Oh. Right.

I always forget a little right after he's gone. The routine. The safeguards I put into place to make sure Shit Gets Done, that the wheels keep on turning.

The alarm goes off at 6:15 instead of 6:45am, because I need that extra half hour to get ready first, then make lunch, then harass Madeline incessantly until she finally manages to emerge from the top bunk of her bed.

I pull into the office parking lot at 8:37am instead of 8:46am, because I've already dropped Madeline off at Molly's or the grandparents' house for school by 8am, so what's to stop me from going in early? He's not here to hug me an extra hug, or convince me to just have a little bit more coffee with him before I go, or to ask me a million questions, like, "Do you have enough gas? Do you have enough for thruway tolls? Do you want me to make you some eggs? Do you want me to make you a lunch?" He's looking out for me and subtly wants to keep me from leaving just yet. I like that.

I skip breakfast.

Sometimes, I skip dinner or eat it over the sink.

I find myself staring off into space more at work, and yet, I find myself over-compensating and attempting to impress my boss more. I become more talkative when I answer my phone. I engage more with my co-workers...usually, to my misfortune. I don't distance myself enough at the office. I become too involved, which only results in more work I'm doing that goes unnoticed.

I grocery shop faster, because I have no one to hear my snarky, sardonic running commentary on everything around me at all times. I grocery shop faster because it's not fun.

When I get home, I don't take off my coat or my work shoes, and I never change out of my work clothes. If I take off my work shoes, I lose momentum. I learned nearly two years ago that if I take my shoes off, the show is over for the night. If I take my shoes off, we're ordering a pizza. If I leave my shoes on, we're having steamed broccoli with goat cheese wontons or homemade mac and cheese or lasagna. All things he would make if he was here. And he keeps his shoes on all day. Now I know why.

I leave the TV on while I sleep. Sometimes, I leave the light on.

I make sure the door is locked before bed at least a dozen times.

My cell phone never gets set to vibrate, and it never gets turned off.

Weekend plans are made well in advance, and, if possible, I fill up Sundays. Sundays are the worst. Can someone tell me why?

I try to put a moratorium on Madeline going away for sleepovers. It's purely for selfish reasons. It's too quiet in the house.

There are things I do, machinations and well-rehearsed processes and intricate systems that click into the on position when he's gone, so quietly, so inwardly, that sometimes, I don't even hear their soft "click" into the "On" position they make when it happens. I can't listen to it happen. I can't know. I can't leave a space open for awareness.

I've just learned that it's so much better, so much easier if I don't even go there. And I know that he isn't, either. Wherever he is on this planet, he's got his own system going. So it's kind of like we're still together all the time.

FTD'd Off

It’s funny. I was just the throes of writing this lengthy blog about how happiness ruins creativity (ask any stand-up comedian), and lo and behold, I’m finding myself pissed off. Granted, it’s over the banalities of life, not the overall big picture stuff. Big picture remains a dream come true. But as I’ve always said, it’s the little things that will drive a person to the roof with a sniper rifle and Beef List a mile long.

Most recently, it’s FTD.com. Yeah, they deliver pretty posies and whatnot. They also deliver anger and heartburn and seven different kinds of meshugass. More importantly, what they don’t deliver is anything resembling what they have on the website. Say, for example, that you decide to have a combination green plant/cut flower arrangement sent to your mom for her birthday, because, you know, you get the nice flowers and the added bonus of a plant that doesn’t die after a week (unless you’re me, the Dr. Mengele of the plant world).

Now, let’s say that, hypothetically, this arrangement isn’t exactly cheap. But you knew that going in, and your mom is worth it, and let’s face it: It’s a really nice surprise to get flowers delivered to your doorstep. It’s kinda special, in a special kind of way. So you throw caution to the four winds and order the arrangement, and you're thrilled that in spite of the fact that your mom lives in remote North Pole, Alaska, there was a local florist willing to arrange and the deliver on the very same day you ordered! Yay! Success! High fives all around!

