Miss Peach

I finally did what I kept saying I needed to do. I joined Match again.** I have done this before, and I hated it. Sweet mother of GOD, did I hate it. But I didn’t really try to meet people through it; I really sat back to see what came my way. Obviously, that wasn’t the best approach.

After watching it work well for friends, I decided to try again, with the intention of signing on more often and really giving the whole system a fair shake. I signed up on Sunday, and once I was finally up and running, I had to leave for dinner so didn’t have time to check out profiles. So on Monday, around lunch, I decided to sign in and just see if anyone had reached out to me.

I’ll just post the meat of the email I got, because I really can’t paraphrase:

"I really enjoyed reading your profile and love your photos. I know this is over the edge, but I am a nice guy who enjoys going out as a tranny girl. Oddly, as a male I am not effeminate at all and enjoy being one of the guys with my friends... When dolled up, I am very cute and fun and relatively normal!! I am 100% straight, so I only am interested in dating women. Hope to hear from you!"

You do have to hand it to him for being so upfront and honest. But let’s just say this isn’t exactly making me like match any more.

This morning, I decided to go through and send out some emails to people. And there are some interesting guys on there, but this is the overarching theme: I like to be fit. (See photo of me running/playing tennis/hiking/white water rafting, etc.) I travel a lot. (See exotic photo of me petting baby cheetahs, riding camel, with foreign cityscape in the background.) I like fine wine and good food. (See photo of me opening bottle of wine.) I am reading either Freakonomics or From Beirut to Jerusalem. I want to be with some one who is pretty, fit, smart, attractive, passionate, open-minded, outgoing, hot, nice, adventurous, and has a nice rack and/or ass. Interested? Send me an email and be sure to include a picture of yourself!

Which—totally understandable. We all want to be attracted to a potential date. But if you’re trolling for a hot piece of ass, maybe an online venue isn’t your best bet. I suggest you hit up one of the many fratty bars on the Upper East Side where the hot, just-graduated sorority girls from Rutgers hang out.

The whole thing just smacks of uber-alpha males to me. I am man, I am in control of my destiny! I will have a hot girlfriend and trek through the wilds of Thailand! Me run long distance very fast! Me like to ski down steep hills with many rocks! Me like to take risk! Don’t let that fool you though. I’m also totally sensitive—I have nephews and we watch SpongeBob together, and I really enjoy going out to a good dinner/good museum/good play. Blech.

I’m still not convinced this is the way for me to meet someone. But I have spent cold, hard cash on this endeavor, so I will swallow my snarky reactions and borderline bad attitude and persevere. Just, erm, not with the tranny.

**Thank you, GG, for the awesome profile, and sorry I can't link from my post for some reason, but if you don't know GG, click on Red Red Whine on my blogroll. You won't be disappointed!

Ohmygod.
Work is really busy.
Also, life is busy. I went on a vacation! A real, true vacation! As in, not to visit my parents or attend a wedding!

I went to Colorado and I skied for the first time in 12 years. Which, though I couldn’t wait to get there, had me in a full-on freak-out state for the week leading up to the trip.

I am not the most coordinated person. I fall over standing up. My college housemates would sometimes just watch me and laugh, because I would constantly knock into things and fall over for no real reason. So the whole going-to-stay-with-a-former-coworker-and-her-new-husband-to-ski-for-the-first-time-in-over-a-decade was a little daunting.

I was envisioning a variety of scenarios, but I’ll just share with you the following ones, which received the most detailed, sick imaginings on my flight west:
1) I panic at the top of a hill and spend hours talking myself down (this happened once—I was 10, and my friend Nelson led me to the top of Golden Eagle, which was not just a black diamond but a DOUBLE BLACK DIAMOND. I still hold this against him. That time, I located a ski patrol member and she kindly brought me down, and Nelson got an earful from both our mothers afterwards. Holy Mother of God, that was terrifying.) Anyhoo, given the lapse in time since I last hit the slopes, I was waiting for this to happen atop either a beginner or intermediate slope, so that not only would it be supremely annoying to my companions but also utterly mortifying.
2) I no longer remember how to ski at all, and I wind up in ski school for two days. This more for the embarassment factor than anything else.
3) I fall and break something.
4) I careen out of control, smack into a tree, and break something (a la Arnold Schwarzenegger).
5) I careen out of control, smack into a tree, and die (a la Sonny Bono).
6) Another skier or snowboarder smacks into me and either maims or kills me.
7) Worst case: I smack into another skier or boarder and either maim or kill them.

