(Originally published 3/22/2006)
People make excuses for everything. As a collective body, we are resourceful and endlessly creative in the things we can conjure up when we fall short on a task or a commitment. Especially in America, where we love the blame game more than baseball. Our leaders blame one another for wars, terrorism, hurricanes, and blow jobs. Our reality television shows are houses full of wanna-be actors lobbing blame back and forth like hot potatoes. Kelly Clarkson said it best: "Because of You."
As children we adapt quickly to blame. It comes as naturally to us as digesting solid food or being afraid of what’s under the bed. We blame dogs for eating our homework. We blame our older sisters for taking money out of our fathers’ wallets. We blame a society that refuses to accept individual expression and free will when our mothers catch us walking around the living room in her favorite pair of red pumps (Wait. Is that one just me?). This failure to own our responsibilities and actions follows us into adulthood, where it tampers with our every relationship, from how we relate to colleagues, to our friends, to the neighbor next door whose paper we steal, and to the neighbor across the hall who we blame it on.
I’m the king of lame excuses. I have made excuses in an array of circumstances, from dodging work to cancelling dinner plans because I forgot "Will and Grace" was coming on. From avoiding helping someone move to not being able to pay for my own drinks, some of my better excuses are as follows:
"My iron is broken."
"I need to get online and look for sweaters."
"It rained yesterday."
"I have to look for the remote control."
"I’m studying for the MCAT."
Although quite well known for making excuses and delegating blame, I am not a big fan of hearing excuses (or taking blame for that matter). I work in Human Resources and hear excuses and blame on a daily basis.
"My boss hates me."
"I can’t come to work because my hamster ate four of its babies last night."
"I was kindly asked to leave my last job after an elaborate map of the building and a copy of ‘The Anarchist’s Cookbook’ were found in my desk. I was doing research for my screenplay."
I’m no fan of being handed a turd of an excuse within a social setting either. Recently, someone handed me the King Kong of all excuses, the poke in the eye for all of us single people out there trying to keep our heads above water: The "I don’t wanna date anybody right now" excuse.
This excuse, when standing alone, could be considered legitimate and respectable, understandable, purely honest. However, 99% of the time a single person hears this from someone they have any interest in, it takes on a whole new meaning. Translation: "I don’t wanna date YOU right now (or ever, truth be told)."
In hearing about this particular person who said this to me and his many dates since, I began to contemplate the complexity of that excuse. I decided to ask a good friend of mine famous for handing out this excuse to boys like they were trick-or-treaters at his door on Halloween night. This conversation occurred in a bar, of course.
"Why do you tell people that?" I asked.
"Because I don’t wanna date anyone right now," he replied.
"But you’re lying. You date people all the time."
"Yes," he agreed, "but I don’t wanna boyfriend."
"OK," I concurred, the urge to be defensive rising up from my gut, "but do you think it’s necessarily fair to the people that you go out with that might actually want to date someone?"
"Well, I’m very up front about it."
"So you tell them that before you initially ask them out, that you’d like to spend time getting to know them but under no circumstances will this ever go beyond one or two weeks, even if you fall head over heels in love with them?"
He began to squirm, as if I was one of the boys he’d tried to feed this excuse to.
"Well, no. I don’t say it like that. And I usually say it around the third date."
I considered this. "So, basically it’s just a crappy excuse. When you tell someone this, what you actually mean is that you are looking for a boyfriend, just like the rest of us, and you gave this boy three chances to make you like him and he couldn’t do it. It’s a defense mechanism. You think that by saying this to someone that you have some sort of control over the fact that you haven’t met anyone either. Is that it?"
"I need another drink."
The "I don’t wanna date anybody right now" excuse is nonsensical and I believe it to be true about as much as I believe in OJ’s innocense or Paris Hilton’s IQ. Dating is painful, excrutiatingly so, and nobody in there right mind would bother doing it if they didn’t want the end result to be a relationship. It would be like voluntarily choosing the agony of a root canal when all you really wanted was a haircut. So, to all those out there fond of this excuse, your own little WMD case to launch chaos and havoc on unsuspecting innocents, go f*ck yourselves. You’re all just as confused and frustrated and defensive (and yet still just a little bit hopeful that there’s someone out there) as the rest of us.
"I don’t wanna date anybody right now." Yea? Well, you should’ve told me that before I bothered having my shoulders waxed AND wasted a Saturday night making mindless small talk when I could’ve been hanging out with my friends. You’re paying for dinner, *sshole.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
A whore's remorse.
(Originally published 3/16/2006)
Recently I was celebrating a friend’s birthday at a Mexican restaurant when the birthday boy’s new boyfriend, whom I thought that I’d never met, showed up. Sitting two people down from me, he said, "I think I know you. You slept with a friend of mine."
"Really?" I said. "Could you pass the salsa?"
"His name is Michael," the new boyfriend continued, although unencouraged.
"You’ll need to be more specific," I said between gulps of my margarita.
"It was about a year ago. We all met out and he went home with you."
"That really narrows it down," I thought, then asked, "Where were we?"
He told me the name of the bar, a bar I’m known to frequent with a fairly steady success rate for meeting people. He continued on, describing the way the fellow looked, what he did for a living, how old he was, etc… All I could really determine from the conversation was the guy sounded somewhat hot and interesting and I briefly entertained the thought of being set up on a "blind" date. But given the unique situation I refrained from asking the guy’s current marital status.
"Look," I finally said, the topic exhausted, "We could do this all night. But truth be told your buddy was not the only guy I’ve met out at a bar, took home, then completely forgot existed. I may own more shoes than Ivana Trump, but, the bottom line is, I’m a dude."
My level of disinterest frightened me the next day (at the time my brain was absorbed in tequila and nothing whatsoever really seemed to matter). Have years and years of one-night stands beaten me down to a level where sex no longer matters? How did this happen? And when did this happen?
I remember sitting in a Geology class my sophomore year of college and instead of listening to the teacher drone on and on about how fascinating rocks are, I decided to make a list of the men I’d been with up to that point. Much debate surrounds defining what actually "being with" consists of, but at that time in my life I subscribed to the school of of thought that if by any means someone has an orgasm around someone else, it counted as sex. Since then, for the sake of avoiding astronomical figures and staggering calculations, I have modified my thinking. I don’t even count oral anymore.
But even at that time, at the ripe age of 19, I’d made an impressive dent in my own purity and the number startled me. I vowed to be more chaste.
At 21, I revisited the list and amended my definition of sex. At 22, I modified what sex was yet again in order to avoid the list becoming a weekend project. At 23, I threw the list away. I chose to pretend that the list, as most of the boys whose names appeared on it, never existed.
