At MoMA

Rebecca and I went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on Tuesday. Thanks to my $25,000 tuition at the New School, we saved $20 on my admission and $12 on Rebecca's and got in for free when I showed my school ID card. If that's not a bargain, I don't know what is.

We wandered aimlessly, and came across a work by Carroll Dunham, which depicted square objects that looked like trees, monsters, or robots with shooting penises:


For a few minutes, we were stunned.

"When I went to museums with some other friends, I used to play a game we called, 'Can I make, too?'" Rebecca said. "I think the answer here is yes. It looks like a doodle made by a fourth grader!"

"Nah, I think you don't give him enough credit. I say an eighth grader. Fourth graders might not draw so many penises."

We continued through the museum, coming to a room with white walls and black writing on it. The art project is to have a museum staff person measure your height and record it on the wall with your first name and the date. The swirling black writing concentrated in the range on 5'3" to maybe 6'00" looked like a swarm of angry bees against the stark white paint. This was pretty awesome, Rebecca and I agreed.

Ah, modern art. I scratch my head (or laugh) at most of it, but then something really connects with me.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

"Do you ever wish I was less petty?" I asked Husband as we sat in a taxi, returning from his brother's apartment.

"Yes," he said with no hesitation.

I have no idea what prompted me to ask him, but damn, am I sorry I did. I snarled and made nasty little comments for the next hour, as I could not help be petty. It will be so tragic when I do the first load of laundry in our newly installed washer dryer tomorrow and all his undershirts come out pink. Mwa ha ha ha...


Seriously, though, I am so excited to take the washer and dryer for a spin.

My New Beaver Spreader

I forgot to bring my furry little beaver to BlogHer this year. However, my friend and roomie Suebob rendered the stuffed animal moot: she gave me a plastic cheese/butter knife shaped like a beaver. (Right now, I am unable to upload the delightful photo.)

Now I can ask people to take pictures with my beaver spreader!

Free Hot Dogs

On Sunday, the City of New York shut down traffic in Times Square and created a pedestrian and bike zone. Normally, I hate Times Square (too much traffic of all three kinds) and avoid it at all costs, but Husband and I were curious to see what it was like without motor vehicles, and the weather was gorgeous, so we strolled down to check it out.

Cars and trucks or no cars and trucks, Times Square is a nightmare on a holiday weekend. As we wove our way through the crowds, I noticed a lot of people munching on hot dogs. Eventually, we stumbled upon a man stood on a corner, waiving an aluminum pan in the air, yelling, "Free hot dog! Get your free hot dog!" Hebrew National had set up a slew of tables and served up the foil wrapped dogs. As I watched people eat the juicy wieners nestled appealingly in fluffy buns, my mouth watered.

"You know, 15 years ago, if someone tried to slip me a free hot dog in Times Square, it would've meant something completely different," I told Husband.

Satan Comes In Many Guises

Just as I prepared to hit the sheets last night, I noticed a message in a Facebook thread mentioning that so-and-so was not planning to hang out after class on Wednesday night because her class was canceled. Incidentally, her class is my class (let's sing it together, "This class was made for you and me..."), and I didn't know bupkes* about class being canceled. I spent the next hour or so clenching and unclenching my fists while inhaling and exhaling deeply. Long story short, this is the second class (out of two classes) where the administrators of the program don't have me on the list.

My tuition is $22,000 and change. I take a whopping two classes per week, and attend some literature readings and weekend seminars. For all that money, I expect that people could make some fucking effort to figure out who is in what classes. Since this is obviously not the case, I decided to attempt to transfer to another school in city that shall remain nameless but costs 1/4 of the price. Last week, a woman who blogs about how God dictated her stories to her and she writes for the glory of Jesus received a phone call admitting her to the program that my tax dollars support. I did not. (Fists clenching and unclenching, deep breath in, deep breath out...) No, I'm not bitter at all.

