TV Boyfriends

I was talking to my friend Trisha the other day, and she mentioned her TV Boyfriend.


“What did you just say?” I asked her.

“My TV Boyfriend,” she said. “Like, my pretend boyfriend from a TV show.”

I asked her if she had any other TV Boyfriends, and she named a bunch of guys that I’d never heard of who are on television shows that I’ve never heard of. The good news about that: she and I will never fight over our boyfriends. Bad news: am I desperately unhip? It’s possible.

That got me thinking about who, exactly, my TV Boyfriends were. And the fact that I love talking about TV Boyfriends, because someone invariably says, “You know he’s married,” as if that’s the only obstacle to our happiness. In any event, here goes, in reverse order of importance, and the pros and cons of each:

10. Brian Williams – News anchor on some network. NBC? Pros: Witty, well-informed, and not afraid to poke fun at himself. Cons: Blonde, annoying daughter.

9. Dr. Drew Pinsky – Celebridoctor on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, the Dr. Drew Show, and probably six other shows. I know, a lot of people think Dr. Drew is a publicity whoring shill, but I think he rocks. Pros: helps people, handsome, fit, smart. Cons: would probably make me quit the Ambien, self-described narcissist, former patients keep dying on him. RIP Kenickie.

8. Joshua Jackson – aka Pacey from Dawson’s Creek, currently on Fringe. Pros: Knows the Van Der Beek. Cons: Canadian.

7. Usher – First year coach on The Voice. Pros: Handsome, talented, charismatic, great smile. Cons: Meddling mother, potential forced double dates with the Beibs.

6. Joe Manganiello – He’s Alcede Herveaux from True Blood. Pros: the most handsome of all TV Boyfriends and is 6’5” and has washboard abs. He and I would make beautiful werewolf babies. Cons: Penchant for taking off his shirt, possible werewolf.

5. Goran Visnjik – He was Luka Kovac on ER for several seasons and was hotter than George Clooney. He’s on a show now, but I don’t watch it. Pros: dark, mysterious, foreign, and was almost James Bond before that interloper Daniel Craig stole the role away. Cons: had a secret baby, might have killed some Serbs, is only rated #18 on the Serbian actors of all time.

4. Joel McHale – Host of The Soup and Jeff Winger on Community. Pros: According to my friend Alison, who met him in a Home Depot, he is taller, buffer, hotter, and nicer than he is on television. Also: he shops at Home Depot. Also: Spaghetti Cat. Cons: Wears skinny ties and sometimes looks like he is going for a fauxhawk. Occasionally looks like a skeleton dressed in a suit.

3. Anderson Cooper – He’s Anderson Cooper. Pros: Silver fox, smart, loaded, funny, brave. Cons: Tons of competition, irrevocably homosexual.

2. Jon Stewart – Host of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Pros: he’s Jon Stewart. Cons: He is tragically short, and is a Mets fan. That’s all I got, people. He’s better with political guests than entertainment guests.

1. Stephen Colbert – Host of the Colbert Report. Can you believe I chose Stephen over Jon? This was a real Sophie’s Choice, except that it wasn’t in any way like Sophie’s Choice. But it was a choice. Pros: Handsome, brilliant, full head of hair, and Catholic. Cons: Elf ears, had a canned ham running his Super PAC, seems obsessive-compulsive.

The Interview (A True Story)

I have a tiny, annoying scar on my brow bone, just below my right eyebrow. It’s small and thin, so it looks like a stray eyebrow hair that badly needs to be plucked. Super annoying. And, in fact, doubly annoying, because it was part of a cruel hoax perpetrated on me by the universe.

Here’s the story: on the day I got the injury that resulted in the scar, I had a job interview. I wasn’t really looking for a job, but I’d seen the posting, it was well-written (you know how important that is to me), and I felt like I fit the bill for the job. So I applied and got an interview. I dressed up in my big-girl suit, put on a fresh face of makeup, and even broke out pantyhose for the occasion, which I almost never do because pantyhose are stupid. I drove over to the interview site, careful to not wrinkle my suit or mess up my hair, and before I got out of the car, checked to make sure everything was perfect. It was all good: both ears had earrings, my resume was tucked inside my portfolio, the pantyhose hadn’t gotten any rogue runs in them, I had all my brilliant stories lined up, just waiting for me to tell them, and my breath was fresh and minty. I exited my car and started to make my way into the building, when I stopped suddenly, remembering that I’d forgotten to stick a pen inside my portfolio. For a moment, I considered moving on. There would be pens inside. But then I thought to myself, “Well, what if I don’t have time to get a pen inside? And what if my interviewer asks me to write something down? If I don’t have a pen, he’ll think I’m an unprepared jerk, and I’ll never get a second interview!”

