PIZZA & PAINKILLERS

PIZZA & PAINKILLERS

As someone who once politely asked one of my male friends if he was interested in placing a bid on my uterus should I happen to put it up for sale on eBay during a particularly hellish and crampy month, I clearly don’t have a problem with women discussing vaginal issues or flashing iPhone pictures of wounded vulvas as they make their own pizzas.  What I do have an issue with is the way two women, exceptionally thin in their own right, seem to think it’s acceptable to speak about someone else’s eating disorder while they are wearing microphones.  Is Jules almost invisible when she stands sideways?  Yes.  Did I recently see a picture of her in shorts that caused me to actually gasp out loud?  Yup.  Might it be problematic that the lady totes around Lidocaine – which can be added to coke to increase the numbing effect of the drug in a way that might impact the ability to successfully chew anything resembling a calorie – and gleefully pops some into her calzone?  Definitely…though I want to try a forkful of the stuff.  There is obviously something quite disturbing about Jules and her frail frame, but watching Carole and Bethenny joke about it and debate her weight makes me feel uncomfortable. These are two people who should (and do) know better.  (By the way, I am very much aware that I too have just commented on Jules' weight issue, but I'd like to plead that I have to do so in order to accurately recap this show. I feel sort of badly about it, though.  I shall punish myself by watching an old episode of this series, the one where Jill Zarin donned a full costume to ice skate at a party she threw for herself, and I'll turn the volume way the fuck up so it's as unpleasant as is humanly possible.)

But before Jules can once again be shamed for a psychological condition that manifested into a physical one, Bethenny tells all the ladies (besides Sonja and Luann, who are no longer invited to events planned by producers unless Bethenny gives her explicit written consent that their presence is acceptable) how grateful she was that Dorinda accompanied her to the doctor and that it’s hard because she doesn’t have family who will care for her during events like a medical crisis.  Ramona is sweet here.  She tells Bethenny that her friends are her family and they’re there for her.  But enough about the serious stuff!  It’s time to make pizzas, decorate them with toppings, and ask Jules her exact weight, even though both her expression and the tone of her voice clearly indicate that she would rather discuss her husband’s alleged infidelity.  She claims to weigh 115 pounds, a nothing weight for someone as tall as she is, but while she’s outside – inhaling nicotine and the kind of freedom that comes from not sitting at a table and being grilled by her new friends –Carole and Bethenny remain inside and sneer that there’s no way their emaciated buddy weighs more than 95 pounds, max.  “Jules presents her eating disorder as something she’s gotten past,” Bethenny says.  “It strikes me that she’s right in the middle of it and maybe not entirely dealing with it.” I’m sure Bethenny has a point here. I have a point, too: commenting on Jules’ weight to the cameras will probably not be the thing that propels her to get healthy any time soon.  

 

VICKI'S CASSEROLE

VICKI'S CASSEROLE

For those of you too caught up with watching the recent scuffle between lunatics who want to continue to allow people on a No-Fly list to purchase automatic weapons and decent people who desire some change and chose to squat on the House floor until a vote could transpire or the chaos rumbling through the financial cosmos because of the Brexit vote, I am very sorry to tell you that you missed some other essential news this week.  Yes, it was reported just the other day that Vicki Gunvalson – a woman who makes me want to secede from the human race in general – claims to have lost over twenty pounds!  And how did she manage to shed one of those thighs?  Well, she used a wise diet that included gnawing on grapefruit and lettuce for breakfast (because who doesn’t crave lettuce at dawn?) before skipping lunch entirely and then tearing into an ounce of chicken when it grew dark outside.  In other words, Vicki used a diet plan called “Starvation” to achieve her goals and though I’m repulsed that she put such information out into a world where impressionable people might decide to follow in her bullshit footsteps, I’m even more upset that her dramatic weight loss did not result in her vocal cords depleting to just a hanging thread of nothingness.

Turns out that Vicki can still speak because the world is just not fair.  It also turns out that we start this week’s episode still on that boat where Heather would like to know why Vicki didn’t call everybody immediately after the Brooks-faking-cancer-and-doctoring-medical-records debacle to say, “Holy shit, you were all right! I was dating a lying sack of total horseshit who was so repulsive that he lied about having cancer.”   I feel the need here to say that, whatever Vicki’s response to Heather's question, that answer matters far less than the fact that she waited until the motherfucking cameras were following her again before she even attempted to craft an apology to any of these people and that kind of scheduling tactic makes me scoff at any of her impassioned pleas for forgiveness.  By the way, in this context, “scoff” means flinging something at a wall and wishing the wall was Vicki’s face.

