a phone call from andrew

My douchebag friend Andrew (above) left this, the douchiest phone message in history, on my phone this weekend. Lame. Slash, hilarious.

Oh, hey, Andrew? I'm not sorry. Show us your tits!!!


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i can't get no satisfaction

"Kato, I'm upset with myself," blurted Kathleen as she refilled our twice-emptied margarita glasses last night. "I think I'm 'in like'!"

She met this boy a few weeks ago who's been pulling all sorts of typical "fratboys dating in DC" crap with her. You know what I mean. It's the kind of bullsh*t that newbies like my girl might not notice yet, but to veterans of the DC dating scene it just isn't cute anymore. Date me or don't, but spare me the play-it-safe middle-of-the-line nonsense -- I don't need to get sh*tty and exchange witty quips with you at a dirty bar in Adams Morgan 4 weekends in a row without so much as a single sober one-on-one rendezvous. You're wasting my precious "flirting with that other boy" time. I've already told her to drop his *ss -- this city is teeming with men -- but she's holding out hope that he'll come around and invite her out to dinner, already! Or at least that she'll get a little satisfaction from all the blue-balling they've been doing to each other. I totally get that -- you gotta seal the deal or else he's unfinished business. A ghost of fruitless flings past.

Only in DC, right? Out in the Flyover States girls our age are dying to find Mr. Right, but here 24-year-olds recoil at the idea of coupledo(o)m. Where some find fulfillment, others find their worst nightmare.

Lately I've been hearing a lot of buzz about this elusive "fulfillment." It's the new Livestrong armband -- everybody's gotta have it but no one has any idea where to get it. Everyone seems to think you get it from someone else (fulfillment=STD?), which is interesting since being "someone" would qualify me to pass it along and yet I don't feel like I'm a carrier.

Tony Robbins -- the super-sized womanizer and general sleazeball slash "life coach" -- is a big proponent of the idea that you find fulfillment in your interactions with others. He gave this whole long blahblahblah spiel on something-or-other that you can watch on TED.com where he examines the things that lead to fulfillment, eventually landing on "interpersonal connection and love." Which is kind of his area of expertise, as Lainey found out in her extensive research -- he made what I am sure was an agonizing decision to drop his wife of 15 years like sh*t-streaked underwear and then marry a woman 22 years her junior within 12 months. An upgraded model to match his obscene new money -- another classy move by the financial elite. Clearly, Mr. Robbins knows all about the sacred bonds of love money can buy; maybe I should buy his tapes and learn how to love, like him! Or I could just get them for Lainey and watch with her. Happy birthday! ... Unrelated but entertaining note: When they got married, his second wife not only took his last name, but also changed her first name. I'm not entirely sure what that says about her, but it causes an involuntary head-tilt and brow-wrinkle that usually indicates I think it's massively stupid.

But I digress. As usual.

I, for one, would say that I am generally unfulfilled in life. Yep, I'm still lookin' for my bliss. It's like the Universe's huge scavenger hunt with the ultimate prize -- God, I hope it's worth it in the end. Not that I'd consider giving up on the hunt. I think it's a genetic flaw that causes me to ache for whatever part it is that's missing in me, and then a sign of insanity that I keep trying to same things over and over to try to make myself whole. But I'm ready to consider that there are other ways to achieve fulfillment than constantly being busy and hyper-social. I know -- how very un-DC of me!

Fear not, lone reader, for your brave heroine still carries the city's vibe -- if not the innate human ability to bring meaning into the lives of others -- in certain ways. My general reluctance, like Kathleen's, to being "in like," for instance. Huh. I wonder if the two concepts are somehow related...

not hot

WTF, NKOTB. This video freaks me the f*ck out.



I don't know that I've ever seen men age so gracelessly. What were they thinking?? I'm sure they blew through all of the money they made 2 decades ago (you know, back when they weren't disgusting) but a Backstreet Boys-style comeback is straight-up wrong. If you can't be bothered to dab a little concealer on your liver spots, then at least button your shirts and find some women who are a little more age-appropriate (read: legal).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on older men. George Clooney, anyone? But the Cloon is totes down with his 47-year-old-ness. Plus he's not white trash like the Old Kids -- you'd never catch him wearing a poorly tailored white suit that he clearly bought on group shopping trip with his 4 BFFs. This is not the "anything goes" '90s, people.

