100 Things. Re: Moi. Part (Uh-oh, my Roman Numerals are getting a little hazy) VIII? IIX? Well, Topic: IRRATIONALITY AND IDIOSYNCRACIES

71. I own two evening gowns that I have never worn. I own these evening gowns because I am a person who engages in a practice I like to call, "Wishful Clothes Shopping." The rules of "WCS" are as follows: 1) You must have absolutely no practical need for the item you are considering buying. 2) The item must be absurdly expensive. Not insanely expensive, just absurdly so. For those of you having trouble determining the difference, an absurdly expensive item causes you to say something like, "I can afford to buy this if I eat only Ramen for the next several weeks." An insanely expensive item causes you to say something like, "I can afford to buy this if I pick up some extra pocket change by robbing the homeless." 3) The item must inspire an irrational and elaborate fantasy sequence that ends with the sentence, "And then he will realize he loves me." For example, "Oooh. Look at this $250 red cocktail dress. I have no need for a cocktail dress. My boyfriend has not ever invited me to cocktails. But, if he did invite me to cocktails this is the dress I would like to wear. I can see it now: he will call me up spontaneously from his office. His friends, he will say, are meeting him for drinks after work, and he would like me to come. Can I be there? Of course, I will say. Then I will go to my closet, put on this red cocktail dress, which I will be GLAD I purchased. I will walk into the bar. The skirt of this red cocktail dress will swish a lot, and men in top hats will escort me down a winding staircase. At the bottom of which photographers will gather to take my picture. My boyfriend will be standing just outside the crowd of flashing cameras. His friends' mouths will be open in amazement. That's your girlfriend? they'll say. Yes, he will say. And--though he didn't before--suddenly, because of this red cocktail dress, he will realize he loves me."

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about (probably men, mostly), it may be easier to understand WCS if you think back to the last time you bought sporting equipment. You've not played soccer in five years. And you sure could use the closet space that these shin guards and shoes would be taking up. But, what if the guys call you up, say, this weekend and ask you to play? How cool would you be if you showed up wearing these awesome Nike soccer shoes? How much better would your game be? And so on.

72) For those of you who DO know what I'm talking about, take the number of Wishful Clothes Shopping items you've purchased. Multiply it by seven. Now you're in the ballpark with the number of Wishful Clothes Shopping items I've purchased. Hold on a second, someone just gave the homeless guy over there a quarter....

73) I only set alarms for times that end in "six." For example, If I am supposed to wake up at 8:00, I will set my alarm for 8:06.

74) My favorite number is 1236. I like it because it contains beautiful symmetries and patterns. One being half of two and three being half of six. Twelve going into thirty-six three times. One times two is two, times three is six. Etc. Pretty, pretty, pretty.

75) At important times in my life--i.e. when big changes are occurring, or something major is just around the corner--I automatically wake up in the middle of the night when the clock reads "1:11," "2:22," etc.

76) Whenever I go to the top of anything very high (buildings, bridges, etc.) I have an almost overwhelming urge to drop something over the edge. "Something" does not mean pennies or a pen cap. "Something" means my keys. My purse. When I used to wear them, it meant my glasses. I surreptitiously dangled my glasses over the ledge of the tower window of many a castle in Germany in my day. Also from observation decks all over the United States. It still makes my hands sweat with the temptation and risk of it.

77) I'm good at speaking and spelling things backwards. .sdrawkcab At a certain point in my life, I was obsessed with speaking backwards. When I was going through this phase, I was much older than you're probably thinking I was. No one understands you when you talk backwards, no matter how good you are at it. Trust me.

78) There is a physical feeling that happens to me everytime I am lonely. I feel it in my chest and my upper arms. As though someone is drawing my blood with a needle from the inside. Reverse misquitos. It makes me remember filling the shirtsleeves of our scarecrow with cornhusks and prickly pieces of hay.

79) I love it when people notice a tiny black speck in the skin of my right hand. I still have a piece of lead stuck there from where Maggie Bogenreef stabbed me with a pencil when I was nine.

80) I like seeing how far I can walk with my eyes closed. I do it all the time in hallways and on emptier stretches of sidewalk. Right now my record is forty-two steps.

History

In bed time. Saturday morning, when all the movement we've done has involved tossing blankets around.

He's reading aloud, the final paragraph in Durant's book about the Roman Empire. It's writing for which the word "scope" was invented.

He loves it so much, it makes him cry.

There is a feeling underneath my skin as I watch him. I think about trees and how, when you cut them in half, you can read the events of their lives in the rings.