So I pushed all those names on those sheets of paper right out of my life. What was the point anyway? The list served no other purpose but to validate someone else’s definitions of right and wrong. I think I was born without the guilt gene anyway, so I often leave it up to others to tell me when I should or shouldn’t "feel" guilty. With the list literally and figuratively in the trash, I stopped counting. It must’ve been then that sex became some standard function, a "no big whoop" type of event, like playing cards or doing the laundry. As long as it was safe and we were consenting adults (or a consenting 16 year old who plowed the field behind my mother’s house), then it wasn’t an issue.
But I spent most of the Sunday that followed that party wondering just how many Michaels were out there. My recollection of the ones that I remembered was already enough to make a porn star blush. I’d never even considered having forgotten any of them. I decided, seven years having past, to revisit the list. So I ran downstairs, grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a coffee, and braced myself for the world’s most perverse and dirty research project ever. I decided that I would use the definition of sex that I’d used at 19, just to make it more interesting.
Starting out was a breeze and somewhat encouraging. This wasn’t going to be so hard. I’m not that bad! I ran through numbers one through eight with eeze. I even remembered all of their names! And number eight was in my 20th year, which was also encouraging. But by the time I got around to age 22 the list had started to read like the actors’ credits in a film.
- Guy at park
- Guy with red Toyota
- Guy with dog
- Guy from Boston (oh wait, there’s gonna eventually be at least four more from Boston, so I’ll just make this one Guy from Boston 1)
- Guy from Australia 1
- Guy in New Orleans
- Guy in New Orlean’s friend
- Guy in New Orlean’s father
The number seemed to double between ages 22 and 24, which I found odd considering that I had a boyfriend at the time. They peaked dramatically at 27, when I moved to Chicago. Upon completion, I decided that I’d use a margin of error like they do in newspaper polls to factor in any Michaels I may have forgotten.
And with that, it was all laid out before me. I couldn’t ignore it and pretend that it never existed. There they were. Every penis, every dirty towel, every mom or boyfriend that walked in, every back seat, every dog that seemed to like watching, every time I was too drunk to finish, every time I really didn’t want to but I was just being nice because he paid for dinner, every fake phone number, every photo of Grandma on the nightstand, every pick-up line, every song that might’ve been playing in the background.
There was some that stuck out though, the ones that might’ve been or could’ve turned into love. And there were a few of them. Ones who moved or met someone else or who I was mean to or who simply stopped calling. The entire list could’ve stretched from my tiny apartment on the north side of Chicago all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico (and, believe you me, it was close), and those few, the ones that I allowed myself to pause and think fondly of, were the only ones on there that really even mattered. How could I group "Guy who lived next door to Uncle Scotty" with the last person I ever said "I love you" to?
I couldn’t. And that’s when it made sense. The flip side of casual sex (besides STDs, pregnancies, stained clothing, etc…) is that if you are in love, then sex is no longer something special because you’ve already had it six times this week (and it’s only Tuesday). This, I realized, is why some people see sex as something more than a simple bodily function. It turns out that it’s not just like blowing your nose after all. Sex, I learned from my little experiment, has very little relation to brushing one’s teeth or burping.
I decided that the list, although useful, was better in memory alone. I didn’t need all those ghosts looking up at me from a piece of paper (OK, it was a stack of paper). So I ceremoniously burned it.
I felt enlightened and moral for about an hour. Then I decided to go drink beer and try to pick up guys.
Recently I was celebrating a friend’s birthday at a Mexican restaurant when the birthday boy’s new boyfriend, whom I thought that I’d never met, showed up. Sitting two people down from me, he said, "I think I know you. You slept with a friend of mine."
"Really?" I said. "Could you pass the salsa?"
"His name is Michael," the new boyfriend continued, although unencouraged.
"You’ll need to be more specific," I said between gulps of my margarita.
"It was about a year ago. We all met out and he went home with you."
"That really narrows it down," I thought, then asked, "Where were we?"
He told me the name of the bar, a bar I’m known to frequent with a fairly steady success rate for meeting people. He continued on, describing the way the fellow looked, what he did for a living, how old he was, etc… All I could really determine from the conversation was the guy sounded somewhat hot and interesting and I briefly entertained the thought of being set up on a "blind" date. But given the unique situation I refrained from asking the guy’s current marital status.
"Look," I finally said, the topic exhausted, "We could do this all night. But truth be told your buddy was not the only guy I’ve met out at a bar, took home, then completely forgot existed. I may own more shoes than Ivana Trump, but, the bottom line is, I’m a dude."
My level of disinterest frightened me the next day (at the time my brain was absorbed in tequila and nothing whatsoever really seemed to matter). Have years and years of one-night stands beaten me down to a level where sex no longer matters? How did this happen? And when did this happen?
I remember sitting in a Geology class my sophomore year of college and instead of listening to the teacher drone on and on about how fascinating rocks are, I decided to make a list of the men I’d been with up to that point. Much debate surrounds defining what actually "being with" consists of, but at that time in my life I subscribed to the school of of thought that if by any means someone has an orgasm around someone else, it counted as sex. Since then, for the sake of avoiding astronomical figures and staggering calculations, I have modified my thinking. I don’t even count oral anymore.
But even at that time, at the ripe age of 19, I’d made an impressive dent in my own purity and the number startled me. I vowed to be more chaste.
At 21, I revisited the list and amended my definition of sex. At 22, I modified what sex was yet again in order to avoid the list becoming a weekend project. At 23, I threw the list away. I chose to pretend that the list, as most of the boys whose names appeared on it, never existed.
So I pushed all those names on those sheets of paper right out of my life. What was the point anyway? The list served no other purpose but to validate someone else’s definitions of right and wrong. I think I was born without the guilt gene anyway, so I often leave it up to others to tell me when I should or shouldn’t "feel" guilty. With the list literally and figuratively in the trash, I stopped counting. It must’ve been then that sex became some standard function, a "no big whoop" type of event, like playing cards or doing the laundry. As long as it was safe and we were consenting adults (or a consenting 16 year old who plowed the field behind my mother’s house), then it wasn’t an issue.
But I spent most of the Sunday that followed that party wondering just how many Michaels were out there. My recollection of the ones that I remembered was already enough to make a porn star blush. I’d never even considered having forgotten any of them. I decided, seven years having past, to revisit the list. So I ran downstairs, grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a coffee, and braced myself for the world’s most perverse and dirty research project ever. I decided that I would use the definition of sex that I’d used at 19, just to make it more interesting.
Starting out was a breeze and somewhat encouraging. This wasn’t going to be so hard. I’m not that bad! I ran through numbers one through eight with eeze. I even remembered all of their names! And number eight was in my 20th year, which was also encouraging. But by the time I got around to age 22 the list had started to read like the actors’ credits in a film.
- Guy at park
- Guy with red Toyota
- Guy with dog
- Guy from Boston (oh wait, there’s gonna eventually be at least four more from Boston, so I’ll just make this one Guy from Boston 1)
- Guy from Australia 1
- Guy in New Orleans
- Guy in New Orlean’s friend
- Guy in New Orlean’s father
The number seemed to double between ages 22 and 24, which I found odd considering that I had a boyfriend at the time. They peaked dramatically at 27, when I moved to Chicago. Upon completion, I decided that I’d use a margin of error like they do in newspaper polls to factor in any Michaels I may have forgotten.
