Archive for June, 2008

30
Jun
08

Married in Managua @ age 16

By lenatic Leave a Comment
Categories: Lena
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I was in Nicaragua all week, where apparently the women (? girls?) get married around age 15-20. Our tour guide’s sister was married at 16. For the first time. She’s been married and divorced a total of 3 times, and can’t be more than mid-40s, so for sure there’s the possibility of even more happy nuptials yet to come.

Anyway. I was just thinking about that social structure, and wondering what in the world would have happened to me if I’d been living in it. Basically I would have married the neighborhood drifter/hoodlum who I had a crush on in 10th grade, and had an interesting teenage life as the wife of a sometime drug addict and petty criminal turned automechanic.

Or maybe I would have married the hippie guy I dated at age 17, and within a couple of years my role as the responsible half of the duo would have been cemented: even then, I brought home a meagre but steady wage as he, 9 years my senior, casually bumbled around the junior college system.

Or, possibly, I would have married my first love, who I’m still in contact with to this day, and still adore and find attractive, even at the same time as his hair-trigger emotions and unwillingness to concede a point continue to drive me insane. Yeh. That’s the most likely option. We’d have great sex and vitriolic fights; I’d be the breadwinner and he’d feel bad about it; and he’d always wonder what life would be life if he’d just held out for a 5′10 brunette. (Now he doesn’t need to wonder, because he’s had about 20 of them that I know of.)

Indeed things would have been very different, and I can’t imagine they’d have been better. As I’ve progressed thru my 20s into my 30s, the range of possibilities has continued to expand, and the experiences have become more colorful, and I’ve become increasingly less willing to sacrifice a bit of it. This week being a perfect example.

It’s hard enough to have rules and restrictions at home–but having them when you’re in a foreign country, on a different schedule, with almost no telecommunications access? How could I deal with the 11PM phone call: “Yes honey, I’m back in the hotel room, no, I’m not going out again….no, I’m not having fun without you.” How could I report my every move back to the person waiting for me at home? (And don’t tell me it’s not like that. It is. Every time. I have enough married/engaged friends to know.)

When my colleagues said they were “going out, but just for a few minutes,” on the last nite, I would have taken the early car home & been snug in bed at my business-class hotel by 11PM, just like the 50 year old artist/eco-journalist from upstate New York and the other lady who came down with terrible food poisoning.

Instead, I wound up bumping into a group of youngster Americanos from Southern Cal, no less, and one of them wound up being pretty damn adorable–so much so that I forgave him for being not only career military but also very stern and that wee bit bossy…and we ended up talking, laughing, dancing till 4AM, while Nicaraguan teenagers shamelessly took advantage of my distraction and stole one after the other of my 25 cent beers. Then the car came, and all my friends and fellow adventurers were waiting for me, and the plane flight was only 10 hours away…so I left. I think I may have heard his email address through the noise and smoke, but I really don’t know for sure.

It was such fun–but still, basically an opportunity only barely explored, and as such, pretty bittersweet.

The husband-hunting teen queen contingent in Managua–you see them at bars and restaurants, dressed up, drinking, smoking cigarettes, feeling very grownup & looking like pipsqueaks–would never let an opportunity like that go to waste. They’d stay with the blonde Americano and do whatever seemed most likely to spur a marriage proposal. (Even if they didn’t speak a word of the same language, and therefore could never get the jokes.) To me this seems insane…and my lifestyle no doubt seems insane to them. I think maybe we’re both a little bit right. The question is, where’s the happy midpoint, and when you’ve gotten to it, how do you know?

