A Case of the Chronic Car Alarms

I live in a world where there exists...drum roll...car alarms. Chronic, resounding alarms.

It was kind of a tough transition from apartment-overlooking-courtyard to apartment-overlooking-street. Hence my constant white-AC-noise (and sleep mask, for that matter). But it’s really quite difficult to be a recovering insomniac when there are car alarms going off all night every night.

Last Sunday, I had a little funday with my lady friends, Kelly, Jill, and Dana. This last hilarious lass flicked her cigarette butt, it hit a parked car, and she immediately joked, “I hope that doesn’t set the alarm off!”

Amidst laughter, a conversation began on how car alarms are sooooo 90s. And they ARE!! They are beepers in a Blackberry world. Encyclopedias in the Kingdom of Wiki-Google. Bonafide handwritten letters in a society of ecards. For reals.

What purpose do car alarms serve? What is their means to an end? What act do they actually accomplish?

Perhaps they spook away dogs who are trying to piss on their shiny paint. Or maybe they prevent bar patrons from sitting on their hoods, tailgate style.

But really, people: They don’t keep hoodlums from breaking and entering your fancy schmance set-o-wheels.

If your car’s gonna get robbed, it’s a gonna get robbed. It happened to my father on 7th Avenue in broad daylight. Punched out his lock, swiped his wallet, wham bam thank you ma’am. Hundreds of dollars later - hmm. Did the alarm prevent it from happening? No.

There’s no point to the alarm institution. They’re good for nothing but inflicting pain on our poor human ears. Has anyone else noticed how the shrieking of car alarms has grown infinitesimally more torturous with the passage of years? Now there’s not only horns honking at frustratingly close intervals - oh no.

There’s the deep, belching sirens. The short, stabbing squeals. The vibrating emissions that sound alien...or radioactive...or a combination of the two.

Where’s the voice saying, “Step away from the car!” - at least that one provided some comic relief. Too much to ask for, apparently.

In fact, car alarms are so outdated, so archaic, that they’re inventing new uses for them. JUST YESTERDAY, I received an email from one of my high school teachers. No joke!!! Some highlights (copied and pasted...I swear, I kid you not):

“Put your car keys beside your bed at night…If you hear a noise outside your home or someone trying to get in your house, just press the panic button for your car...The alarm will be set off, and the horn will continue to sound until either you turn it off or the car battery dies…If your car alarm goes off when someone is trying to break into your house, odds are the burglar/rapist won't stick around. After a few seconds all the neighbors will be looking out their windows to see who is out there and sure enough the criminal won't want that.”

Oh no, that criminal surely won’t want that.

Come ON, you rich, Village-dwelling peeps. Turn those stupid, shitty car alarms off at night so we can get some SLEEP!

I crack up every morning when I walk by those super famous, cutely painted apartments on my street (where Anna Wintour now lives). It’s a block of nada but Jaguars and Mercedes the occasional Rolls.

Dummy, dummy, dumbass. If you’d rather not have your expensive ass car broken into, don’t park it on the streets of New York City. Because we the people, us regular ole folk, DO NOT want to hear its chronic shrill alarm go off all night every night.

Thankyouverymuch.

Sidewalk Rage

Don’t fret ya’lls. The snarkster is back.
(Though I must say I did enjoy a brief, blissful stint in the clouds the other night after seeing Bright Star again. Seriously, you need to see it. It will forever change your opinion on just how passionate the touching of a wrist can be.)

As badly as I wish it was, unfortunately this isn’t England circa 1818. This is crazy 21st century New York Citay. And though we still have to deal with the occasional pile-o-poop, the sidewalks here are a tad more crowded. Around 8 million times more so.

And navigating them, unfortunately, is no simple feat. In fact, it’s quite irritating. Infuriating. Exasperating. Aggravating. A simple walk on a lovely day can be positively ruined by a slow-moving person. Ruined. I kid you not.

