My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover if Not Being a Dumb Ass Is the New Black, or a Culture-Up Manifesto (13 page)

AltgeldShrugged—which, letsh be honests, is rapidly approchaing.

AltgeldShrugged—I understand all the words in this tweet, but not their meaning. Am I in Cnn? Which this book? Am I the book cococachoo?

AltgeldShrugged—I bet Ashton Kutcher NEVER chases Ambien with wine and then runs to the computer because he’s all “professional” and shit. (He has people 4 that.)

AltgeldShrugged—Ashton’s curing malaria? With what? Eric Foreman’s dad’s Datsun? Dude and Sweet tattoos? A big bag of weed? So confused.

AltgeldShrugged—Ambien might have mentally just tossed my salad. WITH CROUTONS.

AltgeldShrugged—Purple monkey dishwasher.

AltgeldShrugged—I’d chose me, but only if I were Kelly Taylor and didn’t want to date old men.

AltgeldShrugged—Yous are lazy? Mine are always “blah blah blah business plans, blah, sustainable growth, and solid P&L.” My monkeys suck.

AltgeldShrugged—I would kill each and every one of you (well, not you jessedup) for a very small cheeseburger with a pickle and mustard on an itty-bitty bun.

AltgeldShrugged—I keeed! I keeed! I would only rob you for your wee, wee (but not pee-related) itty-bitty burgers.

AltgeldShrugged—I can stagger like a muthafuckin ninja. (Typed that wroed ninja weong but had the wherewithall the fix it.)

AltgeldShrugged—You say it like findifng my shoes (or my feet) is an option right now.

AltgeldShrugged—am getting al;l cookied up in honor o0f casey’s biethdyay. She likes it when I gets slurry.

AltgeldShrugged—FYI? THis? Right here? Is why I was so poipular in collage.

AltgeldShrugged—Having a relazed sense of moreal turpitude didn’t hurt either.

AltgeldShrugged—Mrs. Kutcher, you’re washing cars? Wowie, I guess the economy is hitting everyone harder than expected.

AltgeldShrugged—Yegatory.

AltgeldShrugged—Just lost a bunch of followers. But if they don’t like Sauvignon-Ambien Jen, why the fuck where they even hanging around?

AltgeldShrugged—I find college rewarding, too. All those little pictures sitcking on top of each toher.

AltgeldShrugged—No but last week I orderd $4k of bedroom furniture. They showe d up and I was all SURPRISE! Oh, wait.

AltgeldShrugged—Neither, you’ll end uip with three pole dancers name Tiffany shoing up at yoru place in twenrty minutes.

AltgeldShrugged—Pfft, not a rant. This is what I DO. Must remember to save this to end a chapter in some lateR book.
¹¹⁰

AltgeldShrugged—And it’s floral. What’s supresad is i’ve had one wee ambien andone wee glass of wine. Fatasslightweight.

AltgeldShrugged—Glass emptyee pill digested, peanute btutter bpretzels, tastey, bednowyeskthxbai.

AltgeldShrugged—HEY YOU PEPIOLE ARE MOCKING ME . . .Not undesrrtverd, but still Mocking. I’ll go to bed & be unpleasantly surprised whenb I log on in the AM.

AltgeldShrugged—Internet = 1, Jen’s dumb ass = 0

D AltgeldShrugged—Godspeed, ninja. Am strealing that. Good night. Off to
PotteryBarn.com
. . .

The good news is there’s no evidence I did any online shopping last night.

The bad news is at some point after this dialogue, I had a run-in with a can of spray tan.

This is probably why I should never pack early.

To: angie_at_home, stacey_at_home, wendy_at_home, poppy_at_ home

From: jen_at_home

Subject: yet another Jen-point quiz

You are out of town at a business dinner with a bunch of book buyers from an important retailer. After you do an excellent job of regaling your companions with recitations on Chicago theater, Impressionist art, and the blues, you find yourself out of highbrow conversational material.

