Push the Button

"MUTE" is perhaps the most cherished button on my remote control. I love it. I enter a state of sheer bliss whenever I push the mute button on my TV controller. No more commercials that are ten times louder than the actual show. No more, "apply directly to the forehead; apply directly to the forehead; apply directly to the forehead." And certainly no more 19-year-old doctors telling me some magic pill will help me loose those nasty ten pounds sitting under my ass.

The only problem with the mute button is that it cannot be applied to all areas of my life -- unless of course my name is Adam Sandler and I star in an awful "comedy" called Click. But any who, my point dear friends, is that I am on COMMUNICATION OVERLOAD.

My cell phone, my Outlook box at work, my gmail account, my blog, my friends, my mother, the dog barking outside my apartment -- I swear I might just stand up, pull the hair out of my head and yell profanities until I'm purple in the face. And drooling. With blood-shot eyes. And pit stains the size of Frisbees.

With all the communication options our generation has, where is our option for silence? Where is our option for retreat? You may say, "MAH, just don't check your e-mail and gmail. Just turn your cell phone off. Tell your mother you can't talk to her for a few days." And really, I suppose that's an option. But I'd probably get fired from my job, piss off my friends, and make my mother cry.

Sometimes I wish there was an "out of office" option for our lives. I could click a button that lets everyone know that I need some "me" time -- me meaning no one else. Myself. I. Alone. Without company. And this button, oh lets say it's a magic button, this magic button notifies everyone that I need some space (no e-mails, no phone calls, no hanging out) without hurting their feelings. Without allowing them to take it personally. Without allowing them to make it about them. Because ultimately, it's about me. Not them. It's about my needs an individual. As a woman.

I'll be the first to admit that there are (many) people in the world that don't ever experience this feeling of communication overload. Some people like to be with someone all the time, and they like to talk on their phone instead of driving home in silence, and, if you're my mother, you like to call two minutes after I've sat down with a hot cup of tea and a good book. And usually these people have a difficult time understanding why some weirdo like me needs a breather. A break.

Have you ever tried to explain why you like the taste of bread? It's...good. And kind of salty but also sweet. And I like the texture...although breads have many different textures. I just like the taste of bread because I like it. Okay? That's why. And if that description inadequately explains why I like the taste of bread, then tough. Because it's about me liking the taste of bread. Not about you understanding my reason.

And the same goes for explaining the need for alone time. I'm not asking anyone to like it, I'm not asking anyone to appreciate it. I'm not asking anyone for anything. Except maybe respect. Respect the fact that, no matter how weird some people think it is, alone time is a very near reality for me. Without it, I'll go insane.

But, like I said...if I just had a mute button for life...

Put a Shirt On, Bitch.

If you didn’t already decipher from my previous super-sneaky post, I’m on match.com.

So far, my “matches” have consisted of:

One 26-year-old frat boy, stuck in the “good ole’ days.” His Elvis eyebrow seemed to move independently from his face and he randomly tucked his shirt into the front of his pants while sitting at the table. I may have easily misinterpreted that tuck as a junk adjust. Yum. And...

One 24 year-old “really nice guy.” And we all know what “really nice” means. Not dateable. He was about 20 pounds heavier in real life than he was in his pictures, which in itself isn’t a problem, but he smelled funny. He didn’t smell bad – it wasn’t BO or anything – but it was funny. Funky. Not right. As in, there’s-no-way-in-hell-I’d-get-naked-with-you, funky.

And Friday, my friends, Friday is another big day in the dating life of MAH. I am meeting a guy named “Frank.” I hope he doesn’t stank.

One of the main things Frank has going for him is that he's wearing a shirt on in all of his pictures. That’s right. A shirt.

Here are some statistics for you: my profile has been viewed 459 times (in four weeks). I have 75 “connections” in my inbox right now. This means I have about a 16% approval rate. Four out of 25 men that look at my profile decide to contact me. And I’ve been on two dates. This either means I’m a picky girl or that there are some major losers on match.com.

Losers without shirts on.

There are trends on match.com. In fact, anyone in need of some psychology or sociology material should seriously consider studying individuals who belong to an Internet dating web site. One (extremely popular) trend for men seems to be posing without a shirt. Or in a mirror. Or without a shirt, in a mirror.

Now, dear reader, think of how you would want to portray yourself to, say, 500 strangers over the course of one month. Business affiliates? Potential clients? Random people you meet on the street? The person you meet in a bar that you think is all that and more? Well, here’s an idea. Take your shirt off. Please. Expose both nipples, a white, under-toned chest, and a milky, jiggly middle. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. Where can I sign up for a date?

And if the shirtless chest isn’t enough, go ahead and pull a girl in the picture with you. A girl with big tits and a small tank-top…holding a red keg cup… with her eyes closed and her chin on your shoulder…two seconds away from laying a wet one on you. Damn. If I wasn’t on the list before, seriously, get my name down.