24
Jun
08

Toronto music conference wrap-up

By shawnster Leave a Comment
Categories: Shawn
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Well it’s been over a week since we arrived home in Vancouver from the North by Northeast music conference in Toronto but I still feel like there are some loose ends to tie up. For one thing, I want to convey to you all just how we KEPT PARTYING until the very last minute. How, exactly, you ask? Well, even though the conference was officially over last Sunday (June 15), we still managed to inveigle our way into the MuchMusic Video Awards pre-party at a place called Tryst. We not only walked the red carpet and hobnobbed with lawyers, rock stars and VJs, but we managed to get our new friend Aviva Thierry in as well. It’s always better if you can share the excitement, I always say, especially with someone who might be new to the whole schmoozing thing. Wingy and I met Aviva when we took shelter during a torrential downpour at a Shopper’s Drug Mart across from our hotel, and as it happens she’s a singer/songwriter herself, so she took to the music industry schmooze like a duck to water.

To tell the truth, Wingy and I were pretty fatigued by then, so we weren’t too bummed when we had to leave the party to catch our plane. However, the five-hour delay at Pearson Airport cast a bit of a pallor on the whole thing. All in all though I’d have to classify the trip as a success, as Wingy managed to pawn his business card off on everyone from a toddler on the bus to British folk-rocker Billy Bragg.

Now a word or two about this blog, and blogs in general. It turns out something I wrote last weekend came back to haunt me. Someone I have become quite fond of was hurt by something I wrote, and I apologize for that. I will certainly be more circumspect in the future, as I try to navigate writing about dating and relationships while moving in the direction of the latter. Hmmm, can I be any more vague?

This brings up the whole blog thing–this isn’t the first time I’ve gotten in trouble for something I’ve written. One incident caused a friend to not talk to me for a few weeks last year. And Wingy periodically complains that I hurt his feelings by putting words in his mouth: “You’re always writing that I’m saying things I didn’t say,” he says. I guess I’ll have to be more careful in the future. “That’s right,” says Wingy. “After all, I’m the most lovingest person in the world.”

22
Jun
08

This green craze has gone too far

By lenatic Leave a Comment
Categories: Lena
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Okay, I’ve had enough. I get 5-10 notices every day about ‘green’ initiatives, and various invitations to jump on the green bandwagon, and I know they’re well-intentioned, but they’re starting to cross the line. 

I’m sitting here, trying to find the energy to get off the computer and head out to my friend’s party, and the following email headline arrives in my inbox:

START OFF LIFE AS A MARRIED COUPLE WITH A STEP IN THE GREEN DIRECTION.

Excuse me? OMGWTF? Is this really necessary or even in good taste?

I have never been a newlywed but I’ve sure known plenty of ‘em, plus many who are preparing to join their ranks…and from what I’ve seen, though it is an exciting, giddy, highly significant and memorable time in one’s life, it is NOT the appropriate time to install a compost pile in the backyard or convert your house over to solar power. 

Newlyweds have a lot on their minds. Like:

  • Paying off their wedding.
  • Writing thank-you cards
  • Paying off their honeymoon
  • Merging their finances (or not)
  • Buying a house (or not)
  • Tossing out their birth control (scary!)
  • Having in-laws
  • Coming to terms with the fact that they now have legally and officially committed themselves to another person for life (or at least a few years).

I may have left a few things out, but the point is… don’t newlyweds have enough to worry about? They’re entering an entirely new stage in their existence! They’re supposed to be blissfully happy and floating around on a cloud and having sex three times a day. More likely, in this day and age, they’re just sort of getting back to business, but with that cute shell-shocked glow of someone who’s just made a life-changing move and is happy about it. But either way. Shouldn’t they get at least a month’s grace period before some do-gooder with a buzz word and an agenda ambushes them and demands that they evaluate their environmental choices?

I think they should. I think that composting, recycling, using cloth grocery bags, buying energy-efficient lightbulbs, biking short distances instead of driving, conserving water, buying local produce, raising chickens in the backyard, wearing only natural hemp fibers, driving a hybrid and offsetting one’s carbon footprint are all admirable practices, and should be considered and implemented as lifestyle choices whenever feasible.

