the chicago dispLAcement ®

Working retail is awful. I say this because I know. I’ve enjoyed an illustrious retail past and have enthusiastically sold everything from garbage bags to showerheads to makeup remover. But by a long shot, working women’s retail is the worst of the worst.

I love my gender and have no plans to change it anytime soon. But let’s call a spade a spade… Women can be a neurotic bunch. I suppose the men folk might get weird about their appearance, too, but women take the cake. You can’t really blame us ladies, though. Once Photoshop was invented, it was over for most of us. Now you can’t turn a corner without finding a billboard or magazine with a gorgeous and totally fake female plastered on it. What that woman looks like in real life, I don’t know and nobody else cares. It’s the finely crafted perfect body you see before you that counts.

Now imagine working in women’s bathing suits.

It was hell. Every 15 minutes or so, I would walk into the fitting area only to find a mountain – and I do mean mountain – of bathing suits piled high in each abandoned room. Though the store had a limit on how many bathing suits a person could try on at a time, I worked the seasonal department by myself, which meant that I was usually outnumbered by women on the edge carrying no less than 40 suits with them into a fitting room.

Women get cray cray when it comes to bathing suits. Fellas, if you want a sneak peek at just how scary your lady can get, offer to go bathing suit shopping with her. Odds are she’ll turn you down quicker than you can say “I’ll buy,” because why would anyone subject themselves to the horror of showcasing her pale and dimpled body under fluorescent lighting no less, but if she happens to say yes… If you make it through the afternoon, you’ve become a man, my son.

I think my straw-camel-back moment occurred the day I realized that someone had tried on two-dozen or so bathing suits during the one time of the month when no woman should be trying on anything that isn’t already in her closet… if you catch my drift. Horrified, I finished my shift and simply did not return the next day. I’m not proud of the fact that I just bailed on my job with no notice, but I draw the line at bodily fluids. I still remember my manager’s voicemail message, telling me that I wasn’t in trouble and could come back at any time. The desperation in her voice made it clear that I wasn’t the first employee to unceremoniously bequeath the seasonal department to a soul braver than I.

So my point with this trip down memory lane? I have mucho respect for those that do work in retail. Because people are awful to you all the time. They don’t care if you’re already waiting on four other customers. They don’t care if you’re two hours overdue for your lunch break. And they certainly don’t care if they hurt your feelings. (I’m looking at you, Robert Schuller.)

Most of the time when I go shopping, I like to fly under the radar. I’m an able-bodied person and can usually find what I need on my own, thank you very much… until I do need help. Like when I was looking for a dress that I had found on a store’s website. Just one look at the overcrowded department, though, and I knew I’d never find anything in that chaotic mess of cotton and polyester. So I walked up to the nearest salesperson, “Could you please help me find a dress that I saw online?”

I took her bored look to mean that she had some time to kill, so I continued to describe what I was looking for.

Her: “I don’t know anything like that.”

Me: “Oh, okay…”

Her: Exaggerated sigh. “Let’s look online.”

She led me to the cash register.

Her: “Find it for me.”

Now I spend pretty much my entire day sitting in front of a computer, but I’m a Mac user. I have as much ability to operate a PC as I do a spinning wheel, Morse code machine, or anything else obsolete.

I looked for an external mouse. Nothing. She then directed me to a two-inch by one-inch mouse pad. I tried in vain to navigate it. She then casually mentioned that it was a touch-screen computer. I began to wonder why she hated me.

Finally I found the dress.

Her: “Yeah, I don’t know anything like that… I gotta go to a meeting.”

And off she went.

I never saw her again, but I don’t blame her. Retail is awful.

Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What do you do when your parents disobey you?

I may not have children, but I do have one troublesome mother and a very stubborn father who won’t listen to me. I don’t know how real parents do it. You know what’s best for them, but they refuse to heed your words of wisdom. You tell them something, and it goes in one ear and out the other.

The constant worrying has made me gray before my time. Or it could just be my parents’ genes. Yet another reason to be frustrated with them.

I’ve heard there was a time when smoking was considered cool and sophisticated. (See Mad Men.) It was even recommended for some medical conditions. (See The King’s Speech.) But Lionel Logue was onto something when he told King George that perhaps the cigarettes weren’t doing him any good, and as history has born out, we all now know that smoking is actually very, very, very bad for you. So of course all the cool parents want to do it.

In some regards, I can’t blame my mother. She’s from Europe. Anyone who has stepped foot on the European continent knows that the entire place is covered in a fog of cigarette smoke. Okay, that may not be true, but I’m willing to look a blind eye to anyone with a foreign passport. Like a passport, though, your excuse expires in exactly 10 years. My mom’s passport expired in 1965.