Trying to steer your way through a New York sidewalk is like trying to find your way through a maze. Blindfolded. Behind a pack of abnormally large, mutant snails.

Oh yes. Walking around the Village, especially, (or anywhere in Midtown) will drastically diminish your faith in the brainpower of a Homo sapien. In their ability to understand, to comprehend. To grasp the simple unspoken rules of NYC pedestrianism.

Why don’t people get it?

There’s nothing like being stuck behind a group of slow-moving folks. It makes me want to scream and push and punch someone.

True, these offensive people probably don’t live here. Chances are, they don’t know that we New Yorkers have tacit speed limits for walking. (Especially during peak hours.)

But, that being said, what is so difficult about keeping to the right? Huh? HUH? Do you drive on the left side of the road? No. Do you walk down the left side of a staircase? No.

The left side is the passing side, people. Not the lollygagging side.

Being stuck behind a gaggle of people is probably the worst thing ever. And I mean stuck. Cars lining one side (and you know how NYC cars park - with mere inches, centimeters, to spare), buildings lining the other. No where to go stuck.

It could be three or four or more people blocking your path. It could be. But all it takes is two to trap you.

And if it’s not cars on the other side, then it’s garbage bags. Or couches. Or recyclables. Bam, you’re trapped.

My eyes dart around, I become an assassin planning an escape route. How the hell am I going to get around these stupid, snail-paced peeps?????

If there’s no escape route, I start breathing very loudly. Sigh obnoxiously - I am passive aggressive, obvi. I start fencing in my mind, trying to get by, find a way through the human-traffic-wall. Feint, parry. Feint, parry (coolest last name ever).

Then finally, when I burst beyond the slackers, I double up my gait. I try to show them how we New Yorkers roll - and yeah, it’s quickly.

“...Is Romance Dead?”

Now let me preface by saying this topic was not something on my “No Dankes” list. Well actually, that’s a lie. It probably was something I didn’t know I didn’t like.

But now, after seeing Bright Star recently, a strong aversion to present-day courtship customs arose within me.

How do we ladies stand it?

Keats wrote to his beloved Fanny:

“I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion - I have shudder'd at it - I shudder no more - I could be martyr'd for my Religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that - I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet - You have ravish'd me away by a Power I cannot resist: and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavoured often ‘to reason against the reasons of my Love.’ I can do that no more - the pain would be too great - My Love is selfish - I cannot breathe without you.”

Seriously? What? I mean, I know Keats belonged to the Romanticism literary movement and all. But what?


Perhaps I idealize and idolize a bit. Perhaps irrationally so. I know men - and women for that matter - are fairly incapable of writing such poetic, romantic prose these days.
 
What, with Facebook and Playstation and Football games diluting our heads and offering never-ending distractions.
 
And I’m sure we ladies, as recipients (or gentlemen for that matter), would laugh at such amorous endeavors as love letters. Like Carrie laughed when the Russian composed a song for her, getting her to thinking later that day, “...is romance dead?”
 
Yes Carrie, methinks it is.
 
Obviously I can be a judgmental bitch and would most likely say “See ya lata” to any Creepy McCreeperson calling me their religion. But a thoughtful handwritten note never hurt no one. Instead, we modern lassies get texts. Texts. 

“What r u up to 2night!?” hardly compares to “When you are in the room my thoughts never fly out of window: you always concentrate my whole senses.”
 
Those opposite-spectrum examples don’t even deserve to be in the same paragraph together.
Kelly, a fellow Bright Star-goer had an interesting thought. Maybe the passion of yester-century had to do with the anticipation. The waiting. I mean, we’re talking pre-snail mail. Like, amoeba mail. That shit took weeks, if not months to get where it was going.
 
Can you imagine the patience? The yearning? We modern kids think it’s been forever and a day if we haven’t heard from someone in two hours.
Maybe the lack of immediacy enabled the eloquence. Maybe drafts upon drafts were written to one’s beloved while they waited (and waited and waited) for a reply letter to arrive. 

