NEWLOVE

ever since my return from india i cannot. stop. farting. shut up i know!
today was a milestone in not just quantity but in quality. the unusually high methane levels in my body are not due to delhi belly like the last time i went to india (during which i lost almost 30 lbs. - ah the good old days,) and thank goodness because during those 6 painful weeks i reeked of old man. no, this time i think it’s possibly due to my re-entry into eating “normal” foods.

the other day, brad and i spent about 6 straight hours with his girlfriend, paul, and not to embarrass myself, i had to leave the room on occasion with some feeble excuse of having to get something from the bedroom where i could fart in private - in the unlikely event that it was SBD (silent but deadly.) paul must think i had ants in my pants or something with the amount of times i had to leave the room. each time it was thankfully not stinky but unfortunately, that meant it was mortifyingly loud. honk! honk!! no joke. i think people up at griffith observatory could hear me - and definitely all our neighbors.

i’ve even had to resort to farting in public on occasion. tonight i was at hot mix 3 at vice and luckily with the music so loud i didn’t end up being that weirdo that had to keep excusing herself. i’d just fart in the middle of a conversation and cross my fingers. then, i’d shiftily dart my eyes around like a paranoid schizophrenic to make sure no one was looking at me too much or for too long or while crinkling their noses, ready to shout out, “him that smelt it dealt it motherfuckers!”

went to the falcon last night with jannone & yunmi for rob minkoff’s forbidden kingdom release party as the premier will be in beijing today. fun. cute stationary in the gift bag. weird to be at the falcon as that was the original no-pants-tuesday declaration where 4 years ago (under ixel’s bad influence) i tried to get a half dozen gay men to take off their pants to celebrate with me. brad opted to stay home that night, lucky him. i even think i half hit on robin, a talent agent in town, who was wearing granny panties that night - no i did not find out for myself, i took her word for it. as it turned out she’s a lesbian- oops. don’t mean to be a tease. nope, not me.

(that’d be robin & jacob - can’t believe i still have these pictures from 2004)

i was getting all sorts of flashbacks last night. like the time i was standing outside and yelled, “who do i have to blow to get a job at movieline?!” unbeknownst to me, one of the magazine’s owners was standing right behind me. needless to say, i actually worked there for a brief stint a couple of years later and as it turns out, i didn’t have to blow anyone to get that job. yes, i am a demure and fragile little flower.

won’t somebody wash my mouth out with soap one of these days please and teach me my lesson?!

(jacob & ixel at falcon in 2004)

even though i’ve been to india before, i’m a little nervous about my arrival today in delhi. maybe precisely BECAUSE i’ve been to india before. it’s hot. we know how much i love the heat. there are tons and tons and tons of people EVERYWHERE and we know how much i love crowds. i got dysentery last time and we know how much fun that is.

but hey, at least there’s no language barrier!

when ixel, josheepoo and i were in russia, ixel and i were whirlwind shopping for josheepoo’s birthday celebration. we stood in a long line at the bakery and successfully navigated our way through the russian commands with the right endings, conjugations and declensions in order to pick out a cake. yes! although we weren’t sure what kind of cake we were getting, we were understood (even without the excessive pointing and stupid grins on our faces,) we paid and left the bakery with the beautiful cake we desired. we sprinted through the market and picked up tonic water with no hassles. we even managed to be understood when we bought him a liter of vodka at the bottle shop (he doesn’t drink gin.) then we went to a stationary store and picked out a card - no idea what it said but it had a cute drawing on it. we were pretty sure it was a birthday card and not a sympathy or get well soon card.

so far so good, right? wrong. we realized we needed ice-cubes. what an adventure.

the apartment we had rented did not include ice-cube trays in the miniature frost-box. crap. oh well, just go out and buy some, right? wrong again. THIS IS RUSSIA.

in russia, everything is sold at separate shops - like in the “days of yore” as rachel green would say. you buy your meat at the butcher’s, your greens at the grocer’s, your aspirin at the pharmacist’s, and so on and so forth. so where on earth do you go to buy ice-cube trays??

not only that, in most shops, everything is kept behind a counter - it’s not what they call “self-serve.” you actually have to have a conversation with a mean old shop lady who is not at all amused or impressed with the fact that tourists have been allowed into their country. she doesn’t care that you’ve taken the time to “learn” their language and that you have enough balls to stand there and try to speak regardless of how embarrassing your many mistakes are. and until you conjugate everything perfectly making all the masculine/feminine/neuter nouns agree with their adjectives in time and number, you are miraculously speaking pure gibberish to them and they just stare you down secretly willing you to give up and leave. they don’t care about you spending your money at their establishment. they will still have their jobs and make their same salary no matter the profits of their employers.