You could see the mark of this morning. If you broke me open now.

So, it's like this.

I don't know what I'm doing. I have just absolutely no fucking clue.

And when you've got nowhere else to go, and you don't know what to do, the perfect place to head, apparently, is Rehab.

Rehab is a club here in NYC. Interestingly enough, by day it is a fairly tame restaurant that I've been to several times. Long tables and chairs and waiters that move efficiently through the plastic and the metal to serve lots of things that contain arugula. No big deal.

By night, different story. Or so I discovered. The line--of course the line, always the line--of people trying to get in at the front door. The smokers puffing away in spite of the cold. Not a woman in a long-sleeve shirt in sight: cut-outs, slits, tank tops, tiny straps, sequins, chandelier earrings, short-short-short skirts and eyeshadow up to there. Greeted by two half-naked aqua colored dancers atop glowing platforms that are obviously never there at the same time as the arugula. (Wouldn't be proper.) Music pounding. And away we go.

Into the arms of the crowd. Into the legs and jumbling. Eyes are slashed out by shadows. No room in the noise for a voice or a word.

I have no idea what I am doing there. I am twenty-five years old, and this is what twenty-five-year-old people do. It's what they enjoy, and they launch themselves at each other and collide and smash. They don't speak or touch. But they fuck.

Have fun. Dance.

Am I the only one who is thinking that this is all ridiculous? I am the only one who is thinking that this is all ridiculous. My friend Chris has his tongue already wound down some girl's throat, and his friend Isaac would love to have his down mine. Which would have to be a secret, of course. So his girlfriend in DC doesn't find out. They're in love, you see. And moving in together soon. So shhhhhh. Shhhhh. But, come here.

If I wanted an answer about why M happened, I found it in Rehab. What you learn there is that people are replaceable. Flat and mechanical and as faceless as the music; if she won't do, the next one will. Always another choice. There will be something better at the next table.

People always celebrate this city, and it deserves its fair share of praise. But I am tired of it tonight. Very much so.

I think there are these moments that happen, sometimes, where you're standing at the beginning of something. Or maybe at the end. And everything all of a sudden seems large and important.

I think I'm at one of those.

K-Hole

In college my roommate Tera fell into a K-hole.

For those of you who are not (as I was not) in the "know" regarding K-holes, a K-hole is something you metaphorically "fall into" when you have done too much of the drug K. Never having done any--let alone too much--K, I had no idea what a K-hole might be like. I imagined it was probably very windy. I imagined that Tera's eyes had probably suddenly turned into black and white spirals, like cartoon people's eyes do when they get hypnotized. Her blue dress and white petticoats had no doubt billowed out around her as she floated by strange images of white rabbits carrying time pieces.

I thought falling into a K-hole sounded pretty great.

But then this week, I remembered Tera and her metaphorical fall. How dark she said everything felt that night. And how long--how totally endless every moment seemed. How slow. How boring.

And I realized that falling into a K-hole is probably exactly like being a receptionist.

Sorry. Guest Relations Associate.

Never fear. Never fear. I have not turned to drugs and debauchery in my absence. Though I needed both this week.

This is what happened. Ready? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No auditions, no adventures. No sex, no lies, no videotape. Everything is just holding patterns. Endless. Boring.

My manager called. She's used up all of my photos, and not managed to get me one appointment for Pilot Season. Which is probably both her fault and mine. Her company doesn't have enough clout to get me in the door....because casting directors aren't interested in meeting people my age who don't have any tv on their resumes....but I don't have any tv on my resume because, until now, I haven't had an agent or manager to GET me into any television auditions...and so on. End result? Nothing happening.

I went to a bar Thursday and met a red-headed version of The Guy I Always Meet. The conversation was a variation on The Conversation I Always Have At Bars. It starts out with, "What do you do?" or "Where do you live?" or "How long have you been in New York?" And it's like trudging through a swamp. I have no energy for these talks anymore. The idea of sharing any part of myself with someone is terrifically unappealing. Especially when so few people respond well to the parts I do share. I don't want to listen to them tell me how noble it is that I'm following my dreams. "Aim for the moon and, even if you fail, you'll still end up among the stars," they'll say and then tell me that they majored in business/law/economics because they didn't know what else to study and now they hate their job as a banker/lawyer/accountant. And even as they're fessing up to the safety of their choices, I will see the knowing look that crosses their face at some point in the conversation: Oh. How cute. An actress. As if "actress" is a euphemism for "stupid," "misguided" and "poor."

