The Advantages of Having a Gay Boyfriend

1. Buff, Hot, Studly Arm Candy (who doesn't have ulterior motives when dining with you)

2. Access to Fabulous Beauty Products (Sisleya eye cream at $150 .5 oz--no wonder he doesn't have crow's feet.)

3. Someone who tells you that you are BEAUTIFUL, THIN AND SEXY. (and you believe him, because he doesn't want to get in your pants)

4. Excellent advice on clothing choices and exquisite taste (especially when buying you earrings). 

5. Truthfulness--to a point (When asking whether your butt looks fat in those jeans, instead of lying and saying NO, he will find the perfect pair of jeans to showcase your figure)

6. Great hugs (without the worry that it will turn him on)

7. Did I mention the part about not wanting to get in your pants??

Dedicated to Ronnie--my BGBFF

World's Worst Bowler

My friend Marianne invited me to the Elwyn Bowling Fundraiser. I actually gafawwed in her face protesting, I am the world's worst bowler.  Marianne is a good to great bowler and plays on a league every Thursday. Later that day, I start to feel guilty. For once, I have no plans on Friday night. My kids have a reprieve from their various sports and have plans that DON'T include me. Marianne always asks me to go out and I'm always too busy. Also the fundraiser is for a good cause--Elwyn Institute helps special needs children and adults. I recant and she promises me it will be fun. (They have a bar after all). 

We arrive and claim our own lane. This is important, since I do not want to be on a 'team'. I have issues stemming from childhood traumas of always being the LAST kid chosen for the team sport. I claim a pink bowling ball to match my sweater. Fashion is important if talent is lacking. Marianne has her own ball, custom-made for her barbie doll figure. I need a beer before proceeding further. 

My first round isn't so horrible--74. I'm ecstatic. Maybe I'm not the worst bowler in the history of bowling. Marianne bowls 158 and is disappointed. On either side of us, serious bowlers effortlessly bowl one strike after another. My game quickly goes downhill. Game two--54. Marianne tries to give me pointers. Don't let your arm cross your body. Remember to follow through. Don't rush it. You are RUSHING it. Aim just off the center. I can usually follow her advice for one round and then immediately revert back to my favorite shot--the gutter ball. 

You lack consistency and follow-through. This seems somewhat prophetic and applicable to the rest of my life. 

There is a D.J., who is playing GOOD danceable music--although I feel a bit silly dancing in my bowling lane, only to throw a gutter ball. After my third game in the 50's, I need another beer. My fatalistic defeatist attitude proves to be my undoing. The first 10 gutter balls are funny. After that, it's not so funny. Just when I think my score can't get any lower, I bowl a 41. 

The D.J. doesn't believe that I bowled a 41.  In fact, he has to come over and look at the scoreboard. He tells me that he never heard of a score that low. Next thing I know, I'm honored with the WORST BOWLER AWARD. This is quite an achievement. The blow to my ego is somewhat softened when I look at my prize--1 hour full body massage. (thankfully it's not with the D.J.) 

Funny moment of the evening--while preparing for her shot, Marianne's  ball flies out of her hand, propelled backwards, nearly missing my head and landing with a loud thump. 

My love affair with PECO

Portrait of my house during the power outage. 

Like 200,000 other unhappy souls, I lost power during the blizzard of 2010. Unlike most of you, I do not have modern conveniences such as public water or a gas generator. So when my house loses power, there is no electricity to run the well's pump. Thus, no flushing toilets. (lack of heat and hot water seems minor compared to the toilet problem)

When the kids were little and we lost power, I told them that it would be just like camping. Whenever they needed to go...they could dig a hole in the backyard. The fence gave them a modicum of privacy and protected them from the neighborhood wild animals. After such fun adventures, I'm surprised neither of them likes camping. 

Back to the present. Over the past three days, I've become quite intimate with PECO. In case you aren't familiar with PECO, it stands for: 

P hiladelphia

E rroneous

C ommunication

O peration

One of the best things about calling PECO is that you never have to speak to a live person. When you call in, a warm friendly voice (which I've nicknamed the PECO princess) informs you that PECO is working hard to actively ascertain the cause of your outage. I'm thinking--that is great news! They are working to correct my problem. After the first fifty calls, that voice doesn't seem quite as warm or friendly. In fact, I think she is mocking me. How long can it possibly take to ascertain the cause and get to the fixing part? 