Once again, I had a restless night and on my way to the subway this morning I passed by a group of people tempting me with forbidden apples, if it is possible that the plaza in front of the 72nd St. subway station is Eden. Yes, that's right: they were giving out granola bars. Along with propaganda about the seven deadly sins. (Motto: "They may be deadly... but they sure are fun.") My cravings for granola bars are somewhat less this week than last, but still bad. Fucking religious nuts, screwing with me everywhere, I swear!!!

I took a granola bar. I decided that I would not eat it, but save it in my desk at work just in case I ever got snowed in or something and needed sustenance. (I also have a large bar of Jacques Torres milk chocolate, distributed by the landlord of the building for Valentine's Day, stashed in my drawer. And an insulated container of 2% milk, the kind from Horzion that doesn't require refrigeration. It's almost enough to make me hope I get snowed in so I can chow down, but I digress.) Really, I took it because it was free, and I hate turning away free things. Also, I wanted to waste the crazy church's money. However, I am not so evil that I took two. God didn't give me that story to write.

Sigh.

*Yiddish: shit

Names Changed to Protect the Formerly Young and Stupid

(With name changes, you know this will be a good one.) Facebook notified me that I received a message from Bob Gold. The subject read, "from someone long ago." "What? Who the fuck is that?" I wondered. This was not long after a girl with whom I had a Mean Girls-style friendship (I was the loser mean girl in the relationship, and the guilt has plagued me for years now) sent me a message on Facebook, so I was extra curious to see who else was crawling out of the woodwork.

Here's the message, typos included:

i couldn't help the thought of seeing if you remembered me and to see how your life has been.

i'll take you back in time and see if you can piece it together if the name hasn't struck your memory already ... was 1988/89-ish ...

Nope, still no clue as to who the hell this is. I read on:

Rachel, David, phone dating, bad breakup over the phone, a small mylar baloon broken into a bunch of pieces and sent back via envelope.

Oh my God! I totally know who this dude is. (If he hadn't referenced my friend Rachel and the other guy, though, I have to admit I would still not have the foggiest concept of who this person was.) This was when I was in 7th grade, and Bob and I were chatting on the phone a lot. I was supposed to go to a movie with him, but I backed out the night before. At the time, I freaked out for what seemed like no reason, but wizened 33 year old Suzanne knows that I was totally not ready to go on a date at the age of 12 or 13.

The mylar balloon, though? Zero recollection, although I laugh like a hyena every time I read that. Did I give him a balloon and he sent it to me to avenge his broken heart? I vaguely recollect receiving an envelope with a chopped up balloon in it, but I think that is due to the power of suggestion. It is equally likely that Bob gave me a balloon and, in a fit of pique, I chopped it up and sent it to him. I was totally dramatic like that. Oh, the hilarity of adolescent angst!

Anyway, the rest of the message was the usual, how are you, let's chat, blah blah blah. I messaged him back, but haven't heard anything yet. My lame little storied past is so amusing to recount. Not so much to live through at the time, but worth a good smile these days.

Beware of VD and Important "Marxist Feminist Dialectic" T-Shirt Info

As an early Valentine's Day gift, the landlord of the office building in which I work gave every employee a full size bar of Jacques Torres milk chocolate on Thursday. This is a South Beach Diet eye poke if there ever was one. Does anyone ever dole out free, expensive chocolate when I can eat it? Of course not. I wanted to cry while everyone savored their chocolate, but I insisted that my cottage cheese and cherry tomatoes were delicious. (They were, but not as delicious as I am sure the chocolate was.)

It's not just this year that I feel like Charlie Brown as Lucy pulled the football away as he lifted his foot to kick it. I've always hated Valentine's Day. Like the other types of VD, I find it's treacly ookiness just infects everything. My freshman year of high school I griped about it so much that when sweet but decidedly odd Mark Weinberg (not Mark Weingarten, for those of you who know either of them and get confused, as my friends did when I later had a crush on Weingarten and had to clarify that Mark Weinberg was "the Wrong One" and Weingarten was "Not the Wrong One," but I digress) gave me what was probably the kindest card anyone has ever given me on VD, saying that he knew that I hated the holiday but he hoped I would have a good day, that I missed that he was interested in me. I don't know if I would have been interested in him, but man, did I waste that opportunity to thank someone for doing something really nice for me. (Fast forward to next VD when I was grounded and Mr. X [name removed at his request, 11/17/09] showed up at my house while I was doing laundry to give me a rose and I basically slammed the door in his face because I was a stupid insensitive fucking bitch and I will forever feel guilty about that because even if I didn't like him, I should have been nicer. But I digress again.)

