Attacking Life with Comedic Jaws of Sarcasm. Recovering Dating & Relationship Blogger - Made it to Step 12 When I Got Married.

Author: Velvet (Page 4 of 12)

* Gender: female
* Astrological Sign: Pisces
* Industry: Real Estate
* Location: Washington : D.C. : United States

About Me

"She has a lot of pretty pretty boys, she calls friends." "Velvet is so hetero. Being around her makes me more hetero."
Interests

* Rollerskating
* motorcycle riding
* reading
* working out like a maniac
* all things British
* my dogs.

Favorite Movies

* Arthur
* Almost Famous
* Loverboy
* The Gift
* Sliding Doors

Favorite Music

* 80's Hair Bands - Guns N' Roses
* Van Halen
* Great White
* Cinderella
* Poison Foo Fighters
* Greenday.

Favorite Books

* I just like reading and I can't say there's a favorite.

Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Making Our Initial Descent Into the White Trash Airport

Well, I’m sort of pissed off at you guys. Yes, all of you.

If you are going to do something, for everyone’s sake, do it right.

Exactly ten years ago, I started waxing what was then, a closely cropped bush. When I learned of a place that actually, gasp, did the elusive Brazilian, I ran off in search of the eternal four weeks of hair free bliss. Back then, there were very few places who did this. Maybe a handful in the country. I was well before the trend on living life pube-free.

The first time I went for a Brazilian, she tried to leave a “Landing Strip.” Oh, hells no Kotobuki, you’re taking all that hair off and you’re taking it off now. She protested, I gave her $20 and she finally saw fit to wax it all. There’s nothing like throwing money at a Vietnamese nail tech to help her change her mind. (Sorry, was that insensitive? Well, suck it! I’m telling a story!) It took several years for this trend to come full swing and it was clearly MY bitching at various salons up and down the eastern seaboard helped push this trend along. You’re welcome.

Now. I’ve noticed something that disturbs me quite a bit. I think that right now it is just a west coast trend. But I’m seeing it everywhere. Avert your eyes if you scare easily.

 

What is this? A backlash to the Brazilian? Let’s take a closer, grainier look.

 

All right. I have a few questions. When a guy with a landing strip is eating out a girl with a landing strip, what happens? Are there sparks? Is it like rubbing two sticks together? Will there be a fire? Can I rub my hands in front of it because it’s cold outside!! Wait, I got a little carried away with that last one.

This is the part where I explain why I’m mad at you all. CUBE and I started working on salons country-wide over ten years ago to make sure you all could one day enjoy the Brazilian Bikini Wax. And yes, I mean “you all.” A Brazilian is just as much for the girls as it is for the guys. So our work was done and she went on a trip and I took a tiny break to have a little sex and look for a new job and we left you all to watch the store. And what did you do? Most of you fell asleep and at least two of you were smoking pot in the back alley cause I can still smell it, (!!) and now this landing strip for men is suddenly spreading like the wave from L.A. to the east coast.

Put your foot down people. Make it stop at the Mississippi. Do not allow it to penetrate our turf! (Heh. I said “penetrate.”) By my calculations, I66 is the furthest west, so we need you to saddle up boy. Patsy is on the other side of the Mississippi but Texas and trends don’t go in the same sentence, much less the same state, so while my money would be on her to stop this shit, she won’t have a chance to intercept it. Fight the guy’s landing strip. Fight it.

Thank you. That is all.

*For more examples of “male landing strips,” please watch The Millionaire Matchmaker and check out, oh, any of her clients.

You Took My Body and Played to Win

Some simple math to start things off.

1 Lorazepam + 1 Klonopin + 1 joint = I’m so sorry I blacked out at your bachelorette party and I don’t remember a fucking thing. No, I don’t remember that either.

1 set of car keys + 3 Texas sized “medium” beers = We stole some chick’s car for a joyride.

1 returned, joyridden vehicle, reparked across the street + 1 bag of Chex Mix + a Big Gulp + Patsy = Damn fine entertainment.

You will need to recall “order of operations” for this next one.

1 “almost” three year old blog whose writer prefers the rating XXX + (1 friend – any morals whatsoever) + increased searches for said friend both on google and in the Velvet search box = A Brand New Weekly Column from Sixes and Sevens!

Ladies and Gentlemen, children of all ages, you will come cum to love Tuesdays. Sixes and Sevens, formerly known as BIGGER BITCH THAN YOU, is going to begin her column here, called C U Next Tuesday! We’re very excited about this new column here at the Velvet in Dupont Headquarters. (Site of HQ: My bed.) We ran this by our Board of Directors (that’s really just me) and they gave it the okay. Then we finalized the details with our marketing department (also just me) and they felt this was the way to address our nationwide focus group findings: MORE SMUT. Finally, we consulted the Finance Department (also me.) They felt that with the recent dip in the economy they could not budget any additional funds for this endeavor. Then we all laughed hysterically since everyone knows Sixes and Sevens puts her sex life on display for free.

Exxxcellent Smithers.

Kicking In Chairs and Knocking Down Tables

I always hated having friends over in high school. My parents really commandeered the living areas of our house and didn’t yield to my friends and our headbanger aqua-netted hair. I longed for the day I would have a place of my own.

I went from my parents house to living with a cracked out roommate, to living with a boyfriend until I was 30 to being on my oh my fucking god Jenna Jameson is on Celebrity Apprentice right now looking like a skanky meth addict. Fuck. Hold on.

Okay. I’m back. Anyway, when I was finally living alone, I carefully planned out a design theme, then spent years and thousands debating the purchase and ultimate placement of each piece of furniture. I mixed vintage Heywood Wakefield with modern stuff from Scan and Pier 1 and oh my fucking god Trace Adkins is in danger of being fired off Celebrity Apprentice and I want him to win! Hold on.

Phew. He’s safe.

Shit. Where was I? Right. My prized mid-50’s Heywood Wakefield coffee table and ballerina lamp.

 

Anyway, the point of this is to tell you that even though I don’t live with another human, the dogs have fucking taken over. I want my place how I want it and I can’t because these little assholes are so demanding. First, it started with just having to keep the couch and chair covered with a sheet because they like to lounge there during the day. Then I had to cover my down comforter with a stupid sheet too. Then I realized that my beautiful bamboo floors were not safe for aging doggies, so I bought two area rugs and covered most of my living room. I had to move all the furniture out of the way and my living room has become a freaking wrestling ring. Sammy’s perennial base of operations has been that orange rug. I don’t get it.

In this corner, weighing in at 44 pounds is Thora the Princess of Dupont. And in this corner, weighing in at 37 pounds is Sammy the Stray Dog of Georgia!!!

One night last week I folded a magazine to something I wanted to read, put it on my bed and I come back to see this:

 

 

Mommy! The Radar Magazine Fashion issue is to die for!

And God forbid I try to cook anything or put anything edible on the kitchen counter.

 

Get it Sammy! Jump on those counters. I’m Sweet Thora, I would never do anything bad.

My beautiful 50’s mod stuff is now awash in dog hair, slobber, paw prints and marrow bone juice. Yeah. Somewhere in the last few months, I just gave up. It used to be important to me to have nice furniture. But I made my list of priorities and the dogs ranked higher. It’s more important to me that they are happy and healthy and comfortable as they age. Besides, it isn’t worth the fight. There’s two of them. There’s only one of me.

And after that award winning blowjob I administered the other night, I’m fucking tired.

An exciting change in the Velvet format, coming next week. Prepare your I.T. departments. I plan this will get me blocked from all your workplaces from one end of the beltway to the other.

Happy Weekend! Velvet outtttt.

Once Upon a Time There Were Three Little Girls Who Went to the Police Academy…

Ugh. I have no idea why my brain is suddenly and consistently on childhood-rewind, but anyway.

I keep thinking about this drink my brothers and I used to be obsessed with in the 70’s. It was a milk / Yoo Hoo drink that came in a can. It was in the refrigerater section where you would buy regular milk and cheese. You shook the can and it was this thick like pudding milkshake. I called my brother to ask him if he remembered the name of the drink and all of a sudden, we’re back in the 70’s, watching Charlies Angels and drinking orange juice that came out of the freezer and was, yes, “concentrated” – hence the “not from concentrate” disclaimer on OJ now. I think they can stop with the “not from concentrate.” No one even knows or cares what that means anymore.

In my search for this drink, I stumbled across the following.

Enjoy the biggest timewaster ever.

Click “Tick Tock Toys.” I’m obsessed with the retro food packaging section.

And if anyone remembers that milk drink, can you tell me? I think it starts with an “F.” If I-66 was in his 30’s, my money would be on him. I think Cube and possibly Hammer are going to be my best bets. Help me! It’s driving me crazy!!!

Anatomy of an Interview; Part Deux

Well well well. I’m so happy to hear some of you actually used my first round of wisdom in your interviews. Well done. But, there’s more.

6) Whose Attitude is Worse? Bitchy Blogger or Soon-To-Be Supervisor?
I’m a cut to the chase kind of girl. Most people are more politically correct than I am. When someone’s snark and ‘tude matches mine, awesome. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s very good for business, and exceptionally good for MY business, but I digress. When someone turns the corner from snarky to downright evil, then spank my ass and call me concerned. Okay, don’t call me concerned, but jesus, cut a girl some love and do the spanking anyway, please?

It doesn’t matter what someone else has in their backyard: It has no effect on my backyard. This is very important for people to realize. Keeping up with the Joneses is a fallacy. This rule applies to many types of situations. If I get wind of a writing contest, I forward it to other bloggers even though I may intend on entering myself. Know why? Because whether they win or not has zero effect on how good of a writer I may or may not be. How many houses one builder is selling has zero impact on how good another builder is at building and selling houses. Everyone has core competencies, and if they are all the same, then what the fuck is the point of a free market economy? We could all just become communists if we wanted to be the same.

The Duck Hunter, who you met in installment one, said he was “relishing the housing downturn because now all the people who wouldn’t talk to him before are now running to him for his commercial real estate business,” I thought, “Bittttter.” Then I thought, “Run!” It doesn’t matter what is going on with other people’s businesses. It doesn’t. Put your head down and do your best. Unless they are unethically stealing your customers or best practices, don’t worry. And even then…jesus. Do something about it instead of crying like a little bitch.

Lesson: If you can smell emotions are running a business, do some running of your own. As in, “Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just run.”

7) Did You Just…Did I Hear My Own…What the Hell Did You Say?
I have a gem. It’s the “thing” I like to say in an interview and it’s pretty clever but really applicable to my experience and industry only. You should have a gem, something to say that’s a thinly veiled disguise for how much of a team player you are or that you will suck anyone’s cock for the right price. Wait, maybe not that last one. So you drop this gem in a first interview and you are met with smiles and clapping hands and, “Amen sister!” (No no, they really said that.) You think, “Great. I done good, ma!”

So then you go to the second interview. They ask the same question, but then before you can relaunch your “gem” answer, they repeat, almost verbatim, except for adding the part in front “Well I personally always believed,” then trot off with your original answer word for word for word. Hello? What? What did you just say? You burgled my idea. And now you are passing it off as your own! And you didn’t give me credit! THIEF! This one was easy. Cheri O’Teri as Judge Judy just said NEXT!

Lesson: If they steal your implants they’ll never give you credit for being the one who came up with the D-chest idea in the first place. Oh come on. Not all the lessons can be so literal.

8) Come Here Often?

You have to listen to people. You really do. There is no amount of research or ass kissing that you can do to learn more than what you will by what people tell you. I had two interviews with the company who burgled my “gem” of an idea above. At the first interview, I liked the people and was gung ho for the second interview. But in the first interview, there was mention of a business plan rewrite based on some outside bullshit. Then at the second interview, there was mention again of the business plan rewrite based on other, different outside bullshit. What? WHAT? Do you bitches have any idea what you are doing? You keep rewriting your business plan every time you get a piece of information that is from some flunky artist-cum-pornstar-cum-researcher who declares May 4th, 2010 the day the real estate market rebounds? I am not opposed to a constant review of the roadmap for your business, shit, I have a roadmap for my own life and I try to operate with that in mind, but I don’t rewrite it every day based on what the UPS lady says or on what my 7th grade best friend posted on her Myspace page.

Do you know people who canvass for opinions? I do. I’m related to one. It is nothing short of infuriating. But working for one is really really bad.

Canvassing for opinions and acting on every single one means the boss will never get anything done. And if the boss never gets anything done, then I’ll never get anything done. And if I never get anything done, and I spend a year working for that boss, not getting anything done, WTF am I going to put after all those empty bullet marks on my resume with their shitty company name as the header? Christ.

Lesson: Companies do not rewrite business plans on a monthly, weekly or God Forbid, daily basis. If they do stupid things like this that violate everything you learned in kindergarden, consult your intuition and get out of there.

9) The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
I got a phone call from a national company with a headquarters out west somewhere. Several painful emails lacked any punctuation. (“hi my name is chris from x company and i wanted to know if you could do a phone interview with me tell me when would be a good time to talk then i’ll refer you to the local human resources contact he will call you to set up the in person interview also what is a good number to reach you on”) We did the phone interview. It went rather well and they scheduled me to go in to the local office to meet the person doing the hiring. Then I get an email that it’s on hold. Whatever. Then I get a phone call from the local office HR dude, who scheduled an in-person interview later that week. Then I got another phone call that it was changed to a phone interview because they wanted me to get through the screening process before I came on site. Sigh. Do you people have any idea what you are doing? As some crazy drunken Irish guy I used to work with would say, “The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. Hey, is this someone’s beer or can I finish it?” Wait, scratch that part about the beer. Just the hands. That’s what I meant.

Lesson: If they are disorganized from the start, they will never be organized. This isn’t a good sign, only because it wasn’t just one blip in the process, it was hurdle after hurdle of stupidity.

10) Bend Over
I don’t get it. I really don’t. I know that interviewing and such has changed quite a bit over the years. I have heard that credit checks and background checks as well as “googling” are more common than ever, used to eliminate people out of the interviewing game. This is why I blog as “Velvet” and not as my real name, Persephone Eleni Athena Eros Pappadopolous.

Recently, I met with a recruiter who seemed wonderful, and very well may be, and has an interesting job on deck which she feels I would be perfectly suited for. (Don’t all recruiters think this? Yeah. Anyway.) So she emails me after the interview and says that I’ll have to fill out all these forms because this “big banker” won’t interview anyone without the paperwork. I look through it and discover they want to run credit and a background check. Now, despite how crazy my life has been, I have never been arrested and have impeccable credit. 811 baby. 811. So I don’t give a shit if people want to search my anal cavity for christsake, I have nothing to hide. But, I don’t like the idea that these people want to run all this info BEFORE they even lay their eyes on me. According to the recruiter, they don’t want to pursue a candidate only to find out that they don’t meet their qualifications. So I reluctantly agree, only because the job market is really unbelievably bad right now, and it’s been two weeks. I emailed the recruiter, and she can’t get in touch with anyone at said company. Uh. Hello? Isn’t that like, your job? So then I say, “This is why I did not feel comfortable giving you my okay to run all these these tests which I feel violate my privacy. There is obviously nothing in my background, so they have run the information for nothing, really.” She responded with something I read as “blah blah blah” and that was that.

Lesson: I don’t know. You guys tell me. My personal jury is still out on this one, I don’t know what to do. If you want a job, you might have to do things in this economy that you wouldn’t normally do in better times. This one is open for debate. I know that I’m pissed off about this, and won’t agree to do it again without an offer of employment or being very far along in the process. What do you all think though?

11) Where’s Waldo?
This is one of my favorites. I showed up for an interview and the person who was interviewing me decided not to come to work that day. And they never bothered to call me to tell me not to come. Then they had the nerve (via phone while laying in bed) to tell the receptionist to interview me and to send samples of my best work. Yeah, right lady. Like I’m going to send you a complicated and probably confidential budget I made and stole from my last job when you can’t even be bothered to get out of bed.

Lesson: Over your career you will amass a small (or large) portfolio of really good work. Don’t give it to people unless you are really far along in the game, like about to get a job offer. I hear this all the time – people have to do these mass presentations at the culmination of their interview process to tell the prospective company how to reorganize their business. Then they don’t hire the candidate, but guess whose ideas they use? It’s gray-area but legal, and very difficult to prove anyway unless you managed to patent some of your processes behind your idea. And I don’t recommend trying to work with the Patent Office on anything. They suck.

I hope that’s all I have. I’ve taken a temporary position that could amount to more, were it not in the ghetto. No, no, really, it is in the ghetto. I have five predecessors from the past two years, and all five of my predecessors were mugged at work. So we’ll see how it works out. I’m doing friends of mine in the industry a favor, and you know that all construction is now in unsavory neighborhoods. They understand that once I feel compromised, I’m quitting and they’ll have to put me somewhere else. It’s actually so bad, my mommy said she would pay me the same amount of money to stay home. It’s not a bad offer, really. Mommy doesn’t run credit checks. At least, not the last time I worked for the Mommy Corporation, which was from my day of birth to 18 years 22 years 24 years 30 years oh, hell. Who am I kidding? I am still an employee of the Mommy Corporation. Aren’t we all?

I’ll Take Dirty Sluts in Pennsyltuckey for $400 Please Alex

I went to visit that little troublemaker, Sixes and Sevens, in Pennsyltuckey this weekend. A pre-departure text I sent said, “What should I pack?”

Sixes and Sevens said we would be doing a lot of shopping, and one of the items on her list to buy was a couch.

Buying a couch for Sixes and Sevens is a difficult endeavor. You think you can just show up at the couch store and sit on a few, then make a decision? Hell no. When you buy things, you have to think about how they will be used so that you do the best job in choosing the item. Like, had I known my beautiful $1300 throwback-to-the-50’s couch would become home for all things dog, I never would have spent that much money on it. Anyway, at this point, Gazoo appeared over my head.

“She’s going to nail her men here, Velvet. The couch must be comfortable enough for that but not too comfortable because we don’t want the guy to fall asleep and God Forbid, stay over!”

“Thanks Gazoo. I also think the couch needs to repel fluids.”

“Well that goes without saying you dumb whore.”

God. When did Gazoo turn into such an asshole?

I packed my stuff, Thora and Sammy, Sixes and Seven’s wayward boxes from her old job, and the King of the Dogpark’s dog, Ted, into the car. Kidnapping Ted from his home did not go off without a hitch. This dog would not come willingly, so I had to forcibly remove him from his bed. By the time I got on the road, I was exhausted. “Beer!” I called ahead. “I need beer!”

