Is This My Future?

Hi. I'm back. I tore myself away from Sydney, kicking and screaming, and have returned to the US of A. Ironically enough, on this great American holiday, I am most grateful for my year away from the States. Now, before you roll your eyes and call me an unpatriotic bitch, let me just say this past year was one of the best of my life. But mainly because it allowed me to say goodbye to the familiar, jump out of the sky, ride elephants, and return to friends and family who did not forget about me even though I abandoned them for tanned alcoholics who don't pronounce their R's. I have friends for life here, and if I ever doubted that before, I know that now.

That being said, my goal in going to Australia was to "write a book". And I have to say, every time someone asks me "How's that book going?" it makes me cringe. Because before, when I lived in Sydney, I could say "I'm too busy living it to write about it!" or "My writing teacher says you can't write the beginning until you know the end!" But now, I got nothin'.

My friend Andy, in a show of obvious faith that I would actually write the book I kept talking about, showed me this video last January. I laughed at him, told him that was insulting, and said "As soon as I get back I really am writing it!" But now, as I blog instead of working on my outline that I told my writing teacher I would turn in to her before our meeting next week, I wonder, "Will this book ever get done?"

I certainly hope so, but I don't know that I'd recommend betting on it. In the meantime, please refrain from asking me about the g-damn book. And be comfortable with the knowledge that I haven't completely changed. I still prioritize chocolate, whiskey and procrastination.

Oh and my grandpa joined Facebook. Consider yourself fully updated on my life.

Chocolate and Sunshine

I was getting a little restless cooped up working from home in my NYC apartment so I decided to quit my job and move across the world to Sydney, Australia. (I've always been a little bit drastic in my actions... Surprising coming from someone as chilled out and drama-free as me, I know.) As of now I am pursuing an endless summer and plan on returning to the northern hemisphere in May just in time for the hot weather. I'm taking my blog with me and moving it over to www.nothongsallowed.com in order to collect all of my Australian adventures in one place complete with pictures of all the fun I'm having. The photographs are intended to enduce envy so please, stalk away.

For the time being please check me out at No Thongs Allowed instead of Chocolate and Whiskey. I know that for most of you this means adjusting your homepage but, so be it. I've had to adjust my drink orders to "Jack and dry" instead of saying "whiskey and ginger" so we are all making changes in our daily lives together.

Kisses.

Sister, Sister

I turn 25 today. Eek.

This is what my sisters had to say about it:

C — Happy Birthday Grandma!

K — In honor of your birthday you are on my listening section of my quiz tomorrow. I'm reading a description of what you like to do and they need to answer multiple choice questions about where you are from, what you like to do, what you like to do A LOT, and what you don't like to do. For the record: you are from paraguay, you like to read, you REALLY like to eat, and you don't like to run.

I haven't spoken to my brother yet, but he's a sweetheart so fingers crossed I'll just get a "happy birthday."

Bobbit is back?

Me: "Hi whatsup?"
Molly: "Hey there I'm actually at work and I am triaging patients (which means that they write on a paper why they are here and then I am the first person to evaluate them) and someone just handed me a paper that says "rip penis". So I'll be right back."

Well that just puts it all into perspective doesn't it? Guess this is the equivalent of me not being able to to g-chat with anybody once a celebrity dies, although that's happening so often these days I'm really learning how to multitask quite nicely.

Death by Jenny Craig

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against fat people. Or maybe I do. But that's besides the point. I just really hate it when their life choices start interfering with me. This morning a delivery man kept incorrectly buzzing my apartment from downstairs. After the first buzz I just let him in like I do everyone else since I work from home and the FedEx people have figured this out and won't leave me alone. Then as the buzzing continued I thought it might be doing irreparable damage to my sanity, so after 15 minutes I went to my intercom and asked him who he was looking for. "Lenny Freeman" he said exasperated. "You've got the wrong person." Buzzzzzzz. "I'M NOT LENNY FREEMAN!" "I meant to say Wendy Friedman." "I am neither of those people." "Well I have your diet food delivery!"

Ah, so it was clearly not for me regardless of the name. "Listen, I don't eat diet food nor do I need it, so please stop trying to push it on me. What apartment are you looking for?" He told me the apartment number from downstairs. Ah, that bitch from below finally realized she was fat and ugly and was going to do something about it. "You need to press the button below mine." I calmly told him. Buzzzzzzzzz. I tried to ignore it. Buzzzzzzzz. "STOP IT!!" "Come down here!" Oh yeah right like I was going to come meet that maniac. "LOOK if you can't get this girl her food that is NOT my problem. It's probably her fault she's fat so let her gain weight and just leave it downstairs or eat it yourself but please GO AWAY."

