Any Takers?

From: Jimmy The Greek - Passionate greek looking for my soulmate, are u? Male, 56 - Divorced SANTA ROSA , CA - United States Ethnic Background: Greek

Sun, Nov 26, 2006 12:52PM

Subject: U know a lady 4me?& i send U to greece &5k4U,TY



So last night I checked into my pathetic online dating website and this message was in my mailbox. Is this guy serious? Wow! Just so I can make it clear what is being asked in the subject line it seems that "Jimmy The Greek" wants to know if I can find him a "lady". If I do find Jimmy "said" woman, he will send me to Greece and give me 5,000 dollars. As ridiculous as the offer sounded, I had push it just to see how far I could go.

I called my Aunt and asked her if by any chance she would be interested. She got a good laugh but alas, she was not a taker. Yes, I want the ladies in my life to find love, but more importantly I have a credit card that needs to be paid off. I had to find another option.

I proceeded to work on my pitch and called my Mom. She answered the phone with,
" Well guess who's on the the other line? I'm in the middle of talking to your Aunt and she says you are trying to 'pimp' her out!"

"Mom, she did not use the word pimp."

"Hon, Are you seriously going to ask me about this offer?"

"Well, it's a win / win situation for everybody, Mom. One of you gets a boyfriend and the other one gets to come to Greece with me."

She was not impressed with my logic.

"Your Aunt thinks you are being funny. I know you're only half joking."

"So that's a no?" I asked.

"It's a no."

"Fine." But it was worth a try.

They're Comin' to America...Today!

Ahhhh...Switzerland!

Home of the Alps, Fondue, and the weird guy who sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger sitting next to me at dinner...

I have two friends that love to throw dinner parties and have a pre-set seating chart in order to insure conversation and create a flow for the evening. The food is guaranteed to be good so I put up with the pretentiousness of it all...including the dessert wine. It's like Gosford Park only set in Brooklyn, and instead of rich people- there's us.

Swiss guy just became a citizen so he was all about letting us know that the citizenship test he just passed made him an expert on all things in the "good ole' U.S. of A". In between courses of Hanz* asking us why in English the word "Ottoman" can describe an empire as well as a chair; We were subjected to Hanz* cross-examining us in regards to what we actually knew about our own country. Hanz* was going to give us a "friendly" dinner quiz. When someone who sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger gives you a quiz, it doesn't sound friendly. It sounds more like you are on a train somewhere in Europe duing WWII and you are being asked to "Show your papers!" When it was my turn, I was asked to name the original 13 colonies. Easy!!!! Ha!!! So I started:

1) Maryland - (I was born there, so it was a gimmie'!)
2) Virginia- ( ok, I'm on a roll)

ummmm.

ummmm.

panic.

Great! I mean, at one time I knew this. It's just buried way back in the far reaching corners of my brain. To stall for time, I casually mentioned that the 13 colonies are represented in the stripes of our flag which was sewn by Betsy Ross. (Ha! Did you know that?) I can tell you some stuff about the guy who wrote the National Anthem, a Mister Francis Scott Key. Heard of him? (Anyone? Anyone?) Nobody was impressed. I was really going to have to do this. I continued...

3) New York - ( Had to be one)
4) Massachusetts - (Tea party)
5) New Hampshire - (It was a guess, but I know a lot of white people live there.)
6) Connecticut - (Same reason as number 5)
7) Delaware - (Washington crossed it. So it had to be around back then. Wow, this is the worst reasoning ever)

Half way.

ummmm.

ummmm.

Go to the South!

yes!

Here goes nothing...

8) North Carolina- (?...Holy crap!)
9) Then...South Carolina - (For real? How can some Dixie flag waving place have been one of the original colonies? Shouldn't they have evolved just a bit more by now? Oh, at this point I'll take anything.)
10) Georgia- (total guess)

My brain was starting to hurt. Come on, already!

11) Pennsylvania- ( Why did I not think of that earlier? The damn liberty bell. Duh. First capitol.)

Then I just blanked. I couldn't do it. I wanted to eat. I gave up. You know what I forgot? Rhode Island and New Jersey. I forgot a state so small it still calls itself an island, and I blanked on the home of Bon Jovi. Whatever. I think I did pretty good, but not good enough for Hanz*. While he relished in his victory I reminded him that for someone who hails from a neutral country, he wasn't acting so damn neutral. He mentioned that the Swiss also have the largest stockpile of defense weapons...perhaps that was a veiled threat to back it up. I took it as an open invitation to mention to all the women sitting at the table that an interesting fact about the Swiss is that it wasn't until 1990 that all women in Switzerland finally gained the right to vote.

