Blogging Parties and Ditzy Dudes

Last night, I attended Guest of a Guest’s blogger / Guitar Hero-Rock Band party at Jour et Nuit. I avidly avoid blogger parties since they tend to be more awkward than the ‘you’ve started menstruating’ party my mother tried to throw me at age thirteen. There’s usually a reason people keep their virtual lives separate from their actual identity, so a party that facilitates the intersection of these two spheres never made a lot of sense to me. Yet I’ve both followed and supported Guest of Guest when it was still just a baby blog, and my friend Cajun Boy said he’d go with me. There was also an open bar involved, and ultimately, that was enough of a reason for us.

Considering that people were meeting and introducing one another through their online aliases, the party wasn’t as weird as it probably should’ve been. Those who know us in ‘real life’ know that Cajun and I, a boy and a girl, have the same name. It’s pretty amusing when we introduce ourselves in social situations since people always think we’re fucking with them.

Alcohol tends to greatly soften the collision of the real and virtual world. That’s why an open bar is such an essential cornerstone to any blogger party. I didn’t play in the band (I’m still mastering the concept of Guitar Hero chords) but I did chat up some interesting other writers and get wasted before 10pm.

I voyaged home at 11pm in a euphoric state – tipsy but not drunk – truly reveling in that ‘happy’ point in which you should always stop drinking, but never do. Perhaps foolishly, I took the subway (Cajun was supposed to come with me but instead opted to stay at the party). I watched a seemingly ‘in love’ couple go from fondling one another on the R train to a full fledge fight that broke out into something that looked like WWE wrestling. He had stolen her cell phone and they chased each other through the moving cars and in and out of the train when we were stopped at a station in a dialogue that went like this:

“Give me my phone!”

“Fuck you!”

“Give me my fucking phone!”

“FUCK YOU!”

It looked like they might rip each other to shreds, but in my elated state I saw the whole thing as a rowdy bout of puppy love. I wasn’t even fazed when their fighting in Canal Street station almost got me whacked in the face by the girl’s flailing arms.

I returned home and tried to learn the Kylie Minogue dance I posted here. Once I got tired, Tatas and I started discussing a man I’ll refer to as the Caveman, basically because he’s not sophisticated or complicated in any way. In life, there are the guys you can chat with for hours, share your hopes and dreams and do the whole ‘pillow talk’ thing with. Then there are the guys who never speak, often grunt, and only want to watch basketball. At first glance, ‘pillow talk’ man clearly seems like the better life mate option, but keep in mind this emotional exchange goes two ways meaning you actually also have to listen to their problems as well. And this can get old really fast.

So Caveman boy, while essentially worthless in his unreliability and below-pre school level communication skills, does offer himself as a great lay, someone to eat red meat with, and someone to waste hours upon hours watching bad teenage movies and to play video games with – an unbeatable combination. Of course I, being the crazy that I am, used to get upset that Caveman didn’t want to do things with me like talk about my new toe nail polish color or fantasize about baby names. I also used to get psychotic when he wouldn’t adhere to a regular visitation / dating schedule that made sense.

Well, a huge perception shift occurred last night when my roommate Tatas sat me down at our kitchen counter and announced:

“I don’t know why you ever worried. Caveman’s just a ditz. A ditz!”

Man can be ditzes?

Suddenly, this made perfect sense.

“You’re right!” I sprung out of my chair.

“I know it seems like he’s a normal person because he gets up in the morning and has a job,” Tatas continued, “but that’s just misdirection. He’s so simple. Stupid. I don’t know why you ever took anything he did seriously.”

And I went to bed happy with the new ditz man-ideology swirling in my head.

Lesson: Drink and attend blogger parties. You might just come home to blissful revelations.

True Love

Boyfriend, lover, pet or best friend letting you down?

Not to worry, as all these emotional relationships can be successfully replaced by the shiny delightfulness that is an Apple iPhone.

I used to make fun of people who had iPhone’s for sport. Especially when they first came out and people paid $600 plus to be among the first elite owners of Steve Jobs’ latest technological love child. I taunted these folk…whether out of hate or envy, I don’t know.

As a Mac user, my interest eventually rose to a level beyond torment. I proceeded to play with the iPhone when out with friends who owned one, usually at dinner parties, and usually inebriated. My manicure would prevent me from properly tapping on the virgin-level sensitive keyboard and I’d end up spelling things like:
Odsyagh iz szdgh

And I’d think: $600 plus for this? Morons!

Well, I’m prepared to fess up that last week I became the ashamed owner of an iPhone. My demise was that I got my hands on one sober, on a bus trip in New Jersey no less (don’t ask) and managed to reply to several emails and comment on three blogs during the trip with minimal typing difficulty. Somewhere between New Orange and Newark, I fell in love.