And with that, it was all laid out before me. I couldn’t ignore it and pretend that it never existed. There they were. Every penis, every dirty towel, every mom or boyfriend that walked in, every back seat, every dog that seemed to like watching, every time I was too drunk to finish, every time I really didn’t want to but I was just being nice because he paid for dinner, every fake phone number, every photo of Grandma on the nightstand, every pick-up line, every song that might’ve been playing in the background.
There was some that stuck out though, the ones that might’ve been or could’ve turned into love. And there were a few of them. Ones who moved or met someone else or who I was mean to or who simply stopped calling. The entire list could’ve stretched from my tiny apartment on the north side of Chicago all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico (and, believe you me, it was close), and those few, the ones that I allowed myself to pause and think fondly of, were the only ones on there that really even mattered. How could I group "Guy who lived next door to Uncle Scotty" with the last person I ever said "I love you" to?
I couldn’t. And that’s when it made sense. The flip side of casual sex (besides STDs, pregnancies, stained clothing, etc…) is that if you are in love, then sex is no longer something special because you’ve already had it six times this week (and it’s only Tuesday). This, I realized, is why some people see sex as something more than a simple bodily function. It turns out that it’s not just like blowing your nose after all. Sex, I learned from my little experiment, has very little relation to brushing one’s teeth or burping.
I decided that the list, although useful, was better in memory alone. I didn’t need all those ghosts looking up at me from a piece of paper (OK, it was a stack of paper). So I ceremoniously burned it.
I felt enlightened and moral for about an hour. Then I decided to go drink beer and try to pick up guys.
Little table: The next generation.
(Originally published 3/13/2006)
I was tall for my age. I remember being able to see over everyone’s heads in middle school and I have towered over my mother since the fifth grade. But despite my height and my evident maturity (I was already weary of the Reagan Administration and "St. Elsewhere" was my favorite show), I was still forced to sit at the Kiddie Table during family dinners. I waited years to sit with the adults and pass the cranberry sauce to crazy Great Aunt Margaret. One by one, my older cousins (all of whom I was taller and smarter than) who preceded me to the adult table were slowly bumped out, some due to pregnancy and marriage (usually in that order), prison, or God-willing college.
Surprisingly enough, all those years of eyeballing my older sister’s and cousins’ spots at the table proved futile. What ended up getting me an empty spot was one of my family’s trademarked traditions, the redneck divorce. Aunt Vicky called it quits with Uncle Jerry when he burned her boyfriend’s trailer to the ground. A woman can only take so much.
By the time I got up there the adult table was about as fabulous as Barbara Bush couture. By then my female relatives’ ovaries had taken the call to populate Mississippi. Babies ran amok. No one could sit still long enough to see me passing the cranberry sauce to anyone, much less to Great Aunt Margaret, who’d been dead for years. There suddenly was endless butt-wiping to be done, cooing, picture-taking, and the removal of cat crap from the baby’s mouth. I had waited my whole life for nothing. I felt cheated, having spent years giving my sister and my older cousins a hearty laugh each and every time they’d look over and see all six feet of me sitting at a tiny plastic table with my knees in my armpits.
I never recovered from that, that odd display of myself in a role reserved for the second class. In high school once I volunteered to stand outside of a Wal-Mart and collect money for the Salvation Army. It occurred to me the second I was left alone there with my little red bucket that perhaps some of the customers would mistake me as being the needy recipient of their pocket change. I felt with each clanging of that bell that I was demanding that they look at me, "see what your capitalist society has done to me!" The way their eyes fell on me as they tossed pennies and chewed gum at me was the very stare I’d endured at that cursed Kiddie Table.
Whenever I find myself in a not-so-flattering situation I am instantly taken to that place in time where I sat in the shadow of my sister and older cousins, in a shamed and awkward silence eating my grandmother’s fried chicken.
And here I am, being drug by my ears towards thirty, and low and behold the Kiddie Table has presented itself to me in a sneaky new form: The Singles’ Table.
The Singles’ Table is the denouement in the series of events that make up a couples’ oppression of their fabulous, fashionable, in-shape single friends. The oppression starts with the invitation to whatever event in which you’ll find yourself parked between someone’s crazy neighbor who sobs uncontrollably and the creepy guy with no eyebrows who works with one of your hosts. It could be a wedding, a birthday party, a bar mitzvah, a housewarming, whatever. At some point in my life, and I’m not sure exactly when (perhaps I was out shopping or sleeping off a hangover), I stopped receiving invitations that said, "Tony Thompson and Guest." My couple friends suddenly became aware of a fact to which I’d been blind, that I’d never meet anyone. Thanks for letting me in on this! I’ve spent thousands of dollars on moisturizer and expensive shoes for nothing!
I learned years ago not to call my host and ask, "Well, would it be OK if I brought someone?" A pause for silence arises as my host works through their embarrassment for me, similar to the moment between the time my dad will ask me about his comb-over and the time that I tell him, "Great!" "Of course you can!" they finally blurt out, and I’m picturing them on the other end of the line with their faces twisted up in nervous discomfort.
A baby step towards the Singles’ Table is the dinner party. This is a chance for your couple friends to test your reserve and will, to see if you both deserve and/or could handle the Singles’ Table. At another point in my life in which I wasn’t paying attention (I might’ve been watching "That’s So Raven" or studying the ads in an "InStyle" magazine) my friends stopped trying to set me up at dinner parties. When I was younger, a dinner party was a chance for my couple friends to humiliate me by trying to set me up with the most revolting and backwards homosexual they could dig out of the dirt. I remember the first dinner party where I showed up for, well, just dinner. I kept looking under the table and over my shoulder all night for the set up. "OK, seriously, where is he? Did you hide him out back? Look, I’m about to make my ninth Vodka Tonic and the Valium’s about to kick in. If you want me to meet him and remember that I was even here in the first place you’d better drag him out now."
After successful humiliation at both types of dinner parties, the type where you meet someone horrible and the type where you don’t meet anyone at all, wherer you just sit there listening to people talk about daycare and tax preparations while in the back of your mind you wonder who’s gonna be on Letterman, then your hosts will deem you ready for the Singles’ Table. Basically, the Singles’ Table is the couple’s way of saying to you, "I trust that you can be miserable and feel awkward all on your own, without our supervision. Go forth, single freak, and be with your people."