And if you have the shirtless chest and the titty girl, take both of them into the bathroom with a camera. Turn the flash on, push the clicker, and – ah ha! – a picture of you in a mirror, holding a camera, bare-chested, next to a titty girl. Simply irresistible.

So – back to Frank. Frank keeps his shirt on. And he has a dog named Nula that looks like a German Shepherd / Lab mix. Compared to the 458 other men that viewed my profile, Frank has a lot going for him. I mean shit, he could win a chance to date me. Lucky bastard.

You Go Gurt.

My day usually begins between the hours of 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. and it almost always starts with a bowl of Crispix floating in organic 1% milk. I'm not necessarily riding the organic train (mostly because I can't pay for it), but I've heard that the benefits of organic milk far outweigh the whoremoans of regular milk. So I drink it. Hopefully I'll avoid shrunken ovaries or cystic growths on my face.

Anyway, I love my Crispix in the mornings, but it doesn't "stick with me," as my dad says, so come 10:30 / 11:00 a.m. I'm looking for a little snackie. This usually involves a handful of office-provided Costco Trail Mix (also a favorite of mine), but today I actually planned ahead. When I went to retrieve my six ounce container of Nancy's Vanilla Yogurt from the refrigerator, I noticed that Mr. Honey Bear was staring me down. So I went ahead and picked him up, dropped a few streams of honey into Nancy, and stirred. The result? My new obsession.

Honey enhanced vanilla yogurt. Delish.

Thursday Morning at Work

Bartender, I know it's only 11:00 in the morning, but I'm going to need a stiff Tanqueray martini with four olives, hold the dirt, make it a triple. And actually, go ahead and just drop a Zanex in there. Thanks.

Top Five

My dear friend Holly (who I love...and who is brilliant) posted a note on my last blog entry that said this:

"This is the best title--save it for your memoir. ALSO. Please do the tacky top five survey I suggested. This is not an option. I want to hear your answers!"

After I almost peed my pants in sheer joy that someone was reading my blog and, there is a God, commenting on it, I realized I needed to honor her request. If you're like me and have ten minutes (or hours) to spare at your job, see below.

Top five things I can't live without, under five dollars:
1. Ziploc Baggies (both sandwich and freezer size)
2. Toothpaste
3. Badboy happy hour sushi roll from Umi
4. Game of pool at The Ballard Loft
5. Cat cookies (for humans) from Trader Joe's

Five songs always on REPEAT:
1. "Don't Stop Believin'," Journey
2. Anything by Sia
3. "We Belong," Pat Benatar
4. "Oh Sherrie," Steve Perry
5. Dirty Dancing Soundtrack

Five people who have influenced me in the best of ways:
1. Anne Coulter (because she represents everything I never want to be)
2. Conan O'Brien (because of his hair)
3. Rachel Ray (because I think she's a bitch)
4. Paris Hilton (because, sweet Peter, if she can get published, so can I)
5. Tracy Kidder (because he wrote the most influential book I've ever read)

Five moments that changed my life:
1. The moment I thought I might be allergic to gluten
2. Finding my Michael Kors purse in the clearance bin at Nordstrom
3. When he said, "no."
4. Walking out of Mars Hill during a sermon because Mark Drizzle is an unfortunate idiot
5. Discovering that shoes don't smell nearly as bad if I wear them with nylons instead of just barefoot

Five current obsessions:
1. Google
2. Umi Sushi
3. Not answering my phone
4. ABBA -- mama mia, how could I not have known how fabulous they are?
5. Jewish Seder dinner

Five places I would like to go:
1. Funkytown
2. The bathroom
3. Kerry Riley's closet
4. New York in the 80's.
5. The dance floor of Dancing With the Stars

Five foods/meals that make me melt:
1. #2 at the Bay Cafe
2. Anything with yeast and flour
3. Grilled cheese and tomato soup
4. Cheeseburger made with BBQ sauce, topped with bacon
5. McDonald's sausage McMuffin

Marsh and the Plastic God

I have a Great Aunt Martha. And with the words, “great aunt,” I’m killing two birds with one stone. She is a great, as in wonderful, aunt. But she’s also the sister of my dad’s mom – making her my Great Aunt. We call her Marsh. Marsh is independent, successful, intelligent. She was proposed to three times, by three different men, and she remains unmarried to this day. Independent woman? I think so.

Anyway, Marsh likes sending clipped out newspaper articles to my dad (her nephew). After all, she did help raise him. Her sister (my grandma) had three boys, and they knew Marsh almost as well as they knew their own mother. But I’m getting off track. Back to the newspaper articles. She’s sent them since I can remember. They are less frequent now, and the hand writing on the envelope has grown shakey and slanted, but bless her heart, she still sends them.

Growing up, we used to laugh when a letter came from Marsh. Besides the faithful birthday cards, the letters were almost always newspaper clippings of articles she thought my dad (and consequently, the rest of the family) should read. I remember my dad rolling his eyes at the articles, attributing this endearing habit to her “old age.” He would always read them, though. Always.