Perhaps all those moments of waiting simply snowballed and magically manifested their heartbreak into things like: “I will imagine you Venus tonight and pray, pray, pray to your star like a Heathen.”
Yet we wait and wait for a text. A text. Or an email. And even with the passing of a day or two - forever in our interminably high-speed world - that is just so unsatisfying. 

Sorry’s yo. I’m sure once I stop reading Keats’ letters and sonnets and poems, I’ll return to my snarky self. Rest assured.

Some Like it Quiet

I am positively mortified to call myself a West Villager right now.

How have I not ever, not once in the three years that I’ve lived down here, never been to Film Forum? It’s blasphemous. I’m ashamed.

Perhaps all I needed, though, was a Hot kick in the butt.

As in Some Like It Hot.

I pass by the Film Forum every day on my way to work. (Yes, I walk. Stop hating, would you!)

They show obscure, independent, avant-garde films at their cinematic best. But oftentimes there are old-time movies playing - so I suppose it should not have come as a shock to see that one of my fave Monroe films was playing. It was a sign - the time had come to break my Film Forum seal.

So last night, my friend Jeffery and I went to see Curtis, Lemmon, and Monroe in the 50th anniversary special of AFI’s #1 Funniest Movie of all time.

I was in heaven. Checking for time and texts on my iPhone and merrily chomping Sour Brite Crawlers aside, I pretended it was 1959 and I was a young girl living the NYC Dream.

I imagined how shocked I would have been to see a suuuuuuuuper scantily clad Marilyn shake her money maker(s). How hard I would have laughed at Jack Lemmon in drag, swinging his souvenir Tango maracas.

I pondered how times haven’t changed in fifty years - that Daphne still wouldn’t be able to marry Osgood in 2009. No matter how hilarious the “You’re a guy. Why should a guy want to marry a guy?” “Security!” banter was.

It was also interesting to watch Marilyn in her scenes, knowing what we know of filming - how she showed up late, didn’t know her lines - and recall what was to be her sad, sad legend.

I used to be a huge Marilyn fan but seeing this movie for the dozenth or so time, I think Lemmon’s character blew any inklings of harbored Monroe favoritism out of the water. No wonder he was nominated for an Oscar!

All in all twas a lovely, rollicking, uproarious hoot of a time.Until a stupid schmuck started singing along with Marilyn in one of the final scenes.

Seriously? I’m sorry, but SERIOUSLY???? Are we in your car? Is this the radio? Are you an understudy at a Marilyn Monroe cabaret show? Are you drunk? Is this real life?

Yes, I’ll admit that sometimes I do hear things that aren’t there. I mishear. So I tried to tune out Marilyn’s fluffy, breathy voice and listen to the chick two seats down.

Nothing. Silly me, I thought.

Then there it was again - the singing. The singing along to a movie. Like we were watching Barney and Friends or some nonsense.

SO DEGRADING! SO OFFENSIVE! SO UNBELIEVABLE!

Never have I ever experienced something so audacious.

But what I was I to do? I turned my passive aggressive, bespectacled face toward the beast. But there was a gal in between us - and she was smiling at her stupid singing friend. Like, rooting her on or something.

I looked over at Jeffery and thank GOD he heard it too - confirmation. I knew I wasn’t crazy! He smirked back and we watched the scene on screen play out, trying to tune out the songbird-wannabe, while Josephine laid a kiss on Sugar.Yay rah rah Joe/sephine!
Boooooooooooooooooo stupid singing lady!

What a way to ruin the end of a perfectly lovely evening at the cinema.

If it had been 1959 I am sure no one would dare be so disrespectful, so discourteous, so brazen.

Seriously, you don’t sing along with Marilyn.

The warning at the beginning of a movie should apparently read “Please silence your cell phones…and voices.” Because, actually, Everyone Likes It QUIET.

You’re Hot Then You’re Cold

Why do buildings never seem to get the temperature right? What is so hard about having a thermostat that pays attention to the OUTDOOR temp and reflects it perfectly with an adequate INDOOR temp.
I don’t get it.