If you’re lucky, as I was recently at a fabulous birthday party for a friend of mine, the Singles’ Table is actually the place to be. At this particular event we Singles made up about a quarter of the population. After exiting the buffet line and stopping by the bar to top of my wine, I glanced around the room at all the couples. There were couples of all kinds. Older couples, newlyweds, couples that recently had their first child, and even a few gay couples. And then there was the Singles’ Table. Except it wasn’t a doomed wasteland of a Singles’ Table as I’ve experienced before. There was no strange woman there eager to show me pictures of her cats or a man holding a cactus who looks like he came in off the street uninvited, only my partners in status, people strong enough to face this big scary world on their own, we of the "I’d rather pay my credit card bills alone than stumble across someone else’s turd in the toilet" type mentality. So we drank too much, talked about one-night stands and celebrities that we wanna bang. Instead of sitting there on display, a "This could’ve been you" example for all the couples to gawk at, we had the time of our lives. And I like to think that maybe some of the couples were jealous of us, for once. Because for the first time since I was a kid, I didn’t mind being at the Little Table. In fact, that was the only place I wanted to be.
I was tall for my age. I remember being able to see over everyone’s heads in middle school and I have towered over my mother since the fifth grade. But despite my height and my evident maturity (I was already weary of the Reagan Administration and "St. Elsewhere" was my favorite show), I was still forced to sit at the Kiddie Table during family dinners. I waited years to sit with the adults and pass the cranberry sauce to crazy Great Aunt Margaret. One by one, my older cousins (all of whom I was taller and smarter than) who preceded me to the adult table were slowly bumped out, some due to pregnancy and marriage (usually in that order), prison, or God-willing college.
Surprisingly enough, all those years of eyeballing my older sister’s and cousins’ spots at the table proved futile. What ended up getting me an empty spot was one of my family’s trademarked traditions, the redneck divorce. Aunt Vicky called it quits with Uncle Jerry when he burned her boyfriend’s trailer to the ground. A woman can only take so much.
By the time I got up there the adult table was about as fabulous as Barbara Bush couture. By then my female relatives’ ovaries had taken the call to populate Mississippi. Babies ran amok. No one could sit still long enough to see me passing the cranberry sauce to anyone, much less to Great Aunt Margaret, who’d been dead for years. There suddenly was endless butt-wiping to be done, cooing, picture-taking, and the removal of cat crap from the baby’s mouth. I had waited my whole life for nothing. I felt cheated, having spent years giving my sister and my older cousins a hearty laugh each and every time they’d look over and see all six feet of me sitting at a tiny plastic table with my knees in my armpits.
I never recovered from that, that odd display of myself in a role reserved for the second class. In high school once I volunteered to stand outside of a Wal-Mart and collect money for the Salvation Army. It occurred to me the second I was left alone there with my little red bucket that perhaps some of the customers would mistake me as being the needy recipient of their pocket change. I felt with each clanging of that bell that I was demanding that they look at me, "see what your capitalist society has done to me!" The way their eyes fell on me as they tossed pennies and chewed gum at me was the very stare I’d endured at that cursed Kiddie Table.
Whenever I find myself in a not-so-flattering situation I am instantly taken to that place in time where I sat in the shadow of my sister and older cousins, in a shamed and awkward silence eating my grandmother’s fried chicken.
And here I am, being drug by my ears towards thirty, and low and behold the Kiddie Table has presented itself to me in a sneaky new form: The Singles’ Table.
The Singles’ Table is the denouement in the series of events that make up a couples’ oppression of their fabulous, fashionable, in-shape single friends. The oppression starts with the invitation to whatever event in which you’ll find yourself parked between someone’s crazy neighbor who sobs uncontrollably and the creepy guy with no eyebrows who works with one of your hosts. It could be a wedding, a birthday party, a bar mitzvah, a housewarming, whatever. At some point in my life, and I’m not sure exactly when (perhaps I was out shopping or sleeping off a hangover), I stopped receiving invitations that said, "Tony Thompson and Guest." My couple friends suddenly became aware of a fact to which I’d been blind, that I’d never meet anyone. Thanks for letting me in on this! I’ve spent thousands of dollars on moisturizer and expensive shoes for nothing!
I learned years ago not to call my host and ask, "Well, would it be OK if I brought someone?" A pause for silence arises as my host works through their embarrassment for me, similar to the moment between the time my dad will ask me about his comb-over and the time that I tell him, "Great!" "Of course you can!" they finally blurt out, and I’m picturing them on the other end of the line with their faces twisted up in nervous discomfort.
A baby step towards the Singles’ Table is the dinner party. This is a chance for your couple friends to test your reserve and will, to see if you both deserve and/or could handle the Singles’ Table. At another point in my life in which I wasn’t paying attention (I might’ve been watching "That’s So Raven" or studying the ads in an "InStyle" magazine) my friends stopped trying to set me up at dinner parties. When I was younger, a dinner party was a chance for my couple friends to humiliate me by trying to set me up with the most revolting and backwards homosexual they could dig out of the dirt. I remember the first dinner party where I showed up for, well, just dinner. I kept looking under the table and over my shoulder all night for the set up. "OK, seriously, where is he? Did you hide him out back? Look, I’m about to make my ninth Vodka Tonic and the Valium’s about to kick in. If you want me to meet him and remember that I was even here in the first place you’d better drag him out now."
After successful humiliation at both types of dinner parties, the type where you meet someone horrible and the type where you don’t meet anyone at all, wherer you just sit there listening to people talk about daycare and tax preparations while in the back of your mind you wonder who’s gonna be on Letterman, then your hosts will deem you ready for the Singles’ Table. Basically, the Singles’ Table is the couple’s way of saying to you, "I trust that you can be miserable and feel awkward all on your own, without our supervision. Go forth, single freak, and be with your people."
If you’re lucky, as I was recently at a fabulous birthday party for a friend of mine, the Singles’ Table is actually the place to be. At this particular event we Singles made up about a quarter of the population. After exiting the buffet line and stopping by the bar to top of my wine, I glanced around the room at all the couples. There were couples of all kinds. Older couples, newlyweds, couples that recently had their first child, and even a few gay couples. And then there was the Singles’ Table. Except it wasn’t a doomed wasteland of a Singles’ Table as I’ve experienced before. There was no strange woman there eager to show me pictures of her cats or a man holding a cactus who looks like he came in off the street uninvited, only my partners in status, people strong enough to face this big scary world on their own, we of the "I’d rather pay my credit card bills alone than stumble across someone else’s turd in the toilet" type mentality. So we drank too much, talked about one-night stands and celebrities that we wanna bang. Instead of sitting there on display, a "This could’ve been you" example for all the couples to gawk at, we had the time of our lives. And I like to think that maybe some of the couples were jealous of us, for once. Because for the first time since I was a kid, I didn’t mind being at the Little Table. In fact, that was the only place I wanted to be.
Be nice, f*cker.