But wait! Now your mom has posted a picture of said "arrangement" on your facebook profile, thanking you for your lovely thoughtfulness or thoughtful loveliness or whatever...and the arrangement in question, the one you picked out all special-like for your one and only mother, the one you dropped some mad ducets on....is a potted plant. That's it. Just a potted plant, and not even a terribly impressive one at that. But where are the blooms FTD.com so loftily promised? And the description said they'd be arranged in a nice basket. Where's the basket? There's no basket! It's bad enough that they didn't even send the arrangement you ordered...but NO BASKET? What kind of sick, twisted bastards are you, FTD.com?

Well, if you're me, you spend a half hour complaining and calling FTD.com a few choice, x-rated epithets (I like to throw in a few farm animals, too, just for color), and then you pick up your phone and call customer service.

I have a long and checkered history of calling customer service lines. Usually, I have to do this because I'm behind on a payment and I have to sweet-talk my way out of a late fee. I'm a pro at that. Don't judge. It's called survival, Richie Rich. Anyway, occasionally I will have to call customer service if I simply have a question. "Hi, Bertha. I have a question about your fine product, Crest Toothpaste, Regular flavor. What exactly are you basing the description 'regular' on? 'Regular' as opposed to 'irregular', or 'unusual', or perhaps 'intermittent', depending on your definition of 'regular'?" And then Bertha and I have a good laugh and I say, "thanks again, Bertha! Same time next month?"

Every once in a while, I'll have to call customer service to apply a verbal smack down directly to The Man. And by "every once and a while", I pretty much mean at least once a month, and it's usually to AT&T. That's a whole different blog, though, and probably will be very soon. So I felt like calling someone other than my Massive Evil Unreliable Ridiculously Expensive Cellphone Corporation was almost palate-cleansing.


Captain Customer Service at FTD.com did what most customer service operators do: They listen to your complaint, they supply a cursory apology that's been written on a note card and pinned to the wall of their cube, and then they offer to forward your comments up to their manager, with flowery promises that it will be responded to immediately. I was told I’d get a call back within 24 hours.

Three days later, I received an email from FTD.com, stating, and I quote:

"Good morning. In response to your ordered item, we spoke with the florist who informed us that this was difficult order to fill and deliver and can not give a 15% discount on the arrangement. We apologize for any inconvience [sic]. If you have any questions please contact us. Thank you for choosinf [sic] FTD.com."


This definitely made me reconsider "choosinf" FTD.com for all of my flower delivery needs, and all the “inconvience” it caused me. I think my response speaks for itself:

"First of all, it was not an 'arrangement'. It was a potted plant. That's it. I'm still struggling to understand why it was a difficult order to fill, since clearly it simply involved picking up a potted plant and delivering it. I paid for a greens and blooms arrangement, and I did not receive it. Why was this option offered in the first place if the florist contacted by FTD was unable to meet its commitment? Essentially, I paid $75 for a potted plant.

Ultimately, your response is perfunctory and unsatisfactory. Therefore, I will not be using the services of FTD.com again, and I will make sure I inform all of my friends and relatives that they should not use FTD.com themselves, especially given that the vendors they choose to use for local deliveries are unreliable and unwilling to make amends for short-shrifting their customers. This is truly disappointing."

After this, I received an autoreply with the whole "Thanks for your email. Your message will be forwarded to the appropriate member of our staff..." song and dance, and that simply wasn't good enough for me. So I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I didn't think this action would yield anything. Turns out, businesses really, REALLY don't like it when they get nastygrams from the BBB, so within 4 hours, I was refunded the full amount I spent on the "arrangement" to mom, plus an apology from FTD.com for the order substitution.

I've wasted a lot of time in my life keeping my mouth shut when I should have been advocating for myself. Sadly, I can't get those years back. But I can start advocating now, and I still occasionally have the pang of "Oh, it's not a big deal. It's really not worth getting worked up about." You know what, though? It is. When the economy tanks and people start losing jobs and income and homes, you better believe that they’re going to be extremely conscientious about what they spend their money on. They might still spend it, but if customers don’t get what they pay for, you better believe there’s going to be fallout. And if companies hope to weather bad times, they sure as hell better respond to their customer’s complaints satisfactorily. Apologizing for the “inconvience” is insulting. Buck up, be a man, admit your mistake and refund the money. With any luck, you’ll have saved yourself from an angry customer who would like nothing more than to slag off your company in her blog.

