“Why are you calling me so early?”
“Well, hello to you too,” I said.
“Oh, Tracey. You know what I mean. It’s six o’clock Sunday your time. Isn’t that when you usually write?”
“Yeah,” I said with a sigh as I put her on speaker and placed the phone on the butcher block to make some tea. I freakin’ hate tea as general rule but this weather in NYC has driven me to extreme measures.
I JUST CAN’T GET WARM.
“Happy New Year, Bitches!”
I looked at the Facebook message on my phone, placed it back on the nightstand and then rolled over, pulling a pillow over my head. It was Friday, January 2nd and I was starting the first weekend of the New Year celebrating with a nap with The Cat.
The phone pinged again and I wearily reached over to pick it up. I looked at the screen.
“When do we start running?!”
I groaned, and was about to set it aside again when:
“Helllooooooooo!”
Two seconds later:
“Tracey? McKenzie?”
“Guys??????”
I sighed in exasperation. I turned off the phone and went back to my nap. When I woke up later, there were two more Facebook messages and two threatening texts:
“TRACEY. ANSWER ME. NOW.”
“WE ARE GOING RUNNING.”
Oh god.
It was Lux.
“Oh my god,” McKenzie said, as I stepped up to her desk. “How was the party?”
“It was so, so fun,” I said.
“Aw, I’m so glad,” she said, then she pointed at the little pile by her laptop. “Thank you for the coasters.” She hadn’t been able to make it to the party because she’d had to go on a last minute work trip. This annoyed us both. So I’d left her some NQAC coasters I’d had made for the event, so she could feel like she’d been a part of things.
“You’re welcome,” I said. “They’re so cute, right?!”
“So cute!” she said.
“I didn’t put many out at the bar because I just wanted to hoard them for myself. Not a very strong marketing plan on my part.”
“We want adventure.”
“What?” I put the phone on the kitchen counter and clicked it to speaker. “Picturing me strutting around in my jeggings wasn’t enough of an adventure for you?”
She laughed. “No, that was fun. We love hearing about your progress and we’re all cheering you on but really, it’s time to start dating again. Just like you said. That’s what we all want to read about.”
I sighed. “I know.”
Her message flashed at the bottom of my screen. “Why don’t you just make something up?”
“Hmm…,” I typed back. “I don’t know about that.”
“Why not?” she wrote. “It could be the kind of thing where the blog is based in truth but that some details have been altered.”
It was Saturday night and I was supposed to be working on the Venice Book. Instead, I was Facebook messaging with Tina. Continue reading Wrapping It Up.
“Are you going to do a statement lip?”
“Well, considering I don’t even know what that means, I think the answer is no.”
“Okay,” Lux said, as she pulled up a variety of nail polish images on her office laptop. “From what you’ve told me about your outfit, here are some choices of what I think you should wear.”
“You have a whole Pinterest board just for nails?” I asked.
“Of course!” she exclaimed.
“I think I like that one,” I said and pointed to a deep purple shade.
“Good choice,” she said, nodding. “Very popular for Winter.”
I sat back in my chair and sighed. “God, I hate getting manicures. I was supposed to do it yesterday but I blew it off.”
She was wide-eyed. “Why would you hate getting manicures?”
“Because I hate strangers rubbing my hands with all that lotion and they clip your cuticles and the filing noise makes my teeth hurt and it’s all just so gross!” I shuddered. “And not to mention, then you have to sit there for 10 minutes while your nails dry and you can’t touch anything, not even flip through a magazine, and it’s so supremely a waste of time and SO BORING.” Continue reading Date Three. Part One.
“Okay. So it’ll start like this: ‘You know those movies, those movies you can watch over and over and never get sick of? They might not be particularly good but for whatever reason they strike something in you and they become your go-to movies whenever you can’t figure out what to watch. I have three. In no particular order, they are: ‘Rock Star,’ which I love because the music reminds me of high school and it makes me nostalgic for my hometown’s illicit parties when parents were out of town. We’d lift our beers together and scream out Motley Crue and make out on porches and it honestly felt like life couldn’t get any better. The next is ’17 Again.’ I love this one because Zac Efron is brilliantly hysterical in it. No really, he is – ‘”
“No really, he is.” Marlie said nodding and took a sip of her coffee. We were wrapping up our Sunday-After-New-Year’s-Brunch at Park Avenue Winter and I was telling her about my next post. Continue reading 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, 99 Bottles of Beer. Take One Down, Pass It Around…(Well, you know the rest).
Not Quite A Cougar 