Lost and Found

2003 Travels.

I've made it to many new places throughout 2003. This is what I tell myself, when I realize that I'm still in Ohio. Below are ten places (new, or revisited) and their subsequent memories. (The ones I'll publicize, anyway.)

January: Boston

On a whim, I went to a NYE dinner party hosted by David Binder, a documentary photographer who once focused on people living with AIDS. He had covered, in great beauty, an underground needle exchange, a camp for children with the disease, and the final days of a woman whose family would be forced to move on without her. I ended the evening listening to rockabilly in a Boston bar featuring a bowling alley.

July: Las Vegas

I visited Paris, NYC and Rome on a singular first date with the help of this kitsch empire where the food trumped the slot machines for three days. Only in Vegas can you get carded for coffee and nothing else.

August: Los Angeles (beginning of road trip)

I sat in the airport bar with Ricky, awaiting the arrival of Maya. The last time the three of us had been together was in Zone 3 of London, years earlier. An excess of wine had me discovering the intricacies of the loo. This time, Ricky and I balanced our alcohol with food, by ordering calamari. It came with hard pieces of plastic in it. Even the squid in LA gets plastic surgery.

August: Point Reyes, CA

The reason I know I was in Point Reyes, is because I own a t-shirt that says, "Cowgirl Creamery, Point Reyes." We had burritos for lunch, if I'm not mistaken. We also bought a travel book, chocolates and heartburn medication in this tiny coastal town.

August: Eugene, OR

After a short stint in the San Francisco area, and an evening in the Redwoods of Northern California, Maya and I found ourselves driving around Eugene. We could not, in fact, get out of Eugene. The highway system is designed to keep tourists trapped for days, sometimes years, until they accidentally breed and put up signs in their yards that say things like, "Get US out of the UN."

August: Portland, OR

Ann celebrated our arrival with Shepherd's Pie and beer, and we were grateful. We drank beer in an elementary school while watching *A Mighty Wind*.

August: Olympia, WA

Olympia is known for Sleater Kinney and politicians. And monstrous pet fish with bulging eyes.

August: Vancouver, Canada

The "train" to Vancouver, is in fact a bus. There were loud children and even louder adults encouraging them. To remedy the situation, Maya and I immediately retreated to a restaurant that served beer with breakfast. To be fair, breakfast was at 4.00 p.m. We picked up our server, and he gave us an insider's night on the town and a tip for a hot new up-coming movie: Elf. You see, our server was an elf, in...Elf.

August: Seattle, WA (end of road trip)

In the musical and artistic heaven that is Bumbershoot, I watched The Shins, The Decemberists and an exhibit with projected circles spinning on a wall. For hours. Seattle also houses the best sandwich that I've ever encountered.

December: Manhattan

Every trip to NYC has been spent almost entirely in the boroughs. This time, I ventured onto Broadway, to see tourists from Ohio stare at televisions in joy, as the image of Saddam quickly became a cultural icon.

May ya'll have a safe New Year's Eve. No funny stuff, okay? Call me at midnight. Unless you're my mother. In which case, call me no later than nine p.m.

And my New Year's Resolution? To know the average length and weight of a baby, so I'll know what to say upon hearing that little Dakota Junior is 17 pounds and three feet long.

Cheers.

Who Am I?

There are five parties tomorrow evening. One's a dinner party. Another is an ol' fashioned kegger. Three are at bars. Should I be frightened that I'd rather stay home and read a book or have a Woody Allen or Alfred Hitchcock marathon than go to said parties?

Yesterday, I found myself entertaining a small child, my co-worker's niece, Hannah, for an hour, while cleaning my office. We played Sesame Street online. With Ernie, Telly and Grover. It was fun. After the Cookie Monster game, I gave her a cookie and her milk. She sat upon my twenty-pound dictionary on my office chair, rocking back and sleepily listening to me read to her about Telly's scary cousin, Bully. I wanted to rock her to sleep in my arms.

But she came to and started squealing "Elmo! Elmo!" repeatedly while we waited for the Big Bird game to load.

I get heartburn. I'm proud of my desk calendar. I get tired easily. I like reading to small children. I have reveries of spending the 31st alone.

Is this normal?

P.S. I'm definitely choosing the dinner party.

I'm Not Impressed.

It's been a week of small gatherings. I've hosted the intimate house party with wine and pizza, done the coffee shop rendezvous (accompanied by the obligatory New York Times to make green tea that much more sophisticated), and dragged my tired and dehydrated body from the couch for a midnight meeting with an out-of-towner itching to get on a plane back to L.A. before the clock strikes midnight on the 31st. When someone comes to visit a place like Columbus, Ohio, it is understood that you adhere to the visitor's schedule, should you want to see him or her and listen of exploits in cities afar. This means agreeing to drinks at all hours of the day, for many days in a row. In short, I'm exhausted.

