“Holy shit!”
“And then—then! Mr. Barge tells Gina to show us some of her scrapbooks, and very matter-of-factly, Gina pulls out photos of when she was a kid hanging out in the recording studio with the Jacksons—”
“As in Michael?”107 Angie’s always had a soft spot for Michael. She’s tried to turn her kids onto him, but they somehow can’t grasp that the creepy sunglass guy with the blanket-covered kids used to be the most beloved man on the planet.
(Sidebar: My theory is if you grew up in the eighties, there’re a couple of icons you just can’t help but love, no matter what stupid shit they pull. George Michael comes to mind. Have as many public bathroom trysts as you want, buddy! We’re still pulling for you. And I’ll always have a special place in my heart for Madonna because no one could ever be cooler than the girl writhing around in a slutty wedding dress singing Like a Virgin at the VMAs.)
“And Tito and Jermaine and Marlon and the other brother whose name I always forget. Is it Gary?”
“No, that’s where they’re from. Randy, maybe?”
“Yeah, that sounds right. But that’s not even the best part. Gina gets to a page that’s kind of a misty gray stage shot of some stadium filled with thousands of concertgoers. And she’s all ‘Oh, yeah, that’s the summer when Dad toured with the Rolling Stones.’”
“What?!” Her shriek practically pierces my eardrum.
“I guess their regular sax player couldn’t do the European leg of the tour, so they asked Mr. Barge. That’s when my head exploded all over her kitchen. I was all, ‘How is it that I never knew this stuff?’ And Gina just shrugged, like it was no big deal.”
“How long have you known each other?”
“About three years.”
“And you knew none of this.”
“Nada.”
Angie contemplates for a couple of seconds before she laughs. “Hey, you ever consider that maybe your takeaway from this project isn’t going to be that you need to learn what to say? Maybe what you need to figure out is how to listen.”
I’m spending the night away from home tomorrow for my big out-of-town dinner, and that entails luggage.
Used to be when I’d travel, I’d lose all ability to make wise packing choices because I’d get so freaked out about flying. I’d find myself standing in my closet in my nightgown at midnight, crying because I had to get up in four hours, and all I’d managed to stuff in my bag was a dated copy of US Weekly and my two rattiest pair of underpants.
But ever since last year’s tour and the twenty consecutive daily flights I had to take, it somehow got less scary. I still don’t love flying, but it no longer paralyzes me.108
I also took Stacey’s advice and contacted her friend the costume designer, and he whipped me up all kinds of adorable madras pants and shorts and skirts. The colors are all complementary, so I can grab any bottom to pair with any of my Lacoste shirts and V-neck sweaters and have a complete outfit. Essentially, my dream of adult Garanimals has come true, so packing was a breeze.
I manage to be so organized that I have my bags filled and ready by the front door at eight p.m., all without scrambling . . . or sweating . . . or crying.
I’m not sure if the fates are conspiring, or if maybe this is simply the result of having finally purchased a grown-up carry-on bag. Regardless, I’m able to relax and enjoy my evening stress-free.
But it’s really not stress-free.
Where’s that feeling of doom stemming from having packed nothing but three bags of Skittles and a girdle? What will it be like to go to the airport on no more than forty-five minutes of REM sleep?
Despite being completely ready, I feel out of sorts. I take a bath, but that doesn’t make a difference. I hug Maisy really hard. It helps a little. I take an Ambien. And that helps a little more. So I have a single glass of wine on top of it. And that helps a lot. Having achieved a state of perfect relaxation, I get into bed.
Okay, that’s a lie.
Instead, I log on to Twitter, where I am @AltgeldShrugged109 and, well . . . I’ll just let the following speak for itself:AltgeldShrugged—is so organized that I have time to drink a glass of wine, swallow an Ambien, and trot off to the Internet where I’ll dispense advice.
AltgeldShrugged—Not that anyone has asked, but I’m here at the ready, or at least until the pharmaceuticals toss my ass in bed.
