Who's Who in Penny's World
I wanted to seem clever and whimsical in the ‘About Me’ section, which I thought would be best achieved if I sat down one night after being out for a few hours. But I got too drunk and went to bed instead. I guess that says a lot about me.
Anyway, I’m writing this blog for relatively selfish reasons. Sometime after college graduation, I lost the ability to write. Maybe because my job consists of very little written communication beyond e-mail, and my typical e-mail is sent to Asians who don’t speak English and rarely contain more than a few words void of punctuation and proper grammar. I’m not sure. But I do know that not too long ago, I realized that I missed it. So I started writing every once in a while – on the subway, before bed at night, when I should be writing emails for work. And it was fun.
In particular, I started writing the hilarious, painful, ridiculous and more often than not, trivial stuff that happens to me and my friends. I thought, why not try and take this a step further? Why not try to learn something, to try and make some sense of it all? I’ve discovered that is nearly impossible. Instead, I’ve decided to try and look back at each week and come up with some sort of lesson that I should take with me on to the next one. And so my version of Life Lessons was born.
While I have no problem throwing myself out there, I often think how embarrassed my friends must be to be associated with me. Anyone that has become part of this has been asked to come up with an alias for themselves. As more people are put into the blog, I’ll make sure to add them here.
I go by Penny – my nickname from childhood. Not many people know this – if you do, keep your mouth shut.
Madonna is my roommate. We’ve been close friends since high school. When I asked her what she wanted her name to be in this blog, she answered without hesitation: ‘Madonna. When I was in kindergarten I was at a birthday party that had a magician. He called me up and asked me my name. I answered Madonna.’ So there you have it – one of my best friends, #1 Wingwoman and overall amazing person – Madonna she shall be.
Liberace is my close friend from college. We lived in the same dorm and I met him the first week of school. I heard he was talking smack about me going out one of the first nights of orientation and hitting on a thirty-two year old. While this was true, I felt that should be no one’s business but my own. So I tracked him down one day and yelled at him in the hallway of our dorm. He insisted it wasn’t him but his loud-mouthed, pathologically lying roommate. I still yelled. He started crying. I got uncomfortable. And our friendship was born. When I asked him what he wanted his name to be, he started crying, and I got uncomfortable, then he responded: ‘Let’s go with Liberace: big white-guy afro, years of piano training, jazzy clothes, and though he thinks nobody can tell, everyone knows he’s as flaming as the candelabra on the mantle.’
Pickles and I have known each other for about a year now. She works with me and is one of the best people I know. I think we bonded over our shared disbelief that our office can run in any sort of efficient and productive manner. We have long discussions about feeling trapped in a game of make-believe, where a bunch of people run around playing business instead of dress-up. Often these discussions are held during happy hour, which more often than not, turns into happy late night adventures. She chose Pickles, a nickname she had in the past.
Westchester is another friend I’ve known since high school. I remember being slightly terrified by her when we first met – she seemed to know everyone and could kick my ass in any sport. I have never played an organized sport in my life, so while it wouldn’t be too hard for anyone to crush me, I still couldn’t help thinking this when I met her. Anyway, she didn’t want to pick a name for herself, so I’ve dubbed her Westchester, partly because she knows everyone within a five year range of our age that grew up in this county and partly because she still lives there.
Clueless is my work buddy. She started here before I did and took me under her wing. We quickly found out we had mutual friends, love of happy hour, and talking smack about people. When I told her about Life Lesson #5 and how she would now officially be brought into the public eye, she decided Clueless was a fitting nickname given the context of her debut. I think it's perfect.
H.F.T. stands for Hot for Teacher, aka, my friend from high school who now lives in the Upper East as well. I'm sure you can guess her occupation. Personally, I think she’s one of the hottest teachers. If I was one of her students, I would definitely have a crush on her. H.F.T. is also a good friend of Madonna’s. The three of us are kind of like the Axis of Evil. Depends on the circumstance I guess. If Westchester is in the mix, than we’d probably be more like En Vogue. Cuz we’re four funky divas.
