Humbling Moment

Getting Pedis with my sister this morning, the nail girl commented how I was helping my sister with her cover letter.

She asked me what I did and I told her about my work in advertising. She tells me about her Art work, and asks if I would like to see it.

Flipping through the pages, I see her resume. 2 MFAs.

I'm humbled not because she had 2 MFAs but because I was suprised that she had them. It's good to be knocked off your perch once and a while.

My clown car apt

The threesome reunites the second weekend of March, and in our excitement, we think its a great idea to extend an invite to the Mardi Gras group in DC and New England to come and join us for drinks that Sat. night.

Countless times someone sends out an invite, and countless times almost everyone refuses.

Except this time.

10 people may be sleeping in my NYC apt...3 women (not including myself) sharing my full size bed...possibly more. And the hotel down my block is booked. Mardi Gras repeat! Who wants to sleep in the bathtub??

John has no idea.

Guys, I think a stripper and a keg is in order, don't you?

Happiness

I am 24 yrs old and I still get excited about turning my apartment into a MoHo youth hostel, complete with sharing my full size bed with two other women.

Truth be told, I actually prefer to sleep sandwiched between my favorite friends.

But I question, at what age will this stop? Because I have long term fears that I will kick out my S.O out of our bed, make him sleep with the Newfoundland in the kitchen, as I share my bed with my MoHos. Maybe that is why I am in charge of finding the spinster farm.

Dinner at a chi chi restaurant, fuck thinking of it, I need to book the reservations now. Bliss facials, pussy waxing, and tickets to Avenue Q. Calling the mentors for champagne and caviar Fridays, and getting in touch with old NYC friends who’ve I ignored since winter began.

And thanks Professor T for agreeing to “gladly” write my recommendation for grad schools. I am working on my personal statement tonight!

Fitness goal: Fit into hot black dress for dinner at Daniel to compliment my $550+ Casadei 6'' stilletto shoes. I knew they would come in handy for something...maybe to pick up a CEO at the bar?

Bizarrely Enough

I don’t know what the fuck happened in the last week. Magically, I stopped crying at my desk and found that work could be somewhat enjoyable. One week after that revelation and my first full week without crying, John tells me that he is ready to move out and asked if I would support his decision to find a new roommate. Fuck, even the hard-assed landlord agreed and even sounded relived at a living situation without my gay husband. She traded in conversations of legality for, parental probing, empathizing with me that living with him must have been a difficult feat. And I didn’t even tell her about the barrage of Latin men in their early 20’s coming in and out of the apartment at dawn, leaving their nightly fuck only to be replaced in a few hours with the guy who gives morning head.

But confronted with all of those problems, the issue wasn’t necessarily about the shit that all piled on top of each other. Nor the seasonal depression that took such hold of my psyche that I felt betrayed by my emotions. Or the nights drinking to find some sort of escape from the anxieties that resulted from the “real world”: work stress, relationship stress, grad apps stress.

Although my nuttiness is a yearly occurrence, this year was particularly bad as the triumvirate was in a bad place at the same time. Our collective strength diminished, each one of us in the final stage of paralysis, where it hits, holy shit what the fuck have I gotten myself into? Or in my case, why the hell did I open my big mouth and tell Professors what I really thought of them in college? Of course they talk. Hence, I’m slightly fucked for reccs at the moment, trying not to think about what they would say if they didn’t sugar coat my letter of reference.

“Shannon is obviously really smart and it showed, when she applied herself. However, since she came to a weekly class drunk on several occasions, led the class in a quasi-coup d’tat against me, and made it oh so obvious that she cut my class when her Frisbee hit the window as she played on the green, I am having difficulty making a judgment on her maturity. She is a great manipulator with her charm, wit, and low cut shirts but, much like being with a whore, only when she leaves and you are no longer caught in the moment do you see through her lame charade.”

For the last two months, as the triumvirate goes through hell at the same time, neither one of us wanted to call upon its power, knowing when you are barely scraping by do you want to hear that those you love most are about to taste their own rock bottom. I retreated inward, barely leaving my apartment except when the out of towners were visiting, tried to find solace in something but not quite achieving it, and trying to keep perspective with the cursed Woody Allen humor that plagues my people. But for some reason, things are getting better. John is moving out and grad apps will be sent out (whether I get in is another topic). Or it could also be the unusually warm weather, the sun, and counting down the days when I can once again rollerblade on the Hudson.

Please tell me if you know of anyone looking for an apt until the end of July.

A Clean Bill of Health

The only disease I have is hypochondria.

I am healthy.

A tiny cyst sits on my ovary, not the tumor that I thought or Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrom.

I was so happy to find out that I am healthy I told the doctor that I wanted to give him a hug.

"Not when you're naked from the waist down." Good point.

And I am STD Free too.

And it is not too late to apply to Oxford, the professor responded to my inquiry.

And I havent cried at work all week! Score!

