M as in Markowitz, A as in Arkowitz...

I get so cranky when people pronounce my name wrong. Markowitz- why does that trip people up? Do their eyes immediately focus on the Z and confuse it with a Polish name like Pzyokosnyzki? Because that shit is hard to pronounce. Senka's Serbian last name gets me every time. You know what else is hard to pronounce? Nyugen. Somehow that’s pronounced “Win,” which I’ll never be able to wrap my head around. But guess what people. There are no effing mysterious missing letters in Markowitz! No letters that stand proud but don’t get uttered. No confusing “SH” or “TH” popping up in there either. Every letter has its own sound. In order. Not “Favre” pronounced “Farv”- just every letter, in its rightful place, making its most-used sound. You can say Mar-KOH-witz if you must- my dean did at graduation after I specifically instructed her not to, and she’s still alive to talk about it- but just give it the ol’ college try! When traveling to Advance, MO I heard the dispatcher say to the van driver in St. Louis “I’ve got an Allison Mar…oh there’s no way I can pronounce this” and I pretty much turned into a cartoon mad-person, red faced, smoke out of ears, train engine going chooo chooooooo! I get that in St. Louis everyone is apparently named John Smith and Brittany Jones. (I mean in Tree Hill, NC your last name is probably from the Mayflower- James, Scott, Davis, Sawyer OH WAIT don’t forget Jake Jagowski, our token ethnic minority who is still white! Or Skillz, the black guy who doesn’t have a last name. Dear God why do I watch this show…) But if you can read, you can pronounce my last name. That is all. Doesn’t help that I’m on track to marry a man where I’ll spend the rest of my life talking to stranger with a resigned sigh, saying “It’s Moron with an I.”

Crankpants OUT

Why I Hate Teen Drivers

I loved being a typical reckless teen driver for about 8 months after I got my license. I would zoom through the streets of my neighborhood in my sexXxXy Volvo, rolling my eyes at the mothers who would hand-signal “slow down!” to me. F them, I’d say to myself. I can see dem kids if they was to run out in da streets. Then, inexplicably, and well before I should have, I grew the fuck up. I realized wow, I’m not the Bionic Woman, and my reaction time is merely average. Do I feel like killing a small child today? No thanks. Top-tier colleges wouldn’t look too fondly on that. And now, with a fiery passion, I hate teen drivers. Ok, cool, swerve by me in your awesome doorless Wrangler that you got from you dad when he upgraded to a Lexus. I HOPE YOU FALL OUT. Why don’t you go to Kelly’s house party, drink 9 Keystones and race home before curfew? WHAT A SOUND IDEA. Hey, here’s one that’s even better: Blast your music to prove how cool you are/what amazing taste in music you have (you’re so original!), even though you can’t even hear the equally cool people in your car, oh not to mention be able to concentrate or hear when you scrape against my car! Why the anger, young Allison, you may be asking? Because yesterday I go to the parking lot at my office and a note was on my windshield. Apparently this person’s daughter gently scraped my bumper, and if I think the damage is noticeable, I should call, bla bla. My bumper is so bad as it is I didn’t even notice. But that’s not the point here. Why the fuck didn’t the daughter leave me a note?? She was probably blasting her music (he CAN read ma pokerfaaaace) and drove too fast out of her spot (might I add that I park right up to the trees and leave about 7 feet of room behind me in the spot to AVOID THIS PROBLEM) and poorly judged her spacing. Fine. Dandy. What really pisses me off is that her parent left a note. Why is it so hard to take responsibility for your own actions, little one? I can just see it now. “Omg I hit this car wa waaa Lady Gaga help me, what do I do? OH I go home and pretend nothing happened! Oh crap, Mom noticed the damage to my front bumper? I guess I’ll just have her go back to the lot, tell her which car it was, and she can leave a nice note and continue solving my problems!” (If anyone hasn’t picked up on this yet, the moral of the story is clearly that I miss being an overindulged teenager) So yes, that left me in the parking lot waving my cane to no one in particular and clenching my dentures in fury. DAMN TEENAGERS!

On that note, I hope my parents continue to pay my car insurance come fall.

So what did you do this weekend in Missouri, Al?

