He’s a killer queeeeen

So I got a call at work this morning, first call of the week after break. I recognized the indignant voice right away—think Roger, the Paul Lynde-sounding alien on American Dad. The first time he’d called was a few months ago, with complaints that ranged from the hair and dress of the editor in her photo to the thickness of the paper, which was NOT up to snuff with the other magazines he bought, such as Martha Stewart Living. I had been quite placating to the man, explaining about our mostly-new staff, our redesign, that thick paper required a thick budget that Martha has but we don’t have, and that I had no control over the fashion choices of the editor.

Today I dreaded what was sure to be a deluge of complaint, while I’m already swamped.
“Now you must know you have males in the readership, right?”
“Sure.”
“I talked to someone there a few months ago, Christine or I don’t know who it was, and she said that you have this new editor with the frizzy hair, and you were redoing the magazine and it’s terrible, it’s worse than before!” he said, greatly put out. “I have bought five issues of this magazine, and it is just extremely bad.”
[rolling eyes] “Why do you think that?”
“It’s just—[beleaguered sigh]—I see this guy Matt here on the cover, OK, so I pay the five dollars, and I look inside and [flipping pages] nothing. You can’t see anything! It’s terrible!”
“Well as I tried to tell you last time, it’s very difficult to make this magazine, it’s hard to find models—“
“—I have five guys here in Buffalo who will model for you!”
[and I’m sure they’re exactly the type that women would want to see]
“But this is just awful. I mean, anyone could make a better Playgirl and call it Playgirl.”
“That’s very easy to say, when you’re up in Buffalo and not here trying to make the magazine.”
“Excuse me?” his rant stopped short, as if I had said something very dire or extremely cruel that cut the very fabric of his existence.
“I said, that’s very easy for you to say, up there in Buffalo, when you have never tried to make this magazine yourself.”
“Can I quote you on that for my article about Playgirl for the Albany newspaper?”
“No you can’t.”
“Well I’m going to!” Click.
All in a day’s work here at the PG Mansion.

My first blog!

Golly, I'm excited to be starting my own blog on the Internets! What sorts of things do people talk about on blogs? I think a lot of people talk about stuff that just happened, so I'm going to talk about Thanksgiving. During Thanksgiving Break, my parents drove me to visit my friends in Philadelphia! They dropped me off and I had a sleepover at Leah's place, and then they came back again to pick me up me the next day.

This might seem totally normal if you don't know that I am 31 years old, not half that age, and have driven my own vehicle since about half that age, and that I pretty much was Not Allowed to drive it the hour and a half to Philly on Friday. My travel plan caused quite the controversy with my very loving and well-meaning but now-set-in-their-old-folks-ways parents, and they implored me to take a train or bus, which would've taken much longer. All arguments pretty much boiled down to they've been watching a lot of Philly-area news which reports a lot of people getting murdered there, and so I driving alone would most likely have car trouble and get murdered. I tried pointing out that I was an adult and had driven to numerous places before, to no avail, and so they drove me.

I got a bit of razzing about this (though Shawn's mom also qets worried by the Philly news) but was glad to finally come through with this long-promised visit. First Shawn and Lauren and I went for some specialty cocktails at a place called Chuck's or Crank's or something like that. You can see them in the photo above, showing examples of some of the specialty cocktails the bar offers. Our cocktails were 23-oz.ers of Miller Lite (them) and 23-oz.ers of Yeungling (me), for just $2.75 each! It is Shawn's favorite place because of the atmosphere, which at that early hour mostly consisted of a full lively bar with an old man passed out at the very end. I decided that guy was my boyfriend.

But he was only Boyfriend Number One! Later a group of super fratsos came in, and this one guy asked Shawn for a light a few times. Then I noticed he was pointing me out to his friend. So now I had TWO boyfriends in one bar! What's a girl to do? Not long after that, Boyfriend Number Two posed for a photo with his arm around the slumbering Boyfriend Number One. I felt like a lucky, lucky girl.

Another of the friends I was visiting, Leah, says she hasn't been to that bar since she was 19, and her BF knew it was a major place to score drugs. My friends take me to the nicest places!

So then the night ended up really really late at Leah's place, with just she and I talking trash ("Why don't they just make VH-1 the "We Love EVERYTHING" Channel?"--"Hey, remember EVERYTHING?") until crazy o'clock, and me not hearing my other friend Derik call for brunch or my parents call twice and waking up at like 2:45. Any guilt I would normally feel from having partied so late was instantly compounded for having inconvenienced my parents that much more. I called immediately, and they left right away. I didn't know why they hadn't just made a day of it if they were coming to Philly anyway. But it was probably my fault. More old-fashioned Irish-Catholic guilt.

Derik picked me up to hit up this vegan-friendly sandwich/pizza place off South Street and I was feeling very delicate and barely able to eat a slice, sucking down two bottles of water and dreading the ride home. We had to rush the food and were totally late to meet up with my parents, and my dad was all "Where were you? We were waiting for an hour!" which I have to say, really brought me back to the old days.

And here is the kicker: after all the talk of my car breaking down if I were to have driven, my old man was especially upset because the cover had come off of their car's catalytic converter. And I felt this was my fault too. I curled up in the backseat and tried to maintain conversation. Because Derik is single and male (and bonus, vegan and a homeowner) my parents were hoping he was a love interest even though I'd already said he wasn't, and they were already talking about me taking the train from New York to visit Philly again. I prayed for the ride home through the Barrens to go quickly before I puked and looked and felt like an even worse kid.