Seemingly Popular Despite The State Of My Ankles

Ah, sweet interweb, it feels good to go out carousing on the town after months and months of self inflicted hibernation. It feels good everywhere but in one’s head the following morning.

After seeing five houses on Saturday morning with Beau (two of which we plan on returning to see again with his parents next weekend), I traveled into the city to dine with Notorious and Face at Pour House which features half priced burgers every Saturday. Per usual, our intentions of eating a quiet dinner and consuming a reasonable number of drinks were side tracked by doing the exact opposite. I assume this occurred because we haven’t been able to get together in close to a month and we had lots of womenfolk updates to catch up on. Also, we have absolutely no willpower. Except for Notorious who demonstrated amazing willpower in ordering an extra dinner to take home to her boyfriend and then successfully fighting me off as I repeatedly tried to assault the container for a single French fry… or alternately, his entire burger.

Eventually, she brought me with the ladies’ room with her because I could not be trusted near the food in question. We read graffiti to each other to pass the time until I nearly leapt out of my seat from sheer excitement at finding the BEST graffiti ever. If you’re ever at Pour House, I suggest that you to use the first stall on the left in the women’s lavatory and look to your left once seated because you will see the following message scrawled on the partition:
After a hearty laugh, we returned to Face to tell her of our discovery and, being the brains of the operation, she told me to return to the bathroom to take a picture of the graffiti. I returned but couldn’t work up the chutzpah to take flash photography in the women’s room because if the roles were reversed and I was the one taking a tinkle when I noticed the flash of a camera, I would freak the fuck out and probably stab someone.

From dinner I condoned a move from the hipster college-kid orgy that exploded inside Pour House to a quiet book lined corner of Lir and from there we went on to The Globe to meet up with another friend. In this way, I broke the cardinal rule of drinking which clearly states that barhopping is stupid when it’s cold outside and you are wearing your boyfriend’s boots because yours are soaked through because you’re too vain to buy REAL winter boots instead of cute fuzzy Sherpa boots. Anyway, despite the temperature and the blisters forming on my calves, we walked to the Globe and along the way, I had the opportunity to cock block Notorious from giving a quarter to a sketch ball. She earned that damn quarter and that’s more than could be said of him.

Somewhere around my seventh rumndietcoke and the arrival of our party’s addition, I found myself in a cab going to The Washington Square Tavern in Brookline to join yet more people at a fourth bar. It would seem seven rumndietcokes is the threshold where I cease being Dangerous K and begin introducing myself as Shania.

I fell into bed around 2 in the morning and was woken by a smirking, judgmental Beau at 9 to brunch with Chairsy and Jay Aitch, our favorite engaged couple who enjoy stealing chairs with me from people’s front porches, and chasing mice around my apartment. I struggled through the day with sunglasses and arrived successfully at dinner with the Italian.

Those series of events are my best explanation for why I didn’t have time to shave my legs this weekend which resulted in my current predicament of accidentally wearing high water slacks that reveal my Clydesdale-like blister-covered ankles.

Don’t look at me. I am a monster.

Lessons from the Metro Boston Roadways

After merging into the left lane during this morning’s commute as many other drivers do every day of their lives and will continue doing for the rest of time, the owner of a light-green high-end minivan floored his vehicle in order to tail me as if to say, “I know there was an appropriately sized gap in front of me that was perfect for your automobile, but still, your presence in this lane will not be tolerated despite the fact that you are clearly keeping up with traffic.” To clarify, I didn’t cut him off. This individual sped up AFTER I was already in front of him and proceeded to tail me at what appeared to be less than a foot of space at 60 mph.

In response, I righteously displayed my middle finger for his viewing pleasure. He retorted with an elaborate hand gesture of mock-fellatio. He continued to tail for several more minutes, even after I tapped on the breaks nearly causing him to nearly hit my mid-90s boat with his Mercedes. Eventually, he tried to pass me on the right and failed miserably when the semi in the next lane cock blocked his ass.

