"What are your short and long term goals?" and other pick up lines overheard at Business School Receptions

“Hi, I’m James.”

He popped up behind me, and before I had a chance to pull a mock exit, he would hold me captive in conversation. I hoped, at the least, that he was a current student at Business School A, to whom I could direct the ass kissing that I’d rehearsed in advance of the information session turned cocktail hour.

“Oh, hi,” I beamed.

“I’m a prospective student, by the way,” he said, as though reading my thoughts. “Been working in Houston for my dad, he owns an oil company out there.”

“That’s lovely for you,” I replied. 6 pm was rapidly approaching, and I was annoyed that if I stayed any longer, my favorite treadmill would be occupied for the rest of the evening. Like cocktail parties that only serve Pinot Grigio, this was the sort of thing that really got my blood boiling.

“I want to be an Investment Banker,” he went on. I don't know if he was looking to me to express surprise here, but I wasn't having it. He was wearing a power tie when the invite had strictly noted “Business Casual,” for fuck's sake. I, on the other hand, was wearing my slutty-secretary pencil skirt, which is really appropriate for any occasion (in which I enjoy being hit on).

“Sounds like fun."

“I would agree,” he replied. He’d just agreed with his own fucking statement. The guy already had the heart of a banker. This was, pathetically enough, starting to resemble approximately 68-99 percent of dates I’ve been on since moving to New York (lack of sobriety accounting for the statistical range).

“Sooo, it’s pretty clear you and I have a lot of common. Do you have a card or something?” he asked. I stood up and smoothed aforementioned slutty skirt.

“I’ll be right back,” I cooed, and turned around to leave.

As I snaked my way through the crush of eager bodies, I had a realization. This is how cruel New York had made me; I’d actually started to mock people, even cute people, whose dreams I found indelibly shallow and stupid. For a brief instant I felt, not exactly badly, but numb in that way you feel when you take a friend’s Wellbutrin just for kicks then have 4 gin and tonics without thinking about it, like a dumbass.

I was halfway into the hall when another voice came up behind me.

“I think we sat in on the same class.”

I turned around to face him. “Oh, we did. Hi,” I said.

“Do you have, like, a phone number or something?” he said, taking out a pencil. A Pencil.

The kid had balls. Not just for busting out a pencil, which was so second grade it made me cry laughing, but because he thankfully hadn't felt the need to precede the request with bullshit. And after surviving my million and a halfth "deep talk" about the state of the markets (Stock conversation: "crazy day at work eh", "yeah, just crazy", "um, so what else") I'd hit a tipping point.


So even though he looked not a day over 19 and a half, I gave it to him.

Love is in the Air

Do you see what I'm seeing here?

He's all, I'm telling the cab to make only one stop and I don't care what you have to say about it, I'm coming upstairs. But also... look how gentle and sensitive I am by looking you straight in the eyes as opposed to giving you a spanking which is what you really deserve you filthy moose eating whore...and she's wondering a) if when they are married they will hyphenate their names and b) how far she can let it go while still maintaining she's a Proper Girl.

Classic.

Tentative: The Opposite of Balls to the Wall

As you are most certainly aware, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have expressed their "tentative" support for the bailout plan (as opposed to the un-official but still bloody "tentative" support they expressed during last Friday's debate). Listen, I'm all for playing it safe and not voting Yes to the Iraq War in absentia while you are actually in your home state attending little Timmy's softball game, versus in Congress where you should have been, but an economic bailout plan? Don't be shy- you've already made your intentions abundantly clear. Just own it.

At any rate, this had me contemplating things I have "tentative support" for. Considering I am an incredibly decisive (not to mention unduly brilliant and beautiful) woman, this was pretty difficult to compile. Just kidding, it took me five minutes.

Herewith:

1) Sheeps Meadow

I know, I KNOW, ok...it's a big meadow in the middle of Central Park- a veritable marvel of nature! There are few other places in the city that are so expansive and fucking grassy! It's a great place for me to go, pull my shorts up around my bottom, lie in a pile of dirt that many years ago used to resemble grass, and dodge frisbees as they are chucked at my head from all angles. Yes, this is the epitome of restfulness on a weekend afternoon. Yet there is something oddly alluring about it if you are with exceptional company and an equal portion of cigarettes that I suppose lends it credo.