My purse was in my car, tucked inside my gym bag. I was going to the gym after my interview, because I’m hard-core like that. I knew there were pens galore in my purse, so I opened the passenger-side door to get into the gym bag, which was on the floor on the passenger side. I don’t know if the passenger door was lighter than the driver’s-side door, or if I just wasn’t used to opening doors on that side of the car, but for whatever reason, my face got in the way, and I grazed my eye with the top corner of the door.

“Oh drat,” I thought, annoyed, but unconcerned, “That’s probably going to make my eye a little red.” My biggest concern is that my makeup might appear less than perfect. I reached into the gym bag, opened up my purse, got a pen out, and stuck it in my portfolio. When I closed the door, I saw my reflection in the passenger window.

It looked like a scene from a horror movie.

My eye wasn’t just a little red. It was gushing, and I mean gushing blood. It’s no lie that head wounds bleed like a stuck pig. I had rivers of blood gushing down my eye and dripping on to the rest of my face, like Sissy Spacek in Carrie. Desperately, I looked around. Of course, today was the only day that I forgot to put a towel in my gym bag, so that was no help. No spare tissues, no band aids, no nothing. I considered briefly using one of my gym socks, but I have a terrible fear of Athlete’s Foot, and the last thing I need is Athlete’s Foot of the face. I finally ripped a piece of paper out of my portfolio, and used it to wipe up the blood as best as I could. By this time, I was growing concerned about time, so I ran into the building, and checked in with the security guard.

“Do you have a tissue?” I asked the security guard.

“No,” she said, “All I have are these paper towels.”

“Oh, um, I’ll take one if that’s okay,” I said.

“No,” she responded, “you don’t want a paper towel. It’s too scratchy.”

Seriously? Stunned into submission by the fact that I was being denied a paper product, I said, “Well, I bumped my eye just a minute ago, and it was bleeding a little.” A little! Ha! “Can you tell?”

“Well, it’s a little red,” she said.

I looked at the clock and saw that I had about seven minutes until my interview. Quickly, I raced to the restroom, and looked in the mirror.

A little red? It was total chaos! I had blood smeared all over my eye, in my eyebrow, on my forehead, and on my cheek. I looked like I’d taken part in a Native American initiation ritual. With a tiny shriek, I grabbed the closest PAPER TOWEL THAT WAS EXACTLY LIKE THE ONE I’D JUST BEEN DENIED BY THE SECURITY GUARD, wet it, and mopped up the damage as best I could. I felt like I’d gotten things pretty much under control, and I headed off for my interview.

I was right on time, and greeted my interviewer with my usual fake confidence and winning smile, despite the fact that I knew that I probably only had makeup on one eye, a la Malcolm MacDowell in A Clockwork Orange. We settled down into the interview, and I started answering questions. About three minutes in, I noticed something: the field of vision in my right eye was diminishing more and more with every passing second. Fabulous.

Now, you may be wondering why this was an issue. Well, the issue was this: I’d come into the interview having already made the decision that I wasn’t going to confess to my inability to open a car door properly. My rationale was that no one would someone for a high-pressure job who couldn’t even navigate the intricacies of opening a car. So I said nothing, and now had an eye that was starting to resemble Carl Weathers at the end of Rocky I (also the beginning of Rocky II). By the way, that’s now the third movie reference from the 1970s that I’ve made today. I’m on a roll.

More questions, more eye swelling. In addition to being swollen, I could now feel my right eye starting to droop. At this point, I made a decision: if I saw the interviewer, even once, glance at my drooping eye, I would confess everything. But he was a wily character, and looked nowhere but directly at my eyeballs the entire time. Meanwhile, my ability to filter what I was saying had thoroughly escaped me, I was confessing that I’d never even thought of doing the work that he was proposing, and in fact, my real love was something completely different. It was my eye. My eye was making me say these things.

Forty-five minutes later, we concluded our interview, and shook hands, both knowing that there was no way I was ever getting a second interview. Instead, I got a highly complimentary rejection letter (with no mention of my disfigurement), a black eye that lasted over a week, an annoying scar, and this story. Hope you liked it.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Whitfield

This is going to sound morbid. I know. I can’t help it. But here are the facts: a couple of weeks ago, on a Saturday, a couple in my little suburb were walking their dog out in an unused field area, and their dog stumbled upon a terrible discovery: the skeletal remains of a human body. I saw the report in the local section of one of my online news sites, and was immediately struck by the fact that I regularly ran past the lot where this person was found. In fact, my friend and I had just run past it a couple of hours earlier, oblivious to the tragedy that existed in that field.