(However, if such an invention does not exist, no stealing my idea! I’ll be contacting a patents lawyer shortly...)
 
Why are we sweating it out in meetings when it’s 65 degrees out? Barbaric, I tell you! Sure, it’s fall - but last week felt like August and the indoor climate did not reflect that.
Just cause the date says it should be crisp out does NOT mean the weather gods are gonna acquiesce. In fact, they’re such little shits that they always do exactly the opposite of what we want. Rain on days we want sunny. Sugar and sunshine on days we want to be overcast. Crippling sunny-day guilt is killer man, ugh!

I’ve always found this whole disparity quite paradoxical. I mean, yes, it does make sense on a fundamental level - warm inside when it’s cold outside, cold inside when it’s warm outside. But still. The extremes are just not fair. This chick agrees:

Why, when we’re all running around in sundresses and cutoffs and skimpy tanks, does it have to be freezing inside? Freezing. I’m talking covered in goosebumps, blue fingernail beds, leg-hair-just-grew-a-centimeter, Barney-purple lips, uncontrollably shivering, cold.

Yet in the dead of winter - when the temperature is in the teens - you walk into a building and immediately wish you hadn’t donned so many layers. You start sweating like a whore in church.
I know, I get it. We, as humans, have the ability to manipulate indoor climates so it’s “comfortable” - not too hot, not too cold, but just right.

However, if the goal is just right, then why can’t anyone anywhere ever seem to GET it right?? Especially office buildings and department stores. And subways and restaurants and doctor’s offices (omg) and APARTMENTS (bigger omg).

The upside of renting in NYC is that you don’t pay for heat. However, good ole Newton got it right with all his actions and reactions babble. You see, not dealing out the dough is nice - but the flip-side is that you can’t control the heat. Once it’s on, it’s on.

And of course being on the fourth floor only adds to the sweatbox that is my apartment come late fall. I have been known to sleep with the AC on in January (OK that’s a lie - I pretty much use the AC 9 months out of 12).

Or I leave my window and door open, trying to create some sort of cross-ventilation. But usually it’s to no avail cause once that frigid air touches my skin I don’t care about bringing my body temp back to homeostasis. Being hot seems a hell of a lot better than hypothermic.

Public places, though, have no excuse to be so boiling. Why can’t offices and eateries, hospitals and schools, stores and apartment buildings just turn down the heat (orAC) a notch? Why make us all sweat it out? Pit stains and melty makeup are not attractive. In fact, they’re fairly foul.

I suppose it’s that age-old rule: We always want what we can’t have, summer in winter, winter in summer (not that I ever WANT to have to wear sweaters in the first place...ugh). But for reals, some attention should be paid to the thermostat.

Let’s make these man-made climates more hospitable for everyone. Don’t crank up the AC, don’t crank up the heat, and you won’t have cranky people on your hands!

And, best of all!, you’ll be saving energy in the meantime. Wow, I am one green inventor yo. Drinks on me! (In thirty or so years.)

Sicky = SUCKY

“I will H1N1 all OVER you!”

This was my comeback at a concert-goer last weekend. He was making fun of my ‘stache, yo! What else was a girl to do?

In reality, I should not have been outside. I should have been cozied up in my apartment reading or catching up on hours of DVR.

I’ll admit, it wasn’t the nicest threat on my behalf. But I was coughing and blowing my nose incessantly and I was just trying to have a good time and he was making fun of my funny faux mustache!

Fingers crossed I don’t Secret the Swine to myself for talking shit about it.

For now, at least, Swine free begins with me. I just have a no-good, very-bad cold. This past week has been one box of tissues after another.

Being sick sucks. Like whoa.

When you’re little, having a cold is fun. You get to stay home from school. Suck on Luden's cherry flavored cough drops (which definitely make you feel grownup and worldly and taste oddly like candy).