Traffic moved on without the fellater but it left me thinking about all that I have learned by driving in and around Beantown:

Boston Road Repair Fund Minus $22-Billion Big Dig Equals 22-Billion Potholes

Boston never EVER fixes their roads. On the blue moon that they DO decide to fix a pothole, they will do so on a Monday evening at 5:30 pm so as to inconvenience the highest number of people. They will post between two and seven police officers to stand ominously on the side of the road and watch the progress so as to maximize wastefulness.

The “Here I Come” Principle

In my homeland of the Dirty Jerz, the root of all bad driving is impatience. People will tail you because you’re holding up traffic and they need to go somewhere. The appropriate speed for the left lane on the Jersey Turnpike is infinity. You are expected to go as fast as possible in that lane. If you allow anyone to catch up to you when there is no one is front of you, it is their civic duty to let you know that you have failed society. That’s why the Jersey Sweep was invented – to get around Virginians doing 80 mph. Come to think of it, I wonder if Mr. Let-Me-Show-You-How-I-Put-Penis-In-My-Mouth was from the Jerz?

In Massachusetts though, the root of all bad driving is obliviousness. This phenomenon has come to be known in my household as the “Here I Come” principle (as in “ready or not, here I come”, as in “I don’t know exactly where you are, but I’m probably coming in your general direction right now”). This phrase was coined after Beau, a native Bostonian, took a mostly blind left hand turn from the right hand lane in a highly populated downtown area and my subsequent caterwauling. As a general rule, Bay Staters have no idea what’s going on when they are behind the wheel. They are completely unaware of their surroundings, usually on the phone, and just plain don’t notice that there are other cars on the road.

The Hypotenuse of “Why Don’t You Look Where I’m Going?”

With all that obliviousness comes a certain amount of implied trust. They trust you not to rear-end them when they cut you off without looking, and you may pass that trust on to the next driver when you park your car at a green light to get out and inspect the effect of a carwash on your rims. In Jersey, it is your responsibility not to get yourself into an accident. In Massachusetts, it is everyone else’s responsibility to make sure you don’t get into an accident.

Rotaries Equal Retardation

I used to go through three rotaries on my way to work. Each one backed up every single day, at every time of day and the inside resembles a mosh pit for cars.

As a preliminary effort to head off reactionary hate mail comments, I challenge you to take a toodle around Boston to check it out for yourself before committing yourself to an eternity of my ridicule by whining that I’ve stereotyped horribly and you are personally offended. Should you chose to refute the facts stated above, I require specific examples as well as your license plate number so I know to avoid you on the roads.

Just Like “House of 1000 Corpses” Except with Fewer Corpses and More Humiliation

It was only a matter of time before I got into trouble here at my new office. Three blissful weeks of uninterrupted professionalism and sobriety were just too much for me to ask of the Universe. I’ve been waiting patiently to do something dreadfully embarrassing like flip a driver off in traffic only to find out in the parking lot that it was my boss. That’s why today, day 13 of my new job, I was not surprised when all that waiting came to an end.

I was lost in thought this morning on a routine trip to the lady’s room, probably pondering the supreme existential questions of mankind like where on the unattractiveness spectrum does ugliness end and deformity begin. Still deep in contemplation, I entered the restroom and approached my favorite stall. My reverie was cruelly disrupted when I saw before me a toilet with a lifted seat and urine spatters along the raw, exposed rim. Huh, I thought, here’s one I haven’t seen before. Some women are real freaks I guess.

My eyes widened in panic as it occurred to me that that may not be the case. A more reasonable explanation presented itself. I might have overshot the girl’s room by one door. As a result of my own spaciness and a case of massive autopilot failure, I might instead be in the men’s room. Like, for males only. Coincidentally, the gender of the CEO, President, and Vice President of my new company. All of whom were getting out of a breakfast meeting any minute and were no doubt, full to the brim with coffee.