The deceptive princess also apologizes for your inconvenience. Inconvenience? My house is a balmy 40 degrees. Icicles dangle from the cats' whiskers. I haven't showered in 2 days. 

If you key in your phone number, the princess will let you how many other lucky folks are also out of power. Then if you are REALLY lucky, she will tell you when your power will be restored. Unfortunately this changes by the minute. I know, because I became a bit obsessive and start calling her every five minutes. She thanks me for my patience and understanding. Now I KNOW she's mocking me. 

For security purposes, we will only reveal the first 3 digits of your house number.  This seems a bit silly. Do criminals really tap into PECO phone lines to get the scoop on who is out of power, so they can rob them?  

Based on our crews working overtime, we estimate your power will be restored on February 11th at 11:59pm. I'm simultaneously outraged and impressed. It takes them 2 days to ascertain the problem, but then they can predict the exact minute of power restoration?

We have deployed extra crews and have restored power to 195, 000 people in your area. It would impress me more if they could restore it to the rest of us. 

Over the next few days, the PECO princess gets vindictive. Not only does she change her mind about the date/time of my power restoration, she takes to calling me in the middle of the night to tease me. At 4:41 am, she says, We've restored power to many homes in your area.  I'm awake and excited. I rush home only to find that she LIED. This happens two nights in a row. You can't hang up on the princess, because she will call you back, again and again. 

Lest you think that my children unduly suffered, worry not. At the first sign of snow with potential school closings, they high-tailed it to friends' houses. Friends' houses that do not lose power in storms. Ian was where Ian always is during crises. NOT IN TOWN. 

At 2pm today, power is restored and I'm planning my revenge on the PECO princess

Texting Etiquette

I received the following text yesterday at 5:46pm. 

Still @ airport. Weather is bad. Plane got hit by lightning on way to Dallas. Mntc is checking plane out now. Conf call cancelled for tom. 

I text back at 6:02pm. Can you call me?

No response….for hours. Now, I don’t know about you, but that text is like having a bomb drop. What does this mean? I’m pretty sure it means that he WASN’T on the plane that got hit by lightning. I’m pretty sure it means that he WASN’T hit by lightning. I’m pretty sure that maintenance wouldn’t let a FRIED plane fly. What I don’t know is if he’s on a plane at all or even coming home at all.

I try not to panic. I’m in upstate New York for my exhibit. The kids have already been staying with friends for 2 days. If the plane doesn’t fly, I have no alternate back-up plans for the children. Nor do I have a way to reach them, since they never answer their cell phones. (They always seem to be texting when I’m with them. When I need to reach them, it always goes to voicemail. Hmmm)

After 2 hours, I have convinced myself that he’s already DEAD. The plane must have crashed. There is no other logical explanation on why he has NOT called or texted. I have a new dilemma. How do I get home from upstate New York? It’s snowing. I have a rental car. Will the grief-stricken widow be in any shape to drive 6 hours through the arctic wilderness wasteland of north middle Pennsylvania?

This brings me back to the subject of my rant. Texting etiquette. There should be a law that prohibits invoking mass hysteria over a simple grammatically incorrect message. One should not be able to say—Hey, I might die ton. and then not follow-up with a courtesy text.   R u ded? K im ded.

While I’m ranting on texting and cell phone etiquette, I might as well say that I HATE when people call and don’t leave a message. When I ask ‘said’ people why they don’t leave messages, they respond well, you can see I called on the missed call log and then call me back. If they left a message in the first place, I wouldn’t have to CALL them back.

While at a meeting the other day, my boss says that there is a study(click to read story on CNN), published in he U.K.  which scientifically proves emailing causes one’s I.Q. to drop.  In fact, the I.Q. loss is equivalent to that of smoking pot, but without the high. This is alarming. I can’t afford to lose anymore I.Q. numbers. I’ve already killed too many brain cells and suffer from C.R.S. I’m sure that texting also contributes to this fatal, incurable disease. In case you don’t know about this disease, it stands for CAN’T REMEMBER S..T.  

What was I saying?

The Jury Lounge a.k.a. Purgatory

In theory, I love the IDEA of civic duty. Serving justice--Life without parole for the child molester or bleeding the insurance company for wrongly denying all those terminal children's bone marrow transplant claims. 

