The Call Up

First adopters:

I'm now blogging five days a week at Glamour magazine. Wacky. Thanks for your support.

We don’t watch poorly reviewed movies.

We’re not the best minds of our generation but we’re smart enough. We want to get married and we’ll probably get divorced. We make a lot of money but we want more. We buy expensive clothes. We drink a lot. We travel to foreign countries and take lots of digital photos and send them to our friends. We are lonely. We look down on people who weren’t as lucky as us. We cheat on each other. Our bosses like us. We have a lot of student loans. We buy organic groceries and throw most of it out three weeks later. Our parents are proud of us but wish we’d call home more often. We eat brunch. We’re basically good kids.

************

She had hooked up with him before. The first time she was excited because it might be the start of something. The second time she was disgusted because it wasn’t the start of anything and she knew it. All the times after that she was hungover and slightly depressed.

It was around nine, she guessed, which meant that they had slept for four or five hours. The light shone around the sides of his vinyl window shades. He was still sleeping. She needed a glass of water, but she couldn’t see her underwear from the bed and didn’t want to walk to the bathroom naked. Her phone was flashing on the bed stand. Two new texts:

Her roommate, 2:43 am: U little slut!!! Hav fun :)

Random guy she had hooked up with a few months ago, 3:04 am: What up?

She gently closed her phone and checked to see if he was still asleep. Yes. He was drooling a little bit and his hair was wildly disheveled. The blanket was down around his waist, and she noticed that he trimmed his chest hair. She couldn’t remember if he also trimmed his pubic hair. Probably.

Now he was waking up. She plopped laid down and stared at the ceiling. When she sensed that he was looking at her, she turned her head and tried to look groggier than she was. He half-smiled and let out a long, deep groan.

“Jesus Christ… I feel like shit,” he said, rolling over on his stomach and smushing his face into the pillow. He peeked out of the pillow and looked at her. “How you feeling?” His breath smelled like pickled beer.

“You know. Not great,” she said.

“Yeah.” He thought for a minute. “Didn’t you say you were meeting your parents for brunch?”

She turned away from him, towards the empty wall.

“At one. But I can leave now. Don’t worry,” she said.

He sat up on his elbows and tried to look hurt.

“You know that’s not what I meant. C’mon, don’t be like that,” he said, leaning over and draping an arm over her. He slid up behind her, and his warm, naked body felt good against her back. She could feel him getting hard against the back of her thigh.

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?” Maybe it would be better when they weren’t drunk.

“Yeah, I know.”

After sex they laid in bed and gossiped about mutual acquaintances. At the door he pointed her in the direction of the G train and gave her a high five.

************

We secretly think about joining the Peace Corps or teaching high school history. We go to museums on Saturday afternoon. We stay in because we’re tired. We buy expensive furniture from Crate and Barrel. We are 25 and sometimes when we’re walking through Park Slope or riding the bus on the Upper East Side we can imagine what it will be like to get old. We value our friends but treat them like shit. We recycle.

************

My little brother called from L.A. a few days ago. It was around 5:30 and I was still at work, so I closed the door to my office. I can tell from the start that he’s upset, and I’m flattered that he called me.

Apparently he and his girlfriend got into a big fight. Apparently she cheated on him. She was drunk. She's sorry. I've been there. But that's not what my brother wants to hear.

That’s a tough one, I tell him, but what I’d do is pull back, at least for awhile. You can’t let her make a fool of you. It’s like Hemingway.

I love Hemingway, but I don’t think my brother knows much about him so I provide a synopsis. Hemingway’s heroes were all about maintaining their sphere of control. Most of life was completely out of their hands. Their friends died, their women left, their junk got fucked up. That’s the breaks. They couldn’t do anything about it. All they could do was recognize the limits of their control and find pleasure within a small, knowable realm – fishing, bullfighting, drinking, whatever. I realize that might not seem to apply here, I told my brother, but it does.

You really like her, maybe you even love her – it doesn’t really matter. But all you can do is your best, and if you’re doing your best and she’s still treating you like shit there’s not much you can do about it besides hoping she comes around. If not, chalk it up to experience and move on. Her loss. There are other fish in the sea. You’ll find someone else. It took me a long time, but that’s what I eventually came to realize about Christina, that’s how I finally got over her. Not easy by any means, but effective.