I tentatively support the meadow.

2) Left Over Conference Room Food

I feel 100% ambivalent about leftover conference room food. It totally fulfills my non-specific boredom induced hunger for 6-hour old bagel and lox platters and bite sized brownie assortments at 3 in the afternoon.

3) Kitten Heels

If a shoe doesn't either a) provide comfort or b) make me look like a hooker (but a really expensive one, like in London or something), I can only tentatively support.

4) Spicy Tuna Rolls

These are tasty. They are also the perfect "I'm not so confident about the sushi at this place" thing to order on the menu. A total bastardization of the Tuna fish as manifested in a non-denominational red mayonaissey substance. When I put one of these oversize rolls into my mouth and then have to awkwardly chew it like a caveman until it is reduced to human portions, my taste buds say yes but the internal sushi snob screams No Means No. Basically, I tentatively love Spicy Tuna with a possible upgrade to Total Love if I actually knew what the fuck was in there, sort of like the legislation of the bailout plan.


I could go on, but you get my point.


Tentative support is the epitome of iffiness, and if there's one thing I hate in a man, it's indecisiveness (that, and extreme Conservatism, but I've found that excessive cocktails have a keen ability to lessen the blow of the latter). Tentative support is like saying, I kind of could see myself with you, if only you had a bony ass, which you don't, but if you did...I mean, you'd be virtual marriage material. It's the kind of non-commital committing that is going to render the spine a completely useless element of our anatomy in the matter of, oh, a generation or two.

That is, if you believe in evolution. Tentatively.

What is a Shit Show? Serrano Shows us the Ways.

It's so hard to feel inspired these days. The corporate world is an amalgam of depressed, overleveraged autumn-onset germ ridden sacks of shit; your neighborhood a trolling ground for this season's dumb-as-shit NYU girls in last season's Marc Jacobs; Election season reeks of horse shit.

And you think to yourself, Hot Damn, Girl, we are in a state of deep fucking shit. The shit stream runs so deep that you have been fantasizing about moving back to your parent's basement, where the ping pong table, bar, and chintz couches from when your parents first got married a hundred million years ago await, and you can mosey on up for dinner and BBC viewing with your father whenever you damn well feel like it.

When you're 24 and this is the stuff of your fantasies, you know that shit has hit the fan.

Andres Serrano gets this. In a perfectly timed gesture of art imitating life, his "Shit Show", a compilation of 66 photographs of, you guessed it, feces (appropriately titled: Bull Shit, Deep Shit, Holy Shit, and the like), has opened in Chelsea this month. Kids, If ever there was a Heartbreaking work of staggering genius in our lifetimes, this is fucking IT.

Because Serrano taps into the collective conscience, readily admitting to having concocted this idea while watching the nude wrestling scene in Borat. And who can begrudge him this? I think we can all attest to having seen God in this moment. He attests his inspiration further to Goya, who probably wouldn't be psyched at all for such a comparison, but guess what?! Serrano doesn't give a flying fuck! He said it anyway, because he understands that half of playing "the artiste" is name dropping other "artistes" that inspired you.

The guy just gets it.

And of course, there are the works themselves. This one is called Heroic Shit, because Serrano posits that it resembles the raising of the Flag of Iwo Jima.

Seeing the heoricism in a pile of shit: that's the sort of nationalism that would bring tears to John McCain's old dead eyes.

In not so many words, I heart this shit, and I will devote my time to cajoling you into loving it too. Alternately, this is the perfect opportunity to prove to your dates/visiting family members/frenemies how cool and subversive you are.

Hit this shit. Prepare to be amazed.

Kind Regards,

Girl

Let's be Real for a Minute

All their stories sound the same.

Fueled by that heady mix of champagne, cake, and a great deal more champagne, lady comes upon a gentleman whom she labels the man of her dreams. He is smart (i.e. wears glasses), sensitive (in other words, holds up the back of her dress as they cross the lawn to make out safely behind a tree) and more importantly handsome (as nearly 99 % of men in black, and particularly white, tie tend to be). His parents might even be present and totally in love with each other, which just reinforces how in love the two of you will be 80 years from now. In short, he is the stuff of every girl’s ill conceived fantasies. They kiss for what seems like centuries before rejoining the party. They are elated, having given into “the romance of it all”- a phrase that one really only hears at weddings and then never again in life- ever.