Passionately.

I’m the type of person who visits a $100 dress in a boutique three times before purchasing it. I’m the opposite of an impulsive shopper. In fact, I’m so cheap it sometimes scares people. Yet that very day, I found myself at the Cingular store on 23rd street pondering what credit card to put my $200 less than its release price, but still unaffordable, iPhone on.

My mental justifications: (Feel free to use them on yourself)

1. I own a three-year-old iPod mini that needs to be replaced soon anyway

2. I’m a Mac user

3. Yes, the next generation will be better, but that excuse goes on to infinity…technology just changes too fast

4. I can do more blog reading / commenting, especially in those awkward twenty minutes when I’m stuck in a car or alone at a table being stood up on a dinner date

5. I can answer all my email while on-the-go. So when I return to my desk and need to start writing, I don’t have to lose an hour of creative time answering emails from my dad and deleting spams about penis enlargement

Point number five turned out to be the kicker.

I’m a master at manipulating myself.

But this justification actually worked in real life:

EXAMPLE:

When I was at Pink’s Wilhelmina party and bored before the man-meat arrived, I sat on a banquet and answered FIVE work emails.

Productivity IN Pink Eleplant!?!?!?!?

I thought the ether might split and angels glide down onto the disco ball to honor me.

Who knew you could get work done at Pink?


After usuing the iPhone for two days, there were some features lacking I wished it had.

Well guess what?

I actually watched the informational instruction video Apple emailed me, and all those features existed, I just hadn’t yet learned how to use them! Like the iPhone headphones have a built-in mike, so if you’re listening to your iPod and someone calls you, your music fades (fades, not drops) out and you take the call without having to pick up the phone or take your ear buds out. And you can play, pause, and switch between songs by just squeezing the ear phone’s white string in different beats. The predictive text is amazing, and capitalizes everything I need.

My iPhone’s so smart it tickles me. And when it automatically zooms in when I'm filling out online forms or plays my favorite song, I realize it understands me better than any human in the world.

True love doesn't equal flawlessness. Yes, the Internet is sometimes slower than ideal, but that’s to be expected: It’s not 2015 yet. And yes the battery isn’t as strong as it should be, but this is Apple: all their batteries suck. What do you expect?

So my initial review: Four Model Behavior stars.

What Women Want

I’m not what you’d call a warm and fuzzy person. I’m not so into animals and only really cute babies make me smile. Yet I’m always inevitably touched when readers email me comments about this site that aren’t derogatory, abusive or spiteful. I even glow an extra mega-watt when it’s clear the reader has a sense of humor, gets my sense of humor, and knows damn well how to write. So naturally I was thrilled when I received this email:

Dear mb,

Being an avid reader of your blog, I was hoping you could shed some light on a question that I have had for quite some time. Though it may sound douchbager-esque, and surely superficial; since I was in college I had two goals in mind, one being to work on Wall St. and the other to marry, or at least date, a model. No, I am not trying to ask you out. I have read what you look for in a guy and I am not European, I am blonde, and not too tall....So

I accomplished the Wall St. thing, though still w/o the means to spend 10k at The Box on a Thursday evening. And I know, you having been around models and one yourself, that you have an idea of what generally your friends look for in a guy. Tell me if you think I am getting close...money, lots of it, and ummmm....charisma? I'm working on the money thing but the likelihood of me getting anywhere close to Giuseppe, by the time I am 40, is a somewhat far reach. I obviously can't make myself European, only coming close by attending the London School of Business. And I can't go out every night and still have a career...impossible w/o a trust fund. So, let me know your enlightening thoughts, if you would be so kind...

First off, making yourself more European by attending London School of Business is a fabulous idea! The sexiest option after Oxford or Cambridge is LES – London School of Economics. That place pops out moneymaking, briefcase-carrying, gold cufflink-wearing, heartless-men machines. And you don’t need a trust fund to go out every night and have a career, you just needs lots of cocaine! Scratch that, you need generous trust fund wielding friends who do cocaine and are willing to share. And as for models wanting “money, lots of it, and ummmm….charisma” you’re way off the mark. X out the charisma part, multiply the money factor by three, and you’ve much more successfully outlined what your average accent possessing, chain smoking, heartless model wants out of a relationship.

JUST KIDDING!

If only the answer to this email were that simple.

I think the first thing men need to understand about what women want, is that the majority of us vagina-possessing creatures have absolutely no idea what we want. Or we’re in denial about what we want. Or we have what we want, we’re just incapable of fully recognizing it or giving it credit.

We’re generally really confused. Does that make sense?