Then I will turn the conversation to Other Things, and will listen to the tale of the trip this guy took to Turkey ten years ago, or the great lengths he went to to find the t-shirt he's wearing. Because he collects clothes by this designer. Which are only sold in certain stores, apparently. And would I like to go to dinner sometime? (And, yes, these people do exist; I'm not imaginative enough to make them up.) And do you think he'll even notice when my head explodes?

Next, M's friend Idiot called again. The fact that he called may seem to contradict my original statement that nothing happened this week. But, it doesn't.

Idiot called again even though--you'll remember--I told him in January that I couldn't talk to him or be his friend. And, though I never returned his jaw-droppingly stupid "You look like Darryl Hannah" Phone Call, he still somehow thinks I'm just dying to talk to him. Just suffering without him in my life to confide in. Which should make me mad again, but doesn't.

Instead it just highlights another holding pattern. The M Holding Pattern. The fact that I am waiting--still--like a fish in a bowl, for a phone call from M. An email from M. An apology from M. A reason. An offering. An effort. From M, who I dated and loved. AN EFFORT. From M. Not from his stupid fucking friend.

an effort.

At saying (I don't need him to want me back--wouldn't that be stupid for both of us. I've no need to move backwards, just want to move ON) that he's sorry. And he wants me to know it. He's calling, in fact, to say that now. To tell me how, in some small way, as he walks down his street...when he looks out his office window at the Brooklyn Bridge, maybe, or sits down to eat breakfast...he remembers--I don't know. What. What would I want it to be? Something. Some small thing. And whenever he remembers it, he wishes good things for me. Because I mattered to him. And, anyway, he just wants to tell me that.

That I mattered.

Well.

Holding Pattern. I don't know what I'm doing or when I should decide that what I want to do and what I can do may be two different things. Walls are up--don't talk to me because I have no room for you or need for you and your issues and idiosyncrasies and your miles and miles of questions. No room, most of all, for the pain you might cause. Because, what would be the point? I don't want to tell you my stories. This day is long, long, long already and it's only 2:30, but that's what happens when you have a job you don't care about because it gives you the flexibility to aim for the moon and follow your dreams and live on a prayer, and don't talk to me in bumper stickers, you fucking condescending piece of shit. You don't know about my talent or my intelligence. I have not been in anything you might have seen recently. I haven't been on a soap, or on a billboard. Nor have I, apparently, been on your mind. Though you are always on mine. Circling here. Like a large, black bird over the city.

Holding pattern.

K-hole.

100 Things. Re: Moi. Part VII: Right Now I Think It'll Be About Music, But You Can Never Tell.

61. The first solo I ever sang in front of a lot of people was the song, "Let's Go Fly A Kite," which, I believe, is from Mary Poppins. People in my hometown still come up to me and sing it. Nineteen years, people. Let it go.

62. I think the first three minutes of Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring are so beautiful they're almost hard to bear.

63. My karaoke song is "Hit Me With Your Best Shot." But it should be "Pour Some Sugar On Me."

64. In college I was in a show with special guest star Debbie Gibson. Ready for some irony? She sang, "I Am The Greatest Star" from Funny Girl and forgot the words. Five times. At one point she got so frustrated she kicked off her shoes and started to try the song again. And forgot the words again. Finally someone screamed "Do the 'Electric Youth' Dance!". Ms. Gibson ("Deborah" now, in her theatrical career) stormed off the stage.

65. This boy I dated at leadership camp one year made me a mix tape. On the outside of the tape, on Side A, it said, "This is only the beginning" and then you flipped it over and Side B said, "Hopefully we'll never see the end."

66. I got myself cheap tickets to The New York Philharmonic this year which was one of the best things I've ever done for myself. They played all the Beethoven Symphonies this season and at one of the concerts there was a blind man with a seeing-eye dog. I was up at the very top of the hall, looking down at this black dog, sprawled out in the aisle on the orchestra-level. Funny, strange thing. To see a dog at the symphony.

67. I think "There'll be icicles, and birthday clothes and sometimes there'll be sorrow" is about the most concise summation of--well, pretty much everything that life is. I heart Joni Mitchell.

68. I own one Britney Spears CD. Oops.

69. When my roommate isn't home I blast "Dancing With Myself." Billy. Idol.

70. My first professional role was as a talking dog in a children's musical based on the tv show "Reading Rainbow". I toured the US for six months and sang the "Reading Rainbow" theme song in front of more than 250,000 children. For those who know what Reading Rainbow is, I'm going to do a pre-emptive strike here and tell you that Lavar Burton toured with us in spirit only.