Are you listening, AT&T?

Bleak

I love the dry roads. I love when the cold wind blows, and the grass on my lawn turns brittle and brown. The trees are empty; no more leaves blowing in the streets, except for a few dried-out stragglers that long to chase each other across my walkway. I love to linger outside, bundled up in my coat and scarf, feeling the crunch under my feet as I walk out to look at the sky, which is bleak and clear, but pregnant with stars.

The cold outside reminds me of what lies inside. The cold reminds me of that first burst of warm air when I open my door, of what lies in wait for me when I strip down to my underwear and crawl into my double-layered bed, where I don't need to turn on the heat, because I'm cradled in downy fluff, and I'm pressed into sheets that spent the day insulating and warming and waiting for me.

I love to hear the weatherman say, "The temperature is dropping." Because it means that more will come, more excuses to bundle and layer and find new and interesting ways to stay warm without turning on the heat. More reasons to wear my scarf all day at work, to look out of my office window and feel glad that I don't have to be out there for any reason, that everything I need is inside.

The cold reminds me of finding ways to curl up against someone I love, to grab his arms and force them to pull me closer and to find the places where he is the warmest, and where I'm the warmest, and to fall asleep, dreaming mindlessly in those waning early morning hours when we are still locked and pressed together and have nothing to think of but hot coffee and warm showers, clean towels and winter socks.

Cold bleakness outside reminds me of comfort inside. Cold bleakness outside reminds me of shaking off snow-laden boots on the porch, and of looking forward to dry socks inside.

Cold bleakness outside reminds me that we've created a womb inside, where we've made our nest, where we curl up together on our fuzzy couch and fight against the winter front and dream of sunny days, when we wore shorts and tank tops and drank frosty beverages, longing for bleak winter days filled with wind and substantial weather.

Island of Misfit Toys

I've spent a good portion of my life feeling like I've never quite fit in anywhere. Once, when I was in the fourth grade, my mother and I were school clothes shopping, and she picked up a sweatshirt that had a bunch of white sheep in rows on it, with one black sheep down in the corner. "That's you," my mom said, pointing at the black sheep. It didn't really mean anything at the time, because you haven't yet settled into your group of friends when you're in the fourth grade. But it's not long after that when you do.


It wasn't until late in the game when I discovered a core group of friends who had no delusions about their place in the pantheon of secondary education. I had plenty of friends before this important discovery, but even then, even though I knew those friends liked me and accepted me to some degree, it was the kind of acceptance that comes from shrugging your shoulders and giving up, weighing out the pros and cons, and saying, "Yeah, this friend I have is kind of a social retard, but she's funny and entertaining. And completely safe. My parents will never tell me I'm not allowed to hang out with with her." And then they would STILL try to dress me up and give me helpful advice on How To Fit In. It never worked.


College helps alleviate that feeling of not fitting in. Unless you're in school on a sports scholarship, everyone starting college is on even footing: None of us know what the fuck we're doing, and we hate our roommates, and we don't have any money, and your first lecture of the day is at 8am and there are 250 other students in it, and the cafeteria food is awful and calorie-laden, and we've all gained 15 pounds by the end of the first year. College was the great equalizer for me. But naturally, after spending four years in a fairly isolated music school, by the time I graduated, I could count my college friends on one hand. Possibly even one finger.


But I didn't go to college to make friends, and once again, I found my people in other places, people who were quirky and fun and got me. Those people, like my people in high school, are still my friends, and meanwhile, I'm 34 years old, and I still don't quite fit in.


I went to karaoke last night with my friend Lisa. I love to sing karaoke, because it's easy, and it doesn't take much vocal acuity to impress some drunk people at a bar. It's easy validation, and it's really the only acceptable reason for me to be singing Journey or Bon Jovi or Bangles songs in public. It wasn't really as much fun as I'd hoped last night. Granted, my friend Lisa has the uncanny ability to make any situation fun, even the kind of situation that involves an overcrowded, kind of dingy bar with a sound system that's too loud and filled with those making the most out of their holiday weekend. The only joy I managed to wring out of the night came from when I was actually singing, in spite of the fact that the rest of the bar crowd was too busy racing each other to the bottom of their glasses to listen to me sing. I didn't care. The room could have been empty. Singing is one of the few things I get to do in my life that belongs to me and only me. So fuck everyone else.