My dad on the other hand… He was born and bred in the heartland of America. Though I realize that plenty of people from his generation lit up like chimneystacks back in the day, the evidence was clear even during his youth that smoking can kill. And regardless of whether he chose to read the news, I was more than happy to keep him abreast of the latest medical findings.

As a kid, I launched my own anti-smoking campaign. I hated my dad’s cigars and made sure he knew it. Once while in a particularly defiant mood, I took his brand new box of White Owls and broke every single one of them in half. Needless to say, he was not pleased when he came home from work that evening, looking only to relax with a smooth smoke. I took his fury as a sign of victory. Pretty sure he just went out and bought another box later that night.

In its own weird way, my parents’ smoking devotion has had two beneficial effects: both my sister and I have never touched a cigarette. Actually, I can’t totally vouch for my big sister. I do vaguely remember a rebellious phase during her teen years that may have resulted in a puff or two. I, however, never had a rebellious phase. Quitting Latin during my last semester of high school was about as insubordinate as I ever became. And to this very day, never once has it crossed my mind to pick up a cigarette. (Though I do sometimes regret giving up Latin.) So in this respect, you might say that my parents are devious masterminds at getting their children to behave.

They refuse to do the same.

Despite bouts of pneumonia and high blood pressure and heart attacks and take your pick of any other ailment, they are steadfast in their smoking ways. It’s beginning to tick me off. Regardless of whether a child is 5, 25, or 50, she wants her parents. Age does not diminish the love you have for your family. The older you become, the more awesome things you get to experience. The more you experience, the more you would like your parents to be around to celebrate those moments with you.

Even though I’m not a parent, I’m trying to think like one. What exactly do you do with a disobedient mom and dad? If the roles were reversed – and I was 20 years younger – they would have the option to send me off to boarding school. So it looks like I have only one choice… Either my parents shape up, or I’m shipping them off to a nursing home. I hear they know exactly what to do with unruly seniors.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It’s over. Another season of football is done.

Just a mere three months ago, I was ridin’ high. The Bears were 7-1, and I was certain that this was our year. Well, it didn’t happen. We got smacked by the Texans. Humiliated by the 49ers. Whipped by the Seahawks. And beaten by the Packers. That always stings.

So even though we were first in our division for the entire first half of the season, we didn’t even make it to the playoffs. My hopes were dashed, and Bears fans everywhere were forced to wait yet another year to bring back the Lombardi to Chicago. Even our go-to wellspring that is the ’85 Bears was somewhat tempered when Ditka suffered a stroke in November. All in all, it was a rough year for the Monsters of the Midway. Maybe we could use a Canadian to get us back on track.

And even though Lovie’s firing was a holiday highlight, I had to endure a month more of faking my enthusiasm for the playoffs. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I had plenty of reasons to be excited for the playoffs. Namely, to see the Packers get eliminated from them.

Here’s the deal. The Packers have the Bears to thank for winning the Super Bowl two years ago. It’s a dubious honor to be sure, but it’s true. Last game of the season. The Bears already had a bye, so it was what many would call a garbage game. Except that it’s never a worthless win over the Packers. Every victory counts, and according to trusty Wikipedia, we still hold a series win record of 92 to 88 over our rivals to the north. It would be 93 to 87 had we not lost the game that let Green Bay get a wild card into the playoffs, show us up at the NFC Championship, and swipe the Halas Trophy from us at Soldier Field. Of course, Green Bay did not repay the favor and beat Minnesota in their last game of the season this year so that we too could have our chance at Super Bowl victory.

So it felt oh so good when Green Bay finally succumbed to the 49ers last month. And though Harbaugh’s a complete loon, the fact that the Packers got beat by Jim and company felt like a small victory for Chicago fans, too. (Harbaugh played quarterback for the Bears in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.)

It counts.

Anyway, with the Packers out of Super Bowl contention, I really didn’t have a horse in the race anymore. (My horse was whoever was playing the Packers.) The Falcons are boring. Plus, they’ve pretty much perfected the art of choking in the playoffs. I have family on the east coast who are New England fans, but I want to see New England in the playoffs as much as I want to see another installment of The Fast and the Furious. Then there are the Ravens, who I don’t know much about, except that Ray Lewis is sketch and John Harbaugh is big brother to Jim. Hmm… Okay. That made it interesting. Once the 49ers made it to the AFC Championship, my picks were set. The only thing that was going to make this Super Bowl any fun was seeing an all-Harbaugh fight to the finish.