Goose is a good friend from high school. While we didn’t really know each other then, we’ve grown close over the past few years since we finished college. I think one of the initial reasons we got along so well is the mutual first impressions we often project. People tend to think we’re pretty bitchy when they first meet us, but once they get to know us, they realize it’s totally a front. Goose picked her name long before her debut. It was a nickname an ex gave her. She used to go over to his apartment hammered and he dubbed her Goose for the massive amounts of Grey Goose sloshing around inside of her.
Mico and Flower, who recently moved into Manhattan, are two more gems from my younger days. They’re also friends with Madonna, Westchester and H.F.T. Mico has embraced her nickname from work. Flower has been derived from Delicate Flower, a name H.F.T. use to call her in high school. On the other hand, Madonna used to call her Ghetto Super Star. This is kind of funny, since I would have dubbed Mico as Ghetto Fabulous. Goes to show, people can perceive you in many, many ways.
The One (as in the only guy amongst the bunch of us girls, but I could be interpreting that incorrectly) is a good friend from back in the high school days. He went to our "brother school" up the block. While I think we bring out the best in each other, many others would disagree. Probably because we're making fun of them. To those people, The One would laugh and tell them to shut up. He once told me that I'm a good person who has made some bad decisions with my selection of men and that I should try not to get FUPA. I agree 100%.
Hansel (he’s so hot right now) came up with his name in about thirty seconds. Which makes me think he’s been waiting since Zoolander came out to be referred to as a male supermodel. Then I think a little more and I remember the line in which he says “Holy shit, Hansel, haven't you been smoking Peyote for six straight days, and couldn't some of this maybe be in your head?" and I realize; Hansel is kind of fitting. Regardless, Hansel is like my lobster. This is sort of ironic because sometimes, he wears a giant felt crab hat. Or another hat in the shape of a parrot. Or a giant American flag top hat. Anyway, he’s insane. Just like me. Maybe even a little more so. And thus, it works out perfectly.
Anyway, I’m writing this blog for relatively selfish reasons. Sometime after college graduation, I lost the ability to write. Maybe because my job consists of very little written communication beyond e-mail, and my typical e-mail is sent to Asians who don’t speak English and rarely contain more than a few words void of punctuation and proper grammar. I’m not sure. But I do know that not too long ago, I realized that I missed it. So I started writing every once in a while – on the subway, before bed at night, when I should be writing emails for work. And it was fun.
In particular, I started writing the hilarious, painful, ridiculous and more often than not, trivial stuff that happens to me and my friends. I thought, why not try and take this a step further? Why not try to learn something, to try and make some sense of it all? I’ve discovered that is nearly impossible. Instead, I’ve decided to try and look back at each week and come up with some sort of lesson that I should take with me on to the next one. And so my version of Life Lessons was born.
While I have no problem throwing myself out there, I often think how embarrassed my friends must be to be associated with me. Anyone that has become part of this has been asked to come up with an alias for themselves. As more people are put into the blog, I’ll make sure to add them here.
I go by Penny – my nickname from childhood. Not many people know this – if you do, keep your mouth shut.
Madonna is my roommate. We’ve been close friends since high school. When I asked her what she wanted her name to be in this blog, she answered without hesitation: ‘Madonna. When I was in kindergarten I was at a birthday party that had a magician. He called me up and asked me my name. I answered Madonna.’ So there you have it – one of my best friends, #1 Wingwoman and overall amazing person – Madonna she shall be.
Liberace is my close friend from college. We lived in the same dorm and I met him the first week of school. I heard he was talking smack about me going out one of the first nights of orientation and hitting on a thirty-two year old. While this was true, I felt that should be no one’s business but my own. So I tracked him down one day and yelled at him in the hallway of our dorm. He insisted it wasn’t him but his loud-mouthed, pathologically lying roommate. I still yelled. He started crying. I got uncomfortable. And our friendship was born. When I asked him what he wanted his name to be, he started crying, and I got uncomfortable, then he responded: ‘Let’s go with Liberace: big white-guy afro, years of piano training, jazzy clothes, and though he thinks nobody can tell, everyone knows he’s as flaming as the candelabra on the mantle.’