Still, the feeling of misfittedness was overwhelming. It was crazy crowded, so my friend Lisa found the only two empty seats at a table inhabited by two very lovely young women who were clearly having a wonderful time, as evidenced by the legion of beer bottles that sat spent in front of them. Lisa bumped into someone who she used to know from her days of owning a tattoo business with her late husband, so I lost her for quite some time. So alone I sat, nursing my one drink, wishing I was tucked into my jammies instead of waiting for my next song to come up on the karaoke DJ's list.


Sitting there, I had the opportunity to study everyone in the bar with me. There was the painfully thin blonde nightmare, drinking cosmos with her cadre of friends. There was the waitress who had the same name as me, forcing the karaoke DJ to christen me "KandywidaK". The other "Candy" danced up to a large bald man at one point, grabbed his head, and forced him into a motorboat situation that I'm thinking he may be regretting this Sunday afternoon. There was the hipster couple, boyfriend with the requisite beard and elbow tattoo, and girlfriend decked from head to toe in Urban Outfitters. Our lovely table companions who flirted with 21 year old college boys all night and then cursed the universe for sending them men who were clearly too young for them, but ended up exchanging numbers with them, anyway, leading me to believe that they couldn't be THAT angry at the universe. They all intermingled with each other effortless, fluidly, even those who had never met before until that night. And it made me wonder, as I sat there, intermingling with no one, if I was failing in some way, if I was missing some key social behavior that I was never taught, or if, once again, I just simply did not fit in.


I'm perfectly willing to chalk it all up to being out of any sort of social setting for quite some time. I've been happily ensconced at home with the people whom I love the most, going to bed a decent hour and getting up and girding my loins for the office, yet another place where I clearly do not fit in. Or maybe I don't try hard enough. Maybe if I bent slightly a few degrees this way or that, I would be like my table companions, who fought attention like King Kong hanging from the top of the Empire State building, swatting biplanes like flies.


More likely than any of this, however, is that I've become a pro at wildling down my circle to those and only those I get, only those who appeal to me and my sensibilities. Which, and here's the irony we've been waiting for, has made just the same anyone who never accepted me and what I am. They weren't shutting me out; I've been shutting them out. I fit in fine. It's most everyone else who doesn't fit in with me.


I don't know why, but somehow, this realization makes me feel better about last night, about high school, about any time I've been surrounded by people and yet felt completely alone. I am an island of my own making, and to be honest, I'm feeling completely okay with that. Islands can be really comfortable. Haven't you ever seen Gilligan's Island? Those fuckers had it made!

Where the Wild Things Are Really Screwed Up and Probably Should be Taking Meds

Last week, Michael and I took Madeline to see the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I loved that book when I was Madeline’s age. The illustrations were fantastic, and I remember my stomach rumbling louder and louder with each passing page, as I longed for a day when a giant pancake would fall from the sky and destroy my school with its buttermilky goodness. Not surprisingly, the movie bore little resemblance to the beloved book by Judi and Ron Barrett, aside from a few enduring images of doughnuts rolling down the streets of Chewandswallow, and frightened citizens building makeshift sailboats out of PB&J sandwiches. But from the very first scene of the movie, none of the three of us cared that it was nothing like the book. Cloudy got it just right. It was hysterical, charming and smart, and featured some of the best voice acting since whatever the last Pixar joint was. The animation was kitschy and cute, and the main character, Flint Lockwood, was actually developed to the point where even parents would give a crap what happens to him in the end. Needless to say, we will be purchasing the DVD immediately after it comes out and will probably watch regardless of whether Madeline or Roan are sitting in the living room with us. Kind of like The Incredibles.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs had a trailer for Where the Wild Things Are (sic), the highly-anticipated adaptation of the children’s book by Maurice Sendak. “We gotta go see that,” I whispered to Madeline and Michael, who vehemently agreed. The trailer just looked so cool, in spite of the fact that hearing Tony Soprano’s voice coming from one of the monsters was slightly disturbing. It kind of had a Jim Henson, giant-Muppet-feeling about it that made me go all warm and gooey inside. I was so excited about taking Madeline to see it, in fact, that as soon as we got home from Cloudy, I text-messaged Madeline’s father and called dibs* on taking her to see it first.