Verdict: Skiing really is like riding a bike. I am happy to report that none of the preceding scenarios occurred. I graduated from beginner to intermediate slopes after my first run on my first day. And, to make things even better, I only had one fall the whole time!

It was in the café, while I was getting hot chocolate the afternoon of our first day on the mountain.

I went down so hard that the sound quite literally stopped all movement in the room for a good 30 seconds. I was fine, just mortified. (I trust that anyone that has ever worn ski boots will understand how easily this can happen and not make fun of me.)

I’ve got the ski bug again. This is an expensive habit. I’m therefore looking for friend with either a home in the mountains or access to a home in the mountains. I will provide the entertainment. As in you can watch me fall on my ass regularly. Oh! And, like my friend’s husband, when I pull on my old-school ski pants (it’s been 12 years, my gear is retro, okay?), you too can point at me, start laughing, and inform me between gasps that I kind of look like Napoleon Dynamite. (I know that sounds mean, but it wasn’t. It was just hysterically funny and had me crying with laughter pre-skiing.) And I’m a good cook, so I’ll make dinner every night. In fact, made a killer pork tenderloin last night that would be just fabulous for an apres-ski dinner.

Any takers? Hellooooooooooo? Anyone?

A few weeks ago, my assistant (who is really less an assistant and more like a little sister--she's awesome, firstly, and really funny, and she's only five years younger than me, so our relationship is really coworker-y and whatnot) and I went out drinking. She had had a really rough run of things at work--overloaded, stressed, and dealing with a lot of not-so-nice people, some in the office, some out. After she hit her breaking point one evening in my office, I decided that what she (and I) really needed were some drinks. So we tromped down a few blocks to engage in some pre-holiday merriment, which turned into several glasses of wine. Because, as you all know, drinking copiously is the only way to solve a problem effectively.

When we finally got up to go, I headed outside and she stopped into the restroom, so I found myself waiting for her in front of the bar. There was a guy standing there, kind of a portly finance type, in a suit with slicked hair, Jersey accent (he was on the phone), and visible wedding ring. When he hung up the phone, he turned to me and started asking questions: what I did (he guessed fashion, which, no and why that? Weird.), where I was from, who I had come to the bar with, etc. I was giving polite but vague answers, as he struck me as slightly smarmy. My assistant came out, and we started to walk to the corner when he offered us a ride, which we politely declined. Then he looked at me and said, "My god, you just... you really remind me of a girl I knew in school who I couldn't get up from my desk for!"

And this is where my innocence shined through, where I became the youngest 27-year-old on earth, where my young assistant became the older, wiser, world-weary party in the group, where, once again, being an only child with no older siblings to pass along knowledge or music or advice bacame evident. My response? "What does that even mean?" My assistant turned to me and replied, "Oh, MIss Peach. I'll tell you when you're older."


And then in dawned on me. And then all the wine and appetizers we'd had started churning in my stomach, and I felt a little woozy. Because EW. Ew ew ew ew ew ew. Ew ew.

And then he laughed and offered us a ride on his way home to HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN IN NYACK.

At least I can call 'em early on in the conversation, right? Smarmy, indeed!

It's a New Year, so here's to a New Friday Five. I know I said I don't really go for resolutions, but goals are important, and maybe if I say them out loud (or commit them to the internet), I'll feel more inspired to follow through. And it's not like I'm declaring anything unsurmountable here. I'm hoping I can look back in a year and know I did what I set out to do. So here goes:

1) Learn more about my computer and how to use it properly. I switched to a mac too long ago to be as clueless on certain aspects of it as I am. (I have yet to master the art of opening a PDF on it. That’s great, as about two-thirds of the documents flying around in my work inbox are PDFs, and if I’m out or on the road, I have to be all “Hey, brililant, wonderful, way to smart for this crap assistant! Want to read that to me over the phone? Because I am a MORON. You don’t hate me, right? Sorry! It'll be fast, promise!” Sigh. So there’s that. Also (I’m just going to lump all technology-related items together here), I want to use my camera more and take better pictures so that I don’t have paralyzing moments of self-doubt before uploading to Flickr, thinking everyone will see me for the very pedestrian and lame photographer I am. Wait, maybe I should work on not worrying what people think of my Flickr photos, huh? Hm. That too. Cool. Oh! And upgrade to photoshop, preferably without having to pay the ten bajillion dollars it takes to get it. I love my iBook, don’t get me wrong, but if I hadn’t switched from a PC, I could have both Photoshop AND Picasa for free. Motherfucker. So if anyone has Photoshop for Mac that they can share with me, I promise to reward you with many, erm, books? I can hook you up with books. And lots of good will, effusive thank yous, and undying gratitude. And I’ll make you a mix if you want. I’d almost consider putting out for photoshop, actually. Is that bad or something? Stop looking at me like that!