Of course I am celebrating with boozing and smoking ciggs.

More to learn about me

Two Names You Go By:
1. Shannon
2. Shan-own!

Two Parts of Your Heritage:
1. Jewish (mom's side)
2. WASP (dad's side)--and we question why I am so fucking neurotic. One side represses while the other dramatizes

2 Things That Scare You:
1. Grad school apps
2. Failing at living an interesting life


Two of Your Everyday Essentials
1. Cell Phone (mine is bedazzled)
2. Wallet

Two things that you are wearing right now
1. Terry cloth sweat pants
2. V-neck t-shir

Two of Your Favorite Bands or Musical Artists:
1. Dave Matthews (YEA JAZZ FEST!)
2. The Shins


Two Things You Want in a Relationship:
1. A man taller than me
2. A man who knows where my clitoris is

Two Physical Things that Appeal to You About the opposite Sex:
1. Shoulders (I am such a sucker for broad men--tough to find broad Jewish boys)
2. Hair (I have a thing for tugging at it)

Two of Your Favorite Hobbies:
1. Writing
2. Drinking

Two Things You Want Really Badly:
1. To become famous for a non-criminal reason
2. My missing books from college

Two Places You Want to go on Vacation:
1. Backpack SE Asia
2. Mustique (thanks Corinne, I am fucking obsessed now)

Two Things You Want to Do Before You Die:
1. Get a PhD
2. Be a mommy

Two Things You Are Thinking About Now:
1. Sex
2. I think I am getting sick

Two Stores You Shop At:
1. Banana
2. Barnes and Noble

Two of the websites you visit a lot:
1. Blogger (fine, I know not lately)
2. Yahoo mail

Two pets you owned:
1. Rocky the Husky
2. Fred the fish

Two Favorite Sports (to play)
1. Field Hockey
2. Football (hey, I grew up with 2 brothers close in age)

Two things you did last nite:
1. Ate Sushi by myself
2. Called my mom (YEA for Valentine's Day!!)

Two shows you like to watch currently:
1. South Park
2. Chappelle's Show

Yea, I know...I just cant sleep

More fuel to the flame

I go back to the doctor tomorrow for more tests because he suspects something is wrong. Exactly the sort of thing that my hypochondriac self freaks out about; hint that something may be wrong and I only hear the worst case scenarios.

“Difficulty having children”

“Increased risk of diabetes and ovarian cancer”

These are the sort of things that could happen when your hormones are out of whack, when there could be too much testosterone in your body. Well, if it’s true, certainly explains why I am the toast of the gay clubs in NYC.

And explains why I carry weight like a frat boy. And my dad thought I drank too much beer.

There are no worse words for a hypochondriac to hear: “We need to run more tests” because, no matter how benign the problem may be, you start to imagine cancer, AIDS, Ebola, and any other disease that has been in the press in the last 10 years.

This has been a problem ever since I was young. 7 yrs old, I watched news programs about asbestos caused lung cancer and I thought my allergies were signs I was dying of mesothelioma. Health class in seventh grade, I spent an entire semester developing psychosomatic symptoms asking my mom to inspect every lump, mole, and asked her opinion whether I bruised too easily and if that meant leukemia. It only intensified when I went off to college: stress of trying to keep up the charade that I am intelligent, post drinking depression, and the 5 phone calls a day to my mom not able to quell my anxiety over whether I was dying.

So, in addition to grad apps, bad dates, a possibly cancelled Europe trip, and seasonal affective disorder, there may be something fucked up with me.

I give up, fuck reality. I knew I made a terrible grown up.

3 Lessons

As my life spins more and more out of control, and I am collecting all of the life lessons I’ve learned, so that they will serve as a reminder of how exactly I fucked up my 20’s. The three from this weekend:

#1 Do not get drunk and then go to the salon for highlights.

It was 7 nations, the big European thingy for rugby. Granted I am not into the sport that much, but let’s keep in mind I have a small British fetish and I’ve appropriated a cool Welsh friend from one of my MoHos. He schools me in all things UK, including waking up at 9am to cheer on the Welsh team when they went against England. Loving sleep and being chronically late, I missed the game and joined him and his Union Jack friends mid-drunkenness at 1pm.

Of course my desire to drink diet coke and to continue the 12 hours of sobriety that I’d accumulated went out the window with his confusion of my ordering of diet Coke with Rum and Coke. He understood the word Harp well enough. As we know, usually I am very good at scheduling responsibility far away from my bouts of inebriation however, my colorist was going on vacation for three weeks and my signature artificial red hair began to look natural. Left with the only option of a 4:30 Saturday afternoon hair appt. I was left with no choice but to take the it and commit myself to sobriety. But let's be real. My resolve to say no to peer pressure went out the window with the first beer he bought for me at 1pm.

And with the first sip touching my lips as I hung out with a bunch of Cambridge boys, the afternoon was marked.