The trailer music should have been my first warning. Arcade Fire with vocals by Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs? Uh oh. It had all of the sadness and depressing open chords of a Mazzy Star or Sparklehorse album without any of the ethereal beauty or pretty singing. I also should have heeded the second warning, which came in the form of James Gandolfini and his voice acting. Maurice Sendak’s characters should never sound like their next line is going to be, “Who ate all the gabagool?”

In spite of these immense red flags, the three of us went to a 6:30 showing, ignorantly blissful, and excited for a whimsical Monday night at the movies. How unsuspecting we were, as we munched our popcorn and watced trailers for the animated movies Planet 51 and Despicable Me. How we marveled, unknowing what was in store, as the movie opened with the adorable Max building a snow fort in his yard. But things quickly deteriorated from frivolous to fucked up when a snowball fight with his sister’s friends goes horrible wrong, and Max bawls when his fort is smashed and no one bothers to apologize. Later, Max has a complete freakout when his mother, who is clearly struggling just to keep her family afloat, dares to entertain the presence of a male figure in the house, which culminates in Max biting his mother on the shoulder and running away from home. And why? Because Max hates frozen corn! Wah!! Madeline, who was sitting between Michael and me, immediately broke down into tears.

Just like the book, Max hops onto an imaginary sailboat and heads off to Where the Wild Things Are (sic). Once he arrives, he finds Carol, the most recognizable of the monster crew from the book, ravaging his fellow monsters’ huts while having a hissy fit of his own. Carol threw about eight hissy fits throughout the course of the movie, and when he wasn’t busy doing that, he spent the rest of the movie acting like a moody, manipulative little bitch, prompting me to wonder if male monsters can suffer from PMS.

Not surprisingly, Max takes to Carol like flies to shit, and soon, the other monsters get jealous because King Max clearly plays favorites. Especially Judith, who eventually tells Max not to listen to her because she’s “kind of a downer.” Really, Judith? YOU’RE the downer in this movie? Frankly, I found Judith to be a breath of fresh air next to the duplicitous K.W., whiney Goatboy (did he even have a name?), pussy-whipped Ira, tag-along Douglas and the completely unsympathetic Carol. In fact, the only character I didn’t find loathsome was the silent, giant, bull-like monster that graces the cover of the original book. He finally spoke at the end, and said something completely forgettable, but I found his earlier quietness to be a nice change from the incessant kvetching of all the other malcontented monsters in the movie.

Every scenario that could have been whimsical played out to a horrible end. Goatboy gets injured during a playful dirt fight. Douglas gets his arm ripped off by Carol. Even the big, congenial monster pile has overtones of danger as Max comes within a hair’s breadth of getting crushed and smothered to death no less than half a dozen times. Meanwhile, Karen O’s strident and frigid vocals punctuated every depressing event until all of us sat stunned as Carol, upon discovering that Max isn’t a king and is “just Max,” which he says “isn’t very much at all, is it?”, runs to beach at the last minute to bid farewell to the little boy as he sails off home. As if to add insult to injury, Carol doesn’t even reach Max in time to make amends, or give him a hug goodbye, or blow him a kiss, or proclaim, “Peace out, bra!” Instead, the monsters mournfully howl their farewells to Max, as he drifts out to sea on his sailboat. Meanwhile, Madeline was a complete disaster in the seat next to me, bawling her poor little eyes out, confused how her beloved book became this abomination. What a kick in the balls.

Rarely has a movie that left me feeling so violated, so emotionally raped, I felt like I had just watched the Sesame Street cast reenact Sophie’s Choice. Madeline bounced back much faster than I did from the experience. She seemed fine this morning, as she happily ate her breakfast while watching Spongebob. I feel like I could use a little cold cereal and Spongebob therapy myself. I’m looking forward to the sequel, Where the Wild Things Are Chilling the Fuck Out and Not Acting Like Crazy Bitches For a Change.




