In the dee-tales.

I’m currently sorting through my photos from last week to make a Costa Rican vacation extravaganza blog post, but in the meantime, I’ll tell you this:

A couple of months ago, a moderately drunk and/or mentally ill woman on the 3 train vehemently insisted that Puddy was “Mack” Dillon on Gunsmoke. 

Lady (to me): He’s gotta be Mack Dillon!

Me: I’m sorry, I don’t know who that is.

Lady: Fuck that, white people don’t watch Gunsmoke! Only black folks watch it. Mack is the man on Gunsmoke!

Me: Oh yes. OK, we’ll have to look him up on the computer.

Lady: Black folks watch Gunsmoke every night!

Me: Oh really? I didn’t know it was still airing.

Lady (yelling now): That’s because you ain’t got our channels!

Me: Oh.

Lady: Shut up! We got channel 19. Channel 21. You don’t know! Fuck you people, you don’t know!

Me: No, I don’t.

Lady: Shut the fuck up! Miss Kitty. She on there, too!

Me: Oh, OK. Yes, I’ve heard of her.

Lady: But you don’t KNOW her!

Me: No.

Lady: Shut up! And he (motioning to Puddy) Mack Dillon, big mighty boss. Black folks be watching Mack every night.

Me: OK.

Lady: We ain’t got your damn things and you ain’t got our damn things.

Me: I know.

(She had a point. I was slightly frightened but I enjoyed her passion. I felt safe because clearly I had The Sheriff with me. And it was, hands down, the most enlightening and profound exchange I’d ever had on a train.)

Lady: You people just ride around. Shut up!

It was our stop anyway, so we rose. She realized she was done with us and reached into her coat pocket for a nip of something from a silver flask. No goodbyes.

For the record, this is Matt (“Mack” to some people) Dillon.

James Arness as Matt Dillon

I don’t see a direct resemblence, but perhaps to our subway friend, all tall white men look alike.

Edited to add Mom’s Notes:

We’ve just received this from the Operations Office:

Security Alert

Please be advised that the NYPD has been responding today to more suspicious letters and packages at offices in Manhattan. The NYPD Shield unit has issued the following reminder to businesses and organizations across the city that have mailrooms to review mail handling procedures with your staff.

And remember IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING – Report Suspicious Activity to: 1-888-NYC-SAFE *

While it’s an important reminder to stay vigilant on this anniversary of the magnificent work of Seal Team 6, it goes without saying that no one has to tell me not to touch anything with “stains” on it. The packages are being sent under the auspices of Occupy, who happen to be holding a general strike today as a way to commemorate May Day. I’m hazy on this, because I was under the impression that everyone involved in protesting was already on strike. Also, doesn’t sending packages count as “working?”

Occupy needs Peggy at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce to design a campaign for them that would make sense to people who want to support them. Perhaps something with singing and dancing beans.

If you live in Manhattan and need a charity to which to donate your nice clothes, shoes, purses, homegoods, and other things you don’t want anymore, I highly recommend Angel Street Thrift Shop. If you have a decent amount, they’ll come to you. I had a more-than-decent amount. Ahem.

And that was The Second Wave of things.

I’ve been burned twice with the Salvation Army saying they were sending a truck on a certain Saturday. I’d wait around all day and they’d finally call at 3:00 and say, “Sorry, the truck is full, we’ll catch you next week.” It’s too much stuff to leave with my doorman, so I was being held hostage by The Stuff, and The Salvation Army. So Angel Street Thrift it is. It’s a good cause and the people couldn’t be any quicker or nicer, and quick is mostly the thing. When you’ve spent a few days cleaning shit out, it’s nice to not having 25 bags hanging around for weeks.

To answer a couple of questions about the photo:

1) No, that isn’t my whole apartment. That’s just the front hallway area. I would call it a foyer, except that would be misrepresentation. I don’t believe that a standard foyer would include the main (only) clothes closet and the main (only) bathroom, which this particular area happens to include.