One cluster was comprised of those of us who either don't want to leave Columbus, or haven't found the right way out yet. Saturday night was (local) Girls' Night Out. The destination? The Burgundy Room. Drinks and tapas. My favorite combination.

We were discussing an evening I had a year ago that started with a Guided By Voices show and ended with my knowing that an acquaintance of mine has a blue Jesus tattoo on his chest, when Amy said the words.

"I'm not impressed."

"What?" I asked.

"When he asked you what you thought of his making out technique, you said, 'I'm not impressed.'"

Some intimate gatherings are best skipped.

Family Ties.

Jacob's going to Japan for six months. The last time I saw my cousin was at my grandmother's funeral. The time before that was at her mother's funeral. It was my freshman year of college, and I remember registering for my winter quarter classes from the funeral home office phone during calling hours. After the service, Jacob and I drove around Steubenville and Weirton, learning what it was like to be cousins again.

Although we never see one another, or talk, we've been close, whenever we're together. He's protective over me and my sisters (though we're only a month apart in age). We're honest with one another. He knows my adventures in London. I know about his in the military (including an evening with some ladies of the town in Thailand). I don't typically confide in family members, but Jacob is the exception.

He brought his girlfriend to my grandmother's funeral last year. Jennifer, I think her name was. Or Jamie. She joked about meeting the cousins. She said that when we met her, all of us (all females, of course) looked her up and down, judging her, determining whether she was good enough for our cousin. I don't remember doing this, being so blatant. But her comment made me feel good, that I actually had some resemblance to the rest of my family.

I liked her. A lot. She was graceful and attentive during the days in Steubenville. And she made a point to unify the family that no longer had any unification. We had lost our matriarch. She was the one who insisted that we all go out to dinner and drinks, just us cousins. She took e-mail addresses, phone numbers, addresses. She would help us stay in touch, and let us know how Jacob was when he went to Iraq.

She sent me a birthday card last year. It's still in my glove compartment.

"How's Jacob; where is he?" I asked my Aunt Shelly over the phone on Christmas morning.

"He's going to Japan for six months. And he just got back together with Jennifer/Jamie."

When he went to Iraq, it seems, she took all of his money and sent him a 'Dear John' letter. I hear about these types of things on television or a.m. talk shows. But the people are usually bitter, undereducated, spiteful. It's really hard to take the situations seriously. And hearing this from Shelly, my overprotective, neurotic aunt, made me question the editorial vs. fact quotient that I was hearing.

Nonetheless, I was hurt. The 'Dear John' letter was one thing. I've done that before. And although I have plenty of faults of my own, I cannot comprehend how someone could take their lover's money and leave. To be fair, though, I also cannot understand how someone could make all of their assets available to another person. But the worst thing was that this girl, the one who took on the task of unifying our generation of cousins, when our parents won't even talk to one another, had given up on both Jacob and the family.

Perhaps I put too much faith in this stranger, too quickly. Shots of jagermeister at an Applebee's are not thicker than blood. For a short period of time, she was going to reverse the inevitable. Instead of meeting at funerals, we'd get together for a week in a cabin, just us cousins. We'd send e-mails, phone one another, send birthday cards.

I guess there's still hope, though. They got a house somewhere in the Carolina's, she and Jacob. They're back together and he's trusting her again while he serves in Japan. I guess if he can trust her once more, I can try, as well.

Gifts.

"I was thinking that maybe you'd given me a box set of jazz cd's," my father said during that hour between gift opening and the next family engagement on Christmas morning.

Instead, he had opened a digital camera. I didn't know what to say. I sort of smiled at him and went upstairs to brush my teeth. I'd drive separately to my Aunt's house, so that I could smoke along the way.

So, Christmas was uneventful. I got the annual, "I wish that I could be as free and have as much fun as you," from my Aunt Peggy. And the "so is there a man in your life?" from the people at the Candlelight service at church. There were the promises that will traditionally remain unfulfilled. Yes, I'll take Cara thrift store shopping. Yes, you'll call me when you go to a jazz show in my neighborhood. And yes, I'll have a nice Christian, Republican man with a good job (at an accounting firm, undoubtedly) with me next year at the midnight service.

As the children opened their play-doh and video games, my father stood in the doorway, taking photos of the event with a disposable camera.

I went home and took a long, long nap.

A Couch for a Bed.

