The Party Planner

At a common friend of ours’ house a few weeks ago, Mr. T somehow cajoled me into throwing another party at his house.

Cajoled?

Who am I kidding? I love the party spotlight, but New York house party planning is a big responsibility – a task I felt up to in the dog days of July over my birthday, but the current winter rain, sleet, snow, workload and overall depression doesn’t really make for the best party ambiance. Everyone’s fighting off a cold and already drunk on Nyquil. Why leave the house in below freezing weather to get buzzed?

Initially, I thought Mr. T was throwing this party idea around just to be nice. As the weeks pushed on, it became apparent that he was entirely serious. Having sprung from the womb of Olympic level worrier (my mother) I had the following concerns:

1. On the scheduled party date (Tuesday the 18th) many people would already be out of town

2. We’d be throwing a party on a weekday and it wasn’t joyous summer anymore

3. Our last party, was so incredibly fun and successful we were setting ourselves up for failure in comparison

A last minute crisis occurred when my trusty right hand girl Bartok, who had helped out tremendously during my birthday, was rushed to hospital and diagnosed with bronchitis. I spoke to her on the phone briefly and she could only deliriously drone on about some reoccurring nightmare involving a Michael Kors tote bag she’d seen at a discount store that had been unjustly swiped from her by a female shopping competitor. I was glad her painkillers were working, but saddened she wouldn’t be coming to New York. This meant I was essentially flying solo with the aid of my roommate Tatas and Mr. T’s girlfriend. My state of panic heightened.

Why panic you say? “It’s a party. It’s about having fun.”

Wrong.

That’s like saying New York relationships are about love and happiness when clearly they’re about winning. Same with parties. Fun? It’s about demonstrating your PR skills and making sure everyone else has a fabulous time. If you manage to stick a crab cake in your mouth or enjoy a glass of rose’ while doing it that’s great, but not the point. It’s a hostess’ responsibility to make sure that the music’s right, that everyone meets everyone, that everyone has someone to talk to, that no one’s destroying private property in the corner, and most importantly, to make sure the party doesn’t suck.

Envision all your guests at work the next day when someone asks them, “What did you do last night?” A hostess’ job is to make it impossible for them to say: “Just went to some lame-ass house party.” That statement is the jagged-edged, rusty dagger in every hostess’ central artery. This cannot be their response. You must create such an aura of bliss that the next day people won’t mind that they’re hung over. They’ll respond, “I went to this awesome party. You won’t believe what happened _____.”

That’s a lot of pressure for one person to deal with. Maybe this is why when over the course of the night people asked me if I was having fun I’d tilt my head incredulously and look at them as if they’d just landed from Mars (before plastering on a smile and vigorously nodding.)

Upping the party-planning stakes once again after the absence of Bartok was the discovery of the iPhone’s fatal flaw:

You can’t send group text messages.

I’ll write it again: You can’t send group text messages.

I’d heard this rumor before purchasing the iPhone, but quickly laughed it off as absurd. I’d attributed the rumors to jealous iPhone haters and people who were too stupid to know how to work the thing. Apple wouldn’t make a tri-band device with the most intelligent keyboard known to man, an iPod, a web browser, a camera, a computer that fits into the palm of your hand and not include the ability to forward an SMS or send group texts. That thought’s just as silly as snow in Miami in July.

But it’s true.

For two days I refused to believe it. I researched online; I even went to the SoHo Apple store. There a worker with a nametag that said Jason confirmed my biggest fear.

“They’re working on a solution. The feature will be added and available for download sometime in February.”

Me: “But my iPhone’s smarter than me. It’s a work of genius! How is it possible they overlooked this essential feature the clunkiest, old school Nokia has?”

Jason explained that the developers probably tried, but the program that enabled this feature had too many bugs in it to be released. My next question was why they’d release the phone at all when it had such a fatal flaw. Then things started to get heated and I could tell Jason wanted to kill me. He feigned sympathy as I explained I had some very important party invites I had to spam out to everyone in my address book. He just shrugged his shoulders and said “email it to them.”