Scene: 4:00 am, I roll over in Joe’s childhood bed realizing that this is the moment. This is the time. Yep, this is right about when I’m going to puke. In the dazed still-drunkenness of early morning, I realize in slow motion that no, I’m not going to throw up just yet, but I need some fluids in my system to heal.
4:05-4:40: Travel down narrow staircase to Moroni kitchen. Desperately search for icy cold water. Diet Coke in adundance. Will not do! Drunk, already hunkered down in a thunderstorm of pre-hangover nausea, yet still avoidant of tap water. Find one remaining water bottle in fridge and bring it upstairs to drink. *Joseph has a normal sized house. In current state, every action seems to take 89 minutes.
4:49-5:20: Swig water bottle on floor next to dead bug the size of pinky. Realize vomit is inevitable, but that even when sober and peppy the journey to Joe’s bathroom is treacherous (narrow stairs, obstacle course around unfamiliar furniture to other side of house). Grab first plastic bag in sight and line garbage can before passing out in bed again
6:11: Barforama!! Otherwise known as, “Are you there, partially-digested baked beans? It’s me, Margaret.”
6:13- I swear to GOD 7:45: Sit on floor staring at garbage can. Think of fond memories of Holly puking into unlined wire garbage can. Feel resourceful. Realize that the Ann Taylor Loft (hey, I’m savvy with the dolladolla bills y’all) garment bag o’vom is only loosely tired at the bottom end. Cry inside. After another month of sitting on the floor contemplating a) life and b) how the hell I’m supposed to sit at mass in three hours, I get up and clutch the bag in a certain way where nothing spills and hey, I’ve designed a new form of hobo hand(barf)bag. Feel like a genius once more. Decide the bag needs to be brought downstairs to the trash can. Finally make it downstairs only to literally wander his house forever thinking about what to do. You know how when you’re hungover even breathing is laborious? Well, try attempting to stash a 4-foot sheet of plastic filled with vomit in an already-overflowing garbage can while desperately hoping the boyfriend’s parents don’t wake up and see you with your greasy, smoke-filled hair in the grossest half ponytail imaginable, sporting a green practically tie-dyed muumuu dress, creeping around barefoot and snuggling up to a travel pouch of intestinal contents. Hubba hubba. Oh, and then drink a Diet Coke.
7:50-8:30: Get back upstairs. Have forethought to line the garbage can with another plastic bag. Back to bed.
8:30, 30 seconds: Must vomit. No, I can hold it in. So tired. WOHP! (sound made as ‘holding in’ of vomit is futile)
8:33: Begin the good ol’ song and dance of “OMG HOW CAN A FAMILY SURVIVE WITH ONE MEDIUM-SIZED TRASH CAN THAT IS FILLED TO THE BRIM, WHERE’S A NIGGA S’POSTA PUT HER VOMIT BAG?”
9:30: Wake up in bed to Joe's mother whispering “Joseph? Allie? Joseph?” outside the door. Doting boyfriend kindly explains that no, mom, we can’t go to mass, Allie had one too many, as in two, rum and pineapple concoctions last night made from a rum so bottom shelf it was imported from the underground railroad, or something else below ground, har har har, in addition to her 5 cups of foam from a keg, and now she’s puking in bags and stashing them all over your house.

Well, at least I got out of mass. But most importantly, his parents laughed at me and poked fun at me and treated me like their daughter rather than the Jewish Yankee With a Drinking Problem Who Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Marry Our Son.

Now, I only hope that this post hasn’t dropped my readership from 1 to 0. But I must tell you, the image of Allie, schlopped-up Tituba hairstyle, in muumuu, wandering aimlessly around the boyfriend’s parents’ house with a garment bag full of barf clutched in a death grip like a trophy, will forever bring a smile to my face. Even crumpled up in bed in the midst of all the pukey dizzy drama, I was already laughing at myself. And this makes me afraid that no, I’ll never stop drinking. To life, to life, l’chaim!