2) Yes, I shop at Duane Reade a lot, and buy things that require them to give me big shopping bags. As I’ve mentioned, the DR across the street from me also has a grocery, so I do all of my food shopping there. Sometimes I bring my own bag, sometimes they have to give me these shopping bags and I save them for occasions such as this.

After all that Passport drama last week, Puddy called me yesterday and in his usual unaffected monotone said, “Babe, I lost my passport.”

WHA?? We leave this Saturday.

Surely he must be joking.

No, he wasn’t.

Immediately, I leapt into action, telling him where he would have to go (Miami) and what he would have to do, and he should try to get an appointment right away, blah blah blah.

I furiously planned and made lists for the next 30 minutes to solve the problem. Should he go to Miami and walk it through? Or come up to New York a day early and have it done here? What documentation would he need? What about one of those 24 hour places that charge $500 bucks? Would it be worth it?

I could hear the blood swishing through the tunnels in my brain. I felt to be on the verge of a stroke. Then he called me back.

“Hey, babe. Nevermind. It was in my truck,” again maddeningly monotone.

Does this guy ever lose his cool? He’d probably even touch stains without a second thought and go on with his day.

And now I present, Nieces at the Roller Rink:

When my sister asks little Cora to smile, she makes that face. I can’t stand it! And lookit those tiny rollerskates! Two years old on rollerskates!

Now I just need to hear “Sister Christian” by Night Ranger and something by Donna Summer and my day will be complete.

Old passport circa 1998. The Passport Interviewer asked me if I've had my nose done since then. No sir, I haven't. Even my nose was fat.

Puddy and I have never been on vacation together: A real vacation, I mean. A destination vacation that involves seeing no one we know, and having no obligations to attend events or to see friends and family.

Puddy mentioned that he wanted to take a vacation before he starts a new job here in New York and I was immediately on board. Being the researcher of our duo, I spent a week reading every damn review on Trip Advisor about every damn all-inclusive resort in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Neither of us wanted to go to a place where the reviews seemed sketchy or non-existent. Or to a place where the food and drinks aren’t tremendously raved about. We’re grown folks and we have jobs and neither of us has taken a vacation in a while. We deserve a bit of posh romance, besides the usual R&R. We want to be in the lap of luxury, not roughing it or camping or driving or anything that requires sharing showers or the gratuitous use of Purell. We don’t want to hear kids barking or screaming or crying or butting in front of us at the breakfast buffet and touching all of the bacon.

(One of the many benefits of not having kids is that you can vacation at places where you don’t have to be around kids. I know I sound like an asshole, but kids take a lot of the relaxing out of resorts. I grew up in Orlando and so did Puddy. We’ve witnessed way too many kids gone wild. We want to be sitting around at the Swim Up Bar (SWIM UP BARS, I LOVE YOU) and not hear yelling “Hey, watch me do a handstand!”, get splashed by cannonball contests, get bumped by noodles and floaties, or see their dumb kid handstands that are never straight anyhow. Or, my personal favorite, SEE A TURD in the pool that escaped from some clown’s diaper. I don’t want to wear my new monokini in a toilet. (The fact that I am writing this on Take-Your- smaller, more annoying version of yourself Kid-to-Work-Day is probably coloring my judgement about children just a wee bit.)

Another consideration for The Vacation was that it must be a place where neither of us has been before. Since we both lived practically half-a-lifetime before we met, it’s important to trek ground that’s brand new to the both of us, together.

So we’re going to Guanacaste, Costa Rica one week from tomorrow, and we’re counting down the hours and minutes.

The one thing that could have stopped us was the fact that my passport expired four years ago, and I never bothered to renew it, because I assumed I was passported out from a previous relationship. I never again wanted to sit on a 14 hour flight. PLUS The Passport was in my old, old last name and I’d have to submit documentation that the last name on the 1998 passport changed to another last name in 2002, and then was reversed back to my REAL last name in 2004. That documentation included marriage licenses and divorce judgements and waiting on hold with the Clerk of the Court of Orange County, Florida was just not something I ever felt like doing.

Obviously now having gone through the “interview” yesterday to renew The Passport and having to answer a lot of questions and provide certified copies of everything, I know now the real reason for my proscrastination: shame.