The point is, VD annoys me and causes me to grouse and be even crabbier and more crotchety than usual. However, I hope that you are all having a lovely day.

More important, for those of you who like the t-shirt I got earlier this week - "My Marxist Feminist Dialectic Brings All the Boys to the Yard," it is still possible to order one at T-Shirt Hell, but only until Monday, Feb. 16. I am thinking of ordering another one just in case the one I got shrinks, as it is stretched to the max as it is. (For the record, the ringer t-shirts are a size smaller than the chart says.) This has been a public service announcement.

I Made It!

This is probably the only time I'll write about work since I try hard to pretend that my "professional" life and my "writing" life are two very separate things, partly so that I may continue to have a "professional" life. Anyway, the first day was good, if a bit overwhelming. First days are always overwhelming, though.

The time flew (it helped that a co-worker's birthday was celebrated), and I learned many things and attempted to start many others. I only made two slightly inappropriate comments, and both were as we were leaving. (I said that I didn't care that a foundation that worked to preserve the "purity" of Judaism by discouraging interfaith marriages had to close its doors after Madoff - a Jew - scammed all their funds, then I made a nasty comment about the Hasidic people who own an electronic shop and refused to let my new co-worker return her brand new flat screen TV - still in the box - after she figured out that it was one inch too large for their entertainment unit.) The work will be very interesting once I really dig in. I'm excited. Still nervous and overwhelmed, but excited.

When I arrived back at my castle (ha ha) after slaving away all day, I was dismayed to see that the super was still in the process of soliciting bids to fix the hole in the wall in the bathroom. Fortunately, the shower was fixed, so it is now possible to bathe in relative comfort, with both cold and hot water in a pleasing combination that is more than a trickle. I shall prepare for work tomorrow (I'm still adjusting to the idea that I will go to a job five days this week, and next week, and on and on) by washing my hair with the ridiculously fancy mint oil shampoo that I absconded with from the ridiculously fancy hotel in San Francisco.

I Forgot to Step Away from the Hyperbole

Last night in workshop, I made the following statement:

"Many times this semester, I've felt a lot like Trig Palin at the Republican National Convention. Everyone surrounding me is totally with the program and knows what's going on, and I'm sitting here, blinking, wondering where I am and how I got here."

No one laughed. This is not the first time I made an exaggerated statement that produced no reaction. I forgot that people in my workshop are not so into hyperbole. Or my random political jokes. Oh well.

I found it hilarious, though. I love me some extravagant exaggeration.

Barbie Memories

Instead of going to bed when I got home from post-class hanging out (which I would do if I had better judgment), I farted around online for a while. "Why not check out the status of Off the Beaten (Subway) Track on amazon.com?" I thought to myself. "Sleep is overrated, anyway."

I was distracted from my fact finding mission when I opened the Amazon homepage and was greeted by this:

What's Your Favorite Barbie Memory?
Over the past 50 years, Barbie has filled homes with memories and inspired millions of children to dream--to see themselves as astronauts, rock stars, doctors, fashion designers, professional athletes, and even female Presidents. Shop the Barbie Store for great deals just in time for the holidays.

Gah! I swear that must be James Bond Villainess Barbie! It is so evilly insipid and scary, I can easily imagine it luring James Bond Ken into bed ("Hello, Mr. Bond," it says with a Russian accent as it removes its top. "Would you like to heat up this new cold war?") and then trying to bludgeon him with a frozen Chicken Kiev.

That said, I loved Barbies until I was nine or ten years old, which was several years beyond my peers' interest in playing dolls. In second grade, I received the Barbie Dream House and the Dream Store as gifts for Hanukkah, and I went to town setting up the store on the first floor of the house. I liked combing Barbies' hair, dressing her in glamorous dresses and stiletto shoes that inevitable fell off her feet and got lost in my bedroom carpet until I found one by stepping on it barefoot and driving a mini hole in my sole, and, in the later years, assisting Ken in scoring. It is almost sad how much interest my penis-less Ken had in humping my ultra smooth Barbies.