We’re an extremely capable gender so hell, if we knew what we wanted we’d go out, tackle, and mount it with success – there’d be no time for gossiping or shopping or beautifying or reality TV or any of the other ten thousand ways we find to distract ourselves from the fact that we ultimately have no idea if we want a man like or father, a best friend, an authority figure, a masochist, a sex object or a teddy bear. We just don’t freakin’ know. At least I don’t freakin’ know, and I think women who disagree are either in denial or have succeeded in establishing what they want in the short run (like, for the next three weeks while I’m up to my ears in tax returns I need a fun-loving playboy.) But in the long run? Geez. Next question, please.

So to get back on track and actually give some advice to the lovely chap that emailed in, I’d say if the goal is to date a model (or model poser) that’s an extremely easy feat in Manhattan. Just go to Beatrice Inn, dress well, pretend to be a big shot, mention that you summer in Como, sniffle in an I’m-on-drugs-way and surely some inexperienced female model victim will bite. If the goal is to have a successful relationship with a smart and beautiful woman, I’d say be extremely polite at all times (most mothers have engrained their female offspring to prize chivalry) and then take a serious interest in her. Really work to get to know this woman – what makes her tick, and if you genuinely like her, this shouldn’t be ‘work’ at all.

My theory is that women respond well to men who

1. Make them feel at ease (don’t be creepy, desperate, or sniffling)
2. They can identify with (from the same geographical area, common schools, common friends – no don’t lie) and
3. Want to get to know them (in a non-stalkerish way)

Ask her why she decided to wear pink instead of yellow, chose lasagna over sword fish, the story behind why she called her cat Oreo instead of Freckles, why she likes Giuliani over McCain, why she has an Alanis Morissette poster in her room, why her apartment smells like corndogs. Delve into her quirks. No, you shouldn’t sound like an annoying five-year-old or like a freak writing a book. Be genuine. The fact is that most women love to talk – it’s been medically diagnosed as therapeutic (why do you think we spend hours on the phone with our girlfriends every other night?) Remember that most women are just humans immersed in the continuing battle of figuring out who they are. Life is somewhat of a continuing identity crisis, or challenge, or game (choose your own noun). So anyone who takes a genuine interest in a loving, non-judgmental way allows us as women to show off the parts of our personality we like and gives us a trusting space to figure out the parts we’re still trying to piece together.

Maybe I got a bit too philosophical here, and emailer, please feel free to write in again with a more specific question. Like if you’re just looking for a top ten list of surefire seduction tricks, I could provide you with that as well (with the obligatory price of $199.99). I guess my point was that if men want to know what women want, they should know that women are just as confused the next guy. As for what I specifically want in men, that’s another delightful (and frightening) laundry list for another day.

West Coasting It

We all know my feelings about Los Angeles. If you missed the recap of my trip there earlier in the summer you can read it here and here. This time around, I ventured to other West Coast cities: Seattle, Vancouver and Whistler to be exact.

Now I don’t mean to offend, but why every time I cross the border into Canada do I feel like I’m being repeatedly electrocuted with high voltages of boredom? I haven’t quite put my finger on why, but for me Vancouver was void of any spice, energy or flavor. I tried to go partying on a Thursday night and found the streets empty, the bars deserted.

This was the Hollywood of Canada?

Everyone’s annoyingly polite. Everyone follows rules. I also didn’t appreciate the fact that their currency had a lot of heavy coins, heavy coins that weren’t even saving me money anymore since the Canadian and American dollar are now equal.

A charming anecdote: When I was paused on the street consulting a map, a woman sidled up to me and asked if I needed any assistance. My first New Yorker instinct was to protectively clutch my wallet while beating her away with my Lonely Planet guide. Then I realized she was just a nice girl volunteering spare moments of her life to help strangers. After 24-hours in Vancouver, I was really longing for a homeless person to almost spit on my foot or for an enraged cab driver to call me a “stupid white bitch” as I crossed the crosswalk. I wholeheartedly admit that America doesn’t perhaps exemplify the qualities of a great nation (especially now), but at least no one can call us bland or void of personality.

Vancouver did have some upsides though. The city’s on the water, which means the air is so clean that it’s shocking for a Manhattaner to inhale. I felt like I had entered a pulmonary detox, and by the end of the trip my repertory system was functioning better than it had in weeks. The city’s also easy to navigate and has a lot of parking, which is great if you like being able to own and drive a car (which I don’t). Stanley Park is spectacularly beautiful and right in the center of the city. And the food is out of this world. One night I hit up a hot Yaletown restaurant called Goldfish. I had scallops in a mango sauce, duck spring rolls with mint, sautéed vegetables without tons of oil and get this: they had desert sushi! A kiwi, mango, strawberry fruit center surrounded by sweet coconut milk rice, incased in dark chocolate as the ‘seaweed.’ It looked like real sushi, and was served with a passion fruit dip in lieu of soy sauce. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Isn’t this idea genius!?