I’m ashamed that I was married twice and failed twice.

I’m ashamed to look at that old picture of the fat smiling girl and admit that it’s me.

That old Passport represents just the first time I changed my name to make a man happy. Goodman. The stamps inside represent failed relationships since 1998. I never travelled anywhere alone just because or took a mini-break with girlfriends. All of the trips colorfully stamped inside involved men who couldn’t give two shits about me. Most of all, The Passport reminds me that I wasted my twenties and almost all of my thirties without one tiny shred of self-awareness. I didn’t care about myself enough to take care of myself, emotionally or physically.

Posting that picture up there was me throwing my shame out to the world. You’ve seen it. I am laid bare. I am full of faults. I made bad decisions. I didn’t care about myself.

But. As of today, I have a brand new book. The Passport pages are stiff and smell like fresh ink and adhesives. I can’t wait to get stamped together with Puddy next week when we take ourselves to a brand new place. I can’t wait to begin this other part of my life: the one where things are right and good and I know who I am.

That’s my niece, Cora. She’s two and she adores anyone in a costume. She’s most thrilled by any of the Disney princesses or the person dressed up as a human-sized ice cream cone at Menchies, but she’ll take the Easter Bunny on a Florida spring afternoon.

Why is this day different from all other days?

Are all of these people who take time off on Good Friday really going to church to do the stations of the cross? Come on. And Passover is dinner. You need a whole day to get ready to eat dinner?

Well it’s OK with me, folks. Take the day off. Take it all off. It’s a delight to have a seat on the subway during the morning rush to do the Sudoku.

Puddy is flying in tonight for his last visit before he officially moves here in two weeks. We’re looking at apartments tomorrow morning owned by the same company as my current apartment building, so I can just transfer the lease, as long as it is an upgrade.

Yes, I’m going to move out of my current apartment because as big as it is for a loft-studio with the high ceilings and whatnot, Puddy is six and a half feet tall, with a wing span of even more than that. It’s perfect, spacious even, for just me. But with two people, one being a stand-in for NBA players, you have to think about bathroom size and big sofa spread-out areas.

Also, and this is a HUGE also, even though I’m on the ninth floor of my current building, I have never seen sun or sky from my one (ONE) window. This is not acceptable, especially for someone who has only lived in Florida and California and who has self-diagnosed Seasonal Affective Disorder.

The units in the building (the top contender) we’re looking at tomorrow all have WALLS of windows, floor to ceiling, and balconies and washer/dryers, and everything is brand new. It’s so luxurious to live in a place where there’s no one else’s DNA on things. And if someone’s DNA does get on something, you have your own washer/dryer to take care of it.

My current apartment is the first place I’ve ever lived that does not have a washing machine. So I do a lot of planning and sorting and bagging. And riding up and down to the 3rd floor. It was very hard to imagine that I could live like this at first (how do people LIVE like this?), but I’ve made it work.

The only thing about using a large apartment building laundry room that I couldn’t have predicted is that sometimes, when I’m folding my clothes, I will realize that a certain pair of underwear or cami or bra, IS NOT MINE!

Of course I check the machines before I put anything of mine in there. My hypothesis is that these foreign items hide in the rubber of the front loading washers during the spin cycle so their owners don’t see them. Then the interlopers make an appearance again during the wash cycle with my clothes and follow along into the dryers.

Seeing and touching a stranger’s underwear (it’s been only ladies items so far) is like peeking into the diary of someone with a lot of secrets, and they are secrets you certainly do not want to know. The experiences have inspired me to throw away any of my own underwear that are the least bit “worn” looking. Or might have a tiny tear or a string hanging off. I also will never (WILL NEVER) buy underwear that is that heather gray (like a sweatshirt) cotton material. They are off the list because of something I saw and can never unsee. And also, gray cotton underwear, even brand new, just isn’t that flattering or sexy on a lady.