To get to where Sixes and Sevens lives, you take the GW out to 495 to 270 where you have to try to have sex with your man on the way but he tells you he’s in a meeting jesus fucking christ, then you go to where 270 ends, then you take a bunch of dirt roads, cross into Pennsyltuckey, take some more dirt roads, drive by many “Land For Sale” properties that your now bankrupt ex-company once had under contract, then more dirt roads, then you find her, at the door of some big house, with a glass of wine and her dog Jukebox, waiting for his friends to arrive. I think one of the dogs sung, “Reunited and it feels so goooooood.”

We threw my stuff down and promptly went out.

I’m not sure why all their eyes are glowing as we bolted out the door and went off for a a night of debauchery.

We ate a very forgettable dinner at some place that looked like New Orleans threw up in there, then meandered around looking for an entertaining place to park our asses for the evening.

Sixes and Sevens: There’s this bar but it is in the ghetto, but I’ve wanted to try it.
Velvet: How ghetto?
Sixes and Sevens: Like, under an overpass and next to the train tracks, wrong side of town ghetto. We’ll need to drive there.
Velvet: And you want to go there because, why?
Sixes and Sevens: It looks fun. And I don’t want to go alone.
Velvet: Fiiiiine. (Trying to sound exasperated but really very intrigued.)

When we pulled up to the ghetto bar, the parking lot was PACKED. I thought that was reassuring, as if we were going to be killed, at least there would be a lot of witnesses.

We walked in and the place was mostly empty. I asked Sixes where all the people who drove all the cars outside were. She didn’t know either. As we sat at the bar and each ordered our Yuengling pints, I said, “This is weird. I feel like I’m in the beginning of a Forensic Files, like I can hear it now. ‘Two girls from out of town were last seen at the bar and no one knows why they ended up under the overpass, naked, dead, with big smiles on their faces.'”

I really need to stop watching Court TV. Then I had a few observations.

First, our bartender looked like a rode-hard Brianna Banks. Well, wait. Brianna Banks looks like a rode hard Brianna Banks, so I’m not sure what that means.

Second, everyone in Pennsyltuckey has this hairstyle. Sixes calls it “mom hair.”

Third, this sign. It was indeed, a Friday. And the only thing standing in the way between any old Friday and a disastrous Friday, was that sign. “Oh, Brianna? We’ll have the pitcher of Miller Lite please!” I would like to state for the record, that this would be the moment when everything went wrong.

While Brianna was pouring the pitcher, we asked her where all the people were. She told us they start to come in at 11 and the place gets packed. We were very excited, but it was still sadly just 8:00. We got started so early; we had some time to kill.

There I am, with my down feather and dog hair covered sweatshirt. When they say “dry clean only” on your down coat, they really mean it. I plugged in Sixes as the big winner on Tai-Play on Megatouch. I need a Megatouch for my house. Oh, wait. No I don’t.

Then, we noticed that they were definitely gearing up for a big night.

Around this point we ordered our second pitcher of Miller Lite. Sixes asked “I wonder why we don’t get a colostomy bag for ours like everyone else?” I guess because there was two of us, compared to all the single people who came in alone for their $5 pitchers.

Here come the cowboys. “Sissy! Get in that truck!”

I thought that this next shot would shape up to become my favorite picture of the evening. This was a common occurrence that night – much older ladies, I think they call them “cougars,” talking to men half their age. But I loved both her hair, and the cigarette dangling out of her mouth.

Note, I said, “thought” in the above statement. I thought it would be my favorite picture. Until, that is, this walked in.

Like Heidi Klum on Project Runway, I said, “What izzz dat?” I was unsure of the sex. Because I had seen it walk up to the bar, I was even more perplexed. Wait, here’s the full outfit.

The spandex dress reminds me of something I used to wear in college when I wanted to piss off my Kappa Kappa Slamma sisters. Man would they get mad. In their last Will and Testament, they left me an “appropriate black dress” for sorority functions. Cunts. It was Miami! In the 90’s! I’m from Connecticut! Do you know what people from the Connecticut coast stare at? Long Island! What the hell did you expect from me?

Back to Pennsyltuckey. The feast for our eyes continued.

Somewhere around here comes the third pitcher of Miller Lite.

Then this is where I got sloppy and forgot to knock off the flash. Sixes likes this picture for its yellow 1970’s quality. I like it because these three chicks didn’t catch me even after the flash went off, because you know they could easily beat my ass. Easily.

I know what you’re thinking. “Gee, you make fun of everything, don’t you Velvet?”

Yes. I. Do.

“D.C. 101 can you make it stop?”

“Yes I can! It’s the sound of Velvet’s luck running out!” Just as I mumbled under my breath that a guy across the bar was staring at us, just as Sixes and Sevens took a picture of him with her camera phone, just as she called him Mike Ditka to both me and via text to my “friend,” he got off his bar stool, walked over to us and said, “Okay, what are you girls taking pictures of over here?”

Damn! It was the time I forgot to knock off the flash! Idiotia! Now, you all know my partner in crime, Sixes and Sevens, right? She seems so tough and together, right. Well, she had that look on her face like when Snoop got caught by his wife for trying to eat chicken at the chicken place with David Beckham. Sixes is like, “uhhhh…uhhhh…I have to go to the bathroom!” She left me there with Mike Ditka, and I’m laughing so hard for being caught that there is literally nothing I can form into words. I wasn’t finished laughing by the time Sixes comes back.

Mike Ditka asked what we found so fascinating. I said, “I’ve been trying to figure a few things out all night. First, is that blonde thing a guy or a girl?” He didn’t know either. “Second, why is the bartender such a bluetooth tool? That looks ridiculous and I WILL get a picture of it before I leave.” Mike returned to his seat and I snapped my pic.

Dude. You’re working. You do realize you look like a major idiot right? Hey, there’s Mike Ditka in the back on the left, sitting in front of the self-serve beer case. Several seconds later, Sixes and Sevens appeared behind all that mess and took Mike’s hat, wore it for a bit, and then got his phone number, email, and told him to check this blog when he got home. What. The. Fuck. Is there one man who has crossed your path Sixes, who you have not given out MY information to? Hmm. Velvet in Dupont has become like a meeting place for all Sixes and Seven’s man-boys. Err. Man-toys. I meant to say man-toys.

So, when she said that she found this specimen “really fucking hot…”

…I had absolutely zero qualms about writing her phone number on a napkin, balling it up, and throwing it at his head. Too bad it missed, and her number ended up on the floor of the ghetto bar. Too bad he was dumb as the day is long. That was a painful conversation, however brief it was.

Now, I don’t want to hear any shit about the next part. None at all. We left. We got in Sixes little truck and we attempted to exit the parking lot and drive the 10 blocks or so home. But then we hit black ice and there was some serious fishtailing and then she righted that thing up and we were on our way. Black ice is not your friend after three pitches of ML. Just saying. And I do want to point out that the woman who grew up in Georgia and spent most of her adult years in L.A. can “drive truck” on black ice after three pitchers better than most sober people I know when it’s 80 degrees out and sunny.

Okay, that was only Friday but I’m exhausted.

And because several dozen people have searched for “sixes and sevens” in my search box, and she’s become such a popular little hussy, you can now reach her at her brand spanking new email address:

SixesandSevensATvelvetindupont.com

I Ain’t Leaving Till They Throw Me Out

It’s all about my friends this week.

If you haven’t heard, one of my dearest friends has hung up the blogging hat. If you don’t know FreckledK, then I’ll tell you who she is.

She’s the woman who will walk up to the head to toe tattooed tough girl at a gritty bar and say, “Did you just say something mean about my friend?”

She’s the woman who will fly out to Phoenix Arizona to get you drunk because you drove 2800 miles to escape a relationship that crashed, burned, imploded and then slapped you in the face, with dirt.

She’s the woman who, on hearing your plight, will put her phone down on her desk and enlist all her co-workers in an immediate campaign. She’ll even drive the Save Ferris blimp.

She’s the woman who will point out, despite your best efforts to believe the contrary, that you are, in fact, in love again.

K’s post and farewell stands up for what she feels has become a widely accepted practice in blogging: “Oh, it wasn’t me who wrote those racist, misogynistic, hateful, comments. It was my ‘persona.’ My alter ego. It wasn’t me at all.”

It’s sort of like little boys who break something then turn around and say to mom, “I didn’t do it.”

Right. Little boys.

Women are more insecure beings by nature. Can you blame us? We’ve been thought of as the “lesser sex” for more years than anyone can count. In theory, we’re equal. In practice, we’re not. And we probably never will be.

Every time I take a new job, I know I will be confronted with a whole host of new people, some of whom will air their obvious hate for my gender with very little disguise. Men I have worked with have told me the following:

“If you don’t move out of my way, I’ll rip that dress off you.”

“Why don’t you come over here and sit on my face.”

“A woman should never make that much money.” (The person he said it to came and told me.)

“I know why you have this job. If you think I was born yesterday, you’re wrong.” (In case you didn’t get that one, he implied I was sleeping with the boss. I wasn’t.)

If I believed everything those unsavory characters in the Construction and Land Development world dealt me, I could become a really insecure person. I refuse to define myself by what some others choose to.

I know that many women bloggers have discussed the non-stop slams we take, not only for our gender, but for our age, for being too flabby, for being cougars, for not being Russian, for whatever the fuck it is that we’ve done wrong now. The list consistently grows. Why? Because much like the Real World and all other reality shows – drama sells. The tiff from last season morphs to a slap this season which morphs to rehab next season which morphs to murder the following season. The controversy must always be topped.

The problem with blogs though, is that they are not a TV show. They are the ideas of individuals. In some cases, it is a few misguided individuals, persona or not, who like to yank chains and pick the zit of women’s insecurities. What kind of person shows up at happy hours, witnesses that the average size (and National Average) of women bloggers is a 10, not a 2, and then goes home to pen yet, another yawningly dull “any girl over a size 2 is fat” post? What kind of person shows up at happy hours, assesses that a good majority of women bloggers are around 30 then goes home to pen yet another achingly trite “women over 30 are losers who just want to get married and can’t because they are such colossal losers who could never get a guy like me.”

The kind of person whose blog I would never read. And you shouldn’t either. You can slam them back with insults to defend our gender or you can stop reading and stop commenting. If there is no audience, the show goes dark. How many more hateful posts do you think they’ll churn out if several posts in a row remain with zero comments. Zero zero zero. Give them the number of comments they think our dress size should be. Zero.

And if you don’t want to stop reading for that reason, stop reading for this one: Some people are just too stupid to deserve their First Amendment Rights.

Smoochies, FreckledK. The standard you set for blogging, but more importantly, for friendship is one we should all hope to achieve.

I Want to Taste You But Your Lips Are Venemous Poison

I have to take a break from the  oh so riveting posts about interviewing to bring you a special announcement. I  have chosen this public forum to tell Sixes and Sevens  something she doesn’t know.

Sixes and Sevens officially ruined another hot, perfectly  heterosexual man.

Do you remember Hot Neighbor? The one who  spewed his spunk all over Sixes and Seven’s face?  Well, he  sent me a text on Sunday morning. The volley went something like this. Actually, it went exactly like this:

Hot Neighbor: I had a threesome last night.
Velvet: Oh. My. God. Two girls?
Hot Neighbor: No. Another guy and a girl. Are you going to be home today?
Velvet: Other than a run, I’ll be here. (Not the runs, a run. I have to clarify for I66 because he likes to make fun.)
Hot Neighbor: I’ll come over and tell you about it.

The  events that ensued were a blur of a drunken evening, with a woman at a bar in Adam’s Morgan (a variation: Adam’s Whoregan) and a triple kiss starring Hot Neighbor, this woman with very loose morals (Sixes and Sevens, she trumps even you) and a man who happens to be engaged…to another man.

The unlikely threesome moved off to the woman’s house, where, much like an episode of Bugs Bunny, each chased the other into and out of rooms.

Heh. That’s my favorite episode of Bugs Bunny. The Monster with his sneakers. I have several Monster stuffed animals, and once had a Monster glass but it broke…oh…wait, this post is not about me. Sorry.

Eventually the unlikely  three end up in the same bed where the Gay Man has real, live, heterosexual intercourse with the woman while she blows Hot Neighbor, who admittedly fucked her mouth very hard as he discovered the  ecstasy of a finger in his ass, attached to the arm attached to the body of a gay man.

Wow. Need a cheat sheet? A diagram? Yeah, me too.

Okay, so if you followed that visual, then you are ready for more.  The three finish off, not before the gay man tossed the salad of one Hot Neighbor who then spanked the woman’s ass raw then came all over her. They finally fell asleep. Hot Neighbor  woke up a few hours later and tried to stealthily creep out of her house, until she woke up and asked him  what his name was for his number. He put it in her phone, but he’s since only heard from the gay man.

Great job Sixes and Sevens. Fucking Great. I had a perfectly hot, straight neighbor in this building and he’s now bi.  I blame you, because YOU are the one who threatened to fuck him with a strap-on! Once you opened up that box, Pandora, it was all over.

I’m off to see Sixes and Sevens this weekend in the hinterlands where she will be spanked for her sins. We plan on shopping at Wal-Mart and going to a redneck bar or four. If you end up in a podunk town in Pennsyltuckey and see two black-haired witches in a pickup truck, don’t worry. That’s just us.

Anatomy of an Interview; Parto Uno

Okay okay, some of you asked about the interviewing. It’s no secret I’m in real estate. Sadly, my beloved homebuilding company folded like a house of cards would if someone excavated and built it under Oprah’s ass. It’s okay though, because I got a really nice severance package. Cough. And then some. Cough cough. Anyway, interviewing is a tedious and yet oddly hilarious phenomenon. Allow me to take you on a journey of my brushes with the stupidest of the stupidest in Washington D.C.’s hiring arena. I’ll have to do this in several parts because some of my gems are from the past and we all know how I can tell a long winded story.

1) Time Won’t Give Me Time
If I’m kept waiting for longer than 15 minutes, this is a deal breaker. When I worked at Nine West, I went to interview in that stupid Calvin Klein division. The potential new boss kept me waiting 2 1/2 hours before she would deign to speak to me. Even her assistant was embarrassed. I could hear new boss in her office cooing the entire time, “The heel on this is so fresh…” Yeah, that meeting was groundbreaking. So glad you kept me waiting on a fucking SATURDAY while you solved the world’s problems. I should have RUN. But, I stupidly took the job anyway because I was a 23 year old idiot. I didn’t realize that I learned something important at the interview: These people would never respect my time. And they didn’t.

My new boss would fly in at 1 p.m., park her broomstick in the corner, call her boyfriend and send out Christmas and Valentines Day Cards until 4 p.m. and then expect everyone to stay late with her until 10 at night. The martyr parade was sickening in the morning. “Oh, poor Karla, she was here until after 10!” That, coupled with Calvin Klein’s “everything must be black” rule encouraged me to leave rather quickly. Do you know how infuriating it is to only be allowed to have black file folders and black pens to label them with? I couldn’t see which file I had marked “Burn down 205 W. 39th St.” I lasted just a few months.

More recently, I was kept waiting for an interview while I could hear the guy in his office calling around to remind people about the duck hunting excursion the next day. Oh, where do I start with that one? The fact that you kept me waiting for that shit or that you use guns to kill animals when my own dog has 11 bullets in her leg from someone like you and it’s costing me seven grand? I didn’t have to see his face to know I would not be working for him.

Lesson: They must respect your time from the very first moment.

2) Is This a Lateral Move?

How stupid does a company have to be to look for someone to fill a position with the EXACT skill set they need? Why don’t they consider that if they find that person, and the person takes what is in essence, a lateral move, they won’t be happy for very long, having already burned out elsewhere. They should be looking for the candidate for whom this will be a promotion. Every time I take a job, I do so with the idealistic mentality that I will be there for a long time, so I want it to be a “promotion” and a challenge from the last job I had.

Lesson: The job must have challenge. Don’t take a lateral move or you’ll be bored, and don’t allow the company to coerce you into a lateral move with that “get your foot in the door bullshit.”

Time Out For A Disclaimer: I have taken lateral moves in the past. When I’ve done this, it was always a band-aid to a situation gone awry. Incompetent people, sexual harassment litigation and a boss stealing money and slapping my name all over his papertrail have foiled my plans of longevity and forced me to jump ship, taking anything that came my way. It happened several times in my 20’s when I worked for a record-breaking THREE alcoholic cokeheads in a row. I bookended that run with born again Christians. My luck was Vegas-style back then.

Sub-Lesson: Sometimes life fucks you and you don’t have a choice.

3) Ocean’s Thirteen

I always ask “How many people are you interviewing for this job?” The question kills me. People give the stupidest answers. The duck hunter said, “Well, we’ve interviewed about 8 already and have another 3 to go after you.” Twelve people? You are interviewing 12 fucking people for this job? You couldn’t narrow it down any more than that? I bet even the UPS guy could narrow it down to 3 or 4 by resume alone, and the Head Cheerleader Human Resources dipshit can knock another one off the list by a phone interview. If you are interviewing 12 people and we’re not talking a CEO level, then yes, you are a fucking moron.

I can’t work for morons. I can only work for people who are smarter than I am or who I want to have sex with. Preferably both. Mmm…ex bosses who I want to have sex with…hold on for a second while I plug this in…

Okay. I’m back.

Wait, I’m gone again. Mmmm…..

Okay, back, and sufficiently relaxed.

Lesson: Don’t work for morons. There’s more but clearly I’m post fantasy and orgasm so you’ll have to figure it out on your own. It’s good practice for you though. I mean, come on people. Two and a half years of this blog, the least you can do is help me out a little.

4) Don’t Go Away Mad, Just Go Away
Ask why the person doing the job now is leaving. Ask it, and RESIST the urge to talk. If you stay silent, people like to fill that silence with something they love – the sound of their own voice. Let them. This is where you will learn that 10 people have quit in the last 4 years because they can’t stand playing solitaire for 8 months while periodically hounding someone to answer an inconsequential question (“Red or Pink Gum Balls in the Vending Machine, Sir?”) that somehow hinges any and all productivity for the next two years.

I also like to find out where the people who are leaving are actually going. One guy was opening up a Five Guys Chain. Another went to work for the Red Cross. Okay, so they would rather flip burgers and work with contaminated bodily fluids than work here? Not good.

