Dead birds falling from the sky! Snow in 49 out of 50 U.S. states? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE PEOPLE?!

The Accidental Liar

Have you ever thought about making up a completely false persona when you're going out on a date? For whatever reason: you're weird, bored, hate your name, wish you came from more (or less) money. Well, I may or may not have gone out with a guy under false pretenses once. Bear with me, it wasn't exactly my intention to do so, it just kinda...happened.

 

When I lived in Buenos Aires I worked on a viral marketing project for a few months. My initial plan of action was to essentially spam all of my friends on facebook and see how far that took me. It turned out not that far. So, I came up with the brilliant plan to create a fake facebook account in order to spam complete strangers without having to add random friends and mess with my personal life. I was actually shocked at how many people accepted my "fake" friendship - within a day I had in the ballpark of 500 "friends." One of the guys I spammed ended up messaging me back and asking me ("Lauren") out. He was a cute British guy living in BsAs, and what kind of American girl isn't a sucker for a British accent? So after a couple of messages back and forth I agreed to go on a date. Movies and some drinks. 

 

We arrived at the movies, and we immediately recognized each other - I used a real picture after all. He didn't introduce himself by name so I wasn't given a window to do so either. Into the movies we go, barely having had more than a couple minutes of light chit chat. After we head to a bar and order some beers. At this point we'd been out for a couple of hours, and my palms were quickly becoming sweaty and all I could think about was that I gotta come clean and tell this guy that I'm not Lauren, I didn't go to Michigan and study Business, and I don't speak French and Chinese in addition to Spanish. But how could I artfully bring that up without making me seem like a freak? The answer is you can't. 

 

Conversation was flowing smoothly and he seemed to be enjoying my company so I thought now's as good a time as any, just do it. I casually said,  "Wanna hear a funny story?" And then launched into the tale of the marketing campaign, and the fake profile and thus fake identity, and topped it off with "I SWEAR I'm not crazy!" trying to laugh it off. He unfortunately wasn't so amused and moments later asked for the check. I am not the best liar and it doesn't come naturally to me, but I sometimes wonder if I were, how long I could've kept this second life going and dated the Brit. Wouldn't it have been a great story to tell the grandkids?

A Winter Miracle (aka Snow Day) Haiku

Snow days as grown-ups

Even better than I thought 

As a kid, let's play! 

Tradition, tradition! Tradition!

It's funny how traditions begin, continually morph, and then wind up becoming something which almost imperceivably reflects its origins. Growing up Jewish, we celebrated Hanukkah. We did the whole shebang. 8 nights of presents, 17 or so menorahs (a combination of silver and gold classy ones, and those we made in the first grade out of a log, some popsicle sticks and glue). Which if you do the math amounts to 153 lit candles by the last night. We weren't messing around.

As time has gone on though, our Hanukkah traditions have lost some momentum and new Christmas ones have seeped their way in.  Hannukah rarely coincides with Christmas day, as any good Jew will tell you, there are only 2 things to do on this most holy of Christian holidays, which happen to be the only two things open. Go out to the movies (and OH are there choices of Oscar nominated flicks galore!), followed by a Chinese restaurant. I promise you that you'll bump into your (Jewish) childhood friends, cousins, ex-boyfriends parents and your elementary school English teacher all in one trip.

Since my dad got remarried though, we have also adopted a Christmas tree with ornaments, traditional Christmas Eve dinner and breakfast (my step-mom likes to serve our favorite, "Heart Attack on a Plate,"), and stockings (or random tchatchkes you never knew you wanted but are pretty damn awesome in their randomness).

These days we have the best of both worlds. We've created one monster holiday: Chistmukkah. It is Christmas Eve dinner, followed by stockings, presents, Heart Attack on a Plate, a nap, movies, culminating in a Chinese food feast. It doesn't get much better than that.

And since Jesus probably celebrated Hanukkah anyway, I'm sure that's the way he would have wanted it.  

Pug Shot: Christmas Edition

overheard on the subway...

Girl #1: Her album is bad
Girl #2: Bad or bad?
Girl #1: Bad
Girl #2: But bad or baaad?
Girl #1: Bad like good

"New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions."

What is it about New Year's Eve and the PRESSURE of making plans? I think the reason New Year's Eve is SO much more stressful than every other special occassion (aside from say, your wedding) is because it boils down to ONE important minute. Where will you be at exactly 12 am? Because clearly that one single 60 seconds will dictate the entire next year of your liiiiife, everyone knows that. Take 4th of July for example - you can celebrate during the day, or the night, or the whole weekend, or even week before of after. Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday and always spent with your family, there's not much decision making in where you go, but NYE is a breed all its own.

You want to be with friends, in a place that's guarenteed to be fun, and importantly it has to be accessible (especially in NYC where cabs are close to impossible that night - actually that's true for most big cities. I had the same cab problem last year in Buenos Aires - although the time restriction wasn't as much of a big deal because people go out AFTER 12 and stay out until 9 am-ish). Everyone has their idea of what "fun" is, who they want to be with, low-key, high-maintanence, expensive, cheap, in-town, out-of-town, friends with priorities of being with bfs/gfs/other friends, or friends who just want to get laid. It all boils down to a whole lotta scramble with a side of stress, for a generally not-that-memorable night.

Let's be honest for a second here - how many years do you actually remember the ball dropping at midnight vs. how many years were you so drunk you could've been stuck in a dark closet alone with a blow up doll and been having the time of your life? Yeah I thought so.

I've come to terms with the fact that New Year's Eve is just not that big of a deal, and while it's of utmost importance to me to be with some good friends to ring in the New Year, it doesn't really matter where that is. In the past few years I didn't go in with a game plan, and came out with the most success so I figure that's the way to do it. Wing and ding it and move it all around. So cheers to being flexible and come what mayhem may!