THE YEAR OF LIVING SELFISHLY

THE YEAR OF LIVING SELFISHLY

I don’t know about the rest of you, but the other night my allergies went into some hideous form of overdrive.  I started sniffling around six.  I began to cough as the clock moved to seven.  And I was certain a litter of freshly hatched kittens had taken shelter underneath my dining room table at approximately eight.  I did what any wheezing person might do in such a situation:  I quickly swallowed three Benadryl and it was probably only 8:45 when I felt the floor underneath me slide to an angle I would have probably been able to compute had I ever gone to Math class and I carefully walked up the stairs to bed.  Just as my eyes closed in a medicated haze, the thought came to me – and it was fully formed and just interesting enough that I grabbed my phone and typed it into the Notes app that I use constantly to record writing ideas or words I really like or to remind myself to pick up green apples next time I’m near a supermarket.  Then I promptly fell into a bumpy and hazy sleep filled with the kind of ravenous dreams a psychiatrist should earn a fortune for analyzing.

When I woke up, my allergies were gone.  I almost couldn’t remember getting into bed the night before in the first place.  I have a pretty specific morning routine and I followed it to the letter that day.  I carried my dog downstairs (she’s still not so adept at steps) and I set up her breakfast and made myself a cup of coffee and then took my mug to my couch to sit and relax for ten minutes before I headed into the shower and the day was officially on for good.  During those ten minutes, I usually check my email and the weather for the day and I review my calendar.  But when I turned on my phone that morning, I saw that I hadn’t closed out the Notes app and there it was, all in lowercase:  the yere of living slefishly.  I started at it for a few seconds, genuinely not remembering having typed it, having zero idea what it meant.  And then it came to me like a dream I could recall in Technicolor:  The Year of Living Selfishly.  It had seemed a very good idea the night before while my head swirled with over-the-counter medication and I couldn’t help but realize that I liked it also in the light of the drug-fee early morning as well.

 

THE MYTHICAL SHE-BEAST OF ORANGE COUNTY

THE MYTHICAL SHE-BEAST OF ORANGE COUNTY

There are just some people whose absence in your life feels nothing short of palpable.  It’s not even the lack of their physical presence that creates the smoldering void, but all of those damn associations you stumble upon – daily, hourly. If you’re anything like me, you find yourself tripping dangerously over song lyrics.  You bang headfirst into television commercials that advertise products you once would have purchased just to see that person smile.  You fall with a painful thud down a whirring rabbit hole that’s been lined with a tarnishing silvered memory and land, totally disoriented, into a pit of what you are certain must be simmering regret. When you wake up in the morning, another name pops into your fatigued brain, even before you wipe the cloudiness of sleep from your eyes, even before you remember your own name. 

You finally understand why just the syllables that make up the word “longing” sound so incredibly hopeless.

I have not experienced any of the above emotions during the many months that have gloriously stretched by since The Real Housewives of Orange County has graced my television screen.  I have not missed a single one of those ladies or the bedazzled tank tops they wear without even a hint of irony.  And while I suffer from the terrible affliction of always wanting to give a person a second (or a nineteenth) chance to prove he or she is not a total asshole, my opinions are already rather solidified when it comes to some of these women who have suffered continuously due to the exposure and stress being a part of this show brings into their lives – and yet they still always come back for more, more, more.

RIGHT NOW

RIGHT NOW

“I’m sick of everybody’s problems when I cannot do a single thing to solve them.”  I said this sentence to my mother the other day and I was met with a beat of absolute silence, though I swear I could also hear the rhythmic throb of a horrified subtext in the blankness that followed.

“You can’t say that,” she finally responded, an extra breath or two of surprise folded into the disappointment that coated her words like butter turned sour.

“I most certainly can say that,” I said immediately – and the forcefulness of my words quieted us both.

This isn’t who I was, but this might just be who I am now.