This was supposed to be about how great the new Puddy/Me apartment is going to be. And how we love each other more than ever and how good and kind we are to each other. I’ve even planned two surprises for him this weekend, just because. (But truth be told, both are things I want to do, too.)

Bawk Bawk.

There’s this new female erotica craze among women my age who are obsessed with this book and they seem to be holding some sort of book club about it every time I go into the break-room to get hot water for tea. They’re acting like school girls about it, saying things like, “I told my husband to go out and run errands on his own because I HAD to stay home all day Saturday and read it.”

Really? The idea of me sending Puddy AWAY so I can read a book about people having sex on a perfectly fine Saturday afternoon is laughable.

Nothing against erotica, but don’t giggle about it at work or talk in hushed tones. Can you imagine how offended you’d be, ladies, if MEN were talking about such a thing in your office?

I’m normally a ridiculously prurient person, so I’m not sure where my disdain is coming from. I haven’t read it, so I can’t dismiss the writing as “bad writing.”

Why are women so crazy for these books and why does that bother me?

Maybe it’s because it reminds me of the people who lose their shit over Harry Potter or Twilight books. People, you do realize that there ARE other books?

Maybe it’s because I feel embarrassed for them because they’ve only just realized that erotica exists?

I guess why I hate this particular phenomenon will come to me… until then, probably don’t invite me to join your book club or mention the soundtrack and the NC-17 movies to me.

Have I mentioned I have depression?

I started seeing Dr. Katz last October to remedy this. I see him every two weeks and we talk about my moods and he checks boxes about how much anxiety I have or if I hate myself or if I feel hopeless. Things were going OK until about a month ago, when I had a massive epigastric pain radiating to my back which I now call The Attack, shortly after a Sunday brunch in Little Italy with Puddy.

I thought The Attack’s root cause might be because of a recent anti-depressant switch. Dr. GI believed I made an illusory correlation and that The Attack and the subsequent pain was not medication-related at all, but rather just because my body likes to make things, like stones to block my common bile duct even though I haven’t owned a gall bladder since the year 1998. (It was removed due to gallstones like so many marbles trying to push themselves through very tiny spaces after I ate a filet mignon one evening.)

The Little Italy Attack was the third such attack in four years. Again, here’s where I make my illusory correlation, and pointed to the fact that I had recently switched to prozac, like I had for the other two attacks. The first one was in 2008 (The Chicago Attack) and the second one (The Boston Attack) was in 2009. Both big city attacks involved a couple of drinks before dinner and BAM, I was doubled over. It hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe.

So Dr. GI said we’ll get an MRI and see what’s going on, since he was definitely sure it wasn’t the prozac causing the problems.

I’ve always been a DIYer, into crafts and making things. Why not push this creativity to my insides? I can make monster ovarian cysts with teeth and hair and bones like nobody’s business. I made one grapefruit-sized monster on my left ovary in the year two thousand. (When’s the last time you heard someone say, “in the year two thousand?”) Then in 2005, I took the show to the right ovary. It wasn’t out of my talent range to think that I had figured out how to make gallstones without a gall bladder.

Long MRI story omitted. Suffice it to say, I didn’t expect the jackhammer noise and the nuclear meltdown China Syndrome alarms. Even with the earplugs. This is technology? It felt like I was in an episode of the original Star Trek.

Anyway, the MRI showed that I hadn’t made anything to be trapped in my common bile duct between the liver and pancreas. Or that a giant tuma was growing anywhere, which was the other option.

I’m a low-achiever at heart, and it shows. All of this pain and The Big City Attacks and I’ve got nothing to show for it. I’ve made. Nothing!

Prognosis negative. No drinks before dinner OR brunch anymore or really any drinks before any kind of food. If an Attack happens again and you’re with me, just tell me to shut up and take me straight to the hospital, because that’s the only way they’re really going to figure out what’s going on. They have to “look at blood levels” during the actual pain episode.

Alas, I still have the depression to cling to. And another new medication to try.

I’m going to go get some more Mega Millions quick picks now.

My dad and my niece Cora sitting out on the porch of their new house enjoying the lake view. Also doing a commercial for Diet A&W Root Beer.

