Another Day in Paradise

Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea… joy to you and me?

Hit it and Quit it

Food Equals Love

Apparently, the restaurant business is one of the hardest to succeed in these days (that, and the luxury/decorative soap industry—terrible business idea).  That said, I think that even if the food in a restaurant is eh, the prices are pre-recessionesque, and the bathroom is just about as clean as the Port Authority facilities after the Puerto Rican Day parade, if they have decent customer service and don’t manage to make the customers feel fat, ugly, or slutty, the restaurant will probably stay in business for a solid two to four years. 

Everyone and their mother has, at one point or another, walked out of a restaurant feeling like Rosa Parks,  a child star at a moderately trendy nightclub, or Christopher Dorner at an LAPD function, aka UNWANTED (too soon?).  It’s probably because, in L.A. at least, most waiters are actors.  These thespians are pissed off because they all have bachelors’ degrees, grew up affluent in a wealthy suburb of Jersey, and would much rather be living the dream of being a reality TV star on MTV’s True Life: I only wear monochromatic colors, than waiting on you, God damn it!  They recognize that while they’re getting you an extra side of ranch, Honey Boo Boo is achieving at the highest levels.  So ya, maybe that’s the reason they’re giving you a little ‘tude. 

Don’t I know it! I was a waitress for two weeks once. I worked for this Russian dictator who verbally, sexually harassed me. Meaning, literally, he verbally-sexually harassed me. He said things to me like, “I know you have sex with your boyfriend in the car…with no protection…when you’re on your period.” Are you emotionally ok after reading that?! I know. It’s beyond. To add insult to injury, he said all that in a Russian accent, which we all know that unless your a bad guy on 24, is an accent that doesn’t work for anyone. Sometimes, I think to myself, I must’ve made that story up, but then I remember, I didn’t. Each day, my boss, Stalin, also collected all of my tips and then, “gave them back to me,” at the end of the week. Stuff like that just doesn’t fly—not even in Soviet Russia.  Needless to say, after I left work one day, crying because I was upset that I have a bachelor’s degree, grew up in an affluent suburb in Long Island, and want to be an actress, not a waitress, I quit. Oh, wait. Hmm. That’s awkward. 

While rudeness at a restaurant is one thing, cheapness is another. Excuse you, don’t charge me $1 for a small side of spicy mayo.  Like, do me a favor. Also, please don’t charge me $2 to add avocado to my sandwich—it’s just offensive to all involved. We all know the sandwich doesn’t taste like anything without the avocado, so just include it to begin with! It’s California, for fucks sake, there are more avocados here than Mexicans! You don’t need to charge that extra $2. Don’t try to play me for a damn fool. 

However, I’m pretty sure I actually experienced the cheapest restaurant moment in the history of the service industry  the last time I was in NY.  My mother and I were at a bagel place in my hometown, and I was getting sexually aroused at the idea of eating a NY bagel. Mostly because L.A.-made bagels taste like, to quote the war biopic, “Anchorman,” the inside of a prosthetic leg. 

So we get our food and drinks, and my mom’s coffee is cold. My mom drinks at least 5 cups of coffee a day because she’s a recovering coke addict (that’s not true), so she doesn’t play around when it comes to coffee.  Her coffee needs to be hot, because lukewarm coffee is for people in jail, or those attending dermatology and/or public health conferences, and we were none of the above on that day, thank God.  Just at the moment my mother took a sip of her cold coffee, a fresh batch of hot coffee was brought out.  So, my mother went up to the front of the bagel place and asked, politely, if she could get a new cup of coffee.  The employee’s lame response was as follows, “Can’t we just heat up the one you have? I’ll microwave it.”  Ok, that’s definitely an idea. …OR you could give her a new cup of coffee because this isn’t the Warsaw Ghetto.  Thanks for playing. “No you cannot,” answered my mother in her proper British accent.  Nice. This pinhead clearly didn’t know who he was in the presence of.   My mother was trained by Anna Freud.  That’s Sigmund Freud’s aka the founder of Psychoanalysis’ freakin’ daughter.  Ok?!  My mother is basically Obama. She’s a bigger deal than gel manicures.  Give her a new cup of coffee, puleeze. 

I think it’s worth noting that this bagel place, aka Oliver Twist’s orphanage, keeps all coffee cups behind the counter because, apparently, they are concerned people might take the cups and help themselves to free coffee if they had an all access pass to the precious cups. Like, calm down. Have a little faith. This isn’t Queens—it’s Long Island! 

Then, my mother  demanded, in the nicest way possible (it for sure could have been nicer), that the restaurant employee give her a new cup from behind the counter. He replied, “Would you mind just dumping your old coffee out in the sink , and we’ll put the new coffee in the cup you have?”  What are these cups made out of, freakin doymonds?!  The only explanation I can come up with for why this guy was so emotionally invested in my mother drinking cold coffee out of an old, decrepit cup is that this dude must have been a hoarder. 