Despite the fact that I got my wish, it’s always a little sad to watch the Super Bowl when your team’s not in it. Yeah, it’s a great excuse for one last bingefest before you finally make good on your resolution to lose weight, but still… It’s not the same. I can still remember that sweet, sweet first quarter during Super Bowl XLI when the Bears were leading the Colts 14-6. The rest of the game is a little blurry.

And that’s my only consolation. Though the Ravens beat the 49ers just four days ago, you’d have to scour the news outlets to find a single article about it anymore. I’m sure all the Baltimore fans are still raiding their local Targets for as much Ravens gear as they can get their hands on, but their incessant craving for hats and T-shirts and commemorative DVDs will soon pass as well. Because sports fans are fickle. Season after season, we celebrate and commiserate with our teams’ victories and losses. We argue over bad flags and questionable catches. We writhe in pain with our favorite players when they suffer a concussion or ACL tear. For four months – five if you count preseason and six if you’re lucky enough to make the playoffs – we rise and fall and live and breathe with our teams.

And once that Lombardi Trophy is hoisted high once more… We put on Netflix and pass out from the 5000 calories we ate. ‘Merica!

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I guess you could say that some of today’s television shows have catchy theme songs. Most people could probably recognize the open to Modern Family. Unfortunately, I think just as many people would instantly know Two and a Half Men as well. But with few exceptions, most network programs have super boring or nonexistent opens.

What happened? Back in the day, the theme songs were just as memorable as the shows themselves. Sometimes more so. I couldn’t tell you a single plotline from The Facts of Life, but hells yeah, I could sing you the open. And Cheers. And Three’s Company. I bet I could do a decent rendition of Diff’rent Strokes, too. Props to Alan Thicke.

As with most songs, whether they’re sung on television or radio, you form lasting recollections of them because of the moment or time period they evoke. But perhaps more branded into my memory are not the theme songs from the shows that I watched, but rather those that my father liked. Which, by the way, were all totally depressing.

I always knew when my dad had tuned into M*A*S*H because suddenly I would be overwhelmed by an inexplicable wave of sadness. Given that the open to M*A*S*H is called “Suicide Is Painless,” I think my reaction to hearing it was entirely apropos. That said, I barely knew my ABCs when M*A*S*H went off the air, so I’m not sure if having such feelings of melancholy were healthy for a kid my age, especially on a weekly basis. And here’s a fun fact… M*A*S*H was Emmy-nominated 11 times… for Outstanding Comedy Series.

Same goes for Hill Street Blues. Not the Emmy nominations for being a comedy. At least the academy – or whoever decided the votes – had the sense to recognize that the show was as depressing as its theme song and called it a drama. What I’m referring to is the sorrow I would experience while watching it on the couch with my dad, blankie in hand and thumb in mouth. Coping mechanisms.

And apparently I’m not the only one who went through television-induced depression during my formative years. Just the other night, my boyfriend and I discovered that we both suffer from Taxi post-traumatic stress disorder. Taxi was the worst of the despondent 1980s theme songs.

Now I realize that all the songs I’m mentioning have received high praise for their quality and composition and whatever other musical terms apply. So I’m not saying that they’re bad songs. But I am saying that they made me want to throw down a few sleeping pills with my chocolate milk and call it a night.

The thing about Taxi is that the entire show was depressing. The theme song was only the precursor to what would be 22 minutes of miserable characters and an even more miserable backdrop. No wonder Christopher Lloyd was always drugged out. I wish I could erase all memory of Sunshine Cab Company, too.

I must have a very different sense of humor from adults of the late ’70s and early ’80s. Like M*A*S*H, Taxi was Emmy-nominated multiple times – and won most of those nominations – for Outstanding Comedy Series. In fact, it was up against M*A*S*H three times – and trumped the Korean War “comedy” each year. It also beat out Mork & Mindy. Whaaat?

But I suppose even the tried and true sitcoms of the 1980s had their darker moments. I still remember the Family Ties episode when Alex battled his grief over a friend’s death. And what about when Carol Seaver’s boyfriend died? I wept many tears over Matthew Perry that night.

You don’t see that too often in primetime television anymore. I can’t imagine shows like Parks & Recreation or New Girl tackling teen drunk driving. Maybe because there are no teens on either show, but that’s beside the point. To be totally honest, though, I prefer it that way. I like my comedy straight up, and after a long day of work, all I want to do is tap out to Leslie Knope’s bubbling enthusiasm and Jess Day’s adorkableness. Though shows like M*A*S*H and Taxi may have their place among the greats of television programming, I’m content to let others explore the depths of their despair with them in syndication.

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I guess I have one of those faces.