after many unsuccessful attempts in many stores, we were feeling like our mission going to be a total bust when we walked into the store that would be our final attempt - with or without ice-cube trays.

we walked in and rummaged around the “self-serve” tupperware section when we spotted a salesgirl.

me: do you speak english? (in russian)

ixel giggled under her breath. she just loves to watch me sweat. she’s sadistic and mean-spirited. her russian is tons better than mine, but did she step in? no. of course not. that would be too easy on me. but i’ll get her one of these days. just you wait and see.

the salesgirl adamantly shook her head looking a bit confused. so i asked her if she worked there or if i was just making a total fool out of myself in front of a fellow shopper. (has happened before - more than once.)

she worked there, she confirmed and smiled.

(keep in mind, this all took place in russian.)

me: i look for something small. small and square. plastic? yes?

she looked at me and blinked a little bit and pointed to the tupperware.

me: yes. good. thank you. very nice. but not something i look for today. i look for small. plastic. square. very cold. is for water. is square. yes?

i mean people, how in the hell do you come up with a word like ice-cube in russian? i didn’t have a dictionary on me and ixel wasn’t bright enough to bring one along - YES IT WAS HER JOB TO CARRY THE DICTIONARY ALL AROUND RUSSIA.

the salesgirl still stared at me blankly and smiled a little. hey, at least she was being nice and friendly - nothing like the mean old shop ladies that we normally encountered. so i tried some more…

me: okay. you like vodka? yes? vodka hot? no!! no!! no one likes vodka hot. i look for something for vodka for COLD vodka. small. square. plastic.

this whole time i was gesturing wildly, adamant about the freaking ice-cube trays. in case she didn’t understand my pronunciation of “cold,” i added “brrrrrrrrr…” with a lot of shivering while i rubbed my hands fiercely up and down my crossed arms. i was holding a small imaginary glass of vodka and pretending to do shot after shot after shot of vodka. i started thinking about pretending to be drunk in case she didn’t understand my pronunciation of “vodka” but it’s pretty universal i think. by this point, i was sweating profusely with all of my dramatic antics. it was a million degrees in there and i was getting quite the work-out.

i continued…

me: (shooting more imaginary vodka shots) small vodka. small square cold water. i need the plastic something to have the small square cold water in the vodka.

she stuck a finger up in the air and probably said something like, “i have an idea!” so ixel and i shuffled behind her through the narrow tupperware aisle back to the saran wrap section. she held up a flat plastic bag within which lay what looked like plastic sheets. it was ixel’s turn to look thoroughly confused. thank goodness for martin & my mom being such avid sailors with snobby tastes! (okay, i swear this isn’t some strange tangent…)

when i was a kid, we sailed all summer and our boat had a kitchen with a fridge AND an ice-box - which was pretty over-the-top swank back in those days. the only ice-cube “trays” that fit into this ice-box were these geniusly inventive perforated plastic sheets that we filled with water from the tap to make perfect spheres of water that later froze when placed in the ice-box. i have no idea how the water didn’t just pour back out, but because i was familiar with this contraption i was able to jump up and down with joy and practically hugged the NICEST SALESGIRL IN ALL OF RUSSIA!!

PS - josheepoo never drank that liter of vodka and it ended up going to waste because we had to leave it in the fridge for the next tenants. you see, russian vodka bottles have some fancy kind of lid that we couldn’t figure out. you don’t just screw it off, it pops up like a space-age periscope we later found out. but by then, we had already greedily chopped the lid to bits with a butcher knife in order to get our drink on!

went to magnolia tonight with jannone, louise & jasmin where we sat one table away from a certain celebrity all night. i didn’t even realize it until we were all done eating when louise was cold and i offered to switch chairs with her.

she reacted as if i was insane to even suggest such a thing and by god no, there was not a chance in hell she would want to sit in my seat. before i could start thinking too much about whether she was suggesting that maybe i had shat on my chair and she was uninterested in sitting in my filth, jannone explained that there was no way louise would give up her prime seat even if she was suffering from hypothermia because ORLANDO BLOOM was at the table behind us and she was making eyes with him. duh!

he and his buddy sat there all night until i got up and spoke to them. i was merely asking if they were hot - i meant temperature, but maybe they misunderstood. “hi, umm… you’re not hot are you?” they were probably thinking, “honey, have you taken a good look at me? i mean, COME ON!!”

i said it as i started lunging at the heat lamp and i’m sure it was obvious since i was sweating like a pig that i meant that i was hot (again, not as in sexy, but as in temperature)

they responded in a rather confused tone but one that seemed to indicate to me that i was welcome to do as i pleased. so i turned off the heat lamp.