These disturbing mental images flashed through my mind as I stood just inside the stall, completely frozen. Then the main door to the bathroom opened and I slammed the stall door closed behind me and attempted to shrink to an eighth my normal size while cowering next to a sullied toilet that despite more serious prevailing concerns, continued to noticeably skeeve me out.

Instead of the click-clacking of stilettos across the tiled floor, I heard the soft padding of flat shoes. Like the scene in a slasher movie just before a stupid blonde is murdered, the footsteps moved casually past the sinks, excruciatingly slowly past the crack in the door jam that I was desperately trying not to watch, and finally into a neighboring stall. With my heart pounding in my ears, I ripped open the door and flew out of the restroom.

As I paused for breath directly outside like the complete and utter moron that I am, the President appeared in the hallway before me. My face fell into a look of abject horror to have been caught exiting the men’s room. Thankfully, like all good senior staff members, he was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice that I appeared to have just soiled myself in his presence. He smiled benevolently before passing me and entering a door to my left.

I spun around and saw that I had been in the women’s room after all. My trustworthy autopilot had not failed. Shaking, I double checked the skirted symbol on the door and reentered, making sure to avoid the tainted stall of terror which I may never be able to use again.

Where's Waldo? Let Me Show You.

Ya know what pisses me off, Interweb? When your next door neighbors go away for two weeks at the end of December and turn off their wireless router so that you are bereft of Interweb access for HALF A BLOODY MONTH. And then they come back and lock the network so that you can't mooch off of it anymore. How uncharitable is that at this time of year? Seriously, my neighbors are the opposite of philanthropy. You can blame them for me not blogging much recently.

I suppose you could also blame my new rockin' job which keeps me super busy during the day but I would prefer if you didn't come down too hard on them. Granted I've only been working for two weeks but I absolutely adore the new gig. The days fly by since I'm not just sitting around waiting for the phone to ring, I get to commute by car in my new pimpin mid-90s whip, the office is filled with girls my age who invite me to lunch every day to discuss our favorite available-only-on-TV merchandise, and there is free Diet Coke available in the fridge. If I can figure out how to sneak Bacardi onto the office supply ordering list, I'll absolutely be in 9-5 heaven.

In addition to Interweb issues and working for a living, Beau and I are now house hunting in earnest. The morning after our Christmas party Evil Landlord politely asked us to vacate by March instead of staying till the end of our lease in June. He insisted it wasn't because we were blasting Bette Midler until 3:00 am but instead because his sperminated wife will be spawning in the early spring and they'd like to move her mother into our apartment. While this is a massive inconvenience for us, I don't particularly want to live one thin layer of floorboards above a screaming baby. Plus, I imagine our landlord's life is about to suck big time if his mother-in-law will be living in the house. I take some twisted comfort in that. But, don't worry. We're not being evicted and we haven't put anything in writing. We're just trying our damndest to get out of here before the Seed of Evil Landlord is birthed.

At any rate, Beau bought us our very own Interweb connection so I'm free to babble to my heart's content. And now that I'm done with what was intended as a quick introduction to get you up to speed on my enormously interesting life, I see that it has actually evolved into a fairly lengthy entry unto itself so instead of launching into further revelations, I will instead say goodbye for now and promise to post again within the week.

Not So Dangerous

While most normal people are quick to blame their mistakes and appalling behavior on an Evil Twin, I long ago accepted that this was not an option for me. This is mainly because if I had a twin, I would invariably be the bad one. I've had a colorful past (some of which I illustrated for you at this time last year). When I sat down to compile a similar entry to conclude 2008 though, I wracked my brain and found the pickings to be much slimmer. Sure, I climbed out a window at a party last weekend, and yes, granted, I fell out of a chair later that same evening, but overall, there are fewer wild stories to choose from. Now, I'm more likely to curl up in my pajamas with a book on a Wednesday night than be chased out of a parking lot by the cops for public urination. Could it be? Have I… matured?