What do you do next?

a. You thank everyone for a truly lovely evening, refuse the last glass of wine, and return to your hotel, savoring the victory of not having made an ass out of yourself.

b. You quietly smile and nod while other topics are being discussed, causing all diners to believe you’re wise and knowing and that you’re the kind of still water that runs deep.

c. You not only slug down the last glass of wine, but you insist the table order another bottle because you’re just warming up to launch into a fifteen-minute diatribe about how that screaming nancy-boy Adam Lambert massacred “Ring of Fire” last month on
American Idol
and how you hope that Johnny Cash returns from the grave to stomp all over his poseur ass.

d. You encourage, nay,
insist
the entire group drink the restaurant out of a particular vintage but then accidentally ruin the party atmosphere when casually recounting a conversation where someone told you Don Knotts was gay, which then makes everyone increasingly more shout-y as the table splits into two opposing teams hotly contesting the influence of a neckerchief on one’s sexuality.

e. Answers C and D.

I’m pretty sure I don’t have to explain the scoring key on this one.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Shear Jenius

“T
ell me everything!”

“I don’t even know where to start,” I say. Stacey and I are seeing each other for the first time in six weeks. “Then again, nothing I’ve done was nearly as cool as what you were doing.”

Stacey and her friends are back from a three-week trip of a lifetime, going back and forth between an uncle’s villa in the south of France and Paris. Her days were filled with scouring local farmers’ markets and cooking gourmet meals with the ingredients, reading great books pool-side, walking all over Paris, and visiting churches and museums and other famous landmarks. Basically everything she did in France would have dovetailed perfectly into my Jenaissance, and it’s a shame she’s already plenty cultured. Then again, I wonder if I wouldn’t have spent the whole time eating at Mr. Donut and complaining about French toilet paper, like I did when I was sixteen.

Stacey sits back on the couch and crosses her arms. “You are a complete dork. I want to know what you’ve been up to, so start talking.”

I scrunch my eyes closed and try to think. “I can’t remember what I e-mailed you last. Did I tell you about the black tar heroin I bought in Chinatown?”

“You did. Ever find out what organic bird tongue was?”

I bob my head, causing an avalanche of all this stupid hair. Did I mention these extensions are making me mental? First, I had no clue how much upkeep they’d take. Every night when I sit down to watch television, I have to spend an hour separating them, or else they’ll turn into dreadlocks.
¹³⁰
I have to use special shampoo and only boar-bristle brushes because plastic ones would yank out the bonds. But I forgot one morning when I was on tour and accidentally pulled out four sections, thus giving myself a heart attack because I thought I was going instantaneously bald.

I left the pieces on the counter because I didn’t know if I should save them or what, and when I got back to my room, housekeeping was there. And the poor cleaning lady was all,
“Does missus have the cancer?”

Now that I’ve got a couple of inches of growth between the glue and my scalp, the extensions are more like a whole headful of tiny bear traps. My hair’s kind of like a small utility belt and would come in handy if I wanted to, say, carry batteries or a small flashlight or something up there.

(Sidebar: On the bright side, my sunglasses always stay firmly in place.)

Every time I try to run my hands through my hair, my fingers get tangled up. I spent fifteen minutes in Target last week trying to extricate my bracelets from my ponytail. Mortifying.

I never realized walking around with an extra head’s worth of hair would be the equivalent of wearing a woolly cap all the time. I’m constantly sweating, and I’ve taken to carrying napkins so I can blot my face whenever needed. Which is often. Somewhere there’s a Hindi chick with a sleek, sassy bob who’s thanking Shiva daily that she’s rid of all this foolishness.

Personally, I’d take every bit of it out myself right now, except I’ll be damned if all the big hair doesn’t make me look almost exactly like I did in college.

“Bird tongue is definitely a leaf, not a drug.” I slip a pencil out of my purse and surreptitiously begin to scratch. Did I mention the itching? Oh, yeah, there’s itching. So much itching, I want to tear my scalp off. “I did some research on bird tongue and supposedly it’s all fancy and gourmet, but the tea it makes isn’t anything spectacular. I thought it might give me super
strongs
or be like an organic amphetamine or something, but pretty much it’s just green tea. Maybe it’s making my immune system all tough, but in terms of flavor, eh. I’d rather have the hundred and eighty bucks.”

“At least you got a great story out of the experience.”

“No, pretty much I just confirmed how much more work I need to do on myself.”

Stacey pulls a face. “Well, I strongly disagree, but what else?”