Immediately the tables were turned and Hanz* was suddenly the one being quizzed by a table of five women. As his panic set in, I sat back relishing the most recent victory at the table and enjoyed my meal in peace. Welcome to the land of opportunity, Hanz*!

* Swiss guy could have been named Franz. Not sure. Don't care.

Water, Water, Everywhere...

I spent Thanksgiving with the men in my life...all seven of them. Some travelled in from out of state and some took the subway. They arrived on Wednesday night and stayed through Sunday. I hadn't planned on hosting a five day dude fest, it just sort of happened. Even my brother drove up for the festivities. I had plans already to eat Thanksgiving with friends in Brooklyn, but as the big day came closer to arriving, I started to get the not so casual, "Hey what are you doing for Thanksgiving?" phone calls. Finally I caved and put the word out that my house was open but I was not cooking. I'm not their girlfriend or their mother. I had my own plans, and while I would bring leftovers I couldn't promise a feast. I would be in Brooklyn for the dinner and if I came back into the city and the apartment was trashed, there would be hell to pay. As they began to arrive Wednesday night everyone came bearing their own version of Thanksgiving. There were card games, board games, cigarettes, albums "we just had to hear", and 12 varieties of beer. There were tales of wonder, work, survival, and quests of love won and lost. There were tears, laughter, and pleading with people to "just take a fucking shower, already." There were some brutal rounds of the card game "Bullshit" and marathons of "Balderdash". There was also one guy who took off his pants within an hour of arriving and spent the weekend in his boxers unless it was his turn to get snacks. He didn't put on pants until it was time to take the train back to Yale ( I hear that place is really selective about who they let in)... It was like a holiday home for wayward boys. In line with the Thanksgiving holiday, I was thankful for every moment.

See, I have a lot of guy friends. In fact, it's always been that way since elementary school. I grew up on ARMY bases and all that seemed to be around were guys. It wasn't until 8th grade that I realized the possibility of being found attractive by the opposite sex existed when I was asked to a dance at the teen center on the Army base where we lived. I never had a school girl crush and boy bands seemed as lame to me as the girls who would scream with glee at the mere mention of New Kids On the Block or sight of a band sticker on a trapper keeper. There was something about mob mentality that I never identified with anyway. It was so prevalent in the military that my family did everything to resist it. We would smile at functions and come home wondering what was wrong with everyone around us... As a result, we were a miserable ARMY family.

Most women in my life comment on the amount of guy friends I have. But I am always quick to point out that I have just as many friends that are girls and I am more than happy to share. There are women who embrace the fact that they can only be friends with guys...ummm, that's a problem. You have to have both and you can. I've heard some guys say that it is impossible to be friends with girls - that somebody inevitably has feelings and its not being addressed. Perhaps at some point the thought comes into play...its only natural and who doesn't want companionship. But something greater is missed when you try to fit your friendships into neat little compartments of what is the norm or what is expected.

Sometimes I go to work functions or parties with my guy friends if their girlfriends can't make it or they just want to hang out. I'm a safe bet. Let me clarify, I am friends with the girlfriends of these guys...and not in the fake "let's be cordial because we have to be" kind of way. I hang out with these girls when the guys aren't around. We have our own friendships independently. But, inevitably at these parties somebody will always ask if "said" guy friend and I are dating. I always say, "No we're friends". I hate it when people say , "We're JUST friends" because that implies that being a friend is not enough. Most of my friends have been friends of mine for over 10 years, so I try to explain that this is someone I've grown up with. I always feel that it's not a good enough answer for some people. So while I smile and answer their questions politely, I look over at my buddy and think, " When can we get to a bar and just hang out. What is wrong with everyone around us?"

Talking Dirty

It takes a great deal to gross me out. I have a pretty strong stomach for the most part. For example, I broke my kneecap at the World Trade Center right after 9/11. I was walking with a friend to work, wearing tennis shoes, and I fell right into a hole in the sidewalk. I didn't even feel my knee twist around to the other side of my leg. Everybody else around me freaked out. I think that was the scariest part. My friend kept repeating like a mantra, "Don't look down, Don't look down." Even when the fireman and the ambulance got there to help me I could tell by their faces it wasn't good. I didn't feel a thing. I think my body just shut down. Even in the emergency room I held it together. (The morphine may have had something to do with it.)