There was silence on the other end. I didn't know if he had been let up and was coming to murder me with his bags of diet food or if he had just left. But the irony of it all was that I had been about to grab lunch and was now scared to leave my apartment. So I had to sit there, starving, and thinking about how I could probably use any kind of food at the moment even diet food. Maybe this is how this program makes you lose weight. They send scary angry men to come yell at you through your intercom until you are too frightened to exit or let anyone in. Probably slims you down faster than South Beach.

What are you trying to tell me?

I received this Washington Post Quarter Life Crisis article today from more than one friend of mine, plus a few family members. I thought that this was my favorite quote from the piece:

"At the same time, Seppinni said, technology is breeding a generation of online sulkers. No longer limited to sharing their woes at the family dinner table or while hanging out with friends, quarter-lifers have countless opportunities to brood in blogs and on Twitter and Facebook -- anytime, anywhere. And finding fellow victims to commiserate with is never more than a click away. 'Depending on your character and moral outlook, you'll seek like-minded people, and they are all over the Internet. Someone inclined to be depressed can find people who corroborate. . . . It also leads to focusing on a lot of drama and nonsense.'"

But no... then I got to the end where they were talking about the girl who the entire article was focused on, and how she followed her passion:

"For Buchanan, losing her job turned out to be the push she needed. Blessed with more time to work on her blog, she realized her real passion lay in writing. Now she hopes to make a living from it. 'It's a hard path, and it won't be easy,' said Buchanan, whose fiance is helping to pay the bills while she builds her portfolio. 'But I know what I want to do now, and I have the supportive base to get me there.'"

So you are happily engaged and your fiance is willing to pay for you to do nothing but write? Tough life there champ.

Smirnoff Ice Was a Great Choice

Jamie: "Ugh I am overwhelmed by trying to pack but omg I had the requisite evening of packing/looking through all of my old photo albums last night... I was just cracking up at pics of us all. We were such little freaks I have a lot of old high school ones here and I also busted out a collage Heather made me when we came to college that had photos of us that were HILARIOUS."

Me: "Like what?"

Jamie: "AKA one of Heather and I dancing and you in the background humping her parents TV obviously drunk off of Smirnoff Ice. I showed those all to Tim and he was like my friends and I did not do this in high school. OMG and there are some of us in NYC when I came to visit you at Penn freshman year which are also HILARIOUS because we were slightly hideous and sooo touristy."

Me: "I dont know what is more disturbing — that we were drunk off Smirnoff Ice, that I humped televisions, or that we actually took pictures in Times Square. And we were probably wearing jean skirts while doing it."

Jamie: "And tiny belly tube tops. The best pictures of us are at Key West freshman year. We literally look like the epitome of aspiring baby drunk sluts."

Me: "It's like we were gold diggers but not even looking for gold. Just trashy South Florida ghetto guys."

Jamie: "Like who were we?! Actually... I'm sure I will look back on myself now and ask the same question."

It's entirely possible but I dont know if anything will ever top looking at a picture of yourself, in badly highlighted braided pigtails wearing a wifebeater with a letter painted on it after a football game, pointing at your friend's fridge (whose parents were out of town, naturally) stocked full of a mixture of Mike's Hard Lemonade and Smirnoff Ice with a huge, beaming smile of pride.

To be honest, I'm still quite proud of myself for that moment right now.

Zeus Trumps Cupid

My friend talking about her ex: "I'm waiting for Zeus to come down, strike him with a lightening bolt and be like 'You love her, you asshole. Get your shit together.'"

Me: "ha! love it. making that my away message."

[a few minutes later]

Me: "Someone just pointed out to me... wouldn't it be Cupid with a bow and arrow?"

Friend: "Zeus's lightening bolts hurt more."

Me: "True. Why did they make Cupid a chubby little baby anyways? He should totally be a lighting-bolt-throwing, burning-down-the-house-asshole like Zeus."

Friend: "Cupid's arrow is like, cute, we have a crush. Zeus - much more appropriate for the ass-whooping that is real life relationships, especially in your 20s."

Me: "It's settled. Girls with braided pigtails tied off with pink bows who throw baking parties thought up the idea of Cupid. Blondes. No offense."

Friend: "I don't wear ribbons. Or bake."

Me: "No you don't. And that is why I'm friends with you."

Friend: "You hit girls at bars for wearing double popped collars. That is why I'm friends with you."

