Happiness

Someone once told me that happiness is a choice.

Often, people have complained to me about things that struck me as insignificant, and this phrase rang true. They were making a conscious decision to be unhappy about something that even they could see had absolutely no merit, or at the very least, they were letting it get to them when it was something that could easily be ignored. Always priding myself as the voice of reason, the pragmatic, “tough-love” friend, I told them to quit their whining and get over it. I told them that happiness is a choice, and by choosing to remain in a difficult situation or choosing to dwell on something small, they were choosing to stay unhappy. After all, I somehow managed it—I avoided stressful situations, I let things slide as needed, I changed my job when it made me miserable, I moved to another country when I got bored, I stopped calling guys who weren’t right for me—and, while bitter and cynical, I was relatively happy and stress-free.

A friend of mine is bipolar, and she complains to me…a lot. Every time I speak to her she’s upset about something. Most of the time it’s some sort of bizarre and ridiculous situation she has let herself get into—sleeping with a married man, getting fired from her job for skipping a week without calling, stressing about forming a relationship out of a one night stand. Sometimes, there’s no reason at all. She goes into one of her depressive phases and she bursts into tears because of a crack in the sidewalk. Listening to her constant streams of negativity for reasons that were either nonsensical or that she had clearly bought upon herself started to get tedious, and I dropped the “sympathetic friend” role I had adopted for her special case and told her to stop being stupid. It all seemed so simple to me—happiness is a choice! She was choosing to date these horrible men, she was letting stupid things get to her, she was constantly digging herself deeper into depression instead of focusing on ways to remedy her situation—surrounding herself with positive people, pursuing interests, getting a fucking hobby, anything.

Upon considering her situation, I realized that my belief system is wrong. No matter what she chose, the chemicals in her brain refused to let her be happy. And I realized, happiness is not a choice—it’s a consequence.

Much like you can’t control the surge of sadness that overcomes you when someone you care about dies or the gush of blood that pours out of a gaping wound, you can’t control what does and does not make you happy. Sure, there are basic ways to enhance your life in practical ways, ways that I have worked at pretty ardently. And it’s worked so far because I don’t have much to complain about. I like my family, I like my friends, I like my job.

But am I happy? Have I ever been happy?

I am content. My life is good, but not spectacular. I have nothing to be especially sad about, but I don’t have anything to be truly excited for either. And this makes me sad.

It depresses me that I feel like I’ve done everything I need to do to make my life happy, but the one thing that’s missing is the one thing I have absolutely no control over. At the risk of sounding hokey, I feel that the thing that will push me over the edge from contentment to happiness would be finding a guy. The lingering absence of this element in my life has made me become frustrated to the point that I am constantly depressed. And I’m tired of being depressed all the fucking time.

There are few people who understand my situation. The majority of my friends are the type who are constantly in relationships and they are quick to brush off my problem as something I brought upon myself—I’m too picky, I’m too closeminded, I don’t give people a chance, I keep meeting the wrong people. The people who do understand my situation, however, can appreciate how little control you actually have over your romantic life. Finding a partner entails a wide variety of things clicking at once. The timing has to be right, the situation in which you meet has to be right, you have to like them, then they have to like you—frankly, the odds are against you. I don’t care how illogical this sounds, but for some people things click much more often than others. Whether they are just the type to fall for any person who crosses their path or they’re just lucky as all shit, it happens more for them, and most of the time it’s no one’s fault. I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing what I’ve been doing wrong, and I’m done blaming myself. For one, while everything worked nicely, the intellectual aspect wasn’t there. For The Mistake, the timing was wrong. For the last one, everything was there, but the spark was missing. For another, the Atlantic Ocean was dividing us. And for another, the spark was there for me and not for him. I took the chances, I did the right things, I pursued, I tested the waters, and it just didn’t work out and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

So that’s it. I’m finally admitting what’s missing, why I’m so bitter. I did well in school, I traveled, I found the right job, I cut ties with the friendships that weren’t working out, I worked harder towards the friendships that were, I resolved my differences with my mother, I got over my adolescent warped body image and everything has worked out alright. But as long as that one, last thing, the one I can’t do a damn thing to fix, refuses to click, I am not happy.

-L

Dear Santa,

Fuck you.