Ha.

Anyone who’s ever attended an event knows that emailing is not enough. People need to have the party info on their phones in order to show. For me to voluntarily make it somewhere to have fun with no personal motive attached I need to be spammed at least three times. And I think I’m more attentive and organized than your average Manhattener.

Despite the multiple, escalating layers of panic (living up to the last party, no Bartok, no group SMS) I managed to relax enough to properly prepare on party day. Mr. T’s girlfriend was incredibly sweet and helpful and we did all the shopping together. Tatas and I managed to assemble outfits we were both happy with, and word of the fiesta naturally spread. Overall, the party was an enormous success and from the feedback I received up to this point, a good time was had by all.

There were however, certain humorous crisis situations during the party that my average guest was hopefully not aware of. These to be divulged at a later date.

To Be Continued…

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.

Day Light Savings and Dangerous Obsessions

This Sunday I got to be the moron who fails to properly adjust to daylight savings. What’s amusing is that this didn’t occur because I was unaware of the switch. On the contrary, I was hyper aware of the switch and therefore naturally got confused in my own vast, muddled, seriously math-challenged brain.

Sunday morning I had to be somewhere at six thirty A.M. Sound sketchy? It’s not. Emails about the meeting time had flown out the day before warning everyone about daylight savings. “Some devices will change automatically,” the email warned. “Other’s won’t.”

Question: How the Hell am I supposed to know which gadgets are smart enough to change themselves and which will need manual assistance?

The answer is that there’s absolutely no way of knowing.

I use my cell phone as an alarm clock. To be extra super-duper sure about my wake-up time I purposely stayed awake till 1 A.M. to see if my cell had the smarts to change itself. It didn’t. So I set my alarm for an hour later in order to wake up at the correct time.

Needless to say, my cell phone somehow magically did change over the course of the night and I ended up sleeping in an extra hour. My Sunday plans were foiled and I was left behind.

Lesson?

I don’t know if there is one. Considering my phone has a calendar I guess I should have assumed it would make the switch on its own. Then again, considering my cell phone is a cell phone you’d also assume it would get reception in the center of Manhattan – but it doesn’t. And now the whole mix-up has become fairytale-like in its mysteriousness. I felt like a little kid trying to get a glimpse of Santa as I stayed in bed awake till one in the morning, hoping to see 12:59 become 12:00 A.M. again, catching the thrill of daylight savings on a digital monitor. Now I want to know: When did my cell permit the extra hour? At two? At four?

On Fashion

I’ve developed a seriously unhealthy obsession for a dress my roommate Tatas bought at Guess Marciano. The gown has a stunning cut, is eighty percent sequins and scandalously short while remaining elegant – an impossible combination to find. It kinda looks like the dress version of a tux, with a truckload of sparkles.

Tatas brought the beloved dress home in a state of shopping euphoria and told me to try it on. I did, and the experience was similar to that of a drug abuser taking their first serious hit of crystal meth. As I added black heels to the outfit and analyzed myself in the mirror, I knew I would gladly give away my first-born in exchange for this piece of Guess clothing manufactured in China. I loved it.

I praised Tatas selection and wearily gave the dress back to her, all the while secretly planning when I’d be able to sneak into her room and sit in her closet to stroke the fabric and hold the sequins to my cheek.

I want to make it clear that Tatas is an extremely generous girl, willing to lend me anything and everything at all times. The dress however, she’d bought to attend a particular December event. The tags were staying on until then. And while I may be crazy, I’m not so insensitive that I’m going to ask a fellow female to borrow an event dress they haven’t even worn to the event yet.

So while I had no doubt that Tata’s would gladly lend me the garment after she débuted it in December, the idea of waiting till December to dawn the outfit made me tear up and shake like someone going through withdrawal. And there’s another, much larger predicament in this tale of hidden passion for a piece of sequined fabric: Tatas and I aren’t the same dress size. While we’re both thin, Tata’s was blessed with an amazing rack (hence her nickname) and I was, well, not. The dress was too big for me.