The Maniconundrum

I have a love/hate relationship with getting manicures. That seems complex, Allison, you're saying. But here's why.
1. You walk in and everyone stares at you. Sometimes you'll get a smile and a 'hi,' but I find it incredibly awkward yelling "Umm...a manicure?" over the sound of tacky nail art machines buzzing only to wonder if anyone has heard me or where I should go.
2. The WHERE THE HELL DO I LOOK??? issue. Seriously. With a pedicure, you can read or text or even close your eyes and lean back while the uncomfortable, "my back isn't a set of bongos, thanks" massage chair works its painful magic. But with a manicure there's 7 inches between your eyes and her face. You can choose to watch her meticulously, as she works each nail, but I'm afraid I'll make her nervous. So I do an exceedingly Asperger-esque constant head turning, eye-darting dance in order to "not make her feel pressured." So maybe I overthink it. But where do NORMAL people rest their eyes?
3. Oh my God, paying. They always seem to ask meekly, as if it's an option, "You can pay me now?" So I whip out my wallet and ask how much, because they never say outright, and then I have to do ridiculous math in my head. Not the normal kind of math. The kind of math where I almost pop a blood vessel worrying that I'm suddenly money-dyslexic and I haven't tipped enough. This generally leads to tips around 60%. I will spend the next ten minutes, however, still wondering. "Did I REALLY give that much? Or was that a dollar bill instead of a five? OMG, what if she thinks I'm cheap?" (growing up as a Jew your biggest fear is being thought of as cheap. Although you probably are)
4. The post-mani waiting period. Out in California, I have yet to enter a nail salon with those nifty- and I thought, normal- hand-drying stations, you know, where you sit and put your hands in the marked spaces in the air tunnel with UV light that somehow doesn't give you hand cancer. No, in California, you remain in your seat, they put the least powerful mini fan possible six feet away from your drying polish, and then disappear. As in...you will never see the nail artist again. Not that day, not on your next visit, not ever. It's like I have a one-time-use policy with nail technicians. Anyway, no one will tell me when I'm done 'drying,' i.e. that toddler over there is sick of half-heartedly blowing on my hands, and I worry about sitting there too long and taking up space/looking overly concerned and prissy (what? someone overly concerned about EVERYTHING is worried about looking overly concerned?). But what if I leave too early and they all think "pssh, she must think she's invincible!" or worse yet, I smudge the color?

Oh, but hey, there's nothing like the heavily-lotioned hand massage and the delicious feeling of being pampered.

In a nutshell: I live my life awkwardly worried for no reason and, hence, am the strangest, most self-absorbed person ever.

This is my BIG decision!

So I’ve been thinking that to increase readership I should make this a specialty blog. So I wondered to myself, “What are my real passions? What could I write about, what do I think about, all day, every day?” I narrowed it down to two options. "My Boring Life That I Find Fascinating And Wonder Why No One Cares When I Babble On About New Healthy Dinner Creations and Being Slighted By Strangers On the Street" and "Erosion." I am mesmerized by erosion. How just the movement of water over time can slowly shave away at a mammoth rock structure. How graceful canyons were formed solely by rushing currents. And don’t even get me started on how potholes form. Utter brilliance of nature. Yet sadly for you reader(s), the winner is My Boring Life, because there’s just more opportunity for creativity. And let’s face it, a blog about erosion, while unique, wouldn’t exactly draw in them readers like a magnet. Which leads to today’s entry, Why I Love Bridezillas (on the WE network):

Essentially, this could be summed up by “I find entertainment in screaming fat women who lack interpersonal skills and, it could be said, souls.” I watch one fat trainwreck after another sob and scream her way onto everyone’s shitlist- nothing is good enough, nothing is to her liking, no one cares about her feelings or has any sympathy for her. You may have noticed my assertions of obesity. It’s because 98% of the time the whining, bitching bride is fat. And reinforces the fat-people stereotype of no self-control. You never see the couples having fun. The man always seems so miserable and he essentially cowers from his bride-to-be. You wonder why he hasn’t run. Doesn’t he fall asleep nightly thinking “This hell is the rest of my life?” Yet sometimes the men are even kind, supportive and....somewhat attractive (although they rarely boast lucrative careers- yet they're all about 23 so you never know!).

My favorite Bridezilla was the one who was even more humongor than normal but, unlike the typical 130 pound bride who works her ass off to be 110 pounds on her wedding day, didn't care at all about losing weight. In fact, to this end she made sure her entire bridal party met a weight minimum of 200 pounds so she would look the best. In her words, "If I wanted good looking people in my wedding party I would have asked my family!" Classic television. Seriously. She's in competition with the woman whose fiance's family wasn't down with a murder-mystery themed reception, ie moving from table to table like playing Clue, and she stomped around yelling "Your family is SO STUPID!" for four hours. Yeeeeep.

Mostly, I watch Bridezillas because it gives me hope. If you are morbidly obese or ugly, you can get married. If you have no personality- except an entitled, demanding one that is- you can get married. If you spend your life criticizing people, you can still get married- and they’ll all somehow be there for you to bring you fries on your special day! Yes, even if you are a soulless wench who does nothing on earth but take up valuable resources, YOU TOO can still get married. You just have to lower your standards. Or coerce an equally fat and ugly man that he can’t do better than you.

