under britney's influence

This past Saturday night, my family convened for dinner to celebrate Mama McDimple's 70th birthday. The Adorable Six-Year-Old Niece arrived at the restaurant shortly after I did and immediately claimed the empty seat to my right. We had no sooner exchanged hugs and kisses before she lowered her voice to a hoarse whisper and breathed, "I have a secret to tell you."

"You do? What is it?" I asked.

Her big green eyes widened and her lips tightened forming a super serious expression on her cute wee face. She then cupped one hand over mouth and talk-whispered, "I forgot to put on my underpants... Don't tell my Mommy."

Ah, the perils of letting children dress themselves.

Oh, and apparently The Equally Adorable One-Year-Old Nephew was caught waddling around my parents' family room the other day holding two bottles of (unopened) booze he snuck from their bar.

Yup. There's absolutely NO question these children are related to me.

weirdo

I don't normally do the meme thang primarily because I just don't like that word. Meme. Not sure why but it bugs me. But I'll put aside my distaste because I found a rather fun one over at Sheila's. The task: Write down five of your own personal idiosyncrasies.

The hardest part of this was narrowing down my enormous list to just five. You see, I diligently foster and nurture my quirks much in the way others would dote on a ficus. Unlike the plants in my care, my hang-ups are lush and thriving. Case in point...

1. I despise the brown crunchy things in between layers of ice cream cake. I kinda don't care for ice cream cake all that much either. Well, if I'm being honest, ice cream in general doesn't really excite me... unless I'm in a bad mood. If that's the case, ice cream is the perfect remedy because you simply cannot lick an ice cream cone with a scowl on your face. Try it. You can't.

2. I have severe poop issues. Unless it's a DIRE emergency, I cannot poop at work or any place other than home. It's part of the reason I live alone. I found it to be very stressful when I had a roommate. I tried to time my poops after she went to bed or right before I went into the shower. Believe it or not, it worked about 90% of the time but there were a few occasions where I had to answer the call regardless of the roomie's whereabouts. It killed me to do it but I had no choice.

I think it's because I associate so much shame with my pooping that I also find poop and fart jokes riotously funny. I'm 31 years old yet I laugh like a 10-year-old boy at the first mention of poop. And I don't foresee me outgrowing this any time soon.

3. I'm a sucker for the one clap-two clap beat in a song. Even if I hate the song, I have to stop what I'm doing and clap once/clap twice/clap once in time with the music. It just has to be done.

4. My outer wardrobe is comprised of mostly dark solid colors -- brown, black, navy, maroon, that sort of thing. Despite my seemingly staid preferences, I have a rather outrageous underwear collection. The louder the colors and patterns the better. I haven't met a striped, polka-dotted, zig-zagged or leopard pattern I haven't liked. Cartoon characters are equally represented among my undies, namely Supergirl, Hello Kitty and Mickey Mouse.

5. Bumpy textures and folds FREAK me the fuck out. I'm positively horrified by close-ups of pock marks, cavities, crevices, fibers, etc. When I hear the term "nooks and crannies," I flinch. Stucco will never see the light of day in my home. Same goes for popcorn ceilings. Well, that's also because they're butt ugly. Furthermore, don't come near me with a cross-section of something unless your aim is to make me gag.

I once had a dream that my stomach looked like a moon crater and I tortured myself with the memory for months afterwards. I think I'm finally over the disgust. Actually, nope. Not true. If you'll excuse me, I need to go find me some ginger ale.

on bloggers, mentioning unmentionables and an alarming use of clowns

Last night, The Lovely Jess, the Charming Sean T. Conrad and I met the Utterly Fabulous Katie of I Am Therefore I Date (or Katie Dating Is Hell as Jess and I have taken to calling her) and we attended the WYSIWYG Talent Show at P.S. 122.

Together, we watched a bevy of talented bloggers tell their best New York stories. My favorite performer of the evening (and the reason I attended) was the illustrious Joe.My.God. He's as brilliant in the flesh as he is on his blog. If you don't read him already, I urge you to start. His observational and storytelling skills are nothing short of remarkable. And he's like really buff, yo.

Meeting Katie Dating Is Hell for the first time was equally exciting. She too is the keeper of a kick-ass blog and held her own nicely with Jess, Sean Conrad and myself. Sean Conrad is no slouch either as he did not even bat an eye when discussion turned to bras, the taboo of sharing underwear and how to accurately determine one's pantyhose size.