I think my mother eventually got a new cup of coffee, but only after enduring more stress than a Haiti relief worker.  It was finally time for me to take a long-awaited bite of my NY bagel, thank Jah (yeah, that’s my second blog in a row where I reference the Rasta diety #mycurlsdreadeasily #thecolorsonthejamaicaflagbringoutmyeyes) You know when you bite into something and it tastes like seltzer, or kinda like metal because it’s spoiled? Yeah, so that was what I experienced when I sunk my teeth into this bagel. I was so disappointed that I thought about going back up to the hoarder and asking for a new bagel, but was petrified to ask him because I’m immature and care about what other people think. So, I suffered in silence.  

But, I plan on going back to that same bagel store when return to NY. Why is that, you might ask?  Because, like I said, any restaurant customer will come back as long as you don’t make them feel fat, ugly or slutty, and the hoarder only made my mother and I feel poor. 

By my calculations, they’ve got at least a good year and a half left in ‘em. 

#icouldmakethisshitathome

I Can’t Believe I am Responsible for Other People’s Children

The ultimate sophisticated actress job is nannying aka babysitting aka glorified housekeeping aka modern day slavery aka basically a step above indentured servitude. Why is it “oh so classy,” you ask? Because it’s not bar tending, waitressing or go-go dancing. It’s also a job that allows me to demonstrate to the men of the world that I am “wifey material” because I “love children.” Sure. If you are behind the times and would like to read more about some of my nanny escapades, you can do so here:

http://throwingpearlstoswine.tumblr.com/post/31412169335/nannyproblems

http://throwingpearlstoswine.tumblr.com/post/24632446659/what-in-gods-name-is-a-nanny-conference-call

http://throwingpearlstoswine.tumblr.com/post/17560766185/im-an-mit-mother-in-training

So, I have been nannying for my two kids for a year now. For 365 long days, almost every single day, I have played an integral part in raising two stunning children. I know more about these two kids’ preferences when it comes to fruit juice and disney characters than I do about my zodiac sign. That upsets me because one’s Zodiac sign is the thing one should know most about in life. Above everything. Through nannying, I have learned that, it really is true that when you become a mother you  stop giving a shit about yourself and put the kids first, and that’s kind of annoying. I mean, if I had a nickel for every time I gave “my kids” the last sip of a Starbucks passion fruit ice tea, or “colorful water” as they like to call it, I’d be richer than Bernie Madoff in his prime. I mean, these kids are basically turning me into Oscar Schindler. I’m so, so thirsty just thinking about it. 

Moving along, the biological parents of my children work full time, so when the kids are on vacation from school,  it is time for “Camp Gaby” to commence.  So, what that basically means is, I take the kids to virtually every educational institution, museum, art gallery and lame place in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. When will parents learn that kids don’t want to learn about Black history or about the scientific reasons mentos makes coke explode. They want to jump around in a pool full of balls and play inappropriate games of  ”doctor” with each other in a dark closet. Or, was that just me?

However, being a glorified camp counselor occasionally has its benefits. Sometimes we do fun activities on “camp days,” and on those days, I thank my lucky stars I decided to become an actress/nanny because who doesn’t love a good trip to Color Me Mine?!—You answered correctly—only a Nazi. 

 On one my favorite days at Camp Gaby, the parents of my children literally had me drive 45 miles to expose the kids to what amounted to be a petting zoo and vegetable garden. So we left at the ungodly hour of 7 a.m. and since I knew it would be a long day of petting animals and picking vegetables I had, give or take, 3 cups of coffee before leaving the house. I’ve gotta be honest with you, although I am a pro when it comes to coffee consumption, the combination of eating absolutely nothing that morning (thin is in) and the horrendous amount of coffee I had downed, had me feeling a little jittery. 

Now, as someone who is prone to panic attacks, feeling jittery reminds me of the last time I needed to pop a Klonipin, and that, in turn, makes me even more anxious. It’s a vicious cycle and all very healthy. The fact that before I left the kids’ house, their dad proceeded to whip out an oversized map of Los Angeles and  administer a pop quiz didn’t help my cause. I’m pretty sure Lil Wayne was much less nervous when receiving the results of his most recent STD test  than I was during this 7 a.m. oral examination. “Ok Gaby, does La Cienega run North/South or East/West?” “Um, East, West, I think?”  The look of disappointment on the father’s face could kill a  man. His facial expression basically said “Why is the girl who takes care of my kids so dumb?” It was as though I had just told him that I was quitting babysitting because I was pregnant with the kids’ piano teacher’s child.