The fact that I loved the dress so much and it didn’t even fit me properly made me orgasm in my thong about how utterly amazing it would look if in my proper size. The size dilemma only served to fuel my obsession.

After I came up with every piece of jewelry, hair accessory, hair style and shoe I’d wear with the dress and settled on the perfect combination, and after I’d had the same dream three nights in a row about me wearing the dress and meeting my future husband, I knew it was time to tell the Tatas the truth:

I was having a clandestine affair with the event dress in her closet.

To Be Continued…

My Milanese Life Obliterated: Part II

So a twelve-year-old Calabrese girl is now the proud owner of my Milanese life. Yep. Here’s the story. I searched the city for a TIM store (TIM is an Italian cell service provider like Cingular) that was open during the national vacation month of August. I finally found one thanks to tricky directions from a street vendor. Sure enough, the place was packed. There was also no semblance of organization in the joint. The only good news is that it was air-conditioned. I observed that sitting patrons seemed to have paper numbers, yet no deli-like number dispenser could be found anywhere in the store. I cut in front of a desk and asked a TIM worker how I might receive a number.

“From the guy,” was her helpful response before she turned away from me to stamp different papers. Nice.

Soon I figured out ‘the guy’ was a frighteningly close human replica of Mickey Mouse who was fiddling with a bunch of forms behind another desk. His back remained turned to me and the several other patrons who’d joined me in the pursuit of a number. In Italy, you have to beg to even be privileged enough to wait in line.

‘The guy’ finally realized that a dozen people had entered the store in the last ten minutes. He whipped around and since we all looked three-seconds shy of assassinating him, he quickly handed out numbers to us. Then he went back to doing what appeared to be nothing. Doesn’t this make sense? Why have a human work and open another line to assist customers when he can just hand out paper numbers helping no one?

People were pretty antsy in the store. Everyone’s glare made the place ten degrees colder. It took twenty minutes before I was blessed enough to have my number called. From a pissy, curly haired blonde TIM worker, I received essentially the same information I was given over the phone. Yet I managed to squeeze out some more details. The lowdown is that TIM has instituted new absurd rules. I really shouldn’t be surprised. If a customer does not financially recharge their phone (Italy works on a pay as you go system) for three months, their number goes on lock down. That number then gets recycled. It’s thrown into a large mixing pot of orphan cell numbers, which are then repackaged and redistributed. The woman on the phone told numbers expired when they weren’t USED. This is not the case. You could use your phone everyday, but if you don’t put money in it for three months your number is taken away from you. Isn’t this forcing people to spend money through the threat of cutting off service? Shouldn’t that kind of thing be illegal?

My number had apparently been on lockdown since April. This is Italy, so no one would ever notify you with say an e-mail or phone call to let you know your cellular existence is about to be wiped off the planet. I continued to protest:

“I call my number and it doesn’t ring. It says the number doesn’t exist. Can’t I just buy it back?”

“Whether it rings or not is irrelevant. The number has been repackaged. It could be sold in any TIM store anywhere in Italy at any time.” She fiddled with the computer a lot. “Ah, yes. It says here that number was sold today. The number is officially no longer yours.”

Me: “Sold today!?!” I thought I might start hyperventilating.

“Yes, about two hours ago. But as I told you, Signora, there is nothing you could do since April. Even if you came in earlier, it’s not like I can check every TIM store in Italy and try to find out where we’re reselling your number.” I decided not to tell her that in most civilized countries in the world, a computer could do exactly that. These packaged numbers had barcodes. Didn’t those barcodes go through some sort of computer system? Or were they just there for decoration? Let’s presently also ignore the fact that TIM reusing numbers is ridiculous in the first place, seeing as there is an infinite amount of cell phone number combinations one can make with TIM prefixes. Basically, this system is just a really good way to piss off customers. And I told her exactly that when I fervently declined her offer to purchase a new TIM number.