Lesson: Why do people leave? Where do they go? If these answers don’t pass the sniff test, something stinks.

5) You Know I Never, I Never Seen Ya Look So Good
I went to a well known Developer / Builder for an interview. Typical office structure – offices on the perimeter of the floor and cubicles in the middle. Men in suits and ties filled the offices and perfectly groomed size zero supermodels filled the cubicles. Needle off the record. What??? I had to look twice. My eyes did not deceive me. Could your gender discrimination scream any louder? There is a pervading theme in real estate that women don’t belong in management positions. This is a hard thing to overcome, especially when I’m indoctrinated to working alongside the type of men who asked me if I would sit on their face during a conference call or threatened to rip my dress off in the hallway for not yielding to their path.

I worked for a builder who didn’t care what we wore to work. The CEO said, “We’re the suit and tie guys, we have to suck up to Wall Street. You guys are building houses. Go build. Wear what you want.” That is the right attitude. We were lucky they had the foresight to enact this rule because it was a lot safer for our construction guys to help the firemen when that house got struck by lightening and burned to the ground because they were in rubber soled shoes.

Lesson: Companies that spend too much time dictating what you can and can’t wear to work are too hung up on appearance and are probably hiding other inadequacies in their business. Tread lightly.

Working on the next part. I know you can’t wait.

Project Runway & Project Sammy

Tomorrow I have two interviews and my time this evening would have been better invested doing some company research. But, no. Instead I glued myself to Project Runway, not for just the first showing, but the encore too. And then while it was showing the third time, I was on the phone conducting some armchair psychology for the man I’m so positively enamored with for some guy but I had one eye on the tellie anyway.

Anyway, I never do the TV recaps because I usually only watch Forensic Files and I don’t think any of you really care where a body was found and how one piece of lint traced the killer to a New Mexico Adult Education Ceramics teacher. But to me, that stuff is just fascinating. So, some Project Runway thoughts…

I think it is obvious that Rami and Jillian are going to have sex, if they haven’t already. When she had her breakdown at the sewing machine and said she was getting blood on everything (eau people from her finger!) he ran right over and put his arm around her. I would rather Rami put his arm around me, however, for two reasons. First of all, I’m a sure thing. Second, I have the same hair as Jillian but I know what a STYLING PRODUCT is. And I use them. Many of them. So that my hair doesn’t look like that. Come on Jillian. Get some Curls Rock and use it!!

Chris is so underrated as a designer. His prom dress should have won two weeks ago. They didn’t even discuss it, they just dismissed him off the runway as happily mediocre.

One of my dogs keeps farting and I don’t know which one it is but if I figure it out I’m going to throw the little asshole on the balcony. It’s times like this I wish I had a yard and not some common space with eight generations of rats living in it.

Sweet P cries too much and she’s just way too indecisive. She changes her mind every time the wind blows. The tears, jesus woman, get it together. Women shouldn’t cry at work. And if they do, they are viewed as weak and lose major points in both respect and potential for advancement so cut that shit out.

Heidi Klum has some sort of speech impediment and I think she skips over entire syllables when she’s talking. She definitely can’t say her r’s. Next, on Pwoject Wunway!

Nina Garcia. Oy. I feel like she’s a stand-in for Weekend at Bernies. She NEVER MOVES. She sits in that chair with her legs tightly crossed, holds her judging card in front of her face as if someone is going to cheat off of her like my friend Gina Jenovatti did off my SAT’s. Please, if I was going to cheat off someone in that room it wouldn’t be Nina Garcia. I’m not even sure it would be any of those judges. When Nina’s talking, she turns her head side to side, and does a lot of Rachael-Ray-ish hand gesturing, but she never moves in her seat. She’s permanently stuck in the chair. I wonder if she leaves when they wrap filming for the day. She looks like a bobble head with an eating disorder. Something about her screams “bulimic.” Last night she clearly only went to the “makeup” part of “hair and makeup” because no one took a brush to that mop. While I’m bashing her I would also like to point out that her clothing looks like it is 20 years too young for her and it came from Forever 21. And she’s a judge? Yikes.

So, I won’t ruin the rest in case you haven’t seen it, and the end was sort of unremarkable anyway even though I cheered at who got booted. My prediction for the final three is Rami, Jillian and Christian. While I hoped Chris would pull through to the end, he keeps punctuating two good products with one horrid and I don’t know if he’ll make it. Besides, there is obviously some weight discrimination going on. Leave it to Queen Kors, the Bulimic Wonder and Cindy Brady over there to not give him the credit he deserves.

Speaking of binging and purging, several people have told me that my little dog Sammy is looking very plump these days. Sausage, muffin top and liposuction are just some of the terms I’m hearing. I am not doing anything different, but he does have an eating disorder. He likes the binge, but he’s not so good at the purge. A friend just said, “Didn’t you notice he was getting fat?” I said, “No, but I did wake up the other night to the sounds of a really loud old man snore and I wondered who the fuck was in my house until I realized it was Sammy.” So after making Sixes and Sevens presentable for her work gala, that’s my other side project to work on. Get my dog on a diet.

The fun never stops here in Dupont.

Voting When it Counts: Extreme Makeover Edition

I’m so over the whole debates / who will be our next great leader thing. They all suck. It’s no secret I love Giuliani, but oy, that wife. And for any of you who stupidly think Hillary Clinton doesn’t have her OWN personal agenda that she will enact if she wins, might I remind you of the very self-serving, Pardongate? Those two are out for themselves, and only themselves. Don’t forget it. And don’t come crying to me when you vote for her, and she wins (please no, please!) and then she switches our economy to Communism with all the money we make somehow funneling straight to her and her ugly man-suit collection.

Now, let’s do a little voting where you actually CAN make a difference.

I’ve been tasked with the mother of all tasks. Sixes and Sevens has a formal event to attend for work. While we all hope she can clean her act up enough to impress the people at this event, my part is to direct her in finding a dress for her size 6, lacks an ounce of fat, perfectly toned arms, pert little B-cups, perfect little “I never lift a finger to work out but miraculously I can hold a tractor up with one hand because someone used the jack to stir the sweet tea and change the flat with my other hand” frame. She wants black or deep merlot red and formal. Here are the options I’ve sent her so far. Because some of us are label whores, cough, me, cough, I’ll tell you the maker but not the price. I don’t want the money to sway anyone because let’s face it, money should not be the deciding factor when you have to find something tasteful and it’s not our money anyway. This is an important purchase – it is not easy to make Sixes and Sevens look serious and not the type of girl who would ever, oh, let a guy spooch on her face.

Notes are below each dress. Remember – perfect body. There is nothing she can’t wear. Yeah yeah, I hate her too. Now, please vote!

Dress 1.jpg
Dress 1; Nicole Miller. As of right now, they do not have Sixes & Seven’s size, but I’m hoping someone will return one perfect, unworn size 6 shortly to Bluefly.

Dress 2.jpg

Dress 2; Nicole Miller. They have a size 6.

Dress 3.jpg

Dress 3; Tadashi.

Dress 4.jpg

Dress 4; Elie Tahari. They also only have a size 8, but a 6 could be returned shortly allowing Sixes to snap it up.

Dress 5.jpg

Dress 5; A.B.S. Also available in black. Available in both sizes, both colors.

Dress 6.jpg

Dress 6; Tadashi. They don’t have a size 6, but they have a 4 and she might fit into that. Or someone could return a 6. People like me do that at Bluefly all the time.

Dress 7.jpg

Dress 7; Vera Wang.

Dress 8.jpg

Dress 8; A.B.S.

Dress 9.jpg

Dress 9; A.B.S.

Dress 10.jpg

Dress 10 black.jpg

Dress 10; JS Boutique. Yeah, I’ve never heard of them either.

Dress 11.jpg

Dress 11; Calvin Klein.

Dress 12.jpg

Dress 12: Tadashi. It’s brown. Still waiting for her to respond if she’ll accept brown in the lineup, so don’t get too attached to this one.

Circa 1978

When I was about 5 or 6, I spent my Saturday mornings in one of two ways. The first Showcase Showdown involved our parents packing my brothers and I into the wood paneled wagon and driving us down to the Bowery in New York City. Same routine every week, wave the bum off at the Gaseteria in the Bronx by the Third Avenue Bridge, double park on Canal, and run wild in the streets while waiting for a parking spot. There was some reason we took our show on the road weekly and bi-weekly in some cases, but that was none of my concern. It was my self-appointed job to collect every business card of every jeweler in that warehouse, then to run around outside in the throngs of people absorbing soot into my lungs. Showcase Showdown number two involved staying home to destroy the house.

Often I would begin those delightful Saturdays at home by sleeping late. Then, when I got my wind (sometime around 10:30 or 11:00, much like today) I would get into a sleeping bag on my stomach and perch at the top of the stairs until one of my brothers pushed me down. This was a very delicate operation and we had to time it right because it would start a thumping on each stair resulting in a subsequent scream from my mother. “YOU’RE WEARING OUT THE CARPET YOU KIDS!!!”

After we met the wrath of Gloom and Doom (that’s Mom and Dad in case you forgot,) we would congregate on the houndstooth couch and watch American Bandstand. At 5, I was 13 years shy of the legal drinking age of 1978 and unable to access Studio 54, much to my dismay. Oh, believe me, I knew what it was and I knew it was going on, just down the street from my house. American Bandstand was my own little Studio 54 in my parent’s living room, just without the coke. Sadly. Also sadly, without the Halston – greatest fashion designer ever.

Well, here I am, 28 years later. Halston is dead. Steve Rubell is dead. Studio 54 is no mas. But, I found a way to reclaim my youth on Saturday nights at 2 a.m. and it doesn’t involve me having to leave my bed!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you…SOUL TRAIN! No, wait, The BEST of SOUL TRAIN airs on this channel, one I would never watch for its proximity to E! and Court TV is just so painfully far. On a good day, it’s still within 30 channels of the low-hovering A&E, where I might flip that low during the commercials of Intervention (a show that makes me cry every time) or Cold Case Files. But, I need a snack and a nap on the way from Court TV down to this channel.

But one night, after I realized I had seen the currently airing reruns of Real Housewives of Orange County and E! News and there were no more Forensic Files / Cold Case / Arrest & Trial / Dominick Dunne / Murder By the Book / The Investigators / The First 48 / Dark Heart Iron Hands to be watched, I flipped dangerously low in the numbers.

Anyway, I’m in love. I tried to find an interview Don Cornelius did with Cheryl Lynn before she lip synched this performance, but they cut out the best part. If you know me, I’ll do it for you in person as you are no doubt aware of my uncanny ability to impersonate virtually anyone within seconds. And if you don’t have the pleasure of knowing me, nor have you heard me repeat this exchange non-stop for the past week, I’ll recant it for you:

Don Cornelius: Look at you. You’re a whole lotta woman.
Cheryl Lynn: I know, that’s my problem.
Don Cornelius: Yerrrrr. Soooooooooooooo. Beauuuuuuuuuutiful.

Me, screaming at the tellie:
WHY DON’T YOU JUST RIP HER DRESS OFF AND FUCK HER DON? HUH?

So this is the best addition to my life since, well, Thora and Sammy. No one ask me to leave the house on Saturday night ever again!

Anyway, more Soul Train Clips.

Why?

Because they ROCK!

One last one from the “Rimshots.” (Please, I’ve already done all the iterations in my disgusting little mind, no need to make your jokes.)

All the Roads We Have To Walk Are Winding, All the Lights That Lead Us There Are Blinding

Ten years ago tonight I made one of those seemingly insignificant decisions that changed my entire life.

I had gone out to dinner with my parents and godparents in New York City. When we returned to our house, I stood at the foot of the stairs, trying to decide if I should go to bed or get on the computer. Back then, there was only dial up, which tied up the phone lines. I liked to use the internet at off peak times. 11 p.m. seemed like off peak enough.

The internet was so painfully young then. I can remember searching for some basic words and coming up with nothing at all. I tried “sex club new york city” and got zip. Today? Over 23 million.

Chatting was somewhere between infancy and toddlerhood, having already gained a bad rap when some girl was lured to a guys house and he raped her. But there was only one of those cases that I had heard of at that time.

I hopped into a chat room as Velvet (ha!) and off I went. Mostly it was people who were new and thought it was so cool you could talk in real time. Some guy started talking to me. We moved around to a couple rooms and tortured some people. We went off to a private chat. We went back to torture some more unsuspecting souls. I found myself with a pretty perfect “chat buddy.” A trouble-making derelict like myself who enjoyed a bit of humor.

When the sun came up I realized I had to go to work. Where had the last seven hours gone? Anyway, we made plans to meet in the room again, not that evening as it was New Years Eve, but the following evening.

Three weeks later I was on a plane to Atlanta to meet him.

Nine months later he was in a truck to New York to help me move down to Atlanta.

At our second and fourth anniversaries, we faltered a bit. On our sixth anniversary, we had grown so far apart it seemed there would be no mending. On our seventh anniversary, no longer together, we weren’t even speaking. Nor would we speak for the eighth or ninth. But shortly after our ninth anniversary of the day we met, we got in contact again and remain, to this day, in communication.

While we are on different paths and there will not be another opportunity for us in a romantic capacity, that man was my first love. We went through hell and back together. He was such an amazing and powerful first love that three years after our breakup, a series of dreams starring the two of us forced me to admit that my then-relationship, which was headed toward marriage, was seriously wrong. Even when he wasn’t in my life, he was still saving my ass from disaster. We remain friends and to this day don’t hang up the phone without saying, “I love you.”

For K… ten years. You set the bar high. I will always love you.

Merry Christmas Mo Fo’s!

I always knew that the Ross Elementary School here in Dupont Circle had very low test scores. I wonder though, if the Ross “Elemtary” School is faring any better.

How on earth did that sign make it through all those hands and not one person spell checked it? Jesus. Someone wrote in the missing letters. For those of you who know me, the answer is no. It was not me wielding that Sharpie. (If it was, mine would have been in blue.)

Anyway, Sammy pissed on it for you all. Merry Christmas!

Velvet, Thora & (a late to the game) Sammy vs. The Cookie Dough

It’s been about a month or more since an update on the Cookie Dough. We were cruising along quite nicely. As a matter of fact, we were on track to see the bottom of this container by spring thaw as originally estimated. However, there have been a few setbacks.

1) Tired of just the dough, I decided to cook a half dozen cookies, gasp, in the oven. I felt that my promise of eating the dough was compromised because cooking the dough is not what I said I was going to do. I was going to run it by you all to see if this was cheating. While I was composing that post…

2) I had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of lovely friends. I decided to be ambitious and eat the Turkey Gravy. I know, it is made from the Turkey and I’m a vegetarian. But, I wanted to branch out. Half way during the night after Thanksgiving dinner, I got sick. Wayyyy sick. I was quickly reminded why I gave up meat all those years ago. It was 11 days before my stomach recovered. But just in time for the recovery, I went to another Holiday Party where I discussed my ailments with the Vegan host, who then promptly steered me in the direction of her chips and dips and sauces – all vegan. My stomach blew up like an Ethiopian and again, I had another few days of intestinal drama. Oh, suck it. You know you all keep coming back for my discussions of all things intestines.

Those are my excuses for the cookie dough campaign being at a halt. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to see this one through. I curse that day at Costco. Curse it!

In other news, Sixes and Sevens is leaving this week for a three week trip around Italy. I am very jealous, as Italy is really the only European Country I’ve seen that I would ever visit again. I thought about meeting her in Rome, but the day she’s there is the day I’m watching her dog. So there goes that plan. Anyway, I’m on pins and needles in anticipation of her trip, not for all the fun she’s going to have but because of the text messages she’s been receiving from my hot neighbor, indicating activities to come, hopefully before her trip. From a recent email exchange:

Sixes & Sevens: I just got a dirty text that Hot Neighbor shaved his balls for me.
Velvet: My dirty text of the day was about licking me after I pee.
Sixes & Sevens: You win.
Sixes & Sevens (10 minutes later:) No, you lose. I just got one that he wants me to fuck him with a strap on.
Velvet: You can’t see me, but I’m bowing down to you right now. You are THE WOMAN!
Sixes & Sevens: I’m gonna fuck him so hard he’s gonna cry to his mommy.

Finally, I spent a couple days in NYC last week and something bad happened:

 

One Night vs. That Night vs. The Other Night

December 8th, 1980: “One Night”

The man I would write an Economic Theory paper on in grad school, 23 years later, was shot dead. Proof he was smarter than most and that this loss was utterly a waste? “Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky. Imagine all the people, living for today. Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. Imagine all the people, living life in peace.” If we all lived in John Lennon’s world, without religion, without things to segregate us from others, we would have nothing to fight over.

December 8th, 2006: “That Night”

That night there was a blogger Happy Hour – the last Blogger Happy Hour I would ever attend. The theatrics, the drama, the immaturity, the crap. It got old, fast.

That night I set Sixes&Sevens up to meet another blogger she fancied. She promptly gave him several more reasons to hate D.C.

That night I met a new friend through Sixes&Sevens who I then saw four more times over the next year – bachelorette party, wedding and two stopovers in Texas on my trek cross country and back, this summer. Despite her being happily married to a wonderful man, Ninja still refers to her as “his cutie,” and denounces her pregnancy by saying, “That should be MY baby.” You may have had a chance if you weren’t wearing such a gay turtleneck and if G-man wasn’t such a fun World of Warcraft playing mo-fo!

(That night was the birth of the gay turtleneck, by the way.)

That night I broke up with (rhymes with “fur lock,” nod to I66, because I can’t even say the fake blog name) for like the 130th time. This particular breakup parade was spurred by a record-breaking, even for him, 18 consecutive phone calls (no lie.) Because my phone was in my coat pocket, he had the nerve to declare me, over voicemail, me!, a “shitty girlfriend.”

December 8, 2007: “The Other Night”

The other night was thankfully much more peaceful than December 8th of last year. I went to a tree trimming party with 25 gay men. I was the only female there, but I did bring my own heterosexual male companion.

The other night was the first time said “male companion” and I made it out in public, in months.

The other night, we didn’t stay out in public for very long, scrambling back across town to my apartment where we promptly ripped each other’s clothes off.

The other night was one of those nights where I couldn’t stop. I never wanted it to end. It was perfect. It was the best I’ve had. A surprising first for us, in one particular capacity. Could not have been better…truly.