"Hey guys, let's all wear that same outfit to the beach later and try to pick off the insecure girls at the TRL Beach House! Man, we are so hot."

Yeah... you're idiots.

Update: Lainey's friend Stephen's take on the song/video/album:

To be perfectly honest, the fact that this song/video/album was made is proof of God's existence. Because only the most vile, infested, bottom-feeding record mogul who UNDOUBTEDLY has a contract with the spawn of Hell could have thought this was a good idea. Ergo, God has to exist.

y = mx + dork

It doesn't take a genius to count up all the women this guy has slept with.



I find him particularly offensive as I study for the GREs and find myself completely unable to find the longest possible diagonal of a non-existent 3D rectangle. I think part of the problem is that I really couldn't give a flying f*ck what that distance is. I hate you, Math. I do. I have no use for you. And people like Numerical Design Cumber Bun up there are frankly not filling the void that would otherwise be satiated by calculating the squares of 5-digit numbers in my head.

I may or may not hire him as entertainment for my I Give Up party. Worse comes to worst, at least I won't go home alone that night.

a collection of things that belong to me

Je suis une femme, right? Which means, among other things, that I am endlessly fascinated by shiny things. When I was a little girl my favorite thing to do was to go through my Baba's jewelry. Baba's legacy is a bit mixed, but I prefer to think of her as I'm sure she must have thought of herself: a devout, erudite woman and a world-traveler. A Polish survivor of World War II, Baba valued three things above all: Catholicism (faith = important?), her M.D. ("No one can ever take away your education, and with an education you will always be able to feed yourself") and gold (because you can always sell it if you need money -- a la, WW2 movies where they smuggled valuables by swallowing them). So, outdated and somewhat bizarre as it may seem to someone living in 21st century U.S., as she and my grandfather traveled the world she bought herself a piece of gold jewelry in every city they visited. By the time I was old enough to appreciate it she had amassed quite the collection. I inherited my favorite pieces when she passed; it's part of my personal collection of things that belonged to her.

Oh, the things we own. I love those heirlooms -- I love to imagine the history that surrounds them. Where did she wear them? Who was there? What did they talk about? Was it an event worth the real estate in the brain, or has everyone quite forgotten it?

Okay, my mindless ramblings sind endlich vorbei -- I'll get to the point: I went to see the Afghan treasures exhibit currently on display at the National Gallery of Art. The collection -- a handful of artifacts saved from Soviet destruction previously on display in the major art museum in Kabul -- was absolutely spectacular. Afghanistan was once a rich center of art and culture. Hello, Silk Road? They had traders coming through all the time with stuff from India and China and Mesopotamia and Europe -- there are ancient Greek cities hiding underground! Their art is influenced by a myriad of cultures and styles and it is gorgeous. But Soviet tanks obliterated countless artifacts and historical landmarks and killed and maimed and beat down the Afghanis. And today, Afghanistan is known as a crazy country full of caves hiding religious radicals and terrorists. Its people live in penury, there's sh*t for infrastructure -- seriously, it might as well be Biblical times over there. We'll probably never see Afghanistan restored to its former glory in our lifetime. It's sad. I'd love to go to there. You know -- minus the bombs.

The thing is, I can only stay gunned up about history for so long, and then my mind wanders. This exhibit was no different. I don't know how my thoughts get where they go, but there seem to be patterns. Example: every time I see really ancient pottery -- cups, glasses, plates and bowls intricately carved or glass-blown or welded or whatever they did back in 1000 B.C. -- I think about the cups, glasses, plates and bowls in my cabinet and how uninspired and flat-out sh*tty they are. Forget the Silk Road -- say hello to Generic City! It has happened many more times than once or twice that I'll be at a perfect stranger's apartment and find that they have the exact same dish set I have. Or the same shelving unit. Or, for the love of Christ, that same Gustav Klimt print -- you know it. Der Kuess. It's in every college girl's bedroom, hung sideways. How absurd would it be to see a collection of all my things in a museum?? And then this is what flashes involuntarily through my mind:

A Collection of Things that Belong to Me

Completely nondescript blue plate, circa 2007; mass-produced by Ikea. Dishwasher safety unknown, but unlikely. Sort of depressing, but holds food in a convenient position as I prepare to consume it, so I guess I can't complain.