After drinking for 3.5 hours, I hop into a cab cross town, running late for the appt. I am inside the cab, yelling to the driver to avoid 7th avenue while simultaneously on the phone with Lu, trying to quell her fears that my stress may be manifesting itself into a possible drinking problem.

I walk into the salon, 10 mins late, and present myself to the receptionist.

“Hi, I am here for Mary Lou for 4:30.”

“Sure. She is running a bit late, but have a seat.”

“Hey, dude, uhm, I have a confession to make…I am slightly drunk. You know it was rugby today.”

“Shannon, if you are telling me that you are a little drunk, you probably are a lot drunk. Let me get you some water,” as he says chuckling. I love my salon, PANYC. Go see Mary Lou for highlights and tell her that I sent you via my blog, she would get such a kick out of it.


And he fed me water, replenishing my cup each time I saw the bottom.
And of course when you are drunk, feeling comfortable in the salon, and they remember you talking about becoming a dominatrix, you develop nicknames. Mine are now the “dominatrix girl” and “rugby”.

#2 I destroyed a baby shower and I didn’t even go.

As I am the queen of procrastination, I waited until the very last minute to book an appt with my colorist. When I finally mustered the concentration to call, I learned that she was headed off to South Africa on vacation for 3 weeks. The only appointment available was at the same time as a baby shower on LI…

Let’s think which one I picked. Come on! It’s fashion week in NYC, and I have to look good for the tents (if I manage to get tix!)! In all seriousness, I am interviewing and I needed to get my roots covered so I had no choice but to take the Sat appt.

I IM my friend to tell her that I couldn’t go, and she replies:

“huh? What are you talking about, this is the first time I have ever heard of it!!”

FUCK IT WAS A SURPRISE!

“Uhm, nevermind! I think I have you confused.”

But come on, how many preggers friends could a 24 yr old have? I ruined a surprise that was in the works for 3 months…and I didn’t even go to the fucking thing.

#3 Not really a lesson, but a frustration I wish to share:

I love my friend Jen. When she worked for the fashion magazine, we would steal tickets to fashion week, and walk into the shows pretending to be other people—crashers extraordinaire, especially because I dress like a grad student instead of a fashionista and had more fun sitting inside the tent getting drunk at the Lotus booth than watching the 15 mins of runway hoopla. However, Jen has moved onto bigger and better things, and has left the fashion magazine. It’s Tuesday of fashion week, and I have not been to a single show. I feel so, plebian. This blog started because I wanted to publicly rub it into everyone’s nose that I went to fashion week NYC…and now, it’s being taken away from me. Please, I need your prayers that Jen’s contact comes through and we could at least get tickets to some of the lesser known shows. With the job search growing frustrating, grad school slowly slipping past my fingers, and my wallows into depression, this is all I have to feel good about myself.

And now I am off to write the Oxford Profs to say “Wazzup Dawg! Yo, I is smot! Let my ass in!” Frustrating. However, my tax return is enough to pay 1 month of rent! YEA!!

Filling You In

So I’ve been reading your comments and I just want to give a massive THANK YOU to everyone who’s posted and shown me blog love. When my great aunt passed away, a few of you gave your condolences. When I write and say that I will be posting less frequently, I get emails, links on your sites, you tell your friends about my blog, and some of the nicest comments posted. Especially those who’ve said that they are going through similar shit. I guess you guys are a lot like the men I date, when I pull back and act like I am not as interested, that is when they spring for the bottles of Vueve Clicquot on top of the Peninsula Hotel.

Procrastinating applying for a new life, I decided to address some of the questions/comments that you all have raised:

1. Where did the pictures of me go?

I had to take them down after The Bouncer gave me a heads up that he was linking me to his site. Work is a little rough right now and I decided that it was not in my best professional interest to connect pictures of me to my drinking stories.

And if you noticed, I also deleted all of the posts that were related to my old job for the same professional reason. Once my life is more stable, and I redesign the site, you will see so many pictures of me that you will get sick.

2. Where am I applying for grad school and in what discipline?
As I’ve alluded on here, I am in love with sociology. I want to study the reasons why we buy things and how we use our purchases as symbols of our social status and membership to social groups. I’ve been reading about this shit since I’ve been 12 (you know, rationalizing why my dad wouldn’t buy me the designer jeans) and I am obsessed with it. Like, when I talk about it, I get the same feeling as though I am in love with someone. I’ve just gotten over my fear of being academic poor very recently.

As for where I am applying: Columbia (you guys already knew that), Hunter (safety), London School of Economics, and maybe maybe maybe but I doubt I’ll get in…to a school in the UK that is really really prestigious. And the only reason why I *might* apply there is because there is no application fee.

However, once I am done with this post, I am off to a café where the NYU students hang out to read about 100 pages of journal articles that a professor where I want to go to grad school wrote. I’ve never gotten anything on merit alone…and I doubt this venture will be any different.