The other night I left my sliding glass door open and it was cold outside. The wind blew through the living room, around the corner, and into the bedroom where I slept while he watched, keeping me incredibly warm in his arms.

The other night was one of those kind of nights where I didn’t mind walking the dogs at 5 a.m., in the pouring rain.

The other night I was more comfortable in my own bed and in my own skin and in my own mind than I have ever been.

You Make a Grown Man Cry, You Make a Dead Man Come

It started several months ago. The King of the Dog Park and I were leaving my building and I exchanged a few pleasantries with my painfully Hot Neighbor in the lobby. The King’s jaw was agape, and when the neighbor was out of earshot:

King: Who was that?
Velvet: My neighbor. I know, I know.
King: Ohmygod the things I would do to him.
Velvet: Yeah. I was thinking that I really need to set him up with Sixes&Sevens so she can ruin his life.
King: He’s straight? DAMN!

A likeness of Hot Neighbor:

Later when we saw Sixes&Sevens, she screamed, “Well? SET IT UP!” So we did.

And for months, we watched the painful dance of awkward hellos, texts gone awry, each out of town every time the other wanted to get together. It seemed these two would never be on the same page.

Until the other night. Sixes&Sevens came over and we cracked through a bottle of wine before grabbing the King and heading off to a holiday soiree. At the elevator, we simultaneously heard the door of one Hot-Neighbor’s close and Sixes&Seven’s audible gasp/moan. The King shouted, “Well hello Hot-Neighbor! This time you’ve caught Sixes&Sevens after her shower!” We dragged Hot-Neighbor to our party, but he bailed in favor of some “play” he was supposed to see. It didn’t stop those naughty kids from sending juicy texts to each other. From play to party, party to play, the texts a veritable foreplay for the long overdue tryst.

I walked into the kitchen to grab a drink at one point. I saw Sixes and Sevens standing there, striking a pose for no one in particular but looking massively sexy in her skin tight black sweater and tweed 40’s style skirt, tapered to the knee then flared out, ending at the calf, her eyes buried behind little librarian black rimmed specs and her mischievous little brain working overtime, while the evidence of her plot formed into a smirk on her face.

Sort of like this:

 

The host’s boyfriend walked in and said, “What are you two doing? You look like you are plotting something really bad, only you are communicating without words. I can’t figure out what you two are up to. This is scary. I’m leaving.”

Sixes and Sevens: Do you have a key for his place?
Velvet: Actually, I have access to the lockbox, so yes, technically I have a key.
Sixes and Sevens: How awesome would it be for him to come home and find me in his bed?
Velvet: I’ll get our coats.

We bid our farewells and ran through Dupont giggling like two schoolgirls on a mission of sexual terrorism. He beat us home though, so there was no reason for breaking into his house, sooooo, all was finally right with the world. I retreated to my cave to watch Forensic Files. (I made up for it the next night…)

At one a.m. I got this text:

“I’m 3/4 naked, half baked, and he just came on my face.”

Well done, my girl. Very well done.

Father of Mine

 

I love those Bush twins. Since the attempted passing off of a fake ID with Secret Service in tow, I’ve been smitten. Now, I don’t often mention the following, well, because, I just don’t. Cue soap opera style flashback to the year 2000.

Mom: So honey, who are you voting for?
Me: I dunno. I’ll never forgive Tipper Gore for that whole PMRC label on Hair Bands in the late 80’s. So, I guess I’m voting for Bush because his redeeming quality is that he looks like Daddy.
Mom: Jesus Christ, he does. I was just telling your father that the other day.

(Of course this resemblance wasn’t as funny by the 2004 election. We all voted for Kerry because drunken Boston Irishmen with bad hair and exaggerated hand gestures are something we Connecticutters can relate to, more than a family resemblance at least.)

To this day, I find it hard to malign GW because he reminds me of my dad. My younger, longer-grudge-bearing, Iraqi-hating, misplaced-war-declaring, dad. The GW similarities to my Dad don’t stop at physical.

I love when Jenna says bye to her mom, and GW tries to hang up on her too, not understanding that he’s supposed to stay on the phone. (No no dude, you’re the President. They want to talk to you!) Or at the end where Ellen says, “Do you want to say Merry Christmas to the audience?” to which he says, “Of course I do! Tell my little girl that I love her!” Um, what? Technically that wasn’t a Merry Christmas to the audience. Totally my dad. Certifiably “out of it” 24/7. (Cue Will Ferrell as GW: That’s 24 hours a week, 7 months a year…)

Let’s recap a recent conversation. Sadly, this reveals our family weakness and makes me look stupid in the process, but I’m not sure what you expected from someone who admittedly votes for Presidents based on their patriarchal likeness. My family has a thing for coupons and rebates. We enjoy them. We love coming up with hundreds of addresses to maximize returns on the mail-in rebate. See, the mail-in-rebate is designed as a “perceived” savings to the consumer, but in the long run (hello Econ 101) really only benefits the seller because most people wouldn’t take the time to fill it out and jump through the hoops required to satisfy the condition for that extra dollar to be mailed in 12-97 weeks. But we’re not “most people.” We like a challenge. And free money! I can practically smell the cash!

Me: Hey, Mom? Is Dad there?
Mom (to the house:) PICK UP THE PHONE IT’S THE BABY!!!!!
(Shut up. I’ll always be the baby.)
Dad (picking up the phone:)
Yeah?
Me: Hey, I got this coupon you sent for $10. But those were cash rebates we filled out. Did you run out of addresses or something? Why are they sending a coupon?
Dad: I’ll check.
Me: No, there’s nothing to check. You sent this to me. I got the coupon from you. It came from you with all these newspaper clippings, which, by the way, please stop sending me. I know what herpes looks like.
Dad: That’s not me, that’s your mother.
Me: Dad! The coupon. Where did it come from?
Dad: I deposited the rebate. Your brother told me to.
(This comment accurately implies a massive family plot. I can’t deny this. We all have roles in rebate-gate.)
Me: No. I’m talking about the one you just sent me. I just got it in the mail. From you. They should have sent a check, but if you used your address twice, they might not. They might send a coupon instead.
Dad: Yes.
Me: It wasn’t a yes or no question Dad.
Dad: I don’t know.
Me: Are you talking to me or someone else? Is Mom still on?
Mom: I’m here.
Me: Is he okay? What the hell is he saying?
Mom: He’s like this all day honey. No one ever knows what he’s saying.
Me: Dad, is someone toying with your medicine?
Dad: Who?
Mom: The train is coming honey. We’re going into the city. We’ll call you back.
Me: No. Please don’t.
Mom: I can’t hear you. We’ll call you back.

I wanted to let it go to voicemail when they called back. But my mother will sit there talking to the voicemail going, “Hello? Are you there? Pick up if you are,” not realizing of course, that it’s all inside that itty bitty computer and there’s no answering machine connected to my cell phone that I just carry around with me. Perhaps that’s better than Jenna and her dad though, I think I heard her tell Ellen that her parents don’t have an answering machine.

Excellent. Mine have one, though they don’t believe in call waiting. Maybe if it came with a rebate…

I Just Can’t Believe I Didn’t See It In Your Eyes

“T’is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” ~ Alfred Tennyson

Is it? I’m not so sure. I feel for people who fall in love, then fall out and never find it again. I think it’s much worse to know what you’re missing, than it is to never know. Those who have been in love seem like they are on the eternal quest to find something they lost. Someone who can equal or emulate that feeling…like an addict chasing their first high.

I know people in both camps, and those who have never been in love seem so much happier, generally speaking, than those who have. The ones I know of share a startlingly similar quality – they are the Jerry Seinfeld’s of the world – the jokesters, the ones who make you laugh, the ones always cracking jokes. The only redeeming quality to finding, and losing love, that I can see, is that once you have it in your life, you can so easily see it when it hits you again.

I’ve always felt that falling in love is a way of being reminded that we’re not really in control of our lives, and falling out of love, or worse, experiencing a broken heart, is a way of reminding us that we’re alive and that things can touch us. Of course, I’m open to debate on all of my middle of the night ramblings.

Watch the Time Go Right Out the Window

This happened last year, but I just told the story last night for the first time. I’m recounting it for you here, so you can make fun of me too.

I’ve never understood the drink and dial. I’ve never done this to anyone, and when people do it to me, I’m usually sleeping or so incoherent from sleep that I don’t make any sense anyway and the drunk-dialer gets irritated and hangs up.

Last festive holiday season, Sixes and Sevens summoned me to her house.

Velvet: Oh. I’m feeling miserable. I don’t wanna.
Sixes and Sevens: I think you should. And, bring a bong.
Velvet: I’m perking up now…but I don’t have a bong.
Sixes and Sevens: A pipe?
Velvet: Sadly, no.
Sixes and Sevens: Forget it. Just come over.

I trotted my ass over with Sammy and Thora in tow. Patsy was there too. I asked what the reason was that she was asking for the aforementioned paraphernalia. She nodded to her coffee table where I saw this precious little baggie of Marra-joo-wanna. Good lord. It had been years since I’d done that.

We proceeded to do what one would do with Marra-joo-wanna. I threw a couple glasses of wine in there after it, and stumbled home. (I mean, stumbled. I remember slamming into the side of a building on my walk.) When I got home, I drunkenly checked email, read some blogs, then went to bed. I did notice that I went to bed 2 full hours after I left Sixes and Seven’s house. And I did wonder, since she lives only a block from me, where that time went.

I woke up in the morning, late for work, and scrambled off to a meeting. When I had a break, I checked my email. Remember on the Simpson’s when Bart and Millhouse find $20 and buy the super squishey with extra squish, and they go on a sugar high rampage through Springfield, and Bart joins the Junior Campers? That was me. Except my “Junior Campers” came in the form of an email saying, “Dear Velvet, Thank you for subscribing to Classmates.com.”

What. The. Fuck.

AND, it gets better. I wrote to people! The evidence was sitting in my sent folder. I am the lamest excuse for a drunk, ever. When I saw the email I was laughing so hard tears were coming out of my eyes. This girl said, “Are you okay?” I said, “Um, what do you do when you get drunk?” She said, “I call people.” I said, “Apparently I join Classmates.com.” Then she called me a geek.

Yep. I don’t drink like that anymore.

Chicken Fried Chicken Fried Chicken Fried Steak!

As I left our hellaciously long and hard class at the gym, sweet delicious but gay teacher said, “Do you know what you have to be thankful for this year?” I said, “Um…no.” He said, “These muscles,” as he grabbed my poor aching bicep.

What I wanted to say was, “How does your ego fit in this gym with us?”

What I should have said though was, “Yeah, and my non-stop workouts the rest of the week have nothing to do with it, right?”

For many years, I was a morning gym-goer. I loved getting it out of the way. I would bring my book and workout among the other hardcore morning types. The problem became twofold: First, I am nothing near a morning type, and second, I wasn’t getting as tough a workout as I should be. Mindlessly climbing the stairmaster for many years and I had hit the wall. (The problem is threefold if you count the 6 a.m. guy who tried unsuccessfully for months to talk to me, then finally came up with this gem: He rolled his wedding ring over to where I was lifting, it hit my shoe, so I technically had to talk to him. “Sir, I think you dropped something…”)

Two years ago, I decided it was time to kick it up not just a notch, but several. I started going with the Queen of Quantity to a weightlifting class. As a hardcore weightlifter for the past 7 years, I didn’t understand the concept of lifting lighter weights for more reps. (“The weights aren’t pink and purple are they??”) I was used to cranking out 6 or 8 reps on a really heavy weight and plowing through a workout in an hour. But adding this class to my routine twice a week proved to be a killer. One additional day in the week, I still go in and do my old faithful weight workout. I lift much heavier weight that day though. Cable Row 90 lbs. Bicep curls 20 lbs. Squats 100 some odd lbs. I know, what about the cardio Velvet? Yes. What about the cardio.

Twice a week, I run 3 1/2 miles on the treadmill at a 3% incline. Yes, it IS like running up hill the entire time, but, the things it does to my ass are incredible. Well, that and squats. Okay, the remaining 2-3 days I do half hour to 45 minutes of some other type of cardio – elliptical, stairmaster, something like that. The trainers at my gym say, “If you can read a magazine, you’re not working hard or smart enough.” Point taken. It doesn’t stop me from flipping through Harper’s Bazaar though. Fuck it. I’m there 7 days a week.

All this working out isn’t easy. It takes motivation to get to that gym every day. It takes incredible strength to leave work to make it to the classes. It isn’t easy staying awake some nights so I can go to the gym at 9:30 so I can run for longer than the stupid time allotment on the treadmill. But it is doable. Most people could exercise a third of what I do and still see incredible benefits.

Every man who has entered my life in a serious fashion usually very suddenly takes up some sort of workout. I remarked recently to a friend, after receiving a text pic of an ex at a Little League game with his kid, that once the men leave my life, they gain a ton of weight. And yet, I never do. Probably because for me it’s a lifestyle and for them, the working out was just to impress me or for a quick fix. Not sure. Jury still out on that.

Last night, after a four day run of television, more television than I’ve viewed all year, I watched the “half ton man” be lifted out of his house and hospitalized. Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me! He kept saying he didn’t eat more than anyone else, but you know what? His stomach was stretched to the size of 12 normal stomachs and stomachs only stretch by overeating! UGH. I was grossed out. Cue stomach stapling RANT.

I’m not a fan of the quick fix. You will never learn to eat right if you just pay someone to staple your stomach shut. You will go right back to how you ate and drank before your elective surgery. Besides the fact that those procedures are downright risky, they seem to be yet another sign of our decaying American culture: It’s okay to eat fried chicken and wash it down with some crisco and a few bottles of wine because you can just staple your stomach and problem solved. But don’t these people realize the problem is not in their genes, it is in their head? I knew someone who gorged on all sorts of fattening junk at lunch (meatloaf and gravy, chicken fried steak, nachos,) then popped some cholesterol meds after the meal. The bottle sat on his desk as a reminder. Are you fucking kidding me? Seriously!

Please, spare me the bullshit about genetics or thyroids. Ugh. You want to see genetics? I’m 100% Greek. I have two grandmothers and four great-grandmothers who lived their lives rounder than they were tall. I’m fighting those genetics every time I step into the gym, everytime I pick a salad over lasagna, everytime I pass on dessert. Sign me up for a lifetime membership at the gym and don’t ever expect to see me getting my stomach stapled. Silly Americans. Only here. I swear.

Rant over. I’ll be nicer later. Or tomorrow.

When Karma, Unlike KArmA, Comes For the Good People

I am the first to admit, I’m a bitch. At the risk of jinxing myself, I have NO IDEA how I have such incredibly good luck. I think it’s some sort of ploy on the part of the universe to get me to reverse my non-God believing ways and embrace Christianity or some other such nonsense.

Yes yes, what the hell am I rambling about…

Good things happen in threes.

Yes yes, last post, happy happy joy joy. There’s that.

Then, there’s the fact that someone actually showed up at my condo and actually handed me cash for the Harley which I am so happy to have off my plate of burdens right now. (This is part of my plan. Yes. I have a plan! I made a list of priorities and Thora and Sammy ranked number one – higher than the Harley. So I sold the Harley to pay for Thora and Sammy’s operations. Thora’s needs new knees. Sammy already had his lump of fat removed.)

Then, yesterday, the same day I got that check in hand, I trotted off to the dog park to announce that I had the cash to get dog operations for all! When the peeps dispersed, I was walking home and this happens:

Lady: Uh…
Velvet: Oh my…
Lady: Is this?
Velvet: IT’S YOU! OHMYGOD!!!
Lady: Is this Zoe? Did you adopt her? I thought she would be back in Georgia now.
Velvet: No! NO!!!! SHE’S HERE!!! I’VE BEEN TRYING TO FIND YOU.

(My friend pipes in with, “She really has, you should hear how she’s been trying to find you.”)

The lady. The LADY! The LADY WHO WANTED ZOE! The lady from the adoption in Alexandria! She tried to get in touch with us. We posted online for her. And yet, we meet, in the middle of Dupont Circle, her thinking that Zoe was either adopted out to another family or back in Georgia, me thinking the lady could live anywhere in the metro area and we’d never find her. And she lives two blocks from me! On the same street!
Zoe went home with her yesterday and they are going on a vacation for one month to Florida, starting today. I told her I’d foster Zoe until she got back but she said, “Nope! I want my dog!”

I called Holly on speaker and said, “Guess who I just bumped into?”

We were screaming (it’s a NY thing) to each other SHUTTHEFUCKUP SHUTTHEFUCKUP SHUTTHEFUCKUP!

I’ve got plenty to be Thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving!

There Comes a Time In Everyone’s Life, When All You Can See Are the Years Passing By

You are the same person now that you were 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. I guarantee it.

Are you yet having those surreal experiences where you are thrown back into your past with such intensity that you can’t believe you forgot what you are now, somehow remembering? Maybe you heard a song from 20 years ago and the memories came rushing back, or you smelled something and suddenly you are five years old again? I love these glimmers of memories because I think they tell us so much about ourselves.

The other day, my friend and I were walking our dogs and discussing the weekend plans. He said, “Well, it’s not like you get up before noon ever, so I’ll get started without you.” My response was, “I’ve always been a late sleeper. Always. There was a very good reason my mom finagled with my elementary school to enroll me in afternoon kindergarten for both halves of the school year.” I still love the hours from 11 p.m. till 3 a.m. It’s when I’m most creative.

Some things never change.

About five years ago, my brain started cycling through bits of my childhood that I had long forgotten. Some thoughts were jarred by modern day events. The disgusting gingko trees in Dupont reminded me of the smell of the rotting crabapples on my elementary school playground. The smell of a new perfume in a magazine reminded me of fake little girl perfume I had as part of a dressing table set. The feta cheese I recently found at Costco was packed in water. Any good Greek knows that any good feta is always sold in water and you don’t really find it like that anymore. I was instantly tossed back to six years old and spending our Saturdays going to the Greek butcher to buy all our meats and cheeses – something I had long forgotten. Mmm. Feta Cheese in water.

Some things never change.

Other thoughts come out of nowhere but start a domino effect. One day I just remembered my mom used to feed me cream cheese and jelly sandwiches after I got home from play group at the YWCA, which then reminded me of swimming lessons, the smell of the over-chlorinated pool and walking on the trampoline they put in the water so it would be shallow enough for the little kids. Then I remembered playing with this other girl and she ended up slamming into a cement pillar in the Y and her mom yelled at me, accusing me of doing it on purpose. My mom defended me. I honestly have no idea if I did. I might have. But mommy still defended me.