Mascara container, circa 2008; mass-produced by Maybelline. I'll save you some time -- she's not born with it, it's the Maybelline.








iPod unabashedly coated in rhinestones, circa 2006; mass-produced by Apple. Has potential to hold at least 10 times as many files as it does, a point made moot by the fact that I really only ever listen to my Top 25 Most Played playlist. Interestingly, I seem to strongly prefer those songs and listen to them on repeat. Handy that they've been grouped in such an accessible way.




Moose bobblehead, circa 2007; origin unknown. Not exactly "art;" serves no practical function. Not entirely sure how it got here, but bobbling head provides countless hours of entertainment and who doesn't love a moose?







Magnet reading "Jesus would slap the sh*t out of you," date of creation unknown; origin unknown (although Urban Outfitters seems like a good guess). Pictures man (supposedly Jesus) holding hand as though to slap the sh*t out of (and/or bless) another man. Hilarious. Found in apartment upon move-in. Holds up card from my mother. Love it. Keeping it when I leave. Still not forgetting that affection for something does not make it museum-worthy.



It's not just me who lives like this, either. Everyone I know has this kind of crap, even my grandparents. I kind of wonder if wills will become a thing of the past as it becomes more and more pointless to bequeath your survivors things like "low-quality set of knives from Target" or "stupid rooster statuette from Home Goods."

Anyway. After the mental slideshow of the world-famous Kato Collection comes to a close, I can't help but wonder whether the jewelry cases and the makeup containers and the painted vases and the fish-shaped flasks came from the ancient Afghani version of Target. And maybe there are all these dead people laughing hysterically as they watch us fussing over their cheap china sets that they never even liked, and certainly never dreamed would be a protected "artifact." So I figure if it could happen to them, it could happen to me, and I should probably start labeling all my things so museum curators 500 years down the line won't have to add those miserable little question marks at the end of the item captions they can't figure out.

Thus, through generic and thoughtless consumer goods, my legacy shall live on forever... Huzzah!

hello, lawsuit!

Nary a truer word has been spoken...



Let us never forget the rules to avoiding a sexual harassment lawsuit:

(1) Be handsome.
(2) Be attractive.
(3) Don't be unattractive.

sex and the crazy

Women are dominating in the news category lately, thus answering the age-old feminist question, "Where are the women?" They're sipping cosmos and gabbing about how that one scene in the Sex and the City movie is exactly what happened to them that one time with so-and-so... and not caring that the U.S. just missed out (again) on a serious female presidential candidate. We're preoccupied with "Big"-ger issues -- such as, does over-the-top romantic love exist? And, if so, do you think I might have it with that cute guy at the bar?

I cried alternating tears of joy and heartbreak throughout the entire movie -- thanks for the hormones, Yaz, it's a real laugh-a-minute! -- but at the end I had to restrain myself from throwing my cell phone through the screen. How could she? And the movie completely trivialized what is probably the most important reason people get married: to protect yourself legally and financially in the event that the life you build with someone falls apart and you need to go your separate ways. It's not really a romantic decision, it's a rational business decision to not get f*cked over by someone you've f*cked over and over again.

And Big, that *sshole. So she wanted a fancy wedding. So what? That man could never just do something for her, he could never just give her the things that were clearly important to her. I guess to a thrice-married sociopath like him, weddings are old hat -- or just another opportunity to show her that she wants him more than he wants her. What a f*ck. Stupid Carrie, she's getting a lifetime of disappointment with that man.

Further, what's the moral of the story? You need to maintain close relationships with your friends, and they'll help you through every ordeal you face? That's fine -- except that already at 24, I find that my coupled friends are already completely disinterested in working on any relationship that isn't with their significant other. People in couples tend to create their own universe together and systematically exclude the rest of us (at least until they need a shoulder to cry on or a sympathetic ear to b*tch to), which is stupid and short-sighted and obnoxious. I can't imagine that will improve with children and advancing careers. So while the 4 women in the Sex series might have some superhuman ability to be and stay BFF despite their romantic lives, I'm not counting on my life looking like that. Instead, I'll be patiently waiting for everyone to leave the "wedding" phase and enter the "divorce" phase, which will certainly perk up my social life.