Love,
-L

For Mets Fans

...and anyone who grew up in the 80s.

Re-enactment of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series

Brilliant!

Star Wars Sixtology... ummm... yeah

-B

Although I look alarmingly similar to most sci-fi geeks, I’ve never been a huge Star Wars fan. This past week, however, I didn’t have work nor the funds to go on vacation so I opted for the next best thing and sat in front of the TV. It seems there’s some sort of Star Wars Bonanza going on because one of the six Star Wars movies is playing at any given point in the day. After carefully watching all the episodes multiple times, I’ve noticed some things that really need to be addressed.

What’s up with Hayden Christensen’s acting? He’s quite possibly the worst actor in the galaxy. When casting, did they do a special Olympics for actors and choose the worst one? And his name, Anakin, why do they choose to abbreviate it so often? They keep calling the guy Annie, and every time I hear it, I’m tempted to stand up and belt out, “The sun will come out, tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar” but I refrain from doing so because I might miss important scenes in the movie.

Is Yoda doing some sort of insurance fraud? Why does he need that cane. I mean, fine, in the episodes that take place during his later years, I can understand the cane. But in episodes 2 and 3, he’s doing back flips and shit and as soon as he’s done, he begins limping and using a cane again. Your supposed work related injury isn’t fooling anyone. We have you on tape you skeevy bastard. Go back to work. And what’s with his grammar? The guy’s almost a thousand years old, and he’s supposedly nearly omniscient. You’d think that by now, he’d speak proper English.

Carrie Fisher (AKA Princess Leia) is very ugly. She looks like a monkey. But in “Return of the Jedi”, that scene with Jabba the Hutt in which she’s a scantily clad prisoner… holy shit. I don’t know if it’s the body or the outfit, but, holy shit. It’s weird because her face is still really ugly. During that whole section of the movie, my penis is very confused.

I hate those scenes in which someone is dying, and they try to say something profound with their last breath. In “Attack of the Clones” there’s a scene where “Annie” tries to rescue his mother. As he’s holding his mother, with her dying breath, she says, “Annie… I love... I love…” and then she dies. How can you ever know what she was really going to say? Maybe she was trying to say, “Annie… I love… I love cock. I just wanted you to know that. I’m going to die now. Peace out biatch.” After all, I always figured that when people are dying, their brains aren’t functioning properly so they’re more prone to say ridiculous things. Hey, you never know.

Conclusion: Star Wars rules.

Optimism

From now until January 16th, I have sworn to try out this thing I've heard people talk about called "optimism."

Mark my words, from this day forth, I will be spreading positivity, joy, happiness and all manner of mushystuffs.

Although, sadly, this is for a somewhat selfish reason (I am trying to balance my karma out due to hugelifechangingevent that will take place on that date) I promise to do it wholeheartedly and with as much vigor and enthusiasm as with which I have so joyously spread negativity, pessimism, gloom and depression in the past. Perhaps I'll even learn something and stop being so damn bitter.

Joy to the world! It's a dawning of a new L!

-L

P.S. I hate everyone!
P.P.S. Starting.........NOW.

Brush With a Hero

-B

My sister picked up her cell phone as I waited anxiously.

“Hello… yeah… uh huh… okay.” Then she hangs up.

“Are we going now?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she replies “let’s go”.

We rush down the stairs and hail a cab. I’m kind of excited. I mean, it’s not every day you get to hang out with Milo Ventimiglia. Apparently, when he’s not out saving cheerleaders, he’s hanging out at the Soho Grand. And tonight, so were we.

I try not to watch too much TV, but lately, I’ve been guilty of allowing myself to fall into addiction with several shows. A couple of them, regretfully, are MTV programs, the type that make you stupider by watching. Another is “Entourage”, a show that brilliantly draws the attention of anyone with testosterone and a libido. Unfortunately, it’s mid season, and the new season doesn’t begin for a couple of months. I had to find another show, and quick.

“Heroes” is a show about people who begin to discover that they have special powers. As they begin to understand their powers, their lives coincide and eventually they realize that they all have a common goal. That goal is to save the world. I grew up knee deep in the comic book culture so it wasn’t hard for me to become addicted to this show. It also helps that the show has a ridiculously hot MILF and cheerleader. Yes, I know the cheerleader’s underage, but still, she’s quite “homina homina”.

