Late At Night

“Michelle?”

“Hurmph.”

“Michelle? Wake up.”

“What time is it?”

“Um, 2:30.”

“2:30? What the hell is the matter with you? I’m going back to sleep.”

“No, don’t”

“Well, you better give me a good reason to stay awake. Otherwise, I’m going to wait until you go to sleep and kill you.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Fine. Listen, I have to ask you something.”

“Well, do it already.”

“Not if you’re in this kind of mood.”

“What kind of mood should I be in? I was asleep. You woke me up. You’re luckily I don’t chop your nuts off with a grapefruit spoon.”

“Will you settle down?”

“Fine. What do you want to ask me?”

“Now I don’t want to.”

“What?”

“Not if you’re going to be like that.”

“Oh god.”

“No, forget it now.”

“All right, John, I’m sorry. What is it that you wanted to ask me?”

“OK, ready?”

“YES!”

“OK, when we’re going to your parents house, is it exit 67 or 68?”

“You’re kidding.”

“Yeah, yeah, I am.”

“Ha ha.”

“You don’t have to be snotty about it.”

“What do you want to ask me?”

“OK, here goes: Michelle, will you marry me?”

“WHAT????”

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha. No, I’m just kidding.”

“What the fuck is the matter with you?”

“I’ve only known you 3 months. You didn’t think I’d ask you to marry me now, did you?”

“You’re a prick.”

“OK, I’m sorry.”

“No, fuck you. I’m going to sleep.”

“No, don’t. I need to know if you know the name of Sanford’s son on ‘Sanford and Son’”

“Fuck off.”

“Wait, who discovered the Pacific Ocean?”

“I’m sleeping now.”

“Come on. How many barrels in a hogshead?”

“I hate you.”

“Good night.”

“Screw you.”

Difference Of Opinion

"Hey, sis, how's it going?"

"It's going well. How's it going with you?"

"Just got home yesterday from school. I'm looking forward to a whole summer of nothing!"

**growl**

That's right, folks. My intrepid sister is back from college and ready to sit on her ass. A summer of nothing???? Well, I shouldn't say nothing. She'll be waitressing two nights a week at one of the local chain restaurants (let's call it Australian Chophouse). My parents, god bless their little souls, have absolutely no problem with this. They are content to let their 20-year old daughter sleep until noon every day and go out until all hours every night. Fine. I just want to know where these people were when I was 20 and in between my junior and senior years of college.

I'm not jealous. It's just that when I was 20, there was no option. My father told me to go to work, get a job and set myself up for after graduation, so I did. I got a job similar to the one I do now (don't get me started on this) and I worked all summer. I took the train into the city in the morning with my dad (note to self: write LIRR story) and then either stayed in the city to get drinks with friends or went home with him and met up with some friends at home. I did it every day. Not just twice a week; every single day. It was exhausting. But it was worth it. When I graduated, I had a job set up for the fall. And I got to go to Europe for the summer. My sister, on the other hand, gets to take advantage of her summer. She's going to go see concerts and get drunk five nights a week. On the other two, she'll work at the Australian Chophouse. My parents will make me come out there and go to the restaurant, so she can serve us. They'll probably gawk at her and say, "Look at our little girl." My 17-year old sister (a far more reasonable and responsible soul) and I will roll our eyes at each other. You know what the ass-kicker is? My sister is the kind of girl that, even though she's screwing around this summer, will still go to Europe next summer because my parents can't say no to her. And she'll still probably have a job next fall becasue my dad will get her one.

OK, maybe I am a little jealous.

For Curiosity's Sake

I'm a curious chick. I like to know how things work. I like to know what people are thinking. So, out of genuine curiosity, I checked out http://ilovelisa.com (the alterego of this masterpiece site. Tell your friends about it.).

It's an online dating service!

Which naturally begs the question: Should I sign up? Now, I'm extremely suspect of these services despite all of the supposed success stories out there. I realize that it's hard to meet people and I have no problem with other people using these services. It doesn't mark them as lonely, desperate or sad, merely as willing to try new things and meet people with very few strings attached and very little pressure. Good for them. For myself, however, I don't consider it an option yet. I'm not there yet. Maybe I will be, maybe I won't. Maybe I'm a little old-fashioned. My parents managed to meet each other before the advent of the personal computer or the Internet. I'm a reasonably intelligent, reasonably attractive and extremely personable girl out on the prowl. This process shouldn't be this difficult.