Somehow I don't think Amazon wants me to share my memories of the sound of hard plastic hitting hard plastic as Ken and Barbie went at it.

Offensive Things to Say in Yiddish

Several years ago, my parents gave me a book called Drek!: The REAL Yiddish Your Bubbe Never Taught You by Yetta Emmes. (Of course, my bubbe did teach me some of what was in the book, like kurvah, which means "whore." She pretty much bitterly refers to any woman who is not yet widowed as a kurvah, but I digress.) With apologies to the adorable Millie, whose online Yiddish lessons I so enjoyed yesterday, here are some choice phrases in the book that I enjoyed learning this afternoon include:

• Gey tren zich - go fuck yourself


• Ich cock ahf im - I shit on him!


• kish mich in tukhes - kiss my ass


• Bareh nit - don't fuck with me


• Drek oif a shpendel - shit on a stick


• Groisser potz - big prick

I wonder how to say these things in Ladino, which is a mix of Spanish and Hebrew, the way Yiddish is a mix of German and Hebrew...

From Mr. Lower East Side to the Queens County Farm

For the first time since my inaugural experience in 2005, I made it to the Mr. Lower East Side Pageant. My experience at the Mr. Lower Side Pageant was one of my first blog posts in October 2005. I had the greatest time then, and the greatest time in 2008.

This is a pageant hosted by the Lower East Side's most infamous performance artist, Rev. Jen.. (She's the proprietress of the Troll Museum - it's in her apartment - which is probably the highlight of my book, Off the Beaten (Subway) Track.) I confessed to my friend Sara that I am a little bit of jealous of Rev. Jen because she leads this interesting life, not that it is one that is right for boring me, but still something that I am envious of. (Sara said she thought the same thing.) Anyway, the pageant features talent, swimsuit, and evening wear/interview components, usually of which are conducted over the audiences shouting, "Show us your balls! Balls! Balls!" On a semi-frequent basis, the contestant complies, and raucousness ensues. Usually the and cock flasher is not someone's whose cock and/or balls I really want to see (like the furry guy in his mid-60s, whose talent is standing on stage completely naked and staring at the audience*), but I was pleased that a cutie with pierced nipples eagerly pulled himself out at the first request.

OK, now not only am I digressing, but I sound like an old pervert. (Yeah, I am a pervert, but whatever.) I was forced to leave the pageant a bit early to be sure that I was home when my friend Mara and her two year old daughter arrived at my apartment, so I'm not sure who won. My friend Vicky stayed behind to represent, and I can't wait to hear about what I missed. Another friend took video, incidentally, so I will try to get some footage from him and post it. (I swear I only drooled a little when I wrote that.) I so cannot wait for next year.

In stark contrast to the Mr. Lower East Side Pageant, Husband and I are attending a colonial dinner at the Queens County Farm Museum tonight. Dinner is served in a farmhouse from the late 1600s, on dinnerware from the 1700s. The food is cooked on an open hearth using recipes from the 1700s. When I made the reservation in May, I snagged the last two spots. I'm pretty psyched for it.

And that is not only what I like about living in New York, but what I like about my life: I can do all these different activities that satisfy my varied interests with a range of friends. That's about all anyone can ask for, isn't it?

Buzz Off

Husband returned from his trip to Los Angeles and Las Vegas last night/early morning. As we went to bed, we traded stories about our respective trips.

"I got a free vibrator!" I told him. It was dark, so I couldn't make out the exact expression on his face, but he seemed to be pretending to frown and holding in a laugh.

"So you're replacing me?" he wondered.

"Not all of you, silly! Just part of you..."

"Hey!" he protested, tickling me and laughing.

Ah, good times. I forgot to tell him about the four boxes of Merci chocolate in the fridge. Hope he doesn't get the wrong idea while I'm at class tonight.