It's Christmas Eve. I'm not emotionally ready to handle two days with my family. I imagine that this thought is not unique. But it's true.

I'm going to church tonight. I go once a year, usually alone. It's for the music. At midnight, a child walks a ceramic baby down the aisle of the church, while we sing Silent Night by candlelight. Though sometimes they forget to do the baby thing. I usually cry. Last year, I took Bee Dave and my sister. A Jew and two heathens at a candlelight service in a Methodist church. It's amazing the building didn't blow up. Bee Dave went because he had nothing else to do. Abby went because she wanted to smoke cigarettes in the car.

I'll probably go alone tonight. And then I'll febreeze myself before I go to my parents' house and fall asleep on the couch. Santa will have already arrived, and I'll shove the two slutty shirts I bought my sisters and the digital camera for the 'rents under the tree. Patty will start coffee at 5.00 a.m., and that will be the start of a very long day.

Merry Christmas and stuff.

Ho, Ho, Oh.

We've got Santa in the deli today. This is what I do; I get people to make sandwiches dressed like Santa. I e-mailed my media contacts last week.

"This is a respectable newspaper; we do serious news," wrote the guy who had just printed the results of our 'Scary Food and Wine' contest for Halloween in his column in a suburban paper.

"That's so cute. I'll put it on the cover and try to get a photographer out," wrote the food editor for the main newspaper in Columbus.

"We'll try to get a videographer out there for a short spot on our noon show," said the producer for our NBC affiliate. I called her back today, asking what time to expect the crew.

"Oh. Well, I'd like to get it on the show, but I have to be honest with you. Santa's also visiting the newborns at the hospital today," she said.

Cute babies trump sandwiches, always.

Meanwhile, I keep getting gifts from co-workers. I'm not talking 'mug full of candy that I gave to everyone' gifts. I'm talking about 'cute little silver Nordstrom boxes filled with lip-gloss that I actually like' kinds of gifts. That sucks. Looks like I'm retailing it this evening.

Back to the store. It's fun to watch people's faces when they order a Rueben from Santa.

Silent Night.

Shit, I've been emotional, recently. It could be a hormonal thing, but I like to think that I am immune to the effects of the womanly cycle. It's Saturday afternoon, and Sarah and I are cleaning the apartment for the party. Cleaning, for the most part, meant crawling around on our knees picking up cat hair. It's a never-ending process. We finally just decided to use minimal lighting and hope that people would get too involved in stimulating conversation and libations to notice the rug, stairs, corners, ceiling fan, etc.

Every stereo in the house is tuned to NPR, playing This American Life, my reason for living. There is a story about a Christmas tree farm. I don't hear a lot of it, because there is a record-breaking amount of vacuuming going on. But at the end, someone is talking in a bittersweet voice, and the Charlie Brown Holiday CD is in the background. I'm dusting my bedroom and wiping the railings, and all of a sudden I'm crying. The music combination with the voice and words had me silently sobbing, for no reason at all. I'd been listening to that CD, the Charlie Brown one, since October (to get into the Holiday Marketing Mood). If anything, I should have been sick of the songs. But there I was, sad, because someone had to lose a farm. Thanks, Ira.

The party went without a hitch. Nary a wine glass broken, and many a bottle left over. But I found myself in tears once more, possibly warranted by alcohol, but certainly acceptable.

It's 2.00 a.m. and I'm in the basement. Lainie comes down and silently shows me her hand. I'm not the type to check out ring fingers, and hers was surrounded by the usual entourage of silver rings. The ring was simple and elegant.

I cried and hugged her. The first two things that came out of my mouth were, "How did he afford this?" and "You know this means forever, right?"

My friends spent Sunday night with their families. I sat alone at home, among party debris and new cat hair, drinking a glass of wine, listening to the blues and playing solitaire.

For Fuck's Sake.

Remember Prom '96? You were on the prom committee, and you worked along with your peers to turn the fieldhouse into a jungle, with a real waterfall, volcano, pond, and all? And no one realized that all the mulch used to hold up the walls of the pond would end up attracting mosquitoes, turning the whole affair into a nightmare? Think back to the date part.

You had a crush on Brad. And who wouldn't? He was artsy, had pretty eyes, and was on the school paper, so there was a chance that he might actually go with you. But he was too cute for you. So you asked Steve, his best friend, also an illustrator. Ah, it's coming back to you...

"Hey Steve," you say at an after-school function. There are three seniors behind you, encouraging you to go ahead, ask. "Would you maybe like to go to prom with me?" Because you're a woman of the 90's and you don't need all that 'guy ask the girl' stuff.