Your parents fawn over you, wait on you hand and foot. Whatever you feel like eating instantly materializes under Mom’s deft hands. You controlled of the remote!

Those were the days. Being sick ruled when you were a kid. But now...now being sick just plain sucks.

Missing school and missing work are eons apart. (Though I would like to acknowledge how our crazy culture is so brainwashed, that even if we are sick we still go to work. Like robots, we’re programmed: “Can. Not. Miss. Work. Can. Not. Can. NOT.”)

There’s no Mom in sight to make you chicken noodle soup (this is probably the most devastating part of being an adult - cause yeah, Trissi’s chicken noodle soup rocks.)

Every time you cough in public, people give you the death-stare. Blowing your nose suddenly becomes the most dreaded thing in the world (mine is currently rubbed raw, flaky, and perma-chapped).

You can barely sleep - what with the constant need to blow/cough, blow/cough. And when you do fall asleep, there’s the unfortunate guarantee that you will awake to piles of drool and a mouth lined in cotton balls.

Even TV is annoying! There’s no Duck Tales to watch with glee, only copious amounts of Top Chef, Project Runway, The Office, Grey’s Anatomy, Greek - I’m going to stop there before I really start embarrassing myself - to catch up on.

You know there is a problem when television watching isn’t enjoyable. Seriously, it felt like a sick-day chore!

Shame on me for thinking myself invincible. For believing that, while everyone around me was getting sick, I would be miraculously bypassed.

But come on. I pop Vitamin C daily. I am a perpetual hand-washer/green tea-drinker. I go to bed at a reasonable hour. I disinfect my desk at work.

Hell, my mother gives me a bottle of Purrell every time she sees me. (And boxes of tissues which is kinda funny and ironic and foreshadow-y.) I’m talking ridiculous amounts. I have collections of them.
Alas, I guess I just have to suck it up (or blow it out, whichever). Cause à la Heidi: In this germ-ridden world, one week you’re sick, and the next week, you’re not.

The Stress of Being a Laundress

All I can say is that my future husband better be ready to do some laundry. I’m talking 50/50. And when my future kiddies are old enough, they’ll be doing their own. Fo sho.

I give my mother serious, serious props for being such a laundry hound. She is on top of that shit like no one else I’ve ever met. The second I walk through the door, she’s pulling out my dirty clothes, popping them in the washing machine.

(Which begs the question - how old do we have to be before our mom’s stop doing our laundry? I know I am ridiculously lucky - Trissi is the exception, not the rule. But really? Hell no will I be hand-laundering my 26 year old’s fine washables. Hell no.)

Regardless, 95% of the time I am, unfortunately, responsible for washing my own things. After all, I am a “grownup”. Wamp wamp.

There are fewer things in life more aggravating than doing laundry. Especially when communal machines involved. (People - be punctual when switching your loads or picking them up. Never know what someone might do to your newly “clean” clothes.)

I have been über lucky in NYC - both apartments I’ve occupied have had laundry on-site (believe it or not, that’s fairly rare). And even though I don’t have to lug my dirty clothes and linens a few blocks to the laundromat, hauling them up and down four flights of stairs blows.

Why can’t clothes, like diapers, be disposable? I suppose that would be quite wasteful. But do we not waste water with our incessant washing?

Dirty garments are so unbelievably inconvenient. You have to stow them somewhere. And when you live in a rabbit hutch, that somewhere is tricky to pick (after much contemplation, I hung a laundry bag on my bathroom door).

Then there’s the detergent, the fabric softener, the bleach, the dryer sheets, the stain sticks. It’s all positively shelf-consuming!

Ugh, and the quarters - the quarters. Who knew those little 25-cent George Washington’s would ever be considered gems - GEMS! Perfectly round chunks of glistening gold. Seriously, gold. No quarters, no clean clothes!

Laundry is one hell of a time-consuming commitment. And, in my case, one that is also anxiety-inducing (surprise, surprise). If I make up my mind to do a few loads, it’s a race against the clock.