(Originally published 3/9/2006)
I am from the south. And although the south is eat up with belligerent hillbillies who can’t differentiate between Jesus and Dubya, I am grateful for the heritage. I was brought up to understand the fine line between unnecessary honesty and simple politeness, something sadly absent from most other societies in the world. Once, at a Halloween party in Yankee Chicago, I got into an argument with someone who dared to call me Two-faced. I couldn’t make him understand that just because I may smile and tell someone, "What a pleasure to see you!" then turn and say to the nearest listener what a filthy slut that particular someone is doesn’t make me Two-faced. It makes me polite. No good would have come from me saying to the previously mentioned slut, "If you double dip in the salsa we’re all gonna need penicillin." So, I just smile and beam with goodness, just like my parents brought me up to do.
Naturally, I gravitated towards professions where there is no room for honesty, where politeness is 90% of my workload. I waited tables for almost ten years and now I am in Human Resources. Honesty has no place in food service. Consider the following honest remarks flowing as freely as the daily specials:
"You really shouldn’t eat that. You’re huge. I’ll get you some ice cubes and a piece of lettuce. Then maybe your husband will wanna f*ck you again."
"How’s the fish? It is good? Are you sure? Well, I owe Larry five bucks. I told him that you’d gag on that piece of catfish that we found behind the Coke machine. I was gonna give it to my dog, but you know Larry! Always out to save a dollar!"
"Your Chicken Surprise will be out in just a minute, Sir. I’m having Jose the dishwasher sh*t in it because I don’t like the color of your sweater. Surprise!"
Or the following comments coming from the person who conducts your next job interview:
"It says here that you played Rugby in college and that you were the president of your fraternity. I’m not gonna lie to you, Buddy. I think that’s hot and I wanna see you naked."
"You smell like the south end of a northbound mule! Seriously, I don’t think a goat could even bare to sit here without its eyes watering! If that smell is from something you ate, Lord have mercy, you have gotta major lawsuit on your hands!"
"What we’re really looking for, Tammy, is someone to join our team who is in his early to mid-thirties, comfortably gay, attractive, but not so attractive that I have to worry whether or not he’s cheating on me all the time, masculine. Someone who thinks I’m hysterical and the smartest boy he’s ever met. Someone who’ll insist that I quit my job and take up shopping for shoes full time. Dimples are preferred but not mandatory. So basically, Tammy, that PhD must look fabulous on your wall but it’s not gonna get me a husband and therefore ain’t getting you this job."
Television has relentlessy endorsed the demise of being polite. Only the rude characters get the punchlines on most television shows. We would much rather watch someone call someone else a fat cow then punch them in the nose on "The Real World" than watch "The Thank You Note Writing Channel." I often see people on TV, on reality TV in particular, that boast of, "keeping it real!" Does this impress anyone to know that this particular individual would rather cross the street in an unjustified rage to verbally assault a stranger rather than smile and go about his or her own day?
I don’t like people who "keep it real." Their real-keeping usually ends up deflating people like me with fragile egos and soft exteriors. For example, a friend of mine’s mother said to me recently upon meeting me for the first time, "29? Are you kidding me? I would’ve guessed much older! Look at your hairline!" Hector’s Mom was keeping it real. B*tch.
However, sometimes being honest is the polite thing to do. Telling your friend that they have food in their teeth or that their boyfriend just gave you oral sex in the restroom, for example. Or steering someone clear of wearing something unflattering by suggesting that they try on something black, or with vertical stripes, or maybe a veil. I know that I’d rather have my friend Hector tell me to change my shirt before we go out than some stranger who keeps it real telling me how stupid I look later, someone like his mother. But I’m not bitter.
I think as societies swell in volume and shrink in distance from one another, politeness will become a causality of the entire world’s having meshed into one global community. And that behind the shield of "being honest," people will then even more freely spurt their hurtful truths to anyone who accidentally looks them square in the eye. Being polite is more than holding a door open for someone, or letting an old woman have the cab you both hailed down rather than shoving her out of the way (like you did to that old woman the day before). Politeness is a way of life. It’s a philosophy that stems from the Golden Rule. Be polite to me and I’ll be polite to you. Tell me that I look great despite my burn scars and I’ll tell you that your wife’s a lucky woman to have you (even though everybody knows that you’ve been impotent for twenty years).
I am from the south. And although the south is eat up with belligerent hillbillies who can’t differentiate between Jesus and Dubya, I am grateful for the heritage. I was brought up to understand the fine line between unnecessary honesty and simple politeness, something sadly absent from most other societies in the world. Once, at a Halloween party in Yankee Chicago, I got into an argument with someone who dared to call me Two-faced. I couldn’t make him understand that just because I may smile and tell someone, "What a pleasure to see you!" then turn and say to the nearest listener what a filthy slut that particular someone is doesn’t make me Two-faced. It makes me polite. No good would have come from me saying to the previously mentioned slut, "If you double dip in the salsa we’re all gonna need penicillin." So, I just smile and beam with goodness, just like my parents brought me up to do.
Naturally, I gravitated towards professions where there is no room for honesty, where politeness is 90% of my workload. I waited tables for almost ten years and now I am in Human Resources. Honesty has no place in food service. Consider the following honest remarks flowing as freely as the daily specials:
"You really shouldn’t eat that. You’re huge. I’ll get you some ice cubes and a piece of lettuce. Then maybe your husband will wanna f*ck you again."
"How’s the fish? It is good? Are you sure? Well, I owe Larry five bucks. I told him that you’d gag on that piece of catfish that we found behind the Coke machine. I was gonna give it to my dog, but you know Larry! Always out to save a dollar!"
"Your Chicken Surprise will be out in just a minute, Sir. I’m having Jose the dishwasher sh*t in it because I don’t like the color of your sweater. Surprise!"
Or the following comments coming from the person who conducts your next job interview:
"It says here that you played Rugby in college and that you were the president of your fraternity. I’m not gonna lie to you, Buddy. I think that’s hot and I wanna see you naked."
"You smell like the south end of a northbound mule! Seriously, I don’t think a goat could even bare to sit here without its eyes watering! If that smell is from something you ate, Lord have mercy, you have gotta major lawsuit on your hands!"
"What we’re really looking for, Tammy, is someone to join our team who is in his early to mid-thirties, comfortably gay, attractive, but not so attractive that I have to worry whether or not he’s cheating on me all the time, masculine. Someone who thinks I’m hysterical and the smartest boy he’s ever met. Someone who’ll insist that I quit my job and take up shopping for shoes full time. Dimples are preferred but not mandatory. So basically, Tammy, that PhD must look fabulous on your wall but it’s not gonna get me a husband and therefore ain’t getting you this job."
Television has relentlessy endorsed the demise of being polite. Only the rude characters get the punchlines on most television shows. We would much rather watch someone call someone else a fat cow then punch them in the nose on "The Real World" than watch "The Thank You Note Writing Channel." I often see people on TV, on reality TV in particular, that boast of, "keeping it real!" Does this impress anyone to know that this particular individual would rather cross the street in an unjustified rage to verbally assault a stranger rather than smile and go about his or her own day?