2) Write more. Think more about what I write. Plan what I’m going to write before I write it. Write down my ideas for posts when they hit me, or shortly thereafter, rather than finally sitting down to execute and going, “wait, what was the really inspired, semi-brilliant idea I had on the subway today?” Stop writing only when the inspiration strikes, or when I feel the need to get something up and so wind up with this. Write more like this. And try to make things half as entertaining as the five bloggers who first inspired me to start blogging: her, her, him, her, and her. (And I also aspire to write like the rest of my sidebar, and others I read regularly but haven’t blogrolled because you know what? Dooce has got all the loving she needs from the internets.)

3) Read more. This is almost a ridiculous resolution because my job is largely reading, but I absolutely don’t do enough of it. I want to stop going straight for the TV when I get home. I want to read more for fun, rather than only for work. I hope to remind myself what it’s like to devour a book, to love what I’m reading so much that I turn off the phone and seriously contemplate cancelling plans so that I can keep reading. Added bonus: this will help me with work. And make me better at cocktail conversation. And keep me from feeling like such a fraud at said cocktail parties.

4) Travel. I haven’t left the country in FIVE YEARS. That’s just stupid. I can’t believe I haven’t done any far-flung travel in that long. I’ve been really good about getting around our fine, fine nation, and that’s great. There’s plenty to see here, and I’ve enjoyed learning more about the US and seeing places I’d never been before. But travelling to other countries and experiencing other cultures is so eye-opening and enriching, and I love doing it so much, that I’m really angry with myself for not doing more of it. I’m single, I have few responsibilities, and I have an unbelievable amount of vacation time. I have little money, of course, but I’ll happily search for deals, and I’m a fan of hostels. I’m thinking Costa Rica, I’m thinking Argentina, I’m thinking Europe or Asia or even India, which I have been dying to visit for three years now. Realistically, it’ll be Europe or Central/South America this year, but I have got to make it happen. Any willing partners out there? My travel buddies have informed me they want to a) go to the southwest, which I’ve done ten times so am not really interested, b) are saving for law school, and c) wonder if they can bring their boyfriend, would that be okay?

5) Get outside more. Not just here in NYC, by walking in Central Park or along the Hudson, or taking the Staten Island Ferry just to be on the water. But also by engaging in outdoor activities. I haven’t played tennis in probably 6 years—but I played for my entire life (well, from like 4 years on), including on our high school team and while attending several tennis camps. Point is: I’ve got a skillset I’m not using, one that I worked hard to attain, and one that I really enjoy using. Or did at one time. So I’m thinking that a permit for the courts in Central Park is a must this spring/summer/fall. And this will provide an excellent excuse to purchase a cute tennis skirt or two. Score! Also, I want to ski again. That’s another sport I did for just about my entire life until ten years ago. It’s an expensive sport, so it’s tricky to swing. And I’m also a bit of a snob about it, as I grew up skiing in California and Colorado, so the midwest and east coast resorts are incredibly unappealing to me (The ice! The severe cold! The ice! The limited size of the mountains! DID I MENTION THE ICE? Because it paralyzes me. I just stand there on my skis, looking at it, going, “I am going to kill myself. I am going to slip, fall, and tumble headlong into a tree, and die tragically.” And then I freak out and take six hours to get down while my ski buddy takes a nap at the base of the run.) Anyway, the good news is I booked a flight to Denver two days ago (crazy deals, my friends!) to visit a friend and go skiing for two days. Joy! So this is pretty much guaranteed to happen. If the snow would just fall in the mountains and stop landing squarely on the plains and in Denver, huh?