Just for the record, NEVER FUCKING ASK ME WHERE NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST IS BECAUSE I DON”T KNOW.  First of all, who am I freakin Magellan? Do I look like I’m the the voice of the Garmin? I’m confused. I mean, I can barely get myself around NY and all you need to be able to do in that city is count! How am I expected to memorize these Mexican street names and to determine, in abstract, whether they run north, south, east or west. I mean, give me a break!  I’m not a cartographer, I’m a actress/nanny who was given her first navigation system as a Bat Mitzvah gift.

So I’m driving my children on the highway en route to the vegetable garden from hell, going over the answers to the MCATs aka the pop map quiz in my mind, when I begin to feel a little light headed.  All of a sudden, like a wave of stomach illness setting in after you’ve eaten gefilte fish that’s been left out for too long, I felt a surge of anxiety. I started panicking, and then panicking about panicking, and thinking about what might happen if we were 45 miles away from home and one of the kids’ appendix burst. Oy, I can’t. What would I even do? I don’t know how to use a compass in life, and wasn’t paying even the slightest bit of attention during CPR class. I was brutally texting the entire world and attempting to calculate how much I’ve spent on parking tickets since I moved to LA  (I’ve hit over a grand , by the way). My anxiety then transformed into a full blown panic attack, all while rolling down the high way 15-20 above the speed limit with two children in my car strapped to their booster seats (just fyi, they’re 8 and 10 year old). I contemplated  pulling over and breathing deeply into a brown paper bag until I could compose myself.  But, somehow, thankJah, Bob Marley came on the radio, and I was able to channel his positive vibrations and calm the fuck down. 

Despite all odds, we finally arrived safely at the nightmare of a  petting zoo that was our destination. I needed a cocktail but at least my breathing wasn’t interrupted, which was nice. The kids ran into the zoo to hang with a bunch of sheep, and I had the opportunity to leave them unattended so I could call my own mom and cry to her about my psychotic break. Every half hour, I thanked God that the kids’ appendixes hadn’t burst and assured myself the 45 miles would probably go faster on the way home. The only thing that almost triggered my Britney Spears’ “Gimme More” performance at the Video Music Awards-like feelings back, was the thought of their father asking  me if I took the 405 North or South to get home.

#HeadSOUTHonOlympic #justtellmeifimakearightoraleftgoddamnit

Jlo and I

I have always had a loving, deep connection to Hispanic culture. For one, I love beans. I also get what I’ve been told is “overly emotional” while watching the movie Selena. Perhaps it’s because my name is Gabriela Marcus and there has never been a customer service rep that didn’t think my name was Gabriela Marcos or Marquez, that has led me to feel that in a past life, I was born in the Bronx to a Dominican mother.  I’m also dark and ethnic looking, and if you have never seen the cover of Anne Frank’s diary, you might mistake me for a Puerto Rican, not a Jew. My brother is the same way. He absolutely looks Dominican and when he was really little, some homeless guy at Shea Stadium called him the N word. Funny kinda, but not funny at all. Pretty disturbing actually, especially for a 7 year old. It explains so much of why he is the way he is, because not only does he have to deal with antisemitism, but he also has to deal with Racism apparently. The struggle is real. 

Anyway, my oneness with the Hispanic people has also carried over into my work as an actress. I have had a few auditions/gigs which have brought me even closer to being a real life Latina. So, when I first graduated NYU, my first big audition in New York was for Law and Order. I wish I could say it was for Law and Order SVU but what do I look like to you, freakin Kate Winslet?!  I’m not thattt famous. Sheesh. Anyway, I’m sitting in the waiting room to go in for the part of “The Hairdresser” and every girl in the waiting room with me is dressed like a certified hooker. There was more animal print being worn than you’d see in a forever 21 dressing room on Black Friday. I started second guessing the modest outfit I had chosen for “hairdresser.” I then started pacing and went to take a look at the sign in sheet. It  looked like the cast list for La Bamba and/or any movie Salma Hayek or Penelope Cruz has been in. I felt very out of place. My last name wasn’t Rodriguez and I wasn’t dressed like a sex worker.  I was toast. I stood out like a sore thumb.

Then things got worse. The first girl went in and mid audition, you heard her scream. Then she walked out, said thank you and left. Hmm.  I wondered why she chose to scream, it  didn’t really make any sense in the scene for the hairdresser, but I obviously assumed I was a terrible actress and she, the girl dressed in a pushup bra and knee highs was the genius. Rational. The next girl went in and screamed too. And then the next and then I got my shit together and realized that these girls were all going out for the role of “Latina prostitute” who in the scene, gets brutally murdered and raped, hence the piercing scream. I then realized that none of my fellow Latina audition friends were judging me and I didn’t need to feel insecure that I wasn’t screaming or wearing zero clothing. I immediately felt better about my choice to not wear booty shorts, my choice to not feel pressured to randomly scream in my scene as the hairdresser, but didn’t feel too good about my choice to do something for a living where the job is to pretend to get raped in an office on 27th street. 