However. I think they are a damn buzzkill on a honeymoon. And I’m pissed on behalf of all honeymooners at the zealot who dares to bring them into the bridal suite. Back off!! Take your slogans and your earnest marketing spiel and go away!

It reminds me of the Jew-for-Jesus lady who accosted kids outside the synagogue when I was a kid; or the wild-eyed dog rescue lady who shamed me into fostering two dogs, paying another one’s medical bills, volunteering all day Sunday and answering phone messages Mon-Sat… I mean sheesh! We all (most of us) want to be better people and do our bit, but enough is enough.

It’s fine to have a cause. A party line.  Whatever. But along with it, people should acquire a sense of timing and tact. They should understand that “going green” happens every day, but marriage happens once in a lifetime…and  they should allow newlyweds to feed each other wedding cake and develop their wedding photos  and wonder about the color of their children-to-be’s eyes in peace…

15
Jun
08

An eye for the swag

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Categories: Shawn
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Sunday June 15, Toronto, Holiday Inn. Last night was the last night of North by Northeast, and this time I was determined not to stress about seeing certain bands. So naturally I stressed about seeing certain bands. However, the good news is that I saw most of what I wanted to see, although I missed Tel Aviv band Monotonics. More on that later, if I remember to get to it. 

Anyway, we started the afternoon at the Drake Hotel on the outdoor patio. For some reason Wingy things every party is a barbecue so he assured myself and Kim H. that there would be food at this party, which was being held by Vice Magazine. As you would expect from a party held by that hipster rag, the patio was populated with tattooed, bearded dudes and stylish ladies. We were there under the aegis of Carling A., who as much as I begged never did get me a beer. It wasn’t a barbecue and there was very little food, but Wingy and I circulated like the pros we are–talking to three Swedish sisters, the dude who heads up the Polaris Music Prize (a big deal in Canuckland music circles), and a few old pals from Vancouver. Despite Carling’s reluctance, we managed to keep scoring enough drink tickets to keep us buzzed. 

Fortunately, Rancho Relaxo was serving up some vittles upstairs, where we saw Tiger and Me, an Australian man-woman duo who performed pretty cool torch lounge pop ballads. Then Wingy’s eye was attracted to a bright blue Whole Foods bag everyone outside the El Mocambo seemed to be clutching so we went in to investigate and were immediately handed a bag o’ swag. This convinced us to stay for the band, a seven-piece Norwegian outfit whose name I can’t pronounce or quite remember, but which I will add later (yeah, right). They were jumpy, energetic and fun as hell, and reminded me a little of Little Creatures-era Talking Heads. Rebekah Higgs from Halifax rocked out at the Horseshoe, and 6 Day Riot, a folk pop group from the U.K., was excellent at the Cameron House. At the Bovine Sex Club we caught the tail-end of the set by Koogaphone, another U.K. group but with a harder, hard-rock/punk edge and fronted by Julie, the girl we shared a cab ride with the previous night. We hightailed it over to Sneaky Dee’s for one of the reputed highlights of the festival, the Monotonics, but it got so crowded and claustrophobic our party bailed one by one–first Wingy left to get pizza, then Kim went home, and finally I went outside. Wingy, a friend from Vancouver now living here and I made it to the Red Kross show at Lee’s Palace, though I’d said I wouldn’t return to that sweatbox. But I did! Then I got mad at Wingy for some reason but now we’re friends again, at least until he pays the hotel bill. 

14
Jun
08

Wingmen reunited

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Sat. June 14, Toronto, North by Northeast Music Festival: Two days into the four-day music marathon known as NxNE. A northern cousin to the South by Southwest similar event in Austin. For this one, Wing-y and I have put aside our differences long enough to room together at the Holiday Inn on King, centre of the conference. All you have to do is walk out into the hotel and you could be schmoozing with a SxSW organizer or a famous British radio DJ. I just got back from the fitness centre, where Bob Harris was on a stationary bike. Apparently, he’s a big deal British DJ.

