I have been outside all day, clipping hedges and pulling DAMN WILD ONIONS and hauling trash bags to the curb and I really feel like Kat Middleton never has to do any of this. My arms are now shaking from the hedge clipping, and I really feel like Angela Basset would have been able to handle clipping hedges much better than I did.
I don't know why I keep comparing myself to famous rich women. Gloria Vanderbilt would never do that.
At any rate, last night right after work, my coworkers and Ned and I went to happy hour (and by "right after," I mean all the normal carefree people stampeded over at 5:00, and old Mia Farrow with all her children, here, had to go home and let her stupid dogs out and feed them dinner and read them a bedtime story and tuck them in).
The woman at the next table looked an awful lot like my Aunt Kathy, and we wondered if that woman was sharing any poop stories with her crowd. We were tempted to just go over to her and say, "You look like Aunt Kathy. Have you had any unusual bowel movements as of late?" Look at the man next to her. He kind of looks like he's hearing a poop story.
After my in-their-20s coworkers had had enough of happy hour--and I don't know about you but when I was in my 20s, happy hour just went on to regular soused hour, followed by drunky-drunk bars-have-closed hour and hungover noon. I do not understand this generation. Anyway, seeing as two drinks was enough for all of them, Ned and I headed over to my friend Kit's store to look at her wares and say hello. Kit owns a vintage store, and it's full of great stuff, and we were lucky enough to see her newest collection: tons of Playboys from the '80s and '90s.
"Oh, I remember this one," Ned said, picking up a "Girls of the ACC" edition. "Oh, and this one, too," he mused, thumbing through a "Girls of the Big 10 Schools" one. "Oh! And I had this!" he said, holding up the "Girls Who Love Men Who Love Salads" special summer issue.
Sadly, I remembered some of the old Playboys, too, as I went out and bought the one with Cindy Crawford in it, and I remember being at a party paging through the Wow-there-are-Ally-McGraw's-nips one from about 1984.
"Y'all can...take those home for the night if you want to," said Kit, seeming vaguely alarmed by the amount of time Ned and I stayed at the Playboy section. "That's okay. We can just think about these later," we both said, and I have no idea when I got all gay, but there you go. I feel like Ellen DeGeneres would never turn down a chance to borrow Playboys.
After I pulled myself away from reading about centerfolds' turn-ons and turn-offs, I stood in front of this and giggled like an asshole for an hour and a half.
Ned ended up buying for me an old book which I am sending as a surprise to my cousin Katie (it's a signed first edition of that famous tome, Living with a Mom who Talks About Poop), and also a pink peony ring that I admired.
Ned liked it so he put a ring on it. You saw Grace Kelly wearing peony rings all the time.
Afterward, Ned and I got hamburgers (I ate half of mine. Six points.) and went back to his house, where we had two riveting conversations.
Oh, wait.
I forgot I took this picture of myself having a half a hamburger and thought I'd throw it in.
Anyway, we had a long talk about Jimmy Cracked Corn and I Don't Care, and I really can't recall how we even got on that topic, but what I said was, "I have never understood what that means. What the hell is cracking corn?"
"I think Jimmy just took big ears of corn and cracked them in half," said Ned, like that's a thing.
"Really? I just saw him cracking individual kernels," I said.
"That'd be Jimmy smushed corn and I don't care," said Ned, and I really feel like we didn't solve the issue. I feel like Barbara Walters would've gotten to the bottom of this, but we were a lot like the person observing Jimmy. We didn't care.
We also had a very long discussion about would we dig up Phillip Seymour Hoffman and fondle his testicles as they are right this minute, if someone offered us a million dollars to do so, and you don't even want to try to follow the conversations Ned and I have. The point is, I would. He wouldn't. Then Ned told me about a movie he saw once where these guys got a new roommate and the roommate killed himself, and they realized the roommate had a suitcase filled with tons of money, so they decide to dispose of the body so they can keep the money, and they drew straws for which roommate had to smash the dead guy's teeth with a shovel, so dental records wouldn't identify him.
I stared at Ned for a long time. "Why am I not surprised this was a movie you saw?" I asked.
"Whatever," said Ned. "The point is, the guy who did the shovel-hitting never came back from that," Ned told me. "So what I'm saying is, the memory of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's testicles will never fade."
Maybe it's best if you guys didn't know what I do on my weekends. Soon this blog will be one of your turn-offs.