I’m not big on resolutions. I find I break them. It’s not that I can’t affect change in my life—I definitely can and I have. It’s just that I don’t see why I should put all into play on January 1. Sure, it’s a fresh year and therefore a symbolic time for a fresh start. But it just seems super gimmicky to me—I’ll make it happen when I’m good and ready to, okay? Not because we’re making a new trip around the sun. Also, I find it’s a crap day to begin given that roughly nine out of the ten of us are hungover on New Year’s Day. That’s not exactly the day to begin hitting the gym and eating right and volunteering, now, is it?

Anyway, before I start looking forward, I thought I’d look back. Some highlights of 2006 included:

Good domestic travel—I went to Newport, RI with my mom, where we discovered it’s super touristy, that customer service and friendliness of the waitstaff isn’t something they’re known for, and that all tour guides there suck, but we had much fun regardless. I also went to Cape Cod for the first time, for a friend’s wedding. It rained the whole time, but I realized that it’s a beautiful place that I’d love to go back too, and reaffirmed my pretty deep hatred of the Hamptons and a commitment to always, always have a rain plan for a wedding (unless it’s in southern California, as it never rains there. Unless I one day actually get married there. Trust me, if so, it’ll rain, and I won’t have a rain plan).

Speaking of Cali, I made several trips there—kicking off the year with my two best friends in San Francisco and then spending three days in Napa to cap it off, which was great. I went to Disneyland with Dan and Darren, where I accidentally rammed a 6-year old and snapped at a waitress. Apparently, I’m not so good in big crowds. Lesson learned. I spent one sun-soaked, beautiful week in Michigan playing with my family and old friends there, wound up dancing on a stage with a tambourine, sailed a lot, played golf moderately well, and was once again centered by my favorite place on earth. My best friend took me to Delaware twice, where I learned that though she may be coupled-up, she will always be my rock and soulmate, despite how incredibly different we are from each other. I visited Austin (and Texas, for that matter) for the first time, and vowed to go back as often as possible after tasting the margaritas there. YUM. I spent a weekend in DC with Meggie, Darren, Nabbs, and Malia which was great, and that city has great margaritas too, guys. For reals.

Hm. It seems I also took to judging cities by their margaritas. Fitting for a girl known to some as the Tequila Queen!

Good progress in my “career”—I realized that I do like my job after a few really shaking experiences here at the end of 2005 that made me question what I do and who I do it with. I came back from some really awful times to book some amazing media (including two visits to see Jon Stewart, wahoo!) and pull off some very solid campaigns, if I do say so myself. I worked on a few projects that meant a whole lot to me, and I did them well, I think. I established some great professional relationships, and came to the conclusion that this isn’t just a job, but an education as well. (Let’s just say I’ve learned more about art history, psychology, history, and literature here than I did in college.) I think I have, more or less, hit my stride here, and the promotion I got in July cemented that for me. The new year is filled with even bigger challenges for me at work, but I have incredibly supportive, smart, great supervisors and coworkers should help me get through it all. In short, I realized that, for now, I’m in the right place doing the right thing. Check back with me in a month though. February is crazy-month for me, and I’ll likely freak out and decide this is all wrong and I need to do something about it RIGHT THIS SECOND OH MY GOD HELP! Fun times!

Some knocks in the personal life department—it was a fairly up-and-down year on this front. Friends moved away. I miss them. Others coupled up which caused a lot of navel-gazing and woe-is-me-ing on my part. August was pretty brutal—no one was around, ever, and I was alone for what felt like every second I wasn’t at the office, which wasn’t much but felt like all the motherfucking time. I felt like I was falling way short in the life department, which isn’t a conclusion I’ve ever come to before, and I had a really hard time grappling with it all. I went on some super crappy dates. I did Match with the level of enthusiasm I usually reserve for a trip to the dentist. I went from the “eternally-single-and-just-fine-with-it” girl to the “holy-fuck-I-need-to-find-someone-to-date-or-I’m-going-to-wind-up-alone-with-twelve-cats” girl. This phase sucked. I think I’m largely through it, though it’d be just super to finally meet someone I’m interested in. I want to want to go on a third date. I think I’m going to make that a resolution. I don’t know how the hell I can resolve to do that if I keep meeting the people I’ve been meeting, but I can try!