My second encounter with shitty acting gigs that predominantly Hispanic women and me do, was when I took a little gig for Party City. It was around Halloween time and Party City was trying to push the “Snooki Wig” as the costume to get. So I thought they were going to pay me and some other girls a hundred bucks to wear a Snooki wig on one of those morning shows segments, like they do when they show girls in prom dresses on TV.  I was sorely, sorely mistaken. At 6 am, me and about fifty other girls who all looked exactly like me,  got dressed into the most demeaning Snooki outfit ever and stood OUTSIDE in the blistering cold in front of the morning show building until Brian Williams ( whose daughter is brutally starring on Girls now) came outside and referenced the Snookis and then we were told to cheer loudly. Yup. Oh, and you didn’t get paid until you returned the wig so I had to stay for the whole thing. The entire time we were outside freezing our asses off worse than the victims of the Titanic, I was just chatting with Guadalope and Annalise about my life and how I was originally from Corona, Queens, but now I live out on Long Island, and how I’m half Argentinian/half Mexican/half Jewish. Apparently in addition to looking like Snooki, I’m also a pathological liar. I wanted to be cool like them. Oh, whatever. 

On my way back to Penn station, I pondered the whole debacle. And then the line that I didn’t know then, but I know now, would be the mantra for so many things in my life, especially career related, came to me like a gift from God… “So this is what my grandmother survived the Holocaust for. So I could follow this dream and do this with my life.” Horrifying. So I could dress up like Snooki for a hundred bucks and make up obscure lies about being Latina out of sheer boredom and lack of blood circulation to my fingers and toes. And that is when I understood that as much as I feel connected to my fellow Latina beauties, I am not a Latina. I am a neurotic Jew who doesn’t actually fit in with Guadalope and Monica. So since then, I have only taken gigs that stay true to who I really am. For example, I recently played “urban girl” on an ask.com commercial. Woops. 

#imjustGabyfromtheblock

Mommy Issues

I love Jewish boys. I wouldn’t dream of marrying anyone other than a guy with a name starting with a J. Don’t worry everyone, Jeremy, Jacob, Joseph are the only boys I have eyes for. I don’t even know who Ryan Gosling is… but I do know who Jesse Eisenberg is! Oh yeah, that’s what I’m talkin about! Now it’s a thing that Jewish men are known for making the “best husbands” according to Sex and the City and other well respected news sources… “Jewish men love their mothers, so of course they know how to treat a girl!” So what’s the problem? That my friend, issss the problem. They love their fucking mothers. Too much. What girl can ever compete with how much these boys’ mothers love them?  Probably only Kate Middleton because Jewish sons are like a more prized possession than truffle oil. These sons have literally been told that they are God’s gift to this world since they were eight days old #Brisreference After being spoiled by the love and cooking of their mothers for 20- something years, what girl is going to measure up and deserves the honor of being with the prince? 

Ok I will admit I am the daughter of two psychologists, so the words “mommy issues” and “daddy issues” roll right off my tongue like water. Also, because I am basically the heiress to the Freudian thrown, I think that gives me the right to diagnose anyone who has a guy problem as having “daddy issues”  and anyone whose a little shy as having Aspergers syndrome. So naturally, I am qualified to say Jewish boys have mommy issues.  Obviously, I am not a professional of anything except Connect four and other K-8 board games, but in my humble and correct opinion, a lot of Jewish boys have an over attachment to their mothers. Generalizing is fun. Listen, I know Italian boys have it too, and I’m sure Huang, Jose and Ahmed have all said the phrase  ”no one makes shabbat dinner like my mom,” but Jewish boys need to kick it down a notch. Obviously, boys are supposed to love their mothers and we girls definitely want to find one that does, because that’s the one who is less likely to beat you.. but still, there need to be limits!

It’s not all their fault though, is what I’m realizing. They get it from they mama, to quote Martin Luther King, I mean Will I.Am. The moms (who I know are just doing the best they can in life, so I’m going to try not to really blame them) enable the boys to think they are so smart, so good looking, and so freakin special that obviously the boys are going to have issues separating from their moms, and then probably have issues committing to a girl in the future.  I realized this partially because I sometimes lovingly refer to my own mother, who I love more than anything, as “The Enabler.” #myownmommyissues I realized it one night when I was talking to my brother about his girl sitch. My older brother is a strapping 27 year old male whose got looks like a young Elijah Wood and game sharper than Obama in the first election, so naturally, he wants to get it in all over town. I get that, I do, but he was talking about some girl who he kind of likes… but she wants a commitment…and she’s being so needy… all sounded pretty standard and NORMAL on her part, to little old me. My mom walks into the room and chimes in with something along the lines of my brother should be able to do whatever he wants, like insinuating that this girl must be sooo high maintenance. I’m sitting there and thinking to myself “Is this a sick Joke? I could be this girl he’s talking about. I’ve been this girl like 3-4 times. All my friends are this girl. If it were me telling the other side of the story, my mom would be telling me to dump this guy’s ass and get someone who can commit to being exclusive with me! That shit cray.” I then got my Dad involved and he agreed with me because he usually does #daddyissues . 