My brother seemed to get what I was saying, I think. I gave him a few more tips on how to handle the situation. Honestly, I hope it doesn’t work out, for my brother's sake. He’s too young to be tied down.

************

We read the New York Times online. We get coffee and read magazines at Barnes and Noble and feel good about not spending the afternoon drinking. We spend the afternoon drinking. We talk about how horrible the Lower East Side has become. We’re growing comfortable. We have casual sex. We look up kids from high school on Facebook and usually feel better about ourselves. We talk about real estate. We go to the gym three times a week. We do cocaine and pills when they come our way. We’re pretty much cool with gay people. We have resigned ourselves to a mid-life crisis. We’re going to buy a bike off Craigslist in the spring. We have good benefits.

************

He’s waiting for the N train to Manhattan. It’s early Saturday afternoon and his calves are sore from a morning run in Prospect Park. He smoked a bowl before leaving the apartment and he’s jumpy; weed does that to him. But it’s pleasant as long as he can keep his mind from spinning off its axis, and right now things are at a pleasant whirr. A young Puerto Rican couple is arguing behind him. He walks to the track and sees the train coming.

It rushes past him, and he hopes it didn’t mess up his hair. As the train slows, he stares ahead and watches his image become increasingly stable in the slowing windows. He pushes back his bangs. When the train stops he’s between doors. He looks into the windows of both, doesn’t see any cute girls, and randomly settles on one.

After sitting down he checks out each of the other passengers. He stares. What do they think of him? His imagination flatters himself. A Hispanic woman and her young son are sitting across from him. They are laughing about something, and he wonders if they are happier than him even though they’re poor. He knows this is entirely possible, even likely. He doesn’t hold it against them.

The train rises out of the tunnel, and lower Manhattan rises over the monolithic lofts of DUMBO. He’s looking north, towards Midtown. He can’t go over the bridge without appreciating the knowing grandeur of New York City. The buildings flash through the spires of the bridge like pieces of a jigsaw skyline. The City thrills him – he is thrilled to be here, thrilled to be twenty-five years old with a good job and no attachments. He reminds himself that he’s missed out on so many chances to really make it, so many coattails to have ridden, like the friend who’s on TV or the guy down the hall who’s a millionaire or the kid in his English class who’s getting published. This no way to think when you’re high, and he cuts it off. As the train sinks between the tenements of the Lower East Side he reminds him that it’s Saturday afternoon in the City, and soon it will be Saturday night.

************

We take our health for granted. We love our families. We want to be famous. We read Page Six but not on the train. We will never move back to the suburbs not ever. We look back on our childhood with great nostalgia. We save a little bit of money. We like shopping. We’re selfish. We’re not yet desperate enough to try online dating but we’ve thought about it. We’re thinking about grad school. Some of us sort of believe in God but most of us don’t. We’re Democrats. We used to smoke cigarettes. We’ll look back on these days with undue fondness. We have medium dreams.

Jan

Hi, loyal readers. I posted two essays today, so check out
both if you have nothing better to do

Her name was Jan, which is kind of weird because my mom’s name is Ann. She was Scandinavian, and while I didn’t think to ask I assume that she was blond. My dad was and remains half-Japanese, with equally ethnic jet-black hair. They were counselors together at a Christian summer camp in Des Moines, Washington. The year was 1973, and my dad had just completed his junior year of high school. He says she was gorgeous.

As hard as it is to imagine my dad with someone other than my mom, it’s almost harder to imagine him at a Christian camp. As long as I’ve known him, my dad has been an unwavering atheist. It’s not something he talks about much, and it didn’t keep him from sending my siblings and me to Catholic school, in deference to my mother’s wishes and the overwhelming mediocrity of the local public schools. As he explained it to me, one day not so long after the events of this essay he realized that religion was bullshit. Maybe this revelation had something to do with the fact that his mother had died a year earlier. Maybe he finally allowed himself to acknowledge something he’d known for a long time. Maybe – and I think this must have played a significant role, because I’ve sat next to him at baptisms and weddings and he’s worse than a seven year-old after a jumbo bag of Pop Rocks – maybe he just got sick of going to church.