The rest of the evening is a bit of a blur as I got uncharacteristically drunk on very few Brooklyn Lagers. I'm more embarrassed about being a lightweight than any potentially ass-y things I may have uttered in my altered state. I do remember rambling about the importance of labor unions and how scary I find that stiff-haired Ringling Bros. clown.

I'm not sure what sparked the latter tirade but I do recall Sean Conrad being oddly protective of BALCO or whatever the hell that clown's name is. Even more alarming, Jess sheepishly fessed up to preaching the word of God through "clown ministry" back in the day. After my shock subsided, I went through a series of mental visuals including clowns in full makeup distributing Communion, singing in the choir and passing around the collection plate. I found it simultaneously hilarious and horrifying.

Jess, now that I'm sober, I realize that I have a lot of questions about this. Like, did someone read from the Bible while wearing big floppy shoes and a red nose? How about wigs and wide-waisted pants? Was there horn honking during the service? Did you engage in religious-themed tumbling? I think we need to set aside some time to discuss this further. Or even better, you can post about it. And feel free to include pictures. This is perhaps the one and only time where I'll welcome clown photography. I thank thee in advance.

curly does d.c.

I had to go on business trip yesterday 'cause I'm important and crap. Thankfully it was just a one-day thing and I wasn't forced to sleep on scratchy Embassy Suite sheets or use a shot-sized bottle of shampoo that does absolutely nothing for my hair. Nope, yesterday's jaunt was a quickie to Washington, D.C. and back again. I heart the Delta Shuttle -- we took off and landed again within 45 minutes. Furthermore, the shuttle has its own terminal at La Guardia that dispenses free coffee and an array of newspapers and magazines. Rock on.

I spent the days leading up to the trip working on a presentation that I had to deliver in tandem with my manager. I was surprisingly composed in front of a room full of people considering I hate public speaking. However, I was explaining a process that I invented so I felt close enough to the topic to speak comfortably. Otherwise, I'm a splotchy, jittery-sounding, dry-mouthed wreck when thrust into the spotlight.

For some, picturing the audience in only their underwear helps soothe frayed nerves. For me, knowing that I was wearing Hello Kitty underwear under my pin-striped power suit gave me an edge. Snowboarding Hello Kitty underwear to be precise. Even though I now have to attend important pow-wows, it's helpful for me to secretly inject a ridiculous undercurrent to the proceedings. Or in this case, a ridiculous undergarment.

I had a couple of interesting cab rides yesterday. There was nary a peep out of the driver from Reagan National to the meeting location. Cool. The driver from the office to the airport, on the other hand, was a regular Chatty Cathy. A flirtatious one at that. He loved the fact that four young women from NYC were in his cab. He offered to drive us all the way to New York but we politely declined. Our refusal mostly stemmed from the noxious cologne fumes he emitted. P.U. I was so relieved when my coworkers all discreetly cracked their windows.

So he proceeded to chat us up until his cell phone rang. He then conferenced in at least two other drivers and had a very loud discussion in Hindi. Apparently there is no Hindi expression for "piece of junk" because that bit of English was sandwiched in between a bunch of other stuff I didn't understand. And there aren't many cell towers on the road from Dulles to Reagan National because every five minutes his called was dropped. It went a little something like this:

"Hindi Hindi Hindi piece of junk Hindi Hindi Hindi. Hellooooo?!?! Hindi Hindi
Hindi 4-wheel drive Hindi Hindi Hindi. Helloooo??!? Hindi Hindi Hindi.
Helloooooooo?!?!"

The cab driver from La Guardia had a gray, curly mullet and the thickest Brooklyn accent I've heard in a long time. I just wanted to zone out and sleep through the traffic snarl on the BQE but he insisted on bringing me up to speed on his life. In case you're interested, he now lives in Port Jervis with his wife, two kids and a Rottweiler that will chew your face off if you look at him funny. The scary dog needs to get a rabies shot today so the driver was on his cell phone shoring up support because the 150-pound beast needs to be muzzled and held down at the vet's office. Charming.

I'm back in my office today basking in the glow of a good meeting and fielding the follow-up questions and tackling the new tasks it spawned. I'm now officially on the radar of some higher-ups. Good thing I wore my Mickey Mouse underwear.