Money To Burn

I should be wrapping presents or doing laundry or God forbid CLEANING MY OFFICE, but, whee, it’s a snow day! Or, really, an ice day.

If you won millions and millions of dollars in the lottery tomorrow, what would you buy?

Not just millions… millions and millions! Now we’re talking. I love this question. I was having lunch the other day with some work people and Supergirl was saying that she and her husband got their ginormous flatscreen HD TV because his old roommate bought it and then turned Buddhist and sold it to them for $500. Why can’t any of my friends turn Buddhist? Because I’ll support your new religious convictions and I will love the crap out of your old stuff.

Okay, first I’d put some in a mutual fund blah blah so that someday my kids can be worthless, lazy and spoiled and end up in rehab before they’re 19. Just kidding! I’d give all the money to my favorite one and tell the rest that Santa Claus isn’t real. And that Daddy drinks because you cry.

Then I’d buy a house. I’m not sure where; someplace suburban with easy access to Boston. All new fixtures, granite, girl cave. I like the idea of having a Sephora in the basement but I’d probably forget to feed the employees periodically, so instead let’s do a sports bar. Well, maybe a step up from a sports bar, because I don’t want a Golden Tee anywhere. Fireplace, big screen TV, stocked bar, and pool table. And a dance floor! Because even if no one else uses it, I know I will. Also, my Star Trek pinball machine from 1986 which is now vintage by default. It’s in pieces in the basement of my parents’ condo because I’ve never had room for it. It gets me lots of geek cred but my dad picked it out; I never actually liked the show.

I’d have a library room, but a hardcore library, like the one that the Beast makes for Belle in Beauty and the Beast. I’m not sure that the word “hardcore” was ever used in that movie.

Then I’d buy a king size bed. When it comes to king size beds, I’m pressed up against the glass at the candy store. I’ve heard about them, and occasionally enjoyed them in hotels, but they remain a creature of mystery to me. When I’ve been in relationships, my favorite thing about them is that I can stretch out my arms and legs and I CAN’T EVEN TELL THAT YOU’RE THERE, THIS IS SO AWESOME! Is that bad? I loved you all, though, I swear.

It’s actually a good thing that I don’t have unlimited money, because it would be like that episode of Friends where Rachel buys everything at Pottery Barn and Phoebe sees the display window and says, “This is our exact living room.” You’d walk into my living room and say, “Is this West Elm?” and then my kitchen and say, “Is this Crate and Barrel?” and then you’d turn to me and say, “For the love of God, Red, your home is a fucking MALL.” And then I’d be sad. And I’d comfort myself by turning my bedroom into Restoration Hardware.

I’d buy a new cell phone that actually WORKS in my home. I’d get one of the ones where you can put pictures of people as the caller ID and when they call it plays a song that reminds you of them. And when a person called who wasn’t in my phone it would play, “Whooooo are you? Who, who?” Actually, maybe I could do all this with my current phone. Never mind about the phone, instead let’s go with season tickets to the Red Sox.

Then I’d quit my job for awhile and travel everywhere: Italy, Ireland, Spain, New Zealand, Albuquerque. And with the domain name that I finally sprung for, I’d blog about all of it, while accompanied on my journey by Jason Varitek, whom I purchased.

Saturday, 8:14 PM

Elusive Jen: Where are you?
Me: I’m at this really awesome place downtown called Grocery Store. Maybe you’ve heard of it.
EJ: I have! And I’m actually at a really cool place too. It’s called Couch.

Thursday, or Why I Spent The Night In A Best Freakin’ Western

I hope that The People Who Run Boston are more embarrassed than the time they mistook a neon blinking sign promoting a show on the Cartoon Network for a bomb. A few friends in neighboring states assumed it had to be a blizzard causing all the commotion on Thursday: “Heard about the snow! You guys okay?” Yeah, fine, cough, thanks. But, um, it wasn’t a blizzard. We got something like, what, 8 inches? It was sheer stupidity. When the governor tells everyone in the state to leave work at the exact same time, ridiculousness ensues.

When I first got on 128 I sucked it up, inching along, texting friends and assuming the traffic would break at some point because it always does. Then people started calling into radio shows with their horror stories (two hours to drive a mile! ran out of gas! windshield wipers broke!) and it became clear that nobody was going anywhere. Ever, it appeared. Seriously, I almost put a down payment on the ramp for exit 31B. Come visit anytime, you can’t miss it.