AltgeldShrugged—which, letsh be honests, is rapidly approchaing.
AltgeldShrugged—I understand all the words in this tweet, but not their meaning. Am I in Cnn? Which this book? Am I the book cococachoo?
AltgeldShrugged—I bet Ashton Kutcher NEVER chases Ambien with wine and then runs to the computer because he’s all “professional” and shit. (He has people 4 that.)
AltgeldShrugged—Ashton’s curing malaria? With what? Eric Foreman’s dad’s Datsun? Dude and Sweet tattoos? A big bag of weed? So confused.
AltgeldShrugged—Ambien might have mentally just tossed my salad. WITH CROUTONS.
AltgeldShrugged—Purple monkey dishwasher.
AltgeldShrugged—I’d chose me, but only if I were Kelly Taylor and didn’t want to date old men.
AltgeldShrugged—Yous are lazy? Mine are always “blah blah blah business plans, blah, sustainable growth, and solid P&L.” My monkeys suck.
AltgeldShrugged—I would kill each and every one of you (well, not you jessedup) for a very small cheeseburger with a pickle and mustard on an itty-bitty bun.
AltgeldShrugged—I keeed! I keeed! I would only rob you for your wee, wee (but not pee-related) itty-bitty burgers.
AltgeldShrugged—I can stagger like a muthafuckin ninja. (Typed that wroed ninja weong but had the wherewithall the fix it.)
AltgeldShrugged—You say it like findifng my shoes (or my feet) is an option right now.
AltgeldShrugged—am getting al;l cookied up in honor o0f casey’s biethdyay. She likes it when I gets slurry.
AltgeldShrugged—FYI? THis? Right here? Is why I was so poipular in collage.
AltgeldShrugged—Having a relazed sense of moreal turpitude didn’t hurt either.
AltgeldShrugged—Mrs. Kutcher, you’re washing cars? Wowie, I guess the economy is hitting everyone harder than expected.
AltgeldShrugged—Yegatory.
AltgeldShrugged—Just lost a bunch of followers. But if they don’t like Sauvignon-Ambien Jen, why the fuck where they even hanging around?
AltgeldShrugged—I find college rewarding, too. All those little pictures sitcking on top of each toher.
AltgeldShrugged—No but last week I orderd $4k of bedroom furniture. They showe d up and I was all SURPRISE! Oh, wait.
AltgeldShrugged—Neither, you’ll end uip with three pole dancers name Tiffany shoing up at yoru place in twenrty minutes.
AltgeldShrugged—Pfft, not a rant. This is what I DO. Must remember to save this to end a chapter in some lateR book.110
AltgeldShrugged—And it’s floral. What’s supresad is i’ve had one wee ambien andone wee glass of wine. Fatasslightweight.
AltgeldShrugged—Glass emptyee pill digested, peanute btutter bpretzels, tastey, bednowyeskthxbai.
AltgeldShrugged—HEY YOU PEPIOLE ARE MOCKING ME . . .Not undesrrtverd, but still Mocking. I’ll go to bed & be unpleasantly surprised whenb I log on in the AM.
AltgeldShrugged—Internet = 1, Jen’s dumb ass = 0
D AltgeldShrugged—Godspeed, ninja. Am strealing that. Good night. Off to PotteryBarn.com . . .
The good news is there’s no evidence I did any online shopping last night.
The bad news is at some point after this dialogue, I had a run-in with a can of spray tan.
This is probably why I should never pack early.
To: angie_at_home, stacey_at_home, wendy_at_home, poppy_at_ home
From: jen_at_home
Subject: yet another Jen-point quiz
You are out of town at a business dinner with a bunch of book buyers from an important retailer. After you do an excellent job of regali
ng your companions with recitations on Chicago theater, Impressionist art, and the blues, you find yourself out of highbrow conversational material.
