Monday, February 13, 2012

Real Men Don't "Do" Valentine's Day


I feel bad for guys on Valentine's Day. It's such a LadyCorp day (see below for explanation of LadyCorp). I wouldn't blame guys if they felt like walking ATMs with a cuddle feature. Many ads for Valentine's go something along the lines of "Thank her for being with you, you sad sack of a loser man. Buy her diamonds or she will leave you for your less-idiot, more-handsome best friend. DIAMONDS!"  I feel for you guys, I really do. It seems like Valentine's is the one day that the LadyCorp laser beams are aimed directly at the male sex. This can be unsettling or even depressing if you haven't had a whole lifetime of LadyCorp advertisements telling you how fat you are, your hair is the wrong color, your skin is the wrong color, "Twilight" was a great book, you know, lies essentially. But men, we women have been dealing with this nonsense ever since we noticed that we would never be as pretty as our "Aerobics Instructor" Barbie and out of that grew "The Slapback." You know, the "woman, you are beautiful no matter what Karl Lagerfeld says about chunky women" inspirational essays. So, here is a "Brother Friend, You Are Beautiful" inspirational essay  concerning why dudes are awesome:

First off dudes, I knows you love the lists (and I knows that you hate when people say "knows" so I'm going to back off that) so this essay will actually be a picture heavy bullet-point list. Nice, right?


  • Dude, you invented democracy- Well, obviously, you didn't, but this guy Cleisthenes did. He took Athens' government from a tribal-warring tyranny to a ballot-casting democracy. Note: He never had to give anyone flowers to do it.

  • Dude, you invented electricity- Nikola Tesla didn't actually invent electricity, but he did do a lot of work with it, laying the groundwork for wireless communications and a really cool movie with Christian Bale. As he was a life-long bachelor, it's doubtful he ever had to send anyone a heart-shaped balloon to let them know they were appreciated. Mostly because he hated people and was a germaphobe but that's beside the point.


  •   Dude, you kicked the crap out of the Nazis- Winston Churchill may just be the coolest guy of the 20th century. Any woman with a brain in her head would swoon over the man, but look at him. Even younger he was ah, shall we say, "husky." He was a known drinker, had a speech impediment, dubious fashion sense and a penchant for stinky cigars. Yet women and men still love him. And I think this is where the LadyCorp gets it wrong. Women don't want men who just give them stuff. Any moron with a credit card can go into a jewelry store and come out with what some would call love. But mostly people want to be with other people who make them feel things, to see the world in a new way and to be understood. No amount of candy, teddy bears, shiny objects or fancy dinners will make a woman love you any more or any less. So relax. After all, dude, you invented love.

  • LadyCorp is my term for the Feminine Industrial Complex of magazines, ads, products and books that try to make women feel "less than" in order to boost company profits...by selling us crap we don't need.

Monday, January 23, 2012

It's "Downton" damnit! Not, "Downtown"


I'm so lame. I'm so mainstream. Even my obsessions are "average." Would it be too much to ask that I have a native interest in cosmonaut headgear from the late-1950s? Or have a fetish for the different typology used by international newspapers? You know, something a little more fresh and interesting than my current and populist obsession with the costume drama, Downton Abbey

For those who live in a hole without access to public television or are you know, guys (I'm sorry ladies, I have yet to hear one man say anything ever about Downton, unless he's complaining about how much his wife or girlfriend is into it.) Downton Abbey is about a family who live in an awesome house during WWI. The show centers on the goings-on of the family (Who will inherit? Why is the middle daughter such a horrible Jan Brady? Why is granny so terrible/secretly awesome) and their servants (Who will clean the silver? Why is it that Daisy seems to be the Marilyn Monroe of the house? Why is Thomas so terrible/secretly awesome?)

The show in and of itself is awesome and all but you will see the real work of my obsession in the periphery. Namely, the time I've spent researching the life of servants during this period. I know now that the butler keeps all the silver in his pantry which only he had a key to. That a ladies maid was usually between the ages of 30-55 and did not have to report to the housekeeper, and that when Queen Victoria took over Buckingham Palace the kitchen was built just above the sewers of the city and when it rained the entire house stank.

Sometimes I wonder if all of this useless trivia has pushed out of my brain some more important facts, like the Pythagorean Theorem or who the third president of the United States was. You know, I can't remember who exactly the third president was but I'll bet he had a butler and if he had a butler, well then have I got some interesting facts for you.



Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Second Impressions Count


I love when first impressions are wrong. I love when the world sneaks up on you and shows that people are more complicated and interesting than the first three seconds of a meeting can illuminate. For instance, the other night I was working an event at the club. It was a terrible night. There were two servers (I was one), one chef, ten reservations (all at the same time, natch), five or six walk-in parties, forty-minute ticket times and one very stressed out server (me again, natch).

One of our ten reservations dared to be twenty minutes late, so when they finally arrived we put them into the bridge room where I thought they belonged. The bridge room isn't a terrible room, but it is away from all the action in the bar area where we sat nearly everyone else. My reasoning at putting them there was that they seemed dull. A mother and her three kids. A quiet mother and her three quiet kids whom I have never seen before. Now, let me explain why I found this to be such an egregious character flaw. Everyone at the club knows everyone else. The club sits in the middle of a gated community on the outskirts of an upper middle class, white flight, newly minted city, Johns Creek (which I've taken to calling Jacks Crack). The people usually fall within recognized character types: The wives are either youngish second wives or are first wives with a boob job. The husbands work in town, drink too much, are insane about college football and think Obama was born in Kenya.

This woman and her family didn't seem to fit into this type. She was a first wife (obviously) but with no boob job or loud personality ( Oh Mary Claire, after a bottle of chardonnay you are such a hoot!) When their order was running about thirty minutes late, I went over and apologized. She and her family laughed that they had no where else to be so it was no big deal. Having had all I could take that night of the other members' faux martyrdom, stage whispers and general bitchiness, I could have hugged this poor woman. I was wrong. I mistook patience for dullness and kindness for blandness. I faulted her for being an outsider when an outsider was just what I needed that night.

For saving my sanity that night I gave the family the internationally-recognized gift of love. Free Key Lime Pie.