Tip for New Years Eve:

Don't clink champagne glasses and say "Here's to the new year. It HAS to be better than the last one!"

(Yes I specifically remember doing this last year.)

Well Hello Ugly ;)

That was an entire recent email I recieved on myspace.com. Way to a girls heart, sarcastically call her ugly. Nice.

I've been inspired to collect some of the more ridiculous letters I have recieved on myspace (from people I both kind of know and don't know at all) by my friend Janet-- who recieved the MOST ridiculous letter a few months ago. I don't want to recount that story as I don't remember it properly so I will ask her to post it in comments. It's very worth it and I believe has something to do wtih Nigeria.

P.S. If someone reading this wrote one of these please don't take offense, I appreciated each and every one of them...... especially when I'm called sexy and ravishing.

So here's the compilation:

"Hi! My cousin Mike lives in Erock!" (end of letter)

"I was looking at your profile and would love to be in touch with you. It seems we have similar interests. I work here in NYC importing champagne from France, selling high end luxury cars and doing real estate investments." (What a coincidence!!?!)

"I remember you from Rhame Ave. (my elementary school) you did morning announcements and shit. lol. I like sashimi 2." (Everyone has their 15 min., unfortunately mine was on elementary school cable doing "H & J's Book Review."....... I should put that on my resume.)

"....just want to let you know..that i think that u are RAVISHING... if jimmie knew that i just sent u a message let alone look at ur picture.he'd kick my ass...so have a nice day helen." (I'm not blowing anyone's cover and you could totally kick my brother's ass)

"I know I have no chance to holla at you sexy. God bless you sweetheart." (If "holla at me" means have sex with me, no, you have no chance. But God bless you too)

"You look nothing like Elisabeth (Hasselbeck). Your boyfriend should be bitch slapped. That's just my opinion." (Hah. Mine too! In fact sir, a lot of people share that sentiment..)...... (did I just write that?)

Ways 2005 could get worse for me:

By dropping my cell phone in a cup of peppermint tea, thus breaking it.

So I did that. I figured why not?

Thoughts on the Transit Strike

Thought #1: I love it when shit like this happens. LOVE it. Somehow though it doesn't seem like so much fun yet. I'm all alone in my apartment with no one to have a strike, "stuck inside" party with. Sadness. And now I'm at my desk at work and I wonder what's happening outside. Are people drinking 40s in Time Square like we did the night of the blackout? Maybe they're drinking hot buttered rum instead-- If so, I'm jealous.

Thought #2: I've been avoiding getting Starbucks lately as my rent is far beyond my means. SO this was the perfect excuse. I used 2 sub-excuses. First that I would have to walk 30 blocks in the cold and I wouldn't want to get cold while doing that. And secondly, that I know that our kitchen supplies "will be at a minimum if a transit strike occurs." So Grande Skim Chai and a blueberry muffin it is!

Thought #3: I also thought this morning: "I bet if I wear sneakers to work without bringing shoes with me I can get away with it." But I didn't. I totally should have.

Thought #4: While laying in my bed this morning with my laptop, (Side thought I had: my bedroom is so damn bright it's amazing how much more willingly I wake up in the morning) I checked NYTimes.com to see if a strike was happening and, although it was on the first page, I was somehow still skeptical. What if they didn't update the page since 4AM when they say the strike started? Then I thought, "how do people know if there's a strike unless they actually go see it for themselves." I don't know if it was because I was tired, or if I was just suddenly dumb, but it puzzled me. Where do people get their up to date information?

As I walked out of my apartment, thinking that probably there was a transit strike, but who knows how often the Times ACTUALLY updates it's webpage, I noticed far less people on the street than normal... and far less cars. I noticed a woman hitching a ride on Columbus Ave. But somehow till I got to the subway I wasn't going to believe it. How do all these people know for sure? Then I realized-- THEY have TV. I do not. If Katie Couric was telling me, I'd for sure believe it! I saw a man on the street next to me who looked like maybe he watched "The Today Show," "Sir, you probably think I'm crazy for asking this but I don't have a television and I was wondering if there's really a strike." He laughed at me, but confirmed it.

Thought #5: Things like this do bring people closer, or at least open up lines of communication. I now know that the guy who sits next to me lives around the block from my old apartment, that the security guard drives in from Staten Island anyway, that the woman in line with me at Starbucks had a meeting so she HAD to find a ride in. It can be a big bonding event. Like how there was that baby boom nine months after the blackout.

My current roommate and I kind of bonded the night of the black out. We walked up 24 flights of dark stairs with a 6 pack of Corona and a Jesus candle-- praying, but swearing that we were bound to get raped.

We didn't!

My Mother the Oxymoron

Last night:
Mom: I'm worried about your brother, the roads are icy and it's late and he's not answering his phone.
Me: Well he's working maybe he can't, why don't you text message him?
Mom: Helen! That costs money!
Me: It's 10 cents Ma!
Mom: I'm not THAT worried.

This morning:
Mom: What day should we move you in?
Me: Whichever is convenient for you guys, it doesn't matter..
Mom:UGH
Me: What?
Mom:Can't we just get movers?
Me: Well that's kind of expensive Mom...
Mom: So?

Conversation with My Brother

We're standing in my mom's kitchen, I'm making scallion pancakes for dinner, he's making a calzone. It's silent:

Jimmie: So... you like that Mariah Carey song?
Me: Huh?
Jimmie: Ya know the one about .. ya know...(sings)"I don't want a lot for Christmas.."
Me: Haha
Jimmie:What? You like it?
Me: Oh uh.. I guess.. I mean not really.
Jimmmie: (stops making the calzone) You don't like that song? EVERYBODY likes that song!
Me: No they don't! .......Wait,are you kidding?
Jimmie: (loud)HELEN, You are the only person I know that doesn't like.. LOVE that song!
Me: WHAT!? It's Mariah Carey!
Jimmie: (louder)YEAH!
Me: Who likes it besides you? You and Cara (his gf) like it?
Jimmie: And (his friend) Noah likes it! EVERYONE likes it, you are seriously the only person who doesn't like LOVE that song.
Me: It's on the radio like every five seconds
Jimmie: (and even louder, freaking out) Exactly because EVERYONE likes the song HELEN. Except YOU!
(Silent)
Jimmie: (stops making the calzone again)I can't BELIEVE you don't like that song!