Regardless, he was still a believer when he met Jan. She lived up in Seattle, about 45 minutes north of Tacoma, where my dad lived. They both belonged to the Covenant Church, which as I understand it was more or less your run-of-the-mill Baptist outfit. They sent a bus around to poor neighborhoods during the summer looking for kids with nothing to do. My dad and my uncle hopped on, and soon enough the church became an important part of their lives.

I’m sure my dad was a great counselor. He’s always been good with people, quick to laugh, self-confident. I bet he was one of the cool counselors, the guy who everybody considered a friend, the guy who had something going with the cute blond girl. I’m not surprised that Jan was attracted to him, although I’ve also seen pictures and know that his complexion wasn’t great and his haircut didn’t do much for his round, half-Japanese face. Actually, he bears a strong resemblance to me, or perhaps vice versa, so I should probably take comfort in his luck with the ladies.

I only went to camp a few times and never really got into it, but I imagine that it would be a thrilling place to start a relationship. Everything is foreign and exciting – the setting, the rules, the people. It doesn’t get much more romantic than campfires, and you’ve got one every night. My dad likes to tease people, so I’m sure Jan got a lot of that. My mom has also told me that he wasn’t above snapping the occasional bra, although that sort of thing wouldn’t have flown at a Christian camp. He probably told her a lot of really cheesy, hopelessly romantic things, like all teenagers, even those who grow up to be someone’s father. All I really know is that my dad and Jan started something, and it got more serious over the summer. When camp let out, they decided to keep it going. After all, they didn’t live so far away from each other.

On Labor Day, right before school started, my dad drove up to Seattle to see Jan. I’m not sure what sort of car he was driving then; maybe it was the green Buick Wildcat I’ve seen in photographs. I can see him slowing to a stop in front of a tidy ranch house with a freshly-cut lawn. It is a beautiful summer evening, the sort of evening that makes you forget all of the rainy days to come. He’s wearing bell-bottom jeans and a snug t-shirt. Maybe he looks in the rearview mirror to check himself out, although I doubt it. He walks up to the door and takes a deep breath. He’s already grinning as he presses the doorbell, ready to charm the folks, wow them with as many “sirs” and “ma’ams” as they can handle. Jan opens the door, an awkward smile on her pretty face. Her parents lurk a few feet behind. The father shakes my dad’s hand, but doesn’t smile. There is no small talk. They do not ask him in. Jan’s parents pull her away from the door, and they huddle in the hallway as my dad stands on the doorstep, still smiling. The front door is open but the screen door is closed. He can’t really hear what they’re saying. He looks down at his feet. After a minute or two, Jan comes to the door and they leave, her parents watching from the darkness. They drive away. My dad asks what all that was about. Jan tells him that her parents don’t like her going out with a Japanese guy. They want her with someone white, preferably Scandinavian. She has to be back home in an hour.

When I asked my dad to retell this story, which he’d briefly told me once or twice before, I thought it ended there. She said they couldn’t see each other again and my dad, without a word, took her back home and drove away without looking back. He was furious, angry to the point of tears, and swore that he would prove them wrong. Later that year he started dating my mother, who is much more beautiful than even the gorgeous Jan, and who loved him unconditionally. Years later I was born, a symbol of triumph over ignorance.

But that’s not what happened, not really. Jan and my dad saw each other a few more times against her parent’s wishes. They hung out in Seattle, got ice cream, went to football games at Memorial Stadium, coincidentally the site of my first date with a girl who eventually broke my heart. Ultimately their relationship ended not because of her parent’s prejudice, but because my dad was interested in other girls. Not exactly Romeo and Juliet. If it weren’t for her racist parents, I never would have known about Jan. My dad has no idea what happened to her. That’s usually the way it goes.

The Dog that Bit Me

“Drunkenness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness.”

Bertrand Russell

“I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day.”

Frank Sinatra

Things I’ve done while drunk:

• Gotten a friend fired. His company was holding an event at the Oyster Bar. All-you-can-eat oysters, all-you-can-drink wine. I tried to leave with my wine glass, and when the maître d' attempted to take it away I pushed him. My friend’s parents were there. I still maintain that the oysters were as much to blame as the booze.

