Life Lesson #16: I’m so totally over being stupid, mean and/or illegal. Ahem…well…at least illegal. I will never, however, be over the Bangles.

On Saturday evening, Madonna, Mico, Flower and I went to a bar to get drunk and dance to live music. Once the all-female group started belting out Johnny-Walker-and-menthol-cigarette-coated versions of Walk Away and Walk Like an Egyptian, we immediately formed our own chick band that will kick any other girl band’s ass.

Madonna, the only one who can actually sing, and widely known for her great hair, was promptly given vocals. Flower, who fears her lack of cleavage might be a detriment to the group but with seriously envious arm muscles, decided to take on the drums. Mico, who can’t really play any instruments but is the hottest dancer this side of Central Park, was bestowed the job of the tambourine shaker.

I, with some past violin experience and a mean side step, took on lead guitar. I also taught myself how to play Heal the World on a mini Casio keyboard when I was ten, so I figure I can hit a button or two to make those crazy synthesizer noises, if need be.

And although she doesn’t know it, Westchester was given the cameo for any song that required an instrument we didn’t have covered. Such as Don’t Fear the Reaper. She would provide the necessary cow bell.

We each spent the remainder of the night bringing our own unique brand of drunk to the table and danced like nobody was watching. Partly because it was fun; but mostly because we really don’t give a damn what other people think of us.

Which I realize, is truly refreshing.

I think it’s safe to say that most of us, when young, spent every waking moment caring about any single thought others might have of us.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we spent a hell of a lot of time trying to seem smart and hot and cool. We pulled the craziest stunts to earn our place in the world. Most of us thought the consequences, if any, were a small price to pay for being as close to the top of the social ladder as possible. Sure, we acted like we didn’t care what others thought of us, but just about everything we said or did was to prove how smart and hot and cool we were trying so hard to be.

I remember justifying serving detention if it meant rolling up my already obscenely short school skirt one more time, doing keg stands in ten degree weather in a playground off the Bronx River Parkway, taking boxes of plastic utensils and ‘forking’ people’s front lawns in the middle of the night, telling my parents I was going to see Selena for the third time that month when really, I was sneaking into bars with a fake New Jersey ID, and pushing (literally) an innocent girl’s car out of the school parking lot just to mess with her head.

Most of what we did was some form of stupid, mean and/or illegal.

Sure, I’ve got some great memories from my teenage years, and if I was forced to do it all over, there is very little I’d do differently. But my point is there isn’t enough money in the world to make me want to go back to that time again. Once was more than enough.

Because for me, I thought there was nothing worse than the feeling that I might get caught, that my parents would get a call one Friday night, only to be told that their daughter was found doing shots of Peach Schnapps in a dirty bar in the Bronx or reeking public damage via forks and half-filled Dixie cups on someone’s private property.

Seriously, do you remember the first time you really thought you were about to get in trouble? I mean the handcuffs, the call to your parents, the inevitable grounding that would last for months, on top of whatever Westchester County pulled out of its sleeve on your looming court date? All because you got wrapped up in a moment of trying to fit in with everyone around you.

It didn’t even make such a difference whether I really did get in trouble in the end. What really mattered was the countless times I thought, Oh fuck, I am so about to get caught. My mom is going to kick my ass. And every time that thought came into my head, I felt as if I was going to be violently ill with guilt and fear and the faintest knowledge of my own stupidity.

I’m pretty sure that’s how my little brother felt Wednesday night.

I got the phone call around midnight as I lay in a glorious hotel bed at the Sheraton Meadowlands. My company really knows how to do it up for out-of-office conferences.

I saw the number was from my parents’ house. And my heart stopped for a brief second.

My mom and dad were in London that week. My little brother was left home by himself, our parents safe in the knowledge that he’s a smart eighteen year old with a college acceptance letter in hand and a good head on his shoulders. They probably assumed the worst they’d come home to would be some crusty dishes in the sink and an overflowing hamper of dirty clothes. I, on the other hand, being younger, wiser, and privy to the past actions of his siblings before him, knew a house party would surely be underway at some point during the week. Because that’s what you do when you’re young, and hosting a party when your parents are out of town means you’re cool. And when I checked in on him earlier that day, he mentioned people might be over. So, like any good sister would do, I told him to call me if he needed anything.

I answered my phone quickly, assuming he either got sick, someone else got sick, someone got our dog sick, or someone broke something that was more than likely way too expensive for the combined group to replace.

“Hello?”

“Hello. Is this Penny?” a woman asked me.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Sergant Hibb with the White Plains Police Department.”

Oh fuck. So this is what it feels like to be a parent, to have responsibility beyond yourself and the dumb shit that you try to pull. Which in my brother’s case was a party on a Wednesday night that quickly got out of hand. The cops came, kids ran, and my brother must have thought that wasn’t such a bad idea either. So he peeled out of there to hide out in the nature preserve across from our house.

As I spent the next few hours trying to track my brother down, trying to get the cops out of my parent’s house and desperately trying to avoid involving said parental units, I had a few flashbacks to my own rebellious teen years. Weekends in Hartford at Dave Matthews concerts where getting kicked out of the hotel was only moments away, or hiding out in back alleys to avoid cop raids at dive bars. Not only am I pretty much responsible for every close call, every disaster, every bad night that I‘ve experienced; my parents have had to deal with it just as much as I have. And man, does that suck for them. I guess you sign yourself up for that when you decide to pop out a few little ones. But who ever expects their kids to be the ones bullying others around or inviting fifty random people over to play beer pong on the kitchen table?

I guess I never really understood that until Wednesday night.

Life Lesson #16: Even the sweetest time traveling machine couldn’t lure me back to the teen years. They were fun, but they were hard: on me, on my parents, and definitely on that girl whose car we moved. I think I spent too much time caring what everyone else would think of me – except my parents I guess.

For now, I’m just gonna shake my shoulders and play air guitar like the rock star I was born to be. In theory, I won’t get in any trouble for that. And no one else should get hurt.

Life Lesson #15: Taking in one more part of this hot world, chewing it up and sweating it back out.

I can often gauge how late I’m going to be for work based on what’s happening when I walk out of my apartment building.

If the guy who owns the laundromat next door is just loading up his van with the morning’s deliveries, I’m definitely beating my boss to work by a solid half-hour.

If the plumbers and handymen are drinking coffee and discussing the day’s jobs outside of Culligan’s, their trucks double-parked and engines running, I’m probably going to be twenty minutes early.

If a whole bunch of kids are loitering outside the deli two blocks down, then I should be a good ten minutes ahead of schedule. But if it’s just a few of those kids, destined for a life of minimum wage jobs because they’ve decided that hanging out on First Avenue is sooo much cooler than getting their punk-asses to class, then I could be anywhere up to twenty minutes late.

And when I pass the ladies of leisure wearing spandex while pushing their baby carriages into Starbucks, I should probably get my lazy self a cab.

This morning, I beat all the usual suspects as I dragged my still sleeping body into the barely waking world at five minutes past six. Because, after a holiday weekend that included what I can only estimate to be a dozen or so magnums of wine, several Cadbury eggs and a kilo of ricotta pie, I knew I had to jump start a week of what I plan to be some serious gym workouts and maximum salad intake.

And what better way for me to rid the self of nauseating amounts of alcohol, chocolate and cheese than by twisting it into obscene poses while sweating for an hour and a half in a room set to over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit at 6:20 in the morning?

Apparently, I can’t come up with a better alternative either.

My new obsession with hot yoga started a few weeks ago. A coworker’s recurring praise of the benefits and my need to drop a few of those winter pounds before tank top season is in full swing were enough to persuade me.

Let me tell you: embracing the ‘hot’ in hot yoga takes some serious mind over matter work. Unless you’ve actually been insane enough to participate in this bizarre form of self torture, you have no clue how freakin’ blazing 105 degrees really is. I feel beads of perspiration form on my arms only seconds after entering the room. The first drop of sweat falls from my forehead to the floor before I even get my mat rolled out below me. The only reason I don’t feel like a total out-of-shape mess is that whoever is already there, usually sprawled out on the floor waiting for class to begin, has already formed their own wading pool, regardless of how toned they are or how long they’ve been doing this.

My first class included a three minute dizzy spell in which I couldn’t see my hands stretched out in front of me as I stuck my ass high in the air for the revered ‘downward dog’ pose. By class two, I think I suffered a slight case of dehydration.

Because I’m a complete lunatic and glutton for self punishment, this was enough to make me hooked. Extreme heat – I can take you on any day.

I was completely sold by class three when I was able to glide effortlessly into a split, something I haven’t been able to do without some serious stretch work since I used to dance.

This is another part of the whole hot yoga thing that has sucked me in. The practice itself, when done over time, is believed to increase muscle flexibility and limberness. It’s a nice balance to a normal gym work out that often shortens the muscle fibers and can make the body way too tight. I’ve always been a fan of being able to touch my toes, as I’m sure a few people in my life have been as well.

And so, much like every other time I find a new interest, I made the decision to go balls to the wall. I’ve done this with a few other self-proclaimed hobbies. Kickboxing. Makeup art lessons. Tanning. Spinning classes. Volunteering. Note that most of these are dropped in a few months; maybe to be picked up again after a small (i.e. many more months) retreat.

Of course, hot yoga will be different. I plan on doing this, like, forever.

So last week, I bought an unlimited package at a studio close to my apartment. I went almost every day. Even on Wednesday, when I was dead tired from getting home at about 3 am from a night of unnecessary barhopping. I even hit the treadmill a few times to give my body a double whammy of pain. By Friday, I was feeling as if I was on the track to physical Zen.

By Sunday evening, I was having a bit of a panic attack. After my binge with the family over the weekend, which included little physical activity beyond a brief stint at the driving range with my dad for no more than an hour, I was having a bit of difficulty breathing with my jeans on. Putting sweatpants on didn’t make shoving a bunny-shaped sugar cookie into my mouth any easier. And so I quickly looked up the schedule online and decided I would get into the next available class, no matter how early it was.

Which led me to stumble out the front door at this morning’s obscene hour.

I was slightly amused at the thought that this is the time I usually stumble into my building on the weekends. Although, I’m usually teetering on heels and trying to cover my inappropriately exposed chest so as to not scare the early Saturday risers.

Clearly, not many people like getting up earlier than what nature intends. There were only three other women in the class. One was passed out on her mat, snoring. The instructor had to cough loudly, a few times, to wake her up.

“I’m so delighted you have all taken the time to start this week’s journey with me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and bit my lip.

Because while I have no problem embracing the hot and take on the challenge of getting my leg to wrap around my head with delight, the whole ‘yogi’ mentality is a test I just don’t think I’ll ever be ready for.

I had an instructor tell me to take the sounds of the sirens screeching outside, hug them in, and throw them back out into the world as a hum. Seriously? I had to laugh out loud at that one.

A woman next to me farted while adjusting herself into a lunge last week. I looked around for someone to share the humor in the situation with, but all I got was averted eyes. I was heartbroken.

“Let’s start today with an intention. Whatever it may be for. For you, for me, for the whole wide world. Each of us. Let’s start today with a beautiful intention.”

Um, okay.

Life Lesson #15: There is only so much I can expect to get out of something. And while I may not be able to get the full experience the woman chanting next to me is (or, what I’m guessing, she’s pretending to get while she’s smirking on the inside, just like me) that doesn’t make it any less fulfilling.

I won’t ever be able to say ohm with a man wearing short shorts without holding back laughter. And I’m pretty confident I can’t spend an entire class laying in child’s pose if that’s what my beautiful body is telling me it needs. But hey, I’ll save that for the next hobby I decide to embrace.

Life Lesson #14: I don't want to have your baby. I really don't want to eat an apple with you. That's sexual harassment, and I DON'T have to take it!

I hate Monday mornings just as much as the next person. The inability to sleep soundly, probably a result of not going to bed until ungodly hours on Friday and Saturday nights, is inevitable by Sunday evening. It doesn’t help that I usually lay in bed thinking about all the emails waiting for me and the blinking red light on my phone that screams to listen to the unheard messages. It’s really miserable. I’m getting agita right now just thinking about it.

So as dorky as it is, I’ve taken to checking my work email before the weekend is over. I know. Totally masochistic. But I’m the type of person who prefers deleting the buttload of Viagra spam hits and unnecessary work chatter that I’m cc’d on before getting to the office the next day. This way, I have a more reasonable number of emails to plow through first thing in the morning, which, in turn, helps me sleep better at night.

A big part of why my email load is heaviest before 9 am is because my job requires me to have correspondence with representatives from factories overseas, particularly in Asia. These women (for the most part) tend to work on Saturdays as well, so I get the double whammy of two days missed rather than none.

It’s an odd way to work when you think about it. If you communicate with someone every single day in order to perform your job, you’ve most likely met them face-to-face at some point. I, on the other hand, have not met most of these women. We email constantly and I get many a frantic cell phone call at night asking me to approve a sample or confirm a price so they can begin their day (which has happened many times when I’m out, a few vodka sodas in, making for a rather hilarious exchange), but I’ve never had the opportunity to shake their hands or take them out to lunch.

And so, to make up for never actually meeting each other, my New York coworkers and I have fostered what I can only call somewhat bizarre relationships with these people overseas as a way to make it more personal. The usual hope your day has gone well, thank you for your help, and enjoy your weekend lines have given way to much more intimate conversations. Coupled with the atrocious grammar and language barriers, it can sometimes take a few read-throughs to get the jist of things. A smattering of some of my favorite:

Guess, my son is going to make cookies for selling. I think he will be a businessman in future. In fact, I went shopping by myself tonight… but I told my son/husband I worked overtime... then no body won't stop me to buy clothes… Ha... Enjoy your dinner. Single life is good, no one to bother you! Please confirm the potential order ASAP.

Life is alike this way.. busy and busy! But we need to adjust ourself to suit this life! Ha..... thanks for giving me a chance for shopping and sourcing goods for you! I will try my best to offer something for you! Thanks for asking my health.. My leg is much better... I think it will be recover all this week. My son is an independent boy, he always gives me lot of time to do my own things. He can play / read/ write by himself. Ha.. because his mum is a lazy guy! Take care and have a good day!

I love baby so much , I am looking forward to having my own baby, but we still have so many things to prepare for him or her, the most important is strong body, I am starting to pay attention on it now :-)..., for example food, exercise, clothes. Well, I am also start to cook at our dormitory, but the first time is so terrible! Ha ha...I want to cook rice, but I put in so much water!

My weekend is fine, Saturday evening we also take part in dinner: a colleague's wedding, there always many interesting games during the wedding, for example, to eat a apple (or other fruit) together, but another people will control the fruit through a line, then when the couples want to eat the fruit, then kiss together :-)....and bride take a fresh egg to go through bridegroom's underclothes, you must be very careful since the egg is FRESH, which is very easy to break...

Clueless, Pickles and I often refer to these emails as Gems from our crazy pen pals and will forward each other the stuff we find particularly amusing, or downright confusing.

Personally, I like saying I have pen pals. Who else my age, besides people in similar industries, can say they have a pen pal? It’s just so retro. And I get to learn some really wacky traditions about making babies and cookies.

It might also have something to do with a grammar school pen pal incident that I sadly recall.

In second grade, we were assigned a pen pal by our teacher. I remember being mystified by the magical land of Mount Vernon that Natalie wrote about. She told me of public transportation routes to her school and a shopping mall nearby where you walked outside to get to the stores. I pictured rolling hills that I would only be able to reach by plane. I didn’t learn until a few years later, when on a trip into the city with my mom to see the Nutcracker at Lincoln Center, that Mount Vernon East was a stop on the New Haven line of the MetroNorth commuter railroad.

“Mom, is Mount Vernon East the same as Mount Vernon where Natalie is from?” I asked her in total confusion.

“Who is Natalie?” she asked.

“My pen pal, Natalie. She was from Mount Vernon, but I don’t think that one,” I confidently stated.

“Oh no, Penny, it was definitely that Mount Vernon,” she said.

Well, let me tell you. That was a disappointing day. I decided at that moment that I would never write her again. Up until that point in my innocent life, I thought pen pals were supposed to be from exotic and faraway places, not a city I could get to in twenty minutes by train! We might as well be real friends for crying out loud!

Alas, much like many of my now real pen pals a good eight thousand miles away, Natalie and I never met (although I would bet I’ve taken a Bee Line that she’s been on or perhaps even watched the same film a few rows away at the movie theater in Cross County Shopping Center).

Which brings me to Sunday night.

With my favorite sweatshirt on and cup of decaf tea in hand, I curled up in my desk chair to ease some of my Monday morning madness. I skimmed a few missed emails I must have received after my Friday afternoon bee-line to the elevators. I deleted a few others from Flossie Bright, Madrake G. Mexico and Foxyfrm Behinds.

After a few minutes, I noticed an email from one of the few men I work with overseas. He is actually a head manager for a factory that supplies certain products for one of my divisions. I used to have a rep assigned to my accounts, but she left to pass fruit to married couples or something, and I was never assigned to someone new. So instead, Jeremy has helped me out for the past few months with my orders.

Being much of what his factory makes is seasonal, I haven’t had the opportunity to send him new orders in a bit. Seeing his name in the FROM line, I guessed he was writing to see if anything was in the pipe line.

I think I was wrong.

Sent: Sun 4/9/2006 10:07 PM
To:
Subject: RE: have a good weekend
Hi,
Have a good weekend! We don't receive you email long time. How are you? I am very miss you. I have a request, Is OK? Can I know you? Send me your picture. I know this is liberty. I am a boy. I am verey happy that have a foreign friend.
-Jeremy

I immediately jumped out of my seat and ran to the living room.

“Seriously, I need you to read something RIGHT NOW. I have a feeling a line has just been crossed,” I told Madonna.

“Oh no, what is it?’ she asked. She followed me back into my room and read the email.

“What the? Wait, who is this?” she asked.

“Some guy I work with overseas! He’s like a manger or something and I work with him on some of my orders. Wait. Can you please tell me what you think of this?” I yelled.

“This is so inappropriate! Holy shit, what are you going to do?” she asked.

Honestly, I’m still not sure. I mean, maybe I’m overreacting, but ‘very miss you’ and ‘send me your picture’ just don’t seem like appropriate work fodder. My female pen pals have never written such stuff! And I have much better relationships with these ladies. I don’t think Jeremy and I have ever gotten beyond the casual pleasantries of wishing each other a good day. And I’m pretty sure I once reamed him on the phone for missing a delivery date I really needed. Pen pals we are not, ‘foreign friends,’ most certainly not!

Life Lesson #14: Language barriers, poor grammar and weird customs aside, crossing the line is crossing the line, and Jeremy, not friend of mine, that is what you have done.

This morning, I came in and circulated the email around. Clueless suggested I try and make some money off of this by offering to make him my mail order groom of sorts – perhaps an exchange of money for citizenship. A salesman now feels weird after reading the email and wants to send him a picture of a really gross, old lady. Another woman in production has accused me of stealing all the potential international hunks. Pickles believes Jeremy is actually a twelve year old slave working in the factory who wants to have an American friend since they think we’re so cool.

You know, if Jeremy was really my friend, he’d know where he really went wrong.

At least write I am man. You don’t stand a chance in hell with I am boy.

Idiot.

Life Lesson #13: You’re great, really. I just have a lot on my mind lately. It’s not Two, and I’m not just saying that. Really. It’s Three.

I’m ending my unhealthy relationship with Three.

It all started back in my junior year of college.

I learned about the Law of Triads from my sociology professor in college. Initially, I couldn’t care less about what actually came out of this man’s mouth. He was unbelievably good looking, always cracked jokes on the annoying kids in class who felt the need to question everything he said, was extremely successful and admitted to having obsessive compulsive disorder.

I was in love.

But when it came time to write my term paper and I realized a ten-page piece on what I’d like to do to him behind closed doors (which I’ll have you know included little clothing and fanatical light switch flicking and/or hand washing) did not guarantee a passing grade, I started actually reading my class notes. And thus my intro to a seemingly boring theory was born.

Originally a law supported by chemistry (having to do with elements, usually grouped in threes, in which the atomic weight of one often equaled the other two), my professor took this rule and shed a sociological light on it.

Basically, he believed that this idea could apply to people and their relationships with one another. He supposed that when there are groups of three people, there is often a dominant individual that can sway at least one other person of the group, therefore creating an unbalanced alliance amongst two out of three. Or, when a third person is introduced into a relationship involving two people, disharmony can occur.

In gathering research for my class thesis, I started looking at my own life through trifocals. And Three looked quite attractive.

Growing up with an older and younger brother, I think one of us often felt like the other two were acting like complete assholes. Being six years younger than me, my younger brother probably got the brunt of this. When my older brother was too cool for us, the youngest and I would turn on him. And I remember during long car rides I was forced to sit in the middle (Girls have to sit in the middle! Shut up, your the one in the middle, so you have to sit in the middle too! Squash the piggie!), no matter how much I bitched and complained.

In elementary school, there was a revolving group of three (including myself) that would play outside together during recess. We would congregate daily by an old tree stump (ironically flanked by two large trees, if memory serves me correctly) that we would proclaim an oasis in the middle of Nevada, a deserted island in the Caribbean, a pirate’s ship, a haunted castle, or whatever the hell our crazy-ass childhood imaginations changed that rotting piece of wood into for our 45 minutes of freedom. And while that stump might represent a plethora of cool things on any given day, I remember feeling as if two people would always get the better roles associated with it - Owners of Stump, Rulers of Stumpland, Explores of The Stump – while the third person would be relinquished to the unwanted role – Stealer of Stump, Original Owner of Stump That Was About to be Snatched, Slave of Stump, anything along those lines really.

In college, I was good friends with two other girls. And while we got along well with each other for the most part, two of us would always talk about the other one behind her back. Face to face, we always agreed on clubs to go to, crappy television to watch on a Sunday afternoon, or which cafeteria to stuff our faces at. Take the one girl out of the mix though, and we’d talk about her for hours on end. I know it was wrong and eventually we weren’t friends with her anymore (notably over something that looking back on, I probably overreacted about but when you have someone else to bolster your opinion, it’s impossible to have distance), but that was the reality of the situation.

Ultimately, my hot professor thought Three was a number that should be acknowledged for his pervasiveness, his authority and his cunning ability to tear people apart. And he had convinced me of this as well. Three siblings. Love triangles. Ménage a trios. Third wheels. Three strikes. The Three Stooges. Three-fold Law of Return. Three’s Company. Three strikes. The three Kings (you know they talked about the guy that brought gold). Three wishes. Three-mile Island. The Tri-state Area . The Three Amigos. Those three monkeys that hate evil.

It’s all about the Three out there, and from that moment on, I was never able to look at my life without trying to make him a part of it.

Over time, though, my love for Three started turning into hate. I started seeing him everywhere, and I realized, more often in situations I didn’t like. Cases in point:

I’ll give you two minutes to talk to me in a bar – but if you haven’t said something witty or offered to buy me a drink by the third minute, just walk away.

I can watch a movie for two hours, but three, that just isn’t going to happen.

I can do two things at once at work. Add one more and I’ll screw them all up.

You can stay over my place two nights in a row, but by the third night, I’ll hate you.

I hate stools with three legs. High chairs, no problem. Stools? I’d rather stand.

I fear three-legged dogs.

And now, my most recent three-related dilemma.

I’ve been oh-so-quietly ‘seeing’ someone for about, well, I’m sure you can guess it, three months now. And I have the feeling it’s actually come to an end, and I didn’t even know it.

Now, did I do this subconsciously? I get the feeling that maybe I have. Because in the back of my mind, I believe that most relationships have a three month expiration date.

The first month, I’m in lust. The second, I’m in love.

But by the third, I get kind of scared bored. Because it’s at this point that I decide, okay, we’re going to have a go at this, like, for real, or I’m actually getting kind of scared bored, so I might as well finish this now.

And so Three has become a silent nemesis, waiting for his time to strike. He has successfully helped me to end my other relationships in roughly three months.

Life Lesson #13: I’ve got to end my relationship with Three. He’s terminating my ability to have a relationship for longer than three months. He’s creating a fear against animals that totally don’t deserve to be scared of just because they’re missing a limb. He’s making me choose to stand way more than necessary in bars when a perfectly good stool remains empty. And he’s making me miss what I hear are a lot of Oscar-worthy cinematic masterpieces.

So number Three, our love/hate relationship must come to an end. I love you, but you’re just tearing me apart. Or at least, forcing me to realize I have a giant fear of commitment and I’d much rather just blame you than face that. I swear, it's not you. It's me. But I'm telling you right now, we're over.