My point, is that I think, perhaps naively, that I can handle some gross stuff. But yesterday I reached my breaking point. I am convinced that this city, in big and small ways, may be out to get me (or at least get me to hurl.) It started when I ordered lunch at work. I ordered a Philadelphia Roll from Empire Szechuan. That may have been my first mistake... I thought a Chinese delivery place could make good Japanese food. I open my lunch and there is a live centipede / thingy with antennae crawling in and out of my sushi like it wants to play hide and seek. Gross. Puke. When the delivery guy came back to pick up the food he wanted to see the bug. So he dug through the sushi and put it in a separate container in front of everyone. Gross again.

Later that night when I got to my apartment, I was expecting to breathe a sigh of relief because my landlord supposedly had sent an exterminator while I was at work to take care of the roaches that have been invading the kitchen in my apartment ( by invade I mean one or two but everyone has a breaking point.) I walk into the bathroom and not only is there a roach in the bathroom sink now doing a happy dance, the toilet seat has been left up and there is urine on the floor! What? Nobody in my place has a penis or pees standing up!!!!!!! Triple Gross. I guess that not only did the exterminator forget to kill the bugs, he also forgot to put the seat down. I cleaned that bathroom from top to bottom and tried to disinfect my person in the shower. I don't know if I will ever be clean. This city has officially grossed me out.

Friends Don't Let Friends Drink And...

Something about the flyer was bothering me. I couldn't stop thinking about it. The Macy's One Day Sale. Oh.My.God. I had to be there. I was sure I had seen these flyers in the mail before, and more than sure that this one day sale happened more than one day a year, but regardless, I was committed.

It could have been the red wine. It could have been that I was watching "Friday Night Lights" on its regularly scheduled Tuesday night time slot. (I mean, come on! Is "Saturday Night Live" on Thursdays? No! Now stop. It's confusing.) I don't know what it is...but something about "Friday Night Lights" makes me want to get married, move back to Kentucky, and get domestic with some polyester shorts wearing football coach. I picture myself proudly beaming in the stands, as I watch my husband down on the field, yelling until he is red in the face and the veins are sticking out of his neck, "Pass the God damn ball, Fletcher!" I have no idea who this Fletcher is, or why he isn't passing the ball but he definitely has a solid, southern name. In hindsight, I have no doubt that this fantasy was fueled by the Shiraz.

On Wednesday morning, I woke up at seven, hopped in the shower, grabbed my foldable shopping cart, and got to Macy's by eight in the morning ready for the bargains I had circled in my flyer. I got there and it was a madhouse! Macy's had only been open for 10 minutes but people were tripping over one another, screaming, and sweating as if they had been trapped in a dark coal mine for days. Why had I never heard of this phenomenon before? I went straight to house wares because according to my domestic delusions from the night before, I decided I needed/could not live without a set of pots and pans. Who was I becoming? Yuck.

Apparently I wasn't the only one drinking during "Friday Night Lights" because the place was packed with homemaking ambitions...there were lots of foreign people yelling out shopping strategies in their native tongues, confused husbands and boyfriends clutching shopping lists and politely asking any woman that would give them the time of day, "Is this what I'm supposed to get?" as if we knew how to decipher a stranger's handwriting on a crumpled list, and off-duty doormen who had been bribed with the promise of a "healthy holiday cash bonus" if they stand in a miserable line with "said" purchases for their upper east side building occupants.

By the time I was done, it was a little after 10 in the morning. I still had to get to work. I had left with a set of 12 brand new pots and pans and an impulse purchase of an 18 piece set of glass Pyrex bake ware. Ummmm...I have never baked in my life. I don't even have a mixer. (Who is this person who woke up needing kitchen things and where did she come from?) I think the only meals that are going in those dishes are things that require layers of cheese to be melted. As I dragged my rolling cart of kitchenware to work, some ass on the street chimed in with, "Hey baby, I want to come to your Thanksgiving." What did that even mean? Was he assuming that because I’m dragging kitchenware across town, I love cooking, and I can't wait for Thanksgiving? Did it even occur to him that maybe I was just a drunk with a bad idea?

As I rolled my cart into work, sweating, panting, and extolling the virtues of my amazing savings, it was pointed out to me by several sources that you can shop at Macy's online and still get the same discounts. Oh. Ummmm...didn't think about that. Good laughs were had by all. At least when it dawned on me that I had forgotten to get the set of knives I had circled on my flyer, it wasn't so traumatically heartbreaking or physically challenging. All I had to do was point and click...once I sobered up.

Shits and Giggles

I recently learned of the term "FU Money". Basically, it means that you are beyond rich. That your money is not just money, but Fuck You money and you can do with it whatever you want because what do you care, you're that fucking rich !