On a regular basis, I’m asked, “You know who you look like?” to which I instinctively cringe. To be fair, sometimes their answer is not completely mortifying. Other times… oy. I have to put on a brave face and hide the tears. You think I look like who?! Inevitably, I realize that in their own mind, they think they’re giving me a compliment, which is why I feign gratitude. The only thing more awkward than getting told that you look like a fugly celebrity is letting the compliment giver know you think said celebrity is fugly. Even more troubling is when in the back of your head, a teeny tiny part of you can understand why they think you look like that celebrity. It’s not a very good feeling.

Other times, I’m simply baffled by my alleged celebrity doppelganger. It’s not about them being ugly or pretty; I just don’t understand how anyone in the world could think that I look like them. Imagine if you will telling Seth Meyers that he looks like Alexander Skarsgard. Personally, I think they’re both adorable, but never would I ever confuse one for the other. So there’s that.

I get the “you know who you look like” question so often that I’m beginning to wonder what the deal is. Do I seriously have that generic of a face? How can I look like Drew Barrymore, Alyson Hannigan, Allison Janney, Michelle Monaghan, Laura Prepon, Emma Stone and Kate Middleton all at the same time? I feel like I’m one of those freaks from a Conan O’Brien “If They Mated” skit. Or the compliment giver needs to take a second look at me, because while I have a healthy sense of self-esteem, not for a second do I think I look like the would-be Queen of England.

Sure, every once in a blue moon I too meet someone who makes me think, “Holy cow! They totally look like ______!” However, rarely do I vocalize my opinion. Why? Because I realize that everyone’s sense of physical beauty is different. While I happen to think that Jessica Chastain is gorgeous, perhaps someone else does not. Honestly, though, stopping myself from telling someone that they look like a certain celebrity is not my problem. I have an entirely different conundrum.

For the life of me, I cannot remember faces.

It’s horrible. Just as I have felt awkward and offended by being told that I look like so-and-so, I have definitely made others feel weird and annoyed because I flat-out didn’t remember them. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve said to someone, “So nice to meet you!” to which they replied, “Yeah, we’ve met before.”

Most of the time the people on the receiving end of my inadvertent slight are extremely gracious. Except for this one time… I was at a party with a bunch of old college friends. All of a sudden, someone tapped on my shoulder. I turned around to find a random dude with his arms wide open. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you!”

Uh oh.

I had no clue who he was. Of course, I couldn’t admit to that, so I just went with the moment and accepted his bear hug. All the while, though, my mind was scrambling to place this guy. Through the power of deduction, I reasoned that he must be a former schoolmate. After all, I was surrounded by a dozen other college peeps. Yet I couldn’t keep quiet. I couldn’t just smile and pretend like everything was cool. I had to say something… “Yeah, right? I haven’t seen you in forever! What class was it that we had together?”

His face immediately fell. The girl with whom I had been chatting – a bona fide college friend – quietly uttered, “Anna, Matt didn’t go to school with us.” That’s when I tried in vain to dig myself out of the embarrassment pit.

“Oh! I didn’t recognize you with the facial hair!”

He wasn’t buying it, and to make matters worse, he informed me that he was taking my chair because I didn’t remember him. We then proceeded to avoid eye contact for the rest of the evening.

So yeah… People don’t like being forgotten. Or in my case, people don’t like being told that they look like someone else. Don’t get me wrong. Some of the people to whom I’ve been compared are lovely women. More than anything, I think my inordinate sensitivity to such compliments stems from a rather unfortunate childhood incident that has scarred me for life. That’s how most of our eccentricities begin, right? Long story short, my mom chopped my beautiful, long flowing locks just days before I was to begin kindergarten. Even then, I was keenly aware of how a bad haircut can pretty much ruin your life. Anyway, one day my dad came to pick me up after school. As we were saying goodbye to my teacher and walking toward the car, she called out after us. “Anna, you look just like your dad!” I immediately burst into tears.

So now you understand.

Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Graduation time is here. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed students the world over are donning their caps and gowns as they bid farewell to high school and college. It’s also that time of year when noted celebrities give profound commencement speeches about the purpose of life and why you should floss your teeth everyday.

My opinion? Those lovely speeches are wasted on the wrong people.

Once upon a time, I too was a high school senior. In fact, I was the one giving a speech at my graduation, as I was the class salutatorian. Being salutatorian is a dubious honor at best. Does anyone care – or even remember – who placed second in a presidential election? Or more importantly, the Super Bowl? Yet you would think that since I fared well academically I would have been off and running come college, ready to tackle the world with both arms.

Nope.