It is.

It's hard for everyone. Screening someone before you go out with them provides and additional level of comfort, control and let's be honest, safety. Internet dating is relatively anonymous, carefree and easy. Most importantly, it connects you will a tremendous amount of people that you probably would not be in contact with under any other circumstances. It broadens the spectrum. It also eliminates the element of chance. This is the problem for me. It places a sort of method on dating and love, a mathematical exactitude that makes the process of dating seem almost perfunctory. I need the excitment of not quite knowing before I go on a first date. I like the anticipation of meeting someone new. Dating services take that away. Your profile reveals you before you have a chance to do that yourself. There's no mystery. The element of possibility is gone because your profile has made it probability.

Should I sign up? Not yet, Lis. Not yet.

Coming Clean

I'm a girl. I'm from Long Island.

And with those two very, very telling characteristics, there are certain expectations that people have when they meet me. Given the alarming rate of success that people generally have using stereotypes regarding those two facts, it's hard to blame them. I have a few of those characteristics myself, as ashamed as I am to admit it. What can I say? I grew up where I grew up. I am who I am. I make no apologies. I spend way too much time on my hair. I have a voice that pegs me as New York and sometimes I make words that end in "r" sound like they end in "a," especially when I'm drunk. When I'm drunk, I get very, um, amorous. I hate sports.

Speaking of sports, I hate sports but ... I love the Knicks. I can't help it. I'm my father's daughter. And when I was growing up, my father would tell me stories about sitting in the rafters at the old Madison Square Garden and watching the greatest team he said he'd ever seen. I tried to make him less upset that he didn't have a son to share all those stories with. He told all the stories he could about his New York Knicks. And they stuck. And when they went to the NBA FInals in 1994, when I was a senior in high school, we rooted hard for them. I said, "How about that, Dad? The Knicks are in the finals." He looked at me and he brushed my cheek with his index finger and smiled. And he said, "Yeah, they are. But you should have seen #22 play."

Of course. #22. The greatest all-purpose player in Knicks history. I knew all about him. On Friday, I picked up the phone and I called my dad.

"We lost a good one today," he said. And he was sad. I could tell. He met DeBusschere once at a fundraiser. They spoke for a little while. My dad pulled out the ticket stub that he carries around from Game 7 of the 1970 Finals. DeBusschere signed it for him. My father told him that Willis may have been the Captain and that Clyde may have been the leader on the court, but that DeBusschere made a good team great. He took them to the next level.

"No, I was just a piece of the puzzle," DeBusschere said, deferential as always. He was 63 when he died. Too young.

So I just had to come clean. I may be a Long Island girl, but don't pigeonhole me. I know my Knicks.

Inner Monologue From This Morning's Subway Ride

Will someone please explain the appeal of the Matrix movies to me? Maybe I'm not getting something. I saw the first one. It was a good movie. Pretty good story. Lots of action (which explains why guys love this movie) but what's the deal with the ticket lines? Is it really worth it to stand in the rain for a day and half to see Keanu Reeves in slow motion? Everything he does is in slow motion. His speech, his thought processes. I'd be willing to bet it takes him an hour to read the menu at a Starbucks.

I need to know what happens in the next chapter of the Spanish cartoon ads that I see on the subway. My high school Spanish is rusty, so I can't imagine that Marisol is asking Juan if his cow feels OK. I need some resolution here.

Ma'am, you have to be aware that the seasons are changing. I know that it hasn't been all that warm lately but wearing a down vest and a wool turtleneck sweater is a little excessive today. It's 70 degrees out. What do you wear in the winter, an eskimo parka with space heaters in the sleeves?

American Idol: OK, Clay, honey, I know you're cute. I know you think you're a hit with the ladies. That's fine. You probably are. There's just one problem. Your voice kind of sucks and you are a bit of a doofus. Both of these things are not helping you. I hope you made it to check out time at the hotel or you're going to be paying for an extra night. Everyone call Reuben and congratulate him.

I think this guy standing next to me just farted.

All right, I give up. I tried my hardest to fight it but it appears I've lost the battle on this one. When is the American English language going to lose the phrase, "Get my (blank) on," as in "I'm going to get my movie on?" This is the worst addition that we've had to vernacular since the whole "Wassup?" fiasco of 2000. Let me know what I need to do and I'll do it.

Yes, he definitely farted on me. Will this train ever get to my stop?

Today's soup of the day: Cream of Potato. Does life get better?