So.... *she says looking down at her lap and scuffing her feet*

...There's this party...

...in March. On the 2nd...

And it's for a good cause--to benefit this charter school in Brooklyn...or Queens...or somewhere...

...and I think it might be really fun, so...

...Should I go?

Oh. And there's a 99.9% chance that M will be there.

In Which I Finally Get To Use The Word "Vomitous"

Well, here it is. Valentine's Day. blech.

For those of you in relationships, have fun calling each other using your special Verizon V-Day romantic ringtones. Because nothing says "I care" like electronic beeping to the tune of Mya's "My Love is Like Whoa."

That Mya.

For those of you who, like me, may have spent the wee hours of Valentine's Day crouched in front of your toilet throwing up--whether from stomach flu or just general malaise--I would like to offer the following observations about relationships, love, and Valentine's Day.

So, without further ado, I bring you:

Relationships, Love and Valentine's Day As Seen From the Cool Porcelain Base of A Toilet While Throwing-Up Half-Digested Tortellini At Three AM

First of all, everyone who lives with me in Manhattan and is female and single gets a Super-Special Outstanding-Genius Princess of The Universe Forever Gold-Star Sticker because not only have we survived Valentine's Day (so far), but we have also survived FASHION WEEK. And--to those of you who live outside of Manhattan--let me tell you, it is one thing to have V-Day come upon you when you're single and lonely, but it is another thing entirely to have V-Day come upon you when you're single and lonely and on the subway surrounded by eighteen-year-old models casually toting handbags that cost as much as mid-size off-road vehicles.

Sure, some of you kind male readers may interject at this point and say, "Whatever. Guys don't like models. They're too skinny and their hipbones jut out so far that it hurts to make out with them. Yo."

Boys, I hate it when you lie.

Each day this week, I have seen the way men react to these gaggles of young women in their size zero designer jeans and their fresh four-hundred dollar messy-look haircuts. Old, young, homeless--down to a MAN, you would file the jutting-hip-bone-pain under the heading, "Hurts So Good."

**

Last year for Valentine's Day, M gave me a Whitman's Chocolate Sampler. The kind you get at the drug store. He didn't even get the largest sized box. Nor did he get the kind of Whitman's Sampler that comes in the heart-shaped box. Because he waited so long to get me anything that by the time he got to the drug store the heart-shaped ones were sold out.

Anyone saying, "But it's the thought that counts" has just missed the point entirely.

He also gave me a card with an elephant on the front of it. The elephant (huge. purple.) was asking, "What kind of Valentine are you?"

Hmmm.

There is nothing less wonderful than receiving a Valentine's Day card that--even for the briefest of moments--makes you think that your lover is suggesting that the answer to the question "What kind of Valentine are you?" is: Huge and Purple. Like this elephant.

On the inside the card actually said, "Too cute." (Relief.)

He signed it, "Happy V-Day." For anyone who thought he was going to sign it "Love," your optimism is annoying. Go eat some glue.

**

Last night, as I was laying in bed feeling nauseous and disgusting and all hollowed-out, I thought, "Thank God I am single. There is no one in the world, save my mother and my old pediatrician Dr. Ed, who I would want to see right now. Also thank God I am single because now I get to sprawl out on my bed and moan a lot whenever I flop over, and kick around the covers as much as I want. And I can continue to do so even when I'm starting to feel better. Harumph."

Today, though, I wish I wasn't single--or at least that I had a hot date tonight--because having the stomach flu has temporarily made me super skinny, and I would like to show off.

**

This is a list of things that make a better gift than a medium-sized Whitman's Sampler in a square-shaped box:

A large-sized Whitman's Sampler in a heart-shaped box.
Roses.
Live blooms of any sort.
Even geraniums.
A McDonald's Happy Meal.
Socks.

**

A boy who I have kissed before, cornered me on a stairwell in a bar two nights ago and kissed me again. Yay!

Then he said, "How 'bout you touch my chest right now and I'll touch yours."

...

?

?

...

I thought I'd give it a moment and see if the right words would come.

Haven't.

**

But, nevertheless, I do think He's out there. My Guy. Who will Get me. And who won't treat me like a bar wench (see above.) Wait--do over. He won't treat me like a bar wench unless we're alone and feeling fiesty.
...

...

I'm going to go eat some glue.

Stomach flu.

Happy Fucking Valentine's Day.

100 Things. Re: Moi. Part VI: More College, Because...Why Not?

51) My dorm room freshman year had a soporific effect on all who entered. It was known as "The Womb" partly for this reason, and partly because we had deep red curtains.