The infamously beautiful Sea to Sky road that connects Vancouver to Whistler Mountain is undergoing construction to make way for the 2010 winter Olympics. A few cranes and piles of rock here and there did not deter from these spectacular views. This drive is a must do for nature lovers, and I had no idea Whistler (consistently voted best skiing in North America) was such a pleasant summer destination as well.

Seattle is actually as awesome as it looks on the glitzy transition shots in Grey’s Anatomy (speaking of which, are we tuning in for Private Practice - yeay or nay?) The city did not disappoint. Really fresh air, seafood and a great vibe as well. Yet the more I travel in the US & Canada, the more my suspicion that New York is the best city in the world is confirmed.

I’m glad to be back. And I’m celebrating by going out tonight, tomorrow, and probably the weekend as well. Hopefully to some tasteful events, nothing too clubby or trashy (I already have a feeling I’ll be defying this statement Thursday night). And for those of you who all kindly commented on yesterday’s Please Don’t Be Nice article, I have a message for you all.

Stay tuned.

Biggest Blogging Fear

My friend and fellow blog writer Cajun Boy in the City recently posted an announcement that he felt forced to activate comment moderation on his blog. He was receiving threatening and inappropriate comments from people I like to call ‘haters.’ I was shell-shocked by Cajun’s announcement because aside from his occasional Guido mocking I didn’t think the subject matter of Cajun’s writing (and especially his writing style) warrants hate mail of any kind. Shouldn’t haters save their ‘death threats’ etcetera for people whose address they actually know? What joy do these people derive from terrorizing the Internet? These losers post anonymously. They’re chicken, not even willing to authorize their own cruelty.

The news of evil-beings prowling blogs late at night, preying on writers’ feelings especially surprised me because in my short blogging career I’ve never received an inappropriate email or comment. EVER! I’d like to think this is because I’m such a charitable, caring person – such virgin-like martyr – that karma’s cutting me a break by sparing me hate mail on the World Wide Web. Since we all know THAT theory doesn’t hold up in reality, I’ve postulated a second: That I’ve known such an impressive amount of despicable people in REAL life that I’ve already received my shittiness quota from the world population in general without having to be abused virtually online. I cling to this hope, but I’ve always lived by Murphy’s Law: Everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Granted this makes me a stressed out maniac, but I’m somehow convinced that assuming the worst helps thwart a future crisis. As a total pessimist at heart, I’ve become convinced that the next anonymous comment in my Inbox is an evil bomb of hate waiting to explode in my face.

Have I become paranoid? Sort of. After reading Cajun’s article, I’ve become highly suspicious of my good fortune. I mean, why shouldn’t people hate me? Let’s face it; the Internet isn’t an exactly a warm, fuzzy place full of chirping birds and bright flowers. It’s a universe where porn dominates, anonymity rules, and gruesome celebrity taunting is celebrated. It’s a harsh, unfriendly sphere. Wild West like. There ain’t no rule of law. Before I begin invoking irrelevant Deadwood analogies, the main point here is that my adrenaline’s begun rushing whenever I see anonymous comments rolling in. I feel like a refugee. I’m waiting for the haters to find me. I hold by breath, read the comment, and find it’s just someone asking for tips on how to get their hands on a Hermes Birkin or gain access to aSmallWorld. And anonymous commenters, please don’t let this discourage you from commenting and remaining anonymous. These are my psychotic issues, I respect your privacy, and you’ve all had lovely things to say so far.

On another site I write for, which I believe also has a larger audience scope; I often get comments that are more – how to put this – less delicate than the ones I receive here. I think this has something to do with people viewing me impersonally as a weekly column as opposed to a daily blog. I don’t feel these readers truly connect with my writing style. For example, on my relationship posts I’ll get franticly concerned comments along the lines of, ‘the guy you’re dating is a slob! Don’t you realize that?!!?’ or ‘you have major self-esteem issues when it comes to men, do you need professional help?’ I find these remarks both amusing disturbing because
a. Don’t these people have anything better to do than be urgently worried about my well-being?
b. Realize I write for entertainment purposes, not as a cry for help, and
c. Realize that I’m a female writer in Manhattan – OF COURSE I’m in therapy and have been ever since I dropped my suitcase on this cracked-out island. Geez.

Note however, that while these comments may be odd, they aren’t mean. If anything they’re from people who are way too sensitive, or have way too much spare time. So my ego and good commenting karma are still intact. Will I get some evil hate mail eventually? Most likely yes. Fortunately, I live in a city where people nearly spit on my feet and hurl heinous insults at me on the subway (and especially when fighting to get a cab) on a daily basis. So hopefully cruel cyber-junk won’t push my buttons too much. It’s all about having a thick skin, which Manhattan helps you very rapidly develop.

Thank you, New York.