• Made a girl cry. A few male friends and I were sitting at one of the picnic tables behind Sweet and Vicious. A random girl sat down with us, uninvited. We quickly learned that she was from San Francisco by way of the Ukraine, a Georgetown alum, an Upper East Sider, and absolutely horrible. My friends weren’t particularly bothered, but I made no effort to hide my distaste. About an hour into her monologue, she inquired as to why I didn’t like her. I proceeded to answer her query with all of the clarity and honesty I could muster, which, as I see it, is all any inquisitor could hope for. The girl then began sobbing uncontrollably. Ten minutes later she tried to kiss me at the bar. My opinion of her hadn’t changed, but I played along.

• Spent hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars, perhaps even tens of thousands of dollars on a wide array of fermented beverages.

• Made all manner of unlikely propositions to unsuspecting female acquaintances, often via text message and after 3 am.
  

All of this begs an obvious question, one that invariably arises sometime between the moment I open eyes and acquisition of the Sunday Times: why don’t I just quit? What do I have against my pocketbook, my liver, and my dignity? The short answer is that getting drunk is fun. I cannot deny the pleasures of a bloody mary over brunch at Jones, an afternoon round of tasteless jokes and German brau at Lorely, or tequila shots at Tom and Jerry’s with a high school buddy in town for the weekend. I suppose each of these diversions undertaken alone and in moderation wouldn’t necessarily lead to the unsavory predicaments described above. But as much as I appreciate alcohol’s ability to bring people together or complement a meal, I also just plain enjoy getting drunk. I like throwing an arm around a buddy and talking about how beautiful life is, how lucky we are to be living in the greatest city in world, how much I value our friendship. I like possessing, however fleetingly, the confidence to approach the beautiful women whom, on the other six days of the week, I can only glance at as their express train slowly overtakes my local. Put simply, the world is a happier, more hopeful place when seen through beer goggles.

The trick, I would presume, is training your eyes to see things through a lager-tinged filter without resorting to drink itself. There are people who don’t need to drink when they go out on the weekends. I don’t count any of these people among my close friends, but I know they exist. What’s scary is that I’ve reneged on so many Sunday morning resolutions that I refuse to insult my intelligence by giving it another go. Put simply, I’ve given up. I might as well put two aspirin on my bedside table and draft a desperately witty, self-deprecating mea culpa e-mail before hitting the town. But one of these days I’ll get it together. Just not before Halloween. Maybe after New Year’s. Definitely by the time I turn thirty-five. Or when I get married. Whichever comes later.

Shallow Waters Run Deep

I'm taking a writing class at the New School, so hopefully I'll be posting here a bit more frequently. FYI, the assignment was to write either short or long sentences and include a device. Stay true.

One had somewhat wide hips. One had two cats. One had a dead tooth. I think it was a dead tooth. Something was funny about her teeth. It’s hard to explain. One defended Murray Hill. One told me that she used to be fat. I imagined the stretch marks. She was also legit crazy. This is common among newly skinny people. They think thin equals popular. That’s not how it works. I bet Jared from Subway still doesn’t have many friends. And he’s rich to boot. So I don’t feel bad about that particular girl. Because she was crazy.

But I do feel bad about the others. They deserved better. I know that:

- I have no right to be so picky. There are plenty of superficial reasons to write me off. I still get zits. I have a weak chin. Andy Rooney gives me shit about my eyebrows. An addiction to hummus means occasional gassiness. I like to brag about not owning a TV. It’s really obnoxious. I could go on.

- True beauty lies within. Everyone is beautiful in their own way. I believe that. Seriously. I wouldn’t date a physically perfect girl with a horrible personality. That’s not true. I wouldn’t date her for more than a month. Maybe two.

- I’m only hurting myself in the end. I may have already written off my soul mate because she was wearing Uggs. Although I do think such a seemingly trivial faux pas could be indicative of a more deep-seated flaw.

So at least I’m a self-aware asshole. Is that better or worse than being an oblivious asshole? Does it mean that I’m willfully being repugnant? (Which would be worse.) Or that I’m just too lazy to change? (Which would be better. Marginally.)