Some things never change.

My brother is going through it too. The last time we were all at my parents house, he said, “Do you remember the old Caldor’s smell?” (Caldor’s was a discount store in our hometown and when you entered, it had a very distinct smell that I can only describe as, Caldor’s.) My parents, brother and I tried to recall what it was – something they cleaned the floor with? I don’t know. I can only tell you everyone in my family remembers it.

When the family gets together, we stimulate each other’s memories. My mom told us about a babysitter I couldn’t remember who shockingly never came back. She was lamenting how she and my dad could never go anywhere because we were so bad no babysitter would ever come back. She asked me what we used to do to the babysitters.

Shit I had long forgot came pouring out of my mouth. “Well, I used to be able to scream at a pitch loud enough to change channels on the old RCA TV we had, so Older Brother and Oldest Brother would encourage me to do that. Whenever the babysitter was watching TV, I could change the channel on her. So I’m screaming, she’s freaking out and the channels are changing. And we used to play Alligator, where you could only walk around the house without stepping on the floor, so we were jumping on all the chairs and the couch. And I think one night we shoved a whole box of tissues in our mouth, one by one. I think that babysitter actually left before you got home.”

My mom said, “Do you know you burned through every girl in the neighborhood, all their friends, all the checkout girls at the Food Mart and everyone at church?”

Quite impressed with myself, I said, “Yeah? And?”

“Well your father and I never got to go anywhere!”

Yeah. And I’m sorry about that. I am. Really. But they are making up for it now with all these vacations. Though I didn’t say that. I just laughed.

“By the time your Oldest Brother was 13, he was babysitting so we could go out and get some peace and quiet.”

“So if he was 13, I would have been 6 at that time. By 6 years old, I had in effect, ruined all the babysitters in town?”

“Yes!”

Damn. I’m good. Some things never change.

Anyway, the other day I was realizing that, despite my best efforts, I find it very difficult to not be in physical contact with my “friend,” when we are together. This is truly uncharacteristic of me since I classically prefer to be on one couch and the resident “friend” in my life to be on the other couch in another city. We always have follow up conversation about the fact that we can’t keep our hands off each other when we are together, even if to just hold hands while we sleep. I was thinking the other day, “Wow, it is so weird of me to want to touch him all the time. I usually don’t even like to spend more than a few hours with someone. The only time I can remember doing this before was…

with my ex in Atlanta…

…when I was madly in…”

Uh oh. Shit.

God. Damned. It.

We are who we are and those things about us – the things that define us, never ever change.

From the Files of Why I Hate People; Crossfile Under “Here’s How Much of an Asshole I Can Be”

Truth be told, historically, I’ve been a pretty nice and accommodating person. Ask the friends. Recently, something finally switched over in my brain and I stopped tolerating the rudeness of acquaintances and strangers. My pet peeve is the ever rampant in Washington D.C. “I’m going to bud into your life because I can” attitude. An inordinate number of people here like to interject their two cents when I am not asking for it. I don’t recall this in any other place I’ve lived. But it really pisses me off.

The King of the Dogpark and I were walking our dogs down the street. I had my two dogs, plus the foster, Zoe, and he has his dog. We were passing a dead strip of grass that has recently become home to a brand spanking new sign “Please take your dog to the designated dog area.” Let’s pause for the irony – there IS NO designated dog area in D.C. And all the fucking yuppies have decided to plant flowers in the treeboxes and fence them in, which, last time I checked, was CITY property, not personal property. Since we have no formal allowed dog parks, I’m sorry, but where are they supposed to go? Any strip of grass, weeds, or leaves is prime pickings. I pick up after my dog, and that grass has been dead for YEARS. If they really don’t want dogs in there, screw the sign; build a fence.

So the four dogs are walking in various directions all across the sidewalk and I became aware of a woman approaching from behind who might want to get past us. I was being nice when I asked her, “Oh, sorry, are our dogs preventing you from getting by?” And she said, “No, I was just curious why there are signs that say they don’t want dogs here but the dogs are all over the grass.” I was trying to be nice in collecting dogs out of her way so her ass could get by and she has to be a bitch? Fine bitchy, have it your way.

So I said, “Oh, because the dogs can’t read.”

The King and I kept walking and he said, “I actually can’t believe you said that.” I said, “Yeah, neither can I.”

Usually I’m not that quick on the uptake. My comeback hits me anywhere from 4 hours to 48 days after an “incident.” I usually start apologizing and scrambling to comply with whatever crap a stranger shoots in my direction, but nope. Not anymore.

I Hurt

It doesn’t matter that I hit the gym five days a week, those dogs kicked my ass today. Being in the sun, answering the same questions over and over and walking dogs is hard! HARD! Holly I have no idea how you do this every Saturday and Sunday.

Homeward Bound Pet Rescue of Georgia link. If you see a dog you want – now, later, ever, please let them (or me) know -we will arrange for transport of this dog so it can find its new home with you. The pet overpopulation problem in Georgia is horrendous, and there are so many animals euthanized each week. Help them. Please. If you can’t or don’t want to adopt a pet, please consider a donation. (Click the donate button on above link.) Any amount helps.

Now, I must thank you kids who showed up to help:

Ninja – who had the cutest puppy dumped off at his house at 2 a.m. Saturday night and he still didn’t adopt her;

Momentary Academic – who hawked the puppies as hard as she could because she knew that if they didn’t get adopted she would be taking them home herself;

Hammer – who walked dogs and then got attached…waiting around much longer than he had planned to see the final disposition of Zeke and Zoe;

Sixes and Sevens – who kept emptying her pockets of cash to the donation boxes and who set up her own outpost at the end to hawk the dogs who weren’t getting as many visitors;

E, BMW and Darla – who came, walked dogs, and helped me try (unsuccessfully) to talk Ninja out of adopting a small dog, because, as BMW can attest, walking a small dog encourages men to fog up their windows and invite you in for mimosas. Because they wanna be your friennnnd.

The overall opinion from the Homeward Bound folks was that Alexandria was a wonderful place for this adoption. They spent Friday and Saturday in New Jersey and adopted 7 and 10 dogs respectively, out of a total 31. This left them with 14 dogs to bring to Alexandria for Sunday. And today, with the help of the above animal lovers, 9 dogs found homes. NINE! That is awesome. They were going to return to Georgia tonight with 5 dogs, but, oops, I plucked one off the truck…because she just looks so much like my Thora.

I know. You don’t have to tell me. I’m an idiot. I’ll just keep stuffing dogs in my condo like sausages. Who’s gonna yell at me? The Condo Board President? Ha…that dumb bitch…

 

Does anyone want a dog?

Dogs Coming From Georgia!!!

My friend Holly is coming with the dogs again! UNLIKE SHELTERS HERE IN D.C., YOU GET TO TAKE YOUR PET HOME THE SAME DAY! NO HOMEVISITS! NO TWO WEEK WAITING PERIODS!

Homeward Bound, a no-kill rescue group located in Georgia is holding a dog adoption on Sunday November 11th at PetSmart – Potomac Yard. 3351 Jefferson Davis Highway. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

They are bringing about 30 dogs ranging in age from 9 weeks to 6 years old. All of the dogs are spayed / neutered, current to age on vaccines, dewormed, heartworm negative and started on monthly flea and heartworm preventative.

The adoption fee is $200 per dog, cash only.

All animals can be viewed at homeward.petfinder.com (click available pets, then check them out!)

Even if you cannot adopt an animal, we still need your help!!! Volunteers are needed to help set up the cages and put water bowls in for the dogs, and volunteers are needed throughout the day to help walk dogs and talk to prospective new parents.

If you have any questions or want any further information, please leave a comment here or email homeward @ ellijay.com and ask Holly any questions you have.

Finally, this rescue group runs solely on donations. If you can make a donation, please email homeward @ ellijay.com for information on how to do so, or come out on Sunday to see the dogs and dedication of these ladies who are driving up from Georgia to bring dogs to our area.

I Need the Harley Wind Blowing In My Hair

Velvet vs. Vehicle-Like-Machinery

The Harley
My precious motorcycle recently had a date for service. The dealer called said I had to sign some paperwork. I wasn’t in town, so I asked them to fax it to me. First I tried for my friend’s fax, where my friend would forge my signature on this useless piece of paper so work could commence.

Harley Dude: I tried to fax it and got no answer.
Velvet: Let me check.

After confirming that their fax machine had not, in fact, rung, I relayed this information to the guy.

Velvet: Phone never rang. Are you sure?
Harley Dude: Yes, I tried it three times.
Velvet: Okay, well, it is long distance you know. The area code is 203, not to be confused with D.C.’s 202.
Harley Dude: I know. I dialed 203. It says it right here next to the words ‘no answer.’ We’ll need another fax number or we can’t work on your bike.

Fuck me to tears.

Next day.

Velvet: Hi, I’ve got another fax number I would like to give you. I’m at my brother’s office.
Harley Dude: We tried and tried yesterday, you are going to have to come in and sign this.
Velvet: I am in New York. So it is not possible for me to come in. You have to fax it.
Harley Dude: Fine, what’s the number?
Velvet: 212…….

20 Minutes later.

Velvet: Hey, did you fax it? I’m trying to get out of here.
Harley Dude: I did, but I got no answer.
Velvet: Okay, see, now I know that is not possible. I’ve traveled to another state, it is clearly a problem on your end. This time it is 212, not 202. I know these area codes are similar to D.C., are you definitely dialing the right area code?
Harley Dude: No, I really can’t get it to work. I’ll try again. See? No answer.
Velvet: The phone is NOT RINGING over here. Try again.
Harley Dude: I will, but if it doesn’t work, you will have to come in and sign this or we won’t work on your bike.
Velvet: Again, NOT IN TOWN. You have to make this work.
Harley Dude: Well, I’ll try again.

20 minutes later I called again to ask where the stupid paper was. Someone else answered thankfully.

Harley Dude#2: He said he faxed it. He’s faxed it close to 10 times and there’s never an answer.
Velvet: Are you understanding that this is not possible? I’ve given you two separate fax numbers in two separate states. Try it again.
Harley Dude #2: Here we go.
Velvet: Great. The phone is ringing. Okay. The paper is coming through.
Harley Dude #2: I wonder what he did wrong. Let me look at the printout.

Are you ready?

Harley Dude #2: Oh, he’s new here. He didn’t know he had to dial 1 before the area code.
Velvet: Listen to me. No matter how new you are, you should know how to dial 1 first, especially when I remind you that you are calling long distance, and more importantly – DO NOT LET THAT GUY NEAR MY BIKE!

Speedracer
At every oil change that doesn’t occur at the dealer, I go to the 10 minute place because, well, they take 10 minutes. But that’s the only thing I like. There is nothing about paying $40 for an oil change worth $15 or dealing with the bullshit sales pressures that I enjoy. My dealer services Speedracer and I trust that whatever they do is right and that nothing recommended by a 10 minute oil change place is valid.

I went to the garage on Saturday and rolled down the window.

Grease Monkey #1: Hi Ma’am. What can I help you with?
Velvet: I need an oil change.
GM#1: Okay, you know this is a high performance automo….
Velvet: Yes. I really just want the cheap oil though.
GM#1: Well, ma’am, I need to tell you that…
Velvet: I know. You guys try to sell me the $100 oil every time I come here, I really just want the basic. Last time I was here the tech looked at my service records and said even my dealer uses the basic oil.
GM#1: Okay well I’m telling you you should…
Velvet: I really just want the regular oil.
GM#1: Okay, fine. It should just be a couple minutes.

He filled out some paperwork, stuck it in my windshield wipers and told me to drive into the bay when they opened the garage door. Satisfied that I warded off their attempt to sell me extra crap I don’t need, I smiled smugly to myself and pulled into the garage.

GM#2: Hello ma’am, I’ll be doing your oil change today…I see from the paperwork here that you only want the regular oil. With a car like this you really need the synthetic…
Velvet: I know this. I told the guy outside. You guys always try to sell me the expensive oil and even my dealer doesn’t use that.
GM#2: Okay ma’am, but I’m obligated to tell you that you need to have that synthetic oil for this car because you don’t want to run the regular oil through the engine, it is bad for the engine.
Velvet: Regular oil. That’s what I want.
GM#2: Okay. It will just be a few minutes.

At this point, I grabbed my driver’s manual and the last service records from the dealer in my glove compartment. I confirmed that the dealer used 5W-30 oil, which means nothing to me, but I was charged $18 for the oil. Okay…that sounds like cheap oil to me. Then I flipped to the driver’s manual to the “recommended oil” page. And whoa, what do I find there? “This car should be using 5W-30 oil.” 5W-30, as in, oil that costs $18.

I waited for the inevitable, the time where the tech comes over and tells you how your oil looked, and then how they try to tell you either need new brakes like yesterday or there’s a gremlin under your hood who is going to gangrape you by Wednesday and only they can remedy this problem for “10 minutes and a grand total of X.” Sure enough, GM#2 comes over to the car window.

GM#2: We do a 36 point check of the car and your brakes look great (because they’re new!) fluids look good (yes they do!) battery is charged (that’s new too bitch!) tires are in great shape (also new!) but your engine oil is getting some sludge on the cap. Engine sludge can hinder the performance…blah blah blah.

I tuned out. He wanted to do some $129 engine flush. Hells the fuck no. I presented him with my findings on the oil and he sort of smirked in that “I know that you know that I’m trying to get one over on you because our profit margin on these extra services we convince you that you need is incredible and my boss is watching and I also know that you’ve totally dumped about $2000 into this car in the last 6 months so everything is new and this is all I can legitimately come up with and since I am trying to prove you need the expensive oil it just works for my pitch.”

So what did I learn from all this? Well, in lesson number one with the Harley, I learned that men are very stupid. That’s really all I can say about not knowing you have to dial 1 before making a long distance call. In lesson number two with the car, I learned that men will try to sell women anything by scaring them about the future performance of their vehicle.

In both cases, it helps to be smarter than the person with whom you are dealing.

Velvet and Thora vs. The Cookie Dough: Week 1

Well, it was a great day. I ran 3 1/2 miles, then came home, showered, and took some stabs at it with a fork. Thora just watched and cheered me on. And no, before someone calls Animal Control, I am definitely NOT feeding my dog chocolate. In fact, I’ve just learned Thora needs (and will get) a $7000 operation, so don’t tell me I ain’t a good mama!

 

We’ll report back with regularity.

Dog Parks Are This Week’s Meter or Zone Debate

There is a whole conglomeration of people who have finally made the “dog park” come to fruition in D.C. That is, in a legal, Department of Public Works approved manner.

Let me state my case now. Sammy and Thora hate the dog park. They have no interest in the dog park. I only go there to chit chat with my friends before submitting to a walk around the neighborhood because those little shits won’t shit at the park. This is very annoying. But that said, I don’t care if there are dog parks or not.

The anti-dog people KILL me. They are so funny. They will take something simple like a dog park and turn it into some argument about how dog owners hate children (yes, because having a dog and a child are mutually exclusive – no one on earth has both!) and that dog owners are unruly yuppies. (Well, okay, some are I suppose.) No one ever remembers the fact that dog owners are out in the neighborhoods often and are the eyes and ears of the crime, in some cases, helping the police when they couldn’t find their perp inside that jelly donut they were investigating, or that having a dog virtually drops your chances of being robbed down to 1%. There have been none of the daytime home break-ins to homes with dogs. But I digress.

Now, there’s always someone who decides to just rant about being anti-dog for some stupid reason or another. Bah. Like this article in the Examiner. (Examiner circulation: 11.) Read the comments though. Well not all of them. It gets pretty boring and follows the same themes. This is yet again a black vs. white issue and a kids vs. non-kids issue. Jesus christ on a stick can we please, PLEASE have something in this city not become a racial issue? I am so sick of it. The first few comments on this article, some of which I believe were deleted said things like, “Go back to your side of the Anacostia,” and “What do you want next, for us to free the slaves?” Jesus. Like I used to say when I lived in Atlanta, “The war is over people!”

Anyway, this writer is supposed to be a journalist. I don’t really care what she endorses and what she opposes, but my friends care and I like my friends. I’m all in favor of backing them up to get this dog park approved so my dogs can sit around miserably while I gossip with the best of them. I can’t hate her for her opinion. But I CAN make fun of her poorly written Examiner article “For the record: I dont hate dogs. Someone is making such a declaration right now. But get that out of your mind.” Who writes like that? “But get that out of your mind?” Did she just change from third person to first person, then second person – the ‘you’ being implied, all in stream of three related sentences? CHRIST! Where was the editor when she turned that in – in the potty? I decided to take a look at the writer’s website for a minute.

I went to her “about” page. The first sentence tells us she has 20 years experience in journalism and was rated one of the top 50 journalists in D.C. by Washingtonian Mag. Ok. From the 2nd to last paragraph in her bio: “She is a highly sought speaker who has given talks throughout the United States–state correctional facilities in Pennsylvania, the University of Wisconsin, Maryland University, Duke University, The Arizona Fatherhood Conference, and the National Fatherhood Summit 2000 and in Paris, France.”

Um…if I spoke at all those places, I would list them in order of prestige. I wouldn’t put the correctional facilities first. Just saying.

Anyway, back to the comments and the article. If you read them all, they are a true testament to everything that is wrong in this city. People who oppose anything decide to bitch about their tax dollars having to pay for a dog park they won’t use, but neglect to mention all the money the people with no children pay in taxes as well for schools and playgrounds, and then, hold on, because it won’t be long before it turns quickly into black vs. white; natives vs. new in town; non-gentrified neighborhoods vs. gentrified. Fight fight fight. That’s all that goes on here.

This goes back to my original impression of D.C. People here need lives. We have plenty of other things to worry about (lackluster police force, high crime, racial tensions, traffic, terrorism) besides spending $1200 on a few dog parks in the city.

KArmA

This one is pulled from the files of “Don’t Ya Hate it When Karma Bites You in Your FAT ASS!”

All of this is hypothetical. Of course. Of course! I always write hypothetically-speaking right?