I floundered during my first few years of school. In fact, I failed college, both academically and pretty much in every other way as well. I hadn’t a clue what I was doing or what I wanted. I only went to my *first* college anyway because my best friend applied there. She decided to do the pre-med sequence, and that sounded pretty good, so I did, too. I figured that becoming a doctor was the natural choice for me. After all, I had won my high school’s science award. However, not only did I perform horribly in every single one of those classes, but also I realized that I wasn’t that upset about it. Yet it was the not being upset that upset me. Even more disturbing was that the courses I enjoyed the most were – horror of horrors – the acting classes I was taking to fulfill my general education requirements. What the hell was happening to me?

I applaud the college freshmen that know exactly what they want out of life and how they’re going to get it. I fell into the latter category, though; I was an eighteen-year-old with a long road ahead of one or two hits and many misses before I realized what my life should be. A total of four schools and two degrees later, I am just finally beginning to somewhat feel that maybe I’m perhaps getting close to possibly figuring out what I might be good at… I think. Moreover, if you had told my eighteen-year-old self that I would one day be a writer living in LA, she probably wouldn’t have believed it. Partly because I never thought a career could be something that didn’t feel like work, and partly because I never thought I would willingly move somewhere with worse traffic than Chicago.

That’s not to say everyone should go about it my own winding way. On the contrary, I took a few licks here and there that I would very much like to forget. Yet those mistakes taught me the most valuable lessons. FYI, never enter into a living arrangement with a friend who is less than 100% financially reliable. If even once you have to convince yourself, “No, really, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” then run – don’t walk – from the leasing office. Now that’s something I wish someone had told me when I graduated high school.

Taking stock of your life at the end of high school or college is like getting a car wash in the middle of a Midwestern winter. It’ll be covered with ice and salt again in fifteen minutes, so what’s the point? Graduates may think they know it all, but the truth of the matter is that it takes a few years – or decades – before the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place. And there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, that’s exactly when those eloquent speeches might actually mean something to us.

For all of you who now pull all-nighters because of a colicky baby rather than a chem final… For anyone who prefers to blow off steam with a nice cup of chamomile tea instead of a keg stand… Now’s the time to hit up YouTube. Search “commencement speech.” At the top of the results is Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford commencement address. Take a minute (or 15 of them) to watch it.

Done yet? Cool. Pretty much everything he says is awesome, and certainly his words regarding death now hold a greater poignancy because of his passing last October. However, I’m drawn to the part about connecting the dots. As he states, you can’t connect them going forward. Most twenty-two year olds have accumulated zero dots to connect anyway, so they can’t really understand what he means, but hopefully the rest of us do. Looking back on the years since high school and college, can you see the connections? Regardless of any missteps you may have taken along the way, can you see the picture of your life taking shape? It’s like those dotted images in kiddie coloring books. It can be difficult at times to make out what it’s supposed to be, but then all of sudden you see the blooming rose or soaring eagle. If you too can look back at your life and see something beautiful, then congratulations. Better than any 4.0 GPA or graduation honor, that’s something truly worth celebrating.

Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I’m a dog person. Always have been. I fell in love with them the moment my family surprised me with a puffball of a Pekingese for my 5^th birthday. Leo was the bestest dog ever. We grew up together, though technically, I suppose I did most of the growing. He never weighed more than ten pounds and was barely a foot tall. Plus, most of that height was fur. Yet for a little dog, he had a lot of love, and to this day I can’t think of him without getting a wee bit weepy.

It would be great to have a dog again, but there’s always a good reason – aka excuse – why I can’t. First it was college. Then a cross-country move. Grad school. And now an apartment that doesn’t allow dogs… even though my landlord lets his sister have two annoying yappers that go Cujo on anyone who gets within a twenty foot radius. The only reason why I have yet to “accidentally” step on or kick one of them is because I’m afraid they might “coincidentally” raise the rent on me the following week.

But fo’ reals, I love dogs. That’s why I’m always happy to dog-sit for a friend if I can. Everyone I know has pretty awesome pets, so it doesn’t take much beyond a few slobbery licks and a look from those big puppy dog eyes to break down Auntie Anna. They get a responsible caretaker, and I get snuggle time… sometimes against their will.

Curly Sue* is one of those dogs that makes you involuntarily go “aww…” when you see her. She’s a rescue, so though her breeding is a question mark, most likely it’s Basset Hound mixed with Corgi mixed with adorableness. When I babysat her last weekend, not a walk could be completed without at least one person asking, “What kind of dog is that?” Curly Sue is also a big sniffer of things – trees, flowers, unidentifiable smells emanating from some unknown source toward which she would lead me – so often our walks would last upwards of an hour. This meant that I would many times be stopped long enough to have any and all passersby interrogate me as to her genetic background. Even though she isn’t my dog, I just pretended that she was and happily answered their questions. (Mostly with information that I made up.)