“you turned it off? turning it down now means turning it off?” i didn’t really think it meant anything but 30 seconds later they got up and left.

i don’t think louise will ever forgive me. oops.

brad and i had 90 minute thai torture massages the other day at this place. omg, if you’ve never had a thai “rub-down,” you have to go at least once - if for nothing but the experience.

we had picked up a flier for the bangkok inn royal studio on one of our first nights in town as it is just off vörösmarty square. we kept meaning to go but didn’t start the serious push until this past weekend when we started trying to call for an appointment. the line was busy each time we tried and we thought they must be really busy taking appointments - we’ve got to get in on a piece of this action!! (considering the different phone system in this country, it is a FAINT possibility that i dialed the wrong amount of numbers and therefore wasn’t even really calling the bangkok inn at all. thank god the line was busy or i could’ve racked up charges to all sorts of 900 numbers - or their version thereof.)

before running off to dinner the other night, we decided to stop by in person to make an appointment. they were EMPTY. the employees were super cute ladies but when i asked if it was “stressful” this thai massage, they replied very enthusiastically with huge smiles, “yes, oh yes” nodding all the while. okaaay, maybe they didn’t understand the question, i thought.

then, when i asked if we had to bring special clothes or a swimsuit or something (i couldn’t get massages at baths szechenyi or gellert because they don’t do nude people and i didn’t remember my swimsuit,) they told us they had clothes for us and showed us their armoire of karate outfits. oh boy. that’s when something clicked in my head and i seemed to remember someone telling me about thai massage being more like torture yoga. frickity frack!! a small panic started to set in as i envisioned an HOUR AND A HALF OF SCREAMING WRITHING PAIN.

i could barely eat my delicious steak dinner at pampas (near calvin ter) i was so nervous about what the next morning would bring.

i managed somehow to be moderately successful and brad picked up the slack, i have to say.

yes that is a dead, severed animal (i would guess cow) leg mounted on the wall above brad’s head that i had to stare at all night.

but i digress…

so, as i’ve mentioned in previous posts while in budapest, the recent steep increase in flatulence levels in our household is quite alarming. my mild panic at the thought of this torture massage went from an orange to a red on the alert level because all i kept thinking about was some tiny thai woman ripping the shit out of my hamstring muscles by slamming my knees into my armpits. (note to self, do not under PENALTY OF DEATH forget to wear deodorant.) i was afraid it all might be too much for my sphincter and self-restrain to handle - much less brad, who would only be separated from me by a flimsy curtain… and none of us want to smell his farts, rest assured.

in addition to deodorant and the no fart zone, i started freaking out about alcohol oozing from our pores and OH MY GOD WHY did i order garlic mashed potatoes, garlic overstuffed cheesy bacon sour cream chives yummy heaven baked potato WITH AN EXTRA SIDE OF GARLIC SAUCE?!?!

i’m fucked, i thought. pure and simple.

the morning after the argentine restaurant (we all know how a big, fat, juicy steak affects the internal gas levels,) brad was so excited to have my laptop to himself while i slept so he could continue his secret on-line love affair, that he didn’t wake me until 45 minutes before we had to be there, in our borrowed karate torture outfits. so i jumped out of bed and into my clothes WITHOUT A SHOWER and we made a mad dash to the subway at blaha lujza. we took the m2 to deac ferenc ter and switched to the m1 to vorosmarty ter and ran to the bangkok inn. they were all there waiting for us with their perky! smiles! and fervent!! nodding!!

ugh, too early in the morning. no coffee. no shower. eyes. barely. open.

they put us in our karate outfits and sat us down to wash our feet. this ain’t half bad, i thought.

then they marched us over to our curtained off areas to get cracking, literally. my neck, back, toes, fingers… they cracked it all. it wasn’t so much a massage as a 90 minute stretch. about 10 minutes in, mr. smelly mc farts-a-lot knocked on my barnyard door and i had to make up excuses for 80 minutes to deter him BUT I MADE IT THROUGH!

and i must tell you, i love this thai massage thing. it’s awesome. it definitely is lazy man’s yoga and boy oh boy am i lazy. if i could have thai massage every day and have it count for yoga, i’d do it. it was $57 plus tip for 90 minutes. i wonder how much people pay in LA for a yoga class and i can guarantee you that this is much more pleasurable. afterwards, brad even remarked that he might like this more than regular massages. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?!

the first time i peed in our apartment here in budapest, i may not have noticed it but by the second time i DEFINITELY WAS AWARE OF THE STRANGE STRAWBERRY SMELL IN THE BATHROOM. are you kidding me? strawberry flavored toilet paper?!

you may find it strange that you’re hearing about toilet paper from me instead of from brad. (yes that brad. the guy who upon attending his first fancy new year’s eve dinner in denmark decided to chastise IN HIS DINNER SPEECH all europeans for their poor quality scratchy toilet paper. i know. what?? i’m a saint? why thank you.)