The up side of this, though, is the blog, and meeting all of you. I keep forgetting I just started this in February because it feels like it’s such a part of my life at this point. I haven’t been super consistent, and I’m terrible at responding to email in a timely manner, but I’ve loved getting to know you all through the blog and emails. You all are a big part of my life now, more than you know. Since none of my non-bloggy friends (save Darren, Dan, Renee, Megan, and FWOL) know I blog, and since I don’t really want any of them to find out, it’s tricky to talk about you all, but I do it all the time. Some of my older friends wonder how I’ve suddenly acquired new friends in places like Baltimore, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Richmond, Boston, the suburbs of NYC, and others that I’m neglecting to note, but they know about you all. So thanks, guys, for listening to me whine and opine, for being there for me to lean on, for encouraging me when I’ve been down, for cheering me on when I’ve struggled, and for laughing with or at me as is appropriate. Overall, it’s been a good year, and despite my neverending ambivalence about blogging and inability to continue doing it regularly, the blog has a lot to do with it.

I think whatever resolutions I'm making can wait. At least until tomorrow!

I wish you all nothing but love, laughter, happiness, and all good things in 2007!

I'm home in California, taking two lovely and blissful weeks off of work, hanging with my parents and catching up with old friends. It's funny coming home--I didn't grow up in this house, or in Orange County, where my parents now live--we lived 45 minutes north of here in Los Angeles, and it's always a little strange to come "home" to this area. I have mixed feelings about it here, which I will undoubtedly post about--along with the fact that I literally swooned in Gelson's (grocery store) about a half hour ago when I saw my first carton of Knudsen's milk (I grew up drinking that, and for some reason, seeing the cartons now make me all nostalgic. How a carton of milk can inspire such deep-seated emotional responses is a little baffling though.)

But there are more important things to address, and by things I mean thing, and by that I mean how Costco totally pissed me off yesterday.

I love warehouse stores. They are awesome. I find the concept of a three-gallon tub of mayonnaise to be disgusting, but, yes, please, hook me up with a flat of bottled water! The toilet paper! The paper towels! Ahhh. It kills me. It's actually almost masochistic for me to go there, because I literally torture myself thinking, "if I didn't live in New York, I could get 85 rolls of toilet paper for around what a 10-pack would run in the city!" And then I get all annoyed I can't take advantage.

My parents frequent the local Costco, and over the years, I have purchased a full set of Henckel knives (yes, a FULL SET) for $120. Seriously. How insane is that? I now have fabulous knives--and all for less than what two would have cost at Williams-Sonoma. Score! That is probably my best buy there, ever, so it's not worth getting into the others. But I've also bought coffeemakers, DVDs, books, printers, and lots of medicine. Advil, Airborne, Delsym... ahh.

So yesterday, my mom needed to run over there for a few things, and never one to miss a chance to score some deals, I accompanied her. Also, I have wanted the DVDs of all three seasons of "Arrested Development" for months now, and I decided that it was time to purchase them. They'd still be pricey, but less so there, and frankly, having access to the Bluths whenever the fancy strikes is kind of priceless, don't you think?

Except COSTCO DOESN'T CARRY THEM. They have the boxed set of the entirety of "The West Wing" (which I loved and, if I had any storage and money to burn, would totally buy). They have the boxed set of "Six Feet Under" too. There were about six thousand copies of "You, Me, and Dupree" and "The DaVinci Code". There were the Bogey boxed sets, and the three-pack romantic comedy sets, and many more beyond that. But no "Arrested Development".

Let me explain why I am so pissed off about this. I understand they can't carry everything. I actually know all about how their merchandising is structured, and how to remain on sale, x units have to move nationally per week, and how the distributions aren't always national. And I can understand that maybe, that's why it wasn't available in ours. Granted, the show is set in Orange County, not far from this particular Costco, but whatever. Fine. I'll accept it.

But that was until I noticed the complete first season of Fox's smash hit show, "Prison Break". And boxed collections of "Northern Exposure". And sets of "One Tree Hill" and "Veronica Mars"--but not "Gilmore Girls". Seriously? What sent me over the edge, though, was the first season of Jennifer Love Hewitt's show "Ghost Whisperer". What the hell? Who is choosing what goes into those stores? Is that show even still on? Does merchandising ever, I don't know, consider what might sell? Also, what is wrong with Fox? Why are they issuing these shows? And why aren't things like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Lost" at Costco?

I'm baffled. Also, their wrapping paper selection blew and they didn't have any socks for women. I did get a set of W.C. Fields DVDs for my dad, as he is a huge fan, so I guess that was nice. But Costco is on notice. If you see him around, can you tell him I'm totally not talking to him? If he's lucky, he'll see me in March, but I can't make any guarantees.