In REALITY, I panic whenever I receive a jury summons and do whatever is necessary to get out of it. WHOWILLTAKECAREOFTHECHILDRENWHENI'MSEQUESTERED?WHOWILLTEACHMYCLASSES?WILLISTILLGETPAID?OHMYGOSHINEEDTOINSTALLMYEXHIBITNEXTWEEKINNEWYORK.WILLTHEJUDGELETMEOFFFOR UNDUEHARDSHIP?

After 6 undue hardship excusals, I figure my grace period is over. I wonder what to wear and what to say that will make me an undesirable candidate. If I appear as the paradox that I am—the Christian liberal artist professor—does that make me ideal or undesirable? I briefly debated bringing Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow and my BIBLE—that would really confuse them. Opted for the laptop and two lighter texts--both figuratively and literally. 

I decided to wear a shirt screen-printed with barbed wire (courtesy of Alison Pierz Designs--Crown of Thorns attire). An apt metaphor for the day of collective confinement. 

Waiting in the line at the security checkpoint, a guy in a business suit tells me that if you get on a federal case, you will be stuck for 6 months or more. That is not what I want to hear right now. He has an official law enforcement badge and is sent in immediately. He gets picked in the first round for the civil trial. 

The jury lounge. Lounge conjures up an image of ambient lighting, glistening cocktails and comfy sofas. This *lounge* consists of an overcrowded, airless room of 300+ people all hoping to not be chosen. Padded chairs are crammed so close together that I am touching elbows with the men on either side of me. If I lean back, my head will rest in someone’s lap. The guy on my left with bloodshot eyes ( Elliott, age 27) has been summoned 5x, but has never been chosen. He is hoping for early dismissal so that he can have a few beers, a burger and a nap, courtesy of his employer. The man on my right offers me some Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies. I see an elderly man with a spongebob squarepants baseball cap, texting on his blackberry. 

The judge tried to convince us that collectively we have THOUSANDS OF YEARS of  wisdom, common sense, integrity and an ethical sense of justice. It's a bit of a stretch. 

The jury lounge is actually what Dante referred to as PURGATORY. 

It is an in-between place of waiting. IN LIMBO. It seems eternal. Does one proceed into Hell or receive a pardon from the big boss? Unlike purgatory, reprieve is only valid for 1 year and 1 day and then your number is up....again. 

A major shout-out to the guy who plead guilty, so I didn't have to progress to the next round. 

Purgatory according to Dante:

A Merry Sedaris Christmas

This summer I went on a David Sedaris binge. I read all of his books including

SantaLand Diaries, where Sedaris recounts his job as a 30 year-old elf in Santa Land at Macy's, New York.  The book's cover featured Santa at the men's urinal. I wonder if Santa sued Sedaris for this unflattering image? The original 1997 Holidays on Ice book featured a frosted highball glass. The newest version from 2008, repackages the same stories from the previous decade, as well as a few new stories. The cover shows an elf-like figurine who has fallen through the ice. While one could make a case for irreverence, it doesn't send the same message as the high ball glass. I personally like the urinal image the best. 

Since I believe in spreading Christmas cheer, I have purchased this book for some family members who need a good laugh. Not everyone can appreciate Sedaris' dark humor. Dinah, the Christmas Whore sends a strong Christian Good Samaritan message if one can read between the lines.  Season's Greetings is the most outrageous satire of Christmas family newsletters that I've ever read. My ribs hurt for days from excessive laughing. 

One of my favorite stories is not included in this book. Sedaris describes his struggle with finding the perfect Christmas gift for his partner Hugh (who he lives with in Paris).  The perfect gift turns out to be a skeleton! Hugh, who is thrilled with this gift, decides that it should be hung in the bedroom. Sedaris laments about having to see the skeleton every morning upon wakening. I wish someone would give me a skeleton for Christmas. 

In the new edition of Holidays on Ice are a few stories that I haven't read like Jesus Shaves and Six to Eight Black Men. Is it really tacky to give the relatives a slightly USED book? 

Confessions of a Cruiseaphobe

This was last year's Christmas letter. Since it was pre-blog, I've had a few requests to resurrect it for the archive. That's what writers and artists do, right? They rehash, recirculate, recycle, regenerate--in an effort to maximize distribution and efficiency. 