...

Sometimes I catch myself expending mental energy on things like Sex and the City and wish I could will myself to die. Honestly. It's ridiculous -- I'm a smart girl, I graduated cum laude from a prestigious university, I have a legitimate job and there are probably a million other things I could spend my time thinking about. It's downright eerie to me how much of my brain activity is involuntarily dedicated to relationships -- not only romantic relationships, but relationships with friends and family members and the world around me. Lauren #1 says it's just science; women are nurturers, full of hormones and advanced linguistic ability and so on. I could blame science but I'm more of the school of thought that I've chosen to be vapid, and if I really wanted to suppress these thoughts I could. Harsh.

It's not easy to ignore the thoughts though. Yesterday there was no escaping the useless inner dialogue about the connections between people; the ones I have, the ones I lack. It was more than just the movie and my crazy, crazy brain -- the night before I had come face-to-face with my own physical vulnerability and then, in my empty apartment at 2am, the fact that when it comes down to it, I'm all alone. So I roamed the streets downtown, making a half-hearted attempt to find the perfect summer sexy outfit and then wondering why I was even bothering -- how much of working on my appearance is for me, and how much is for the men who eye-f*ck me on the street? And what do I really want from men, anyway -- another hit of oxytocin to feed my addiction? That's healthy.

Oh, wasted hours considering questions without answers. I should add that to my list of interests on the Facebook.com.

this is why I don't go out on weekends

It's always sort of unnerving to be reminded of the lessons learned in BabyBio at socially inopportune times. What it comes down to is that we are not the masters of our own destiny -- we are slaves to biology, and science is a cruel master.

Let's take a step back. We live in a country hyper-saturated with cheap, convenient, high-caloric food that delivers very little nutrition -- but malnutrition is much more difficult to detect than starvation. The garbage food pushed as impulse purchases or with carefully choreographed advertisement pervades the diets of even the most stringent health fanatics, and we frequently finish eating thinking we've satisfied our body's need for fuel and nutrients, when, in truth, we've just consumed empty calories. We're full, but we haven't really given our bodies what they need. In the semblance of an autonomous adult life I've carved for myself, I've shrugged off many of the unhealthy eating habits of my childhood. I'm generally pretty good, and I indulge when I can't ignore a craving. Yeah there are occasional fast food and candy binges, but they're few and far between -- and I always regret them as soon as it happens. I've grown to crave things like fresh cherries rather than Sour Patch Kids. I watch what I eat because I care about my body and my health; plus, it's a helluva lot easier to maintain good health than to restore it once you've lost it.

But I make mistakes. In fact it happens a few times a week that I'll altogether forget to eat a meal. Boys never understand this, they have this uncanny ability to make sure they get all their meals in. But sometimes there's no time. Sometimes you're not hungry because your previous meal was X-hundred calories and really, how many of those are you using behind your desk? And sometimes you just plain forget -- there's a point in the hunger cycle where your body says "Oh, f*ck it, I don't even care if you feed me anymore." Example: It's 11am, I've been up since 7 and I still haven't eaten. Maybe I should get on that...

Outright not eating can be disastrous, especially when your body hasn't been nourished with quite the right combination of salts and sugars and liquids and assorted chemical compounds required for the most basic bodily functions. Functions like maintaining consciousness.

Last night I came home from work and snacked absent-mindedly on candy while studying vocabulary for the GREs. By 9:30 I was en-route to Adam's Morgan to socialize and meet some friends of a friend -- no, I hadn't eaten an actual dinner, but I wasn't really hungry because I'd noshed a little, and didn't really think much of it. I wasn't planning on going nuts -- we weren't gearing up for one of my famously bacchanalian soirees, I just wanted to nurse a cocktail and sing the praises of Ralph Nader with some fellow progressives until the clock hit 01:23:45 06/07/08. Instead, I ended up sitting in an ambulance with a device monitoring my heartrate and blood oxygen levels on my finger.