It took me three hours to drive seven miles, and a lot of other people had it much worse than me. Even at that point, though, I wasn’t even close to halfway home. I was also thoroughly rattled, especially when it got dark, and that’s probably saying something considering I’ve been a New England driver my whole life (the second half of it, anyway). The visibility was beyond shit (that’s one step below “poor”) and no one was in any particular lane because you couldn’t really tell where the lanes were. Cars were randomly abandoned all over the highway (did you ever fathom a time that you’d stop your car and GET OUT on 128?) and you couldn’t see them until you were practically on top of them. And when you tried to go around them, there was still THAT GUY behind you who tried to take it as an opportunity to pass you. I’ve flipped that guy off many a time but never had the reaction of just wanting to cry into my mittens out of frustration.

It was around that time, with a quarter tank of gas and a bladder that wanted to know when and for what reason I had turned on it, that I decided to get off the fucking highway. I had to put on my hazards and hope that the good people coming up behind me on the right would just assume I was about to break down and let me go, because I couldn’t even see whether or not they were giving me room or riding my ass.

When I got out of the Papa Gino’s ladies room, which I will now always think of as a tiny piece of nirvana in the town of Bedford, I got word that they had closed the portion of 128 that I needed to be on because a tractor trailer had jackknifed. Okay then. I looked up and saw…the Christmas star. Actually, a Best Western. And that’s where I spent the night. They had available rooms, food, and underground parking, and that was all I needed to know.

Once I checked in, I went to the bar before I went to my room, if that’s telling you anything. The general manager was filling in as bartender because the regular guy couldn’t make it there, and pretty soon the place was filled with people, all locals like me in the exact same boat. We made a group trip to the convenience store across the street to buy toothbrushes, then went back to the hotel, got drunk and watched the SNL Christmas special. What else could you do? Ultimately I was glad I got off the road; my cousin has a similar commute as mine and it took him six hours. I mean, if I had to do it over again I’d have called in sick that day stayed at work until late, but given the circumstances, my somewhat seedy and utterly surreal detour was a small price to pay for relative sanity. ($99, not including tax, to be exact.)

I went to work on Friday wearing the same clothes that I wore on Thursday, and no makeup, but then made matters worse by telling everyone exactly that when they asked about my journey, wide-eyed like I was Moses; most of them live within a mile or two of the school. And although I felt like a homeless person, everyone told me they’d never know the difference. Hmmm. Either they were being kind or I’m putting too much effort for naught into my regular morning routine.

P.S. Supergirl left work early and made it home before any snow had fallen. Of course she did. Granted, she’s seven months pregnant, so I can’t exactly begrudge her not wanting to mess around with inclement weather. But I mean, of course the only person more efficient than Supergirl is Superbaby.

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, However Unconventionally

I thought my most amusing festive anecdote would be the fact that we can’t have any Christmas songs in the holiday program at school, so instead the third graders are singing Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. But today topped that.

My mom, who can be a bit of a mental terrorist with her immediate family, somewhat ironically runs a little organization in her town that helps out families that are going through difficult times by bringing over meals, giving rides, that kind of thing. She decided it’d be fun to have Santa drive around town this year waving to the kids, so she got a company to loan her a pick-up truck, and then found a costume and a guy to wear it. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to be involved; I had agreed to go over in the morning to help stuff gift bags and prepare mini candy canes to be thrown off the truck, and after that I was holed up with my dad watching 61, a movie about Roger Maris. But of course then their doorbell started ringing and I got roped in to the surreal festivities.

Santa was Jewish and one hell of a good sport. He brought along his daughter and an exchange student from Zimbabwe, both of whom were dressed as elves. When you’re leading the processional and Santa is balanced precariously on a lawn chair on the flatbed, you have to drive pretty slowly, and eventually I had to take over at the helm because my mom kept screaming “Jesus Christ! Damn it! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” at oncoming traffic.

You know it’s Christmas when you hear yourself saying, “Mom, please stop swearing at cars. You’re scaring the African kid.”

Meeting Famous People, Or How I’m Two Degrees Away From Bob Barker

All of my encounters with famous, or semi-famous, people happened in the same week. During my senior year of college we went to Disney World for spring break (I know, but I love roller coasters and water parks and it was an all-around blasty blast). Anyway, one night at Some Crazy Bar I met Drew Carey. I probably wouldn’t have bothered going over to him because the prospect of meeting an old guy on some show I’d never watched wasn’t exactly thrilling, except that my friend and I had just been having a conversation about six degrees of separation and what constitutes a degree and we decided that you’re one degree away from a celebrity if you have a conversation with them. So I had to score my degree.