But you want to know about girls, not 60-year-old British radio DJs working up a sweat. Well, there are lots of them around the conference, from the volunteers to the managers to the label execs to the musicians. At the kickoff party Wednesday night, Wingy and I met three girls from some short film distribution company called Ouat; Brady, Sophia, and Doreese. Brady is a husky-voice rocker chick, Sophia a tall blond, Doreese [sp.?] dark-haired and a little zaftig. We were all on the bus heading towards the kick-off party at the Palais Royale. There, Wingy rubbed shoulders with comedian Dave Foley (Newsradio, Kids in the Hall).

Thursday, our first full day here, we had lunch with the illustrious Carling, who once worked with Wingy and is now living with her boyfriend, some dude with Vice Magazine. She took us to an excellent Italian restaurant and we sat on the patio, a relief from the incessant rain of Vancouver, and then showed us the beer store. Thursday night was the usual music conference mad rush to see everything, beginning with the famous EMI rooftop party. As I was on the list and Wingy was not, I was truly hoping this was the moment where the infamous Wingy luck would fail. He was frantic at the prospect of being turned away and having to pass all the music industry types lined up behind us. But, true to form, the yellow-shirted security guards let him in.

A foxy brunette in a red polka-dotted dress caught my attention. She was with some goateed dude but that didn’t stop me from turning to her in the burger lineup. Turned out she’s Sky Sweetnam, a singer who had a minor hit a couple years ago. She sang a few bars–something about “Billy Shakespeare.” There were probably some other minor celebrities there but none that I recognized, though I did run to an old friend, Tatiana, now a yoga instructor in Ottawa. Oddly enough, her name had come up earlier in the day for the first time in a long time because she’d added Wingy as a friend on Facebook. Wingy, who spends most of his free time on his iPhone, email, or Facebook, suddenly rent the air with the question, “Do you know Tatiana N*****?” And I did.

Our first music stop of the night was the Rivoli on Queen Street W. for Smothered in Hugs, a PEI band named after a Guided by Voices song, Small Sins at the Horseshoe with their hit “Stay” (a pop song about fidelity, of all things), and then back to the Rivoli for Mardeen from Halifax and finally Two Hours Traffic, a fine power-pop unit also from the East Coast. At some point in all this we got to talking to a couple of ladies sitting at the bar away from the music. One was an Aeroplan employee and just as I was trying to figure out a way to extricate us from a boring conversation Wingy came over with a couple of chairs for he and I. Good timing.

I know this is rambling but I’m on vacation so you’re just going to have to deal with it. Later I’ll put up some pictures and cut the more extraneous stuff which will probably make this post one of the shortest ever. Also I just have to say I am halfway through Then We Came to the End by Joshua Farris and it’s one of the funniest novels I’ve ever read.

Anyway, back to NxNE. Yesterday was Friday, and we decided to try and see Fred, an Irish band which was playing outside behind Eaton Centre. We’d met their managers, Sheena (Ireland) and Jen (Memphis), who had insisted we come out. We gave it the old college try, even taking a cab, but I brought us to the wrong stage so we missed the set. However, Wingy did emerge from the nearby H & M with two hats, two bathing suits, and six pairs of socks.

None of which he was wearing (well, maybe the socks) when we met up w/ my Lavalife editor Kim (yep, believe it or not, someone edits this stuff) for the Manitoba party at the Drake Hotel. Being from that province myself I wasn’t going to miss out on this one, which featured perogies, cabbage rolls, and other fine Winnipeg-type Ukrainian food (I’m half Ukrainian, you know). Much hobnobbing went on, and though Kim had entered with a lowly wristband she emerged with a priority pass and a super pass. Wingy thinks 20-year-old Hill (short for Hillary, who plays in a band called Drowning Girl) is going to get us into the MuchMusic Video Awards party tonight. We’ll see about that.