If you ever want to bring out my tough side, station me as store manager of my parent’s Estate Sale.

But first, sit next to me on Jet Blue JFK to MCO after a long day of work and accuse me of “using” your volume.

I always sit Aisle. I need to be able to get out and go to the restroom whenever I please and I don’t like waking people up or doing that “Pardon me” dance where people decide whether they want to stand up and let me out or stay sitting there and rub knees with me.

It was last Thursday, after work and a tedious subway slash Air Train ride. I sat down and plugged in my headphones to the armrest because The Real Housewives of somewhere was on and I just wanted to close my eyes and listen to their sweet insanity. Just when I was drifting off into a Bravo-induced coma, there was a sharp poke in my arm from the man sitting next to me.

“Hey, you plugged into my thing,” Middle Seat said loudly.

Now normally I would explain politely, “See here, kind sir, everyone’s headphone jacks and television controls are to the right, on the right armrest of their seats.”

But in this case, I barely opened my eyes enough to give him a withering glance and said, “No I didn’t.”

He responded with, “OK, well I’ll just plug into the other guy’s thing.”

The other guy, Window Seat, had not yet boarded.

“OK, fine,” I said and closed my eyes.

Window Seat showed up and me and Middle Seat had to get up for him and block the aisle for seven minutes while Window excrutiatingly transferred his life-junk from one bag to another bag and debated which bag he would need to have under the seat in front of him.

Once we were all seated again, I popped my earbuds back in and started changing channels to see what movie was playing for the flight.

It was “The Descenden—-

“HEY, you’re plugged into my volume! You’re turning up MY VOLUME!” Middle Seat was nearly yelling. At me.

“Number one, I’m not plugged into ANYTHING of yours. Number two, I AM CHANGING CHANNELS. Do you see your screen changing? No. Now how could I be changing my own channels and somehow affecting your volume??”

I think that was the Heineken Light I quickly downed at the gate talking.

Window Seat reached up to press the Flight Attendant Call button. For a moment, I thought he was going to report me and Middle Seat for our less than collegial behavior.

The Flight Attendant came over and looked suspiciously at me and Middle Seat. Window Seat piped up with, “I looked on my computer and there might be an “Even More Legroom” seat available for me up there because I have vertigo and need leg room.”

WHAT?

Even Middle Seat looked at him like he was nuts.

“I’ll check, sir, and let you know,” Flight Attendant responded, a lot nicer than I would be.

“OK, please. The vertigo is so bad.”

Middle Seat asked him, “How bad? Like you throw up?”

“Sometimes,” Window Seat said.

OH GOOD.

Long story shortened:

1. Window Seat never threw up because of his vertigo legroom situation. He did, however, purchase a Meat Lovers Snack Box and proceeded to assault everyone within 10 rows with a symphony of smells of processed meats and cheeses.

2. Middle Seat finally figured out how to watch his own television, and then proceeded to copy whatever I was watching. I turned to Animal Planet, he turned to Animal Planet. I turned to Project Runway Allstars, he turned to it. The entire flight, every time I changed my channel, two seconds later he’d change his and end up watching whatever I was watching. I even tried to shake him by just watching the digital travel map channel, but nay, that didn’t work either! He watched the map as long as I did! Middle Seat was out to terrorize me for the entire flight first with his accusations and then his tv station replications. I disembarked that plane with an all-new nemesis.

*

My mom and dad picked me up at the airport because Puddy was still working in Tampa and not going to be back in Orlando until the next day.

I love being with my mom and dad. I’m the oldest of four and rarely get them all to myself. They took me to their new house on the lake and I can’t explain how lovely it is. The entire next day, we worked to put the finishing touches on the estate sale at their old house across the street.

Everyone, including Puddy, was on hand for Saturday’s sale. I was the official unofficial Store Manager and Negotiator. Puddy wore a change apron and stood at the door as a Bouncer and Money Collector. Everyone else milled about in different rooms making sure there was no shoplifting, or near the end, perhaps encouraging shoplifting.