52) My First-Year Seminar Professor somehow made wearing one long parrot earring seem very hip. Her peculiar accessory choice was one of the first things that made me understand that in New York City--unlike in Wisconsin--there would be more to shopping than just The Gap.

53) Junior Year I kissed a boy just to get him out of my room. He was a math major and a distant relative of both Ulysses S. Grant and Daniel Boone. He kissed like a math major. Algebraic. Points and Angles.

54) I went dancing by myself. Not often, but more than once.

55) The Drunkest I've Ever Been: Junior Year. I locked myself INTO my room (by leaving the key jammed into the lock on the outside of the door). Because I was the Resident Advisor I couldn't call campus security. So I scribbled "Help" on a piece of paper and slid it underneath the door when I heard people coming down the hallway. I also called all of my friends and left them drunken "Send Help" phone messages that I think they recorded and will probably end up playing at my wedding.

56) I had a love/hate relationship with a homeless woman who lived near campus. She would say, "Do you have any change?" I would say, "Not today, sorry." She would say, in all seriousness, "I'll take a check," and then hand me a pen.

57) My favorite thing to do on Saturdays was wake up and have an egg and cheese sandwich with my best friend, Emily. The bagel place down the street stopped serving egg and cheese sandwiches on weekends at 4 PM. Senior year I went a lot of weekends without getting up in time for an egg and cheese sandwich.

58) I couldn't have picked my "Groups and Symmetry" Professor out in a line-up, even while I was "taking" the class. It was the class I chose to fulfill my math requirement. Number of times I went? < 5. Or is it > 5 ? Whatever. If I'd gone more than five times, I guess I'd know.

59) I spent entire afternoons crafting single paragraphs of my Senior Thesis on Oscar Wilde's Salome. My advisor stopped me on the street after I'd handed it in to say it was the best thesis she'd ever received. I suck at anything that might actually make me a decent living, but I'm a fuckin' demon when it comes to writing long-winded papers on abstract, dramatic texts.

60) You know that nightmare you have where you haven't been to class all semester, and you've not done any of the reading, and the final is tomorrow so you had planned to stay up all night studying, but then you accidentally fall asleep, and wake up fifteen minutes before the exam starts? Happened.

100 Things. Re: Moi. Part V: The College Years. Finally.

41) The day I moved into my college dorm was the first day I had ever set foot on its campus. I had been to New York City only once before my first day at college--for a weekend-long high school choir field trip where we performed at Bellevue and I saw a crazy man's penis and sang for an amputee ward. In that order. It says something about me that this bizarre experience did not deter me from moving to NYC for school. I'm not sure what it says, but it definitely says something.

42) I had applied almost exclusively to schools with both prestigious music programs and strong academics. I got into exactly none of those schools, and was devastated. I ended up at Barnard as a last choice, thinking that going there meant that I would never become an opera singer.

43) I met the guy I'd lose my virginity to, Gustavo, on my second day at school. We slept together for the first time about four days before my 18th birthday. He was an extremely charming person, and an incredibly effective compulsive liar who went to elaborate lengths to construct a certain level of believability around every lie he told. It took me and my friends and family about nine months to get to the bottom of all of his varied stories. Among his most amazing stunts: Calling me from an airplane phone at home in Wisconsin over Christmas vacation, using a stolen credit card. Stealing a labtop computer from a girl on my floor. Giving me a bracelet packaged in a Tiffany's box and jewelry case...that was not from Tiffany's. Stalking me for almost two years after we broke up.

44) Unlike other times in my life when I may or may not have appreciated my own good fortune, I feel 100% positive that I appreciated how fantastic college was every single day. I found it bewildering (in a good way) that my single responsiblity was to read about complicated, vastly interesting things and then write and/or talk about them with (mostly) smart people.

45) My first voice teacher in New York talked about her nipples all of the time. She had sung at The Met when she was about 19 years old. She had an enormous potrait of herself in her living room and a slightly nutty son who accompanied all of her students in his boxer shorts. She had probably had a fabulous voice at one time, but she--like many voice teachers--had no idea what made her voice fabulous and therefore made a not-so-great teacher.

46) She took me with her to sing at an opera festival in Germany the summer between my Freshman and Sophomore years. The former-East German city we lived in brought to mind two words: concrete hive. I left the city often, taking long train rides to Amsterdam with a girl named Serina who told me that her boyfriend had had a leather dominatrix outfit made for her.