Oh yeah, also ran into Vancouver singers Adaline (Shawna) and Nat Jay yesterday at one of the panels in the hotel. The race was on after 5 minutes of chatter from the panelists to see who could leave the room first, them or us, due to pressing, more important appointments.

God, this is long-winded. I’m gonna jump ahead here to the Dakota Tavern where, around 11, we saw Priya Thomas, whose last album I really liked but tonight was doing a more low-key thing with just a bassist, guitar player and a bass drum, which she played along with guitar and vocals. There, we met a couple of Brits from a band called Koogaphone, Julie and the manager, and they ended up sharing a cab with us to the Horseshoe. I thought Julie and I were hitting it off but once at the venue she gave me the cold shoulder so nuts to her. I had bigger fish to fry anyway, although I lost track of one of those fish, Liz, a Liv Tyler-esque brunette I’d met earlier at the Horseshoe, and a member of the Edmonton band the Summerlad. Too bad but that’s the way these things go. Well I did end up seeing Swervedriver, a reunited British guitar-rock band from the ’90s, at Lee’s Palace, which had been the evening’s ultimate goal. However, the venue was a sweatbox and I was tried from the day’s drinking and schmoozing, so it was hard to enjoy. Who knows what today will bring… probably another trip to H&M.

11
Jun
08

I Don’t Want You, I Want Your Mom

By lenatic 1 Comment
Categories: Lena
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Ah, the many ambiguities and confusions of casual dating/friends-with-benefits. They’re pretty much endless, no? From the ubiquitous scenarios (she wants to get serious, he doesn’t) to the embarrassing (a blast-from-the-past man catches you six months unwaxed and looking like the Bride of Sasquatch) to the plain ..!?!?… (such as I am about to relate)…FWBs are fraught with minor minefields. So much so that I wonder why anyone bothers with them. Until I dabble my toe in the ’serious relationship’ pool…and then I remember.

Anyway, back to the story at hand. I have a bit of an odd situation with Chris, my occasional FWB of two years. In short, he wants me (this week) and I want his mom.

No, not in thaaaat sense, you filthy freaky dirty bird!! I just want to talk to her. In specific, I heard from her lovely son, that she is a Boomer dater and budding writer of some skill…and since Kim of this very site is looking for Boomer writers (or was; don’t quote me), I thought I should perhaps pass the word along.

Trouble is, I would have to go through Chris to do it, and then I would have to explain why I don’t feel like having sex with him. (Answer. No particular reason. I’m busy.)

I like Chris. I was happy to hear from him the other day…it had been a couple months. However, I was out of the country when I grabbed the phone, and therefore rather quick to hang up, after agreeing to call him the very evening I got back.

(This was just a downright silly thing to ask on his part, by the way. Who calls a casual friend the minute they get out of Customs at 10PM on a Sunday? Nobody. You’re grumpy, been standing in line for an hour, you just want to grab your bags and go home. I don’t know why I even pretended I would call.)

Anyway. Obviously I didn’t call straight out of Customs. Nor did I call the next week. Nor have I yet. It’s slipped my mind, what with work and travel and dieting to fit into the bridesmaid’s dress for my sister’s wedding. And I don’t feel too too bad about not calling, because I figure if he really wanted to hit it talk, he’d call me again. We don’t stand on ceremony.

And then came the thought with his mom.

I almost just sent him a text: Does ur mom still want 2 write bout dating?

But I thought that might bring up a whole bunch of questions and I really didn’t want to get into it, being that I am not actually doing the hiring–just giving a heads-up.

If I’d had his email address I would have emailed him: Sorry have been so incommunicado, ask your mother to email clips to my ed, and I’ll get back to you personally when next available for casual sex.

However. I do not have an email for Chris.