And now, years later, my dad is the silver haired fox that falls to the same demise. To his credit, he is slightly more sophisticated – I get hyperlinks to New York Times articles in e-mails from him with messages like, “READ AND BE AWARE. CREDIT CARDS ARE A GOOD THING IF YOU USE THEM…NOT IF THEY USE YOU! LOVE, DAD.” Don’t ask about the caps lock – he always e-mails that way.

My point is that we are all direct products of our environment. This whole introduction to the behavioral practices of my family is prefacing a commentary on the very credit card article my dad sent me. Generation one: snail mail. Generation two: e-mail. Generation three: blogert (my term for “blog alert,” a common phrase used between me and the one other person who reads my blog). Case and point. I guess you could say I’m prone twenty-two clipping newspaper articles. Lord help my unborn children.

If you want to read the whole article, and I really think you should, click here (and stop rolling your eyes).

But for now, I think you should read two particular paragraphs. In his article, “Credit Cards are Frothy, Not Bubbly,” Joe Nocera says,

“There are few consumer products that generate as much psychic conflict as credit cards. We love their ability to allow us to buy things on the spur of the moment, and we fear that same ability. We like knowing that we are carrying a $20,000 or $30,000 line of credit in our pockets – and we worry about the trouble such an unsecured limit can cause. Credit cards enable foolish impulse purchases, but they also make it possible to buy things on credit – furniture, television sets, refrigerators – that are absolute necessities. They help us get trhough crises, but they can also help create crises if we’re not careful.

Stuart Vyse, a psychology professor at Connecticut College and the author of a new book on the psychology of credit cards, said that ‘immediate choices are extremely powerful and difficult to resist’ and that credit cards play into that desire for immediate gratification. He believes that they have played a big role in the fact that the United States now has a negative savings rate.”

Two key phrases here: “absolute necessities” and “negative savings rate.”

I chortled a little when I read Mr. Nocera’s definition of absolute necessities. While I would agree with him that Americans believe they absolutely cannot live without the latest lounger, flat screen TV, and climate control refrigerator, I can’t help but think of the African Bushmen (naturally…ha). Normally, I wouldn’t jump to such an association, but considering I just watched an Anthony Bourdain special (where he consumed boar colon…yes… the colon… with African Bushmen), I couldn’t help but think about our gross misinterpretation of the words “absolute” and “necessity.”

Now obviously Mr. Nocera wasn’t talking about the Bushmen. I know that. The Bushmen don’t use credit cards and they certainly aren’t the intended readership target of the NY Times. Americans are. Particularly the middle to upper class Americans who can “afford” to buy furniture, television sets, and refrigerators. I’m not criticizing Mr. Nocera for writing an article appropriate for his audience. But the Bushmen are such a contrast to our “normal” culture that the comparison is kind of outrageously convenient. Think about it – the Bushmen eat the colon of the boar that they slaughtered out of necessity to eat while (and what) they can, while we carry around these plastic squares in our wallets so that we can buy things we really, definitely, absolutely, don’t need.

And I am completely guilty of it. I have the Blue Sky card from American Express. So not only do I get immediate gratification from my overt consumerism, but I also earn free miles, which equals free flights, which equals saving SO MUCH money on a $3,000 trip to Hawaii. I am so smart. I know. Those miles man, they’re saving me some serious moolah. Thank you oh-wonderful-god-of-square-plastic… you enrich my life so.

And this brings me to the (or should I say, my) negative saving rate. There are just so many good deals and so many “rewards” for buying things on credit that the interest rates and lack of savings just don’t really register on my scale of credit card happiness. Who needs a savings account when I can have the latest Bose Wave Radio? Who cares how much money I spend on eating and drinking out – it’s my social life! I’d rather have a social life than a savings account. And so the ball starts to roll, and we buy more stuff, consume more things, fill our houses, rent a storage stall, and all the while we’re happier, right? Especially when our credit card bill arrives at the end of the month and, sweet Moses, we’ve earned around 2,000 miles towards our next big vacation. The fact that my check is going to bounce? No biggie.

Light My Match

A few confessions from recent match.com subscribers:

• "The first two guys to 'wink' at me were named Mario and Luciano."

• "Prepare to start weeding out."

• "While I was perusing profiles, I came across some guy who actually said, 'I'm not against casual sex...' in his first paragraph."

• "If you can get past my 19 piercings, go ahead and e-mail me." Supposedly said by a man who had zero facial piercings.

• "There are no shortage of losers on match.com."

• "A 45-year-old man winked at me today." Said by at twenty-something gorgeous lady.

• "Who does he think he is?"

• "It's like real life. Think about it. I would consider dating one in maybe 100 men I come across in a day. I guess I can't complain until I've turned down 100 winks." To which I said, "that might give me seizure...all those winks in a row."