Milo Ventimiglia plays Peter Petrelli on the show, the brother of a politician, who believes he can fly. He later learns that his actual power is the ability to mimic the powers of heroes in his vicinity. Peter meets an artist who is capable of painting the future, and with information provided by this artist, he embarks on a quest to save a cheerleader’s life.

When my sister and I got to the Soho Grand, we found their table and joined them. There wasn’t enough room, but nicely enough, Milo and party got up and we moved to another table. There was around 6-7 of us, and I didn’t realize that we were playing a game of, “let’s pretend the famous guy we’re sitting with isn’t famous”. So when I shook his hand and met him and his friends, I said, “Hi Milo, I’m actually a big fan, I love the show, especially since I grew up a comic book geek.” They laughed and Milo pointed at the guy he was with:

“That’s Jeph, if you like comic books, you’ll definitely like this guy.”

I shake his hand and scrutinize his face. Unfortunately, writing talents are rarely recognized, especially TV show writers. However, I regret not having known his work.

Jeph Loeb worked very closely with Jim Lee, one of my childhood comic book heroes. He’s also worked alongside dozens of other artists I used to worship as a child. However, he’s probably not known in pop culture as the comic book writer, rather a TV writer. The TV show he used to write for? A little show some of you might know as “Smallville”. He was also a supervising producer for “Lost”.

I shrug my shoulders and shake my head, unable to recognize him, not realizing that this guy is basically living one of my childhood dreams.

Milo is surprisingly nice. Not only did he stand up when my sister and I arrived and moved to a bigger table, he also stood up when we left, a gesture I sincerely appreciate. He also laughed at some of my drunken corny jokes, and paid the entire bill. However, Milo doesn’t drink, and he’s a vegetarian. Yes, I know, absolute and utter insanity. Now I’m not gay, but honestly, Milo is a very very pretty man. If you’re a guy sitting at a table with Milo, you become invisible. I could’ve gotten up on the table and began doing a Russian tap dance, and the girls at the table would’ve probably still had their eyes glued on Milo. I don’t mind though, after all, we can’t all be heroes.

In conclusion, Milo’s a really nice guy so I’ve decided to remain a staunch advocate of the show “Heroes”. A new episode comes out in mid January so don’t miss it. And if you want to see any episodes you missed online, go to http://www.nbc.com/Video/rewind/full_episodes/heroes.shtml for streaming videos of every episode.


INT. NYC – WINTER – SOHO GRAND – LATE NIGHT

A group sits at a table in a lounge drinking cocktails and beer. Then B looks down at his hands with a startled look on his face. Milo looks over at him in curiosity.

MILO

B, are you alright?

B

My… my hands (holds up his hands to the light) they’re… disappearing.

MILO

(BEAT) I think I see what’s going on here. You see B, there are people out there just like you. People with gifts, with special powers. (BEAT) A couple of months ago, did you black out for like a day?

B

Actually, yeah I did. But I thought it was because I was really drunk.

MILO

Don’t worry man, just go with it.

B looks as the rest of his body parts fade away in a Back-to-the-Future-esque manner. Soon he is totally invisible.

MOHINDER SURESH (VOICE OVER)

What is society’s infatuation with actors? With rich people? With the beautiful and the famous? How do they command the attention of everyone without any effort at all? Maybe it’s insecurity, the inexplicable desire to compensate for that which they lack. Or maybe they need for so called important people to acknowledge their existence for fear that one day, they may become… “invisible”.

Table continues to talk amongst themselves as a now invisible B watches in silence. Beer bottle lifts up in the air seemingly by itself as B takes a swig.

Fade to black.

Return of the mack?

Old habits die hard, I guess.

I had another one of those weekends—Christmas parties, open bars, beer, wine, dirty martinis and phone number slips.

Great line I taught my girlfriends who feel too rude to say, “no” when a guy asks for their number—“Sorry, but I have this policy, I don’t give my phone number to people I’ve just met. I’ll take yours though.” Most guys look at me like I just said, “I love to cook and wash dishes!” after I say this. It makes you sound like a person with high moral standards when all you’re really saying is, “I think you’re ugly.”

I’ve got to learn to take my own advice as most of the weekend was spent staring at incoming phone calls from unfamiliar numbers and wondering, “Who the fuck is this?”