I dash around my apartment like a madwoman, grabbing towels and stray socks and dirty-clean jeans. Inevitably I end up forgetting a dishtowel or a dress I wanted to wash. So annoying.

Then I run down the stairs, my twenty pound Santa sack of soiled things pulling me onward to the laundry room.
Ideally I do two or three loads at a time. Which means I occupy half to ¾ of the machines. Does this make me feel guilty? Of course not. Sure, there was that one instance where a magnanimous monsieur offered up two washers to me, saying it was only “Fair” - what a nice dummy. (He was foreign.) Would I do that? Absolutely not.

There are just so many horrendific things when it comes to the laundry routine. The separating of clothes into darks and lights (or, in some really awful circumstances, the lack thereof), towels and sheets, cold wash, warm wash, hot wash, permanent press, gentle cycle.

And those are just the old school machines I’m talking about - these new age spaceship washers and dryers are nuts. FAR too many options for anyone’s own good.
Then there’s the weeding out of clothes that can be machine-dried from those that need to be hung on a rack. And let me tell you, my drying rack don’t fit too well in my hutch. Sometimes if I have company, that shit’s gotta go in the bathtub (and no, not so it’s more aesthetically pleasing - because otherwise there wouldn’t be room to move).

Omg and the folding! Unfortunately an atrociously crippling case of obsessive compulsive disorder consumes me when it comes to folding.

Must. Be. Perfect. Or. Else.

The only pro of doing laundry is that first night between those clean, crisp, scrumptious smelling sheets.
I’ll leave you with a parting piece of advisory etiquette: Empty that lint tray. Or else.

Hair, There, and Everywhere

I used to have long hair. Very, very long hair. And it drove me crazy.

It would get so snarled and knotty, I’d have to use No More Tangles. I’d throw tantrums like a big baby.

It’d get stuck behind my back when I was driving or sleeping.

My mom hated it, too. So much so that after I graduated college, she offered me moolah to cut it. Sure, she prob didn’t think I’d take her up on the offer. But I was pretty over the mane anyway.

Snip snip went the pony (donated to Locks of Love!) and in flowed the cash.

My hair has been mid-length middling since then. But a year and a half ago, I chin-chopped it. This short new ‘do is even easier to maintain! Washing isn’t ever a chore. Brushing is never a battle. Hell, I don’t even mind blow drying. It takes no time at all!

But there always seems to be a but. A not-so-bright side. An annoying wonkiness - grrr! - that comes when one mistakenly thinks themselves immune. Home free. Up the creek with a paddle.

I erroneously believed my bad hair (as in “BAD DOG!”) days were over.

Apparently this was über naïve (umlauts for everyone!) and downright dumb. Apparently just because my locks are shorter don’t mean they’re less apt to fall out! Sneaks! Shits! Scheisters!

We lose, on average, about one hundred hairs each day. That is disgusting. But what’s more disgusting is their omnipresence. Their pervasiveness. Their peevish prevalence.

W.

T. 


F.

I can’t tell you how many times each week a hair bunny appears on my gleaming (hah!) black kitchen tiles and wooden floors. It’s like a secret congregation of hair happens while I am sleeping and voilà, they’re all chilling together out in the open come a.m.

It gives me the willies when a fallen tress finds its way under my dress. Eek! And I hate hate hate picking locks out of my brushes (no that is not my brush below). Ew, and it’s G-ross to wipe up straggling hairs from the tub drain or bathroom sink. Omg and don’t even get me started on sheets (especially stubby boy hairs on sheets!) and clothes.
I can’t even describe the spectrum of embarrassment I experience if someone has to pick a hair off my back. (But to those of you who have, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are true friends and I will never forgot the service you have rendered.)

Ugh, and when a stray hair finds its way into my mouth, I die. I just die. Wait, spoke too soon. When a stray hair finds its wait into my mouth because it was in my food - then I truly die. That is so so so disgusting. Omg omg omg. Noooooooo daaaaaaankesssss.

