Two

“So, we need themes for July through December,” Tafe said as she drove us back to her loft.
“How about asymmetry?” I suggested. “If there’s one thing that really upsets me, it’s asymmetry,” I griped. Tafe sipped from the straw of her diet coke.
“Um, shouldn’t we be upset about more important things?” she asked, “like global warming or poor people or something?”
“Oh ha ha,” I said. “Do you think this shade of brunnette is flattering with my tan, or should I go lighter?” I had begun dying my hair a very dark brunette a year and half before, being naturally a strawberry blond, and though I preferred the variety it permitted in wardrobe colors, I occasionally suffered from blonde envy. Tafe, the consummate brunette, who threatened murder if I ever revealed her rare episodes of blonde envy, was the ideal person to ask for advice.
“Georgie, duh. I think it looks super-dramatic with your blue eyes. And it totally does amazing things for your skin. Seriously. I know what you’re feeling, wanting to go lighter for summer, but don’t. Your skin will just not look the same.” She was so right. Every summer (even when I was my natural color), I thought about going lighter.
Tafe spent the next few minutes on the drive to her loft reinforcing how lame highlights would be and how terrible they had looked on her when she had briefly experimented with them and how she didn’t leave the house during the whole twenty-four hours between her highlights’ arrival and her next appointment to have them all covered up. She had even blown off gorgeous Professor Meyer’s D.H. Lawrence lecture out of sheer terror and shame, even though we knew it was going to be super juicy.

One

Mmmmm is there anything more fabulous feeling than tanning on a cool May evening, roasting your flesh to that lovely honey color as you pretend that it will be summer tomorrow, even though in the upper Midwest it's never summer until at least June first? I swung my legs out of the bed and bent over to get dressed. The newest tanning beds all let you stand up while tanning, which was actually completely great because you tan more evenly, but it's also way more tiring and less relaxing than lying in a bed with your eyes closed while your insides are slowly irradiated, so I often chose the old school option.

Tafe came out of her room shortly after me, carrying her giant squashy juicy tanning bag and wearing flip flops. I had zipped up a tiny baby pink hoodie embroidered with “YAY ME!” across the chest and slipped my sunglasses down over my eyes. I of course subscribe to the completely cliché and yet completely accurate view that large sunglasses make a person look 130% more glamorous than she really is with almost no effort. It contributes to the look I like to call “celebrity chic,” which is basically just throwing on a pair of sunglasses and grabbing a hugely expensive handbag when you have to leave your (or someone else’s) house cruelly hungover and wearing pajama pants and high heels due to some early afternoon emergency like Starbucks or McDonalds.

This particular March evening, Tafe and I were tanning in the hopes of actually being the appropriate shade of toffee before a stupid fashion show the next day. See, we had graduated from college with degrees in English and no interest in pursuing post graduate studies. We had do so something with our lives, so we started a little women’s magazine called Sass that had a theme each month (last month was chocolate) where we included little articles about where to shop and fun things to do and tried to publish personal essays of local women. That part, I’m sorry to say, was significantly more difficult than we had originally anticipated given our joint abhorrence of both nostalgia and self-aggrandizing “more than usually revolting sentimentality," to borrow a phrase from Oscar Wilde. Anyway, going to fashion shows was pretty much required for our little business.

Friday? Saturday??

Warning: Never order a Bellini at Jeff Ruby's. They'll bring you a flute of the most god-awful cloyingly sweet champagne with peach schnapps poured into it. You'd think that a place with as much gorgeous apricot colored crushed velvet upholstery as they have could handle a drink in the same color family. But they can't. We were there to begin a night of fierce partying to celebrate my passing the bar and the night began auspiciously. Best table in the bar area, tons of people we knew, fabulous live music and a totally hot waiter.

I gave my icky champagne to Jennifer but it was too sweet for her, too. Which worked out fine because a friend of Noelle's who had come over to chat with us was gesticulating wildly and knocked the flute over and it totally broke. There was glass everywhere and poor Jennifer had to forfeit her amazing Caesar salad out of fear that she'd end up eating the shards of broken glass and bleed to death internally over an agonizing several days.

Our waiter sadly did not offer to make Jennifer a new salad and pack it up in one of their adorable canvas doggie bags with the wooden handles that make you almost feel like you went shopping when you carry it out. But he totally made up for it by prancing to our table with a bottle of champagne sent over by Chuck, who was back in the dining room.