Pickles and I have known each other for about a year now. She works with me and is one of the best people I know. I think we bonded over our shared disbelief that our office can run in any sort of efficient and productive manner. We have long discussions about feeling trapped in a game of make-believe, where a bunch of people run around playing business instead of dress-up. Often these discussions are held during happy hour, which more often than not, turns into happy late night adventures. She chose Pickles, a nickname she had in the past.
Westchester is another friend I’ve known since high school. I remember being slightly terrified by her when we first met – she seemed to know everyone and could kick my ass in any sport. I have never played an organized sport in my life, so while it wouldn’t be too hard for anyone to crush me, I still couldn’t help thinking this when I met her. Anyway, she didn’t want to pick a name for herself, so I’ve dubbed her Westchester, partly because she knows everyone within a five year range of our age that grew up in this county and partly because she still lives there.
Clueless is my work buddy. She started here before I did and took me under her wing. We quickly found out we had mutual friends, love of happy hour, and talking smack about people. When I told her about Life Lesson #5 and how she would now officially be brought into the public eye, she decided Clueless was a fitting nickname given the context of her debut. I think it's perfect.
H.F.T. stands for Hot for Teacher, aka, my friend from high school who now lives in the Upper East as well. I'm sure you can guess her occupation. Personally, I think she’s one of the hottest teachers. If I was one of her students, I would definitely have a crush on her. H.F.T. is also a good friend of Madonna’s. The three of us are kind of like the Axis of Evil. Depends on the circumstance I guess. If Westchester is in the mix, than we’d probably be more like En Vogue. Cuz we’re four funky divas.
Goose is a good friend from high school. While we didn’t really know each other then, we’ve grown close over the past few years since we finished college. I think one of the initial reasons we got along so well is the mutual first impressions we often project. People tend to think we’re pretty bitchy when they first meet us, but once they get to know us, they realize it’s totally a front. Goose picked her name long before her debut. It was a nickname an ex gave her. She used to go over to his apartment hammered and he dubbed her Goose for the massive amounts of Grey Goose sloshing around inside of her.
Mico and Flower, who recently moved into Manhattan, are two more gems from my younger days. They’re also friends with Madonna, Westchester and H.F.T. Mico has embraced her nickname from work. Flower has been derived from Delicate Flower, a name H.F.T. use to call her in high school. On the other hand, Madonna used to call her Ghetto Super Star. This is kind of funny, since I would have dubbed Mico as Ghetto Fabulous. Goes to show, people can perceive you in many, many ways.
The One (as in the only guy amongst the bunch of us girls, but I could be interpreting that incorrectly) is a good friend from back in the high school days. He went to our "brother school" up the block. While I think we bring out the best in each other, many others would disagree. Probably because we're making fun of them. To those people, The One would laugh and tell them to shut up. He once told me that I'm a good person who has made some bad decisions with my selection of men and that I should try not to get FUPA. I agree 100%.
Hansel (he’s so hot right now) came up with his name in about thirty seconds. Which makes me think he’s been waiting since Zoolander came out to be referred to as a male supermodel. Then I think a little more and I remember the line in which he says “Holy shit, Hansel, haven't you been smoking Peyote for six straight days, and couldn't some of this maybe be in your head?" and I realize; Hansel is kind of fitting. Regardless, Hansel is like my lobster. This is sort of ironic because sometimes, he wears a giant felt crab hat. Or another hat in the shape of a parrot. Or a giant American flag top hat. Anyway, he’s insane. Just like me. Maybe even a little more so. And thus, it works out perfectly.
posted by Penny at 11:07 AM
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