I mean it, I've never heard that phrase convincingly uttered in my life. But regardless.

Wedding guy ends up in said lady’s city (as wedding guys are wont to do, unless you meet them at a wedding overseas, in which case you’re doomed to rack up frequent flier miles in pursuit of recapturing that magical night, which in reality was a one-night stand only made romantic by the fact that you wore couture).

Both parties agree it might be fun to bring the dalliance to the mainland. To no one’s surprise, awkwardness ensues. She is perplexed by his inability to wear black tie on a daily basis; and the fact that there is no 12 piece band playing Sinatra ever so faintly as they dodge rats and piles of garbage on the city streets. He isn’t nearly as charming over cheap beer as over free flowing Perrier Jouet Rose. The attraction, just as quickly as it is fueled (“Aren’t they a lovely couple?” she coos. “Agreed,” he mumbles.), burns, like the fireworks display that the bride's father puts himself in utter debt to pay for.

As all wedding romances are destined to do.

Because in short, people who date people they meet at weddings are delusional. One or the other (or in a perfectly timed double fake, both parties!) are somehow loving the fact that they might one day be able to mention in their own wedding toast that it was at Bradford and Buffy’s wedding on Nantucket that they met, and realized that they were destined to a life of shared credit card debt, mildewy monogrammed towels and matching Range Rovers. And that’s all well and good. I’d really rather hear that than the fact that you met on eharmony and “instantly knew” via 98 compatibility quizzes you subjected yourself to, but I’m not denying that its only marginally a step above that either.

Basically, I have a sensitive gag reflex and am warning you now that I may not be able to take it.

Especially after all that champagne.

Ever Yours,

Girl

Sex and Politics - The Short of It

As recalled to me by the lovely M:

So I texted a "friend" last night who went to Georgetown. I saw her Facebook which showed she was a McCain fan. 

I texted her:

You're not really a McCain supporter are you?

She replied:

You haven't really gone socialist, have you?

Unbelievable. I can't believe I ever bought her dinner.

On the Passive Aggressiveness that is making dinner reservations with a group of New York Women, Take 1

It all started with an email.

Ladies- dinner this week? Now that we’re all safely back from the beach and have stories to tell…

Girl

The replies invariably roll in.

Yes! They exclaim. Dinner sounds fabulous. How’s Wednesday? No no, I can’t do Wednesday, my boyfriend is dragging me to an engagement party uptown…I have a squash match at the University Club…my long lost friend from grade school is popping through New York on her way back from climbing Kilimanjaro en route to Stanford Business School and we are having a MUCH needed catch up dinner.

You know, the usual.

Ok, Thursday?

Hmm…I could do Thursday. Could you? Yes! I can, I mean, I have to meet my boyfriend later but girls dinner sounds fabulous. Fine its settled, Thursday Sep 4th it is. We can all celebrate all those things we didn’t celebrate over the summer. Great! So much to discuss. The excitement is almost unbearable.

Where should we reserve? I’d like to have a reservation somewhere.

No problem! We’ll find somewhere terrific, somewhere new! Buddakan? Not keen on the area, and not new. Alta? Been there a billion times. Really…are you cheating on us with other friends? (Radio Silence). A hundred Acres? I thought I said no American, how about Macondo? Lower East Side?! Sort of bizarre no? Not really our scene. Okay, la Paella? Mmm, sounds interesting I guess. Blue Ribbon Sushi? Wait is sort of a bitch. Café Cluny? I thought we wanted something exotic. Market Table? At this point I’ll eat my own arm for dinner.

Ok how’s 8 oclock? I have client drinks until 7:30, is that okay with everyone?

Mm, I’d like to go home and change first, how’s 8:30? Fine, 8:30 is just fine. Actually, hate to be annoying, but can we do 9? I want to go to the gym first. Fine, 9 is FUCKING FINE, OKAY.

Are you okay?

.....

Wait so we're hitting, Market Table, right?

Great! So psyched! See you ladies there! xoxox