*Calling dibs still works when you're a grown up and divorced. Even judges can’t dispute the dibs rule:
“But Your Honor! I called dibs on Christmas!”
“In that case, dibs granted.”

Vacation for Dummies

I’ve always fantasized about vacations. Not the kind where you drive your beat-up Geo Metro 600 miles in the middle of the night, hoping it doesn’t break down again in Ohio, even though that trucker was nice enough to get you to the Michigan border while your car spends the night at a rest stop (true story; actually happened). I mean the kind where you have to buy a new suitcase because your old one has a giant hole on the bottom. The kind of vacation where you have to get a new swimming suit. The kind of vacation that requires airline tickets. The kind where you have to create an away message for your inbox at work. The kind where you have to renew your passport. THAT kind of vacation.

The last time I vacationed longer than a long weekend, it was 1996. My ex-husband, Thom, and I went to Ireland for our honeymoon. I had a great time, although the country stayed true to the time-honored cliché of being drizzly and miserable the whole time, including the day we spent at the Cliffs of Mohar, which was the closest I had been to the ocean since 1985 when I lived on the island of Sitka, Alaska. The one sunny day took place while we were in London on the way back, and I was deathly ill with the flu. And we stayed at B&Bs. Some consider them to be nice and quaint, and they certainly are way off the “nice and quaint” scale in many ways. But, you see, I don’t like people. The only thing I like less than people is small talk. So put me in a situation where I have to deal with both, very early in the morning, before I’ve had a cup of coffee because all there is to drink is tea, and you’ve got yourself a good, ol’ fashioned recipe for a moody, irritable, cranky, sullen, pouty and insufferable Kandy.

I have been to the beach. I went to Rehoboth Beach with my daughter, my friend Natalie, her daughter, Chloe, and her extended family. I’ve visited Jones Beach several times, once to see Brian Wilson in concert, and once last summer with Michael. We both got disturbingly bad sunburns and had to drive back that night. Natalie and her sister, Adrienne, and I went to St. Joe’s on the shores of Lake Michigan a couple of years ago, and it was nice. And I spent a solid month watching every episode of LOST on DVD, in consecutive order, until I eventually ran out of LOST and had to check into a rehab clinic. That was like being on a really spectacular beach but without actually experiencing the warm sun and the waves washing over your bare toes and being able to beat the shit out of that annoying and incestuous brother and sister who, thankfully, didn’t survive past the first season of the series.

Michael and I have been talking about a vacation for a while. He’s had even fewer vacations than me. In fact, he’s never been on one, a proper vacation. He’s spent his life being a weekender, like me, and if anyone deserves a proper vacation, it’s him. After years of schlepping it in retail and food service, he’s long overdue for week of doing fuck-all and having things brought to him on a tray for a change. His recent 5-week tour of Europe with Stick Men was valuable learning experience, but don’t be fooled. It was nothing resembling a vacation.

I’m not exactly sure when it was that we decided to just go for it. We had been discussing it before he even left for Europe on the tour, toying with Costa Rica and Hawaii. I had been lightly perusing websites and gathering information on destinations both near the ocean and with an agreeable conversion rate. But I couldn’t commit. Every time I clicked on an image result in Google for one of these places, I felt overwhelmed with white, Anglo-Saxon, Judeo-Christian workaholic, penny-pincher guilt.

Soon, however, the idea of a vacation stopped being a luxury. It started to become a survival issue when I began having dreams about watching my co-workers drop to the floor in a spray of bullets from my automatic assault rifle.

“Why don’t we go to Mexico,” suggested Michael.
“Okay. I’ve never been there,” I said, “but I know people do go there. I mean, before the swine flu thing. But where?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “How about Cancun?”
“How about it? I’ve never been.”