What do you do next?a. You thank everyone for a truly lovely evening, refuse the last glass of wine, and return to your hotel, savoring the victory of not having made an ass out of yourself.
b. You quietly smile and nod while other topics are being discussed, causing all diners to believe you’re wise and knowing and that you’re the kind of still water that runs deep.
c. You not only slug down the last glass of wine, but you insist the table order another bottle because you’re just warming up to launch into a fifteen-minute diatribe about how that screaming nancy-boy Adam Lambert massacred “Ring of Fire” last month on American Idol and how you hope that Johnny Cash returns from the grave to stomp all over his poseur ass.
d. You encourage, nay, insist the entire group drink the restaurant out of a particular vintage but then accidentally ruin the party atmosphere when casually recounting a conversation where someone told you Don Knotts was gay, which then makes everyone increasingly more shout-y as the table splits into two opposing teams hotly contesting the influence of a neckerchief on one’s sexuality.
e. Answers C and D.
I’m pretty sure I don’t have to explain the scoring key on this one.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Shear Jenius
“Tell me everything!”
“I don’t even know where to start,” I say. Stacey and I are seeing each other for the first time in six weeks. “Then again, nothing I’ve done was nearly as cool as what you were doing.”
Stacey and her friends are back from a three-week trip of a lifetime, going back and forth between an uncle’s villa in the south of France and Paris. Her days were filled with scouring local farmers’ markets and cooking gourmet meals with the ingredients, reading great books pool-side, walking all over Paris, and visiting churches and museums and other famous landmarks. Basically everything she did in France would have dovetailed perfectly into my Jenaissance, and it’s a shame she’s already plenty cultured. Then again, I wonder if I wouldn’t have spent the whole time eating at Mr. Donut and complaining about French toilet paper, like I did when I was sixteen.
Stacey sits back on the couch and crosses her arms. “You are a complete dork. I want to know what you’ve been up to, so start talking.”
I scrunch my eyes closed and try to think. “I can’t remember what I e-mailed you last. Did I tell you about the black tar heroin I bought in Chinatown?”
“You did. Ever find out what organic bird tongue was?”
I bob my head, causing an avalanche of all this stupid hair. Did I mention these extensions are making me mental? First, I had no clue how much upkeep they’d take. Every night when I sit down to watch television, I have to spend an hour separating them, or else they’ll turn into dreadlocks.130 I have to use special shampoo and only boar-bristle brushes because plastic ones would yank out the bonds. But I forgot one morning when I was on tour and accidentally pulled out four sections, thus giving myself a heart attack because I thought I was going instantaneously bald.
I left the pieces on the counter because I didn’t know if I should save them or what, and when I got back to my room, housekeeping was there. And the poor cleaning lady was all, “Does missus have the cancer?”
Now that I’ve got a couple of inches of growth between the glue and my scalp, the extensions are more like a whole headful of tiny bear traps. My hair’s kind of like a small utility belt and would come in handy if I wanted to, say, carry batteries or a small flashlight or something up there.
(Sidebar: On the bright side, my sunglasses always stay firmly in place.)
Every time I try to run my hands through my hair, my fingers get tangled up. I spent fifteen minutes in Target last week trying to extricate my bracelets from my ponytail. Mortifying.
I never realized walking around with an extra head’s worth of hair would be the equivalent of wearing a woolly cap all the time. I’m constantly sweating, and I’ve taken to carrying napkins so I can blot my face whenever needed. Which is often. Somewhere there’s a Hindi chick with a sleek, sassy bob who’s thanking Shiva daily that she’s rid of all this foolishness.
Personally, I’d take every bit of it out myself right now, except I’ll be damned if all the big hair doesn’t make me look almost exactly like I did in college.
“Bird tongue is definitely a leaf, not a drug.” I slip a pencil out of my purse and surreptitiously begin to scratch. Did I mention the itching? Oh, yeah, there’s itching. So much itching, I want to tear my scalp off. “I did some research on bird tongue and supposedly it’s all fancy and gourmet, but the tea it makes isn’t anything spectacular. I thought it might give me super strongs or be like an organic amphetamine or something, but pretty much it’s just green tea. Maybe it’s making my immune system all tough, but in terms of flavor, eh. I’d rather have the hundred and eighty bucks.”