After Jeff Ruby's we ran to Maker's and Luis (one of Noelle's foreigners) was having a birthday party/exclusive tequila tasting. Let me just say this: there is absolutely NO difference between Casa Herradura Tequila and plain old Jose Cuervo. They are both 100% vile. Most of the rest of the night's a blur, but I do remember some terrifyingly lame club some time after one am where lots of ugly people were dancing (at least that's what David said, and usually he's not too judgmental about the ugly. If he commented, it must have been pretty bad). Stumbling to the car in my tiny stilettos and basically see-through backless ivory Milly dress for blocks and blocks was dreadful. We had obviously ridden with Jennifer from the restaurant and so she had valet'd and our car was miles away. The only consolation after that freezing death march was a trip to White Castle, which I completely don't remember, but evidence of which was present the next morning next to my bed in the form of a tub of cheese that may have been radioactive. I guess the whole point of going to White Castle is that you don't remember it, because otherwise, you'd be so horrified by the experience, you'd never go back.

Juicy Couture

My friend Jayne has a moral objection to Juicy Couture, which is confusing because she doesn't have moral objections to anything normal people have moral objections to, like fur or child labor. Anyway, she says that any company that tells women it's okay to wear sweatpants in public is a social menace.

"I mean," she said, "Wearing sweatpants in public signals that you've given up on life. Unless you're like going to the gym or something. It means you can't even take the trouble to shove on jeans and heels, which means you probably don't take the trouble to keep up with your roots. Which means you are probably about 1.2 inches from moving to the suburbs and driving a minivan and wearing birkenstocks."

Jayne thinks the ultimate in human tragedy is the minivan/birkenstock/suburbs combo. It's like her version of the addicted-to-crack-and-living-in-a-cardboard-box scenario. Fear of it sometimes keeps her up at night.

Sacrifice

Uh.  The other night David took me out to Volare to celebrate his being done with a "Chairman's Conference" which is evidently some ghastly presentation that all the interns have to make to all of the attendings as well as their classmates about an allegedly interesting patient.  (In case you are wondering, the half-price wine at Volare only applies in the bar area.)  I was super happy to have him done with the presentation, as he'd been sweating with terror for the past week and could speak of nothing else.  And I'd had the privilege of trying not to hear him muttering under his breath about Gillet Barrie Syndrome or whatever it's called whenever I had the poor judgment to attempt conversation.  

I assumed that the trials and tribulations of this wretched patient would be behind us once the talk was over, but then, on the very evening after the talk, he said, "Don't you want to hear me give my presentation?"  I suppose it's possibly a tiny bit insensitive, but no!  I do not want to listen ever again to a discussion of status-post ataxic L-enzyme hematological ickiness complete with power point slides ever again without being first injected with horse tranquilizers.  

Seriously.  I was a bit afraid I'd hurt his feelings but I hoped to save myself by suggesting a fabulous dinner and stuffing him with fillet Oscar and a half bot. of wine, which worked like a dream.  The valet and I shoveled him into the car, already asleep, which was rather a misfortune given that just as we were leaving, Noelle and Tracy arrived with Pim, reportedly of Holland.  Noelle's collection of foreigners with charming accents, beautiful clothes and absolutely zero morals is always a welcome sight, and Pim was a new acquisition.  

But, Love is about Sacrifice, and instead of remaining, I took David home and he oozed into bed with little evidence of the proper lung inflation required for life.  After a quick feel for the pulse confirmed that he was still ticking over, I picked up The Embers and soon enough drifted off myself.

Mini Season

SO! Is it 100% wrong to go tanning over one's lunch break? I mean, I don't have a tanning problem. I'm actually naturally a charming shade of what I like to refer to as "porcelain" (spiteful people might say "white" but it's possible that they're just jealous). Anyway, it's almost mini season and as culturally and emotionally empowered and whatnot as I am, I judge people with white legs. And I also judge girls who are under 30 and wear pantyhose out on the weekends. So really I'm forced to tan.

And while I was tanning I had a mini-epiphany. Remember that charming little black drapey jersey BCBG dress I lent Liz for an alleged "black tie" dinner she had to attend? The SB never gave it back! (SB for "Skanky Bitch," a term of endearment when applied to friends). Anyway, note to self: never, ever lend clothes to friends who don't live in the same state. You'll never get them back.