Have you ever had something happen and someone who was “supposed” to be your friend decided to jump on the “anti-you” bandwagon and malign your name along with some other medicated tri-polar delusional “my life is so wonderful” hermit? And all the while these things are happening, legitimately happening, this “supposed friend” is possibly egging them on? So the issue gets swept under the mat, everyone goes their separate ways and no one hears a peep from the other side for a long time. But then, the “supposed friend” just happens to pop out of the woodwork and publicly malign your name again, for no reason, calling you many many names most of which really just apply to his or herself?

You, being of sound mind and better judgment than a year ago, a month ago, even a day ago, just laugh, and shake your head, and wonder, “Gee, what could still be bothering this person after all this time has gone by? Have they nothing else in their life?”

Then, during this new round of public maligning, the “supposed friend” has some sort of awakening and emails you. You – who they have said nothing but bad things about as recently as yesterday. What if you got this email and had to read skim an entire dissertation on how the “now ex-supposed friend” was in danger and “since the same thing had happened to you could you please help me even though I didn’t believe you and now I realize I should have and even though I just said a bunch of nasty things about you yesterday and the day before and the day before that, I have no where else to turn and I’m so sorry I was such a bitch and so so so wish it could have played out differently especially because I think you are the only one who can helllllllp me!!!”

Silly, pathetic little loser. She should have added, “there’s not enough medication in the world to fix my crazy and I’m just an anorexic psycho who has no real friends.”

To say that you would laugh hysterically at this letter and say, “Thank you, since I don’t believe in God or whatever, thank you to whatever fates aligned to make this person’s life a miserable piece of shit,” would be an understatement. Really! It couldn’t have happened to a nicer, more deserving person!

Every dog gets their day in court.

Mais Oui, Mon Cherie

There is a French Film Festival in town. In case anyone cares. Actually, I care, that’s why I bring you this news. The festival goes through November 1, so get your ass out there!

Sunday, I went with an old friend who I wish would blog again to the National Gallery to see a collection of shorts. I love the short. LOVE it. I think that it takes an incredible amount of genius to pour a story into a 10 or 20 minute clip. Increasingly used by aspiring filmmakers, the short is a way to showcase talents in a manner that may actually be viewed by financial backers.

We saw nine movies over the course of two hours. Three were really good from an artistic standpoint (Be Quiet, Les Volets & Ming d’or.) Two were really funny (The Danse Lesson & Premier Voyage.) One went over my head (Waiting for Yesterday.) One was so cute and such a feel good movie (Ousmane.) One was totally boring (Bonsoir Monsieur Chu.) And one was really really disturbing. That would be “Even If She Had Been a Criminal.” Silent and in black and white, several French women are publicly humiliated and have their head shaved for partaking in extracurriculars with German Soldiers.

The shorts are gone, but there are still several days left to view other full length feature films in town. Check Cest Chic! for more info.

(Look, you have to admit…the French Film Festival news is way better than “there’s a rat loose in CVS or “the Greeks want their marbles back,” right?)

Drama at CVS

Location: 17th and P.

So…one Sixes and Sevens and I just meandered into CVS after lunch. We were immediately confronted with this:

 

The candy aisle is closed in the week preceeding Halloween? Really? We asked the cashier what was going on and she got “that look.” You know, the one where their mouth is saying they don’t know but their eyes and face are telling another story, like, “RUN!”

 

Someone didn’t spellcheck before printing the sign that says, “Sorry we can’t sale these itemes.”

We moved through the store, hearing the cashier tell someone that no food and beverage was allowed to be sold according to the manager. At the prescription desk, we asked them if they knew what was going on. They too got “the look,” and said with a smirk on their face, “Oh, I don’t know. No, really, I don’t know.”

Then, we spotted this:

 

In case you never had a rodent (hamster, gerbil, mouse) like myself, and in case you never had mice invade your house in the Great Mice vs. Velvet and Velvet’s brother debacle of 1997, you may not recognize the above pellets as rodent poop.

More specifically: rats.

So the rat, or rats, tore through CVS last night or this morning eating their way through the cheese puffs. AWESOME! Check out the nibble bites!

Anyway, other than it being hilarious that the CVS is basically incapacitated, rats amuse me. The other night, Thora and Sammy and I were walking down the street and a rat jumped out, ran right in front of us and took off into the bushes. None of us even flinched. Thankfully, I don’t scream bloody murder like the people from the ‘burbs do when they come here and a rat jumps out in their path.

Psst. Hey you! Rat! Everyone learned on Supermarket Sweep that you go for the high dollar items first! Step away from the cheese puffs!

Hammer I Must, I’m Gonna Get Through Your Crust, Gonna Chip That Stone Away

Thank you, and thank you to you too.

And of course, now I know how the Post found my last, err, post.

Well, I’m going through an “I should be involved in more things” breakthrough, so I’m trying to actually leave Dupont Circle. It doesn’t happen often, but today, I ventured out. Um. To the Greek Embassy.

They were having a lecture and unveiling of the new Acropolis museum. Since I was just in Athens and the museum was closed – even though I breathed really hard on the glass doors and whined, “But I paid and it says on my ticket that the museum is included,” I decided to check it out. Truth be told, I’d much rather walk the 7 or so blocks to the Embassy than fly 10 hours back to Athens.

I mistakenly and naively thought I would be one of three people there. I was wrong. Holy Baklava Batman, it was standing room only, seriously. I told my parents earlier in the day that I was going over there and they were like, “DRESS NICE!” which translates into, “MAYBE YOU’LL FIND A GREEK HUSBAND.” I, of course, was late, and ended up taking a seat close to the back. From where I was sitting, it was less an exhibit on the Acropolis (which I couldn’t see quite well) and more an exhibit on really bad fashion (which I could see…all too well.) I also wanted to pose a question to the group: Am I the only one here who has washed my hair today? Just curious! I later discovered that it was because I was sitting near the archeological student contingent from the nearby universities. Whoo. Thank goodness they weren’t Greeks or I would have been running my own exhibit next week at the Embassy on personal grooming.

Anyway, the undercurrent of the evening was not that that this beautiful museum is now open in Athens, but that they are holding spaces open in the exhibit areas for the marbles that the Brits stole. In the very early 1800’s, Lord Elgin made it his business to dismantle parts of the Parthenon and take them back to London, where they now sit in the British Museum. (Someone even drew an interpretation of a guy climbing the Parthenon and chipping away at the stone.)

The Brits refuse to return them, stating stupid reasons like, “They belong here where all the world can enjoy them.” Part of the exhibit showed how they have half of the frescoes, and need the other halves which are, again, in FUCKING LONDON! God damned Brits! Give us back our MARBLES!!! (That was the cry of the evening and I quickly jumped on that bandwagon.) How would the Brits like it if we stole some of their non-rotten teeth and took them off to Athens? Huh? Oh, wait, maybe teeth was a bad example. Brits don’t have those.

Anyway, I joined their bandwagon. There’s nothing I love more than Greeks who hold a grudge.

I Am No One’s Bitch, Especially the Washington Post

Many of you got the little email from WaPo, right? Asking us to “join their blogroll,” right? I actually didn’t answer it. Something just didn’t pass the sniff test. A week and two days later, I finally replied with a polite “no.” Why are they doing this NOW? Blogging has clearly jumped the shark. It makes no sense to be on the tail end of a phenomenon so mediocre. Of course, we’re speaking of the Post though. They aren’t really a “forefront of the operation” kind of media. I looked at the website. I quickly got discouraged with the in-your-face popups and the inability to scroll beyond the first page in any category. Hello? Tech support? You don’t make a site live until the code and links work. Duh.

It should have occurred to me that theirs wasn’t a gesture of goodwill and creating a community, but rather, a plight for their own interests.

Click here and read this.

What? You don’t want to? Why? Because you remember that time I had you click a link and it brought you to a sex site? Sorry about that. Okay, here’s an excerpt in case you still haven’t forgiven me:

Once upon a time, newspapers wanted nothing to do with bloggers, those amateurs who opined on anything that caught their fancy, whether it was interesting, or accurate, or not. That was then. Now newspaper websites, desperate for readers and revenue, are increasingly in cahoots with bloggers, posting and plugging them and even sharing advertising revenue.

Purists may sniff at these online liaisons but, as the print newspaper industry shrinks, they may be inevitable.

This year, the Washington Post added a sponsored blog roll to its website, a directory of links to blogs that specialize in travel, technology, health and more. If the Post sells an ad on the blog roll’s main page, the bloggers split the money with the newspaper. So far, about 100 bloggers have signed up.

To Caroline Little, the chief executive of Washingtonpost Newsweek Interactive, the ad network is good business. Most ad buyers don’t want to take the time to buy space on dozens of different blogs, she said, and the staff-driven side of the website often doesn’t have enough stories about technology, business or health for advertisers looking to place ads near that content. With the blog roll, the Post can grab ad revenue that might have gone elsewhere.

“It’s about figuring out how to monetize other people’s content,” Little said.

Of course it is, you silly whore. Why bother being creative when you appealed to a whole group of people who want exposure? It’s a convenient arrangement, isn’t it? Though you don’t tell these people that your readership has been down and this will do nothing for individual blogger exposure.

So, is it that the WaPo writers are not good enough to attract visitors? Or are they too stupid to, oh, I dunno, hire a real ad agency and come up with an aggressive marketing plan? (Hmm…maybe…how about the Great URL Expiration of ’04, anyone?)

Using us for lost ad dollars? WaPo just elevated their position on my list of D.C.’s most self-serving, and we have a lot of politicians here with whom to compete! Try working for your ad dollars WaPo. Velvet in Dupont subsidizes only those who subsidize her back. And right now, that list is empty.*

*Okay, maybe I got a little toll money from my daddy a couple weeks ago when I went to visit. I protested, but he wanted me to have that $20 and with the George Washington Bridge costing a bank-breaking $6 these days, and that fucking Jersey Turnpike is outrageous too, and shit, you have to pay tolls to get into and out of Delaware and god damned it, the state is only 10 miles long!!! I took the money. Then I hung my head in shame, and drove off in my overpriced Speedracer that breaks a lot. It makes no sense. I admit this. In the spirit of total honesty and full disclosure, I admit this.

Just Remember This My Girl, When You Look Up In the Sky…You Can See the Stars But Still Not See the Light

A tiny bit of my soul was sucked out of me when I realized I may have become the person I never thought I would. Because I just totally, like ohmygod, gag me with a spoon, betrayed the 13 year old in me. You know, the one who I promised I would never become “one of them.”

I remain vehemently opposed to things like myspace. I just don’t get it. I’m sorry. I can’t understand its purpose beyond a ridiculous time-vortex. I maintain a basic profile for the sole purpose of chatting with (read: keeping tabs on) my best friend’s teenage girls. Very specifically, one of them. My friend told me one night on the phone that they had recent pictures on their myspace, so I logged on, created a quickie profile and they added me as a friend. We exchanged comments and I (again! Where does this come from? Sometimes I make myself sick!) told them things like “Get the best grades you can.” They respond that they are trying but…blah blah…boys…blah blah and I’m like, “Trust me, get the best grades you can. Plenty of people will want to tell you that ‘You can’t.’ Don’t let them have another reason to weed you out of whatever it is you want. Get good grades!” I check up on them every now and again to make sure they are behaving. The girls are ridiculously beautiful for 12 and 13. Seriously. I’m not just saying that. Like people say how cute their own babies are. No. No. No. These girls are fucking mega hot.

So, one of them is not behaving. She is not even close to behaving. She is 13 going on 24 with full makeup and dressing like Christina Aguilera in that brief but horrifying time between the innocent “Genie in a Bottle” and the classy “Ain’t No Other Man.” For someone whose theme song is “Girls Girls Girls,” the half naked female doesn’t shock me. But when the half naked female is my friend’s daughter? Oh. Oh. Not good.

Here’s the email I sent:

Dear Friend,

Hey. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but “13 year old’s” myspace profile seems to include pictures of her in a bra and undies. Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing? You will need to log in to see because she blocks non friends. Here’s my id and password. Call me if you need me to walk you through it.

She replied with: “FUCK! I’m having A LOT of problems with her.”

I replied with, “Oh my god I’m a tattletale.”

Within minutes the entire myspace profile came down. What have I become? I know I did the right thing. I know I did. But that 13 year old inside of me who is spinning the Cutting Crew’s “I Just Died In Your Arms” on a 45 record, passing time until Friday night so she can drool over Don Johnson in Miami Vice is pissed off. Real pissed off. And I don’t know if she will ever forgive me.

Dear Lucky Magazine

In my attempt to get my mind off Thora, who goes to a specialist tomorrow, how about something light hearted. Clearly this post is just for the girls.

Dear Lucky Magazine,

The only reason I have had a subscription to you since the very beginning of your life is because I love a magazine about clothes and makeup without any articles about how to get your man in bed or how to check yourself for breast cancer every 4 minutes. That said, uh, what the fuck is up with your November issue? I have two problems: Paris Hilton and everything else. Yes. That’s correct.

Paris Hilton. A four page spread (pun intended) with her ugly face hawking yet another perfume? Four pages? Are you so desperate for ad money that you have to give her four pages? And didn’t you notice that she looks dead or just very mannequin like in the picture? I’m sorry, but the last time I checked, you sell media to advertisers who cater to your demographic. I just don’t see the woman reading Lucky as the same woman who wants to smell like Paris Hilton. But, then perhaps my next complaint explains this issue.

The First Annual Shopping Awards. When you are polling your readers to ask them about their favorites, try not to poll people in unfashionable parts of the country, okay? Because, I promise you, promise promise promise, that there is indeed a better beauty counter than Macy’s. Macy’s? Really? How about Nordstrom? Bergdorfs? Bloomingdales? (It’s like no other store in the world!) I also bet you that the best selection of Emerging Designers is definitely not contained inside Nordstrom. Again, I am partial to Bergdorf’s but what can I say? I’m a New Yorker at heart.

I had to hold my breath for the next round of crap – Chain Stores.

Best Shoes – Nine West. (Someone kill me. Please. Stab me with a stiletto. I worked for Nine West. These shoes are horribly made.)

Best Lingerie – Victoria’s Secret. (You know, earlier today I was wearing Victoria’s Secret underwear, but then they disintregated right off my body and now I’m going commando.)

Best Denim – The Gap. (I just threw up in my mouth, on the floor and on the guy next to me. Sorry dude. Then I passed out when I realized that Lucky’s fashion editor said, “Express has brilliant jeans.” Am I the only one here? What is going on here? Am I in some twisted episode of The Twilight Zone?)

Best Party Clothes – Forever 21. (Well, here we go. Here’s the contingency of voters who also want to smell like Paris Hilton.)

Best denim website – The Gap. (Oh. My. God. Do they not have anything other than the motherfucking Gap online? Are you people the same assholes who picked “c” for every question you didn’t know on your SAT’s?)

Everyone has a bad couple days Lucky. Okay? But you shouldn’t go to press when you do. I want to hear what YOU fashion-whores think are the best stores – not what the rest of the country thinks. The only peep I want to hear from readers in other places are about their local boutiques that might be great places to shop. And yes, I AM sitting here in Lucky Jean Brand Sweatpant shorts and a wifebeater that says LUCKY as I type – not to be confused with your Lucky. Now, about my attire. So?

Love,

Velvet
a.k.a. No longer in Fashion, but still the Fashion Police!

I’d Like to Meet the Man or Woman Responsible For This

Sometimes I just don’t believe the shit that happens.

My precious Thora turns 8 years old in one month. I’ve had her since she was 3 months old. My then-boyfriend found her running around Savannah looking for someone to play with. He was working on a movie, The Gift, in which Thora appears in the opening credits. My ex called me and asked me to come from Atlanta, where we were living, to Savannah to get our new dog who had disrupted the filming schedule one too many times with her barking.

Thora didn’t have a name for the first couple of weeks. But “thoro” means “gift” in Greek. Since she was our gift, and also in “The Gift,” there you go. Having only had hamsters and a chinchilla, I never felt connected to a pet in my life. That first night I got to Savannah in February of 2000, Thora lay in bed with me in some horrifying fleabag motel while my ex was filming overnight. She rolled over on her back and slept with all four legs spread out like a starfish. I thought, “Holy shit. She spreads her legs like me!” No, wait. That’s not what I thought. I thought, “I’m actually someone’s quasi-mom now. WHAT HAVE I DONE?”

Other than the time when she ate an inkjet cartridge on Christmas morning, other than the time when she grabbed the fabric skirt on the couch and went running across the room tearing it with her as she went, other than the time when she tried to dig out of our apartment and pulled up the rug and padding down to the concrete, other than the time she jumped out of the car on Buford Highway in Atlanta to chase a squirrel, other than the time she rolled in a septic field and smelled like shit for weeks, other than the time she killed my ex’s mom’s chickens (OMG don’t ask, please don’t ask,) I have loved this dog.

When she ran away from my ex’s house, I went on an all out rampage to get her back. I was living in Maryland at the time. I made a spreadsheet called Thora Come Home. I sat at work and made phone calls all day and placed ads in newspapers. The 3rd day the ad dropped, someone called to say “I think my neighbor has your dog.” I drove all night with my friend to go get her. No one was going to stop me.

When we pulled up in front of the lesbian’s house (look, that’s who rescued her, ok? and yesssss they have lesbians in red states) Thora walked outside, looked at me as if to say “Where have you been, bitch” jumped in the original Velvet, crawled in the backseat and went to sleep. I had brought all sorts of pictures to prove Thora was mine and I wasn’t just some lunatic driving from Maryland to Macon, Georgia to get a dog. But when they saw that they said, “Thas yer dog a’ight.”

So, present day. Thora has been having trouble walking all of a sudden. I took her to the vet for x-rays. I expected a torn ligament. I expected arthritis. I did not expect this.

“Did you know your dog has been shot?”

I actually said to the doctor, “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

“Yes, quite a few times.”

I saw the x-ray. I saw 11 bullets. I brought the King of the Dog Park. He also saw the 11 bullets. We were stunned. I swear, I felt like fainting. Like everything just changed. In an instant. Who the fuck would shoot a dog? I called my ex, and we reconstructed a timeline of the last 8 years, and we have no idea. How does your dog get 11 wounds and you don’t notice blood? So did it happen before we got her? And if so, why didn’t she ever show any signs of injury before now? Did she get it in that time she was on the run, when she ended up at the lesbian’s house? I don’t know. I’ll never know. I’m just honestly – stunned. For years, I have wondered what Sammy and Thora’s lives were like before they came into mine. But in my wildest dreams, I never imagined they were abused or, worse, shot.