Moreover, Curly Sue is keenly interested in other canines. The moment she spots a dog, she freezes and stares them down for many, many minutes at a time. That’s not to say she isn’t friendly. On the contrary, while other dogs that we encountered would sometimes flip out when they saw her, Curly Sue would quietly assess the situation by sniffing their rears and then be on her way. The problem is when she sees a dog too far away to sniff. If she can’t get up close and personal, she’s not satisfied and will stubbornly stand there until the dog is out of eyesight… and sometimes not even then. Curly Sue also weighs sixty pounds, so once she zeros in on another dog, there’s no moving her until she is good and ready to be moved. No amount of coercion or leash tugging will get that pup to walk unless she agrees.

So naturally Curly Sue and I were in the middle of crossing the street when she spotted another dog two blocks down. Upon spying her fellow canine, Curly Sue simply stopped dead in her tracks and stared ahead. Uh oh. First I tried mild coaxing…

“Come on, sweetie. Let’s go.”

No response. Then gentle urgency. “Curly Sue, honey, we gotta go.”

No response. Then insistence mixed with fear. “Curly Sue, now! We have to go now!”

Realizing that if we didn’t move in the next five seconds we would both be at the mercy of an oncoming Kia, I had no other choice but to drag Curly Sue to the sidewalk. Given that numerous other dog owners were in the vicinity and watching us, I felt like the biggest jerk ever. After years of ridiculing them, I suddenly felt intimately sympathetic to parents whose children have temper tantrums in planes and restaurants.

Curly Sue followed, but she wasn’t happy about it. I barely got her to the curb when she turned around and once again stared at the dog that I could barely see anymore. To help repair my image to the dozen or so strangers that had witnessed me yanking this sweet dog across the street, I began to lavish her with praise and petting to make it obvious that I wasn’t a monster.

A few minutes later, Curly Sue was sufficiently satisfied with her stakeout and ready to move on. We had walked maybe another block when she stopped for a second time. I scanned the area and realized that she now had in her sights a Chihuahua about thirty yards away. I gave her a gentle pull. Nothing.

I think I’m good being just Auntie Anna for a while longer.

* All names have been changed to protect the innocent and furry.

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Some childhood memories stick for obvious reasons. Birthdays, holidays, graduations… Those special moments immediately get filed away into one’s consciousness. But then you have those random recollections that don’t fit any clear-cut category of meaningfulness. Like the time I accidentally referred to my friend’s baby sister as “it” instead of “her” and was given an impromptu grammar lesson by their eavesdropping mother. Or when I was “treated” to shopping spree by another friend’s mom, but was later interrogated as to whether or not my father would reimburse her for my new outfit. That was weird. Then there’s the time my sixth grade class was introduced to Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” I remember this for two distinct reasons: one, because my teacher seemed to become increasingly distraught as the song retold the tragic events of November 10, 1975, and two, because of the silence that took hold of my classmates as we too were drawn into this tale of thirty sailors succumbing to Lake Superior.

I would venture that anyone who grew up within a fifty-mile radius of the Great Lakes knows the story of the Edmund Fitzgerald. If you live within a fifty-mile radius of Chicago, then you might also know the story of the Eastland. This ship never even made it to the lake. It overturned while still docked in the Chicago River and took with it more than eight hundred lives.

The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The sinking of the Eastland. The sinking of the Lusitania. Oh, and that Titanic boat. There’s a trend here. Now I’m sure that as a whole ships are extremely safe vessels on which to travel, but every single thing I know about them conclusively proves that they can’t be trusted. Should you argue that those incidents happened long before you or I were born, I have two words for you – Costa Concordia. Boom. Two months ago. Then her sister ship lost power in the pirate-infested waters of the Indian Ocean a month later. Boom x2.

However, I wasn’t actually aware of this (warranted) ship animosity until I was on one. Though I’ve been on many a speedboat throughout my life, I have never taken a cruise. Never met a captain. Never boarded anything resembling a luxury liner. Until last weekend.

Though an official resident of southern California for the last several years, I am shamefully lazy when it comes to exploring all the awesome things this area has to offer. The Queen Mary is one of those things. Permanently docked in Long Beach, I have gazed numerous times upon this ship turned hotel and event venue but have never experienced her grandeur myself. Now I would partake in her splendor on St. Patrick’s Day as hundreds of fellow passengers would partake in pints of green beer. A mass of drunken people on a huge boat with minimal supervision? Sounded like a swell time.

Though as we were dropped off in front of the ship, I immediately felt queasy. Strange… I never once suffered seasickness while on vessels a fraction the size of this behemoth. Technically, it wasn’t even moving. Technically, I wasn’t even on it yet. That’s when “My Heart Will Go On” began playing in my head.

Freakin’ James Cameron.

