Life Lessons at 4 a.m.

OK, girls, I will not take a hiatus, as you have all insisted that I actually entertain you. So I must please my fans. Ha. And, yes, should I ever be on Oprah, you guys will def. be in the audience. I think you should all submit your own aliases for the second book, as I know Shartz ain't gonna cut it.

This is what I was thinking after getting home last night at 2:30 a.m., after yet another eventful night with the girls.

1. Bergdorf's during sale season, is definitely the happiest place on earth for a Jewish girl. The fact that I am thinking this at 2:30 a.m. is really twisted, but there it is... I never claimed not to be twisted.

2. Anything manufactured in Jacksonville, aside from the people I know and love, sucks ass. I go to watch a football game for the first time in years and that is what I get? Come on.

3. You can never have too many shoes, too many pairs of jeans, too many cell phone minutes, too many girlfriends, too much fun, too much sleep or too much time. You can, however, have too much to drink, too many guys named Scott, Jason, David, Ben, Mike, too many parties, too much to eat and too many bases/places to cover in one night.

4. The two worst smells in the city are cheap air freshener combined with a taxi driver's rampant BO and sulfur/eggs/farts in a bar or club or confined space.

5. All MOTs know eachoter in some way, shape or form. I'm still convinced we should start our own Friendster...Jewster? Jewography? Jewtastic? There's already a Jewhoo...

6. There is absolutely no reason, whatsoever, to go to a nightclub such as Pacha once you are over the age of 25. I repeat, no reason whatsoever. Blacklight? Hello? Oh. My. God. And girls dancing in showers? Oy vey, now I've seen everything. Thank God we didn't pay a cover! Doesn't this girl have a mother? And if so, does she know what her baby is doing? I just don't get it.



7. There is absolutely no way to avoid the subject of JDate when you are speaking to a Jewish single.

We may as well all have our profile numbers tattooed on our persons somewhere. (Speaking of which, you should all go see my friend's play, Jewtopia, if you haven't already; it tackles the subject admirably and it's quite funny. And as far as I know he's single! And Jewish! And successful! Well, you get the point. Actually, I have no idea if he's still single. But check it out, nonetheless. Jacksonville boy makes good; yada, yada, yada.

And to illustrate my above point about us all knowing one another, the opening page of the play's site is a riff on MasterCard's "Priceless" ad campaign. A family friend is chief in-house counsel for MC, and last I saw him, he was saying how one of his primary duties is to prosecute people who rip off those ads. Ah, the circle of conectedness. Discuss amongst yourselves.

8. This blog has caused to me to elevate the art of proscrastination to an art form; before I started doing this and before any of my friends were reading this, I was getting quite a bit of my novel written. Now I am doing this. This is a part of my second novel, but now it's becoming a larger part than I anticipated, as writing this truth is easier than writing a cohesive, fictional narrative. Though I'm still a firm believer in the fact that our single lives in Manhattan are really much more colorful than what I could make up, cause, we rock. Like, totally.

9. There are myriad benefits to being single, namely, not having to shave anything but the pits. You'd be amazed how much time that shaves off the showering routine. No pun intended.

10. My dog is extremely. Fucking. Annoying. Especially at 3 a.m. when it's freezing and I have to walk him.

11. Related: The third worst smell in Manhattan is my dog's breath. I can now smell it from ten feet away. I have tried everything; but his halitosis persists. I wonder what would happen if I gave him some gum. I'm guessing the result would be amusing, but would probably require veterinary assistance.

12. Apparently, it is medically possible for "post-nasal drip" to last for the duration of winter. I simply do not understand how in this day and age we can combat AIDS, certain types of cancer, depression, schizophrenia, etc. and cannot cure the cold. What the fucking fuck is up with that. Those God damned humidifiers don't do a God damn thing, either, so don't waste your money.

13. There are, as evidenced by our recent meals at Wollensky's and Angelo and Maxie's, apparently lots of nice, cute, well-educated Jewish boys toiling as waiters. Who knew and what is the origin of this phenomenon? Anyone?

14. I do not, and probably never will, understand people who don't drink, don't go out, don't shop, wake up early for no reason, don't worry, don't feel guilty or don't feel down, though I would very much like to be one of them.

15. Hilary Duff should be shot merely for existing, and I should be doused in lighter fluid and inflamed for ordering "The Perfect Man," on OnDemand at 3 a.m. OnDemand is the drunk-dialing equivalent of cable TV. It is pure evil.

16. Sex is like food—the less your body becomes accustomed to, the less it needs. Or perhaps that's just me. Either way, I think there could be parallels drawn between celibacy and anorexia, at least regarding women.

17. There simply are no female comedic equivalents to Larry David, Woody Allen or Albert Brooks. I think the closest we have are Tracey Ullman, Jennifer Saunders and perhaps Ellen DeGeneres. And they are, respectively, British and lesbian. Sad, really.

18. I wonder how our social lives would be different without the Internet and cell phone technology? It's simply unfathomable; I am sooo dependent on e-mail and the Internet. I know one thing, I'd get a lot more work done, but then again, I would have less material, as many of my friendships and funny stories are Internet-related.

19. The wage gap/disparity in income of women versus men simply doesn't make sense when you take into account how much more money it costs to be a woman, what with beauty products, clothes etc. and time spent maintaining our physical appearances.

Soon—I've been saying this for years now—I am going to calculate the monthly cost of what I spend in "product." My mom once counted the number of products she used before leaving the house and it was something staggering like 20 or 30 different things she used while getting ready. Whenever she's up here and we stock up on products at Saks or Bergdorf's, the bill can—"Don't tell dad!"—climb up toward the $500 or $600 mark. That's probably a per-month estimate, or perhaps a two-month estimate. And we don't even use La Mer or any of that overpriced crap. Another lovely thing about being a woman.

20. I have, once again, wasted entirely too much time on this blog. I am now going to write in my book. I think I may have come up with an ending—thanks for your input, Manch—and it's not happy. It's not sad, either, it's just real. And reality is not a bowl of cherries. (Where did that expression come from? Why not a bowl of ice cream? Much yummier.)

Fuck that chick-lit bullshit formula; I think that's why the first book sucks ass. I listened to my agent's advice about following a bullshit "formula" that all chick lit books have to adhere to, and in turn, lost my voice. You always have to follow your gut, even if it may get you into serious trouble. At least, then, in retrospect, you can say you did it your way and you'll have nobody to blame but yourself. If there's one thing I don't want, it's to regret, at the end of my life, that I didn't follow my dreams or my instincts. I would much rather be creative and fucked-up than conservative, boring, successful and sheep-like. At least I think; I really have no basis for comparison.