47) When I got back from Germany, I auditioned for a new voice teacher at Juilliard whose student had heard me sing that summer. She accepted me into her studio and so I ended up studying there for the remainder of college. "Take that!" all you lesser-known conservatory programs that rejected me in high school. *she does small, brief victory dance*

48) Junior Year it was my New Year's Resolution to see a boy named Luis naked.

49) New Year's Resolution achieved by mid-February.

50) Seeing Luis naked pretty much defined the latter half of my college experience. He listened to Edith Piaf on Saturday mornings. For two years we had drama and great sex and 3:00 in the morning on his rooftop. When asked once, while sitting at our favorite bar, why he kept doing a funny (sexy) thing with his lower lip, he smiled and said, "I'm diverting my kisses." He was a heartbreaker and a man-child who looked great in white t-shirts. Even when it was terrible, it was wonderful.* College.

*Rose-colored glasses? On.

100 Things. Re: Moi. Part IV: Highschool

31) For the first time, a boy who I liked, liked me. We will attribute this miracle to contact lenses. His name was Matt Tiettemahn. On my fourteenth birthday he came strolling down the hallway toward my locker carrying a single rose. Lame now, but--at the time--crushingly romantic.

32) Later that same night our dear Matt came to my house to surprise me...with a dozen roses. My mom and dad and I are sitting in the living room, watching tv. A knock at the door, and there he is, bouquet in hand like something out of a Molly Ringwald movie. Only, a key romance-factor in those movies is that the parents are never home when the hot boy shows up at the door. Having the parents be at home sitting with you on your couch, while Matt Tiettemahn fawns all over you, makes the whole situation very awkward. And when Matt tries to get you to sit on his lap, it gets worse still. And then, when someone (your mom, maybe?) suggests that you take Matt upstairs to show him the den (?), you feel relief but also an impending sense of dread. Because to go from never having any boy even notice your existence, to having a cool, popular boy in your den holding birthday-surprise roses...well, it's a lot to handle.

33) First kiss: Matt's house to watch movies. Unlike my parents who checked on us about every five seconds after sending us to the upstairs den, HIS parents sent us to the basement to "watch tv" and then promptly went on vacation to Florida. Matt played "More Than Words" by Extreme and read me a poem about footprints and sand. Then he licked my face. I remember standing there, and thinking, "That was it?" And it was.

34) I also got my first and--I think, only--hickey that night. I wore a forest-green turtleneck to school on Monday and showed my hickey to a few of my closest friends*. I felt like The Luckiest, Coolest Girl Ever.

*Everyone.

35) I broke up with Matt after two weeks.

36) I went to Prom four times. First time: fuchsia dress that looked like something I stole from the dressing room at a ballroom dancing competition. Also, of course, fuchsia dyeables. Second time: strappy black dress with slits on both sides. Sparkly beaded jacket. Not bad. Third time: A red dress that I thought looked like the one Julia Roberts wears in Pretty Woman. Didn't. Fourth time: Mono + Long black dress + Pale white skin + Circles under eyes= Walking Death.

37) Singing competitions, voice lessons, performances, all the time.

38) Got drunk for the first time as a Freshman. Alicia Bartline, whose father had money because he invented a machine that killed chickens, kept small bottles of airplane liquor in her closet. Being friends with Alicia made me feel Bad.

39) At fifteen I went to a national speech and debate competition where I met a boy named Aron. After sitting with him for one night at dinner, I said, "I could spend the rest of my life locked in a room with that person and be completely happy." I meant it. We wrote letters and visited each other for nine years after we met. Now we don't talk, and I'll never tell you why.

40) What teenage story would be complete without food issues. In study hall my friend Amy and I chewed donuts and then spit them out, so as to get the taste but not the calories. I also would go home after school and mix up batches and batches of cookie dough and then--without sampling even so much as one spoonful--I would take the batter outside and dump it in the bushes before my mom came home. Then it made me feel powerful. Now it makes me feel sick.

100 Things. Re: Moi. Part III: ....Middle School. God.

21) During most of middle school my bangs were curled up into a very high, very hairspray-crusted shape that resembled a tsunami.

22) During most of middle school I wore enormous dark blue glasses, which I purchased because the woman at the glasses store said they made me look like I was wearing make-up.

23) Gullible.

24) Terrible at every sport. Really--all of 'em.

25) I spent many a sleepover freezing the bra of one, Maggie Bogenreef.

26) Andrew Morter, who you may remember from a previous entry, was my "Secret Santa" in eighth grade. I spent weeks shopping for the exact right Grateful Dead t-shirt to give him. I finally found it. On the day when I brought in my beautifully wrapped, perfect gift to give to Andrew, he had forgotten to bring something for me. At lunchtime his mom came in and dropped off a gift. Ponytail holders.