 

THE COUNTESS IS IN LOVE -- AND YOU'RE ALL JUST JEALOUS

THE COUNTESS IS IN LOVE -- AND YOU'RE ALL JUST JEALOUS

Welcome back to The Bethenny Show!  And just like last week’s episode (and the episode before that and the episode before that), I’m fully anticipating that this week’s installment will be rife with the kind of sinisterly bitter conflict and emotional mayhem we’ve come to expect when a show that’s supposed to be about the lives of seven women has been permitted to transform into a series about six of those people reacting to the constant verbal eviscerations and machinations inflicted by one very slender lady.

Look, I certainly recognize that there are some ramifications that come with Bethenny Frankel hijacking this show.  I know some viewers are irritated – furious even – that this season is panning out in such a way that Bethenny has managed to dictate the temperature of any room she enters, and that includes closets and outhouses and bars located inside of sheds.  I too find her borderline impossible much of the time and I will happily go on the record and say I probably would not want to be anywhere near her in real life.  Still, I do not hate Bethenny’s presence on my television screen.  Yes, she is undeniably the single coldest human being I’ve maybe ever seen – and I watched all of The Jinx and stared at Robert Durst’s face for many hours.  There’s a hardness that emanates from Bethenny – a blistering chilly steel – and it is blatantly obvious every time she spits out her words in a flurry.  She enunciates each syllable so methodically that it’s like she’s biting and snacking on her own vocabulary, a form of organic trail mix made out of sarcasm and strychnine.

 

THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

Things to do today:

1. Run final exams through scantron machine.

2. Learn how to use scantron machine.

3. Contemplate contacting the NYS Department of Education to inform them that I never once gave a multiple-choice test before they decided to (again) change the academic standards and I’m relatively certain that bullshit exams measure absolutely nothing besides the ability to memorize trivia.

4. Check in with a student (or six, just to be sure) to confirm that this year’s senior prank will not involve mice.

5. If the prank will involve mice, write a letter of resignation immediately because I can deal with rising heat and the conflagration of senioritis and colleagues who never ever shut up – but I will not deal with rodents or vermin of any kind because I've got limits.

Things to do today:

1. Get Patrick and Beth to sign my yearbook during lunch.

2. Go to the tailor after school with my mom to make sure my dress was taken in enough that my nipples will not be mistaken for accessories on prom night.

3. Buy more Aussie sprunch spray. 

4. Tell Mr. Gavriluk how much he’s meant to me and that I appreciate how he read all my poetry and then offered me insightful comments and didn't once tell me that any of the pain I wrote about in a non-rhyming kind of verse was at all pathetic – even though we both know it kind of is.

5. Kill the guy who broke my heart – or just avoid having to see him because plotting a death takes energy and I have exactly none on this strange day in June.

 

HO! HO! HO!

HO! HO! HO!

It’s June!  And the total awareness of my looming days of bliss during whence I shall sleep until the sun comes up and then frolic along beaches with my puppy and a particularly adorable man has left me feeling both exhilarated and rather selfless – and that reverberating sense of positivity has translated into a desire to help others.  Seeing as I am unable to do shit like save lives, I will instead pay it forward by imparting the most essential wisdom I have gathered over the course of my life to my favorite online friends so you too can achieve some of what this momentary sense of nirvana feels like:

1. You can tell someone is a truly good friend when you don’t have to question his or her capacity for loyalty for even a second.

2. Nothing can benefit your life more than getting a good education – unless you can get sponsored by Peter Thiel, because that guy has your future covered so long as you never want that future to include a job at Gawker.

3. The people in your life you view as crazy are probably legitimately crazy and the lunacy they project daily as adults can likely be traced back to a very shitty day in middle school from which they have yet to recover.  Do not try to reason with these people.  In fact, it’s probably best not to look them directly in the eye or feed them after midnight either.

4. Most of the finest shows nowadays will never air on network television.  Basic and premium cable are your real friends and that means you should tune in to Lifetime for UnReal, USA for Mr. Robot, Showtime for The Girlfriend Experience, and Netflix for everything else.

5. When a man tells you that he almost gets into a fight every single time he enters a bar, he’s either lying or he’s psychotic – or he’s both, which makes him a lying psychopath who probably slumbers atop a bed made out of diaphanous red flags.