-L

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is...

Barry Zito.

Thanks.

-L

Strike 3?

Strike 1:
On Wednesday, my associate publisher tells me to email Jay Horwitz (Vice President of PR for the Mets) about an article we’re doing for the magazine. I begin the email, “Dear Mr. Horowitz,…”

Strike 2:
I don’t receive a response to said email by Thursday (yesterday), so I call him to ask what mailing address I should send preview copies of the magazine to. His demeanor is abrupt and gruff, which comes as a shock to me because he’s known for being extremely nice. Today, I find this…

Today in Mets news (courtesy of mets.com):
Mark it down on the calendar: Dec. 14, 2006, was the first day since June 1987 that Mets vice president Jay Horwitz missed a day of work for reasons of illness. The club's public relations man since April 1980, Horwitz was out of the office on Thursday because of stomach flu. His absence was as conspicuous as would be Jose Reyes without a smile.

Horwitz had missed work because of the death of his mother, but the last time he missed work for illness was when he was quarantined in the team's Chicago hotel because he had chicken pox.

Wilpon said, "I didn't know what to think," when Horwitz didn't answer his 7:30 a.m. call to the Mets PR office. "We talk that early every day, and he's always there."

And, now, another bombshell. Horwitz was out sick on Friday as well.

Apparently, I underestimated my research skills when I was searching for his contact information because I found his CELL PHONE NUMBER instead of his office number, and I am now the ASSHOLE who bothered him on the ONE day he called in sick in TWENTY YEARS to ask him a STUPID QUESTION.

Hopefully he takes baseball rules to heart and I still have one more chance.

Sorry.

-L

On this Rosie O’Donnell nonsense

Here are some snippets that people have posted to Rosie O’Donnell’s website in her defense:

Elizabeth writes:

I am not a die-hard fan, but the controversy about the asian accent is absolutely ridiculous. Please don’t succumb to the over-the-top politically correct! People need to lighten up & laugh a little

Rosie’s response: yup

Carla writes:

I think you are wonderful & do great things for so many people. How can you not take it to heart when people bash you for no reason? & this Chinese thing holy shit - Crazy! Keep on being u. Love U!

Rosie’s response: will do

Beth writes:

It’s so silly that Bill O’Reilly is having a segment on how you angered the Asians -you didn’t do anything at all - you were saying how silly it is that Devito became world news! Don’t listen to them!

Rosie’s response: i don’t

toni writes:

Ro, I can not believe that the Chinese are mad at you about a JOKE!!! Oh My God, lighten up people. Bill O’Reilly even stood up for you tonight on “The Factor”! Calm down people it was just a joke!

Rosie’s response: go bill

Yves writes:

Rosie-I don’t see the big deal about the Chinese routine. You’ve done English accents before on TV and the Brits didn’t get bent out of shape. They took it out of context and they need to chill.

Rosie’s response: the whole thing is odd 2 me

Now, I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m assuming that these were written by non-Asian people who never had to deal with racist taunts and preconceptions of their character based on race. So, I find it interesting that they are piping in with, "What's the big deal? Get a sense of humor!" If you aren't Asian and you didn't have to endure years of "CHING-CHONG, CHING-CHONG!" while kids used their fingers to stretch their eyes into slits throughout elementary school, don’t you think that you aren’t really in the position to have an opinion on the matter?

Sorry, it’s probably silly for us sensitive Asians to think that, as adults, people would act maturely and we wouldn't have to deal with that nonsense anymore.

Rosie O’Donnell has defended her behavior as a joke, she’s even gone so far as to refer to her gibberish as an “accent.” The fact is, “ching-chong” is in no way, shape or form a Chinese “accent.” As far as I know, there isn’t any dialect in China where the words, “ching-ching-chong” mean anything. Her words were a bastardization of a language, a straightforward mockery. To compare her passing “ching-chong” off as a representation of the Chinese language with her imitating a British accent is completely ridiculous. The two are not at all on the same level, especially given that English accents have a reputation in our society as “sexy.”

Fine, at the end of the day, she made a mistake. I am more than willing to forgive this. She didn’t know any better and she made a tasteless joke borne of sheer ignorance. This would have been fine if she had acknowledged her mistake, apologized, and said she wouldn’t do it again. Instead, she decided the better route was to say that Asians are too sensitive, it was a joke, it wasn’t meant to offend, and that she would probably do it again.