I fainted. Right there in the middle of a bar in Adam's Morgan. Fainted, not passed out drunk. I wasn't drunk. No; malnutrition and dehydration got the best of me and I went down, hard. Three times. Once I started shaking -- not quite a seizure, but it's not a good sign, either. It means there's something very, very wrong. What that "something" is, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe if I knew, this wouldn't have been happening to me intermittently since I was 4 years old. What I am sure about is that it was the most embarrassing thing that's happened since the night that... well, frankly, I don't want to talk about that night.

The human body blows my mind. It's simultaneously resilient beyond even the most unreasonable expectations (see: people who survive 90 days in a life raft after being shipwrecked, etc.), and the most fragile thing on earth (see: fainting because the thermometer hits 85+). I've subjected my body to much more strenuous abuse, and yet it's a little dirty dancing in a crowded club that lands me unconscious on the ground?? And now I'm nervous to push my body and explore my physical limits. If I can't dance for an hour in 90-degree heat, how am I supposed run 7 miles in the middle of August? What if I fainted during the road race? How would my parents find me? What would happen? Fainting during an organized road race heavily monitored by ambulances and trained professionals is much less unnerving than fainting in the middle of downtown DC on one of my runs.

I usually love the summer heat -- the humidity you practically have to swim through, the weight of the temperature, the perceived permanence, the inevitable thunderstorms to release the tension pushing down on everyone in the city -- it's usually my favorite thing about living here. But now I'm nervous.

I'm mad at my body for being just as much of a pawn of mortality as the fetal pig I dissected in high school. But more than that, I'm mad at myself for not taking better care of my body. I'm mad at myself for not owning the situation. I'm mad at myself for having been in Adam's Morgan in the first place. And I'm definitely mad that I missed 01:23:45 06/07/08.

I guess I'll go eat now so I don't end up with another seizure-fit and miss the second go-around.

stop light, neon light

I've made very compelling plans with myself to spend my Saturday learning obscure vocabulary and playing tennis in the sweltering heat. I was going to round off the day with that Bob Dylan movie I've been meaning to see for 6 months, but then I was invited to a Traffic Light party. For those of you who don't know what that is (although I don't know how you could get through college without at least hearing about one), it's sort of like a "wear your heart on your sleeve" costume party. Singles wear green (and drink heavily, because that's what they have to live for), coupled people wear red (and a look of smug satisfaction) and people whose marital status is more complicated wear orange (although frankly I think they should probably just wear green shirts that say "whore" and be done with it).

I like the idea of these traffic parties mostly because I revel in the potential for extreme, painful, palpable awkwardness. Not your obvious garden variety "awkward turtle" awkwardness -- no, I mean the kind between two people that extends beyond what would otherwise be their private world together and imposes itself on total strangers. I'm hoping harder than I've ever hoped for anything before that some girl shows up in red and her boy shows up in green and there's that moment of silence before she storms up to him and throws sangria in his face. I know that if it was me throwing that party, I would stage that scene for the benefit of my guests. Glory!

I, for one, will be wearing black -- I've taken myself off the market indefinitely for the benefit of mankind. No one needs to listen to me b*tch about the reasons I will most assuredly die alone with my cats.

Update: Actually, I don't have any cats. I don't even have any plants. I'll just die alone; it's probably better that way, then I'm not leaving behind an apartment full of unfed kitties and dessicated vegetation.

the big O

Alternate title option: Ding dong, the witch is dead. Can't decide.

What I am clear on, however, is that I absolutely adore that Michelle Obama. Adore, slash idolize. She's wearing a belted purple dress, and now it's the only thing I ever want to wear. She went to law school, so I think I will, too, just to be more like her. Look at this woman -- her husband becomes the first black candidate on a major party ticket and she's all "Pound it, baby!" Jesus, schmesus, we should all aim to be a little more like Michelle.

Love it. LOVE IT!

P.S. Who else is excited for more of those speeches? With any luck, I'll be spending a lot of time on my couch in a very physical (albeit imaginary) four-to-eight-year relationship with Barack Obama.