So I started looking up hotels in Cancun. There were many fine-looking establishments for cheap, especially since I was looking for the flight/accommodations packages that most travel websites offer. For days, I searched travel website after travel website, searched hundreds of hotels, looking for that right balance between affordable but not a total shithole/dead hooker burial ground. “That one looks nice,” Michael helpfully offered. He said that about every hotel I showed him, like I was trying on a succession of nearly indistinguishable black articles of clothing for him and asking for his opinion on each (true story; actually happened).

I asked around when I got to work the next day. Okay, that’s not exactly true. I asked one of the three people I can actually stomach talking to at work the next day, since the other two were out of the office. One member of my staff, Jenn, told me that her sister travels a lot (no kids, lots of disposable income) and goes to Mexico a few times a year.
“Don’t go to Cancun,” Jenn said, after a brief phone call with her sister. “You won’t like it.”
I asked why.
“Well, maybe I’m wrong, but you don’t really seem like the spring-break, college-party type.”
“Not even when I was in college,” I replied.
“My sister says that you should go to Playa del Carmen. You can still fly into Cancun, but Playa is a smaller town, about an hour away. I think that’s more your speed. And it’s really close to the Mayan ruins in Tulum.” I started salivating. I love ruins.

Instantly, based on that recommendation, I switched my search criteria around. I started looking at hotels in Playa del Carmen, and there were plenty. Most of them looked very nice, some of them looked very pricey, and almost none of them included anything. I thought long and hard about what I wanted from this vacation. I thought about our budget, and I thought about our dietary restrictions (it’s hard enough being a vegetarian in the states). I thought about what we wanted from our first grown-up vacation, and I thought about what I wanted to remember when I boarded the plane back to the states after spending a week in Mexico.

Ultimately, I booked a week at an all-inclusive resort. And then I shelled out a little more for the nice part of the resort with its own pool and beach.

Don’t judge me. I’m sure all the hard-core travelers out there are spinning in their computer chairs, hurling curses at their computer screens at my lack of creativity and unwillingness to experience local flavor. Not true! I made a very educated and calculated choice. I love local flavor. It tastes great, it really does. And chose a vacation package that was inexpensive enough so that if we get bored at the all-inclusive, we can venture into Playa for some dysentery and food poisoning…I mean, local flavor. I read traveler reviews, and a vast majority of those who traveled to Playa on a package similar to ours had a wonderful time. And more importantly, I considered what we do in our normal lives. Here’s a breakdown of an average day:

Alarm goes off at 6:45 and I hit snooze. I will continue to do this until 7:12am. Michael will kick my lazy ass out of bed, go into the kitchen, start coffee and Madeline’s lunch, and then we’ll shower. After that, I’ll attempt to get myself ready before 7:45 (keep in mind that I finally got up at 7:12) so I can drop her off with her dad and drive to work. After the frantic drop off at Madeline’s father’s house, I’ll race to my job, which is 30 minutes on the NYS Thruway IF I drive between 75 and 80 mph the entire way. I skip breakfast and eat lunch at my desk. Lunch usually consists of a salad and cottage cheese or celery, hummus and almonds. I leave the office at between 4:45 and 5pm, race back to Madeline’s dad’s house to pick her up, and then hit the gym, where I will work out for an hour while Madeline plays with strange kids in childcare. Michael will generally start dinner before I get back from the gym, so it’s hitting the table by approximately 7pm. From 7pm until around 8pm, we’ll nag Madeline to finish her food, and then she’ll take a shower at 8:30. I’ll tuck her in at 9pm, and by 9:45, we’re usually passed out in bed, ready to do it all over again the next day. Unless Michael’s out of town. Then I do all of this myself. And sometimes Michael’s daughter, Roan, is with us, too.