He was actually just sitting at the bar so I walked up to him and said, “Hi!” He said, “Hi!” Then I said, “Your face is on my bus,” because that, of course, is what you saying immediately upon meeting someone when you’re 21 and drunk in Florida. You see, at the time Drew played a bit part on the Drew Carey Show, and since the show was on ABC and Disney owns ABC, the buses that we had to ride to get around Disney property had ABC people all over there and we had to ride the buses approximately 9,000 times a day so I saw his face approximately 81,000 times a day. It turns out that you can only stay in a hotel on the monorail if you have a tiny bit of extra cash which, when you’re in college, you do not. But I digress.

“My face is on your WHAT?” he asked.

“Your face is on my BUS.” I explained the whole thing.

“Ohhhh. I thought you said my face is on your BUST.”

I started talking to the guy with him, who was all, “I’m on a TV show too.” I didn’t believe him because who would ever say that? I asked him which one and he told me it was about a bunch of people and a pizza place. I was like, “What, Friends? It’s a coffee shop. Get your story straight.” Turned out it was a guy named Ryan Reynolds and he actually WAS on a show called Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place. He was very tall. Still is, I would imagine. He’s also something of a cutiepants. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to accuse him of impersonating David Schwimmer.

Later in the week my friend and I were in line for ice cream at Universal Studios. There was a guy in line ahead of us that people kept coming up to and making a big deal about, asking him for autographs and whatnot. We couldn’t figure out who he was. Remembering that I needed a conversation under my belt in order to get the degree, I poked him and asked what all the fuss was about. He laughed and introduced himself. His name (Thurman Thomas) wasn’t ringing a bell, so he told me he played for the Buffalo Bills. I told him I preferred baseball. He told me he was fine with that, but now I’d have to pay for my own ice cream.

Upon closer examination, I’m realizing that I might be a little rude to famous people. Granted, some have taunted me with the prospect of free frozen treats. Anyway, who have you guys met?

What Christmas Is All About

When a friend invited me to his work holiday party, I thought, “Meh.” Then he told me that it was going to be at a hotel in Boston and that he’d pay for my drinks all night. Then I thought, “My friends are really, really important to me.”

Turns out there’s nothing like a fun, schmancy, boozy party on a Wednesday night to, well, make you want to die when you wake up after four hours of sleep on Thursday morning. But! It also makes for an unexpectedly fabulous way to spend an evening that would otherwise be pretty unmemorable.

It started with a 72-year-old cab driver who rambled on about electric typewriters, and then when he let me off, he said, “You must be so sad that you haven’t experienced as much of life as me.” Hmmm. Thanks for that, Wilford Brimley. Now give me some of the melted butterscotches in your coat pocket already.

At the beginning of the night, the CEO gave a lovely presentation and handed out awards, during which I threw back chardonnay and clapped for people I’d never see again (“We really COULDN’T do any of this without you, Eva Brown! You take that Mastercard gift card and enjoy every last bit of it, girl!”). Then, later in the night, the CEO sat down with my friend and I and did some tipsy talking about how it’s hard to be the CEO, no one feels like they can talk to the CEO, and that people think that just because she’s the CEO that she’s not a regular person. Since she was my friend’s boss I smiled empathetically (it’s hard to get cell reception in an ivory tower, after all) and didn’t slap her upside the head and ask if she had anything else to say aside from incessant acronym repeating.

The music! After the awards presentation they kicked things off with Let’s Get Loud, also known as the song they play in radio commercials for the club Tequila Rain, which my club-going friend Jen told me she felt too old for when she was 23. And it wasn’t a fluke; the rest of the night was a showcase of dirty Brazilian dance music. I haven’t seen anything that fantastic since the wedding I went to couple years ago where they immediately followed the hava nagila with SexyBack.

We left around 10:30 and stopped into the downstairs bar for “one more drink.” Two hours later we were deep in conversation with a consultant from Deloitte who was in his 40s and in town from Chicago. At first we just exchanged pleasantries and then left him alone with his laptop and draft beers, but he kept leaning back over to us and asking to hear more about whatever ridiculous dating situation he overheard us discussing. If that was what he was in the mood to hear, man, did he pick the right seat.

Anyway, it was a great night, capped off by a work day during which the most discipline that I exerted was, “Quiet voices, guys. Miss Reddington’s head hurts.”

Social Networking Can Lick Me

I just joined MySpace again and I HAVE NO IDEA WHY. My picture is of me giving an unreasonably enthusiastic thumbs up, I admitted to kitchen dancing as a hobby, and the song on my page was written and sung by a friend as an homage to my pants-free adventures in Mexico a few years ago.

I’m sort of refusing to rank people according to how much I like them or how long I’ve known them this time around because there’s something about that that’s akin to knowing exactly what order the people that you know would kill you and eat you if you were ever stranded on a desert island together. Like, I’ll survive longer than her coworkers but if it’s just her sister and her college roommate and me left, I’m ending the night covered in A1 and rotating slowly on a spit. But as a result of not ranking it now looks as though I’m either stalking or just extremely fond of the ubiquitous Tom. I’ll have to take care of that, because it’s a lonely day when Tom is your fake husband.