Granted, I obviously am a little bitter, whether it be about past relationships, my brother, my childhood, I don’t know… leave me alone. I’m fine. I totally get that I sound like an angry cat lady but come on, can we not set the bar so freakin low for what is ok? I swear to God, and this is real, I had an ex tell me, and he was trying to be really flattering by saying this, that if I got pregnant with his child, he wouldn’t want to abort it the way he would if he got a random girl pregnant. OH MY GOD. Thank you so much!!!!!!!!! So special. Can I engrave that on the Kiddush cup we get as a gift at our wedding? Disaster. 

I mean the issue of the mother in law and the new bride is nothing new. Obviously you have all seen Jennifer Lopez’s oscar winning performance in “Monster in Law.” It’s old news. But if I have to hear another guy tell me how sweet their mom is and how good of a cook she is, I might lose it altogether. I once actually overheard a mom of someone I was dating say to her son that if he walked me all the way home, he would catch a cold and it would be my fault. “It’s going to be her fault that you get sick.” Check, please!

My other fave was when I was making lunch and the guy I was dating at the time said he had to go home to eat because he was really in the mood for what his mom was making that day. Like do you get what I’m dealing with? I  also had a guy who I was dating tell me that his mom asked him if he had sex with me yet. WHAT??? YEAH. He apparently answered the question…which is the first problem…and then she was horrified and borderline angry that I had yet to satisfy her son. Ya can’t make this shit up. 

This is all a day in the life. These really high functioning, successful Jewish guys are all a bunch of mamas boys, which is good, I guess, because that means they aren’t dead inside, but bad, because I don’t think it’s supposed to be this way. Oy. In the meantime, I am gonna keep looking for my very own Jewish prince, and hope he wants to hang with me more than he wants to eat his mom’s food. 

#oedipalshmedipal 

Being “hit on”-literally.

Last week, my roommate Anna and our friend Chloe decided to go to a “Santa Crawl” in Santa Monica, i.e everyone goes to all the bars and wears Santa hats or something. Festive. I mean, I obviously  didn’t wear a santa hat because when you have, as my father describes it ,” 4,000 years of Jewish history written all over your face,” you just seem like a huge poser when in Santa gear.  Anyway, so we’re waiting on line for the bar and talking to these below average in basically every way- guys  who happened to be wearing panda bear hats. They were allegedly Jewish and wanted to bond with us about it, but we didn’t want to commit to being cliquey with them for the rest of the night… so as soon as we got into the bar, we ran away faster than….#HomelandSpoilerAlert- Carrie did when Abu Nazir let her go in the warehouse. Ok  I’m sorry if I ruined that for you and I do feel bad, but honestly, don’t be 3 weeks behind on a show! It’s just self centered. 

Anyway, we escaped the Jews in Panda hats, and Anna and Chloe went to the bathroom. Now, there is nothing I dislike more than having to stand in the girls bathroom line when I don’t actually have to pee, so I decided to be  go outside and hang. I thought to myself ” I have a self esteem and personality, I can go wait outside by myself for a minute while my friends pee, why not?”  I was nervous but I decided to take an extra step and not play on my phone like everyone does when they are waiting by themselves and therefore feel awkward and/or can’t handle their own thoughts for 5 minutes.  I was just standing there solo, sans phone, watching all the Santas rock out with their cocks out. 

So I stood there as innocently as a child pre-abduction, when this random drunk guy came outside, walked directly up to me, took his hand and basically pushed my face. Like he palmed my face. So obviously a flip switched in my head and I remembered that it shouldn’t be ok to do that to a girl, except for on any Dr Drew show, in which case it is basically fine and it’s part of the healing process. I didn’t punch him back because I’m not a Real Housewife of Atlanta/Miami, but I did yell at him Queens Blvd style. His friends, who saw this whole face-in palm debacle occur, seemed super embarrassed that their friend was a wife beater, so I let it slide for the minute and walked back inside feeling like a victim. I felt overly sorry for myself and needed lots and lots of attention about what had just happened to me.

Right away, I  bumped into the Jewish Pandas from the line, and told them I had just been accosted by a drunk man and his palm. The Pandas now had another friend with them who I lovingly refer to as the “Black Panther” because let’s be honest, he was more of a Panther than a Panda if you know what aaaaa meannnn! #notsurewhatImean The Black Panther had larger balls than the Jewish Pandas and so he told me to go tell the Bouncer my sob story so I could get the wife beater kicked out of the bar. Such a Panther tactic. 

