Tuesday, December 31, 2013

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

It’s always nice dating someone who has a job that can improve your life.

Are you a chef? Cook me everything!!

Are you a banker/financial person? 
Teach me how to pay off my credit cards without altering my spending habits!! 
Ha.

By most accounts, Greg’s job as a NASCAR motorsports dealer (!!!!!) was super awesome.

My friend Gina reconnected with him after dating in college and even though they lived in different states, he brought her to several NASCAR events, one where she got to ride shotgun in a racecar during the opening round on the track.

(Some people like that. And earplugs.)

It was also awesome that Greg always had a sweet, really expensive car in which to take her out. They dated for about six months.

They weren’t his cars of course, they were company rentals, or whatever other leases that were available. It was super luxurious.

...Which is why it was super confusing that Greg chose this ridiculous excuse to sell Gina out at the last minute to a Dave Matthews Band concert she had been excited about for months: I got two flat tires.

Two.

TWO!

Who gets two flat tires at the same time?? Without FIRST running into a fire hydrant??

It wasn’t so much that MR. CAR CARE got a freak tire accident and noticed it exactly three hours before the concert that he was supposed to go to with Gina.

Or that he lived exactly three hours away.

It was all that PLUS he miraculously couldn’t get a replacement car…of the ten at his usually always disposal.

SERIOUSLY??

Gina asked him why he couldn’t change the tires himself, or why he couldn’t RENT a car from the rental car place, but he assured her that none of those options would work, even though he knew how to change a tire and he was really rich.

No matter how many ideas she gave him, he found a way to get out of seeing her.

It was fishy.

So fishy he could have SWAM to see her. Ha.

Gina and Greg got into a huge fight about it, of course, in which he said HOW IS THIS HIS FAULT?? STUPID TIRES!

Oh, and the shop where he got all his company cars was closed. At mid-day on a Friday.

It was no surprise that they had been fighting for awhile and Greg had been really distant lately. Not calling her back immediately, not visiting as much as usual, etc.

But if he hadn’t used the most OBVIOUSLY BOGUS excuse, maybe Gina wouldn’t have called him out.

(Not trying to give anyone ideas or anything, but if he had said he was having issues at work, or family issues or ANYTHING that wasn’t car-related, he could have bought some time.)

Because it was that excuse (and subsequent forcing Gina to scalp her extra concert ticket to a weirdo) that prompted her to pay him a little surprise visit. 

“Hi, I’m driving to see you…right now!” Gina said to him on the phone the next day.

“Wait..what?” he asked. “No, you can’t.”

“Oh, no? Why not??”

That’s when Greg admitted that he was not only cheating on her but he was now LIVING with someone else.

hahahahahahaha

WHAT!?!??! 

T…

F?????

“That’s really why I couldn’t come to town!” Greg said, not even appropriately sorry about it.

Then he went into a big thing about how it was his EX, and he just can’t let go and they’re "off and on" and were “trying it out.”

OMG.

Trying it out.

TRYING IT OUT!!!

WHO CAN LIVE WITH A GIRL AND HAVE AN EXCLUSIVE RELATIONSHIP WITH ANOTHER GIRL???

There’s nothing worse than hearing from your boyfriend that he’s living with someone else.

...Unless you’re in a NASCAR race and get two flat tires, I guess.

I, for one, would have blown a gasket.

Ha.

-Jenny

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

Someone told me recently that it’s easy to fall in love at the Christmas dinner table.

Well, unless I'm cooking. Can’t fall in love over coleslaw.

But under normal, fire-safe conditions, who DOESN’T fall in love over the hot, buttery mashed potatoes?

The slick turkey with the crispy skin?
The crunch of a pecan pie?

And the new sweaters and earrings family and friends don gay-ly on Christmas Day!!!?

Isn’t it just the BEST time to bring a new boyfriend to meet everyone???

Hahahahahahahahahahaha

How many movies have been based on this very scene?

It was exactly how the table was set for Patrick, the boyfriend of this girl Katie I know.