NOTE: this post is dedicated to toilet paper, besides being a birthday tribute to my dad. (sorry dad, the combination of the two are completely coincidental.)

back to business…

strawberry flavored toilet paper. strawberry flavored, you might ask? flavored or scented? well, after having placed tongue on random UN-USED foreign who knows where it has been toilet paper, i can confirm that it is not strawberry flavored. but wow, try rubbing scented paper on wetness and experience for yourself the strawberry-ish scent that permeates the room. totally trippy. imagine a partially urine-soaked strawberry shortcake doll and you’ll start to get the picture.

so now, my junk truly does smell like pie - strawberry pie.

when i walked into my doctor’s office one day last week at 9am, there were already 4 other women waiting - great, always a good sign that i’d be lucky to leave before lunch. surprisingly, i was pretty calm in the waiting room where i read a magazine outlining all the dresses on the red carpet at the emmy’s this year which was good since i was working and not paying attention. vanessa williams… um hello?!?! what was she thinking?

when they called my name and took me to the back the nurse weighed me - always a horrifying procedure on an ancient scale. maybe she was trying to spare my feelings or wanted me to think i appeared thinner than i am because she started the weights on the scale measure at 100lbs. this meant that the whole weigh-in procedure took an eternity instead of just a few seconds. she patiently pushed the weights ever so slowly through each notch measuring just fractions of a pound until i couldn’t take it anymore. i intervened and pushed the heavy 25lb marker further to the right in the hope of ending my slow torture. i mean, i was in a hurry. i had a cup of coffee that morning and orange juice in preparation for my favorite part of these visits - the pee in the cup humiliation that i so look forward to. much to my surprise i was not asked to give a urine sample. (see my last embarrassing trip to the doctor for a full account.)
they took my blood pressure and left me alone in an exam room where i waited for the doctor. i could hear him go from room to room and the murmur of his voice in the halls between each exam. each time it sounded like he was back in the hall, i’d sit up a little straighter thinking i was next. i sat there trying not to look at all the diagrams and other medical posters on the walls in order to keep my panic level as low as possible. can i just tell you how hard that is when you’re sitting in an 8′ x 10′ room for 20 minutes?!

and because of my diligent preparation for my urine sample, i realized i had to pee as i sat there waiting.  should i run through the halls with no pants on and hope no one witnessed my mad dash to the ladies’ room?  should i get up and get dressed before going?  what if the doctor walked in during that process?  i mean, a state of half-dressed is much worse than him seeing me up close and personal during my exam!  (clearly, i have mental problems.)

then i started thinking about writing this post and how i should whip out my camera and photograph the room to give all of you a better visual. every 5 minutes when i’d just about gotten up the nerve to jump off the bed to grab my camera out of my purse over by the door, i’d hear the doctor in the hall again and i’d jump back into my original position on the bed. and of course my nervousness at being caught bare-assed photographing the exam room is well warranted since i’m sure there are multiple laws against documenting one’s visit to one’s doctor.

when the doctor finally came to examine me, he found me sitting on the paper covered bed with the sweatiest palms in history. my exam hadn’t even started yet and already the protective paper was annihilated as if 2 tiger cubs had torn through the room during a playful romp. i sitting there trying to think of an excuse as to why i was sitting in the middle of a mess of paper - an excuse that drew all attention away from my sweaty palms which completely disintegrated all paper within a five mile radius. how could i convince him that i wasn’t the culprit, that i hadn’t accidentally shredded my surroundings, that he shouldn’t call for a psych consult?

but i didn’t even have time to open my mouth with a lame attempt at an excuse because he got right to work and before i knew it, he was smiling! this is the first time i’ve seen him smile all year. whew! that definitely put me at ease. finally! my stupid body is back to normal. sweet jesus!!

when my examination and blood tests were done, he left the room and in my calm state of almost perfect health, i gained the confidence to photograph my prison cell exam room to serve as a visual aid (after i cleaned up some of the debris.)

it was 4:25pm on a beautiful sunny socal saturday and i was driving furiously up the pch with a majestic view of the pacific ocean. simultaneously (i know i should have been concentrating on driving) i was texting jakies and magic dan with the words “uuggghhhhh! won’t be there in time for the wedding! traffic on the freeway is horendous.” somehow, by the grace of god, i made it to temescal canyon only five minutes late and the wedding (as most weddings) thankfully did not begin on time.