If I were to make a tasteless joke that offended gay people not knowing that a gay person would interpret it as offensive, I would apologize. As someone who is not gay, I don’t have a right to judge what is and is not offensive to gays. Case in point, I didn’t realize that referring to a straight male as a “cocksucker” (even if it is jest) is offensive to a gay person, but when it was pointed out to me that it is, I thought to myself, “Hey, that is offensive because I’m implying that being gay is a negative thing.” I definitely didn’t say, “Oh you silly gay man, you’re too sensitive. I was joking. I know more about what should and shouldn’t offend you than you do.”

As someone who is so quick to shout “Homophobe!” at every person who makes a remotely offensive statement, you would think she would be more sensitive to this phenomenon.

So, the moral of the story is, just own up already, Rosie. What you said was offensive to many people whether you intended it to be or not. Don’t declare yourself the new authority on how minorities should interpret your humor, just admit that you were ignorant about the situation, accept that Asian people have tried to tell you why what you said is offensive to us, and take it as a lesson learned. If you had apologized from the start, this wouldn’t have exploded into a media frenzy where, incidentally, the Asians are being painted as “crazy overly-sensitive freaks” and you as “innocent comedian.”

-L

P.S. If Bill O'Reilly is on your side, that's usually a clear indication that you're on the wrong side.

Pop Quiz

Complete this phrase:

"Rock out with your..."

Overappreciated

-B

“You’re quite possibly my favorite person at this company. My team loves you, and you really get shit done. I’m telling you, you need to get promoted, and I’ll see to it personally that it happens.”

H is a managing director for one of the most lucrative sales teams at my company. A team which I’d love to be on. Up until recently, I myopically believed that the ever so coveted position of “financial analyst” would provide the quickest route to success, and would eventually lead me to my seat on the throne as the “CEO of the World”. But the deeper into finance I get, the more I realize, it’s the sales people that run shit. It’s the people who do the big deals. The people who bring in the money. It’s no coincidence that nearly all the top guys at Morgan Stanley are investment bankers. Now I’m not saying the sales guys at my company are of Morgan Stanley investment banking caliber, but I am saying, the fact that a lot of them make around half a mil is no laughing matter. Cuba Gooding had it right all along. “Show me the money”.

I waited patiently for H to drop hints. And then he did.

“B, you’ve got to promise, you won’t leave this company. Stay here and we’ll take care of you. I hear great things, I love working with you, and you know, we could use someone like you on our team…”

H raises his eyebrow inquisitively.

Fine, maybe it wasn’t so much a “hint” per say. But I was waiting for this for a while now. Allow me to back track.

Back at Morgan Stanley, I was underappreciated. People say that about their jobs all the time, I realize that, but in my case, it was pretty extreme. The coat rack next to my cube got more attention than I did. And to exacerbate the situation, I had a boss that had me on his list of people to kill. He was slowly succeeding. His weapon: insufferable passive aggressiveness. I had a choice. Option 1 was to jam a screwdriver into my ear until I began seeing pretty colors, and option 2 was to move to another financial institution. I took the low road, and moved to another financial institution.

Going into operations management meant that I would work directly with the money makers AKA salesmen (or saleswomen, whatever) and help them get their sales processed. And since I’ve dedicated my life to a program of self deprecation, my attitude was no different at this new job. Strangely enough, this self deprecation helped immensely in attaining recognition at my company. My philosophy was this: if I tell everyone I have no idea what I’m doing, and continue to feign ignorance for the life of my career, then everyone will be pleasantly surprised when I actually do get shit done. In addition, I personally believe face is everything. Face is also largely based on the company you keep. The greatest sin at work, in my opinion, is when someone, anyone jokes about how you don’t know what you’re doing. These types of jokes, while seemingly harmless, tend to propagate into truths in the minds of other people. Therefore, I make a huge deal out of it when even close work buddies joke like this. Instead, I try to surround myself around people at work who will speak positively of me to others. And although contrived, I must admit, I also ask friends to drop my name in a positive light. Leave the deprecation to me.