Anyway, every dime we made from the sale was going to my parents, so getting a deal from me was tough. People assumed effective leverage would be telling me that they were buying the clothes for the homeless or for a mental hospital. (I was told those stories and many more throughout the day in an attempt to soften my heart and give them a better deal.)

“I don’t care who you’re buying them for. I’m SELLING them for my parents and they are RETIRED!”

Even people in my family were scared of me. Maybe I was confidently tough because Puddy was there to back me up in case a rumble broke out.

It was madness, especially in the last hour on Saturday afternoon when my brother listed the entire contents of what was left in the “Free” section of Craiglist.

You would not believe the people who showed up to gather everything they could. Admittedly there were some moms there holding babies who could really use the new/like-new baby clothes and I was glad they got them. But other people who clearly weren’t needy and were just acting like animals. The way they were just indiscriminantly filling Contractor’s Cleanup bags full of household goods, clothes, and books, I knew most of that payload was on its way to Hoarders’ Homes.

Hey A&E, secretly follow people home from Free listings and Curb Alerts and I’m sure you’ll get a real taste of Hoarders. Especially in this part of Florida.

Everything on the news in Orlando was Trayvon Martin, whom I hadn’t heard about yet, and by the end of the weekend it was all over the national news. I grew up in Orlando and used to work in Sanford, and sadly I’m not surprised that something like that happened. What does surprise me, however, is that the Sanford police department seems to have their heads in the Sand(ford). We have a judge and jury system. Don’t make the call at the scene. Arrest him and then let the courts decide!

I adore The Olive Garden review lady. She writes to her audience. Let’s face it: there are a lot of different audiences between the Atlantic and the Pacific, especially in the Dakotas. I hope I’m still alive at 85, let alone writing restaurant reviews that get 300,000 hits. Cent anni, my good woman!

As much as I begrudge The Olive Garden, it is a big deal for very small towns to finally get their own taste of the chain. And I really only begrudge The OG in places where there are thousands of authentic and interesting one-off or mom-and-pop restaurants to choose from and people go to The OG because it’s familiar to them.

I admit that I used to be incessantly annoyed that people (well, Americans) believed they are eating “Italian” cuisine, now matter how much the decor resembles a Tuscan farmhouse.

A few years ago I worked with a group of gals I really liked. Most of them lived far out in the desert suburbs of Los Angeles, where there were no jobs, but where it was affordable for families to live and commute in to Burbank. It was strange to all of them that I lived right there in the middle of L.A., on my own and seemingly happy. Whenever we had conversations at lunch or at work parties, I always felt like an exotic creature being studied. Everyone wanted to know about My Life. Be it where I went at night, where I got my clothes or my haircuts, where I was going for the weekend, and what kind of men I was seeing. When I started seeing a man who lived in Europe, there was even more uncharted territory to fascinate them.

And let me just interrupt my story on the The OG’s Americanization of Cuisine by saying this:

I was only exotic because I was different from them.

Once a co-worker asked me if I had a personal shopper at Neiman’s. I didn’t even know that that meant. I did buy some (heavily discounted) clothes at interesting boutiques on Melrose and at movie thrift shops on Magnolia in Burbank. (The movie thrift shops would liquidate the costume departments of movies/tv shows and they would put a tag on the items indicating what movie/tv show it was from… i.e. here’s a wrap dress from “Frasier” or a pair of trousers from “Men in Black 2″ or a pair of boots from “Touched by an Angel.” Usually they were hardly worn and made by top-of-the-line designers. The unfortunate part was that they were also usually tailored exactly to whomever wore them, so sizes didn’t mean anything and I’d have to spend a whole Saturday afternoon trying things on.) Most of my other clothes I bought at Marshalls, TJMaxx, and Target. No Neiman’s. (I find even Neiman’s Last Call to be too pricey.) And definitely no Personal Shopper.