I don’t like people who "keep it real." Their real-keeping usually ends up deflating people like me with fragile egos and soft exteriors. For example, a friend of mine’s mother said to me recently upon meeting me for the first time, "29? Are you kidding me? I would’ve guessed much older! Look at your hairline!" Hector’s Mom was keeping it real. B*tch.
However, sometimes being honest is the polite thing to do. Telling your friend that they have food in their teeth or that their boyfriend just gave you oral sex in the restroom, for example. Or steering someone clear of wearing something unflattering by suggesting that they try on something black, or with vertical stripes, or maybe a veil. I know that I’d rather have my friend Hector tell me to change my shirt before we go out than some stranger who keeps it real telling me how stupid I look later, someone like his mother. But I’m not bitter.
I think as societies swell in volume and shrink in distance from one another, politeness will become a causality of the entire world’s having meshed into one global community. And that behind the shield of "being honest," people will then even more freely spurt their hurtful truths to anyone who accidentally looks them square in the eye. Being polite is more than holding a door open for someone, or letting an old woman have the cab you both hailed down rather than shoving her out of the way (like you did to that old woman the day before). Politeness is a way of life. It’s a philosophy that stems from the Golden Rule. Be polite to me and I’ll be polite to you. Tell me that I look great despite my burn scars and I’ll tell you that your wife’s a lucky woman to have you (even though everybody knows that you’ve been impotent for twenty years).
He texts me. He texts me not.
(Originally published 2/23/2006)
I recently became acquainted with someone whose main form of communication is the text message. Everyone knows the formalities behind writing a letter, talking on the phone, and even sending an email. H*ll, I even know the manors involved in sending a fax. But what sort of etiquette, if any, applies to text messaging? I couldn’t think of any. As far as being a form of communication, it is the most vague and potentially complicated method to reach out and touch someone, or text someone, as it would be.
Those fond of texting must first feel one another out. Unclear as to if their new acquaintance prefers to type into their cell phone rather than speaking into it, they must send the initial primary contact text, the "What’s up?" If one responds with a "Nothing. U?" then the texting relationship is immediately set in place. However, this is an unfair to the recipient, whereas it will pop up on their phone not identifying the caller, or texter as is the case. It simply has a phone number, which these days, thanks to caller ID, means nothing to anyone. One of my best friends Rebecca’s phone number could be 123-456-7890 for all I know. I just see Rebecca on the caller ID and take the call. So the recipient is somewhat trapped, unclear as to respond or not. What if it’s that really nice guy you met the other night? What if it’s that weird girl from work? What if it’s the free clinic with your Syphilis results? For the sake of my having something to continue rambling about, let’s just say the recipient texts back. And the cycle begins. I have reason to believe that this person I recently became friends with is completely comfortable with maintaining a relationship through this particular service offered by his cell phone provider. I think we’ve spoken on the phone maybe twice in a month.
Before I begin assaulting the act of text messaging, I will allow for some text messaging promotion. You can text your friends while in a class or at a boring seminar. "I wish I was dead." You can text your friends while on a bad date when your date slips off to the bathroom. "I wish I was dead." You can text your friends while waiting in line at the post office. "I wish I was dead." It’s a nice way to communicate without being that annoying *sshole screaming into their cell phone in the middle of Walgreen’s. It’s also an efficient way to keep track of your friends in a crowded bar. "I’ll be there in 10 minutes." "Where are you?" "I’m in line for the bathroom." Or, the ever popular, "I’ve already left and am about to have crazy monkey sex with a stranger." For each of its useful walky talky-like qualities (which I do enjoy), there are a dozen or so negative things about texting, one of which obviously is the physical stress it puts on one’s eyes and thumbs.
But because there are no set measures in regards to what types of behaviors are appropriate when texting, there is no way of telling if someone is being rude to you or not, which leads the door wide open for many emotional quandaries.
For example, perhaps you leave someone a voice message asking them if they’d like to go play darts, grab dinner, go to the bowling alley and steal shoes, etc… Five minutes later, your phone does not ring, yet it alerts you that you’ve received a text message. "Can’t tonight. Have plans. Thanks though." This may mean that the person you were trying to reach was incapacitated at the time of your call and only had time for a quick text message response. Perhaps he or she was cleaning the toilet or downloading pornography then suddenly rushed out the door because a grease fire broke out in their kitchen or office. It’s hard to imagine a circumstance that could prevent someone from neither taking your call nor calling you back, yet they somehow had time to check their voice mail, hear your invitation, then text you their regards.
Another beef I have with text messaging is the assumption that it’s a mini-email or some other means to express yourself through written electronic word. It is not. The display window on a cell phone was not designed for the purposes of reading "War and Peace." It is merely to alert you of who is on the other end of the line, not for you to settle down with a nice cup of tea and to read by a warm fire. My new friend recently confided in me some personal information, all through the text message inbox on my cell phone. Because his message was so long it was chopped up by US Cellular into about 10 separate text messages. A snipet:
"u r a really nice guy but i dont t"
"hink im ok to dati someone else reght n"
"ow. ij my ex callid me tokay id take he"
"m back. 48 96853 662 2e fair ."
I especially enjoyed the numerical scripting, having to correlate the numbers on my phone with their letters, then trying to figure out which letter the number represented. It felt like that scene in "Goonies" when they’re trying to solve that riddle in order to figure out what keys to play on the organ.
Another one of the many issues that can arise with text messaging is the enormous room for error. You could send someone a text message right now and it may not reach the recipient until after Hillary’s third State of the Union address. And this is a huge plus in the eyes of the shady texter, because they can say when they respond to your text message five days late that they got it "just now." An example: "Please come and help. car broke down. they took the baby." The response: "Just now getting this. Your funeral was lovely." This happens a lot to me with my friends who chronically text. I’ll text them an invitation that merits no response until whatever event I’d invited them to is long over. Either my friends are consistently blowing me off or they need new cellular providers.
There are no rules to text messaging, no etiquette, no standards of consideration and respect. Being from the South where my mother would murder me without regret if she’d ever heard me address my grandfather with anything but "Sir," this irritates the f*ck out of me. There is no history in it that you can refer back to and say, "That was tacky, rude, or tasteless." In addition, the technology is so blurred and unreliable, it is a virtual message in a bottle. Did they receive my text? Have they responded to my text and I never got it? Are they only texting me while the other guy they’re dating got up to let the dog out? Too many doubts, too much confusion.
That, and it’s murder on your thumbs. F*ck it.
I recently became acquainted with someone whose main form of communication is the text message. Everyone knows the formalities behind writing a letter, talking on the phone, and even sending an email. H*ll, I even know the manors involved in sending a fax. But what sort of etiquette, if any, applies to text messaging? I couldn’t think of any. As far as being a form of communication, it is the most vague and potentially complicated method to reach out and touch someone, or text someone, as it would be.
