Bad Advice

Seattle, Part 2

I hadn't been to Seattle in a bunch of years and I've never stayed for very long, so this trip I made sure to do a couple touristy things. I know certain travelers like to avoid places where other out-of-towners will be, but I even like to do sightseeing type crap in New York.

However, I know better than to try and drag my anyone else along with me. So Saturday morning, thanks to the time difference, I was up, showered and ready to roll by 9AM. (Only because my body thought it was noon.) I decided to have myself a little stroll over to nearby Pioneer Square. It had looked quaint from the car on my way into town. . . .

Seattle, Part 1.5

Though my trip to Seattle was, overall, a great time, there were some bad parts. One of them was my journey home. I had to get to the airport by 6AM, which was fine as I was still on EST, but when I got on the plane, I was immediately surrounded by very small children.

There was the Russian toddler sitting behind me who kept kicking my seat. (To be fair, every time I turned around, his stern looking dad made him stop—Putinesque parenting skills you don't often witness in my neck of the woods.) The newborn in front of me who would occasionally burst into tears, and the two-year-old sitting in front of the newborn, who would periodically scream at the top of his lungs for no apparent reason.

But the howling children paled in comparison to the irritation that awaited me once I disembarked. I climb into my cab and discover that I have absolutely no cash. Shit. Then I notice the credit card machine. I ask the driver (mistake—don't ask, just do!) if I could pay with my credit card. He lets out a big, put-upon sigh and doesn't say anything, just angrily whips the steering wheel to the left. Kind of intimidated, I call the Large Greek, who happened to be home, to see if he had any cash. . . .

Seattle, Part 1

In retrospect, I should've just left my glass of wine on the table. But it was only my second glass, and I was going to be calling bingo numbers with the mayor of Seattle in front of 750 rabid bingo boys. So I stupidly brought it up on stage with me. . . .

Wah!

Yesterday my sister moved to London and I'm none too pleased about it. Sure, I'm happy for her, but she's my little baby sister! She shouldn't live so far away! Why wasn't I consulted? Who's going to serve as the familial buffer if not Suzy? By way of comforting me, friends keep telling me how lucky I am that now I'll have someone to stay with in London!

Cold comfort, that is—I don't even like London! It's way too expensive, the men have no chins, and the subway—oh pardon me, the tube!—closes as midnight! The food sucks and it always rains. No thanks!

So as I'm too grouchy to write a cheery blog post, I figured I'd just link to a couple of my recent columns as I haven't done that lately:

• In this week's column we hear from a woman who's pissed off that the married man she'd foolishly invested six years of her life in has replaced her with one of her friends. Oh, and he's still married.
• The week before that one saw one woman bemoaning the state of the men who populate the online dating sites. I found her a guy looking for a gassy gal, proving that there's someone for everyone.
• In this column, I inexplicably—and some might say, hypocritically—advise women not to have sex on the first date. Yeah, I don't get that either.

The Jewel of the Garden State

Because we are nothing if not intrepid fun-havers, the Large Greek and I decided to spend this past Saturday night in Asbury Park. Growing up, my family spent a week or two each summer at a relative's home in Wildwood, but Asbury is way closer and I'd heard that though it had spent a couple decades in decay, it was on its way back up again. Hmm.

My first thought upon exiting the train: "What a shithole." But as we began our trek towards our hotel, my snottiness started to be replaced by a combination of sorrow and something just short of horror. Asbury Park is separated from the neighboring town of Ocean Grove by Wesley Lake. . .