I’m not sure how it came to this. My mother is strong and independent. My romantic history isn’t exceptionally traumatic. Possible culprits:

- Pop culture - Women aren’t the only victims of the beauty-industrial complex. Granted: male bikini waxes are not (yet) de rigeur. True: I have never been catcalled. (Confession: I think I’d love it.) I hear ya’: high heels must really suck. Conclusion: women have it way worse. But guys suffer too. We’re brainwashed to prefer our women hairless/harassed/blistered. Maybe my innate preference for fuzzy-legged ladies was undermined by “Saved by the Bell” reruns. Maybe it goes all the way back to Maria on Sesame Street. (Total babe.) Maybe I’m the victim here.

- Self-loathing - Am I subliminally sabotaging dates because I don’t feel worthy of affection? Does this essay have any chance of being funny if the answer is “yes”? Or was it doomed from the start?
- An abnormally refined aesthetic appreciation of the female form: I’m not a jerk. I’m an artist.

And just what am I holding out for? Nothing too crazy. A sense of humor. Style. Sophistication. Intelligence. Uncommon beauty. You know. The complete package. Women like that don’t come around often. But they do exist. Put me down as cautiously optimistic. And completely undeserving.

Bowl Data

Note: You can also check this out on Lift While Climbing, which is run by some friends of mine.

A political candidate’s viability is often reduced to one simple but telling question: Would you want to have a beer with them? But sharing a few laffs over a pitcher of suds isn’t nearly as revealing as camping out in the rumpus room with a dimebag and a medium sausage lover’s. The real question should be: Would you want to get stoned with them? What follows are purely hypothetical stoner profiles of the leading 2008 presidential candidates:

THE DEMOCRATS

Hilary



- Preferred Paraphernalia – a glass pipe (name: Toots McSmokealot) purchased during her freshman year at Wellesley.

- Stoned Song – Journey, “Don’t Stop Believing.” Rated America’s #1 favorite song in a recent Gallup poll; confirmed by Hillary 2008 focus groups.

- Marijuana Movie – “Pretty Woman.” Because she’s still a hopeless romantic at heart.

- Munchies, man! – a 32 oz. porterhouse, very rare.

- Baked Babble – “Bill inhaled. I inhaled. Fucking Nixon inhaled. It was the seventies, for chrissake. Give me a break.”

- Dope Demeanor – Paranoid. Very paranoid.

Barack



- Preferred Paraphernalia – Cocaine blunts.

- Stoned Song – Rod Stewart, “Maggie May.” You’d think this would hurt his credibility within the black community, but in fact a large number of African American’s really love Rod the Mod. It’s just one of those weird things.

- Marijuana Movie – “Soul Plane,” allegedly. But he could just be overcompensating for the Rod Stewart thing. In his defense, it’s actually kind of a funny movie.

- Munchies, man! – Half a pack of Nicorette.

- Baked Babble – “Which is a weirder presidential name: Barack Hussein Obama or Millard Fillmore? Tough one, right?”

- Dope Deamanor – Cool as fuck. Homeboy makes Snoop look like Screech.

John E.



- Preferred Paraphernalia – a simple, workingman’s joint. Preferably smoked in the company of the family dog behind the toolshed.

- Stoned Song – Alan McGraw. Garth Tritt. Waylon Urban. Bruce Mellencamp. This is his country, damnit.

- Marijuana Movie – “Wild Hogs.” Anything with Tim Allen, really. John Edwards is one of you, America!

- Munchies, man! – Hominy. It simply doesn’t get more Red State than J-ward!

- Baked Babble – “I pay my Botox guy more than I pay my top consultant. A lot more.”

- Dope Demeanor – Very smiley. It’s kind of creepy.

THE REPUBLICANS

Rudy



- Preferred Paraphernalia – one of those metal cigarettes that’s actually a pipe. Because he’s sneaky!

- Stoned Songbook – Dean Martin. The original slick Italian. Ol’ Dino was like parmesan-encrusted catnip to impressionable legal secretaries back in the Attorney General days.

