Bitching

In her review of Elizabeth Gilbert's recent marriage memoir/ethnography, Committed, Ariel Levy quips that "one generally doesn’t indulge another person’s emotional processing at this length unless the jabbering is likely to conclude with sex."

Well put.

And, with a few minor alterations, it pretty much sums up my current feelings toward all conversations with pet owners. Specifically, except in the early phases of infatuation during which everything about you is adorable, I don't care about your pet. I don't. I totally believe that your animal is soulful, hilarious, endearing, and brilliant--I bet I'd even like him/her/it in person--but your furry anecdotes aren't making your case. Unless I am so smitten that I've twisted your boyhood love of your dog/cat/fish into evidence that you are capable of such depth of feeling for me, this conversation is boring.

I'm not sure why pets make such uniquely dull conversation, but they really do, and I wish Vogue's Jeffrey Steingarten would stop spending his glossy pages covering the antics of "Sky King," his Manhattanite Golden Retriever. A few months ago, Sky King was featured prominently in a column ostensibly about living on take out. In the April issue, we're treated to Sky King's encounter with stevia, an up-and-coming artificial sweetener. While I haven't read Steingarten's culinary self-portrait, It Must Have Been Something I Ate, the NYT review assures me that Sky King plays an important role here, too. It's boring, it's grating, and I wish he'd ditch the dog tales. His elementary school experience, his wife, his apartment--I have an endless appetite for the details of other people's personal lives. But not their pets.

Appropriate Apparel

Because it is officially spring, and because it is almost-almost warm enough to legitimately do so, I'm wearing a sundress today. It seems to be attracting a lot of male attention. I wish I could revel in this, feeling either attractive and desirable or offended and self-righteous. Instead, I can't shake the certainty that they're all thinking, "that's a little summer-y for mid-April."

I was wrong

Okay okay okay. I liked holding the contrarian view that 30 Rock isn't actually that good, but after 13 episodes in two days, I concede. 30 Rock is great. And like everyone else, I think I'd be really great friends with Liz Lemon, too.

Bucket List

After watching a lot of romantic comedies and relationship-centric serial dramadies, I can only say that I really hope at some point I am meaningfully trapped in an elevator with a Very Meaningful Person.

Blech

Either it's Emily Gould's confessional influence talking, or the fact that I'm in this city virtually alone, and since "breaking up," I have no one to share such musings with (pathetic pathetic pathetic), but I'm gonna say it:

Last night, at age 24, I threw up from drinking for the first time. I'd had, over the course of maybe 5 hours, 3 drinks. I'd also eaten virtually nothing and cried a lot. This is perhaps also pathetic, but as the vomit was real, the milestone has been achieved.

Mistakes Were Made

I tried really hard to believe that dating someone who loves Funny Ha Ha was a good idea. I mean, you can't judge based on shallow and arbitrary taste-criteria, can you?


Maybe I should have.

three...two...one...

As I contemplate the changing of the years, it is hard not to be overcome with regrets of 2009, soon to be cemented in history. I tell myself: the "year" is an arbitrary demarcation of time. The discontinuity between 12/31 and 1/1 is totally illusory. Right? Yes. Yes.

And then I realized: THIS is why people drink on New Year's Eve.