Steve looks at you, turns red, and says, "Uuuhhhh." This lasts for roughly twenty minutes. If you had smoked back then, you would have immediately gone to the courtyard and risked expulsion, hot boxing cigarettes to end the moment.

You look back at him, "Would you like to think about it, Steve?" Those were the kindest words you could have ever said to this boy.

"Yes. I mean, yes, I'd like to think about it." You don't talk to Steve for the rest of the year. Though you hear that Brad reamed him, telling him that you were the coolest girl who would have gone to prom with him. You end up visiting prom for an hour or so, with Lainie, just to see the results of your hard work. Mosquitoes were everywhere.

I'm revisiting my prom experience, seven years later. So far, in search of a date for the wedding in January that I'm already four days late r.s.v.p.ing to, I've been turned down by four guy friends and Mollie. What's so bad about a lobster dinner in German Village with unlimited free booze?

It's because I was in band, isn't it? Maybe I'll just stay home and practice my clarinet.

Two Stories.

THE FIRST.

"Look, we got our cookies!" Jason sounds like a little kid who has just opened his X-box on Christmas morning.

I run to his desk, and sitting there is a box from Cheryl's Cookies, clearly marked "Jill and Jason."

Inside were four red and gold boxes with a ribbon tied around them. The presentation was pretty, but I needed to tear it apart. Because there were cookies inside, and, well, I haven't had breakfast yet. (Who am I kidding? I never have breakfast.)

The cookies are from Dave, one of our printers. He sent them last year, as well. Except that last year, we didn't get to eat the cookies. We could only look at them. That's because last year, our boss decided that we should give the cookies to the owner of the company. "It can be a nice gift from Dave to Nancy." We didn't think that it was nice at all. It was obvious that Dave meant for those cookies to be ours. He hardly knows Nancy. But like two children told to share a toy, we handed over the box with plastic smiles on our face.

Last week, Dave called and I asked him if we were getting cookies again this year. "Are they going to let you keep them?" he asked. I put him on hold and walked over to my boss.

"If Dave sends us Christmas cookies this year, are you going to let us keep them?"

THE SECOND.

My mom has a favorite story that she likes to tell my friends. As she is now a fan of this blog (probably the biggest fan), I fear that someday soon, the story will be posted as a comment. So I'll put dignity aside and give you the scary details myself.

When I was about eight years old, my step-dad owned a restaurant in Michigan called Prime Tyme. This was a sort of dive-y steakhouse and bar with regulars and Super Saver dinner specials at 5.00 p.m. We used to frequent this place often, for long periods of time. Long enough for an eight-year-old to become bored and restless.

"So Jill used to run around the restaurant talking to people and telling them that if they gave her a quarter, she'd shut up and go away," my mom would finish up right now. It's true. I did that. And it worked. I could play Pac-man for hours and eat all the M&M's that I wanted.

So. The holiday party is Saturday, and my goal of receiving 100 survey responses for our First Annual Live Family Feud game was looking bleak. Yesterday, I started handing out forms to co-workers, basically telling them that I'm having a party that they're not invited to, and I need their help. This got me five or six more responses. Bleak.

And then I had an epiphany. My childhood skills of annoying people in public reemerged. I went to happy hour with a stack of papers and some pens. For two hours, strangers answered my surveys at the bar, telling me personal details of their lives, like what color underwear they were wearing and at what age they lost their virginity. It was a high. I collected twenty responses.

I decided to try it again at the Treebar. Forty-five more people circulated around me, handing me their answers. Some approached me for a survey, asking "Are you the girl who wants to know where Dick Cheney is?" (One of the survey questions.)

It was perfect. People were having fun, and my goal was looking more and more possible to achieve. The only problem, of course, is that last night I met roughly sixty-five new people that I will not remember. Fabulous.

Jersey.

It's Saturday night, and we're at a Tapas bar on the Lower East Side. Or Upper West Side. We were at least near a street with 12 in its name. I had spent Friday evening and Saturday afternoon with Mollie's group, and was eager to introduce my new friends to my old. They would meet, mesh, and, by the end of the evening, become one another's Friendsters. Or whatever.

We were into our third or fourth plate (mussels in wine sauce, I believe) when Mollie came in. She sat down at the end of the table and breathlessly said the following:

"Himynameismollieanddoanyofyouwanttoseeashowcauseimgoingtojersey."

Josh was the first to say it. "Jersey?"

Mollie and Jen had purchased tickets to see De La Guarda that evening, a show that falls somewhere between a circus and a party, according to the advertisements.

"What's in Jersey?" Josh repeated.

"A party. A car is supposed to come pick us up and we're going to a party in Jersey. Does anyone want to buy these tickets?"