So now, my dear sweet Thora, I get it. I get why thunder scares you. I get why the slamming of the UPS truck door makes you jump. I get why the popping of the bubble wrap petrifies you so much you hide under the bed. Now it all makes sense. I often wish my dogs could talk. There’s so much I want to know that only they can tell me. Though, thoughts of gunshots and bullets…maybe I don’t want to know it all.

 

Loves you Thora Bean. You’ll always be my first baby. I’ll spend all my money and jack up my credit cards to make sure you get well.

Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot

I have a confession to make. I used to be one of those chicks in fashion. Ha. That still makes me laugh. Anyone who has seen me in my ulta-fave sweatpant shorts and witnessed the still-in-progress unpainted fingernail marathon of 2006-7 is probably laughing as well. Yes, I had a subscription to Women’s Wear Daily. I had the newest and latest stuff all the time. I sat in runway shows and worked in the business. For five years.

My first job after college was working at a corporate office of a retail company everyone knows – Nine West. Essentially, I was a buyer. But it was wholesale buying – so you are not making a selection. You are taking what needs to be produced and scheduling it on lines and making sure it gets done.

Nine West entered into a license agreement to make Calvin Klein shoes for the now defunct cK brand of footwear. I commuted my ass to Seventh Avenue in New York City and quickly learned that the sun never rises in the Garment District. Something about crossing Sixth Avenue, and everything went dark.

License agreements are screwy at best. Calvin Klein, the man and the company, are masters at licensing the name and slapping it all over everything. Technically, nothing except the Calvin Klein Women’s Collection is actually done in house anymore. I learned that anything with the Calvin Klein name on it was made by some company who specialized in that particular product line. The prestige of wearing Calvin Klein underwear dissipates quickly when you learn that Vanity Fair or Fruit of the Loom were really the ones making it. If you wonder why sometimes things look so similar among designers, that’s a major reason. If you work for Fruit of the Loom and in addition to making your own boxers you have to do Calvin’s – what do you think happens? You slap that puppy on the same production line with your own and there is very little difference in product quality or appearance. It is always more cost effective to run the same styles on the same lines.

I remember the day I rode the elevator with Calvin Klein and Christy Turlington. I was not as awe struck as my co-worker, who was practically in tears at sharing the same 4 by 6 space with them. Bah. I was more excited to tear into my Eggplant Parm.

After several grueling years, and making it to a buying office, I learned the industry had too many sordid back corners for me to permanently call it home. This is how it works:

A company has designers who spend time in Europe checking out the latest fashions. They come back and “re-interpret” that for America. (Groan. Have you seen the rest of America?) They may show 100 pieces in a collection, but after the Sales Managers come in, a lot of what they don’t think they can sell gets cut. Then after the trade and runway shows, whatever else lacks interest also gets cut. The final collection you take to production is about 30% of what you originally started with. The best pieces always get cut and never make it out to the world. Up against rising production costs and factory workers who weren’t very competent, Nine West moved all their production from the States and Brazil out to China. They didn’t have a choice. As a manufacturer, you just can’t win.

The other side of the business, being a buyer, is really not much better. You are given a set budget and you have only that money to spend for the season. But there are many levels of management above you who determine on what they want you to spend your budget. This is usually due to “exclusive deals” with manufacturers. While this sounds like a fantastic deal, it’s a load of crap. The real reason the seller is offering a discount on volume is because they got a break on price from their factory. They are trying to max their profit out on something that isn’t necessarily what people want, just easy to make. The buyers plan to heavily promote it, because many subscribe to the belief that at the right price, anything will sell. The promise of exclusivity is also not that at all – you will almost always see a very similar piece of merchandise at a competitor. The vendor will contest this though. This is my favorite lie: “Oh, it’s a totally different shoe! It’s one millimeter of one millimeter higher in the heel! That speaks to a completely different woman!”

So this item above “exclusive” probably ate 20% of the buyer’s budget. Then there are “basics” that every buyer has to have, as well as continuing sellers from prior seasons. Finally, there would be about 15% to 20% of the budget left at the end for “fashion” items. These are the things that are more interesting, more outrageous, that not everyone will want. The trick to these is that if you are a buyer and only spending a few dollars on these fashion items, so are the other buyers of the world. This means the seller has to go to production with a very limited run. Changing a shoe mid production is costly. You have to produce a minimum of 5000 pairs just to break even. Your price may go up. Then it busts your budget. See now why everything you buy is made in a country you haven’t heard of?

My days at Calvin Klein yielded one superstar. Several years after the place closed up shop, my old co-worker and one of the only nice people at “cK Shoes and Bags,” John Truex, hit it big with Lambertson Truex. The rest of those assholes are probably still sauntering around Manhattan in head to toe black, coming in at 11:00 for their jobs, eating ice cubes for lunch, snorting coke, and leaving at 9:00, where they promptly hit the party scene. No thanks.

My days at Nine West yielded one casualty, Laura Southwick. You can see from that picture, taken at the latest in 2000, she was a definite fashionista. People didn’t start wearing those glasses until the past couple years. That chick was ON IT. Laura and I worked in the same office and she came with me the day I bought my first car – the original VELVET. After Nine West, I moved to Atlanta and Laura went on to work for Kenneth Cole. As everyone in fashion learned in the late 90’s, the only place for production cheap enough to ensure any profit was China. Laura traveled endlessly. The “glamorous life” she had envisioned wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Just four months after September 11th, she went on what she told friends would be her “last trip to China.” As she wrote in her journal, she realized she no longer wanted to be at the mercy of a company who couldn’t guarantee her personal safety. She wrote her resignation letter on the flight as well, but would never return home to deliver it. And no, no one knows what happened, other than that she died overnight in a rural Chinese hospital and the doctors didn’t even know until the morning when they went in to review her test results with her. Um, no thanks on the travel by the way.

At my grad school graduation, I gave the speech. I spoke about Laura and how we learn, sometimes through the hard lessons of friends, that some things are just too important to sacrifice. A final sidenote about how pathetic the industry is – at Laura’s funeral service, Kenneth Cole, the man, approached her parents and asked her for a leather coat back that he had given their daughter as a present. Can. You. Fucking. Believe. It. Fuck you Kenneth Cole and there’s the reason why I don’t buy any of your shit.

So what brings this up? I received an email from someone who heard I had the buying experience they wanted and blah blah blah. Nope. No way. Ultimately I made the decision to leave the business for good. The hours were long. The pay was low. The politics were heavy. The potential cost…astronomical.

Welcome Back to Tool Time!

Welcome back to Tool Time everyone. Tim and Al can’t be your hosts today, so you will have to settle for myself, six lovely co-hosts and a special guest star.

Cast of Characters:

FreckledK, a.k.a. “Houdini” – Pulls guys out of her hat like a magician doing a rabbit trick.
Suicide Blonde, a.k.a. “URL Junkie” – Sometime bail arranger, victim of drink theft.
Mystery Girl!, a.k.a. “Mrs. Mystery” – The Original Whorebucket, lover of line, “Did you see that fight outside?”
Momentary Academic, a.k.a “The Eye of the Storm” – Master trademarker, part time voice of reason, part time instigator, full time giggler.
Jordan Baker, a.k.a. “The Devil in Fishnets” – Index card hoarder, all around mastermind of escape plans.
“Jemma” – a.k.a. “I was the last stop before Skanksville” – Featured in FreckledK’s recent post, the quiet one laughing at the stupidity which surrounds her.
Arjewtino – a.k.a. “Justin Time” – Special Guest Star and reinforcement called at the 11th hour.

In this segment, a tool is going to hold court in front of seven women. The women, who chose their seats at the bar for its space to spread out and vantage point for spotting game were quickly saddened to learn that the arrival of one tool and the placement of one load-bearing pillar would render their entire night cockblocked. Now, what would you do if you wanted to get rid of him? I was piss rotten mean to him, threatened to punch him in the face, stuck my stiletto heel in his crotch and then, doubled those efforts when he said, “I can’t believe anyone would actually have sex with you.” That had me firing off a text message across town which garnered the return response, “I can’t believe anyone wouldn’t have MORE sex with you.” Ego duly satisfied. Back to the show.

Girls? A little help? How would you get rid of him? What are your best methods for pest removal?

FreckledK: “I called for help. Then I turned my back on him and started talking to some other guy.”
MysteryGirl!: “I asked him if he saw the fight outside.”
Jemma: “I used my most evil psychological tactics. I waited until he delivered a line he thought was funny, then I would lean over and whisper in FreckledK’s ear, ‘He is a tool,’ loud enough for him to hear, and obvious enough for him to know I didn’t like him.”
Suicide Blonde: “I outwitted him when he pulled out his blackberry. In a bar. On a Saturday. No one was going to steal that URL name from my hot little hands.”
Momentary Academic: “I tried to be cordial, but then encouraged him to hit on another girl across the room just to get him away from us.”
Jordan Baker: “I appealed to the masses. Since none of us could get him to leave, I wrote a note on an index card that said, ‘Are you of sound mind? Can you get this guy away from us?'”

Luckily Jordan Baker had several index cards, because that exercise took a few tries. Arjewtino even came with his friend who looks like the guy from Sideways and STILL this guy would not leave. He was like a leper.

But finally. Imagine the relief we felt when, after hours of pleading with him to get lost, a cute boy walked up to us with an index card in his hand.

“Hey. Someone passed me this note.”

There was so much clapping and cheering, you would have thought we were front row at a gay piano bar with Liza Minnelli doing an encore. Half the bar turned around to look at seven girls who just spent five hours held hostage by some guy whose proud accomplishment was locking up a URL about dudecheckoutmyblog.

Brilliant. The line by crafty Jordan Baker was brilliant. I thought my great line of Summer 2006 was brilliant, “Are you with the band?” But, no. This one takes the cake. If you can’t get the guy to get away from you, write someone an S.O.S. note. When the Titanic is sinking, these are the girls you want with you. These are the girls who will MacGyver their way out of any situation with their skill and wit.

For some reason, when I think of that guy, the words from “You’re So Vain” plow through my head.

This was the last episode of Tool Time from the basement. We’re taking our act on the road. You’ve been warned. This sleepy little town is ripe for some damage. Hide the booze and your underage sons. Whorebuckets unveiling, coming soon.

Crack of Dawn, All is Gone Except the Will to Be

My book reports from Greece. I know you were waiting with bated breath for these.

Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence. I read Sons and Lovers and absolutely loved this book. I couldn’t get enough, didn’t want it to be over, wanted more after it was finished. So, I chose another Lawrence classic, Women in Love. Uh…ick. I didn’t like it. What I loved about Sons and Lovers was that it was so timeless – I know of many cases where that situation (boy who is plucked as favorite of the mother can’t seem to find a woman who is good enough and ends up alone) happens today. I suppose that Women in Love is timeless as well with its theme of women who just are never fucking happy no matter who the man and what they do for them, but it just wasn’t as interesting or well written to me. Call me nuts.

D.C. Noir was my non-classic. Reading this on the middle of a practically deserted island still annoyed me because, let’s face it. I hate D.C. Why I chose to read a book about a place I don’t care for, only served to annoy me more. If that was even possible. There were a few good stories in there though. But not the one about the yuppie mom who took the doll she found in the alley behind her house in a “transitional neighborhood.” The doll belonged to a crazy lady living in the halfway house across the street from the Yuppie Compound, and the drugs inside belonged to a dealer who then put a hit out on the crazy lady. See, there is a such thing as being “too liberal” you assholes. That yuppie bitch should have minded her own business and left the doll where she found it instead of trying to give the crazy lady a “better doll.” Silly liberals think helping others is a game to make themselves feel better and to assuage their guilt. Thankfully the next book was better.

One of my favorite songs of all time is For Whom the Bell Tolls by Metallica. One of my favorite authors of all time is Hemingway. So Hemingway has a book called For Whom the Bell Tolls and I finally read that puppy in Greece. Typical of Hemingway (and Metallica,) it didn’t disappoint.

What I was most curious about was – knowing that both were about war, in what capacity were they linked. That is a horrid sentence I just wrote and I can’t figure out how to fix it. Anyway, it seems that the song is about the portion of the book that contains El Sordo’s last stand. “Men of five, still alive, through the raging glow, gone insane from the pain that they surely know.”

This one is a must read. And the song, a must listen. True to Hemingway’s style, you think you are there and you are left with your jaw open because you just have no idea where he is going. If I ever had a conventional church wedding (cough cough cough!) I would most definitely walk down the aisle to Metallica by the way.

The last in my pile was Ulysses. I have already made this confession to my friends, family and “friend,” so I may as well tell you all. I need the Cliffs Notes, or something. Momentary Academic soothed my ego by telling me there are whole grad classes on the book by itself. One Jordan Baker recommended I buy a certain companion to Ulysses to help my understanding, however, I sort of want to quit. Look, I read 200 pages of the highly touted “greatest novel of all time” or whatever. Can’t I quit? It’s just about a bunch of drunk Irishmen, and I’ve dated several of those so that has to count for something.

This whole Cliff’s Notes thing is really wearing me out. I stare at Ulysses every night and choose something else to read, usually Bazaar or Lucky, and coo over the clothes I’ll never buy, in anticipation of the day when I finally crack and just go buy something to help me finish this thing. And the day I buy it is the day I solidify my place in Loserville. Population: 1. Unless anyone else wants to fess up to not getting Ulysses either…

Number One Baybee!

All my bitching about Greece and yet, I’m number one on Google Greece for the search term “Velvet.” Aww shucks. I think you all still love me even though you tried to arrest me at the end.

Though, sadly, I’m still rocking the number 2 position for “ways to get a girl exited.” (Exited?) On that search term, I’m trailing behind number 1, How do I get my girl squirting?

Well, it certainly beats the long time span last year where I was number one for “velvet ass sex.” (Currently holding the number 19 position on that one…)

Tales From Greece: Part 4 ~ The Best Part, For Me Anyway

So, it’s no secret that I didn’t love Greece. I felt bad for not loving it, but then I asked my mom if she would go back again and she choked, then said something like, “HA! NO FUCKING WAY!” (Obviously, I didn’t learn to swear like a sailor by hanging out at bars.) I won’t, and can’t, get into the details of our last 24 hours in Greece but I will tell you that they involved the words, “Call Security,” and that upon our return to the states, everyone’s response on hearing the details were, “You are lucky to be alive.”

Honestly. We are. Had you told me this prior to our trip, I would have assumed it would have been something the Velvet Family would have done. But, I promise, none of this was our fault. And I think my parents are effectively not answering their phone or front door for a while at the Velvet Family Compound.

Anyway, there was one good part of the trip in all of the mess.

The island my grandfather came from is a place no one has heard of, is on no cruise line route, and frankly, I want to go back there. And I don’t want to be hearing no stinking English when I do, so I will not be naming said island. You can find your own island anyway.

We stayed at our cousin’s house. I knew it was primitive when they said, “The bathroom is outside.” Shit. The first morning, I was woken by roosters. They wouldn’t let me sleep, cock-a-doodle-doo-ing each other from every side of the island, so I got up to take a walk. I went up the hill to the main road and scared the shit out of a bunch of goats. Look how cute they are. I want one!!!

 

You can’t see it in this picture, but they tie the goat’s front foot to its corresponding back foot. I know goats can kick some ass climbing mountains, but I didn’t understand why they tie their hands to their feet. Our cousins said it was because they will run away. My mom was threatening to do that to my dad if he didn’t behave. Anyway, that was when I realized just how far in the middle of nowhere we really were. No. Wait. When I was reading D.C. Noir and a Donkey walked by…THAT’S when I realized just how in the middle of nowhere we were. And it was awesome. This is him, later on, being led by his owner.

 

The cousins are trying to get me to come back and spend a month next summer. I said, “Bitch, ain’t you heard of no job and shit?” But they are Greeks, and Greeks take plenty of time off without worrying about a job and two weeks vacation.

We went to see the house where my grandfather was born and lived until he illegally came to the U.S. My great grandparents raised seven children in a hut the same size as my shoebox in D.C. Because I’m not a materialistic, I actually never complain about the size of my condo. I could pack everything I own and move in probably less than 5 hours. But with a man and seven kids? Shit. Anyway here is my living proof of how POOR my family was.

 

 

 

Now, of course the house wasn’t originally trashed on the inside. But, according to the Greeks, “that’s what happens when Albanians buy it.”

My grandparents up and left Greece and came here to live out their arranged marriages, sling hash in diners, work at Bethlehem Steel, and sew garments in a sweatshop. They did it for my parents, who then became the first generation on both sides of the family to choose their own spouse and to attend college. And my parents did it for my brothers and I, who then went on to grad school, got good jobs, and don’t have to worry about money. There is a fallacy in the American Dream for my grandparents. It existed – but not for them. For their kids and grandkids.

Because my grandparents were born in Greece, I can actually get dual citizenship. My brother and I thought that was pretty cool the first few days of our trip and vowed to look into it. But by the end? All I could think was how our grandparents wanted so badly to get out of there, and how, 80 years later, we wanted to leave after only being there a few weeks, and I’m not so sure.

Capitalism. Democracy. Being an American. We may not be perfect, but we’re a whole lot better than a lot of other places.

Tales From Greece: Part 3 ~ The Cruise

When we finally left Athens and got to the islands, I was much more of a happy camper. The cruise ship islands were wretchedly overcrowded with tourists. Mykonos was awful. Proof positive once a place makes it to something like E!’s “Wild On,” or the ill-fated Tara Reid show, “Taradise,” it’s ruined.

On our cruise, we went the coast of Turkey and to five islands. I thought being in Athens sucked, I was crying to go back after the day in Turkey. CRY-YEENG. I thought I loved Patmos until I heard some bitch from Long Island in her track suit say to the guy at a kiosk, “How much is da wadda?” Oy. When you fly 12 hours, take a bus for an hour, and a cruise ship for 2 more days and still hear English? No! We then went to Rhodes, which was pretty built up and not like an island at all. We tried to leave my dad in Crete, where he is from, but he was wise to our game and refused to be distracted by “Hey, is that a 5 Euro bill flying down the street?”