It's my sister's birthday and I'll freak out if I want to

My little sister turns 22 today. For some reason, I find that extremely more upsetting than the fact I'm turning 25 in a few months. Because, I feel like 22 was sort of an annoying birthday to celebrate. You're past all of the good milestone birthdays and all that's left ahead are the "DAMN I'm old" birthdays like 25, 30, 40, 50 etc. So it's utterly depressing that my YOUNGER sister has now reached the age where there's nothing to look forward to in life, in terms of birthday celebrations — which I narcissistically think are the best kind of celebrations. Obviously.

I'm not one of those people that's all, "Oh I just hate celebrating my birthday, let's pretend it's just like any other day." No let's not. It's the day I was born. It's obviously important, and I should be treated like a goddamn princess every second of the blessed day. And showered with gifts and praise for gracing the Earth with my presence. I've always thought those nonchalant birthday people were kind of cool, I wanted to be them. But puh-lease like I would ever pass up the chance to be in the spotlight and make it all about me.

Now... I had a point. Right, about my sister. I checked her Twitter to see what she was up to on this exciting turning point in her life and she had tweeted:

"My students got an 87% ave on the midterm, sweet bday gift!! I wish I didn't have 3 lesson plans to do..Do bdays mean nothing in real life??"

Sadly, they really don't. I remember when I started working and I was actually stunned when I realized all companies didn't automatically give you the day off on your birthday. In my defense, Lotus had always done that while I was growing up so my father never had to go into the office on his birthday.

I was sitting and feeling sorry for myself that my sister was getting so old, and the implication that this in turn, makes me old, when she gchatted me the following:

"Daddy said happy birthday through a fbook message ... devastating."

Burn. My pity quickly shifted back to my darling sibling.

Oh and one more thing: Happy Birthday Sister!! I hope you are having a delightful day! Don't worry about a thing — it only gets better from here...

Hot Wax and Adultery

I didn't mean to cheat. It just sort of ... happened. I've been faithfully going to my waxer Angela for over a year now. Usually I plan my appointments around her schedule, but last Wednesday I finished work later than expected and had to cancel. I stopped by the salon to see if she could squeeze me in, but the girl at the front desk told me my only options were to wait until this week or go with someone else. I felt like I was cheating on Angela, but my loyalty was no match for the fact July 4th weekend was about to begin, and I needed to lay out in my bikini sans shame.

While waiting for this new "Irene" chick in the front room, I heard Angela's voice coming closer. I couldn't bear the thought of her seeing me and realizing my unfaithfulness, so I ducked behind a plant until she left. I'm aware of how fully ridiculous this is, but I have guilt issues. Irene came out to escort me to a back room and as I lay down I heard a girl next to me have a mini-waxgasm. "Oh, Angela! It looks fabulous, OMG! Sooo perfect!"

Slut. She was totally faking it. Her shouting was entirely too loud to be convincing — like porn star loud.

All of a sudden, Irene, who was working on my brows, distracted me by saying "An artist should make paintings of your face." Well hello Irene! I looked up at her with new eyes and she continued in her Russian accent, "You are beautiful! I see a lot of faces, and you, you classic beauty." I blushed while secretly loving my new mistress and her praise — this whole cheating thing was turning out much better than expected. "You should model ..."(aww) "in Europe..." (too kind) "in the 19th century."

Screeeeeech. What?! I instantly ransacked my brain to remember what I learned when I took Art History. Picasso wasn't 19th century right? No he was 1900s. But maybe she's like me and gets confused with the whole "century" concept of changing the numbers, and maybe she MEANT 1900s and maybe she's inspired by Picasso and she should just STOP WAXING MY EYEBROWS before she makes my whole face look uneven!

I just smiled, tried to relax, and didn't say anything. "You are a classic beauty, not like the models that are popular now." I still didn't understand what she meant, but at this point, I was starting to think it wasn't a compliment.

"Are you Jewish?" Ughhhhhh!!! I should have seen this coming. I have recently developed a complex about my nose — I'm convinced its grown bigger than my face sometime in the past year — and this wasn't helping. I tried to tell myself it was a bad angle... after all, she had moved further south at this point. I changed the subject to get her talking about Russia. When she finished, I paid her tip right on the spot instead of leaving an envelope at the front, in the hopes I could avoid seeing Angela. It made me feel like I was paying a prostitute. A very nice prostitute, but still.

Now my only problem will be when I go back next month. Will I have to avoid Irene? She doesn't realize she's my mistress, so if I go to Angela she will think I was unsatisfied with her waxing techniques and unsuccessful attempts at compliments. But I can't just abandon Angela either. Disaster. As if it's not stressful enough getting waxed in the first place, now I have to worry about hurting someone's feelings. Well, there's always my modeling career in Europe waiting for me if anyone can find a time machine.