So, at work we got into a discussion of what we would do if we had "FU Money". I think my idea is so "FU" that I may see a return on my investment. My idea is this...if I were so rich that I could care less what people thought, I would release an album of remastered "Po(o)p Hits" that I sing (with a choir as back-up), cleverly titled, Greatest (S)hits: Volume 1. Because yes, I believe there will be a strong enough demand for future volumes of this crap.

This groundbreaking album will feature the time-treasured classics:

The Greatest Poop of All - Whitney Houston

Pooploose - Kenny Loggins

Poop (for my love)- The Pointer Sisters

It's Raining Poop - The Weather Girls

I'm All Out Of Poop - Air Supply

My Poop Will Go On (Theme from Titanic) - Celine Dion

and

How Am I Supposed To Poop Without You - Michael Bolton (upon viewing the list, my co-worker requested and I have graciously accepted to sing this at her wedding)



Other Suggestions/ Song Requests include (but are not limited to):

Forever Your Poop - Paula Abdul

Glory of Poop- Peter Cetera

California Poopin' - Mama's and the Papa's

A Woman's Poop - Alicia Keys

Hey Poop - The Beatles

and

Poopalicious - Fergie (for the kids)

Please respond immediately because this album is expected to sell out and definitely not available in stores...

International Relations

I was checking my Stat Counter and saw that someone from England typed in a Google search bar " 'You look nice' in phonetic Greek" and were led to this post in my blog. In response to the "Googler" I have constructed this letter in case he/she ever chooses to return to this site.

Dear Idiot who obviously just saw the 'Borat" movie,

This is a blog. Not a tutorial for accents. Nor am I a dialect coach. If you insist on learning how to say "You look nice" just like Borat, so you can impress and annoy your friends...please don't. They will hate you, if they don't already. FYI - Borat isn't Greek. Not even close. In fact, he's not real. He's made up. I don't want to ruin the mystery for you but Borat is played by an actor named Sacha Baron Cohen and the character is from Kazakhstan, a real place (nowhere near Greece) that was once a republic of the former Soviet Union. The closest Greece ever comes to Kazakhstan is when they face off in the occasional soccer (or as you call it football) match. Yes, Kazakhstan has a team !!! But you should know that, right? Isn't soccer (oops, football) the only thing you people do over there in between successfully avoiding routine dental check-ups and serving up tasteless food? Or do you not like sweeping generalizations either?

Kisses from across the pond,

"Said" Woman

If Loving You Is Wrong...

I was watching an episode of Oprah, sometime between one and two in the morning, and they featured an interview with Jessica Coleman. She is serving a prison sentence for murdering her child when she was 15, putting it in a trash bag, then placing it in a duffel bag, and then handing it to her boyfriend who threw it in a quarry after stuffing the bag full of rocks to weigh it down. Heartbreaking stuff.

Here's what I don't understand....Jessica has a boyfriend. A new boyfriend, even though she's in prison...and she wants to be a Mom one day. How does that work? How do you explain that away and convince someone that, "Hey, I'm good this time. Promise."? I'm not saying that she doesn't deserve to be loved. Everybody does. But Christ. I've never been arrested and I can't get a date...I was even in DARE. The whole thing makes me feel really good about being single.

Then there's Amy Fisher. She slept with someone as grotesque as Joey Buttafucco and thought it was a good idea to blow his wife's face off when he tried to end things. Eventually someone married her! Apparently, the whole, "Hey, I like old sweaty married Itallian guys and killing their wives is a totally reasonable way to secure my love!" didn't scare off the groom or come across as a tad bit reactionary. Once again, I believe that everyone deserves to be loved and that the children are our future. But enough already, how much of an "edge" do you need these days to get a guy's attention...I was in the National Honor Society. Doesn't that count for something?

This Is Not A Movie Review

...this is a review of the people I am forced to share space with whenever I go to the movies. On Friday I went to see "Marie Antoinnette" at the movie theater. Yes, I was taking a chance by going to a late show in Times Square, but I thought to myself, " No kind of nutjob would possibly go see a period piece on a Friday night unless they really wanted to see the film." Wrong.

Let me start off with the guy who jumped over two rows to get the only empty seats left within reasonable viewing distance from the screen, even though I had already courteously asked if those seats were taken and was walking down the aisle politely saying excuse me, along with my roomie, the way civilized people do in order to get to "said" seats.