“At least you got a great story out of the experience.”
“No, pretty much I just confirmed how much more work I need to do on myself.”
Stacey pulls a face. “Well, I strongly disagree, but what else?”
I got done with my tour two weeks ago, but it feels like forever. “Um, oh! Check this out—I’m in Los Angeles—”
“After San Francisco?”
Scratch, scratch, scratch. I dig deeper with the pencil, and I think I feel the lead break my skin. That can’t be good. Maybe I should have used the eraser side?
“Right. I’m in LA and I’m in this car driven by a complete maniac. Traffic was brutal, so my schedule was beyond tight. To make up for it, my driver, Richard Fucking Petty, was taking shortcuts, like, on the sidewalk, no joke. Thank God no one walks there, or we’d have left a trail of bodies in our wake. I was in such a state of terror every hair on my arms was standing up. I kept demanding he slow down and he was all ‘You want to be on time or not?’ ”
“Nice. ‘Would you like to die a horrible death on this canyon curve or would you prefer to be ten minutes late? ’Cause I’m cool either way.’ ”
“Exactly. We finally get to a street where the traffic’s at a crawl, and I’m all ‘Whew! Not dead!’ And we were out of the canyon, where there’s spotty cell reception, so I wanted to call Fletch and see how he was doing. While I’m talking to him, I see something out of the corner of my eye. There’s some idiot in traffic next to me, and he’s waving his arms wildly and shouting to a bunch of people eating out on the sidewalk. Plus, he’s this huge guy in a tiny convertible. Like, he could never put the top up because he was too big. Seriously, he was like a monkey driving a Matchbox on YouTube or something. All he needed was a fez. I tell Fletch about it and I’m all ‘What’s with that asshole?’ ”
Stacey grits her teeth. “I hate Los Angeles. Every time I go there, I hope it’ll be the last time.”
“Yeah, I’ve been saying it should just break off into the sea for years.131 I just don’t get that place. I mean, the weather’s beautiful, but I would never, ever put up with the hassle of trying to get from point A to point B. It’s as crowded as New York, but lacks New York’s panache. Like, New York is elbow to elbow but it’s because the city’s so filled with exciting stuff. All I saw in LA was tattoo parlors, cosmetic surgeons, and strip malls. Also, everyone wearing Ed Hardy? No.” I feel claustrophobic 132 just thinking about LA and that makes me itchy again. I put my pencil back to work. “Anyway, we drive past the arm-waggling jackass, and I turn around because I want to see what kind of mutant he is.”
“What was wrong with him?”
“What was wrong with him was that he was Vince Vaughn.” Stacey’s eyes widen. “And,poof!Just like that the crush I’ve had on him since Swingers vanished. The way he was carrying on in that car was like he really believed he was money, and it was gross. But it’s fine because I’ve totally already transferred my crush to Denis Leary.”
“He is a beautiful man. People don’t
always see that because he’s so damn funny. Also, he’s really tall!” Stacey worked as a roadie back in college 133 and met him a few times. “What else is going on?”
“Oh, you know how I wrote a lot about my college roommate Joanna in Pretty in Plaid?”
Joanna and I were BFF until she graduated and moved home to Chicago. We never fought or had any kind of falling-out, except for that one time when we were freshmen and I was stupid134 and decided to divide the room in half with a giant piece of duct tape like on some sixties sitcom. Otherwise, we were more like sisters than friends. Over time, though, our lives led us in different directions, and we lost touch. I hadn’t even talked to her for about twelve years; then a few months ago, I found her on Facebook and we reconnected.
“I’m at my Chicago signing, reading a piece about her, and way at the back of the crowd, I see a hand go up. And the person says, ‘I’m Joanna, and I just want to say how proud I am of you.’ Honest to God, that was the very best moment of the whole tour.”135
My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover Page 11