I got done with my tour two weeks ago, but it feels like forever. “Um, oh! Check this out—I’m in Los Angeles—”

“After San Francisco?”

Scratch, scratch, scratch. I dig deeper with the pencil, and I think I feel the lead break my skin. That can’t be good. Maybe I should have used the eraser side?

“Right. I’m in LA and I’m in this car driven by a complete maniac. Traffic was brutal, so my schedule was beyond tight. To make up for it, my driver, Richard Fucking Petty, was taking shortcuts, like, on the sidewalk, no joke. Thank God no one walks there, or we’d have left a trail of bodies in our wake. I was in such a state of terror every hair on my arms was standing up. I kept demanding he slow down and he was all
‘You want to be on time or not?’ ”

“Nice. ‘
Would you like to die a horrible death on this canyon curve or would you prefer to be ten minutes late? ’Cause I’m cool either way.
’ ”

“Exactly. We finally get to a street where the traffic’s at a crawl, and I’m all
‘Whew! Not dead!’
And we were out of the canyon, where there’s spotty cell reception, so I wanted to call Fletch and see how he was doing. While I’m talking to him, I see something out of the corner of my eye. There’s some idiot in traffic next to me, and he’s waving his arms wildly and shouting to a bunch of people eating out on the sidewalk. Plus, he’s this huge guy in a tiny convertible. Like, he could never put the top up because he was too big. Seriously, he was like a monkey driving a Matchbox on YouTube or something. All he needed was a fez. I tell Fletch about it and I’m all
‘What’s with that asshole?’ ”

Stacey grits her teeth. “I
hate
Los Angeles. Every time I go there, I hope it’ll be the last time.”

“Yeah, I’ve been saying it should just break off into the sea for years.
¹³¹
I just don’t get that place. I mean, the weather’s beautiful, but I would never, ever put up with the hassle of trying to get from point A to point B. It’s as crowded as New York, but lacks New York’s panache. Like, New York is elbow to elbow but it’s because the city’s so filled with exciting stuff. All I saw in LA was tattoo parlors, cosmetic surgeons, and strip malls. Also, everyone wearing Ed Hardy? No.” I feel claustrophobic
¹³²
just thinking about LA and that makes me itchy again. I put my pencil back to work. “Anyway, we drive past the arm-waggling jackass, and I turn around because I want to see what kind of mutant he is.”

“What was wrong with him?”

“What was wrong with him was that he was
Vince Vaughn.”
Stacey’s eyes widen. “And,
poof!
Just like that the crush I’ve had on him since
Swingers
vanished. The way he was carrying on in that car was like he really believed he was money, and it was gross. But it’s fine because I’ve totally already transferred my crush to Denis Leary.”

“He is a beautiful man. People don’t always see that because he’s so damn funny. Also, he’s really tall!” Stacey worked as a roadie back in college
¹³³
and met him a few times. “What else is going on?”

“Oh, you know how I wrote a lot about my college roommate Joanna in
Pretty in Plaid
?”

Joanna and I were BFF until she graduated and moved home to Chicago. We never fought or had any kind of falling-out, except for that one time when we were freshmen and I was stupid
¹³⁴
and decided to divide the room in half with a giant piece of duct tape like on some sixties sitcom. Otherwise, we were more like sisters than friends. Over time, though, our lives led us in different directions, and we lost touch. I hadn’t even talked to her for about twelve years; then a few months ago, I found her on Facebook and we reconnected.

“I’m at my Chicago signing, reading a piece about her, and way at the back of the crowd, I see a hand go up. And the person says,
‘I’m Joanna, and I just want to say how proud I am of you.’
Honest to God, that was the very best moment of the whole tour.”
¹³⁵

“Aw, that just made my heart smile,” Stacey says, hugging her arms into her chest.

“Doesn’t it? We’ve been hanging out lately, and it turns out she’s the exact same person I always loved. We promised that we’re never going to lose each other again. She was such a positive influence on me, always countering my cynicism with happiness and joy. I feel really lucky to have her back in my life.”

“I suspect she’s got some great stories.”