J and I quickly became good friends. We had common interests. We were both passionate people. And when I say passionate, I mean we both loved alcohol passionately. I was going through a breakup that tore my world apart, and J was a hilarious lush that made me forget about it, if even briefly. The thing about J is that he’s totally different than me. He’s an extrovert with a “devil may care” attitude that goes out and hits on chicks like it’s nobody’s business. I’m the awkward over-analytical wingman who looks at the floor with his hands in his pockets and mumbles clever little nothings to himself. J has no problem pulling the trigger, no matter who the chick is. I, on the other hand, strangely refuse to ever pull the trigger. I guess the slut gene eluded me.

A couple of months ago, J made a move into H’s team. This move had been in the works for a long time, and when it happened, it made me optimistic about my career. I recruited J into my program of name-dropping, and in a few weeks time, the entire team knew me as the operations manager that got shit done. Suddenly, in a single day (well, two days), it got out of hand.

H’s sales group had a 2 day training session in which they went into details about the products and processes. During the training session, my name came up. I wasn’t present, but I was told afterwards from a dozen people that after my name came up, the conference temporarily became a worship session about me. The vice president of operations barely knew who I was, but suddenly, she was walking by my desk with a smile and a wave. Salesmen were coming up to me and shaking my hand for no reason. Then, during the second day of the conference, J told me that to his amazement, they continued right where they left off, and began speaking about me again. This got H’s attention.

After a couple of weeks, I asked J to inquire about any positions that might be available in H’s group, and not surprisingly, H was very receptive to the idea. I eventually had drinks with H’s right hand man in which I was told that we’d have a meeting to discuss my transition into the group. I hadn’t heard anything since, until the company Christmas party earlier this week. H approached me and asked if I’d attend a group drinking “thing” and I agreed. So now here I was at this drinking “thing” talking to H. I smile and reply:

“I’m sure you know that I’d love to join the group.”

R, a saleswomen chimes in.

“Oh, that’s a fantastic idea! You should definitely join us.”

And H continues:

“Yeah, I heard you were interested, this is definitely something we need to discuss. We’ll talk about it soon.”

Well call me David Bowie because I’m under pressure. Being underappreciated has it’s perks. No one expects much from you. But being “overappreciated” (which sadly enough isn’t even a word, which speaks volumes for America’s corporate culture) to messianic proportions is scary.

What happens when I drop the ball? The sound will be deafening. What if I forget to tie up those loose ends, those million little impossible loose ends that make us so perfectly imperfect? What happens when my volume falters? What happens when I go to H’s team and they suddenly see that I’m normal, that I’m just me?

Maybe I need to add funding to my program of self deprecation in hopes that others will expect less. Or maybe I need to stop this self deprecation because this self loathing is starting to feel so real.

Randomness

-There's a group on Facebook titled, "I Just Tried to Ford the River but my Fuckin' Oxen Died." If you don't get this reference, your childhood was repressed, repressed! It brought back a lot of fond elementary school memories for me.

-Bacon, egg and cheese on a roll is the same price as bacon, egg and cheese on a bagel. This makes little to no sense to me.

-Blogs are DEAD. All those links on my sidebar? Garbage. Don't click them. This blog? Garbage. Stop reading it.

-I have to write an article on exotic cars and it is making me want to stick a nail into my eyeball, moosh it all around, and then eat it.

-L

Just when you thought Rosie O'Donnell couldn't get any more annoying...

...you go and find something like this.

I'm hardly one to get offended by this sort of thing, but the fact that she used the most played-out Asian joke in history and she's just an annoying cuntrag to begin with irritated me. Plus the fact that she had a titty-attack over a comment that Kelly Ripa made that could only be interpreted as homophobic in Crazy Paranoid Land.

-L

See...

...this is why I hate celebrating anniversaries. There's too much "important" stuff "swimming around" in my "brain" to bother "remembering anniversaries" (yes, I am one of those annoying people who use air quotes).


Happy Anniversary plus 5 days to this "blog."

-L

Relative Reality

You know there’s something wrong with the world when the most logical advice you get is from a friend who is being treated for mental illness.

There is no objective reality.

Everything makes sense only in our own minds and is dependent upon what form of reality we live in.