At the very least, my Good Twin has been rearing her un-hungover pretty little head with greater frequency. Beau has already taken the liberty of naming her "Cautious K" and shames me with the moniker every time I cross-stitch or turn down a fifth rumndietcoke or drive with my hands at 10 and 2 or gently suggest he maintain a speed of 35 mph. Maybe it was the four months of penny-pinching unemployment, maybe it was the increasingly nasty hangovers. Whatever the cause, the damage is irreparable. We're facing a kinder, gentler Dangerous K. One who drinks decaffeinated tea, has a gym membership and soon, a mortgage. One who gets tipsy off a bottle of wine and serenades her DD with an a capella rendition of Elton John's greatest hits. For that matter, one with hobbies other than drinking.

Did those past two paragraphs lose me my entire readership (who I assume is bent on hearing stories about me skin my knees outside a bar in Fenway)? I don't mean to suggest in any way, shape, or form that I have become an overnight teetotaler. On the contrary, I fully expect a number of shenanigans in the future, but I have to admit that the past year has been the tamest I've seen since 2001. It's time to pass the torch onto the younger pups like Mistress who tossed her cookies in a diner bathroom and then cheerfully rejoined the breakfast table last weekend. Ah, the good ol' days may have passed, but there are some things I just won't miss.

By The Numbers

To summarize the past four months of my life:

I permanently withdrew from the graduate program I was slated to begin in January. I applied to 72 jobs: 11 in September, 16 in October, a whopping 39 in November, and just six in December. I was offered 10 interviews and made it to eight. I had four second round interviews. I had one infuriating third round interview. I had one faux job offer which dissolved into nothing when I left a message accepting the position, called five more times that day without success, and finally got through to someone the next morning who gave me an attitude, told me they were “still deciding” and never called back. I met with four staffing agencies. Two of them laid off my original recruiter. None of them were able to find work for me in a span of almost four months. So, you see, it’s been a rocky third of a year.

And absolutely none of it matters now because I was offered a job this past Friday (this time with legitimate paperwork!) which I gleefully accepted. I’ve learned an important lesson, which I think my father was right in saying that I’m lucky to have learned at this age when I have so few financial obligations. But even in my euphoric state last Friday, I had one last lingering concern. I worried that this phase changed me as a person, made me a somber, antisocial downer unable to even write a funny blog anymore. So I did the only thing I could to test the waters: I got invited a dozen of my friends over for a Christmas party, got shit faced drunk, spilled a rumndietcoke down the front of my shirt, and needed a team of people to help me overcome the hiccups.

I'M BACK BITCHES! AHAHAHA!

Close Only Counts In Horseshoes & Hand Grenades

I just… I don’t even know where to start. I have spent the past five days trying to decide where to start. I’ve started and then stopped and erased everything because it was not to my liking. I take my blogging very seriously. In short, some things happened on the trip and those things were surrounded by a lot of…. quiet. I don’t know if those events were actually eventful or just seemed eventful because they were not, in fact, cornfields. So, before another week goes by and my relations in New Jersey get their collective panties in a twist over the lack of posting, I’m going to go ahead and just start at the beginning. If you don’t mind.
Our wagon ride occurred mostly without incident which goes against everything I know about the Oregon Trail. There was no typhoid or blocked mountain passes or bear hunting (not yet anyway… that’s foreshadowing, folks. You gotta pay attention to my foreshadowing. T, are you paying attention??) We managed to fit almost every one of our worldly belongings in the barely-existent trunk of an Audi TT. Then we drove five hours west with four pit stops because seriously, at any minute we were about to fall off the face of the earth and I was reluctant to pee on a farmer’s front yard. Also, Beau needed tater tots in Troy, NY.

Finally, we approached our destination in West Bumble. We zoomed past the farmstead (going entirely too fast, eh hem) where Bologna was standing outside frantically waving her arms. That made me start flapping my own arms and squawking. Beau, probably because he was going entirely too fast, was one step ahead of me and was already turning around in the driveway of someone who might have run out of their home with a shotgun. Instead of an angry yokel, we next encountered a loose cow that proceeded to race the convertible for a short distance. It’s as if we went to the zoo and found a tiger walking around outside its enclosure. These things aren’t supposed to happen. Tigers are supposed to stay in their cages, and cows are supposed to stay inside their fenced pastures.