Those fond of texting must first feel one another out. Unclear as to if their new acquaintance prefers to type into their cell phone rather than speaking into it, they must send the initial primary contact text, the "What’s up?" If one responds with a "Nothing. U?" then the texting relationship is immediately set in place. However, this is an unfair to the recipient, whereas it will pop up on their phone not identifying the caller, or texter as is the case. It simply has a phone number, which these days, thanks to caller ID, means nothing to anyone. One of my best friends Rebecca’s phone number could be 123-456-7890 for all I know. I just see Rebecca on the caller ID and take the call. So the recipient is somewhat trapped, unclear as to respond or not. What if it’s that really nice guy you met the other night? What if it’s that weird girl from work? What if it’s the free clinic with your Syphilis results? For the sake of my having something to continue rambling about, let’s just say the recipient texts back. And the cycle begins. I have reason to believe that this person I recently became friends with is completely comfortable with maintaining a relationship through this particular service offered by his cell phone provider. I think we’ve spoken on the phone maybe twice in a month.
Before I begin assaulting the act of text messaging, I will allow for some text messaging promotion. You can text your friends while in a class or at a boring seminar. "I wish I was dead." You can text your friends while on a bad date when your date slips off to the bathroom. "I wish I was dead." You can text your friends while waiting in line at the post office. "I wish I was dead." It’s a nice way to communicate without being that annoying *sshole screaming into their cell phone in the middle of Walgreen’s. It’s also an efficient way to keep track of your friends in a crowded bar. "I’ll be there in 10 minutes." "Where are you?" "I’m in line for the bathroom." Or, the ever popular, "I’ve already left and am about to have crazy monkey sex with a stranger." For each of its useful walky talky-like qualities (which I do enjoy), there are a dozen or so negative things about texting, one of which obviously is the physical stress it puts on one’s eyes and thumbs.
But because there are no set measures in regards to what types of behaviors are appropriate when texting, there is no way of telling if someone is being rude to you or not, which leads the door wide open for many emotional quandaries.
For example, perhaps you leave someone a voice message asking them if they’d like to go play darts, grab dinner, go to the bowling alley and steal shoes, etc… Five minutes later, your phone does not ring, yet it alerts you that you’ve received a text message. "Can’t tonight. Have plans. Thanks though." This may mean that the person you were trying to reach was incapacitated at the time of your call and only had time for a quick text message response. Perhaps he or she was cleaning the toilet or downloading pornography then suddenly rushed out the door because a grease fire broke out in their kitchen or office. It’s hard to imagine a circumstance that could prevent someone from neither taking your call nor calling you back, yet they somehow had time to check their voice mail, hear your invitation, then text you their regards.
Another beef I have with text messaging is the assumption that it’s a mini-email or some other means to express yourself through written electronic word. It is not. The display window on a cell phone was not designed for the purposes of reading "War and Peace." It is merely to alert you of who is on the other end of the line, not for you to settle down with a nice cup of tea and to read by a warm fire. My new friend recently confided in me some personal information, all through the text message inbox on my cell phone. Because his message was so long it was chopped up by US Cellular into about 10 separate text messages. A snipet:
"u r a really nice guy but i dont t"
"hink im ok to dati someone else reght n"
"ow. ij my ex callid me tokay id take he"
"m back. 48 96853 662 2e fair ."
I especially enjoyed the numerical scripting, having to correlate the numbers on my phone with their letters, then trying to figure out which letter the number represented. It felt like that scene in "Goonies" when they’re trying to solve that riddle in order to figure out what keys to play on the organ.
Another one of the many issues that can arise with text messaging is the enormous room for error. You could send someone a text message right now and it may not reach the recipient until after Hillary’s third State of the Union address. And this is a huge plus in the eyes of the shady texter, because they can say when they respond to your text message five days late that they got it "just now." An example: "Please come and help. car broke down. they took the baby." The response: "Just now getting this. Your funeral was lovely." This happens a lot to me with my friends who chronically text. I’ll text them an invitation that merits no response until whatever event I’d invited them to is long over. Either my friends are consistently blowing me off or they need new cellular providers.
There are no rules to text messaging, no etiquette, no standards of consideration and respect. Being from the South where my mother would murder me without regret if she’d ever heard me address my grandfather with anything but "Sir," this irritates the f*ck out of me. There is no history in it that you can refer back to and say, "That was tacky, rude, or tasteless." In addition, the technology is so blurred and unreliable, it is a virtual message in a bottle. Did they receive my text? Have they responded to my text and I never got it? Are they only texting me while the other guy they’re dating got up to let the dog out? Too many doubts, too much confusion.
That, and it’s murder on your thumbs. F*ck it.
A crutch and a $10 co-pay.
(Originally published 2/19/2006)
I’ve been through many things in my life. My best friend blew his head off when I was fifteen. I had heart surgery when I was sixteen. I had to drop out of college when I was twenty in the midst of my parents’ bitter divorce. I was crushed when I parted ways with the only man I feel like I ever loved. I walked away carrying my heart in my hands. He walked away carrying nothing but a scotch. To date, I have lived through four Republican administrations and only two Democratic ones. I’ve been so poor that I had to sell all of my CDs in order to eat and I still wake up every day and wonder why they cancelled "My So-Called Life."
I look back on a turbulent first 30 years and I do not cry with regret and sorrow. I pat myself on the back. Many other people have made complete messes of their lives and blamed far less severe circumstances (child stars from the 80’s for example). I am not addicted to drugs or sleeping in the street. I am not in jail or living in a trailer in Missouri arguing with my roommate over whose turn it is to cook the crystal meth. I think, under the circumstances, that I have done quite alright with my life. But many within my circle dare to argue that I’m not leading a survivor’s life, that I have a distinct and disruptive crutch to help me cope with the pains of my past. What makes them think this? A little blessing, a miracle, a good friend of mine, a pill called Xanax.
When in crowded places like bars or on the subway or at Nordstrom Rack during a shoe sale I feel edgy, restricted, confined, and smothered. This happens to me often in Chicago. Places here can be so packed with people that your only shot at moving is to sprout wings and fly above the herd of people who have you pinned in the corner or up against the wall. These feelings first overwhelmed me about a month after I relocated here. I was on a crowded Brown Line train when suddenly I felt as if my heart had stopped beating. I couldn’t move not only from fear but from there being nowhere to move to. There were too many f*cking people in my way.
Obviously, I didn’t die and was not having a heart attack. I was symptomatic of what doctors have assured me to be an actual disorder: anxiety disorder.
Xanax is the pill that my licensed physician has prescribed for me. It is filled lawfuly in a state-accredited pharmacy by a trained and qualified pharmacist. It is used to treat anxiety disorder and is to be taken upon the initial onset of a panic attack to calm my nerves. It is arguably one of the best things that mankind has ever invented, second only to the internet or possibly over-the-counter teeth whitener. I take it as prescribed, "as needed."