27) I experienced coolness for the first time at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. Nicole LeGrande, my 17 year-old counselor with infinitely awesome permed hair, did my make-up for the camp dance and let me borrow her flourescent green shorts.

28) It was in gym class in seventh grade that I realized that Roman Ab Machines give me orgasms. It is a medical mystery. Any doctors reading this can feel free to speculate.

29) Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp also gave me the amazing experience of going to Europe to spend my summer singing. At eleven. And again at fourteen. Without parents. Both times.

30) When I was running for Secretary of Webster Transitional School's Student Council in 8th grade, I won the (coveted) position by performing the following rap to Axel-F:

My name is Kate and I'm coming to you
'Cause I need your vote, plain and true
I said, Brothers and Sisters, c'mon and see
I'll be the best Secretary that'll ever be.
Me, I'm responsible, tried and true,
Creative and kind, thru and thru.
I know my way around the Senate floor.
I've been on a year, a half and more.
Other qualities that I possess
Include neat, caring and happiness.
So you know it's covered when it's with me,
And covered it will always be.
So Yo! Vote Kate! Uh-huh! Groovy.
(The majority of this still holds true. The part about being "neat," however is not true. I was never neat. That was just something I said so that I'd win.)

100 Things. Re: Moi. Part II: Girlhood

11) My mom used to cut my bangs by putting masking tape across them to make sure they were straight. They were.

12) When I was six and had just started at a new elementary school, I asked the librarian, Mr. Simpson, if I could go to the bathroom. He said, "No." Being, as I was, unfamiliar with sarcasm, I promptly went to the back of the library and wet my pants.

13) Mr. Simpson ended up feeling very badly about this and let me hold his elephant booger (which may have been a real elephant booger, but was more likely a large ball of dried rubber cement).

14) Set up a "veterinary clinic" with my friend, Lori. Our first patient was a (probably already dead) moth that we kept in a small jewelry box.

15) Used to bury things I found at the end of my driveway so that archaeologists could find them and learn about our society.

16) I had a lot of outdoor, barn cats, many of which died outdoor cat deaths (run over). I still have nightmares about sick cats.

17) One of these outdoor cats gave me ringworm.

18) Lied a lot. Might still.

19) I'm not baptized.

20) Actually said, about Mark Hamill when I found out he was married, "All the good men are taken." Age? Seven.

100 Things. re: Moi. Part I: Childhood (Except for #2)

1) When I was born on October 21, my parents say they almost named me Annabella Drizella because it rhymes with my last name.

2) I have already been stalked twice since moving to NYC. So good luck convincing me to tell you my last name.

3) I grew up on a farm in Wisconsin, but we never actually farmed anything.

4) We had a goat named Long John Silver; he hung himself.

5) I got to name the two sheep we had. I named them Daisy One and Daisy Two. My creativity, I guess, kicked in post-sheep.

6) When I would get tired, but would want to keep playing something, I would put my underwear on over my clothes and pretend to be Princess Leah in that scene from Return of the Jedi when she's chained to Jaba the Hut.

7) My imaginary best friends were named Shawna, Fauna, and Rabies.

8) When my mom used to drive my brother and I around, she'd be The Driving Droid and sometimes we could program her to take us wherever we wanted to go.

9) Despite this, I spent a lot of time waiting for my real mother to come and get me.

10) My real mother, of course, was Princess Di.

Thank you, Boys, for your kind thoughts re: the denim.

The verdict is in:

If a little squishy-soft puppy with floppy, silly ears, put on a bunny costume with a fuzzy, poofey, teeny-tail, and skipped around wiggling his soft puff of a puppy-bunny, fluffy tail-bottom...

...he would STILL not look as cute as I do in my new jeans.

The Meanest Thing Ever Said

M's best friend just called me.

RAGE.

My skin may begin peeling back at any moment, falling to my office floor in scorched pieces. Think: that scene where all the Nazi's die in _Raiders of the Lost Arc_. You know the one I mean. And if you don't, go stand over there with the rest of the slow children. I have no time for you now.

I am too FURIOUS.

We will call M's friend "Idiot" because he is one. My relationship with him, while I was dating M, could be described as follows: I was nice to him because he was M's friend. My relationship with him, Post M: I used him for information. Clear?

Since M and I broke up, Idiot has called often. He is the kind of person who stays with you on the phone so long that your ear gets hot and you start worrying about brain cancer. During the first two months after I found about M's cheating, I spoke on the phone with Idiot occasionally because I missed M.