Possibly, The Most Tasteless CUSS Post to Date

You've been warned. If you have some misconception that I am a good person, this post will remove that fallacy from your brain forever...

So I was perusing the groups section on Facebook, and saw a group that one of my Facebook/former high school friends recently joined. Based on the joinee, I was certain that the group was very, very serious about its cause, although the logo made me snort evil fits of laughter because it looks and sort of sounds like a bad joke:
It just seems like a Saturday Night Live skit towards the end of the program. Laughing at earnest tone of the Foundation's website only adds to my ranking as a truly horrible person. I kept thinking, "This can't be for real." But it is. The Facebook description is even more dramatically hilarious:

Although this law and Safe Haven has been approved, millions of young women are unaware. So instead of safely delivering their newborn, they frantically leave their baby to die.

Millions of young women? Really? Man, garbage men in Illinois must be finding perfectly good dead babies every single day. Do they dread opening every trash bin, knowing that a dead baby awaits discovery? They must need serious counseling by now. (Maybe this is why Alex's husband got such a severe warning one day when he came out late with a bag of trash; the garbage men probably thought he was disposing of a last minute baby.) Do not miss the heart-wrenching testimonial and photo of "Matthew," an adorable potential garbage baby whose fate as a dead baby was averted when his wise mother abandoned him at a fire station instead of throwing him out like those millions of other stupid young women do with their high quality newborns.

Shit, this was definitely in some movie. I am so hearing a jive-talking black garbage man mutter about "perfectly good white babies" in my head. Anyone know what this is? I know that throwing out babies (or even pets, as Steph and I used to joke that Husband would do with my pet rabbit rabbit while I was out of town) in dumpsters is totally not funny. It's just that I cannot stop cracking up right now. What with the Bushies now defining birth control pills and IUDs as abortions, if I don't laugh I will curl up in the fetal position (and risk mistakenly being trashed by a frantic teen!) and cry.

The Sniff Test

"Where ya been?" I asked Husband when he walked in the door a few minutes before 12 last night. I knew he had a business dinner, but usually they don't last until midnight. (Although to be honest, I barely noticed what time it was because I was hustling to finish editing my book proof before Friday, and due to extremely poor time management, am mad behind schedule.)

"After the dinner, most of us went to a bar," he replied, leaning over to kiss me.

"A bar, huh? Was it in a strip club?" I inquired, joking. On the extremely rare occasion when he had to go to a strip club with colleagues, he left almost immediately. If they really went to a strip club, he'd have been home by 10:00. Plus, he wouldn't hide that he did. Instead, he'd discuss the club's profit margins. This is why I adore him.

"No! We did not go to a strip club!" Husband said indignantly as he headed to the bedroom to change. A few minutes later, he re-emerged in the dining room, where I was still sprawled out with the book and my laptop. "You coming to bed soon?"

I stopped what I was writing and looked him up and down. "Come here," I said and pulled him toward me. From my sitting position, my head was exactly at crotch level. Before he knew what was coming, I took a deep whiff. "Nope. Doesn't smell like a lap dance."

He swatted at my head. "Back off!" Then we laughed, and I packed my things up for the night.

Grow a Happy Bunny

My mother-in-law gave me a Grow a Happy Bunny toy when I was at her house for Passover on Saturday. (How I love that little innocent-looking asshole rabbit!) Thanks to my gutter-mind, the instructions make me fall down laughing:

"It will begin to grow within 2 hours and will be full size in 72 hours. When removed... it will slowly shrink back to its original size. Your grow item can be grown again and again! For Entertainment Purposes Only. Not for consumption."

Sounds just like the instructions for Viagra during its testing period!

Whatever Floats Your Boat

"Where you going with that magazine?" I asked Husband as he walked down our small hallway holding a Business Week.

"I'm putting it in the rack in the bathroom," he replied.

"Oh, so that's what you jerk off to in there!" I teased, while nodding in a serious manner. "Makes sense."

Get Your Popemobile Off My Highway!