As I whirled out of the store, I felt overwhelmed and wasn’t able to ingest my many swelling feelings. What I knew for sure is that I had just wasted part of my afternoon in a TIM store. What I remained less certain about was how I felt about the concrete, irrevocable news that my number was officially no longer mine. Naturally, I rustled for my American cell and frantically dialed my long lost Italian number. If someone had bought it in Milan, I could easily meet up with them. I could offer some sort of settlement. They’d give me my number back (they only have owned it for about two hours) and I’d offer to buy them a new SIM card. Genius.

I held my breath. My phone rang for the first time. It was like an out of body experience. I thought I might throw-up. A girl answered. I stuttered over what to say to her:

“Hi. You just bought a phone a couple hours ago, didn’t you? This is actually my number. It has been for seven years. I was wondering if maybe we could me up and I could pay you for the number and buy you a new SIM card.”

The girl answer some of my questions shyly before announcing, “Wait. I’ll pass you to mamma.” My head corked over the phone. Mama? It was then I realized I’d been talking to a child.

An older woman came on the line and I described my situation again. “I just thought if you were near Milan we could easily meet up and trade out SIMs.” Unfortunately, this mother and daughter duo were in the suburbs of Calabria, as about as fare away as you can get, physically and spiritually, from Milan.

I accepted that my number was now a lost cause. And I forced myself to hang up the phone and be happy for the twelve-year-old girl who clearly was all excited after getting her first cell phone this morning with her Mom. Hopefully, she wouldn’t receive too many inappropriate booty texts late at night, and hopefully all those weird people who were phone stalking me have long since given up. My Italian number was experiencing a rebirth. It would now be given to middle school friends and innocent pre-teen crushes as opposed to bouncers and hot male models in the Hollywood VIP. And I’m not sure exactly why, but there was something therapeutic about knowing this.

I decided to shake off the whole experience with a shopping spree at H&M in San Babila. I loathe H&M in the States, but somehow the Milan version manages to be more stylish and higher quality. And most importantly, it’s still dirt-cheap. I roamed through the racks searching for pieces that would make up my next New York going-out ensemble. The impossible happened: Everything I tried on I liked.

At the cash register, when all my purchases total to only fifty something euro, I consoled myself with the fact that I still had my New York cell phone number, and it was very unlikely any insane Italian corporation would take it away from me. The swipe and ching of my plastic credit card has always had a calming effect on me. I exhaled. And as I strolled towards the Duomo and decided to make a pleasure stop at my favorite gelateria, I actually felt abnormally at peace.

My Milanese Life Obliterated

Reentering the city of Milan never fails to make me emotionally unstable. I go hot and cold on this city like a menopausal woman on drugs. New York and I have clean, adult relationship with one another. Open communication. A stable living situation. Work. Independence. Contained craziness. Reasonable expectations. Good things. With Milan on the other hand, I’ve lived a kind of drawn-out, over-dramatized fairytale with fifty-six encores and five rewritten last acts. And all fairytales inevitably end in bitter disillusionment. As my train pulled into Milano Centrale, I was filled with dread upon entering my old stomping grounds, and stomping grounds is really the most effective way to put it, because I stomped through this town to death. I over-trampled it, if that makes any sense. I don’t think there’s one Milanese adventure, experience, or romance I missed out on during my time here. I’m Done with the city. Done with a capital “D.”

Despite that fact that my relationship with Milano has been permanently poisoned with disappointment and is technically over, I continually return looking for a good time. I’m still searching for satisfaction. I want Milano and I to settle the outrageously high bill of emotional instability it charged me. Now, finally, that search is over.

Soon after my arrival, I popped my Italian TIM scheda into my American phone to use my Italian phone number and start calling to see who was around. It’s impressive that this miniscule SIM card, the size of a thumbnail, digitally contains my entire Italian life. Seven years worth of being here in Italy, or back and forth. That’s seven years worth of drunken handouts of my number, seven years worth of friends, work contacts, and social advancement. Well, this time around, when I popped in my SIM and unlocked my phone, instead of instantaneously receiving obscure casting texts message from agencies that still have me on roll or nighttime invites from PRs who still think I party here, I got an error message: “Unregistered Sim.”