That left a phone call, and for some reason I just balked at making the call. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I didn’t want to chat, quite yet, knowing what chatting leads to with him. Maybe I have more social graces than I realize…to the point where I feel a bit untoward telling my casual fling that I don’t require his company, and am only calling him back because I want to encourage his mother to post her most private, personal business on the Internet for all to scrutinize.

And then there’s the last thing: It’s bad enough to say, “Hey, friend, I want your mom,” (in the metaphoric sense) but much worse to make the probable eventual followup call a week later…”Sorry, my editor took a look at her stuff, and we don’t actually want her after all. Thanks for playin.’”

Hmmmm….no. Maybe she’d consider it the opportunity of a lifetime, but I think I’ll just sit on this one for a while.

09
Jun
08

Interview with the Bammer

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Categories: Shawn
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A friend told me about Maria Bamford’s three-minute shorts on Super Deluxe (www.superdeluxe.com) and I was immediately hooked after watching one episode. The idea is that Maria, a Professional Comedian in L.A., loses it and moves back in with her family in Duluth, Minnesota. This gives Maria ample opportunity to play her disapproving mom, her slightly out-of-it dad, her catatonic boyfriend Todd, her nail-biting sister, and her frazzled boss Amy. It also lets Maria do crazy things to her hair and dress up Blossom, her pug, in any way she pleases.

 

Sadly, Maria is no longer making episodes of her show. But she is busy with her standup (visit www.mariabamford.com for tour dates and ordering info for her CD How to WIN!), with her voiceover work, and with filming Sit Down, Shut Up!, a Fox TV show airing in a year featuring many of the cast members of the late, lamented Arrested Development. Because Maria is doing the online dating thing, and because she’s so f’in’ hilarious, I wanted to interview her for the blog. She was kind enough to chat for an hour about self-help, dating, and dog psychics (which, alas, didn’t make the final cut).

 

Me: How much of The Maria Bamford Show is true?

 

MB: Well, none of it’s true. I haven’t moved home with my family. It’s my greatest fear that I would have to move home with my parents so I thought I’d do a show about that. A lot of the issues are true, though. I have had a lot of depression. And the OCD issues are true, the dynamics and the family type stuff are true.

 

Me: You’re a comedian in real life. Who are you on a date?

 

MB: There’s an element of performance to what I do that takes away from the vulnerability/intimacy factor. Meeting someone, I want to be real with that person. I’m also a very sincere, serious person when I’m not joking. Not that I’m wearing a snood. I went on an Internet date a couple of weeks ago and I asked him about himself, and then he asked me about me and myself, and I said I was going to New York on the weekend. And then he says, “Oh, so you’re a big deal,” and then I think he thinks I think I’m a big deal, and then I’m thinking “revamp, revamp, revamp.” 

 

Me: I would think working in the entertainment field you’d meet lots of guys.

 

MB: That’s what I would think too. I haven’t had many people ask me out. I get a lot of email solicitations, and I tell them come talk to me, I’m always at the shows on Monday [Maria co-hosts What’s Up Tiger Lily? at the Cuba Libra Bar in L.A. when she’s in town]. But they live in other countries, or they live in Alaska and they’re in their late 60s. I’d rather go on a dating site–then I know they’re looking for the same things I am–rather than meet someone at a bar, where maybe they’re interested in something else. I dated a guy I met online for six months. He was a great guy and we were looking for the same thing. It didn’t work out for other reasons. I’m totally into self-help and love talking about psychology, and that’s a giant thing for me. I think when I talked about it all he heard was [makes a high-pitched, keening sound]. I felt bad for him.

 

Me: What is your screening process?

 

MB: It’s based on what they write though it doesn’t necessarily have to be funny. I have friends who are really funny in person but might not be good at expressing it. I’m much more conscious of using a funny word ’cos I know that “banana” works. Right now, it’s someone who likes talking about God, who is interested in spirituality, and meditation [pronounces it “med-I-tay-she-o”] and using Spanglish to pronounce words like that. And someone who’s a goofball, but you can’t always tell.