Odd connections and messages really do abound on MySpace. One time I got a message from a guy I went to high school with who reminded me that when he was a freshman and I was a junior, his older brother drove him to my house around Christmas so that he could give me a stuffed cow as a present, and then I told my friends and they made fun of him. But…but…I was 16! What would you have done? How can you defend yourself at that age? It’s like putting a character from Animal House on the witness stand. “Um, I don’t know. Beer?”

If it helps, he’s married to someone way hotter than me now.

I mean, it’s not that I don’t enjoy hearing how I’ve scarred people, but is all this crap really broadening anyone’s horizons? I don’t need to see that the minx who stole my boyfriend in sixth grade has only improved with age. And I still have yet to find the elusive “activity partner” promised to me long ago by Friendster.

Our friends already know what the hell we’re up to, and people we went to school with 20 years ago don’t really care, so we should really just call these “social networking” websites what they are: a passive-aggressive vehicle for making your life sound extra full and fabulous should an ex of yours ever click through. Our taglines should just be “Game set match, I WIN, biotch.”

Sigh. Maybe I should just pick up a book now and then, huh?

Further Proof That My Blog Actually Writes Itself

I ran my favorite black boots into the ground so much that they finally broke. Literally. Most of the heel tore off when I was getting out of my car in the CVS parking lot tonight. Thankfully I’d been at work all day and then out Christmas shopping (MAC, Brookstone, and Crate and Barrel, but who’s keeping track?) and they only fell apart when I was making my last stop at CVS. I could’ve easily skipped that trip, but I needed white grape sparkling water for my cheap white wine toys for sick kids.

I’d never broken a pair of shoes before, and I’m happy to tell you that once you do, and then you have to continue wearing them, if only for a few minutes, you feel sort of like a homeless person. But that turned out to be the least of my troubles. I had to limp a little bit because of the heel, but I figured I’d just look like someone with a sprained ankle (been there plenty of times before) and I’d just be in and out, so no big deal. I bought the aforementioned toys for the aforementioned sick kids and as I’m leaving, someone comes up behind me. “Miss?”

It’s an old man. Usually when old men speak to me in public this time of year they’re waving bells over buckets of money, and I immediately started to think about whether or not I had any stray dollar bills.

“Can I help you with your bags?”

At first I have no idea why he’s asking me this, and then I remember my sad limp. I’m a five foot eight, blue hoodie-wearing charity case. Then he just takes one of my bags and says, “Please, let me help you.” A lovely gesture, to be certain, but it’s kind of funny to know that, once I walk out of a store, I’m apparently vulnerable to any senior citizen who feels like taking my newly-purchased crap right out of my hands.

“Oh, no, no, it’s okay. I can do it. But thank you.”

“Are you sure? It’s no trouble.” He was looking at me so kindly, I just knew he thought I was disabled.

I almost told him it was just my shoe that was broken, not my cerebellum, but decided against it. Let the nice fella think he’s a purveyor of Christmas freakin’ miracles.

The Best Part Is That You Tube Calls Him A “Small Daring Boy”

Posting a cute baby video is dangerously close to hanging up a calendar of kittens in a basket, but fuck it. (How about “baby” and “fuck” in the same sentence? Does that redeem me?) I will give twenty dollars to anyone who can watch this and keep a straight face the whole way through. For reals. But you have to prove it by taping yourself watching it and not laughing, and that’s just a pain in the ass. And what do I look like, an ATM?

I think they’re Swedish, too! I’m just guessing based on the fact that the words on the screen are, well, Swedish, and the kid has red hair, and dad’s vowels are, like, totally foreign-sounding and shit.

I Can’t Decide If I’m A Better Friend Or Negotiator

Steve: Do you want to meet up somewhere halfway between us and have lunch?
Me: Mmm…no.
Steve: No?
Me: I don’t want to get dressed today.
Steve: Ha, okay.
Me: I have an idea!
Steve: What?
Me: Maybe you could come here and help me put up my Christmas tree!
Steve: Isn’t your Christmas tree in your attic?
Me: Yes.
Steve: In pieces?
Me: Yes.
Steve: Well…
Me: I have seasonal beer! And Hershey kisses! And I’ll make you dinner!
Steve: Hmm, okay. It might take me awhile to get there with all the traffic today, though.
Me: Could you stop along the way and get white lights? And ornaments?
Steve: What?
Me: I’m just kidding. Except about the lights.