It’s hectic. We are busy every minute of the week, unless it’s Saturday, and then we might sleep until 7:30am and go out for breakfast. Perhaps now you can see why spending a week at a resort where all food and drinks (including 24 hour room service) are included, and a waitperson will ask us, “Can I get you anything else?” while we lie on the beach just MIGHT seem extremely appealing to us. Essentially, we don’t have to lift a finger unless we want to. Hey Kandy! Want to go for a dip in the pool? Maybe later. Hey Kandy! Want to go shopping at some of Playa’s fine retail shops? Meh. Not now. Hey Kandy! Want to go parasailing? Perhaps tomorrow. Hey Kandy! Want to lie on a lounge chair all day long and have everything handed to you? Go on, salesman. I’m listening…

We’ll definitely do things, like go visit the ruins, check out Playa, and I really want to parasail. But if we don’t get around to that stuff, who gives a shit? I don’t have to. Next vacation, we’ll do all of the hard shit. We’ll go somewhere difficult to travel to, and we’ll stay at a youth hostel or go camping. We’ll hike to all of our destinations. We’ll carry our belongings on our backs like beasts of burden, and we’ll bargain for a crust of bread in some remote locale where one has to be inoculated before going there. We’ll have an educational and hopefully rainy vacation experience. This time, however, the FIRST time, we’re going to be lazy motherfuckers who will only rise to pee, and even then, well, the ocean’s right there, isn’t it?

As my friend Jane says of my vacation, “Smoke a Cuban cigar (legal down there) and buy yourself a box of Xanax (legal down there), and you can gaze into the ocean with a hint of a wry smile, knowing everybody can suck it. I know that's MY ideal vacation.”

You said it, sister. I’ll send you a postcard.

Please Stop Doing Things Like This, Part I

On the way to go look for a new badminton net last Saturday, we stopped at a local bagel shop for coffee. It was busy, like it is every morning around 9am, and as we waited for our cashier to ring us up, a Spandex-clad suburban housewife nightmare ran up to the front counter, looking flustered. "Give me a scooped out everything bagel with cream cheese," she barked at the cashier. Michael and I glanced at each other when we heard this, and then flashed the cashier taking her order a sympathetic eyebrow raise before going back to staring into our coffee cups. To her credit, the cashier showed saint-like restraint by not freaking out, reaching over the counter and smacking the customer. I'm not sure I could have been as charitable. I instead chose to channel my anger toward her in a lengthy not-well-thought-out rant until Michael finally said, "We should probably just get you a microphone."

In case you don't know what a scooped out bagel is, let me enlighten you: A scooped out bagel is a bagel with all of its bagel-ness scraped out, leaving only the outside crust with a canal perfect for filling with cream cheese.

Please, someone, explain how things have gotten this bad. Yes, I understand the reasoning behind ordering something as ludicrous as a scooped out bagel. You're watching your carbs, and everyone knows that bagels are made entirely of carbs. So it stands to reason that, if you're watching your carbs, your first choice in a breakfast food probably shouldn't be a bagel. I mean, the place where we bought our coffee is clearly a bagel shop. The giant sign outside the door has the word "bagels" on it. The entire wall behind the cashier's counter is made up of huge shelves of bagels. They have bagels on the menu, and not much else. And if that isn't enough to hip you to the fact that you're in a bagel shop, there are even pictures of bagels everywhere.

But instead of going somewhere that sells, oh, I don't know, eggs, which contain no carbs, you decide to go to a bagel shop. And instead of saying, "Oh, fuck it. I chose a bagel shop. Perhaps I should go with the flow and get a bagel," you decide to bring the cashier's already busy morning to a grinding halt by ordering a bagel that has to be painstakingly hollowed out, essentially rendering it no longer a bagel. Way to go, asshole. All you done is made yourself look like a massive douchebag and, oh, by the way, please enjoy the huge lung clam that I hacked into your cream cheese before wrapping up your adulterated bagel and handing it to you with a big smile on my face.

If you're reading my blog, and you've been someone who has ordered or may in the future order a scooped-out bagel, you might just want to go ahead and unsubscribe right now. Because chances are, you're a boil on the universe's ass, and one of my favorite things to do in the whole wide world is write angry blog entries on why people like you suck and how excited I am that, when the great culling finally comes, you'll most likely be the first to go, right behind celebrity chefs and trust fund hippies.

So enjoy that hollowed-out abomination of breakfast. It's good to hold onto those happy memories in life while you're being slow-roasted on a spit over a lake of fire and brimstone while the Devil shoves an apple in your mouth before tucking into your honey-glazed ass. All that fat you ate during your low-carb diet has made you succulent and delicious. What a bitter and fabulous irony.