So you can imagine my frustration when I’m having cocktails with friends on a Saturday night and the crowd gets so overgrown that I feel as if I might need "my medicine," only to have my friends cluck their tongues in disapproval and cast judging glances my way, as if I’m a pregnant Courtney Love doing heroine. The label clearly warns against the consumption of alcohol and taking Xanax. However, I never need one unless I’m in a crowded room. Bars, as most people know, tend to be crowded. So, as I often do when given directions that just don’t seem to suit me, I persevere and make up my own rules.
"What the h*ll are you doing?" my friend JC recently asked me, having seen me discreetly pull a Xanax from my pocket, place it beautifully on my tongue, and wash it down with a sip from my Vodka Tonic.
"It helps take the edge off," I said in defense, so used to this line of hardened and judgemental questioning from unforgiving friends, friends who refuse to acknowledge my medically diagnosed disorder.
"You’ve drank nearly a bottle of vodka!" he screamed. "Honestly, is there any edge left?"
Victimized, feeling as if no one will ever understand the pain I must endure as a forgotten, cast-aside victim of panic disorder, I look away from him in shame. But, being the survivor that I am, I endure. I move on.
Another friend of mine’s mother is also on Xanax. Notoriously off her rocker (seriously, the woman boasts that she’s "got papers" to prove her nuttiness), she gets her prescription refilled every month despite not needing the pill everyday of the month. She keeps them in a lockbox in her home, like a squirrel hoarding nuts in a tree. Although I am not a saver by nature (see checking account), I took to this concept and now do the same. I do not need the pill everyday, but since it only costs ten dollars a month and I do have a prescription for it, I might as well get it filled and stockpile them for a rainy day. What sort of horrid rainy day would call for a hundred or so Xanax I cannot even imagine. Possibly a nuclear attack or Jeb Bush winning the White House in 2008.
Another issue I have with people who judge me for my relationship with my beloved little pill is that every time I have the slightest lapse in good judgement, a battlcry goes out: Were you on Xanax? If I lose a coat check ticket or get lost in Target, the assumption is always that I was "hopped up" on my little pink friend. I would like to blame most of my stupidity on something beyond my genetic make-up, but I can’t. I’m just dumb sometimes. Well, most times.
If I were a diabetic and injected my insuline in front of others, no one would utter a sigh of disapproval. So leave me the f*ck alone. It’s a disorder, for God’s sake. Seriously, it’s in medical books. Go ahead. Look it up. Jerks.
I’ve been through many things in my life. My best friend blew his head off when I was fifteen. I had heart surgery when I was sixteen. I had to drop out of college when I was twenty in the midst of my parents’ bitter divorce. I was crushed when I parted ways with the only man I feel like I ever loved. I walked away carrying my heart in my hands. He walked away carrying nothing but a scotch. To date, I have lived through four Republican administrations and only two Democratic ones. I’ve been so poor that I had to sell all of my CDs in order to eat and I still wake up every day and wonder why they cancelled "My So-Called Life."
I look back on a turbulent first 30 years and I do not cry with regret and sorrow. I pat myself on the back. Many other people have made complete messes of their lives and blamed far less severe circumstances (child stars from the 80’s for example). I am not addicted to drugs or sleeping in the street. I am not in jail or living in a trailer in Missouri arguing with my roommate over whose turn it is to cook the crystal meth. I think, under the circumstances, that I have done quite alright with my life. But many within my circle dare to argue that I’m not leading a survivor’s life, that I have a distinct and disruptive crutch to help me cope with the pains of my past. What makes them think this? A little blessing, a miracle, a good friend of mine, a pill called Xanax.
When in crowded places like bars or on the subway or at Nordstrom Rack during a shoe sale I feel edgy, restricted, confined, and smothered. This happens to me often in Chicago. Places here can be so packed with people that your only shot at moving is to sprout wings and fly above the herd of people who have you pinned in the corner or up against the wall. These feelings first overwhelmed me about a month after I relocated here. I was on a crowded Brown Line train when suddenly I felt as if my heart had stopped beating. I couldn’t move not only from fear but from there being nowhere to move to. There were too many f*cking people in my way.
Obviously, I didn’t die and was not having a heart attack. I was symptomatic of what doctors have assured me to be an actual disorder: anxiety disorder.
Xanax is the pill that my licensed physician has prescribed for me. It is filled lawfuly in a state-accredited pharmacy by a trained and qualified pharmacist. It is used to treat anxiety disorder and is to be taken upon the initial onset of a panic attack to calm my nerves. It is arguably one of the best things that mankind has ever invented, second only to the internet or possibly over-the-counter teeth whitener. I take it as prescribed, "as needed."
So you can imagine my frustration when I’m having cocktails with friends on a Saturday night and the crowd gets so overgrown that I feel as if I might need "my medicine," only to have my friends cluck their tongues in disapproval and cast judging glances my way, as if I’m a pregnant Courtney Love doing heroine. The label clearly warns against the consumption of alcohol and taking Xanax. However, I never need one unless I’m in a crowded room. Bars, as most people know, tend to be crowded. So, as I often do when given directions that just don’t seem to suit me, I persevere and make up my own rules.
"What the h*ll are you doing?" my friend JC recently asked me, having seen me discreetly pull a Xanax from my pocket, place it beautifully on my tongue, and wash it down with a sip from my Vodka Tonic.
"It helps take the edge off," I said in defense, so used to this line of hardened and judgemental questioning from unforgiving friends, friends who refuse to acknowledge my medically diagnosed disorder.
"You’ve drank nearly a bottle of vodka!" he screamed. "Honestly, is there any edge left?"
Victimized, feeling as if no one will ever understand the pain I must endure as a forgotten, cast-aside victim of panic disorder, I look away from him in shame. But, being the survivor that I am, I endure. I move on.
Another friend of mine’s mother is also on Xanax. Notoriously off her rocker (seriously, the woman boasts that she’s "got papers" to prove her nuttiness), she gets her prescription refilled every month despite not needing the pill everyday of the month. She keeps them in a lockbox in her home, like a squirrel hoarding nuts in a tree. Although I am not a saver by nature (see checking account), I took to this concept and now do the same. I do not need the pill everyday, but since it only costs ten dollars a month and I do have a prescription for it, I might as well get it filled and stockpile them for a rainy day. What sort of horrid rainy day would call for a hundred or so Xanax I cannot even imagine. Possibly a nuclear attack or Jeb Bush winning the White House in 2008.
Another issue I have with people who judge me for my relationship with my beloved little pill is that every time I have the slightest lapse in good judgement, a battlcry goes out: Were you on Xanax? If I lose a coat check ticket or get lost in Target, the assumption is always that I was "hopped up" on my little pink friend. I would like to blame most of my stupidity on something beyond my genetic make-up, but I can’t. I’m just dumb sometimes. Well, most times.
If I were a diabetic and injected my insuline in front of others, no one would utter a sigh of disapproval. So leave me the f*ck alone. It’s a disorder, for God’s sake. Seriously, it’s in medical books. Go ahead. Look it up. Jerks.
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