Message I Left on my Friend's V-Mail Saturday Night

"KENDALL- I am DRUNK... like.. COLLEGE GIRL drunk!"

Why I Should Marry an Investment Banker

Things investment bankers said to me and my friend last night:

#1- IB to me: I'm in French Banking. (patronizingly:) Do you know anything about French Banking? What do you do?
HG: I'm an actress. I don't know about french banking but I've work at a B of America- haha.
IB: You have very little knowledge about what I do.
HG: Uh? Yeah...you're right.
IB: (loudly, almost disgusted) No idea, you have NO idea!
... continues to talk to me like I'm an idiotic 10 year old.

#2- I could get any girl in NY, sleep with them, but I'm not attracted to city girls. I like my girls from Colorado, girls who ski.

#3- "If you were such a good actress I would have heard of you, or seen you in something. If you knew what you were doing, it's really very simple, it's a lot like what I do. Marketing and talent, it matters a little who ya know, but if you have enough talent, it doesn't matter if you know anyone. They'll just cast you. So I'm saying you must not so great." (starts laughing uncontrollably)

#4- IB to us: Where did you girls meet?
Us: we went to school together
IB: Where?
Us: Binghamton University.
IB: (uncontrollable, embarrasingly loud laughter)
Us: Huh?
IB: Binghamton! Wow. (uncontrollable laughter)

..who we'll talk to for a few free drinks.....

Sorry Grandma.

This is getting to be a pattern. Two years ago I almost burned down my grandmother's house. I lit a candle on the third floor (where my grandmother never really goes) at about 5PM and then at 11AM the next day, my parents were there and saw that the desk I had carelessly leaned the candle on, was on fire. They called me, "You almost killed your grandmother!"

Then the other day my grandmother was rushed to the hospital. Turns out she's allergic in a 'can die' way to something I excessively fed her (that neither one of us knew she was allergic to.) Yesterday my mom came home for lunch and told me, "We found out what's wrong with your grandmother- Helen, you almost KILLED her!"

I feel badly about both incidents, but as my grandmother, the queen of sayings would say, "Almost doesn't count."

Truth Tables

This is a more serious post, but it's been plauging me all week.

So many similar things have happened to me or people I love in the recent months that when this happened it really took over my thoughts.

My mom has a very good friend from college and she lives with her husband in Connecticut. They're great. They seem like a great couple, loving, fun, open minded etc.

The day after Thanksgiving my mom's friends who I'll rename Sue and her husband who I'll call Dan, had off from work. Now, Dan has diabetes and it's gotten increasingly worse through the years. He's always altering his diet to see how it effects the diabetes. The past two years it's seemed like his equilibrium was off and it wavered between bad and worse.

Friday Sue left at noon to go run some errands. Dan stayed at home. Sue returned at approx 4 o'clock to Dan passed out on the couch his glasses and the table in front of him broken. She tried to wake him up. Nothing. She kept trying and he mummbled a bit, but he was totally out of it and acted like he didn't know who she was. She called 911.

The EMTs stayed for awhile as she stood by and his vitals got worse. They brought him out to the ambulance and as Sue was walking out with the last EMT, the EMT said to her, "Do you always keep that vodka bottle there?" Sue explained that they had had cocktails on Thanksgiving so maybe that was why it was next to the couch, but she didn't really see why it'd be there.

Dan had a blood alchohol level of 3.84. He's been drunk for 2 years. That was the problem with his equilibrium.

Sue is not a dumb woman, do not jump to that conclusion. People say "you don't have to be dumb to be blind or to be in denial" but sometimes things happen that do totally blindside you. Dan and Sue would have cocktails occasionally and he never seemed to over indulge. Many times she'd ask him to make her a cocktail and he would make one for her, but not himself. Why would she ever think he was drinking on the sly?

It's like you're sailing along and then life just stops and everything that was true to you at one moment isn't in the next. It's like in algebra when you do.. I think they're called logarhythms. When P is true, then Q is false etc etc. So when you find out that one thing that you thought was true, the thing you thought was most true in fact- like Dan's honesty to Sue, then what else.

About a year ago something happened to me that made feel this way- like everything I knew was false. Now my world has been thrown up again by something I trusted in my head and my heart even more. So if P and Q are false when I thought for so long that they were true.. then what? What's everything else? If the things that I'm most positive of turned out to be wrong and if this happens all the time, like to Sue, then how are we to live happy lives when one day, we're running an errand, or trying on clothing, or on vacation with friends and suddenly that life ends. Unexpectedly. With no warning. And we can never run that errand or try on that dress or go to that place with your friends without thinking that life may end. And for that matter, what's the next thing you'll be doing when life ends.

Cookie Puss

Hey! What's up with Girl Scout cookies!?!? How come no one ever offers me them?

I had a Thin Mint tonight. Offered by some girl I just met. I LOVE Thin Mints! Anyone want to woo me? Get me Thin Mints.

How come though, how COME you have to be in the know to get some Girl Scout cookies? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to the Girl Scouts of America to sell those babies full time and to the general public and not like it's some undercover operation? It's like they're just preparing those girls for sororities, or the DAR or the KKK.

Shady. I gotta get myself a friend in the Girl Scouts.