The family gathered around the table, the crazy half-drunk grandma, the rambunctious child, everyone talking all at once as the outsider boyfriend looks in on the dynamic for the first time.

It was all going to plan. 

Patrick indeed fell in love at the Christmas table.

…But not with Katie.

WITH HER STEPMOM.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, I'm serious.

(Ed note: You can’t take a guy anywhere!!!)
  
Patrick was a musician in his late 20s and had been dating Katie for a few months.

“He seemed like a huge douche but I only met him briefly,” Katie’s sister describes.
   
Katie’s family was blended, to say the least, and her dad was on his second marriage to a free-spirited woman who was 20 years younger than he was.

The exact same age as Katie, in fact.

Unbeknownst to anyone at the Christmas table, Patrick and Katie’s stepmom connected over dinner, slipping each other looks, fantasizing about each other as they passed the EFFING brussel sprouts.

…Because it only took ONE day for them to hook up.                        
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!                                                                        
Yes, before the Christmas dinner hangover could even go away, they were in each other’s arms.                                                           
WTF!?                                                                                                  
WERE THEY PLAYING FOOTSIE UNDER THE TABLE WHEN NO ONE WAS LOOKING???                                                              
DID THEY BRUSH HANDS WHEN POURING MORE WINE??

Katie was trying to remember if they had gone to the bathroom at the same time.

How mortifying!!!                                                                                
Of ALL the fish in the sea…
YOUR GIRLFRIEND’S STEPMOM?!??                                            
Aren’t some people just off-limits???

Patrick was, uh, non-confrontational about the whole thing. In that he disappeared from Katie’s life completely after that dinner.

He couldn't even find the balls to tell her! 

Her stepmom told her dad about the affair, and then the FAMILY members had to break the news to Katie.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Imagine hearing this from your dad!!!

Unbelieveable.

As if it couldn’t get any worse, the stepmom moved out of the house, and into an apartment down the street…WITH PATRICK.

OMG.
THEY MOVED IN TOGETHER.
AFTER ONE CHRISTMAS DINNER.

Cue the Ho, Ho, Ho!

VOM. 
VOM all the pecan pie!!

This is absolutely not the spirit of Christmas, ya’ll.

Shocker – Patrick and the stepmom broke up after a year of dating/living together.

Who knows where Patrick is now, or if he’s falling in love with other inappropriate women this holiday season.

The chick playing Mary in the living nativity????

The Sugarplum Fairy?????

Mrs. CLAUS?!!?!?

GAW

Hoe.

-Jenny

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

There’s nothing wrong with a guy asking his girlfriend to help him move into a new apartment, but Larry did it all wrong.

In fact, he did everything all wrong.

First of all, he eleventh-hour IGNORED the fact that he and my friend Alessi had been discussing moving in together

Haha

He and Alessi dated for a year and talked about moving in together when his lease was up. 

They talked about where they’d live, what the future would hold, what part of town would be the best for BOTH of their jobs, when BOOM.

Hey babe, I just signed a lease on a one-bedroom townhouse. They don’t allow dogs.”

Larry didn’t own a dog. 

Guess who did.

Second of all, Larry had asked Alessi’s friend to help him move, her FEMALE friend (hahahahaha)

He reached out to her on his own, directly asking her without even bothering to go through Alessi.

WTF!?!

That’s just bad protocol.

It was especially confusing because both Alessi and her friend were of the girly-girl variety, the type that would be perfect at packing boxes and wiping down counters. 

Why would he need TWO of that kind of moving help? 

Ha

They soon found out. 

Because THIRD of all, THEY WERE THE ONLY MOVING CREW.

Oh yes, when Alessi and her friend arrived on moving day, with their headbands and pink sneakers, there was no one else there.

NO ONE!!!

WTF??? Alessi asked.

“I didn’t want to piss my friends off,” Larry said.

??????

!!!!!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHA

But pissing off Alessi's friend is OK!!!!

Nevermind that Alessi was already pissed off that this was supposed to have been a joint move-in together, now she and HER friend were assigned impossibly hard tasks like moving couches and taking large TVs off walls.

“I was like, um, ‘do you KNOW me?” Alessi recalls.