Old friends looked perplexed. New friends were standing outside the restaurant. No one wanted the tickets. I followed Mollie outside for a cigarette as someone at the table asked, "Is it a rave?"

Before I had time to find a lighter, an SUV limousine pulled up. The same group of people who were discussing whether they were appropriately dressed to get into a club climbed into the white monster. I smiled at Mollie and she shrugged.

"I'll call you tomorrow," I said.

They went to Jersey, and I went in for another glass of sangria.

Postcard from New York.

What can I say about New York City that hasn't already been written? That looking out any window in Brooklyn is like watching television? That brunch always includes a bloody mary or a mimosa and never involves leaving the restaurant before dark? That there's a law inscribed somewhere that all small dogs must wear sweaters?

All I can say is that my tapas quota has been sufficiently filled for the month of December. And those 'fuck me' boots work quite well when walking 25 blocks through four inches of slush. And driving on the BQE is similar to how one might imagine driving in Mexico would be, minus the goats. Maybe.

At any rate, I have lots of stories to tell. Conversations with cab drivers. Watching my friends take an SUV limo to Jersey. The half Thai, half South American restaurant in Williamsburg. Sneaking photographs of lighting fixtures inside the markets on Broadway.

But no time now. You see, I have to make gift baskets. But I just wanted to say. Well, I'm home, and I'm tired.

I Know You, Maybe.

"Are you Jill?"

Lainie, Bee Dave and I have walked up to the bar at Byrne's. The guy sitting there does look familiar, but, of course, I don't know how I know him.

"Yes," I groan, "What did I do?"

He looks confused. "You didn't do anything."

"I meant, how do I know you?"

"You were at Mad Lab on Friday night. I talked to you then. And you were at the Knotty Pine a couple of months ago. We've met three or four times. You're friends with..."

And so it goes. I have a problem with remembering people. It's not a good thing, especially if you're as outgoing as I am. (And you're going out as much as I am.)

Dear people I don't remember. It's not that I don't find you interesting; I think you're great. It's simply a context thing. If I met you at Beck Tavern when I was with Alex, I'm going to forever equate you with Beck Tavern and Alex.

"That guy over there is my roommate," he continued, "You yelled at him because he wouldn't let you go to the bathroom first."

"Really?" I asked. "I'm sure I meant it as a joke. He does look familiar, though..."

On The Floor.

I guess I was pale. I know I was dizzy. And sweaty, clammy. They offered me food, water. They asked if I had to puke. I didn't want to puke. I just wanted to put my head on the bar and take off my sweater. But I couldn't. Voices were all around, conversations. Is she all right? I asked for water. And more water. How much did I have to drink? I tried to remember. It's just happy hour. I can't be drunk.

The first time it happened, I was in elementary school. I passed out, on the desk. They gave me orange juice; I had to go to the doctor. The next time that I remember, I was at a church potluck. I was young. I had been helping move a table and I blacked out. They thought that it was too heavy for me. I sat on the floor next to the coat rack, watching legs go through the buffet line. They didn't see me down there, using the wall as a balance to keep from falling over. There was the time in London. I had seven flatmates and no one was home. I knew it was coming, and ran towards my room. I missed the doorway by a foot, slamming into the wall and giving myself a bad knee and a black eye. I knocked over the trashcans on the way down, and woke up in the hallway surrounded by rubbish. And the most recent time, before last night, I was a senior in college. I woke up in the middle of the night to get a drink. I pulled a coke out of the fridge and chugged it. Before I blacked out, I knocked a glass salad dressing bottle on my toe. I crawled on the floor, back to my bedroom, twenty feet away, stopping to rest on floor pillows, and pulling myself up to the couch. My cell phone was too far away. I wanted to call Lainie. But I couldn't. I made it to my bed and slept for the rest of the weekend. A few days later, my toenail fell off.

It had never happened in a bar before. I wanted to be on the floor. I wanted to cry. But I couldn't. I didn't want them to think I was drunk. I didn't want to look stupid. I came to, told them that I was going back to the office.

Be careful. Don't go home. There are cops everywhere. Do you want more water? Do you want my chicken?

No. Back to the office I walked. First I sat down on the floor, and then I was all the way down. No one could laugh at me; I wasn't drunk. I was on the floor, and I was content.

And then I recalled the feeling. It wasn't the alcohol. I was getting ready to leave when Debbie knocked on my office door. Are you okay?

I need orange juice, I said.

Are you diabetic, she asked.

No, I'm hypoglycemic. I need orange juice and I need to eat.

Did you eat today?