On my way to tattle tail, I spotted the Wife beater.  I went right up to him and said ” I am going to tell the bouncer what you did to me before. ” I am so so scary. He was clearly intimidated by my statement or he would never of  looked at me right in the eye and palmed my face AGAIN, this time a tiny bit harder. And that was when my life flashed before my eyes, and shit got real. As a professional nanny, I wasn’t going to enable this behavior. So I went up to the huge bouncer and in the heat of the moment, palmed his face to show him what the wife beater had done to me. He didn’t love that I kind of punched him in the face by mistake but like an angel from God, “Cable” (that was the bouncer’s real name) heard my cry. “I’m going to check the tapes.” A highly dramatic thing to say, but I was ok with it. Amazing tagline for anything in life : “Just check the tapes.” 

So as the tapes were being checked, Anna and Chloe appeared. I filled them in on my brush with death/a palm,  which didn’t sit well with Anna. My M.O is having a dramatic event happen to me and then subconsciously wanting it to escalate so I run and tell Anna, who I know is very protective and will shut it down. Anna did not flip out, but went to talk to the wife beater calmly. She came back with the information that he had called us all “Ugly, fat CUNTS.” None of us are ugly or fat. 

That was when the bouncer came over to kick the wife beater out. The wife beater was fighting the bouncers and as he fought them, he put up his middle finger in her face and called her “a fucking cunt.” Holy balls. This reminded Anna that her father walked to this country from Tunisia with three pennies and maybe one cracker or two, in his pocket, only to try make a better life for him and his children #shehasachanelbag #thankgod She did not deserve this! The bouncer saw him and literally tackled him to the floor and then all hell broke loose culminating in Anna throwing a whole drink directly in the wife beater’s face while I screamed gems like “Have we learned nothing from Chris Brown and Rihanna?” over and over until I got a reaction . It was glorious. 

We were local stars at this point and Cable  wanted to reward us by giving us free drinks all night. People hanging out in the bar would walk past us and give us the nod of approval and others wanted to buy us things or not let us pay for things. As we were leaving, a random guy bumped into me by accident, and said sorry like a normal human being would. As he said sorry , he noticed my face and realized who he had bumped into. He immediately got white with fear, and said “Oh my god, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to bump into you.” He clearly didn’t want to endure the same fate as the wife beater. My debacle was a small step for me, but a big leap for Rihanna.

#thatsalrightbecauseIlikethewayithurts

I eat because I’m unhappy and I’m unhappy because I eat

Although it would be hard to tell from my Black Swan- like physique, I don’t enjoy being hungry. To not enjoy hunger is apparently the norm outside of LA. Who knew? Anyway, If I’m hungry, I get super cranky, kind of like a baby, or a Jewish male of any age would. As a nanny, I have seen first hand, the destruction that can occur when people need a snack. If my ten year old boy starts to say things to me like ” If I had an Instagram, I would never ever keep it on private like you do, you’re soooo lame” I know that little bitching needs a chewy bar, and fast. This is why I should have known better than to have gone to a cool-person, socialitey event as hungry as Starvin’ Marvin..

My roommate Anna works in PR so if my hair isn’t frizzy that day, she’ll invite me to her events. This event was for something important, I forget what, all I know was that two of the Backstreet boys were there. So I get to this event with my best friend Melissa who just had a baby like the night before, and her husband Steven. For the record, Steven has been dying to be mentioned in my blog so badly that every time I see him, he’ll try and do something dramatic like trip on purpose or talk back to a waiter. Anyway, so these PR events are always the same, it’s a bunch of obscure LA people standing around, wearing sequins, and looking for celeb sightings… and if you’re me, hoping to dear God that they’re giving out potato puffs. Having recently given birth, Melissa was used to eating for two and I sensed she too, was gonna need a carb sometime in the very near future. I was even starting to get a hunger headache, either that, or my Kardashian bun was a just wee too tight. Suddenly, waiters started coming out of the kitchen with hors d’oeuvre trays. Like African children waiting for UN handouts, we decided to move to the couch booth closest to the kitchen so we could get first dibs. We might have been hungry, but we weren’t stupid.

In the least classy way possible, Melissa and I grabbed an inappropriate amount of tuna melts off the tray. Steven who “wasn’t hungry” and “had a big dinner earlier” #suuureyadid #manorexia and therefore didn’t want any food, was peer pressured by us into pretending to taking tuna melts for himself, which Melissa and I would then devour like hungry, hungry hippos. We had a system and were working like a great team. Within ten minutes tops, every waiter knew our names, that we were vegetarian, and the sad, sad truth that we had zero interest in being cool at this event, and every interest in being chubby. We had inhaled at least 5 different types of cheese related snacks, and I felt more naucious than the time in college when I took two Tylenol and then went Saki bombing. That was also the time I threw up in a stunning flower pot outside the NYU library but that’s neither here nor there.