It makes me laugh just picturing it.

“Oh my God it was SO hot, too,” Alessi said. “I almost died.”

They finally moved him into his new one-bedroom, no-dogs-allowed apartment, even though it took all day and there were numerous pissy fights between them all.

When I pressed her on Really? Seriously? He didn't have ANY friends he could have asked?, Alessi admitted that Larry didn’t have that many guy friends.  

And when she and Larry broke up a month later, I found out why.

Because he had GIRLFRIENDS, not guy friends.

Yes, FOURTH OF ALL, the genius that is Larry came to Alessi’s apartment one day to use the internet (“mine’s not hooked up yet”), and left his Gmail account signed in on her computer with ALL KINDS of shady emails from various dating sites.

VOM.

“So-and-so is checking you out!” wrote the enthusiastic OKCupid message.
“Blah blah blah WINK” wrote one from match.com.

Alessi scrolled down in horror to see email after email after email.

ASHLEY MADISON!!!!???!!!

(You know, the site where MEN CAN HAVE DISCREET AFFARIS.)

!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!

No wonder he didn’t have any guy friends! This guy was a total creep!!!

His response?

“Oh, babe, that’s from waaay long ago, before we started dating! I signed up for those YEARS ago!!”

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha

Ok, Stupid.

They broke up immediately, and Alessi thankfully MOVED on out of his life after that.

Her friends were happy to help.


-Jenny

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

You know that phrase “In it to win it???”

Well apparently this guy Greg wasn’t in his upcoming marriage to win my friend Brandi.

He was in it for the destination wedding vacation.

Which would have been sort of OK if, uh, Brandi had been there, too.

But in fact, Brandi was NOT in the Bahamas on the day and time of their wedding.

...Because Greg had picked a fight with her and demanded she give him the ring back two months earlier.

!!!!!!

Brandi and Greg both worked in finance, dated for three years and even bought a house together leading up to their destination wedding. 

In the Bahamas.

Brandi said everything was great with them when one day, OUT OF NOWHERE, Greg escalated a teeny tiny fight to the point that he asked for the ring back.

The fight was dumb. He wanted her to come watch a football game at his parents’ house and she said she’d rather unpack their new home.

And because it’s totally unreasonable to want to unpack a new home, Greg freaked out and ended everything. 

Two months before their wedding.

Right.

I know it seems skeptical when someone asks why things didn’t work out and the response is “I don’t know,” but in this case, Brandi said she honestly doesn’t know why Greg decided to back out of their wedding. 

Or why he used that ridiculous fight as an excuse. They never fought!

Brandi had given him the ring back in the heat of the moment, only because she was sure he’d calm down and return to the house to talk it over. But he didn’t return, ever.

EVER!!!

FOR REAL!!!!

NO EXPLANATION!!!!!

WEEKS went by. Brandi called his phone – no answer. Texts went unanswered. Emails went unanswered. 

What a coward. 

(No word on if Brandi had contacted Greg's mother. That's what you normally do with babies.)

When Brandi realized that Greg was serious and not coming back, SHE (SHE!!! INSULT TO INJURY) had to announce to everyone that the wedding was not happening.

UGH. It was beyond embarrassing.

Oh, but not everyone was embarrassed.

In the midst of her despair, as Brandi scrambled to figure out what was going to happen with their house and the mortgage, she saw on Facebook that three couples had decided to go to the Bahamas for vacation anyway since they had already bought tickets and taken time off work.

Awesome.

You can’t blame them, I suppose, for taking a vacation that was already booked, (maybe, though, they could have hidden Brandi from viewing said pictures. A**holes, don’t invite them to your next wedding, Brandi), but she looked in HORROR at the backdrop of what would have been their perfect dream wedding when she saw Greg.

IN THE BAHAMAS!!!! 
THE DAY OF THEIR WEDDING!!!!

Smiling!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brandi rubbed her eyes and looked again. She must have been imagining. 

BUT NO. 

Greg went on their wedding vacation! With his friends!!! 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let’s all say it together: UGH.