Case in point:

This past weekend, I went to a fashion photo shoot for the magazine. As soon as I arrived, the model we had hired introduced himself to me and was extremely friendly. As our conversation progressed, his friendliness segued into blatant flirtation. Although I was flattered at first, I became suspicious when he started to be a bit touchy. He wasn’t particularly inappropriate, I just dislike being touched by anyone I do not know well no matter how attractive or nice they are. My suspicions were confirmed when another attractive female arrived and he immediately dove into his repertoire of flirtatious banter with her. Then when he started to overtly hit on the female model, then the stylist, then the producer, etc. By the end of the shoot, his creepy desire for ass or attention or whatever it was had become a running joke amongst the staff.

“The thing that completely boggles my mind is that he doesn’t understand the ‘flirting etiquette’,” I tell N, the stylist in between cigarette puffs. “If you’re going to hit on a girl, don’t hit on every girl in front of her. You’ve got to pick one girl and stick with it or else you’re just insulting everyone.”

N laughs and nods in agreement.

The female who ultimately was most receptive to his bizarre advances was the girl who was modeling with him.

Models live in an alternate reality where this behavior is not only acceptable, but encouraged. In Normal Person World, this is considered rude whereas in Model World, where everyone is pretty and gets whatever they want just by pouting, their rules of decency are different. He probably gets laid all the time using this odd tactic.

-L

Pah-tee

Last night, the Best Friend invited me to a product launch party for Stoli vodka at 230 5th, a posh lounge/club on 5th Avenue known for it’s amazing rooftop view of Manhattan. Working in advertising carries some nice perks for her, most commonly, invites to media events, parties, mixers. Unfortunately for her, she isn’t much for drinking, so she supports my aspirations as a future alcoholic by bringing me along. For this particular event, I, being my generous self, convinced her to RSVP B as well.

The event was filled with models brandishing trays of blueberry and raspberry vodka cocktails and shrimp hor’deurves and poseurs ranging in age from their early-twenties to late-sixties looking bored. The eighties strip club-esque décor was complemented by two buck-naked women wearing nothing but body paint dancing on a platform.

Open bar consisting entirely of vodka + Me + B = Two very drunk siblings.

After my second dirty martini and third blueberry vodka mojito, I called it quits. B, on the other hand, decided that he wanted to exit this world on this particular night in a sea of vodka gimlets.

Once he thtarted to thlurrr his thpeech, I figured it was as good a time as any to bring up something that I had been curious about.

“So, that friend of yours, J, is it? He’s cute.”

“Eughaghflurp! Who you tawkin’ about?”

“The one from ---. What’s his deal?”

“Ughraaaaang! You’re piffin me off!”

“Why?”

“Becauth! He’s a fuckin’ tool!”

“How so?”

“He just is! He’th a fuckin’ dork an shih!”

“Dorky is good. The ones who aren’t dorky are a problem.”

“He just wanth to get laid!”

“He told you that?”

“YEAH! He said, ‘Ooh, I love New York! I just want to geth laid’!”

Figuring there was no use pursuing the topic further, I gave up. “Alright forget it.”

Having work the next morning, I headed home soon after, leaving B to his own devices. The venue was only a block away from his apartment, so I figured he’d be okay. As soon as I left, my cell phone rang.

“Yo, what wath the name of that drink again?”

“The gimlet? It’s a gimlet, GIM-LET.”

“Awright, awright.”

Once I got on the train, my phone rang again.

“Yo, what wath the name of that drink again?”

“GIM-LET! Oh Lord, go home you drunkard!”

“Awright, awright.”

Come to think of it, I should have fucked with him and said something like, "gim-tit" or "dick-let" so he made a fool of himself with the bartender. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.

-L

Opinions

I have an extremely liberal friend who adamantly despises George W. Bush. The only problem is, he doesn't actually know much about politics. He'll go on and on about it, but it becomes clear rather quickly that he doesn't know enough to have a solid foundation for his vitriol.

Which makes me wonder, what's worse? Having an opinion about something you don't know shit about or having no opinion at all?

By the way, where the hell does the term "peanut gallery" come from?

-L

Gangstas of the World

I'm starting on articles for the new issue as well as writing freelance articles for a website, so I'm tapped out for now. But in case you're ridiculously bored, here's a whole new way to read the site. Translate your own by visiting Gizoogle.

Now I know where Pat gets his "gangsta speak" from.

-L