Supplies!

My mom, Lynna, and I are going to watch March of the Penguins--if, that is, I can extract them from the bathroom. They're upstairs doing some sort of foot makeover. I'm not totally sure what's going on, but it smells like a chewing gum factory exploded. A few minutes ago, I went up to investigate. This was a big mistake. Our conversation went something like this:

Mom: Lynna, could you pass the peppermint lotion?
Lynna: Here you go, Marilyn. Hey Adrienne, want some foot scrub?
Me: Um, no thanks, guys. Wanna go watch some cute penguins waddle around to the vocal stylings of Morgan Freeman?
Mom: Are you sure you don't want some foot scrub? Lotion? Sandpaper-on-a-stick?
Me: I'm fine. Really.
Lynna: Here, have some foot gel!
Me: What the f*ck is foot gel?!? Fine, dammit, I'll cut my toenails. Is that okay? They're ripping holes in my socks, anyway.

And so it goes. Also, for those who care, I'm bringing a surprise back to Boston. Hint: Run. It's fuzzy. Get outta here.

Christmas Creatures, or, A Nun's Worst Nightmare

Sigh. What a nice day. Molly woke me up at 10:30 (thanks, pooch) and soon thereafter, Caitlin (Lynna's daughter) arrived from her boyfriend's house, where she'd spent Christmas Eve. A mere two hours later, Danielle emerged from her lair to unwrap presents. My mother, whose urge to splurge on Christmas is as irrepressible as it is adorable, had piled presents around our (once-again leaning) tree. Normally, my sister counts every present to make sure that we have exactly the same number (though her having extras is also acceptable), but this proved impossible with so many people participating in the melee. When all was said and done, I had a digital camera, a new set of sweaters, and a pile of wrapping paper as high as my knees.

The holiday tradition continued with a trip to the movies. This started long ago with Little Women, and has progressed to such holiday classics as this year's selection, King Kong. Now, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Peter Jackson's directorial abilities; he has a great sense of timing and the CGI is fantastic. But damn, does he need to learn to make movies shorter than three hours. Many of the action sequences, despite being visually stunning, were entirely too long. But the most superfluous scene of all, which I'll call the "bug scene," provided an unexpected bit of entertainment in the form of a character being attacked by what can only be described as "uncircumcised-penis worms." It's one of a few unintentionally funny moments in the movie, another of which comes at the end. I'm going to try not to spoil the movie, but repeat after me: "I'll never let go, Jack! I'll never let go!" Sigh. On the whole, however, I'd recommend the movie if you've got a few hours to kill. I even found myself, at times, wondering whether I might prefer a man like Kong: silent, sensitive, and willing to take on three Tyrannosaurs for me. But though the sexual tension between Kong and Naomi Watts's character (Ann Darrow) is palpable, I think I'll take my chances with men of my own species, if only because they're less likely to topple cabs at socially inappropriate times.

That's all I've got for now. A merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah to all, and to all a good night!

You Can Go Home Again

I haven't been able to post in a while, primarily because every time I sit down to write I produce reactionary drivel that has no place in any forum, however limited the audience. Good news, though: I think I'm over it. Yes, that's right. After weeks of anguish in which I acted like, well, a complete fucking psycho (culminating last night), a two-hour flight to Ohio and a few hours with the fam have cured me of my insanity.

There's something about Ohio that's amazingly sane, childish fathers notwithstanding. As my plane flew in over eastern Ohio, the late-afternoon sun suffused the patchwork of cornfields with a golden glow and, for a maddening moment, it looked like Tuscany. Then the plane drew nearer the city, the water-tower toadstools and snaking lines of subdivisions appeared, and sanity returned.

After my mother and sister picked me up from the airport, our first stop was the grocery store. Since most of my friends (and therefore, readers) are from the vast expanse of Middle America, I need not describe the immensity or the comfort of a grocery store the size of a space-shuttle hangar. Then home again, home again, where my mother had decorated the house in greenery and bows and the largest poinsettias I've ever seen. (Seriously. I think they were imported from Chernobyl.)