It occurred to me that I really hadn't. I had a small salad and a cup of soup for lunch, to help save money and eat better. The holidays are here and I didn't want to gain a lot of weight.

She followed me home. I turned on the television, drank my orange juice, ate a sandwich and fell asleep, at 8.00 p.m. to the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.

Reality.

If I learned anything from last night's heart-breaking terminal episode of the highly acclaimed television show, "Average Joe", it's that when searching for love, or at least someone to take care of you for a little while, gravitation to our own 'types' is a natural occurrence. The next few paragraphs will solidify this idea, as I compare Executive Producer Stuart Krasnow's "Average Joe" to Sandra Tsing Loh's award-winning short story, "My Father's Chinese Wives".

The protagonist in both stories (though one is obviously more reality than a story) is looking for love. Poor Melana is beautiful in the conventional sense. That is, she has boobs and no fat, white teeth, symmetrical facial features, and can wear bare midriffs like it's her job. These features attract a specific type of man, the kind with a pretty face and no personality. Miss Melana decided that she wanted more, so, as a last resort, (as she's clearly getting up there in years), she auditioned for a reality t.v. show.

The Father in "My Father's Chinese Wives" is in a similar predicament. At the age of 70, he has lived a lonely and unhappy life. While reality t.v. shows have not yet reached his demographic, he turns to the next suitable tool for finding a warm body to snuggle with in the cool L.A. air: A Mail Order Wife Catalog featuring Chinese women. Being Chinese himself, and having tried marriage with a German woman, he has an epiphany of sorts, realizing that a Chinese woman is what he needs in his final years.

The difference between the two is that it seems that Miss Melana is wiser than the Father. It took him many years of marriage to (and fathering two children with) a woman unlike him, for him to realize that he would have been happy with a nice Chinese girl. Meanwhile, Melana spent only six weeks trying out men that were different from her, that could complete sentences without throwing in two or three cliches, before choosing the pretty waiter boy who lived with his parents.

The love shared between the Father and his new wife, a 40-something Chinese woman with experience in farming and knitting sweaters, is unique in that when he gets angry at her, she laughs at him, saying, "Your father so funny." Similar transactions take place between Melana and Jason, when during a game of oversized checkers at a resort somewhere in the desert, she exclaims, "You're so stupid."

True, love crosses all boundaries, but the best love is with people exactly like you. Chinese lady, we think you're funny, as well. And Melana, well, like, this is really hard to say, because I've spent so much time with you, and I feel like being around you has really made me grow, but…you're stupid, too.

Ohio Highlights.

Some weekends are for taking out the trash and reading the previous week's Sunday *New York Times.* Others are for acting like you're in college, and coming home only to shower and change clothes before the next event. To avoid the "what I did over my mid-December vacation" feel, I'll just post some snippets of fun times in Columbus, Ohio.

Dinner with old friends at Spagio Cellars. In the six months since I've seen them, Rick has acquired a live-in girlfriend, and Laura has acquired a dog. We drank wine and discussed whether or not hand jobs are appropriate for the first date. (Laura took our opinions into account with her date on Saturday night, a college senior from Eastern Europe that she met at Brazenhead, meat market of Grandview. "Quantity, not quality, Jill," she emphasized to me.)

Alcohol, heels and uneven stairs. I made several successful trips to and from my seat at Mad Lab on Friday night. Eventually I'll be able to do it - walk in heels - without holding on to other people and objects. Of course, the band was good.

When I was dancing on a platform with another woman at Wall Street, to celebrate Mollie's 25th, all I could think was, "when I fall off of this thing, and am in the hospital, how do I explain to my parents why I was platform dancing in heels in a gay bar?" I'm sure they wouldn't be too surprised, as I haven't mentioned any men to them since my sophomore year homecoming date. And I got that really short hair cut in college.

Studio 35 was closed, and we had no idea. *Bad Santa* was good, but drinking beers and smoking cigarettes in a movie theater on a Sunday at 3.00 p.m. was better. When I had half an hour until my date for the Holiday Work Party would be at my door, I suggested we leave. They unlocked the doors and let us out onto the street.

I would definitely have to shower and brush my teeth before the next segment of the weekend.

P.S. Garrison Keillor told me today that it's James Thurber's birthday.

Three Dudes.

Remember skipping out on your cousin's wedding in high school? You saw P.J. Harvey opening up for Live, and you had never heard of her, but she turned out to be pretty cool, and for years, you were like, "Check out P.J. Harvey" and your friends were like, "Who?" And then she became cool and has two albums on Rolling Stones Top 500 Albums list. And you were like, "Dude, I knew her way before anyone."