As days passed, an investigation was performed, which revealed that the body was of a 64-year-old man, Kenneth Charles Whitfield of Pittsburgh, who had gone to a local hospital for treatment of various medical issues, and somehow wandered out, unseen, in May of last year. No foul play was suspected – it looked like Mr. Whitfield had just lain down in the field and passed away. His concerned family immediately began searching for him, and had to wait over nine months to find out the fate of their father, brother, husband and grandfather. His obituary mentioned nothing of his sad, tragic final hours, but instead focused on his 39-year marriage, and the love and pride he had in his children and grandchildren. His memorial service was packed with the people from his community who knew and cared about him, and wanted to pay their final respects.

I lost my own father within those nine months in which the Whitfield family wondered and worried. I passed, nearly daily, the place in which Kenneth Whitfield lay. I can’t help thinking about the many things I did, from May until March, while the Whitfield family waited and wondered. My father’s death was unexpected, but peaceful. My entire family had a chance to wish him a happy New Year, and play cards with him a final time. We all had a chance to give him a last kiss goodbye, and mourn his passing with fresh, happy memories of when he was still with us. We had the good fortune to only have to experience the sorrow of a loss we were not ready for, and not the tragedy of a loss that just wasn’t fair.

My heart aches for those Kenneth Whitfield left behind, and the pain they must have felt, knowing that their father had passed away in that field. I know the questions that I ask myself about my own father’s passing: Was he aware of what was happening? Was he in pain? Was he scared? Did he know that he was loved? Was he at peace? I imagine that they have asked themselves many of the same questions in the past few days. And so, without knowing Kenneth Whitfield, all I can do is offer these words to the Whitfield family: Your father, husband, brother, grandfather, and friend will never be alone again. He has touched the lives and hearts of many, and our wishes of peace, love, and comfort are with you. May his soul and spirit watch over us all.

Useless

I’ve played the piano since I was three years old. When I was growing up, it was a pretty common thing to take lessons, but most of the kids I knew quit by the time they were ten or so. I kept playing, and as an adult, when people learn that I still play the piano, I hear, more often than not, “Oh, I wish I would have kept up with the piano.” Nobody EVER says, “Thank God I quit playing the piano! I mean, really, who needs to understand eighth notes?”

I am similarly glad that I learned how to type, change a tire, that Thirty Days Has December rhyme, and how to add fractions. There are, however, things that I probably could have done without learning. Here’s my list:

Geometry – When I was in high school, geometry was billed as the mathematical discipline that had the greatest practical relevance. My teacher, Mr. Bailey (brilliantly referred to by all as “Beetle”) regularly told us that we would appreciate understanding geometry when we were in the real world, needing to measure a room for wallpaper, or build a house. I disagree. The only thing I have ever used a measuring tape for is to figure out how fat my hips are, and how tall my son is. I have never, NEVER needed to know the circumference of ANYTHING. Area? Schmerea. Geometry is for suckers and nerds.

How to play the recorder – A regular staple of my elementary school music class was the annual Playing of the Recorder. Fact: I was quite good. Another fact: my recorder prowess does not impress on job interviews. If I needed to charm a snake, I suppose this would be useful skill, but, as of now, there is nary a snake in sight. In fact, if I had a recorder today, the only thing I would use it for is to bash anybody who was playing the recorder over the head.

How to diagram a sentence – I know, coming from me, this might be surprising, given my love of subject-verb agreement, appropriate use of adverbs, and not ending sentences with prepositions at. However, even when I am snarkily correcting someone’s grammar, I have never had to draw them a diagram in order to make my point. Even as an English major at a mediocre state school, I never had to use a sentence diagram. Although that would be kind of awesome.

The periodic table of elements – Why?

How to play handball – Maybe this was specific only to my elementary school, but every single year, we had a handball unit in gym. First of all, the United States has never medaled at handball in the Olympics. Second of all, even if I suggested to a group of my closest friends that we play a game of handball, all we would probably end up doing is beaming each other with rocks.

The Pythagorean Theorem – There is no need for this outside of math class, right? Because, as an adult, I have never encountered a problem where I’ve raised my fist to the air, shaken it, and shouted, “If only I remembered the Pythagorean theorem!”