In the middle of our living room stood our first live-cut tree, its branches draped in lights and tied with bows, listing painfully toward the windows. I asked my mother and Lynna (our semi-permanent houseguest) why the Leaning Tower of Tree-sa was in our living room (Lord, deliver me from bad puns), and they replied that they'd tried everything they could to make the tree stand up, but to no avail. Lynna, ever one to mock my Ivy League pedigree, said that the one thing they hadn't tried was intellectualizing it, and that they'd been waiting for me to arrive. Ever one to meet sarcasm with seeming ignorance, I agreed that, indeed, intellectualizing was just the thing the tree needed.

And so Reed (Lynna's son) and I set about making the tree stand up straight. This involved unscrewing the four screws on the tree's base, rotating the tree, holding it in place, and replacing the screws. I nominated myself to hold the tree while Reed went to work at its base, and so the hilarity began.

"What's Reed doing?" Danielle asked. "Screwing the tree," I replied. "Oh," she said, and sat down on the couch to observe. "Reed's really good at screwing," I said, letting only the tiniest smile play across my lips. "Yeah, well, it's getting really hard," said Reed from his position on the floor. Now Danielle was smiling.

Lynna came into the room. "Can I help with anything?" she asked. "Yeah, actually, Mom, it would really help to screw it from both sides at once," Reed replied. "It's getting really tight, and I don't want it to be crooked." Now there was open insurrection. I doubled over laughing; I think Danielle might have snarfed her drink. It was awesome. Lynna looked confused. "What's going on?" she asked. I just shook my head; there's really nothing like being a total perv on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmukkah!

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Bitter Blonde

I'm thinking of becoming a blonde again. Now, I know what you're thinking...okay, I actually have no idea what you're thinking. But I'll go ahead with my rationale anyway: after months of study, I have determined that blondes do have more fun (or, at the very least, that I had more fun as a blonde). Additionally, many more men hit on me when I was a blonde, and given the current circumstances it seems I may once again be in a position to need to meet men. Put more succinctly, if I'm going to become a bar floozy, I might as well floozy it up.

This is all very dangerous, of course. The temptation exists to punish Men in General for the sins of Men in Specific, and there's nothing worse than a bitter blonde in stilettos. It's not that I hate men. In fact, I love men. I just hate that I love men and that I still believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that I'll meet an intelligent, funny, thoughtful man who will (and here's the kicker) actually treat me with love and respect instead of taking me for granted. Is that so much to ask? Apparently, yes.

Again with the bitterness. I apologize. If it helps to make this any more understandable, my parents' divorce was finalized on Wednesday, and it's throwing a serious wet blanket on my illusions of love. That, and the fact that Robbie and Jill broke up. This is, perhaps, more devastating than my parents' divorce, if only because it makes a lot less sense. Jill, if you're reading this (and I doubt you are): What the FUCK are you thinking? Robbie, if you're reading this (and you might be), ask Jill what the FUCK she's thinking. Jesus, guys, get it together. This is totally unacceptable.

In a totally transparent attempt to distract myself (and, as I told Dusty, to reinforce my shaky moral ground with the knowledge that I'm a future practitioner of The Right Thing), I've spent a lot of time poking around the literature on the Partners in Health website (www.pih.org). Suffice to say that I feel really bad moping about boys when there are people with HIV and multiple-drug resistant tuberculosis, so I comfort myself by thinking about how, in a few short years, I'll be on the front lines fighting against things like maternal mortality, and won't have time to worry about Men in Specific. So there.

That's all the vitriol I can spare for now. Tonight, besides being the Worst Night of the Year (Kirkland's annual Incest Fest), is a night for drinking. Steph, Ansel, Robbie, and I were going to go ice skating on the Frog Pond, but given the weather, we're just going to drink ourselves Irish at a bar downtown. Wish me luck.

My Coffee Cup Runneth Over

This morning greatly exceeded my expectations. The day started, inauspiciously, with my getting out of bed. I showered, dressed, put on my Indescribable Hat (cf: Golux), and set off for work. Since it's Staff Meeting Day, I decided to stop at Toscanini's for a nice hot cup of coffee with a side of angst. As I waited in line, I was pleased to note that Mike was working. (Mike has long auburn dredlocks and makes the best coffee drinks of all the beautiful freaks at Tosc's. To say that I have a crush on him would be a major understatement.) When I stepped up to the counter, he cocked his head and squinted at me. "Oh," he said. "I didn't recognize you at first."