Or, to be precise, you didn't really listen to her, because you were too excited to hear that bald guy sing "Lightning Crashes", but you remember Josh Penrose saying, "I bet you've never even heard of P.J. Harvey." And he was correct.

Well, I'm offering you an opportunity to be that guy, to be Josh Penrose (only slightly less pretentious). I'm going to tell you about three dudes you should check out. Because right now, they're nobodies. But in a matter of six months, your MOM will know about them.

Dude One: Josh Bernstein

Josh is the driving force behind Rated Rookie, a magazine boasting creative non-fiction based in Brooklyn, but distributed throughout the United States. He and his team have been working on magazine-making for years, shunning Real Jobs, for the sake of art. The magazine is funny, touching, informative. And I have a story in the upcoming issue about Vagina People. Go ahead and buy a subscription, because after you read one issue, you're going to want more. (www.rated-rookie.com)

Dude Two: Scott Parsons

Let's be honest with ourselves. Every guy is in a band, especially in the Midwest. It gets you lots of hot sex with cute girls, and free beer. Scott Parsons is the musical auteur of Scott Parsons and the Dirty Cab Drivers. I can safely say that I've seen a lot of crap, but this music has shattered all prejudices that I have about Columbus music. Melodic, flexible and with an understanding of dynamics, Scott Parsons and the Dirty Cab Drivers is on their way somewhere. Come along for the ride tonight at Mad Lab, if you're in the Columbus area.

Dude Three: Tobias

Some cats are just cats. But this cat is swimming in artistic genius. Right now, he's feeling repressed and under-appreciated. That could be because he's living in our basement. You know how sometimes genius cannot get along well with others? Like the Beatles; I bet they didn't have many friends. Tobias is just like that. He needs to rule his area, to have creative control. Other animals hinder his abilities to create. I love the guy, but I feel I'm holding him back. Tobias needs a new home. He's reached a plateau in his oeuvre, and he's capable of so much more. So. If you want a cat (a full-bred Persian that looks like Mr. Belvedere), please contact me.

The next time you go out for a smoke break (c'mon, you're not kidding anyone: you smoke) consider taking advantage of the aforementioned, young and full of potential, on the brink of making a dent in your perception of life.

Silence is Golden.

Another interesting visit to Larry's Beverage Emporium inspires today's entry.

I met Mollie on campus after watching *Love Actually* again. I'm not going to publish how many times I've seen this movie, but we'll just say that I need a new hobby. At any rate, the bartender knew my name. I don't recall meeting him before, and I wasn't using the debit card last night, so my curiosity is piqued. Larry's is not "my bar". But the people there know me. There's no anonymity in this town.

So we're in the planning stages of our trek to the Big Apple next weekend. This time, my car is carrying myself, Mollie, a friend of hers and a mime that we met last night.

"So," I say to the only person whose name I remember, after a few rounds of introductions, "what do you do?" I know it's not the most creative conversation starter, but it lets you know whether you're drinking PBR with a divorcee with two children or a graduate student (both negatives in the "guys Jill would date" category, by the way.)

"I'm a mime."

Okay. So I talk a lot. I meet people pretty easily. Whether or not I remember them is a different story. But the silence following that statement was record-breaking for me. What do you say to a mime? They most certainly don't need to say anything back.

"Oh. How did you get to be a mime?"

"I studied modern dance, so it was a natural progression." After a few awkward pauses, the conversation picked up, as we discussed the new Dirty Dancing movie, Flashdance and Fame. (I suggest stockpiling a list of dance-related movies and shows, just in case you ever meet a mime. It's a natural progression, from dance to mimery, you know.)

So, the four of us are scheduled to hit Brooklyn around 9-ish on the evening of the 12th. It's the perfect number of people for the drive across Pennsylvania. One to drive, one to keep the driver awake, one to hand cd's and beverages from the back seat, and one to pretend to be stuck in box for eight hours.

P.S.

I don't know if this is connected to my previous entry today, but I would be surprized if it's not. Anyway, Columbus has our own sniper. Except that he (or she) isn't a very good shot. Mainly the sniper hits tires and fenders and stuff. But still. No publicity is bad publicity. Look for us on such renowned news sites as msn.com and nytimes.com.

Couples Therapy.

When our neighbors are screaming things like, "Get the fuck out, I don't care where the hell you go," to one another in the middle of the night, it leaves for a less than restful night's sleep. Especially knowing the one being yelled at is eight months pregnant. But we try to keep out of things like that.

How do we get back at them for their nocturnal marital spats? We play music. I'm not talking about the kind that our other neighbors are known for, the pulsing rhythms of Pearl Jam and Led Zeppelin scaring the cats and giving us permanent disillusion as to what decade it is. The type of music that we play is much, much worse.