I snort in an unbecoming fashion. “You think I’m a dumb ass now? You should have seen me at seventeen. Anyway, the best part is Fletch and I went to Joanna’s house last week, and I got to hang out with her husband and kids. She has kids! I’m all
‘How can you have children? You’re still eighteen.’
Her ten-year-old looks exactly like the Joanna I met when we were freshmen and has the same kind of ebullience, too. I told Joanna,
‘All this kid needs is a pair of Keds and a bottle of Little Kings and I’d swear it was 1985 again.’
Now I feel like I should send Facebook a thank-you note.”

“I love when Facebook’s more than just a place to play Mafia Wars.”
¹³⁶

“Or to be stalked by creepy high school boyfriends,” I agree.

“Anything else we need to cover, or are we all caught up?”

“I guess that’s it, except . . . um, can you help me get this pencil out of my hair?”

With my updates complete—and once Stacey stops laughing—we launch into a long discussion of
Project Runway
s past. We should be watching it right now, but with the Lifetime/Bravo legal battle over which network will get the show still not settled, all show fans are temporarily auf’d. As we’re reminiscing about Santino’s brilliant Tim Gunn impersonation, I suddenly snap my fingers. “Oh, my God, I didn’t even tell you my big news! I wangled my way into being invited to Authors Night!”

“Which is?”

“A fund-raiser for the East Hampton Library in New York. But your question should be
who’s that
because you’re going to die when you hear who the honorary chairmen are. Brace yourself. . . . I’m talking Jay McInerney, Candace Bushnell, and Alec Baldwin! Plus, there’s going to be a hundred other authors there, now including me! And the best part? Bethenny Frankel from
Real Housewives
is going to be there! Could you die?”

“I could die!”

“You should come!” Yes! That’s brilliant!

She gives me a wry grin before saying, “I spent enough on vacations for a while.”

“Okay. That makes sense. Anyway, after the big book-signing cocktail reception dealie, there are private dinners for some of the featured authors at mansions all over the Hamptons. I’m not a featured author—and why would I be?—but to go to a dinner all I have to do is buy a ticket. No one knows who’s hosting which dinner until all the parties are assigned, but one of the hosts is Rudy Giuliani! I could go to Rudy Giuliani’s house! How surreal is that? I mean, six years ago my electricity’s being cut off and my car’s getting repossessed and I’m being evicted from my apartment,
¹³⁷
and now I’m all,
‘Yeah, havin’ dinner with Rudy in the Hamptons, what of it?’
”

“That’s absolutely crazy. How will you make sure you get his party?”

“I went through the list of authors and tried to pick which one he’d most likely want. There’s a dinner with this general who was in charge of the armed forces in Iraq. I looked him up on Amazon, and his book was paired with a bunch of conservative books, so I figure that’s my best bet.”

“Smart. And hey, that dinner can be your goal.”

“Exactly!”

As I’ve been forwarding my cultural education, I’ve lost some steam because I couldn’t figure out an end goal. When I was working on
Such a Pretty Fat
, my objective was to be healthier, and I had ways of calculating that. I could step on the scale, measure my cholesterol, check my blood pressure, et cetera.

“Be less of a lazy dumb ass” is kind of amorphous in terms of goals. How do I measure that? Count all the times I don’t get pencils caught in my hair? Not poisoning myself every couple of days? Actually getting off the couch to find the remote control instead of watching yet another Snuggie infomercial?

Now, “Be able to carry on a conversation at Rudy Giuliani’s dinner table without breaking into terror sweat,” that’s concrete. Plus, at the book event, I’ll see Candace Bushnell and I can honestly tell her,
“Oh, yeah, Baudelaire? I’ve been reading him for a while now. Big fan.”

This event will really be my test, my version of the Empire Ball. This will be my chance to move among figurative royalty and see if I can blend in with them.

For some reason, I’ve always linked the idea of being cultured with the notion of having class. I realize they’re two separate entities, yet in my mind they’re inexorably tied. I feel like one can’t be classy if not first cultured. I liken this concept to Maslow’s hierarchy—sure, it’s possible to be self-actualized even when one’s physiological needs aren’t met, but I suspect it’s way easier to reach that point on a full stomach.

In my mind, culture is one of the building blocks of class. And I admit my logic could be specious at best, but that’s what’s guiding me.

“This couldn’t have worked out better. I’m so happy for you.”

“The thing is, there’s one problem. I want to look my best at the event, which means I have to keep this stupid hair on all summer.”