A digression seems necessary before I continue. Several years ago, the baristas at my local Starbucks knew me, as well as my drink. But in sharp contrast to the cracked-out artistes at Toscanini's, these Starbucks baristas were bitchy queens whose recognition, rather than a compliment, meant: "We know you, and we're just waiting for those Frappuccinos to show up on your ass." So I stopped going to Starbucks and started going to the campus coffee counter, where the middle-aged woman at the espresso machine was too exhausted and frazzled to recognize anyone. By this summer, however, the memory of the sinister Starbucks staff had faded, and I was ready to love again. At my coworkers' urging I ventured to Toscanini's, a locally owned shop where the only thing weirder than the staff is the selection of ice cream flavors, and after being reprimanded several times for ordering a "tall" instead of a "small," I began to feel comfortable again.

Like a moth to the flame, I return to my story. Mike didn't recognize me at first, almost certainly because of the Indescribable Hat. However, the fact that he didn't recognize me at first meant that he does recognize me sometimes. What joy! The day suddenly seemed brighter, the air fresher, the artwork on the walls weirder. I briefly considered engaging him in conversation apropos the Indescribable Hat, but stopped short. Someday, perhaps, Mike and I will exchange witty repartee about French Roast or even gossip maliciously about the Starbucks baristas, but for now, I mustn't rush things. Nor will I continue to wear my Indescribable Hat inside Toscanini's; for once, I don't mind being recognized. Also, said hat can only approach description as "dorky beyond any ordinary sense of the word."

J is for Jerk

The one high point to my otherwise shit- and crap-bespeckled weekend (see Format Manual, p. 59) was that Ansel and I went to visit Steph in the heavily-Jewish neighborhood of Coolidge Corner. This was amazing because 1. I spent time with people who aren't crazy while relishing matzo ball soup, and 2. I acquired two loaves of challah for $6 apiece. (Having now worn the phrase "six-dolla challah" to shreds, along with "knish me" and "challah back," I shall not further belabor my aspirations to Judaism.)

If you're wondering why my weekend was such a shitshow, you probably haven't been around to hear my kvetching for the last two days. Lucky you. I've tried to keep it to a minimum, though, and Dusty said it wasn't a problem, so I think most of it has been in my head. If you really want to know, I'll tell you, but otherwise let's stick with the lessons learned, however cryptic:

1. Men are jerks. (Except for you. Yes, you. Unless your name begins with a "J," in which case you are, in fact, a jerk.)
2. You can't always get what you want (a point already made by the Rolling Stones), even if it's a quarter of an inch away (my addition).
3. Pearls make me happy.
4. Dorchester is to be avoided at all costs.
5. Lesbians make everything better.
6. Publicly masturbating to Nazi cinema is even sketchier than it sounds. (For the record, this is NOT an activity in which I have engaged. Ever. Nor is it, as was argued, "subversive," even if you're gay and Jewish. Mostly it's just rude.)

Chasing Brian

Question: There's a four-way intersection, and in the middle of the intersection is a hundred-dollar bill. At the end of each of the streets is one of four people: Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Adrienne's soulmate, and Ann Coulter. Which one is going to get to the hundred-dollar bill first?

Answer: Ann Coulter. Not only is she vicious, but the other three are, it seems, figments of my fucking imagination.


So the weird thing is that I feel somewhat better, if only because I'm actually being honest. I've been unhappy in my relationship for months but, in some perhaps misguided attempt to make everyone else happy, have been trying to hide it or just sort of "get over it." Because that works. I don't mean to sound bitter; I'm not, at heart, a bitter person, nor am I, as Brian tried to tell me this morning, depressed. I'm just trying to figure shit out, which is much more difficult if you can't say what you're thinking. So now I've said it.

On a side note, I made one post to an alternative blog when I was considering shutting down Double-O Four. You can find it here.

Hmm.

So, yesterday I said I was going to stop using this blog because people were reading it. How strange. Forgive my bitchiness; I'm just feeling more and more like a horrible person these days, and I've taken it out on my poor blog. I'll be back, but I might need a bit of a hiatus.

A