A couple of people thought I frequented a fancy salon, because I always had interesting haircuts and styles. But the truth was I got my haircut at a place I found the first week I lived in Burbank called U.S. Haircutters. It was $12 for a haircut, and I always added the shampoo and blow-out and styling, so it totalled $30 with a nice tip. Not one of the ladies in the U.S. Haircutters establishment spoke English (they were all Armenian), so I’d just bring in a picture I’d find on the internet and say “look like this.” I did it often because I have bad hair and it needs to be cut regularly, and also, because it feels really nice to have someone else shampoo you.

As for the men I was seeing, they were mostly one-time bad dates. Some of them were very remotely famous whom I had met on Match or E-Harmony or out at clubs. Most of them were assholes.

When I did finally have a boyfriend, all of my co-workers were fascinated that he lived in Italy and always wanted every detail of our adventures. Once a girl told me that my life was like a James Bond movie… beautiful people involved in intrigue and romance in unfathomable locales. The reality was that calling that relationship “complicated” would have been kind. Although he lived in an admittedly exotic, romantic place, I always glossed over the dramatic details of his cheating, lying, and constantly picking on me and starting fights over nothing. He refused to acknowledge me as his girlfriend ever, to anyone, especially his family. I answered reluctantly and was purposely vague whenever my co-workers would ask how it was going with him. I didn’t want to disappoint them that their self-described “boring” and “regular” relationships with their husbands were what I wished I had. I didn’t tell them about things like the time he refused to talk to me and avoided me for 24 hours of one visit because of some invisible infraction I had committed against him. I never knew exactly what I did.

As bad as it was (and it was bad… like emails and alleged pregnancies from other women who also believed they were his girlfriend), the worst thing he ever did to me was to call me a “stupid bitch” and make me believe it every day for nearly three years.

My point here is: My life wasn’t great or special at all. It was actually a colossally weird mess and therefore that is how it was most different from their lives.

Wait, what is this about again? Oh yeah, The OG.

After one of my many trips to Italy, my co-workers wanted to see pictures so we scheduled a lunch where they could pass the pictures around and also complain about bosses, because isn’t that what all co-workers do at lunch? I showed them photos of an island where we stayed for a couple of days, a ferry-ride from Naples called Ischia, a neighbor of Capri. I told them about a dinner we had where we rode a Vespa to the top of a mountain and ate in a well-regarded restaurant in a converted farmhouse.

“Really? What did you eat?” Sherry, a co-worker who was always excited to hear about every detail, asked.

“It was a family-style type place. They brought out an enourmous pot of braised coniglio, rabbit, which was so rich and tasty like it had been cooking for hours.”

“RABBIT??!? Oh my god. Why didn’t you just get the chicken parm?” Sherry asked, horrified.

“Well, that wasn’t something they had on their menu.” I didn’t know how else to tell her that I’d never seen chicken parm on any menu anywhere in Italy.

“Ew, well then I just would have eaten the salad and breadsticks!” she exclaimed, and everyone else around the table nodded in agreement.

I nodded, too, because how could I ever unteach them everything they’d ever learned about Italian cuisine from The OG? I didn’t want to tell them that I’d never seen those big tubs of salad or those fat doughy breadsticks or any of those phony “authentic” dishes like soffatelli and pastachetti. I wouldn’t dare broach the topic that pepperoni, as a cured, processed meat, is not an Italian salami either. Peperoni, in Italy, are peppers.

I pitied them, in my head, for thinking that The Olive Garden is the way it really is. This is why the rest of the world hates America, I remember thinking.

Now with some distance and with Marilyn Hagerty’s sincere review in service to her neighbors in Grand Forks, North Dakota, who the hell cares? If people think The OG is Italian, fine. It’s food and they like it, so whatever! Reality only exists inside our heads. What does it matter if our own reality is REALLy real? We all need things to believe and to anchor us.

I forgive myself for judging those wonderful women a few years ago and for the pitying, condescending thoughts I had. I forgive myself for being a “stupid bitch” for three years, because I really was, although I emphasized the stupid more than the bitch.

What I will never forgive is The OG in Times Square being constantly jammed with a line out the door. PEOPLE! For $2.50 you can take the subway in any direction and have the best meal of your life at one of the thousands of other restaurants in New York. Get out of your comfort zone! Try something new!