The final island was Santorini. That was the only island where we had to take a tender boat because our cruise ship was unable to get through the shallow waters to the port. Getting on the tender boat, I should have known. They were pulling people from the cruise ship and literally throwing them on the tender and yelling in Greek “ELLA ELLA ELLA!” I ended up with several people in my lap, including someone’s baby. We parked so damn far out in the ocean it was at least 25 minute tender ride, where I once I exited, promptly wanted to yak everywhere. Add insult to injury, once you are “on the island,” you are still not on the island. Santorini is a huge mountain. See?

 

The reason the water is so shallow is because that part of the harbor used to be above ground, but there was a volcano and the Atlantis theory. When I got there, I was informed that the only ways up the mountain were by donkey or cable car, both costing you money, of course. I have to say, I HATE the fact that we did nothing but pay money to get to this damn island – airfare, public transportation, cruise, and they drop us off and we still have to pay more? ARRGH! The alternative for stupid (and vengefully cheap tourists) is to walk the 566 steps. I looked at my brother and he said, “Let’s go.” In Athens, we ran up Likavitos, so why not.

Navigating a hill simultaneously being used by the donkeys was an accomplishment. My mom called out, “Watch out for the donkey shit” as they got into a cable car and jetted up the mountain. There they go!

And, here was what our route looked like.

 

 

As we passed all the tubby Americans riding the poor donkeys, they made comments about how nuts we were. Yes, look at my brother’s washboard abs and my cellulite free ass earlobes and tell me we don’t know what we’re doing. Thank you, come again.

There’s our cruiseship by the way. Yup. It was out there all right. Not the first one, by the way, the other one way the hell out there.

Anyway, all that kaka has a point, otherwise I wouldn’t have told you. Later that night I am in line to retrieve our passports that the cruiseline held hostage for the week. I overheard something about how these people were supposed to be “on the ship that sunk.” I asked them what they were talking about. Then I reported back to the Greeks with, “Did you know this cruiseline had a ship sink a few months ago?” My mom said, “Um, NO. The travel agent didn’t tell us that.”

Some googling indicates that in April, 2007, Louis Hellenic cruises lost a boat because they RAN AGROUND IN SANTORINI. So now I get why we parked our asses over by Egypt and tendered in. Our boat was actually the “replacement” boat for the one that sunk. You have to wonder at what point we tendered over the sad remains of the lost ship. These links are fun:

Cruise Ship Sinking

Definitely watch this video

Anyway, the final 24 hours in Greece were so disastrous that I actually can’t even tell that part because it still gives me the shakes. Just know, my mom was handing out valium, I threatened to shred my passport, my dad told several people to fuck off in both English and Greek and we all vowed to never go back again.

One more installment of this trip, then I’m going to go back and check on what the cops have been doing…which reminds me…in Turkey, I saw cops getting their shoes shined outside the police station. Since the Greek-Turk rivalry is vicious at best and violent at worst, I refrained from taking a picture. But, I did get this picture of the Greek cops standing around doing absolutely nothing in front of the U.S. Embassy in Athens!

Tales From Greece: Part 2 ~ The Athens Beachfront

The beaches in Athens are rocky and filled with cigarette butts. It’s a widely known fact, but this was just a temporary stay on the beach before we boarded a ship. We ran out of things to do in about 4 minutes. My brother took to calling me Blackie, for my ability to walk outside and instantly become three shades darker in 10 seconds. After giving up on the sun worship, he and I found ourselves surfing the internet in a hotel conference room. I kept asking him to hand over his PDA but he kept pushing me off. After several tries with the standard, “Hold on, I’m not done,” and “Your dogs are fine, you don’t need to check your email, you psycho,” he said, “Go look at that flip chart over there on the stand.”

I have been his sister for enough years to know what that means. I flashed back to visions of Erasa-board menus in restaurants with prices changed to 99 cents and leftover rice in chinese restaurants molded into a penis and balls and I said, “Oh no. What have you done?”

I walked over to the flip chart, and I saw this:

 

All right. So it seems that he’s drawn a penis next to “personal rapport” on what appears to be a presentation for salesmen. But what are they selling? I flipped the page and saw this:

 

DING DING DING DING DING!!! What do we have here? A SEMINAR for PICK UP ARTIST WANNABES? I’ve truly waited my whole life for a day like this! Yay!!!!! Ladies, we’ve heard enough from the boys. It’s time for an alternative take, isn’t it?

Because I wanted to help these poor sad little fuckers, I really did, I decided to add a few slides of my own. First, we have this one, which I placed between their introduction pages:

 

I left after this slide. But then I told my mom about it. I filled her in on the totally absurd “PUA” society, how guys spend money and time perfecting ways to get into girls pants – the blogs, the books, the seminars, the t.v. shows, and then I decided another slide was in order. I’ve learned that I just can’t leave the scene of a crime until I’m almost caught. So, I made my mom be the lookout while I crafted the next slide:

 

Who are these losers at life whose seminar I hopefully destroyed? I read that stupid book by Neil Strauss – The Game. Retarrrrrrded. And that book was about 400 pages too long. True to form, he’s a total geek who tries his hand at being a PUA, nails a few skanks, then falls hard for some girl in Courtney Love’s crew. (Oooh, bet that one was a winner. She promptly left him for Robbie Williams by the way, and he sits at home painting his “game goggles” with a racing stripe.) I wanted to see if I had ever “fallen” for any of these tricks. Unsurprisingly, I hadn’t. Why?

Because the girls who fall for these tricks are insecure and competitive and not worth having. My girls and I are not competitive with each other. That is probably key to this entire shindig. If we were out and some guy said something insulting to me like, “You don’t seem as smart/cute/skinny as your friend,” I would just agree. She’s my friend. Why would I take his insult and then turn it into an insult on her to “prove” him wrong? And so the plan is foiled and he doesn’t get in my pants – then what – I don’t get laid? Oooh, how awful. I just got another get-out-of-jail-free card on not getting herpes. How terrible for me. You should all feel so sorry for me.

The rule is universal – if you spend all your time talking about “it,” you aren’t getting “it,” whatever “it” may be. It applies to money, sex, status. The person who talks about how important they are at their job is the one who is insecure. The one who is constantly coming up with the new “million dollar idea” will spend their life as a poor man. The guy who spends 23 hours a day strategizing how to get in a woman’s pants most likely fits the following personality profile:

  1. Was a loser in high school.
  2. Still thinks life now is high school.
  3. Insecure at work. If he even has a job – which many of these guys don’t, the job is something menial in the lower ranks of the corporation.
  4. Talks about getting laid all the time.
  5. In reality, has very little sex.
  6. Gets very little attention from women.
  7. When his advances are rebuffed by a woman, he goes on all out rampage to malign her. He thinks calling her names will hurt her feelings, but the fact that she was smart enough to reject him speaks volumes for her confidence.
  8. Has “Mommy” issues or had one parent totally absent from their upbringing.
  9. Once (or twice) had his heart broken by a woman so badly that he now wants to get back at the rest of the female population by fucking his way through them for the perceived injustice.
  10. Spends a lot of time planning revenge on others who go against him.
  11. Has not matured into adulthood.
  12. When he is constantly rebuffed by the same classification of women (i.e. an age group or certain ethnicity) he will publicly renounce them as targets, citing a litany of reasons why he will “no longer date American girls,” or why “women over 24 are over the hill.”
  13. Owns no property; usually lives in group home or with parents.

If all you are looking to do, legitimately, is get your dick wet, fine. But what do all these losers have in common? They study and train, train and study, fuck hundreds a few women, then ultimately find a girl they fall in love with and renounce their former ways.

I like to think I helped maybe just one guy who came back to the seminar say, “Hey, she’s right! I do have a small cock.” Wait, that’s not what I meant to say. I meant to say that hopefully, just one guy learned that using a success rate formula for measuring “notches” is a pretty sad way to live. Try being genuine. Try making yourself a better person instead of using insults to bring others down to in turn elevate your own perceived worth. Spend your money on an education boys, a real education, in an accredited institution and the girls will come, pun intended. I promise. I learned more about human nature and life in general in grad school and from work than I did hanging out in bars and assessing body language.

If you have to trick her into bed, and she’s dumb enough to be tricked, is she really worth it?

Tales From Greece: Part 1 ~ Athens

I’m not one of those day by day, recap of every excruciating detail of my travels kind of girl. I hate that as much as I hate looking at someone else’s vacation photos where they tell you every single detail from over your shoulder (“Cousin Bob was just outside this shot, it was so funny, he was tying his shoe!”) God damn is that boring. So this will be a bit unconventional.

First. Borf is alive and well in Athens.

 

That sign behind shows how you would spell “Athens” or as it is known in Greece, “Athina.” The letter after the “A” is the Theta, so that stands in for the “th” part. And the “H” is really an “I.” Fucking confusing. Just use the regular alphabet you damn Greeks. Turkey does. (Oops. My grandparents just rolled over in their graves.) Anyway, here’s another:

 

Borf made it to the Plaka district of Athens. Well done.

Second, look at this kid. It was very hard to get these pictures. We were in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. My brother and I saw him and had this conversation about how people predispose their kids to being gay when they dress them like this.

 

It’s a boy by the way. In a sleeveless nipple shirt, short shorts and sandals. Jesus Christ.

 

Sorry they are so blurry, but when you are stalking a kid through a museum in a foreign country to take a picture of him, you sort of feel like a pedophile and you just want to get the hell out of dodge as fast as you can. Trust me. You don’t want to find yourself in a Greek jail having to explain yourself, because there is just no translation for “I have a blog in the United States and I want to post his picture on it so we can play gay or European!”

Third, here’s the Acropolis. Sorry about the scaffolding. They’re trying to save it or some crap.

 

That’s Athens. I was told it was a two-day city. I was told correctly. After five days there, we were ready to leave. I was thinking in my head, “If the islands don’t shape up any better, I’ll renounce my heritage and become Italian and somehow investigate changing the big old honking Greek Flag tattoo on my back.” The next morning, my brother announces at breakfast:

“If the islands aren’t nicer than this shit pit, I’m going to become Italian.” I wondered if I said that out loud or if we had just spent too much time in a hotel room together at this point.

Finally, I learned that in Athens, picking your nose in public is not disgusting. I saw shopkeepers, moped riders, pedestrians, cabbies – all with finger jammed in nose, digging for gold. I’m going to give this a test run in Dupont. I’ll let you know how it works out for me.

 

Tha Pao Stin Ellada

Translation:

Despite the fact that Greece is currently on fire, I am flying in to Athens tomorrow. Spending two weeks with my family is painful enough. But two weeks on islands sans internet connections and cell phones and avec women with mustaches? Oh boy. I’m bringing books with me to keep me from going stir crazy, and a bottle of Klonopin to keep me from killing someone.

James Joyce – Ulysses; Hemingway – For Whom the Bell Tolls; D.H. Lawrence – Women in Love; D.C. Noir – Various. Those are the books. If I finish all four, then you’ll know that I spent a lot of time away from the family, but more importantly, away from the Baklava. Christ, I doubled up on the running just in anticipation of all the fucking Baklava that will be shoved down my throat.

Besides not being funny, David Sedaris doesn’t do it justice. Greeks are fucking crazy. The Greeks have this phrase they say when a baby is born or christened. Na Sas Zisi! It means “May he/she live for you.” The irony here is that most Greek parents not only expect their children to live for them, they demand it. You all saw the movie. It’s sort of like that. It’s exactly like that. I remember the day my brother re-worded something my mother had said to him during an argument (an argument that spanned several years by the way and continues to this day) and he came back with, “So I owe you? For raising me?” My mom said yes. She doesn’t see anything wrong with that.

Growing up in Connecticut, everyone was either Italian or Irish. It was weird to have a background that is so rare. You don’t bump into Greeks every day. But when someone does, you will most definitely hear about it. “Oh, my doctor’s wife is Greek! She’s a nice girl!” Or, “Oh, there was a Greek guy down at the Dupont Market last weekend. What was his name? He had a funny name. Spiropolous? Do you know him?” No, you asshole. We don’t all know each other. But to a non-Greek, knowing a Greek is apparently as elusive but as claim-to-fameish as holding the winning Powerball ticket.

When I moved to the south, no one was Greek. No one was Italian or Irish either. No one was anything as a matter of fact. The south is where you find the people who have been in this country for so many generations that they can’t even trace their history back to one European country. Blasphemous! You mean to tell me that people intermarried? Savages! TI KRIMA! The Greeks didn’t even marry anyone from the next village. In church, my grandmother used to poke my father and his sisters (who I call Patty and Selma, not to their faces,) point at some other family and say “Don’t talk to them. They are from the next village!” My grandparent’s marriage was arranged. I think my grandfather was like 20 years older than her too. Score! Oh, wait, I guess that was scandalous. My grandmother was 17 when they got married.

I have never known anything other than that my grandparents all emigrated (cough, if you call jumping ship “emigration,”) from Crete and Andros. I am hoping now it will come full circle exactly why my grandparents chose to come to America. Though, I’m sure the stories have done it justice. I get it. We were poor. I don’t have to dine alongside rats and shit in a hole in someone’s backyard to understand how poor we were.

Life here was not a huge improvement over life on the islands in Greece. But here, there was opportunity – something lacking in a country historically torn by war and poverty; a country so geographically vulnerable that one day you may wake up to find your country was now occupied by the Turks. TI KRIMA! I love my family’s and ancestor’s relationship with money. They never had it, now they do and they stuff it in the bank when they get it and won’t part with it for anything. I’m the same way. It’s comical to me that there are so many people in this country who “came from money,” yet, they don’t have any. The American way. Spend spend spend. Why save? I mean really. You can file bankruptcy and someone will bail you out. That someone will probably be me by the way, and the rest of the immigrants who pay cash for everything and don’t incur any debt. Shit, my grandfather paid cash for his house. In 1930!!!

Greece is close to the Middle East. It holds its place in Europe only because Yugoslavia hasn’t let go yet. It is a couple hundred miles from Egypt. With hundreds of islands out there exposed in the Mediterranean, Greece has had to fight for everything. More irony, considering that most Greeks who come to the states end up fighting and hating each other. Just the other day my father started the story again about how the Greek Priest. Yessssss dad……..I already heard this story…….. like 100 times…….

Anyway, the quirks of my ancestry that I used to take for granted I am hoping to finally appreciate. Another tattoo will be in order upon my return. That is, if the fires don’t kill us first.

Someone keep an eye on the cops while I’m gone…okay?

?????,

???????!

 

D.C. Cops Suck Ass Part, um…8 maybe? Still? Live and In Person!

I like when things I bitch about reappear in the news so I can give you updates:

Amy Winehouse: Apparently the trainwreck has canceled all her upcoming shows due to “health issues.” Oh? I didn’t know being an anorexic cracked out freak qualified for “health issues,” but fine.

Michael Vick: Officially Pleading Guilty. See, criminals always turn on each other. Once his boys started pleading out, there he goes. So we can stop with the “innocent until proven guilty” crap now, right?

The Police Meeting was last night: Let’s see. How can I sum this one up in words? Oh! I know, let’s do a David Letterman top ten!! YAY!!!

TOP 10 WAYS THAT LAST NIGHTS POLICE / CITIZEN MEETING COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER:

10) If the immediate response to “Where in the neighborhood do you live” question wasn’t answered with, “Oh, YOU’RE the blog lady.” Fuck me to tears RH, you are dead to me. No more cc’s on dog park emails for you, not because you told them, but because YOU FUCKING LIED TO ME ABOUT IT!

9) If the cops then didn’t tell me that RH specifically gave them the link and they have Velvet linked on their bookmarks because they are “checking for their names.” Boys, (and girls,) I am NOT going to publish your name unless you do something very very bad. Very bad. And utilizing your handcuffs on myself or my friends in a non-arrest situation that may or may not result in a hog tie and an orgasm doesn’t count because we like that sort of thing.

8) If officer, Juanita Graham, Badge number 3183 was there. I really wanted to see her in person. But, shockingly, she is not part of this district so not a lot is known by the V Street Station. (Makes me wonder even more why she’s driving down 17th Street by a known dog park to get to Shaw…) She is officially under investigation, however, so the other complaints about her MUST BE FILED.

7) If the smoking hot police officer on the loose wasn’t married. I already knew who I was going to set him up with until I spied the glimmer of a wedding ring. Damn. Fucking shit blinded out my corneas. The ring. Not the cop. Though, see “smoking hot” again and take your pick on the corneas.

6) If, because of item number three above, I didn’t show up looking like I crawled out of a gutter.

5) If they didn’t try to tell me that they don’t really eat donuts. No really. They told me. They said, “We don’t eat donuts.”

4) If there wasn’t “that guy” there. You know, the one in every meeting who totally misses your point to spout out typical agency documentation crap. Just because he looks like one of the Beastie Boys doesn’t mean that you won’t want to reach across the table and punch him in the face. Eleven times. (10 because he deserves it and 1 for good measure.)

3) If there wasn’t “that woman” there. You know, the one in every meeting who shanghai’s the conversation for their own personal agenda of lunacy. That person was not me. At least I don’t think so. It was the other chick. Yeah. Definitely the other chick.

2) If someone was there to hear the exchange when the officer told the Lieutenant, “She hates us,” and nodded at me, to which I responded, “Yes, I really do. I think a lot of your force is incompetent.” No sense in lying to the poor little fuckers.

and 1) If someone was there to hear them “joke” around about adding my blog to the terrorist watch list and to ask what kind of car I drive. See, police retaliation is what we all fear boys. That’s why people don’t file complaints and your officers wreak more havoc than Britney Spears in a bar with Cristal and an electric razor. What was that movie with Ray Liotta and Kurt Russell? Unlawful Entry? Yep. Gotta watch that again.

I actually didn’t go to the meeting planning to talk. But, once I was pointed out and named as “Velvet,” I couldn’t not talk. (Thanks for that RH, again, you will pay dearly, don’t let me see any blonde chicks with headbands exiting your house again or I will tell them that you’ve given half the neighborhood the gift that keeps on giving, and don’t think I won’t do it.) Fine. Identity revealed. It’s a small price to pay to clean up the cops. Though, irony will probably bite me in the ass. Now, some poor schmuck who I once maligned will find me out, break into my condo and attempt to kill me while I simultaneously dial 911, who, in this scenario, will actually dispatch the cops (unlike any other time you call them) only for the cops to realize it is me, and that I’m banned from any benefit of public service due to my ongoing series, D.C. Cops Suck Ass.

Oh, one more thing. Fuck you RH. In case you didn’t get that from the above.

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