Yes, in conclusion, I love Bridezillas because it makes me feel skinny, brilliant, caring and thoughtful. And who doesn't love dipping the chicken into that joy tub?

enchiladas. why you hurt me so?

I am not creative on a schedule. My genius comes to me spontaneously, usually at work. So at work I type up little notes to myself. Not so genius* when I get home and look at a crumpled up Post-it and wonder, WTF IS THIS? Notes I've brought home recently and looked at with my head cocked to the right and my mouth going say whaaa?

"E-mail makes me feel bad for Americans": Well this is fairly easy. I get so many ridiculous emails in my super old Yahoo account that I check once a month for fun...emails like "Available Jobs in Medicine With No Degree!" "Free $400 Gift Card to Red Lobster!" and "Mystery Shoppers Earn $60,000 Per Month!" Now I just feel bad for the people who read that and honestly believe it. As in, 'wow, sweetie, all our troubles are over- if I just fill out this survey about my views on internet advertising, I really will get this check for $25,000 mailed to me at our new ski lodge in Aspen!' That's all. Anyone else ever feel that way? As in, I pity the foo' who reads that and think it's real?

"Inside of Dishwasher": I've always wondered what it's like to be inside of a dishwasher when it runs. Although I think if I knew it would ruin my life and I've never think my dishes were clean again.

"Capitalist": I was driving behind a shiny BMW M3 whose license plate was CAPTLST. That's like somebody, let's call him...hmm...Bark Fammershold....with a license plate reading DOUCHBAG. Obviouuuuus.

"Pechanga": Now this was more difficult to decipher. Then I remembered how everytime I hear ads on the radio for Pechanga casino, I immediately think of what a 3-year-old might call their girl parts. Think about it. VV, vaginey, gina, giner, Pechanga...is it that hard to connect the dots?

My apologies for this lame entry. I've been drinking on a wine tasting since 11:30 am and then binged on Mexican food, which made me feel more drunk, plus then the illegitimate Mexican children inside my tum are now trying to claw their way out...I just drank some Sprite and then burped and it came up and splashed all over my keyboard. This would be hilarious if it wasn't so embarassing.

*I was babysitting last night and to pass the time I asked Sydney to explain to me the plot of all the popular Disney movies. She told me how in Aladdin, he wanted to become a prince and a 'genius' granted him 3 wishes...she is so cute. She calls me Ayison and says the most hilarious things in the most grown-up way, like "I'm having a sort of nightmare, Ayison. Do you think maybe you could help me feel better, Ayison?" then she jumps up for a hug. I love babysitting for her, because her mom is pregnant and their freezer is filled with Ben and Jerry's and Reese's Klondike bars. YUMNUMNUMNUM

I don't wanna grow up, I'm a lazy/self-induuuulgent kid

So I’m pretty much terrified of being a real adult. I.E., what happens when I have children who depend on me, or when my parents die. Seriously without my mom around, who will I call when I'm scared that I pooped out a weird white object that was actually just a part of the toilet that broke off at a strangely coincidental time? Complicated taxes; medical records; arranging childcare; carpooling. UG! I'm too selfish to ever be older than almost-23 with no severe responsibilities besides keeping a house clean, calling my grandma a few times a month and not driving my car off the road when daydreaming about melted cheese.
I've always assumed I'll take a husband. But here's a sorry fact- men die before women. Right now I feel like if my husband died and we were old I'd totally pull a Romeo and Juliet scenario and poison myself or carbon monoxide it up in the garage with the car running. Of course because life is agonizing without him (cross fingers). But more because I fully intend on whoever I marry taking care of what I call Life Paperwork. That ranges from taxes to insurance to our kids' eventual FAFSA forms. I'm completely capable of these tasks, I just hate paperwork. Anyway, when hubby kicks the can, and it's up to me to manage the odds and ends of wrinkled, sexless, slow-moving, creaky-hipped older adulthood, it's off for me, too! My children will think it's because we can't live without each other and I needed to join him in the afterlife right away. "How romantic!" they'll say. "It's just like in that classic film The Notebook that mom made us watch 98 times to learn sensitivity and the true meaning of endless love!"

This Will Make Me Rich

I have a new idea for an invention. And if men just had OPEN MINDS, I'd really be rolling in dough by now. Dough moistened with semen. Read on.

What do men love more than sex? Smelling great and feeling shower fresh afterwards without having to stand up, be active and ruin their post-orgasmic glow, that's what. Showering is sooo Beginning of Time-May 2009. I propose...THE CLEANER WEINER!