 

Me: Are you getting good at weeding out people you won’t have anything to talk about with?

 

MB:  I think so. Sometimes I screen people who aren’t very good at talking on the phone because I travel a lot and I like talking on the phone. I’m still single at 37, but I have been trying. I met this guy, I don’t know, he had done a lot of talking on the phone, and he did all these impersonations of Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don’t know if he was disgusted or just nervous, but when we met he couldn’t make eye contact. I felt like, “I’m a big hosebeast.” 

 

Me: In one of the episodes of The Maria Bamford Show, you’re ecstatic when you meet a guy you think will be your boyfriend so you can stop dating.

 

MB: It’s so awesome when you’ve decided you’re going to be steady buddies. Then it’s just like, oh we can make some plans, we can go on trips. You have a date to go places. I know I have friends, so I can do that with my friends. But it’s fun and a relief. But I think part of that, that guy Todd, he said nothing, he didn’t talk at all. Then you can put whatever fantasies you want on them, or whatever you think their thoughts are. And so, “Oh, he’s an amazing thoughtful person.” Maybe the reason he doesn’t talk very much is he doesn’t have very much to say. Or he’s not thinking about much.

 

In any relationship, I’ve found it’s important to really listen to what the person says about themselves. The last guy I went out with, on the sixth date, he was uncomfortable with something I was wearing. It was at an event and he didn’t like the colour. It was hot pink. And I felt terrible. At that point I should’ve said, “You know, that’s totally not going to work because that’s just not my thing where what you’re wearing is important.” And that was important in his life—it was almost like a spiritual thing. Like he had lots of wonderful socks, which he matched with his clothes. I love that. And he wasn’t good at expressing it: “You’re wearing a pink dress and I’m scared.” It was like he was mad. So I’ve just got to trust my own instincts. And then the last guy I dated said, “Oh this is a really a bad time for me to have a relationship.” And that was so true! I didn’t learn the details of it until a year in. He had had some bisexual experiences that he told me about later. And it was like, Oh my God, it is a bad time. He was responsible for going forward too, but you have to listen when someone says something. They’re saying it for a reason. Those are two of my lessons. But there are many relationships to come, Shawn.

 

Me: Do you have any guys on the line now?

 

MB: Nobody. But I’m on [competing site]. And if anybody lives in the Los Angeles area and is an appropriate age range, within five years—well, I guess eight years older and five years younger. I don’t know, I’ve never dated anyone younger than me. I just think too far one way or the other, and it’s different what you’re ready for and what you’re interested in. I don’t know. When I was 32… I still wanted to par-tay.

 

I don’t know if there is a God, but I just think there’s gotta be somebody within five miles of where I live. It can’t be a guy in Bangladesh.

 

08
Jun
08

Ghost girls

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If I needed anymore convincing women have radar, I got it in my inbox the day after I returned from a two-day “holidate.” An ex–my most recent–sent me an email, the first in over, well who’s counting.

It wasn’t much–in fact, the message wasn’t really anything, except perhaps to the overworked and fevered imagination. But it was a little uncanny, the timing. However, I’m not letting it throw me into the past. Instead, I’m flinging myself into the future. Watch out, future, here I come. 

The two days in California wine country earlier this week were heaven-sent. For 48 hours my date and I were treated like royalty; a massage, two fabulous dinners, a hot air balloon ride, breakfast in bed, a winery tour, and time by the pool. For people who had met only a month before, the patent agent and I got along like gangbusters. She was game for anything, and appreciated the resort experience even more than I did. I not only got to expose her to Sonoma but also to, via our suite’s TV, Nancy Grace, neither of which she’d seen before. My date was the first to want to open the bottle of Champagne in our room after the hot air balloon ride and she always knew where a bottle opener was, even though she lost her key card five minutes after entering the suite and later misplaced the remote control (maybe on purpose, after seeing Nancy Grace). And she seems to be one of those people who hears what she wants to hear–for instance, she misheard “binoculars” for “vernacular” while we talking to a cab driver and “cadet corps” for “esprit de corps” in a conversation with a couple of older lady Texans. This provided moments of amusement for yours truly.