Idiot reminded me of M.

I tried not to talk to Idiot about M.

Sometimes that worked. But rarely.

As I gradually came out of my post-break-up stupor, I started to come to my senses and stopped
returning Idiot's calls. Idiot is totally without tact, which made talking to him very painful. Idiot is clueless when it comes to women, so his queries about the female condition are repetitive and remedial. Idiot may or may not have a crush on me, which makes me uncomfortable and totally uninterested in continuing to speak with him. Lastly, Idiot KNEW THAT M WAS FUCKING KAREN, THE UNHOLY SLUTWHORE FROM HELL, AND DIDN'T TELL ME. Though my anger regarding this last was late in coming to the party in my brain, when it arrived it was salivating and hairy-knuckled and it ate all of the other guests and then went on to tear the heads off of kittens and babies.

In other words, there are many things I want for Idiot. Most of them have already been catalogued in great detail by The Marquis de Sade. None of them include, "To be his bestest friend."

When he called in November, I did not pick up. When he emailed, I did not respond. Ditto: December. Along comes January, and you would think that the guy would get the picture already and leave me fucking ALONE.

You would also think that my reasons for ceasing to have contact with him would be rather apparent. Those reasons being: I dated his best friend for eleven months. I had no basis for being friends with Idiot other than that I was dating his best friend. His best friend lied to me for a good part of that eleven month period and fucked a woman named Karen (known on these pages previously only as The Unholy Slutwhore From Hell). Idiot knew this and didn't tell me.

You! Sam! Michael! Guys! First of all: Do I look fat in these jeans? Second of all: What about this situation is so mysterious to Idiot?

Well, if you're going to give me advice now, and if that advice is going to be something along the lines of, "Be straight with him. Next time he calls, pick up the phone and tell him that you don't want him in your life. Yo." I did that.

Around the beginning of January, when I returned from Christmas to find multiple messages on my answering machine from Idiot, and when--that same afternoon--he called again. Twice. I finally picked up the phone to have a talk with him.

"Idiot," I said on that fateful afternoon, "I don't think I can be your friend. It is too hard. I am tempted to talk to you about M and that is not fair to you, and that is not fair to me. And I think it is better if we don't talk anymore."

So Idiot responds, "You know M has a new girlfriend. Or should I not tell you that?"

AR..un..ghh...I...rmm...trying...resist...re..si..st....

To my credit, I don't break out my poodle skirt and start twisting my phone cord around my finger while singing, "Tell me more. Tell me more. Was it love at first sight?"

Nor do I go all Sylvia Plath and start scraping a kitchen knife over my wrists. (Yet. I wasn't coordinated enough to hold the phone and scrape at the same time.)

But, we all know that I don't stop him.

"She's sweet," he begins.

Of course she is.

"He's--you know--a little rough around the edges and she has a really great way of handling that. But, if it makes you feel any better, he went home for two weeks at Christmas and was worried because he didn't miss her. So he's not sure that she's the one. What do you think? Do you think if he didn't miss her she's not 'It'?"

I stutter, "I don't think he can miss people."

Here it comes. Wait for it. Wait. He's about to say The Meanest Thing Ever Said.

"Sure he does. He missed Karen."

...

...

He missed Karen.

Wow.

I still can't believe the Idiot would actually tell me that my ex-boyfriend. Who I loved. Missed. MISSED. The woman he fucked behind my back.

...

...

It dazzles the mind.

...

...

WELL, anyway, even I am not that sick and self-sacrificing.

"Look, Idiot," I respond, "That is exactly the type of thing that makes me not able to talk to you. I don't want to know about M. I don't. I want to be happy and move on with my life and forget I ever knew him or you. Good-bye."

And I hung up.

Since then, you have all been witness to my M detoxification. I have, in effect, been blogging that man right out of my hair.

I've blogged out my concerns about M's New Girlfriend until, frankly, I've more or less stopped thinking about her. And, I'm making progress with M as well. I didn't, for example, respond to his pathetic "Thinking of you" text message in December (which he sent *she notes with a satisfied grin* while he was dating this new girl).

I have not called him. Even while drunk in taxis late at night. You should be impressed about this. It's amazing. It is, I believe, a testament to my strength and ageless wisdom. At least, that's what Nelson Mandella said when he wrote to congratulate me on the achievement.

So, WHY would Idiot call me--after ALL OF THAT--just weeks later--to tell me that...

...he met Deryl Hannah.

And he thinks I look like her.

RAGE. On so many levels. Daryl Fucking Hannah? RAGE.