I stared at the phone in utter confusion. Unregistered? Me? I’d had this Italian phone number since I was a child! I proceeded like most people do in a state of panic: I rushed to the Internet. I pulled up TIM’s website and quickly called them from my old apartment’s home phone. I then pressed my way through six zillion automated questions.

No, I did not want to hear about TIMs new promotional service “MaxxiTim.”

No, I didn’t want to check my credit balance.

No, I’m not having trouble sending and receiving MMS messages.

No, my cell phone had not been stolen.

After intense number punching and some annoying music that felt like the audio equivalent of glitter, I finally reached an extremely pleasant Italian woman who sounded like she had a perfect manicure and envious thick, black hair. I quickly described my predicament and gave her my phone number. She asked for my name and the last four digits of my social security number and confirmed that I was in fact the owner of my phone number. Thanks, I knew that. Next she delightfully informed me that I had five euros of credit on the phone. Fabulous!

“Now, I don’t really know how to tell you this Signora,” she went on tentatively. “But on the 17th of July 2007 your number was bought by someone else.”

My face twisted in horror. “You mean TIM sold my number to someone else,” I corrected.

“The phone hadn’t been used for some time.”

“I used it in November and December of 2006. I’m only in Italy every few months,” I rattled in disbelief. “That doesn’t mean you can re-sell my number. I’ve been a loyal TIM client for seven years.”

“Eh,” she made that insanely annoying apologetic Italian noise. “Mi dispiace, Signora. I don’t know how else to put this. That number is no longer yours.”

Amazing. My entire Milanese existence had been obliterated. Who was the poor shmuck who took over my number? Was he receiving random text messages and calls from people searching for my Italian self? I wondered if those people who always wanted to chop off my locks in those hair shows were still texting me. How was he dealing with that?

“There’s an infinite amount of numbers in the world,” I melodramatically proclaimed to the nice sounding Italian female TIM worker, who I now was convinced was a conniving slut. “Why did you have to sell mine?”

The TIM worker had no explanation for this, “Sadly, signora, it’s like this. The only advice I can give you is to go to a Centro TIM store and confirm the information I’ve given you.”

I told her I was never buying another TIM card again and hung up. Mature, right?

Aside from the existential crisis this news caused, it was also a major inconvenience since I’d now be forced to stay on my American number while in Milan, where Cingular financially rapes me with fees like $1 per international text message.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, anyone I’d want to see is not in the city anyway, so contacting them is actually irrelevant because they’re all in Sardinia, Formentera or the mountains. Every club is closed, the majority of stores don’t open, and me and my friend were forced to hike almost a kilometer from our apartment to find an open pizzeria in which to nourish ourselves this afternoon. In short, Milan in August is the visual equivalent of a city after an atomic bomb scare.

The plot thickens, however. In a drunken stupor last night I had the genius idea to call the asshole who had the balls to buy my phone number a mere month before my arrival, and give him a piece of my mind.

“If it’s a guy,” my ex-roommate Star said, “I bet you can convince him to give you back your number.”

So I called my old Italian self from my American phone hoping for a male voice on the other end. Instead, I received an Italian error message to the extent of, “Blah Blah Blah Blah TIM, Blah TIM, This phone number does not exist.” This is actually GOOD news because it means my number has most likely not been resold. Had it been resold and active it would have rung, or I would’ve gotten a different error message informing me the owner had their cell switched off. (I’m really familiar with Italian cell phone error messages, it’s like a second college degree.)

Tomorrow I plan to go to a Centro TIM (assuming I can find one that is open) and get to the bottom of this whole mystery. Is this God telling me to once and for all give up on the paradoxical, difficult, glitzy city that is Milan? Is it really time to throw in the Italian towel?

My heart goes out to the unfortunate TIM August worker who’ll soon have to deal with me.