julie and dave exchanged vows under a beautiful chuppa in their quaker slash jewish ceremony under the glorious afternoon sun streaming through the trees. afterwards, we headed off to michael’s on 3rd in santa monica. i figured i’d stop at the beach to take a few photos on my way and pulled into the last public parking lot before the california incline. with my bum foot i couldn’t really walk out into the sand, besides, i didn’t want to get all dirty before the reception. therefore, my photos were less than fabulous.

so i got back into my car and tried to pull back out onto the pch - not an easy task. after 5 minutes of waiting, i finally saw my chance. i pulled out on the pch and made my way over 3 lanes before i realized that my destination (the 4th lane) was lined up beginning way before i even joined the pch. basically, i was going to have to cut someone off. luckily (well not really as it turned out) all of a sudden i spotted a gap in the traffic and i pulled into a space in the left turn lane for the incline without having to technically cut someone off. i mean, no one had to slam on their breaks and curse and gesticulate wildly - no one HAD TO …oh but someone did. the guy behind me in a jeep was PISSED! he tailed me the rest of the way up the incline and honked at me. i tried to speed up as much as possible but the light at the top of the incline was red and there was nowhere for me to go. we spent a few tense minutes at the red light with him ON MY ASS which is not fun when you’re driving stick and sitting on a steep hill.

finally, it was green and i tried to make my way down california ave. across 1st and 2nd as quickly as possible when i noticed the jeep was still following me. i started to get nervous. i turned south on 3rd and the jeep followed. i made a u-turn in front of the restaurant as did the jeep. damn. i thought he was definitely going to jump out of the car and scream at me or possibly kill me if he could catch me (which would not be hard. tomorrow’s headline would read, “newlyweds witness hobbler gunned down in sleepy santa monica.”)

it turns out, he wasn’t a homicidal maniac ready to gun me down but none other than one of julie & dave’s wedding guests! since i had arrived first, angry jeep dude had to wait for the single solitary valet guy to park my car a million miles away and sprint back. angry jeep dude gave me the worst kind of hate stare. so i tried to be nice by informing him of a rock-star parking space right in front of the restaurant entrance. he gave me the “i don’t need your stupid help bitch” look and waited for the valet. oh well!

i went inside and mingled and told my embarrasing road-rage story to a handful of friends. when it was time for dinner, i sat down next to my date when low and behold ANGRY JEEP DUDE IS SEATED RIGHT NEXT TO US!!! i hissed “that’s him! that’s angry jeep dude!” in my date’s ear. he replied with, “who, ryan? he’s normally so nice.” then i leaned over to magic dan and told him of my misfortunate seating arrangement. “that’s ryan, dave’s and my lit agent,” he responded. then he added, “he’s got serious anger management issues. you should’ve seen him at the bachelor party!” (they drove bumper cars around as one of their bachelor party activities and apparently angry-jeep-dude-ryan-the-lit-agent is very competitive.)

eventually, the situation on the california incline was mentioned and ryan and i made up, but i had to do a lot of appologizing and explaining. “i don’t normally cut the line, it’s just that i didn’t enter the road until the middle of the line and i had no choice!” i’m not sure if he bought it but he had enough social graces to know he’d look better if he just forgave me. as it turns out, he is best friends with fred who used to date kamra who knew anne-marie (a friend of mine from high school.) when i first moved to LA, i was sad to not yet have any girlfriends. so anne-marie gave me kamra’s number. at that time, fred’s sister, lorraine was living with kamra and we all ended up becoming roommates a few months later. now lorraine apparently moved back to ohio to date magic dan’s ex-roommate from college - SMALL WORLD! (did you follow that? not even sure i did - so no big whoop.)

what a night!

all those dance lessons totally payed off!!

ivy and i went shopping at target in pasadena. i only spent like $80 and i left the store with half a dozen items. it’s amazing!

we finally found a bathing suit that fits my boobs. too bad it was made for old mother hubbard!

notice how it hangs to my knees…

then i saw the cutest little top and held it up to my boob. i was trying to be discreet (yes, i know - very unlike me) so as i was remarking in a loud enough voice to reach ivy 4 aisles away i accidentally muted the wrong words. i meant to shout “OH MY GOD ivy this top is so micro it doesn’t even cover ___ ___!” but what i ended up shouting was “OH MY GOD ivy this top is so micro it ___ ___ ___ MY NIPPLE!!”

oy

there was a pretty perturbed older woman standing next to ivy who gave us nasty looks at that point.