Our favorite waiter who I am positive was a high functioning Asperger because he took getting us Tuna Melts more seriously than the daughter on Homeland takes literally everything, came over and offered us another cheesy snack. I grabbed three. Ps, I’m basically allergic to Dairy. Whatever. I’m free spirited. Steven assumed that Melissa and I were done hoarding food for the night, so he did not do his team duty and take a snack off the tray for us. That was when I whispered in his ear with what is essentially the same exact voice as Jack Bauer used when he whispered intensely into the ear of a terrorist he was torturing, “Take one or I’ll FUCKING kill you.” Needless to say, poor Stevey took one for me. After this cheese ball of no return, there was no way we could redeem ourselves at this party. We were the three people in the corner who thought we were on the Jewish version of The Hunger Games. We  were toast, literally. 

#Foodequalslove

The D in DMV stands for degenerate

I recently had to go to the DMV to switch my NY License to a Cali license. See the blog below if you missed what lead me to this low point in my life.

http://throwingpearlstoswine.tumblr.com/post/33844689451/do-you-have-a-license-for-those-guns

So this was my second attempt at going to the Culver City DMV because the first time I didn’t bring my passport with me and therefore they told me in so many words, to go fuck myself. So I did. BUT I did come back to the Culver City DMV with an appointment time, my passport in hand,  5 pieces of mail and I might even have had a letter from my gynecologist to prove that I am myself. I hate proving to people that I’m myself. It’s so boring. Anyway, I get there and the woman working the front desk was the pissed off woman that apparently works at every DMV, post office, and airport security desk in the country. Oh, they’re different people? I’m not buyin it. “Do you have your BIRTH DOCUMENT?” she asked me sweetly/disgustingly. The website specifically said I needed a passport OR my birth certificate, not both. I don’t live in occupied Germany and therefore don’t have my birth certificate handy at all times, so I chose to bring my passport with me instead. “They said I only needed my passport.” “A passport is a birth document” she answered in a more condescending way than when God gave the ten commandments and said “Worship me, I am your god.” She managed to send me away from her desk feeling badly about my acting skills, weight and I even remember having the thought that I’d always be a bridesmaid, never a bride. I’m not sure how she did it, but it was impressive. She shipped me off to go sit with the rest of the losers, who in NY would be ethnic people trying to get green cards, but in Cali were just White people trying to fix up DUI’s on their licenses. 

They finally called my number and the new lady helping me was wearing a tye dye shirt and jeans which led me to wonder why in the most official place ever aka the DMV, where everything is according to code and stupid, German-like regulations, their employees get to wear whatever they want to work. The person who stamps the really important form saying you either can or cannot get behind a wheel, is essentially some hippie tard rocking out in a tye dye shirt. #America  Anyway, she typed god knows what intensely on her computer for a good six minutes, until a male employee walked by Tye Dye’s desk. Tye dye made a flirty comment to him which made me really want to know who was banging who in this dmv. Tye dye then asked me if I wore contacts and told me I had to pay ten dollars more for my license if I wore contacts. I bursted out with “That’s bullshit, I can’t believe that. That’s absolutely ridiculous!” Apparently she was totally joking, and I’m just a high strung loser with no sense of humor. I blame the front desk lady from before for my rude response to Tye Dye’s joke because I was clearly on the defensive from the earlier “birth document” exchange. #Cycleeofviolence Anyway, I had ruined things between Tye Dye and I so I went to go wait on line to go take the dreaded Cali license written exam.

As I was taking the written exam in a little cubicle, I was also having flashbacks to the day I left the room mid -SAT math section to go pop a Klonopin. Anyway, I waited on line to see if I passed this dmv test or not and there was absolutely no one paying attention to the guy behind me who was clear as day double checking his answers on his iPhone. Badass because he was breaking the rules by using his phone…super nerdy because he was double checking his answers. Who does that on a dmv test? It’s really so, so lame. This was a cheating scandal more overt than whatever is going on with Patraeus right now and I may or may not have played a role in it. I was embarrassed for this guy because I saw that he got the question wrong about your BAC  having to be below .08 in order to drive. The lady in charge came up to him and said “you’re not allowed to use your phone.” “Oh, ok, sorry” said my friend. He was really slick. He could be a writer for Homeland, the way he maneuvered so smoothly out of that one. We got up to the front and we both got exactly the amount wrong that we were allowed to in order to pass. Oh Thank Gawd. The victory was bitter sweet though because I realized that the process of becoming legitimate in the state of California had made me into a real Degenerate. 

#Pedestrianshavetherightofway

Vegas is actually a mental institution Part 1

I recently went to Vegas for my best friend’s bachelorette party. Now, I’m at the age where I spend 67% of my life celebrating other people’s lives  i.e. weddings, engagements, abortions etc It sometimes gets exhausting because I have yet to hit those life markers. I start to wonder whether something is wrong with me but then I go to Vegas and see all  the weirdos out there, the real live people who chop up their families and eat them as a filling, yet lean snack. You could basically pick any person out of a crowd in Vegas and assume that they or someone they know has been hiding a young Mexican girl in their basement for 12 years and it makes me realize that maybe I’m not doing so bad after all. 