If I had any chance of shaking my shipism, Cameron ruined it with his monster-piece. Sure, I was a schmuck like everyone else when it first bowed in theatres and wept like a baby as Rose promised a frozen solid Jack that she would never let go… and then let him go to the depths of the icy ocean. But then I wiped my eyes, blew my nose and was done with it. Never saw the film again, and I don’t need to. Apparently along with every awkward parental encounter of my youth I have committed this movie to memory as I kept replaying it while trying to enjoy my St. Patrick’s Day onboard the Queen Mary. When we listened to the band playing Irish jigs, I imagined Jack and Rose gettin’ down with the blue-collar folks in Titanic’s basement. When we ventured into the captain’s quarters, I imagined the look on Edward Smith’s face as he realized that the ship was going down. Even when we were just moseying around the different levels, going up and down the interior staircase, I imagined the goofy look on Jack’s face when he met Rose for their first-class dinner.

So went the evening until we finally exited the Queen Mary safe, sound and relatively dry. (It just happened to be one of the ten days of the year that it rains in SoCal.) I suppose in comparison to how Titanic ended, we made out pretty okay. Maybe ships aren’t so bad after all as long as you never leave the shore.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Trash talk is fun, right? Politicians do it. Athletes do it. Morbidly obese fifty-year-old men that live in their mothers’ basements do it. Just go to any sports site and you can waste an entire day – “waste” being the operative word here – reading the hilarious and sometimes crazy scary comments that are written back and forth between the super obsessed fans of any professional sport. Yet should my team lose, I can still save face because even if I secretly suspect that I have the He-Man power to will my team to win or jinx them to fail, I know in the depths of my mere mortal heart that I had nothing to do with either outcome.

But it’s a whole ‘nother ballgame when you’re playing the sport; then you have no one to blame but your unskilled self. I don’t usually trash talk about my physical prowess because, well, I don’t often have the opportunity. I run solo, so there’s no exercise partner to eat my dust, and it seems a tad inappropriate to ridicule the elderly man I see wobbling down the sidewalk in a full three-piece suit and cane everyday since I already scare the bejeezus out of him whenever I whiz by. I think he might be hard of hearing so my derisive efforts would go unappreciated anyway. And though I could kick some serious sun salutation ass, it seems wrong to brag about it given the whole namaste shtick they preach in yoga.

So I best I can do is trash talk about my pseudo skills in pseudo sports such as the fine game of bowling. Now before some of you out there start hooting and hollering that bowling is a sport… Calm down. I will retract my statement when bowling is added to the roster of Olympic events or a Congressional probe is launched to investigate the alleged doping of those who live and die by the pin. That’s when bowling becomes a real sport.

Anyway… I did a lot of bowling as a kid, yet have no idea why. I don’t know if my dad was banking on me becoming the next Ernie McCracken or it was simply a way to entertain me for a few hours; regardless, I was at the alley a lot. I also bowled quite a bit with friends. Some adolescents get their kicks swiping a bottle of whiskey from the old man’s liquor cabinet or seeing how cool they look smoking in the girls’ bathroom. My crew preferred a little pin action, and eventually I became cocky in my bowling clout.

But that was a long-ish time ago. Now I bowl maybe once every two or three years. Not often enough to keep me in my prime; however, though my actual skills may have deteriorated over the years, my bravado has not. So come last weekend when I had the chance to throw down, I was ready to obliterate my competition, and I let him know it. More than once in the days leading up to our bowling face-off, I warned my rival of his inevitable demise. I think the words “I am going to destroy you” might have even left my mouth at some point. His response? An amiable “okay.”

My first ball was a gutter.

Happens to everyone. I immediately shook it off and announced that I just needed to warm up a bit. Soon enough, I got into a groove and was consistently taking down eight or nine pins each round. I even got a couple of spares. Still, I knew I couldn’t make good on my trash talk until that elusive first strike.

That’s when my foe went ahead and got one before me. I could feel a thin layer of sweat beginning to form over my body, and it wasn’t from physical exertion. What was going on here? I hadn’t bowled a game without making at least one strike… ever. At least that’s the way I remembered it in my mind. Time to rally.

And I got one. Meaning, I got one pin. I was imploding fast. Though I had been leading throughout the game, my opponent suddenly overtook me in the eighth round, and I never recovered. Nor did I ever get a strike.

“Wanna play again?” he excitedly asked. Damn right I did. Now my pride was on the line.

The second game went a little like this: he bowled either a spare or a strike each time, and I continued down my spiral of shame and didn’t even crack a hundred. Needless to say, he won – by a lot – though I was put out of my misery fairly quickly because of his numerous strikes. So did he rant? Did he rave? Did he shout, “In your face, sucka!” while doing a happy dance around my humiliated self? Nope.

