed (so I haven't been sleeping), but I'm not stressed out anymore. My nephew gave me a baggie full of his Halloween treats, and my niece was the most darling sweet baby. Mom of Whiskypants gave me a set of pale pink cordial glasses that she bought at the Wright-Pat AFB PX the first year my parents were married. I miss them already.

The flight back was a bit of a bust. The flight was full (Southwest - aka Cattle Call Airlines), and I had the misfortune to sit next to this man who must have been a mixture of Oscar the Grouch and Pigpen. He actually brought a plastic bag full of empty plastic bottles and cans with him, and asked the flight attendant for assistance with stowing his "recyclables". (He also smelled like onions and body odor.) Who the hell travels with their garbage? Besides the mentally unhinged? And I got to sit next to him... (Why God? Why me???)