The Cleaner Weiner is a soothing, cleansing wet wipe for post-sex penis cleansing. It is discreetly packaged in multiple forms, from a simple tissue box to a remote that flips open to a hollow Bible- the options are endless. It looks like a basic Lysol wipe but is formulated to be extremely sensitive to the delicate penal skin while still cleansing, removing all fluids and leaving a fresh, manly, yet barely noticeable scent. And if anyone else wonders what that great smell is, you can smile confidently, plead ignorance and just know, "that's my wang." Can't you see that thought bubble in an infomercial now?!

Logical, intelligent, possessing-of-man-brain boyfriend says I'd more easily make millions begging on the street and using my tap dance skills to panhandle than marketing the Cleaner Weiner. I say...Billy Mays, I'm waiting for YOU!

People I Hate: Germaphobes

Pretty high on the shit list are germaphobes. They clearly think they’re better than everyone and need to protect their pristine Brahman selves from us Untouchables. And by doing so, they make life worse for everyone. First off- if there is visible pee or other grotesque findings on the seat, by all means squat, paper the shit out of the can, whatever makes you happy. But otherwise, why the fuss, germaphobes? Are you seriously that terrified of…gasp…other peoples’ back-of-thigh germs? I don’t get that at all. The backs of my thighs remain fairly clean throughout the day, I think. No crevices mean no place for sweat to collect. No orifices mean no leaking of fluids. Being covered by clothing all day means no random contact with unsuitable items (well, a hot day on the subway in shorts comes to mind, but I’m in San Diego, so come on). Do people actually think I while away my afternoons dumpster diving and rubbing my prized findings on the backs of my thighs? Getting naked and shimmying up against the used tissue pile at a local nursery school? But germaphobes don’t think that way. They imagine the cloud of poopy fog settling onto the seat post-flush. Well guess what, asshole: that cloud is all over the entire fucking stall. So unless you walk in wearing a mechanism suitable for handling nuclear waste, you’re being germily raped, so get over yourself. Oh, and the whole flushing the toilet with your foot thing. Dear Lord, do you think that people can’t wipe themselves, and have poop smeared all over their hands, which naturally gets on the handle? More importantly, you are undoubtedly heading right over to the sink, if you’re any real germaphobe. In that 7-second walk to the sink are you THAT afraid you might accidentally stick your finger in your mouth or retina? So now I, the non-germaphobe, have to walk to the sink with my poop-smeared hands AND your bottom-of-shoe germs, because you’re so fucking superior. See? They DO make life worse for everyone else!

I had a one-time babysitting engagement with a germaphobe mom’s adorable, still-untainted-by-his-mom’s-weirdness son. She had given birth the week before to another son and needed me to watch the 3-year-old, and had a 24-hour baby nurse for the infant so she could, probably, take 4 daily showers in Purell. Anyway, the kid got bored with his own books and toys and wanted to play with the baby’s much less fun little finger puppet things on a keychain-like mabobber. I figured he must be so creative, so imaginative, our morning together must have really brought out his genius. So we’re playing, and the mom comes in and is horrified, that’s right, horrified that we were playing with the baby’s toys. “I just cleaned them. Now I have to sanitize them all over again!” she lamented. Woe the fuck is I. Are you kidding, lady? This is why these pampered kids today are such pussies. People need exposure to germs to build immunity. Everyone knows this. In cave times (that’s what I call anything before like, 600 B.C. I took social studies classes on world civilizations each year for grades 4-12, but whatever. The only thing I retain is that there really was a civilization named “Ur” and how I always thought of how awesome it would be to NEVER have to remember where you’re from, because someone could ask and while you try to remember slash lie, you mumble “err…?” and they’re like “Oh cool my Aunt Linda lives there!”), yes, in cave times, children didn’t have Sleep Sacks and Purell dispensers attached to their Hannah Montana lunch boxes. They didn’t have LUNCH! They had “me got you deer meat at 4am you eat now or we all starve!” Wow I’m politically correct AND culturally sensitive. Anyway, suffice it so say, kids were “involved” with germs. And yet- shocker- we still have humans roaming the earth today. Unbuhleeeevabo! Now my hatred of germophobes might make it seem like I’m some petite, Forever-21 bedecked version of Pig Pen. Rest assured, I bathe daily and will lie awake at night wondering how many roaches are copulating in the dirty cracks of my kitchen that I forgot to clean a whopping two nights in a row. But seriously, now I have to go to an alley, find a homeless man, de-pants myself and rub up along his overcoat, then rub the backs of my thighs on your pillow. BRB!