- Marijuana Movie – Previews of the Giuliani biopic commissioned by his campaign. Coming soon to a theater near you – “Did I Mention 9/11? The Rudy Giuliani Story,” directed by Jerry Bruckheimer.

- Munchies, man! – Judith Nathan

- Baked Babble – “You know what’s crazy? Ice cubes, man. They’re like these little, perfect squares of coldness, and we totally take them for granted. You know what else is crazy? That a pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-civil union New Yorker might win the South Carolina primary. That’s fucking crazy.”

- Dope Demeanor –Kind of jumpy. Constantly killing your buzz with inappropriate comments you try to forget.

Mitt



- Preferred Paraphernalia – a Coke can. Because if he’s going to indulge in the forbidden herb, why not make it a twofer and score some caffeine?

- Stoned Songbook – the Carpenter’s Christmas album. It reminds him of family, and Mitt Romney is all about family. But only wife. Don’t get it twisted.

- Marijuana Movie – “An Inconvenient Truth.” He was the governor of Massachusetts, alright?

- Munchies, man! – Pickles.

- Baked Babble – “Yeah, Mormons take a lot of shit, and some of the stuff we do is a little nutty, granted. But have you ever taken a close look at the Pope? Homeboy is walking around with a fucking sceptor. Why doesn’t anyone ask Rudy what that’s all about?

- Dope Demeanor – Pompously earnest. Earpous.

John McC.



- Preferred Paraphernalia – perfectly rolled joints of legal, medicinal marijuana. He can’t walk without them. Bad hip.

- Stoned Songbook – Cher, “Do You Believe in Life After Love?” His wife, Cindy, listens to it every morning during her nude step aerobics workout. She keeps him young, and he loves her for it.

- Marijuana Movie – “Apocalypse Now – The Director’s Cut.” And not necessarily because of Nam - it’s just a badass movie.

- Munchies, man! – Centrum Silver.

- Baked Babble – “You know who sucks? Pat Robertson. I meant it the first time. And you can fucking go to Wolf Blitzer with that – I don’t give a shit anymore.”

- Dope Demeanor – Tired, a little cranky, but oddly endearing.

R.I.P. Noodle Man

In honor of the death of Momofuku Ando, I'm posting a recipe I recently submitted to a workplace cookbook.

Top Ramen: A Primer

Let’s get one thing straight – this is not a joke. I’ve been eating and cooking Top Ramen ever since my molars came in, and by the time I graduated from college my mastery of the noodle arts was recognized in dormitories far and wide. A breakdown:

Flavor: When I was young and my tastebuds hadn’t yet developed, it was Beef or nothing. A teenage flirtation with vegetarianism necessitated a switch to Oriental, although I later learned that every flavor contains animal stock. The time I spent with both of these flavors was special, but I couldn’t shake the haunting sense that something was missing. It all came together by chance – I was ravenously hungry, and the only flavor left in the house was Chicken, my younger sister’s favorite. Swallowing my pride, I decided to give the strange yellow powder a shot. The rest is history.

Water: Two cups, and not a drop more or less.

Cooking Time: It’s hard to fault a company that has provided me with so much happiness at such a small price, but I simply cannot understand why Nissin Foods instructs their loyal customers to boil the noodles for a paltry three minutes. Listen, and listen closely: boil the noodles until almost all of the water has evaporated. I don’t care whether it takes five minutes or two hours. Remember, young grasshopper, patience is a virtue.

Supplemental ingredients: You can’t take it to the next level until mastering this aspect of the ramen game. The key is knowing your limits.

Beginner: Onions. Throw ‘em in with the noodles and forget about it.

Intermediate: Mushrooms and green onions. Add them too early and you end up with mushy mushrooms and brown green onions. Add them too late and your soup becomes a dysfunctional salad.

Advanced: Egg. The coup de grace. To be added ever so gently in the final minute of cooking.

Don’t even get me started on grilled cheese.

Certified Ballers

It's very important to Coach that his boys remain limber.

We're telling people that the Indian guy is black.

Have you tried the new flavor of Gatorade? It's called "Beer."

Go ahead, stare. The only socks we're wearing are on our feet - believe dat.

The bus broke down a few blocks before the Garden and we had to hustle.