We spent the remainder of the day wandering around cornfields, taking pictures of deer poop, and getting acquainted with the holiday’s cast of characters. In addition to the family, we met two cats, Sweet and Pooh, so named for their individual temperaments. Sweet was particularly awesome. She’s twenty years old and noticeably blind. When she looks at you, it’s like she’s looking through you directly into your soul and reading your inner most thoughts. Then she would go and wreck my theory of feline wisdom by walking into walls and meowing peevishly at them as if it was the wall’s fault. According to Mr. T (T, that is your dad’s official blog name. I just wrote it with the intention of circling back and writing something more clever, but then I was all, “Mr. T?! YES.” These things just come to me) Sweet still goes outside and hunts. AND ACTUALLY KILLS STUFF. So, yeah, she may be a little clumsy and we may have found her standing in a toilet one night, but it’s all a part of the cosmic feline wisdom that I detected in her spacey stare.

Thanksgiving morning, before I woke up, the menfolk (T [Hi T!], his dad, my dad, and my Beau) went into the woods with guns and tried to kill things. Real guns. With like, real bullets. My boyfriend and my father with his iffy hearing and his poor eyesight went deep into a secluded forest, somewhere south of the Adirondacks, with loaded guns and little supervision. But happy times! They all came back alive and empty handed. Apparently, a few shots were fired but, as Mr. T told us, “close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.” They should have brought Sweet with them. She would have felled a buck with telekinesis and plaintive mewing.

We rounded out our visit to the middle of nowhere with a trip to the closest town which was a thirty minute drive through the woods and fields and farms. And at that, it was still the middle of nowhere. We wandered and visited a used book store and looked at Christmas decorations. All very peaceful, pleasant activities but you don’t want to read about that. You want to read about Beau pitching a hissy fit at a bakery which was really slow in that not-a-Starbucks-in-Boston way so we left before he got a cookie and complained about it until we got him a beer at a dive bar on the edge of town instead where he nearly got us all shot by loudly announcing that “those guys really suck at darts.”

That night we had an Oregon Trail style send off. Mr. T made us a bonfire in the backyard and sharpened sticks so we could roast cocktail wieners and marshmallows. We were having a merry ol’ time setting things on fire and stuffing our faces, when a mile down the road, the dogs at a neighboring farm began barking. Hysterically. The T’s all looked at each other and were quiet for a moment before forcefully starting conversation again. I was not so easily fooled so I asked what all the racket was about. They told me it was nothing to worry about. The dogs probably just smelled… something. Something? Yes, something. Like a coyote. Nothing to worry about.

I’d already been worrying about that for days. Ever since Mr. T said that the coyotes were originally introduced into the area in order to keep the deer population at bay, but they weren’t big and mean with drooly fangs enough, so local officials introduced a coyote/timber wolf cross breed. How is everyone ignoring the wolf part?! That’s like ignoring the part of me that’s Polish. Yeah, I’m mostly Italian, but that doesn’t cancel out all the Polish qualities. You should see me try to do simple common sense tasks like open a box of frozen chicken nuggets. The Polish is in there, festering, and it makes a difference. Except, generally speaking, those genes don’t make me snatch unsuspecting city folk from camp fires and feed them to my young.

Needless to say, despite attacking a bush with my pointy stick in self defense and nearly soiling myself twice, the predators stayed at bay long enough for us to wrap things up and return to the comfort of the indoors and the protection of Sweet.

Truly, this was a proper Dangerous holiday. I was nearly run down by a cow, pitch forked by angry locals, and eaten by a coyote in the span of 72 hours. Oh, and my dad almost shot my boyfriend which would have been a particular inconvenience because there was absolutely no room left in the trunk of the car for a body.