I like my hair. I like that it’s straight and blonde and relatively thick. In fact, I feel quite lucky to be the possessor of such locks. But why do hairs have to be so creepy and ubiquitous? Why can’t they just stay put on your HEAD? Why must they find their way into every single space, crevice, orifice, drawer, floorboard. You can’t escape them.

No matter what you do, your hair is always there, waiting. Laughing at you like a weaselly little jerk, just waiting to drop from your scalp, dance down your arm, and scare the shit out of you.

I hate you hair.

(But, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I want you to go anywhere.)

Crippling Sunny-Day Guilt

I have had a ridiculously busy couple of weeks. Some of the highlights: seeing Puppetry of the Penis (where my bare legs were molested by balls-between-butt-cheeks - the “Bulldog” pose. I died).
From ballsacs to ballet on Friday! Omg, how have I never seen a ballet before? Loved the Fall for Dance festival, thanks Laura! Then there was a mini-Muhlenberg reunion Saturday night. Twas wonderful seeing some old college buddies.
Living my life yo’s!

While I could totes No Dankes having a strange man’s balls on my legs, how it made me break out in a sticky sweat, turn the color of a boiled beet, how I cry-laughed as the whole theater looked on in hysterics, that’s not what this entry is about.

It’s about how I was so exhausted, so utterly spent after such a long week, SUCH a long night, that I didn’t spend any time outside yesterday. And the all-encompassing guilt that I experienced as a result.

I stayed out late Saturday night. Very, very, very late. Obviously that translated to sleeping in on Sunday. Very, very in.
 
I opened my eyes around 2:00pm and bolted upright. 

Of course this made me very upset. I was furious with myself. But I couldn’t for the life of me do anything about it. I was not in a proactive mood at all. I couldn’t go spectate as Kelly and Dana played flag football. Couldn’t go read in Washington Square Park. Couldn’t even go out and get coffee. I could barely make it out of bed to pop a few Advil.

And I was pissed at myself! Furious! I spent the better part of my lazy afternoon neck-deep in guilt. Ugh!

Seriously, the guilt that comes with staying indoors on a nice day is just crippling. It’s consuming. It’s plain outrageous.
I mean, I really should have gone outside. I should have enjoyed the glorious Indian Summer day like everyone else in NYC. 

Ha, even as I typed that last sentence, I thought - aaand this is what I’m talking about. 

Why do we have such innate guilt for not wanting to go outside when it’s nice? What is the big deal?

I mean, if I want to catch up on my 22 TV shows, I should allow myself to. If I want to stay in my pajamas and eat breakfast in bed at 4pm, I shouldn’t feel like a criminal.

There’s an ingenious blog called “Stuff White People Like” and one of the entries is titled “Making you feel bad about not going outside”. My thoughts exactly. Love it. Brill!

My self-reproach is so far-reaching that I sometimes get psyched if it rains on the weekend. Me, who haaates the rain, will cross my fingers and hope for a storm so I don’t feel guilty about spending the day indoors. Sick, I say!

Yes, it can be one of the most glorious experiences in the world to be outside on a lovely day. To luxuriate in the air, bask in the sun, people watch. But sometimes you just don’t want to.

Perhaps it’s my inherent trait of playing into the “should” factor more than the “could” factor. I bring it all upon myself. I don’t give myself a break, don’t allow the laziness to take over and rule. I’m always should-should-shoulding away!

But I’m also not the picture of mea culpa innocence. Oh no. I totally make other people feel guilty for not being outside when the weather is fair and I am ready, willing, and able to enjoy it. Totally.

I’m just a massive ball of contradictions sometimes.

Say No to Oral-ffice Hygiene!

Let me preface by saying that one of my major no dankes is bad oral hygiene. (More to come on that at a later date fo sho.)

However, if there’s one thing that drives me absolutely bonkers in the way of brushes and minty paste, it’s people who brush their teeth at work.