Hey asshole, you stole our seats! I know I don't own them, but you jumped over two rows to get to them when you clearly saw I was making my way down the aisle to reach them after I had asked if they were taken. Yes, people booed you and started yelling at you, but that didn't faze you. All you could hear was the annoying sound of your girlfriend yelling at you in Russian, "Who cares about those girls. Just sit. " (I had my roomie translate. Shockingly, you two nit wits aren't the only people who speak Russian in New York!) Apparently when the "Iron Curtain" fell, it landed on your stupid head forcing you to forget any sense of politeness. Even when the sweet gentleman with the baggy pants offered to " kick your fuckin' ass yo", I asked him to refrain because the last thing I would want, is for you to have a poor opinion of Americans. Because I, my well mannered comrade, am an advocate of peace.

Next, was the possibly homeless gentleman sitting behind us in the movie loudly clearing his sinuses while simultaneously looking through plastic bags.

Sir, how many plastic bags can one man carry into a theater? Yes, Soffia Coppola does direct exceptionally long films, but were you expecting to camp out? I don't know if I or you will ever have the answer, but what were you looking for in those bags? For the love of God, the movie was so long and you never found what was in those plastic grocery bags! At some point didn't it occur to you that maybe the object you were searching for was simply gone? And what, pray tell, was lodged in your throat so deeply that the only soundtrack that was heard during the film was the sound of your throat being cleared and the snot being sucked back into your already stuffed head? Do you think that perhaps whatever you were looking for in the bags was actually lodged in your throat? You should see a doctor. If coverage is a problem, just go to the ER. Sooner rather than later...and leave behind the plastic bags. Nobody wants to hear the incessant "crunching" sound of plastic if they are already waiting to see a doctor.

And then there were the dirty college kids sitting next to me, who chose to forgo the individual seat option, and lift the armrest so that they could lay on each other as if they were in their dorm room about to get their "dry hump" on.

Ewwwwww. Why must you be so grimey? When you started picking through one another's hair and giving each other scalp massages it got weird. You ended up looking like orangutans on the Discovery Channel trying to give each other tongue baths. And boyfriend of the "hippie" girl you met in your feminist literature class... are you really that stupid? Were you really shocked to find out that Austria and France were "like so far away", and that they could only get there in a "horse and buggy"? Horse and buggy? Did they look fucking Amish to you? Idiot. I bet you're a history major. May I also recommend in the future that you stay away from carbonated drinks? I realize that the soda was giving you gas and causing you to burp, but did you have to blow it in my direction just so she wouldn't notice? Trust me, she noticed. Every time you expelled, your belly ballooned like a fraternity boy who took in too much air during a keg stand. But I wouldn't want to offend you by comparing such a cool dude like yourself with greasy skin and muttonchops to a fraternity guy, because after all, those guys take showers.

Everybody's Talking At Me

Politics are personal. You can blog, cry, bitch, whine, and write letters to anyone that will listen, but at the end of the day all you did was let it be known what your opinion of the situation may be...Nobody ever changed their political affiliation over a well-crafted op-ed piece (no matter what the New York Times may believe. ..While I don't know if anyone who works at the New York Times does in fact believe this, they strike me as a bunch of pretentious twits who actually think people have the time to read and hang on to every word written in that damn monstrosity of a paper. How am I going to hold down a job, respond to opinion survey pop-ups on my computer, and watch TiVo'd episodes of Nip/Tuck if I'm supposed to read that whole thing? When will I have time to eat? No thank-you.)

So, in regards to the whole John Kerry said this and President Bush said that...blah, Blah, BLAH!!!!! Who cares? We should care as citizens, but we're not given the chance because somewhere along the line politicians forgot about policy and got lost in the politics. They are just talking heads. There is a war going on and we need to find a solution ASAP. Instead it turns out that there is a possibility that Bobby Brown was cheating on Whitney Houston with a video ho who goes by the name "Superhead"! What? This is news? No, this is a distraction. Focus people. Focus.

...and that's my personal opinion on politics.

Booo Humbug!

For Halloween I decided to be a Latina Beauty Queen. Let's just say it involved fake eyelashes, a bad-ass pair of spanx (those who don't know what spanx are...consider yourself lucky) and lips outined in dark brown with a light pink filler. At the end of the day, I couldn't take the pain of my undergarments, so I changed into my street clothes and walked home leaving only remnants of my costume on...just my plastic crown and gaudy eyelashes. At a stoplight a guy in a van pulled up to the curb and coooed, "Hey Pretty Princess...", so I responded with, "Hey creepy guy in 'The Silence of the Lambs' van." Everyone on the sidewalk waiting for the light to turn laughed. He did not. Instead he yells, "I was talking about your costume, bitch." All I could think to say was, "That's no way to talk to a Princess!!!" The lesson here is never underestimate the classiness of bad lipliner or the men who find that type of look attractive.