OMG. All the pictures were of the three couples and Greg having a BALL.

Posing on the beach! Going on a hike! 

DRINKING PINA COLADAS!!!!

(No cold feet in 80 degree weather, apparently.) 

WTF?!????

How insensitive can you be??!?!? 

HE’S the one who ended it!!! And now HE gets to enjoy the white sandy beaches while Brandi’s alone, depressed???

It should be the other way around.

Who DOES THAT???

It was beyond mortifying.

Basically, Greg skipped out on their house, their relationship and their wedding with no explanation.

The vacation was the only thing he came through on! 

In it to WIN IT!

Now, if there was only something else IN his Piña Colada beside just rum and coconut…

-Jenny

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

First of all, thank you thank you thank you to everyone who reached out to me after my last post about moving back to South Carolina.

I had no idea how many of you had similar sentiments and life experiences in New Orleans and beyond, and it’s nice to know I’m not alone.

GROUP HUG!!!

Anyway.

I wouldn’t say I excel at etiquette (even though I do know how to properly hold my knife and fork when cutting meat in both the American and European way…JEEVES!!!)...but I have been trying to learn the polite way to leave town.

As in, I’ve…uh, told people.

Even before yesterday’s blog announcement, I told friends and family members in New Orleans about my decision, my KICKBALL captain, even emailed my South Carolina friends weeks ago asking them to keep their eyes peeled for jobs.

And if I had a boyfriend, I’d be sure to let him know, too.

See??
ETIQUETTE!!!

David, my friend Rebecca’s first love EVER in high school did not have that same courtesy.

Rebecca was a sophomore in high school and David was a senior, and he was a mother’s worst nightmare. He had tattoos and piercings and a drove a big van.

They dated for a few months and were absolutely in love and before his high school graduation they, uh, DID it. For the first time in her life!!!!

Big deal!!!!

Rebecca thought they’d have the best summer of their lives after that, playing in the South Carolina waters and David didn’t very well suggest anything otherwise.

They were in LOVE!

Yet, on a random sunny Thursday, Rebecca went to their mutual friend’s house, where they always gathered. David was not there. Their mutual friends were fidgety.

Something was going on.

“I asked where David was, and my friends couldn't look me in the eye,” Rebecca recalls. “I forced them to tell me and one said, ‘David’s packing.’”

PACKING???

PACKING FOR WHAT???

Better be for a damn picnic!

“He's…moving to California,” the friend said.

!!!!!!!!!!!!

MOVING???

CALIFORNIA??!!

Across the entire country???

!!!!!!!!!

Then it hit her: “Mother f*cker wasn't even going to say goodbye.”

Rebecca was part heartbroken, part FURIOUS with hearing this news - THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE BEST SUMMER OF THEIR LIVES!!!! THE GUY SHE GAVE IT UP TO!– and she wasn’t going to take this news lying down (pun?)

So she bullied one of their friends to drive her around town and track him down.

And here’s where the movie scene begins: 

“The look on his face when I pulled into his driveway and caught him throwing his bags inside the van,” she said.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

“What are you doing?? You’re going to CALIFORNIA??” Rebecca yelled.

“Yea. You KNOW I hate it here,” he said.

Ugh.

Rebecca then asked him why he was going to just leave without saying goodbye.

“Because…I don’t like goodbyes,” he said.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

WHO DOES???!!!

(He should have worn a nametag that said Hello, my name is selfish.)

Rebecca cried and stamped her feet and didn’t understand ANY of it, but David still left, driving away into the sunset, in the least romantic way ever.

Could this get any worse???!!?

Ha. Yes.

(A “hilarious detail,” as Rebecca describes.)

Once she sniffled her way back to their friend’s house, they were all trying to make her feel better, calling David an idiot.

“I mean, did you even SEE his ass tattoo?” one said.

ASS TATTOO??

They only did it in the dark!!!

No…Rebecca said.

Then they showed her a picture. This dude had the word "white" tatted on one ASS cheek and "trash" on the other.

OMG.

For real.

White trash. On the ass.

And THAT...is the opposite of etiquette.