6. Layer cake tastes way better when it’s kept in the refrigerator.

7. Doing squats correctly hurts like a motherfucker.  Doing Pilates correctly hurts like a motherfucker who is going through heroin withdrawal.

8. Only tell the handful of people you really trust the whole truth and just smile affably at everyone else because those people don’t really care how you are or what you think.  Save your time and energy for the people who matter.

9. Try not to call a television show “preposterous” when speaking to the show’s producer.  

10. See Hamilton as soon as you possibly can.  Know how it’s been touted as being the single greatest thing ever to hit Broadway?  That hype is real.

11. Shrug off the inconsideration someone directs at you because you’re strong and you can handle it, but refuse to forgive someone for all of eternity if that inconsideration is aimed at a member of your family – at least if it's a member of your family you actually like.

12. The thread count of sheets matters tremendously.

13. If an opportunity presents itself that both excites and terrifies you, do it. You’ll figure it out as you go and really, as long as you appear confident, people will think you actually know what you’re doing.

14. Don’t even bother trying to straighten your hair when the humidity level hits 60% or higher.  Also, only date men who love their air conditioners as fervently as they love their mothers or their pets.

15. For the love of all that is fucking holy, don’t ever RSVP “yes” to a holiday party thrown by a Real Housewife.

 

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE

Let’s talk about Luann, shall we?  My dear internet friends, our favorite Countess appears to be smack dab in the midst of her own personal renaissance!  Gone are the days when she used to invite her daughter’s friends out for a festive afternoon of learning which fork to use while insisting that there’s nothing teenage girls enjoy more than brushing up on their etiquette.  That Luann is dead and the reincarnated version does shit like crawl home at dawn from some guy’s place before enjoying a breakfast laden with carbohydrates in her roommate’s kitchen while chortling about a brawl her friends caused at a party for a dry cleaner that was covered in the Post because it’s not like anything important such as genocide or terrifying elections are occurring these days.

I think it’s pretty undeniable that New Luann is far more fascinating than Old Luann. New Luann seems to be more of a person and less a bland prototype of what she once heard generic royalty is supposed to act like.  It would be hard, for instance, to imagine New Luann sliding into the backseat of a car and admonishing the friend sitting beside her for deigning to call her by her name when introducing her to the driver.  In fact, I’d like to think that New Luann would slap the shit out of the antiquated version of herself – or, at the very least, squirt all over herself in disgust.

A SHORTHAND

A SHORTHAND

While I’m not quite sure why an iPhone’s battery can deplete so rapidly, I do know that I spent a great deal of time this weekend either charging my phone or kicking it into “low power mode.”  And sticking with that lifelong personal trait of mine not to fully comprehend science-y stuff, I can’t say with certainty what a low power mode does, but I can tell you that the light at the very top of the screen turns yellow and yellow is my very favorite color – as is evidenced by the fact that I wear black all the time.  There’s a real part of me that believes the batteries in our phones are preprogrammed to shrivel up and die – much as I pray that one person I hate will also do imminently – whenever Apple is set to release a new version, but that could just be the conspiracy theorist inside of me running amok because I’m sure no gigantic corporation would ever do anything unseemly, like futz with its products simply to inspire rabid customer consumption. Anyway, I digress; what I am trying to communicate here is that I was away from my phone for much of the weekend because it needed to be plugged into a wall and I chose not to spend all of my time sitting next to a wall because it was gorgeous outside and I am so pale that I think I might soon be considered my very own species.

At one point while my phone was not within its standard arm’s reach, I received a voicemail from one of my oldest friends.  It’s funny:  many of the people in my life who call will never leave a message.  I guess they just expect that I’ll notice I missed a call and return it and really, who wants to wait out all of those rings?  But this is a guy I knew back in the days when call waiting had recently become a glorious new invention and answering machines were still tabletop devices you ran to while praying the red light would be flickering because that flicker maybe meant someone good had reached out to you.  As a caller, I’ve spent a lot of long seconds of my life praying that I’d get the machine instead of the actual person because there were moments I guess I felt too nervous or tired or annoyed to talk for real, but at the same time I always hated how my voice sounded on messages.  You have such a sweet voice, a guy I used to really care about said to me more than a few times – but I wasn’t looking to sound sweet.  I always wanted to sound when I spoke like Stevie Nicks sounds when she sings and well, let’s just say I don’t.