Here's how it goes. Sarah sits at her piano with the Beatles Songbook, and a book of Christian Children's songs left over from her days as a music education major. I sit next to her. And while she plays, I sing. I sing loud, and in fake soprano operatic tones or in a more than affected British accent. We go through the entirety of both books, with me singing at the top of my lungs, until our tunes drive our pregnant neighbor back into the arms of her Whitehall husband.

They hug and sob, knowing that true love can overcome all cases of she being a bitch and he drinking too much and not taking out the trash. 'Cause all you need is love.

Election Season.

I'm a big proponent of the idea that consumers vote with their dollars. If no one buys prune juice, we're not going to carry prune juice, and if enough places don't carry prune juice, the prune juice makers are going to have to spike their product with a little banana and strawberry flavors until America loves prune juice again.

I've been "voting" a lot, recently. Mainly in the shoe realm. Although I should be buying hemp shoes with rubber soles made from recycled tires, my constitution has been weakened by the displays at Nordstrom's and Lazarus-Macy's. While I'm typically prone to vote for boutique stores that are locally owned, I felt a need to vote for these two institutions on the day after Thanksgiving. It's the primaries of retail. I voted for McCain even though I'm a democrat, to lower the possibilities of another Bush in office. If malls are going to win this year's retail holiday election, I'd rather have Nordstrom's fighting against my little Grandview boutiques than Kohls. Get it?

Okay. Enough justification for going to the mall. Let me tell you about my shoes. I got those black "fuck me boots" that women have been wearing since the late 90's. I've decided to join them, not for fashion's sake, but to keep my legs warm in the winter. I own more skirts than pants. So those were from Lazarus-Macy's. (What a dumb name. Drop the Lazarus, already.)

The next two pairs were from Nordstrom's. One is a brown pair of Mary Jane's, similar to my red and black pairs of the same style. The other pair I picked out with the help of Brittany, my co-worker. "Help me find something that I don't already basically have," I challenged her.

She came back with a pair of red Mary Jane's with Real Heels. We're talking borderline stilettos. These were big girl shoes. I bravely tried them on. Excitement came over me as I imagined myself wearing them while carrying a tray full of Cornish hens to dinner guests.

"I'll take both pairs," I informed the salesman.

He carried them to the counter as I prayed that my checking account could handle so many votes in one day.

Oh. And the Cornish hens? They'll be free-range, of course.

Over 270 and Through The Booze.

As I have surrounded myself with friends who either a) enjoy spending time with their families, b) enjoy spending time with their significant others' families or c) enjoy spending time with their significant others' families out of town, the weekend lacked that whole warm-fuzzy feel that Thanksgiving is supposed to be about, according to marketers like myself.

So I brought two bottles of wine with me to Thanksgiving Dinner, to aid in communication among family members. When they told me that the wine glasses were in a box in the crawlspace, I knew that I would be drinking alone. And that I did. After watching both sisters leave dinner halfway through to visit people that they'd rather be with, I gave up, went home and drank the remainder of the first bottle while watching the first season of Sex & The City.

I found myself catering a wedding on Saturday night in a $300,000 Muirfield condo. It was a second marriage. The family members were doing shots of Jager before the wedding even started. My job was to make things look pretty and walk around with trays of food that no one would eat because they contained carbohydrates, calories and/or fat. I was seconds away from screaming, "It's a crabcake. These things are more expensive than your fake Kate Spade purse. Fucking eat it. It won't kill you." But alas, crabcakes, by their nature, contain a small part of breading. And that, my friends, is not allowed in the Atkin's diet.

Nonetheless, the evening went well, as the bride and groom encouraged drinking by the catering staff. Their wine was shit, and I still can't quite predict the effects of liquor, so I resigned myself to drinking a Bud Light out of a can. Halfway through the evening, the bride's son invited me to party with he and his friends at their hotel in Tuttle. He was hammered and 22 years old. I accepted the invitation, giving him a phone number that was not quite mine, but similar.

I ended the evening by taking the (generous) cash tip and having a beer with our bartender, while still in our penguin costumes, at a pub down the street. Sitting there, eating chips and salsa for dinner at 11.30 p.m., surrounded by a few lonely drunks, reminded me of my restaurant days. Exhausted, we recounted the evening's events, mishaps and all. So the bride had to show me how to run a coffee maker. So what? I drink tea. At any rate, it was then that I felt the spirit of Thanksgiving. I gave thanks that I am no longer regularly performing manual labor. Cheers to that.