How to mime – Full disclosure: I took a mime class at a rec center when I was in, like, third grade. I guess I wanted to be really prepared for my entry into the miming world. Sadly, I have never had occasion to put on the white makeup and take my miming skills on the road. Okay, real full disclosure: I was only a mediocre mime, even with the class. And I got stuck in an imaginary box for three hours!

Anything about the fake planet Pluto – I have always made it a personal policy not to learn anything about space rocks. But I got tricked, first in high school, then in college, into learning about the Delaware of space: the former planet Pluto. Now that we all know it’s just a dumb rock, I feel hurt, confused, and cheated. I believed in you, Pluto!

Singles

I was sitting at lunch the other day with a friend of mine, and he said, “I don’t understand why you don’t have a boyfriend. You look like you should have a boyfriend.”


“I know!” I responded. “I totally do!”

Actually, I didn’t say that, but I understood his point, which was, “You are not completely wretched, so I don’t understand why at least some guy wouldn’t want you.” And that is true. There are far more wretched women with far more boyfriends than me. But here is the difference:

“I don’t really want one,” I said to him. I know. It’s crazy that I live in this world and resist the idea of being coupled up, but my mother’s side of the family has generations of spinsters weaved throughout the family tree, so I’m guessing it’s genetic. So, in honor of my aunt Mary, my aunt Mary Ellen, my aunt Cecelia, and all of my other Irish spinster relatives, here are the top five reasons why I’m just fine the way I am:

5. The baby ship has sailed. Well, it hasn’t exactly sailed, but it has been dismantled, and it’s not being put back together. Sometimes, when I want to torture my nearly 20-year-old son, I tell him that one day I’m going to give him a baby brother or sister. Then we laugh and laugh. I completely support the school of thought that children need two parents. Not because I think a traditional family is better than a non-traditional one; because children are a two-person job. Luckily for me, it’s a job I never intend to have again in my life, so I don’t need a man, either for his mediocre genes (I mean, let’s face it, I will always have the superior gene pool) or for his baby-raising capability.

4. I don’t feel a sense of accomplishment by being coupled up. Let’s not pretend that this doesn’t happen. Just like parents think that their child’s prowess on the football field or straight A’s are a direct reflection of their ability as a parent, men and women think the attractiveness/value of their significant other is a direct reflection of their own worth. I don’t. I met a lady once who mentioned at least five times in one day that her husband was a college president. I was like, “Is it Yale? Because if it isn’t Yale, I’m not impressed.” It wasn’t Yale. I wasn’t impressed.

3. Couples are annoying. I’m sorry. That’s a gross generalization. It’s not all couples. Many couples are fine and mostly unannoying. But there is a specific kind of couple where the woman is bossy and in competition with her friends about who can a) get married first, b) have a baby first, c) buy the nicest house, d) become a stay-at-home-mom first, etc. etc. The guys, you can tell, are sleepwalking through the whole thing, glad that their real mommy has been replaced by their wife mommy. I know myself; I am one of the bossiest, most competitive people I have ever met, and I would crush these men. I don’t want to crush anyone.

2. My sweatpants would miss me. There is nothing I love more than sitting on my couch, staring dumbly at reruns of Hoarders, while wearing my giantest pair of sweatpants. I don’t get nearly enough couch/sweatpant time as it is, and being coupled up would eat away further at that precious, precious time. I've never been one of those people who hates to be alone.  I grew up in a house with a million people in it; I LOVE to be alone. Furthermore, I do my best blog-writing in my sweatpants (I’m wearing them right now!)

1. I don’t ever – EVER – want to be told what to do. Sometimes, when my friend Julia says something innocent to me, like, “Have a good weekend!” I respond, “Don’t tell me what to do.” I HATE being told what to do, and part of being coupled up means allowing someone else to tell you what to do - be it pretending to like his horrible work friends, or shaving your legs. I shave my legs all the time, but when someone else wants me to do it, I immediately become resentful, and want to grow a forest. I hear all the time about something psychotic called a “Honey Do” list where people ACTUALLY MAKE A LIST OF CHORES FOR SOMEBODY ELSE LIKE THEY ARE DEALING WITH HIRED HELP OR A 14 YEAR OLD. That is the craziest, grossest, most awful thing I can imagine, and I never, NEVER want to be in a situation where somebody wakes up and makes a list of things for me to accomplish. I swear to God on a holy stack of Bibles, I would make that person eat that list.