Jennie SMASH!

It’s been 11 years since the last time I was laid off, and here’s what I’ve learned: Hangovers are way easier at 24.

I’ve decided to freelance, instead of looking for another job, because being a grownup is for the birds. When people ask me what I’m doing now, I tell them I’ve decided to become a pirate.

Other job opportunities beckon, however. For example, just now, I was getting dinner with Sgt. Lucky at the pub downstairs, and when I pulled out a wad of ones with which to pay the bill, he looked aghast.

“My God,” he said. “You’ve been so busy. How have you had the time to start stripping?”

“It’s been tough,” I said modestly. “But I’ve always been good at managing my time.”

“And you’ve been up late. Where are you stripping that’s open all night?”

“A terrible place,” I whispered. “And now I have … body lice.”

Yo ho ho.

Image: Time Machine to the Twenties

Friends of mine: If you’re in New York, you should come see my hilarious friend Sue Funke and her hilarious friends be hilarious. Details below:

On Saturday, October, 1 at 9pm comedians Liz Simons, Selena Coppock, and Sue Funke are producing a show at Gleason’s Gym in DUMBO titled, “Brooklyn vs. Queens: A Comedy Throwdown.”

The premise is to have similar standup comedians from either borough perform back-to-back. The match ups include: Brooklyn Gay vs. Queens Gay, Native Brooklyn vs. Native Queens, Blonde Brooklyn vs. Blonde Queens and, of course the girl comic-on-girl comic action of Brooklyn Lady Comic vs. Queens Lady Comic. Borough pride is on the line and the comedy brawls will be intense and hilarious.

Brooklyn vs. Queens: A Comedy Throwdown

Saturday, October 1st at 9 pm

Gleason’s Gym, 77 Front Street, 2nd floor – A/C to High Street or the F to York Street

$10 at the door plus 1 FREE drink just for coming.

Produced by Sue Funke, Selena Coppock, and Liz Simons

Saturday October 1st at 9pm

Root for your favorite borough at

The Brooklyn vs. Queens: A Comedy Throwdon at Gleason’s Gym in DUMBO

Featuring:

Kendra Cunningham (Brooklyn)
Leah Bonnema (Queens)
Garry Hannon (Brooklyn)
Adam Lehman (Queens)
Ophira Eisenberg (Brooklyn)
Carrie Gravenson (Queens)
Selena Coppock (Brooklyn)
Liz Simons (Queens)
…and special secret guests!!

Hosted by Sue Funke and Sean Donnelly.

It’s only $10 to enter and admission gets you 1 free drink.

After hitting “publish” on the last post, I realized that it looks somewhat odd to have my entry for today be entirely without reference to 9/11, but let me explain. No disrespect is intended, as I think you’ll see.

I’m uncomfortable with big displays of emotion. To me, grief is and should be a private thing. But that’s only how I prefer to deal with things. I don’t think other people are obligated to sweep things under the rug, eat their feelings, keep a stiff upper lip, etc., just because that’s what I generally do.

I was very lucky, ten years ago, not to have lost anyone I love in the World Trade Center attacks. A decade later, I have so many more people to love, and have had so much more time to love them in, that I can’t feel much kinship with the 25-year-old I was. She didn’t know about nephews and nieces and the hold they exert on your heart with their innocent-looking, pudgy, often sticky little paws.

She didn’t have a husband, and didn’t yet know that there was someone out there with whom a trip to the dump would be as much fun as a helicopter ride around Manhattan (and with less screaming.)

She didn’t have as much to lose, as I do, that earlier me, but I do. I do. So while I have trouble with commemorative holidays and memorial plaques, please trust me: I have never forgotten. I will never forget. I will remember every day, a little more quietly than a big brass band and a tribute. I will pick one face, and try to hold onto it as much as I can, so that I can remember.

Today, I’ll remember this face, the face of the falling man. Depending upon whom you ask, the falling people were pushed, or jumped, or were driven out by the flames. I think the most important part of what they did is that it’s private, and possibly evidence of the last choice they were able to make, when all the choices were bad ones. (A much better, deeper look into the issues of the 9/11 “jumpers” is here, if you’re interested.)