The best trash talk is when you don’t have to say anything at all.

Image: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

LA ladies sometimes get a bad rap. A stereotype has been perpetuated, thanks in large part to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and its prequel The Hills, that we’re vapid, shallow and insincere. If we’re not shopping or botoxing, it’s only because we’re spray-tanning or gold-digging. Oh, and we have no real friends and consider every other female competition instead of a companion.

Sadly, those women are out there, but they’re everywhere: New York (less blonde), Miami (less clothed) or even Chicago (less vegetarian). No city has a monopoly on lame people. Lucky for me, I don’t often come across these self-involved souls and only hear about them second-hand from a friend who saw Paris Hilton stumbling out of The Standard last weekend.

Yet on any given night you will find an altogether different kind of woman out on the town. Though instead of scanning the crowd for her next sugar daddy or admiring the new DDs in the nearest reflective surface, this woman is too busy enjoying the company of her ten or more best friends. These girls come in all shapes, sizes and colors, but can easily be identified by the tight circle they form by the bar or more often on the dance floor. In other words, you are witnessing what is commonly called a ladies’ night.

I have participated in one or two ladies’ nights in my time, but perhaps not as often as you would think. Though LA women can rarely use bad weather as an excuse to stay home, you’d be surprised by how much time can go by between seeing friends in this town. Anyone in the entertainment industry usually puts in a ten to twelve hour day; needless to say, that kills most social engagements during the week. Should you reside west of La Cienega but all your friends live east of Highland, then you might as well resign yourself to seeing them at the next Thanksgiving potluck or perhaps your birthday party if they really like you. However, when the planets finally do align for the elusive ladies’ night, ‘tis a wonderful time.

Yet hitting the club isn’t a requirement for a BFF bash; in fact, my favorite ladies’ night is that of the at-home variety when you don’t have to worry about being groped from behind while getting your groove on or spilling your $14 cocktail on your dry clean only dress. Plus, without the deafening house music you can actually hear your friends and don’t sound like you smoked a carton of Marlboros the next morning because you had to scream every word for three hours straight the night before. Though regardless of any audio obstacles, we ladies get the gold star for our ability to chat long past any male’s oral breaking point. We can have discussions of epic proportions because one of the many things we’re great at is showing how we care through verbal communication, and should one be privy to a ladies’ night powwow, you will overhear at least one of the following conversation starters at some point in the evening:

1. “You look amazing!” The fairer sex dominates when it comes to supporting our sisters, and we’re not afraid to say it either. Yes, those chicks exist who cannot utter one kind word to another woman because of their own insecurities, but you will not find them at ladies’ night because they’ve made their bed and have no real female friends. Minus the Debbie Downers, the rest of us are free to gush about each other’s glowing skin, super cute new haircut or overall fabulousness.

2. “I love your outfit.” This may sound an awful like conversation #1, but don’t let the semantics fool you. #1 can refer to a number of awesome qualities that one’s friend may have, while #2 specifically highlights her keenly cultivated fashion sense. Totally different in girl world. Almost guaranteed to follow this statement is “Where did you get it?” I once had a weird junior high stalker situation when a girl in my class bought every last one of the short-alls I had purchased at Contempo Casuals – CC, I tip my forty to your memory – and had already worn to school. Subsequently, I was forced to retire them to the back of my closet for fear we would wear the same thing on the same day: a fate worse than death when you’re thirteen years old. Happily, Single White Female is a distant memory, so if someone likes what I’m wearing, I immediately tell her where I bought it. Who am I to deny Target yet another satisfied customer?

3. “Know any cute, single guys?” Yes, boys do eventually work their way into the conversation at some point. However, I must stress that those of the XY persuasion take up a relatively small portion of the night’s confab. Sorry to burst your bubble, gents. Though a main squeeze may momentarily surface in the conversation, more often than not any guy talk is regulated to gabbing about what single dudes we can hook up with our single friends.

4. “How’s work going?” What? You think our lives revolve around just shopping and men? On the contrary… The far majority of the awesome ladies I know are working women who do it not only for a paycheck, but because they are uber enthusiastic about their careers. More often than not, many minutes are devoted to discussing whatever new project/show/passion my girlfriends are working on.

5. “Please take that chip bowl/cookie platter/cheese tray away from me!” Okay, this isn’t so much a conversation as a command, but believe me, you will hear this uttered at least a dozen times before ladies’ night comes to a close. I can also guarantee that five to ten minutes later, you will then hear, “Can you grab me just one more cookie?” Gurrl, I’ll have one with you.

Image: thaikrit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net