Oral-ffice hygiene is just not hygienic.

I’m sorry, is this seventh grade? Is Mommy picking you up for a dentist appointment after school?

DDDDDD-s’gusting!!!

Never in a million trillion would I condone tooth brushing at work. Not even in the name of pearly whites.

Fine, you kids get gold stars for brushing, brushing, brushing away. Making sure that coffee don’t stain, or that garlic from the Chinese lunch special don’t stink.

Kudos to you!

But for those of us who have to see you doing it – UGH!

I regard tooth brushing as a fairly personal endeavor. It’s intimate. Like going to the bathroom or showering.

Would you dance around the office in your pj’s? Sing at the top of your lungs? Pick your nose? Readjust?

No. I daresay you would not do any of the above.

So why do you insist on brushing your teeth??

Just thinking about where they keep their brush n’ paste sends my germaphobe brain into overdrive.

Perhaps they store their Oral-B amongst the Bic’s in their pencil holder. Or stash it in their top drawer next to the paper clips and highlighters. Or maybe they just leave it lying flat on top of the bacteria-ridden battlefield that is a work desk.

Wherever they put it, it's gross.

Dear coworkers…tooth brushing at work is simply not a socially accepted norm. It’s not OK. It’s vile. It makes me sick. The ADA says to brush your teeth twice a day, morning and night. WHY ARE YOU BRUSHING MIDDAY?

Just don’t do it. Please, don’t force us innocents to endure watching you scrub your dirty, germ-ridden mouth.

Tooth decay, be damned! I’d like to keep my lunch in my stomach where it belongs.

Indoor Voices, People.

Omgees, yo! I got’s me six more followers than I had yesterday! A ginormous thanks to those who answered my pathetic, whiny request. I heart yous!

Pinky swear, no more self-promoting. Gad, I’ve become one of those super duper annoying people that I would totes love to No Dankes!

Anywho, as most of you well know - I am not a naturally patient person. Ten to you, Captain Obvious. However, I am working on it. There have been a handful of times where I’ve reasoned with myself, argued, scolded, and finally talked myself down into being nice.

Sure, my success rate could be betta - but at least I’ve acknowledged the impatience. That there’s the first step!

Alas, there is one thing I fear I will never be accepting of. Not ever. If there’s one thing I absolutely abhor, that I have zilch patience whatsoever for - fine, there are lots of those things - it is people who defy the unspoken rule of using indoor voices...indoors.

What is it about this certain brand of person, this genetically mutated humanoid that makes them feel superior to the rest of us mere mortals? That enables them to use their electronic devices in an excruciatingly obnoxious manner?

Oh, I’m sorry, I put my pants on one leg at a time JUST LIKE YOU DO, JERK, and yet - and yet - you don’t see me pretending my iPhone is an open mic at the cheesy local dive.

For reals. What’s with these jerks and their ridiculously loud voices? Why do they feel the need to announce to their fellow shoppers, or restaurant patrons, or train compartment travelers why they can’t make dinner that evening, or what’s happening with their night sweats sitch, or how often it is they’re moving their bowels.
Are they seeking some sort of validation? Do they need to be noticed? Paid attention to? Even if all they’re getting is a huge, honking stinkeye?
 I must say that I have a fairly soft spoken phone voice. Very unlike, say, my mother (and the entire Morrell clan). She has two volume settings: Loud and VERY Loud. I cringe whenever I hear her on the phone.

But in her defense, she’s not busting out her cell at Starbucks and shouting at the invisible, undoubtedly small-feeling person on the other end. There is a different set of rules when you are in the confines of your own home.

I hate the manic feeling that comes over me when I’m in a confined space and there’s someone on their phone. I shut down: can’t read, enjoy listening to my music, or even carry on a conversation because everything I try to do falls under the spell of The Obnoxious Phone-Talker.

There should be a law against such garrulous, shrill phone chats. A law I tell you.
 
Who’s with me? Get the party petition started.