I’m a little worried about one thing, though. She seems to prefer me drunk. She says that I’m “funnier and looser.” However, I fear this is one activity in my life where I need less encouragement, not more…

05
Jun
08

The Whole Arm Candy Role is Over-rated

By lenatic 1 Comment
Categories: Lena
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

I been thinkin’ on it a bit–well okay, I’ve been pondering on it nearly my entire adult life–and at last, at the ripe old age of 31, I’m going to tell you for certain: arm candy babes don’t have it as good as girls who can pay their own way. In fact, I’ll take that generalization and expand the scope to cover all women. Those who are dependent on someone else’s whims and bankbook just really don’t have as much fun as the sisters who, to quote my favorite buzz-cut ’80s rock icon of ambiguous sexuality, are “doin’ it for themselves”

They’re not as well-traveled either.

I came to this conclusion while in Cancun the past week for the launch of a new luxury resort development. There were many, many rich and powerful Latin American developers and businessmen–and closely following them, the requisite bevy of perfectly turned-out, rhinestone-belted, cleavage-sporting Latina babes.

I wasn’t at all surprised the girls were there…after all, what’s a party without gratuitous pretty women to act as floating arm candy? But here’s what shocked me: Though these girls live in Miami–an hour’s flight from Cancun–and I live across the continent, I’ve been to Cancun more often than they have. As we talked further, I learned that one girl–a Venezuelan–had never been to neighbor countries Chile or Argentina. To me, that’s like saying you’re from California but have never been to Hawaii or Vegas. It’s possible, but only if you’re singularly untraveled.

And this confused me greatly. Because…isn’t the whole POINT of being arm candy to wealthy men that you get to jet around and see all kinds of cool places and experience amazing things? Isn’t that one of the major perks?

The answer to this is YES, OSTENSIBLY. As a cute female, if you spend enough time surfing the online personals, or hanging out in wine bars in Los Angeles/San Francisco/Las Vegas/wherever, some man will invariably approach you with offers of travel and fancy meals and tickets to the opera.  That is how they reel you in. The thing is, they’re…not lying exactly, but grossly over-exaggerating. ‘Travel’ as arm candy means a trip to Vegas, or to Dallas/Chicago/other boring corporate hub… Caribbean or Cancun if you’re really lucky. And the whole time, you’re under pressure to sparkle and flirt and basically WORK IT… and you only eat, drink or have any fun at the whim of the man who brought you. 

Face it: Nobody wants to–or knows how to–spoil a girl as well as she knows how to spoil herself. Except maybe her best girlfriends or her sisters.

A man’ll buy you a pair of Wolford stockings and a teddy, and expect you to turn into a private porno pinup model in return. You can buy yourself a $300 Dirty Lingerie corset and wear it out clubbing, to a costume party, or  just keep it in your drawer to pet and fondle on rainy days.

A girlfriend will treat you to a spa day if she’s got the hookup, just because she thinks you need to relax. A man…well, one once offered a spa treatment, but it was in Vegas and I’d only just met him, so I politely said, Thanks, but that’s a little creepy.

A man will buy a bottle of champagne on a special occasion. For my sister’s bridal shower, the girls are buying a case.

I could go on and on. The point is this: The life of an arm candy girl seems sweet, and men always come with the big promises. But in actual fact, it’s a round-the-clock job where you don’t get much respect, and  usually don’t get a salary either (unless you’re a full fledged ’sugar baby’ which is exponentially sketchier).

If you want to travel the world for real, splurge madly on lingerie for no reason, order $100 worth of sushi with no one questioning you, and really enjoy every moment, then girl, you gots to do it for yourself.

 

 

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