Important things are occurring tomorrow. Passover begins at sundown, and we'll be heading to Husband's parents' house for what counts as a Seder in our lax Haggadahs: recite the Four Questions, sing Dayanu, then chow down. Mother-in-Law doesn't even bother getting desserts that are kosher for Passover. Wisely, she believes that if you are going to eat dessert, it should taste good.

Prior to my Passover eating fest, I will attend a baby shower in Yonkers. Yonkers is a city just north of the City. It is the 4th largest city in New York State, but since it lives in the shadow of New York City, it gets shit on a lot as a suburb. (Sort of like Newark, but Newark is even more screwed because it is in New Jersey, but that's another story.) Most likely I will eat a lot of yummy foods at the shower.

The problem is that two leaders of institutions of evil will make it difficult to get to the baby shower, and then to Long Island. It seems that the Pope and Dick Cheney will be visiting some seminary that is just off the Cross County Parkway, thus forcing the highway to possibly close. We need this highway to get there. There is one alternative, but no one wants to read my rants about the Cross Bronx Expressway, which was built by Robert Moses and killed communities in the Bronx. (Cheney and the Pope belong on the Cross Bronx, believe me.)

Hopefully, we'll get where we need to go. (By "we," I mean Husband, who is going to drive me to shower and run amok at Costco for about an hour, then pick me up again.) What also concerns me is how low energy Tycho, my 13 lb. rabbit, is today. I think he is depressed that the Pope is in town. He heard a rumor that a distant relative of his, the Easter Bunny (perhaps you heard of him?), was molested by a priest. He's not down with the excuses that the Pope made that these incidents are the fault of a permissive American culture. Can't say I blame him.

The Price is Right, But Who Cares?

Between running down to the basement to do laundry and vacuuming, I'm half-watching The Price is Right. My sister and I utterly adored this show when we were kids. As interactive viewers, we were not content with merely shouting advice at the TV's contestants. We also pretended that we were related to them.

"Bid $600 on the washing machine!" we'd yell at little white haired ladies. "Yay Grandma!"

Today, I'm not nearly as involved. It helps that Drew Carey is not such an inspiring host. In addition, it occurred to me a few years ago that most of the prizes are complete fucking crap that no one needs, and most likely does not even have space for in their homes. One of the Showcase Showdown packages included a cafe-style cappuccino machine and a spa/whirlpool thing that seats 4-6. The pudgy guy who was forced to bid on it managed to look excited, which I think likely makes him an excellent actor. Cast that man in a TV show or movie, pronto! That man has talent!

Watching The Price is Right back in the day when Plinko was new, my sister and I dreamed of someday attending the show. Now I know this will never happen. Even if I did get on, there is no way I could pretend to want a grand piano. The producers likely try and avoid contestants who would make faces, and say, "No thanks," although I think California law allows game show winners to take the cash equivalent instead of the prize. If that is the case, I'd jump up and down, shriek, and giggle. I gotta pay to do my laundry some way, you know. ($11.20 for four loads!!!)

Yeah, I Did Ask That

Here's a recent conversation I had with a friend I hadn't seen in ages:

Me: Hey! How are you?

Friend: I'm really happy! Things are going so well. I started seeing someone.

Me: That's awesome. I was wondering about that, but I didn't want to ask. I thought it would be prying, and I didn't want to ask anything inappropriate.

Friend: We started dating about a month ago.

Me: Soooooo... is he circumcised?

Friend: (laughing uncontrollably because she is used to me)

Me: Yeah, I just realized how wrong it is that I felt uncomfortable asking you if you were dating someone, but not what his penis looks like.

Friend: (still laughing uncontrollably)

Me: I can't help it. I have this weird obsession with uncircumcised penises. I don't know why, but they fascinate me.

Friend: Well, I haven't seen it yet anyway.

Me: Right. It would probably be wrong for me to ask you to report back once you do, wouldn't it?

Friend: (laughing uncontrollably)

While I was replaying this conversation in my head, I thought about what a great GEICO commercial spoof this would make. (You know, those commercials where they hire a "professional actor" to dramatically repeat the story of the actual GEICO customer?) Fred Willard or Sarah Silverman could totally play me. Hilarious.