-Jenny

Monday, December 2, 2013

Welp, I don’t live in New Orleans anymore

What a dramatic headline!!

And not entirely true. I am still living in New Orleans. For 19 more days.

And then I’m moving back to South Carolina, where life made sense.

Even more dramatic!!

But, yes, in all seriousness, after three years of living in New Orleans where I grew up, I am moving back to the only other place I’ve ever lived, near the beach.

It’s not just the beach that’s drawing me back. It’s my twin sister, Joy, whom I’ve missed living with terribly; it’s a new job that I accepted up there, and the job that kicked me to the curb here.

And while everyone always posts on Facebook how wonderful New Orleans is – and I don’t disagree, New Orleans is wonderful, especially between the months of October and May with football season, Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest – for me, living here has been a struggle.

Not a struggle everyday, but pretty consistently.

It’s been a struggle to find a satisfying job, a struggle to find a satisfying relationship. A struggle to be happy.
A struggle to stay sober.

Ha.

I’ll go into it more in future blog posts, because living in New Orleans has certainly shaped me, but I just needed this stream of consciousness because leaving is all that’s on my mind.

I am going to miss the city and all of the wonderful characters and celebrations, how everything and everyone is so full of life. How there's always something to do and how it’s impossible to embarrass yourself in public.

I even walked with my friend down Bourbon Street yesterday (the crappy part even!!) and found it incredibly beautiful.

I’m especially going to miss my parents, the wonderful friends I’ve made and the old friends I’ve reconnected with. The friends who lifted me up when I was truly down, the friends who taught me how to live, the friends who taught me about true friendship (cue music).

New Orleans is an incredibly small city, no matter how many new people move to town.  There’s no place like it in the world. I know this. I’m lucky to have been raised here, lucky to have lived here for the past few years. 

I used to write in this blog about how much I missed it, and now I’m packing up and leaving.  

I’ll be back, of course: She is a New Orleans girl, and New Orleans girls never live anywhere else and even if they do, they always come back. That's just the way it is. This is where she belongs. End of discussion.” – Chris Rose.

But right now is not the right time for me and this city. I've been a curmudgeon; I've blamed New Orleans for all my setbacks and that's not fair.  

And as they say here, be nice or leave.

I’ve accepted a job in South Carolina as an associate editor of a magazine (ahhh!!!) and I start at the beginning of 2014.

A new leaf, ya’ll!!!

Even the universe is on my side.

In early October, right around the time I said for real I was moving back to South Carolina, I got my tarot cards read in the French Quarter for my roommate’s birthday.

The reader guy said to pick a deck of cards that most appealed to me and shuffle them until I felt “good” about it. Then I was told to close my eyes and think about a question in which I was seeking an answer.

I didn’t say the question out loud, but I asked over and over in my head, “Is moving back to South Carolina a good decision? Is moving back to South Carolina a good decision?”

The cards were flipped one by one, and immediately the first card announced a big move in my life. Not “change” but “move.” My eyebrows raised.

And it was a good move! The universe’s blessing!

The man said I’d grow both spiritually and personally with this move but I had to tie up loose ends in my current state (haha inadvertent pun) and let go of the past in order to move forward.

It was incredibly inspiring.

And I'm listening to the cards. I’m letting go of the hard times in New Orleans, moving past feeling like a failure and looking at the city through a new lens (uh...a lens where Bourbon Street is beautiful, evidently. Haha).
  
I know I’ll be welcomed back with open arms by my parents, who will never leave the city, my wonderful NOLA friends and even the city itself, with its colorful artwork, year-long Mardi Gras bead-decorated trees, the food, the bars, the second lines, the music... my God, the music.

But I am looking forward to New Year’s Day at the beach where people gather at the ocean and jump in for a “Polar Bear Plunge”– a shock of cold ocean water that envelopes your entire body.

For me, it will be a purge of the last three years, letting go of the past and all my Big Easy heartaches, starting a new chapter, emerging anew.

And I take solace in the fact that I’ll be back. And not just to visit.

We always come back. 

That’s just the way it is.
End of discussion.


-Jenny

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