I know this isn’t the traditional x-mas newsletter. But if you got one of those from me, you would know that I had been abducted by aliens and Ian would have gotten his dream Stepford wife. No, the above picture is not from the cruise, which will be the topic of this slightly irreverent rant. I am smiling, because the dolphins just goosed me and I’m a bit terrified.

 Confession #1: Cruises resemble Hell much more than the utopic Shangri-la promised by Royal Caribbean.

 Observations or Reasons to Support Confession #1: Seasickness, Seasickness, Seasickness—I assumed since I spend my entire summers on boats, that I would never succumb to sea sickness. My friends all said—the ships are so large, you don’t even feel the sea. Well, I didn’t need to feel it. All I had to do was look at it and it was nausea-city. I felt like the chick in Hitchcock’s Vertigo. (Hint—mass quantities of Dramamine and alcohol are not a good mix)

 Observation #2: Spring Break mentality is unattractive in people over 40. Hey—I like to party just as much as anyone else, only not for 16 straight hours. People start drinking various rum-infused concoctions at 10am, continuing for the entire day/night. Inebriation tends to dull one’s sense of hearing, as well as one’s sense of propriety. Thus, no one is aware of their deficiency in social filters. 

 Observation #3: Cruises are license for gluttony. Now I’m sure this is obvious, but I had never witnessed this type of over-consumption. Imagine hundreds of people piling their plates with fat-laden foods—super size me doesn’t even begin to compare. I might be the only person in history who lost weight on a cruise. 

Confession #2: I admit to being a closet spa slut. Immediately upon boarding, I take a spa tour and am recruited to be the spa model. I agreed without ever asking what I had to do. All I cared about was getting the free spa services. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the massage spa model. I was the model for a European torture treatment (probably designed by some masochistic male). I had to lie on a table in the LOBBY of the spa with red algae on my thighs, stomach and hips, covered in clay mud and attached to electronic stem therapy for 1.5 hours, while patrons toured the spa, poking and prodding me. (Apparently, they thought I was a manikin, since no LIVE, SANE person would do something so embarrassing). In case you haven’t had the luxury of electric stem therapy, it feels like thousands of needles pricking you all at once. The benefits of such torture??? Detoxification and slimming—3-8 inches in one treatment. Unfortunately, the technician forgot to measure me before my treatment, so no proof exists of my suffering or ultimate improvement.

 Confession #3: I’m allergic to the ocean. All of you who know me, realize that every time I enter the ocean, I am stung by jellyfish, Portuguese manowar, etc… So in Cozumel, I grill the tour guide, who assures me that in October, there are NO jellyfish, sea lice or anything, which could possibly sting me. While snorkeling, I try to ignore the stings that I’m feeling over my entire body. It must be a figment of my overactive imagination. Upon exiting the ocean, the dive guide suggests that I have an extra drink. I’m ecstatic. No signs of stings—until the next morning. My entire body is covered in large, red, oozing blisters—which resemble a bad case of leprosy. Given my vast medical training, I deduce that I’m allergic to particles of coral and sea anemones, which freely float in the water by the reefs. (Hint—large quantities of Dramamine, benedryl, cortozone and alcohol don’t mix)

 Confession #4: I feel ever-so guilty about admitting my cruise abhorrence. After all, who can complain about an all-expense paid trip to the Caribbean during the middle of my work semester?

 Counter argument or the positive outlook: At least we didn’t spend our own money to experience the cruise phenomena. It was warm. Obama won and the cruise ship showed the election coverage. I have really good stories to share.

 Memorable Moments: One of the dinner waiters from Goa, India. “Madam, it is a fish, it is supposed to taste fishy.”

 (In the Jacuzzi with 8 other people, all strangers.) 3 very large men from Kentucky talking about incest and sex with their sisters. I am so not making this up. That was my one and only dip in the Jacuzzi.

 Sneaking into the Ritz Carlton’s pool in Grand Cayman. (The cruise ship’s supposed 5 star resort excursion was a dive motel with 2 outdoor showers to be shared by 200 people)

 The champagne bar on the ship. A glass of Veuve Cliquot can make almost any situation bearable.

 This is getting too long. I hope you had a good chuckle at my expense. Laughter is the best stress remedy. Keep it real and keep the focus on t he reason for the season.

 Wishing you a blessed holiday season.

Love,

Colette

p.s. Ian and I usually disagree on most things—politics, child raising, movies, art, etc…

we both agreed that this will be our first and last cruise.