Category: categories

Devil in the Details

My friend, Jenny Traig, recently published her very amusing childhood memoirs. The book is called Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood, and you will like it. It’s about her struggles with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that manifested itself as Scrupulosity, a kind of religious OCD. These are the best parts:

“Today the condition is common enough that there’s a Scrupulous Anonymous group. I’ve never joined, so I can’t tell you if they subscribe to all twelve steps or if they just repeat one step over and over.”

“After a perfectly pleasant exchange with a great aunt, I’d spend hours trying to recall whether or not I’d told her to go screw herself the hard way. I would beg my sister Vicky for reassurance. “You heard our conversation. Did anal sex come up at all? I know it sounds crazy, but I think aunt Rose may have raised the issue.”

“Like many girls who don’t get asked out in high school, I spent my teenage years believing I was a displaced European. It was so obvious I’d been born in the wrong country, what with me having such sophisticated Continental sensibilities and all. As soon as I was old enough, I told myself and anyone who would listen, I was moving to a country where my unconventional looks, difficult charms, and erratic hygiene would be appreciated.”

Plan B

Our friend Josh is in for the weekend. We’re having a quiet, excessively hung over breakfast at the Pork Store.

Me: Where are we going today?

Bryan: Well, Lori wants to meet up, and she’s babysitting her godchildren.

Me: Right. We were talking about going to the Exploratorium.

Josh: What’s that?

Me: It’s a kids’ science museum with all these exhibits you can touch. The kids can kind of run around.

Josh: We’re going to the museum of screaming?

Me: That’s one way to put it.

Bryan: They also have drums!

Me: And flashing lights!

Splashin’ and-a Splashin’

We’re in D.C. staying at the gorgeous, velvety, sunlit Hotel Monaco. The rooms come equipped with animal-print bathrobes, they’ll loan you a goldfish for the duration of your stay, and our suite has a cavernous bathtub. It’s the kind of bathtub that makes you hesitate if you don’t know how to swim, the kind of bathtub that makes you think, “We could fit, like, eleven people in here!”

And so, last night, we hosted a Champagne Bubble Bath Roaming Robe Party. Everyone donned their swimsuits and robes in their rooms, then came back to the suite for a bubble bath.

You never know how ludicrously long your friends’ toenails are until you’re in a bath with them. People, cut your toenails.

Look, Ma. No Hands!

I returned home for Heather and Derek’s (very touching) wedding, and Bryan and I learned that the Armstrongs were in town for the festivities. Though we’d never met them, we called often enough to guarantee that they would either meet us for breakfast or issue a restraining order. Jon, Heather, and lovely little Leta arrived at the Pork Store that morning, where Jon asked about my new line of work.

How do you like working at the convention?

It’s really fun and interesting, but the pace is terrifying.

Really?

Yeah, I’m used to being a freelancer, you know? I get up at ten, have a cup of tea, write a little, go to lunch with a girlfriend, write a little more. Boston is a different world.

How so?

Well, compared to my old life, it’s like stepping out of a warm bath and being thrown into a vat of ferrets.

Then I ate the baby’s hands. Armstrongs, I am sorry about your handless baby.

Pet Names

Scenario: I’m talking with my boss in her office. Her boss enters:

Him: Can you finish this list by tomorrow?

Her: Whatever you need, boss.

Him: Say, that’s a first!

Me: That’s what you like to hear, huh?

Him: (to her) Great, then I’ll just… (turns to me with a perplexed look) Did you just call me Happy Bear?

Me: Happy Bear? No, I said… (long pause) Actually, yes. I absolutely just called you Happy Bear.

Her: At least, that’s what we’re calling you from now on.