So we went to Vegas on a Monday which most people don’t do since most people have jobs. Weird. We thought since it’s a Monday and probably not busy, we could ask the guy who works at the front desk for an upgrade. “Riley” the front desk guy, looked like Britney Spears’ boyfriend who she married in Vegas and then got divorced from 24 hours later.  I’m pretty sure it actually was him but I didn’t want to be that girl who calls him out on it. His secret was safe with me. Anyway , we girls couldn’t have looked less attractive since we had just been driving for 6 hours and all of our hair looked a little bit like overgrown chia pets, so I was nervous that Riley wouldn’t find us appealing and we’d be stuck with the poor man’s room. To my delight, after a little bit of stage 1 flirtation and twisting of our gorgeous electrocuted locks, Riley nonchalantly gave us what was essentially the Real World Suite. It was baller and I realized that in Vegas, even with hair like Sasha and Malia on a bad day ( they have bad hair and you know it ) , I could still get an upgrade or two. I felt good.   

After we had tweeted, instagrammed and facebooked horrifying amounts of pics of our suite, that probably result in each of losing 13-14 fb friends, it was time for the bride to be and another girl in the bachelorette party to eat some weed fruit loops before heading downstairs. I stayed way, far farrrr away from the weed fruit loops because of my recent brush with death/weed chocolate, which if you like to take pleasure in other people’s pain, you can read about here…

http://throwingpearlstoswine.tumblr.com/post/32958529845/flyin-high-literally

So we’re getting ready to go downstairs, and I notice that my two friends are getting higher and less coherent by the minute. They were having a conversation about shoes that I actually couldn’t comprehend because it was so dumb. We had to come upstairs three separate times because they forgot basic things necessary to our survival,  like money.. then.. IDs.. then Keys. #IwasgonnapaymyrentbutthenIgothigh I noticed with each visit back to the room, we were all beginning to slightly bug out, it was that moment where no one wants to tell each other that the other is bugging out for fear that they will bug them out even more. We were hiding it, but we were all silently panicking. I had nothing to panic about since I wasn’t high, but I felt like it was definitely important that I panic. 

As we crossed the street, some skinny guy who looked like he should be a contestant for the game show INTERVENTION, Ohhh it’s not a gameshow?… My bad…came up to us and asked me where I got my diamonds from. Hmm… I started to answer with  ”Oh my earrings?”— he cut me off— “No the diamonds in your eyes.” Right so this weirdo was the beginning of the end for the poor bride to be. Her bug out headed downhill fast after that, and she began to grab onto us while whispering things like “He could have a gun” and my favorite paranoid high quote ” Everyone here could be the biggest killer in the world.” She also at one point looked in the mirror and told me she thought she looked like Bozo the clown having a stroke. Classic. You’d think I would be sympathetic since I am a bugger outer as well, and I was… but I also taped her breakdown with my iphone.

The next day, after we had spent the rest of the night mortgaging our homes to buy mediocre room service pizza , the Bride to Be was sober and back to her old self.  We decided to go to the Bellagio fountain and take some super lame pictures. There was one of those Jonny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean look a like guys there. He was taking pictures with people and essentially asking for charity, because come on, that’s what those people do. Don’t get me wrong,  I would love to do that job, but I don’t even look like anyone besides Anne Frank.. so that’s a bummer. Anyway, this wasn’t any ordinary look a like- this freak of nature was the spitting image of Jonny Depp, even more than the look a like Luann hooked up with on Real Housewives of NY. It was uncanny. We started to chat with him because we were in awe of his attractiveness and it turns out that he was German and had just moved to Vegas a week ago. One of us idiotically asked him whether his German parents, who I obviously pictured being SS officers, were proud of their son for looking like Jonny Depp. He answered in his German accent that had a slightly effeminate tone which led me to my fantasy that he ran away from his fictional SS officer parents because they were never going to accept his homosexuality. He said “Yeah they are starting to be proud of me recently because at my Uncle’s party everyone wanted me to get on stage.” Um, I don’t get it. I wasn’t that far off. His parents for sure hated him. 

We wanted a picture to document Jonny Depp, so we asked this chubby Mexican behind us if he could take a picture. He turned out to be a flamingly gay Mexican hair dresser that we were almost certain had a Gerbil down his pants. Every couple sentences that he spent chopping our ears off about how his shoes were from Italy, he would then do a bizarre jerky movement with his hips. I actually asked him at one point if he was tripping on something, and he answered with “I wish.” No drugs, just Gerbil fo sho. It was in the midst of this gerbil debacle, that I realized that even though sometimes it’s hard when all your friends are getting married and you’re not there yet, but at least I don’t put Gerbils down my pants and there is really something to be said for that. I think I’m going to be A ok .

#LosBeygasmayn