Whoever he was, whatever he decided to do, he should have had more privacy than he’s gotten from me and all the actual legitimate media outlets. But that’s not how the world works. That way would be inhuman. We have such a need to tell our stories to each other that it overcomes even the privacy of his last choice.

But this is neither here nor there. The point I wanted to make most is that I’m not someone who does well at a big memorial. I laugh at funerals and immediately have to pee any time I enter a church. So I’m not much good for that. But I can hang onto that image of the man falling, and keep it with me as long as I’m alive. Hopefully, my choices will be composed of lower floors and speedy exits, both metaphorically and for reals-for reals, as long as they can possibly stay that way.

And finally, and most importantly, if you lost someone that day, or on another day that is your personal national tragedy, I wish you strength and lots of help from your pit crew, and occasional bursts of joy. And I wish you the gift of being left alone to figure out how you want to process your grief.

Images: http://www.newyorkled.com/posters_WTC_World_Trade_Center.htm, http://chasblogspot.blogspot.com/2007/09/9-11-jumpers-they-didnt-jump.html

Himself and I had a little disagreement over household chores this weekend. Well, actually, it wasn’t so much a disagreement as it was a spectacular display (by me) of passive-aggressiveness and then a lot of apologizing (from both of us.)

I came home from work earlier than expected, and Sgt. Lucky hadn’t gotten around to making the bed. Also, neither of us had taken the garbage out for awhile, because we live on the fourth floor and we’re super lazy. So I did both those things, huffing and puffing, and then made dinner. My halo was visible from space.

Eventually, Sgt. Lucky got tired of watching me scoot around the apartment shooting the side eye at every dust mote and unfiled paper and suggested that maybe I was mad at him for not picking up while I was at work.

“No, I’m not mad,” I said. “I’m just … annoyed and, like, maybe a little irritated and I feel like I do everything and, OK, maybe I’m mad.”

Short version, he apologized and then I promised to practice saying, “Hey, will you pick that up?” in the mirror until it was second nature and then we both moved on.

Until later, when I replaced the towels in the bathroom and Sgt. Lucky said, “If you don’t stop doing everything, I’m never going to catch up.”

“It’s not a contest, I promise,” I said, and went to take a shower. Where, as usual, I had one of my best ideas.

“I’m really sorry that you did everything today,” he said, when we were going to bed.

“That’s OK,” I said. “I left you a giant, disgusting glob of red hair in the drain.”

He laughed and kissed my head. “Oh, thank you so much.”

“Hey listen,” I said. “I just don’t want you to feel left out.”

It’s become a hobby with us and we can’t stop ourselves and so we are moving. It feels very different from our other moves, so far, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, I take sleeping pills now, which makes it less likely that I’ll whip myself into a frenzy of rage and anxiety every time the moving company changes its schedule and/or breaks something of ours.

Another change: We have cash, for some of this fun and frivolity. I bought a 700 dollar rug today, with my debit card. That is not the financial behavior I would have exhibited only a few short years ago. I’m either growing up, or becoming a conspiracy theorist:

“Honey! I’m buying a rug! A good one. But don’t worry, I’ll pay cash, and, and if the zombies invade we can eat it, or use it to block the windows or something. Whatever we need.”

We have also hired movers this time. Real movers, who pack your stuff. I’m amazed by the whole thing. Presumably, we’ll just pack an overnight bag full of our unmentionables and vitamins, and then go over to wait for the moving men to arrive.

It sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. I have decided to ignore the only non-awesome aspect of this apartment, which is that I wouldn’t have gotten it unless our dear friends Kwanza and Stella had decided to move to LA. So — happy news, sad news.

The only way to do it is to think of the two things separately: We have an awesome apartment. We miss Kwanza and Stella.

But enough about our sad ambivalence. Let us think of happier things. Such as Big Gay Ice Cream Trucks, below: