a girl, a house on the beach, and a one-way ticket...day 22

I woke up this morning with the grim suspicion that Naples may be getting to me, as in making me--if not exactly stupid--then at least slightly duller than usual. This suspicion was confirmed just moments later when I threw my car keys instead of my pajamas down the laundry shoot on my way out.

I blame my strenuous schedule.

9 am: Coffee on the veranda duhling with all of the other Neopolitans with strenuous schedules.
10 am: Sitting by the Gulf
11 am: Boating on the Gulf
12 pm: Swimming in the Gulf
2 pm: Sitting by the pool
3 pm: Reading by the pool
4 pm: Swimming in the pool
5 pm: Oprah (yes, by the pool)
6 pm: Reading by the pool
7 pm: Swimming in the pool
9 pm: Still swimming in the pool

So, I wondered...

Could it be that my new summer reading schedule, which consists of paging through other people's left behind, dog eared Vanity Fairs and Cosmos (please note here that I have been doing this not only by the pool but also whilst in the pool, as I'm aiming to be not a TOTAL slacker) is not quite as academically rigorous as, say, lecturing on Mamet?

Could it be that my current preoccupation with timing my strolls along the beach with the sunsets is not as mentally demanding or invigorating as, say, trying to OK ONE MORE TIME, PEOPLE explain that YOU DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, EXTENUATING (well, Aubry, look it up if you don't know what it means)OR OTHERWISE, USE "U," "BTW," "WINCYSIMGIS" (whatever that means) or any other textual shorthand in college English classes?

Could it be that coordinating my various bikini tops with my various bikini bottoms* does not provide the same quotidian calisthenics for the mind as, say, explaining the difference between "lie" and "lay?**"

Luckily for me--just as I thought my worst nightmare was coming true***--I came across a revelatory book entitled The Book of General Ignorance, which was fortuitously left behind at Starbucks this morning by a comparatively less ignorant person than myself (at the time). I've spent the majority of the afternoon reading it, and doing so has without a doubt constituted the greatest (and only) intellectual effort I have put forth thus far to not turn dumb while I am here.

And in one word, the book is fascinating...

1. The blue whale is 105 feet long, three times bigger than the biggest dinosaur, and weighs as much as 2,700 people. Its tongue weighs more than an elephant and its heart is bigger than the average family car.

2. A chicken can live up to two years without its head. There was a chicken in Colorado named Mike who did just that.

3. 45 billion people have been killed by a mosquito bite.

4. Not all frogs "ribbit." In Thailand they "ob ob," in Algeria they "gar gar," and in Bengali they "gangor gangor."

5. (Initially I read this one with much anticipation) If you happen to come face to face with a crocodile, your best best is a rubber band. While the downward force of its jaw closing is equivalent to the downward force of a truck falling off the side of a mountain, the upward force of its jaw opening is almost nil and can easily be contained by wrapping a rubber band around its mouth (Yeah, this is real helpful because I'm pretty sure your real trouble is over before it is time for the jaw to open).

6. Work kills three times more people on the planet every year than alcohol, drugs, and war combined. Phew...at least here's one I don't need to presently worry about.

7. 10% of your body weight is the bacteria that lives on you and in you (and they don't care about your carb intake or your P90X).

8. Gorillas sleep in nests.

9. Shrimp make the loudest natural sound by any individual animal on land or in the sea. Their sound, which is produced by the popping of the bubbles that form when they snap their claws, can white out a submarine's sonar and are waaaaay beyond the human threshold for pain. Also, when the bubbles pop, they do so so loudly that they also produce light in the rare phenomenon called sonoluminescence.

10. The largest living thing in the world is a mushroom. The largest recorded specimen of Armillaria ostoyae is in Oregon and covers 2,200 acres.


*In my defense: I am not nor ever was depressed. Multi-colored wardrobes are overrated, and now I know why. While mixing and matching bathing suit tops and bottoms is not traditionally an intellectually fruitful endeavor, over the weekend I did make an interesting connection hitherto unbeknown to me while doing exactly this: New Yorkers (present and former) and generally intense people everywhere (artists, nuns, etc.) wear all black or some shade of it to save their precious mental stores for more pressing tasks than trying to determine whether the canary yellow paisley in their bandeau top off sets nicely or sets off poorly the emerald thread in their bathing suit bottom. In other words, the variance found in the wardrobe palette of a particular demographic is directly proportional to how seriously it takes its work (or at least itself).

**Eh, on second thought…I’ll return to this come September.

***Contrary to what you may believe due to my previous posts on my fear of aliens, gorillas, raisins, and cantaloupes, waking up really, really dumb is actually my worst nightmare.

a girl, a house on the beach, and a one-way ticket...day sixteen

So last night I decided to write on the back porch because, well...on a good night, this is what writers do.

I was lost (as is usually the very unfortunate case)somewhere in the quagmire of Chapter 2 when I heard a branch break in the miniature everglade that is my back yard. Heh, a bird, I thought. It's just a bird. It's just a very fat bird. A very fat bird who landed on a very thin branch. I put my head down again, feeling rather proud for ignoring the distraction that would so obviously entice lesser writers (such as myself on any one of the other 364 days of the year) to stop writing in order to investigate.*

And then the rustling started.

Heh, I thought. It's probably a turtle. Yes, it's probably just a turtle. Or maybe a large frog. But then I wondered, do turtles rustle? Do turtles or frogs--even large ones--really rustle in the proper sense of the word? I put pen to paper again, but this time admittedly I was pondering the anatomy of frogs and turtles in attempt to determine whether rustling could be considered one of their feasible modi operandi.

And then...and then--I kid you not--the rustling turned into the sound of very distinct foot falls. Now, frogs have legs--we all know this--and presumably they have feet. But frogs jump. They do not walk. Hence "foot falls" can safely be eliminated. And turtles have feet of some sort, too--no one would deny this. But turtles' normal pace, it was clear to me in this moment, would also in fact impede them from making the distinct sound of foot falls.

As only a former Indian Princess and New Yorker** could do, I took a quick inventory of the remaining possibilities and none boded well: alligator, crocodile, panther, or serial killer.

I sat there frozen trying to match the sound of the very distinct foot falls with the possible predator for a good 10 minutes and then--I'm not proud to say--realized I'm her. I'm the girl who sits frozen on the back porch for a good 10 minutes playing Name That Predator while that predator lurks nearby waiting not to welcome me to the neighborhood with some lovely gift (say, perhaps a pie or a box of Girl Scout Cookies) but to POUNCE AND SHRED ME TO PIECES.

So, yeah...one minute I'm Earnest Hemingway and the next I'm the get-up-and-run!-run!-you-dumb-dumb-girl! in scary movies who sits frozen when she should be hightailing it out of there. Had I been shredded to pieces I would have fully deserved it.***

*investigation is only one of a thousand perfectly legitimate alternatives writers turn toward to in order to avoid writing. Others to which I can personally attest include day-tripping to discounted vitamin outlets, french braiding my shoelaces, and googling my middle-school boyfriends.

**Both Indian Princesses (that's Princess Raindrop to whomever is asking and yes, we were waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cooler than the Brownies (minus the cookie thing)) and New Yorkers are very skilled in, as Chief Thundercloud and Rudy Giuliani used to like to say, "Situational Awareness."

"Situational Awareness" exponentially reduces your chances of being eaten by a black bear should one sneak up on you while you are sleeping in a tent in one of your fellow Indian Princesses' backyards. It also exponentially reduces your chances in NYC of being kidnapped, robbed, or mowed down by a kidnapper, robber or tipsy hipster on a retro-cool Huffy--respectively.

***It is true that I survived last night's potential attack, but let me assure you that contrary to the popular notion that Naples is a tame, laid back place, other southwestern Florida perils exist.

The ones to which I can also personally attest include covert sprinkler systems with haphazard "OH LOOK I'M NAILING YOU NOW, LADY, REGARDLESS OF THE HOUR YOU JUST SPENT GETTING READY FOR YOUR DINNER DATE WHICH HAHHAHAHHAHHAHA YOU WILL NOW BE LATE FOR" timing, traffic cops with such a fierce propensity for issuing a ticket for something! anything! they make Cleveland feel like the autobahn, and large beetles that apparently have a thing for tallish blonds with long arms.

little fluffy dogs: a field guide to flexers, charmers, and ostensibly sensitive types part 2

I'm interrupting the flow of things today, by request, to continue my "Little Fluffy Dogs" series. The first post of the series, which addressed 25-year-old millionaires in Las Vegas, appeared on May 10. The girl (me) with a one way ticket and a house by the beach will resume as scheduled on Monday. Promise.

Charmers

Given the geography of Manhattan, would be charmers face two inherent challenges.

First, there are the streets.

The barely comprehensible alternative side street parking rules require New Yorkers to move their parked cars every other day from one side of the street to the other between the hours of 11 am and 1 pm, 1 pm and 3 pm, or 2 pm and 4 pm. The after school club "M.I.T, HERE WE COME," based in Des Moines, Iowa, has recently revealed that the Manhattan parking rules can be determined by the following mathematical equation: (xy+7)-23%+4(z)(Y)/pi.

Since double parking is illegal, common sense tells us that it is impossible for all of the cars on one side of the streets in Manhattan to move to the other side of the streets in Manhattan. The only viable alternative is the common one, and this is to not have a car in Manhattan. So (and here's where this is all going to come together for you), most would be charmers in Manhattan do not have a car,* which puts them at the distinct disadvantage of not having a car at their disposal to make some sort of charming statement regarding their economic status or prowess, sexual or otherwise.

What’s a would be charmer in Manhattan to do, then?

Enter the $23,000-$68,000 wristwatch. Admittedly, such a watch is somewhat effective while vying for the attention of the single Manhattan woman, who is (by virtue of her geographic location) well-versed in the intricacies and price points of Swiss-made time keeping pieces. In fact, a moderate percentage of Manhattan women at Ciprianis or One Oak will in fact be impressed--or at least intrigued enough to accept a drink--by the quick flash of a Patek Philippe from under the cuff of a well-made suit.

However, herein lies the second geographical challenge presented to would be charmers in New York (and I came up with this one all on my own, thank you very much "M.I.T, HERE WE COME"): at any given moment, the number of single women inside Ciprianis or One Oak is much less than the number of single women outside Ciprianis or One Oak and furthermore, interaction with single women outside Ciprianis or One Oak is dismally limited to short jaunts to and from the train** or to a brief, and highly unlikely encounter in the lobby of a shared apartment building.

In other words, Manhattan charmers have to be FAST in their display of resources and mating potential. From across the street, a Rolex tucked under a shirt sleeve or winter coat might as well be a Swatch, as it is all but invisible to the discerning eye of a New York woman.

A dog, however, is not.

And, in an unscientific poll of my male friends, little fluffy dogs seem to be the least invisible of all.

The sight of a man walking or perhaps cuddling in his arms a little, fluffy dog speaks to several things--all favorable-- regarding his potential date-ability in the mind of an unsuspecting woman (which you, by virtue of simply reading this thank goodness, no longer are).

From across Sixth Ave, the unsuspecting woman sees the would be charmer with a little fluffy dog and the poor thing thinks to herself

1. Now, this man must be responsible and capable of sustaining life in an organism more complicated than a potted bamboo stick.

2. And surely he must not prescribe to antiquated ideas of "masculinity," such as beer pong, twice weekly reunions with his old fraternity brothers at the Princeton Club, or any other vulgar behavior involving chest beating or declaring "me hungry."

3. And! And! He must be at least minimally employed, as dog food at those little corner delis IS NOT CHEAP (By the way, there is a marked difference between the ulterior motives of a dog walker and a man who walks a dog. The former doesn't have them, the latter does).

Take home lesson: the telltale sign of a man out to charm in New York is not a Ferrari; it's a puggle.***

*if a man does have a car in Manhattan, be careful: unless you can verify that he rents a $2500 per month spot in a parking garage, he is NOT at work between the hours of either 11 am and 1 pm or 1 pm or 3 pm or perhaps 2 pm and 4 pm every other day of the week, which should set off its own stadium wave of red flags in the clever woman's mind.

**Any kind of interaction with single women on the train is considered poor form (you say one word too many, pal, or stare one second too long and sorry, freak, you're a serial killer).

***Manhattan men, though many things, are not uninformed. They read the Science section of The New York Times on Tuesdays too, and science says that women decide within 11 seconds of seeing a man whether or not she is interested in mating with him.

PS and by the way--I've got two more words regarding would be charmers for any woman who has lived, presently lives or will live in Manhattan: Bud Fox.

On the surface Wall Street is a cautionary tale about greed not being good, and it is lost on none but the most dim of us that the real charmer on Wall Street to avoid is the wolfish Gordon Gekko, but I would like to posit that just below the surface is the more relevant lesson.

If you one) are female and two) reside in the city, there is at least a 95% chance that you have dated, are dating, or will date one version or another of Bud Fox—the less obvious predator of the two.

The reason? Well, while little girls across the country were watching Jem in the late 80s and dreaming of growing up to be a Hologram, little boys were watching Wall Street and dreaming of growing up to be Buddy Fox. If the last time you watched the movie was when you were 13 and bored, rent it again and lo and behold the dots of a constellation of strange coincidences you've noted, are noting, or will note, will be connected for you. Suddenly, the slicked back hair, the strange preoccupation with Persian rugs, the careful placement of The Art of War on the bedside table, the I-swear-baby-she's-just- my -interior -decorator line and even the Haagen Daaz in the fridge will all make sense.

And, ladies, while it's true that Buddy Fox ultimately reconstitutes his moral fiber by story's end, he’s STILL BROKE and HE'S STILL GOING TO JAIL. There are no happy endings here. I'm just saying.