Parental Guidance

Did anyone else watch the MTV show Parental Guidance where parents didn't like the person their child was dating so they would find new prospects for them and then the kid would almost always choose to stay with their original boyfriend or girlfriend because teenagers are stupid and we never listen to our parents even though they normally know best? There's a run-on sentence to write home about.

To my knowledge my parents never watched this show but that doesn't stop them from trying to sell me on complete strangers all the time. Once my mother actually made me a Christian Mingle account while I was dating someone because she didn't like him for me. SAVAGE. Part of this is my fault because I have repeatedly asked for an arranged marriage. And I think to them that means "set me up!" but what I actually mean is just find someone who has an income and make a deal. I have 2 brothers. Trade one of them? I don't know how these things work, I'm not a lawyer or a 17th century aristocrat.

So my mother has been trying to set me up with some guy and keeps telling me that he's attractive and nice and attractive and a Christian and attractive. Here's the thing Mom, telling me how beautiful someone is really is not the way to pique my interest it just intimidates me. I'm thinking if this poor guy agrees to a date she has waaaaaay oversold me.

I thought I had convinced her to give up the dream but then my father got on board and also told me how attractive and athletic and attractive this guy I have never met or spoken to is. I tried to reason with him. I explained...

Me: "Do you see why you telling me how good-looking he is is scary? If he is as amazing as y'all seem to think he is, why is going to want to date me?"

And after confessing my deepest insecurity, a very Carrie Bradshaw-esque "Will I ever be good enough?" moment, do you know what my father says?

Dad: "Well, you never know."

Thanks Dad. Now I feel much better. I might just fire my therapist.

Me: "Dad! You're supposed to say that I'm beautiful! Not tell me 'idk, maybe he's a 10 who wants to date a 3' I'm your only daughter! You have to think I'm perfect!"

It's a very simple concept he can't seem to grasp. I do the self-deprecation, you do the coddling. I mentioned this exchange to my mother considering she may want to write it down for the next Chicken Soup devotional or nominate it for Hallmark Channel's feel good moment of the year. And she launched into another spiel about this guy. I swear if my parents put in half the legwork for me that they do for this rando, I would have been married off during Obama's 1st term.

Somewhere in between my mother explaining the importance of a good, Christian spouse and the phrase "just one date" I interrupted her to explain that in this state you actually need both parties to consent to a date. This, for some reason, prompts her to admit "I'm not sure, he may have a girlfriend" which in turn prompts me to excuse myself from the table for an exaggerated pause.

My mother is practically begging me to date someone who for all we know is engaged - or maybe his wedding ring is in the shop. For as much as my dad tells me I have a face for radio, my mother really does think I'm beautiful in a conceit by proxy type thing that forces her to attempt to pawn me off on strangers from time to time. Bless her heart.

So this is an open letter of apology to everyone my mother has ever asked to date me. Except my mother is really not that bold so she probably just talked to me about you or talked to your mom about me. She means well, she really does. She just wants me to marry well and set her up with a beach house which is a perfectly noble (and unrealistic) goal for a mother to have. But if you're not trying to date me...hide your moms and hide your Christianity and you should be safe.

#LookatGod

If you've been following this blog for some time, 1st thank you and 2nd you know that I once fell asleep in an Uber and if I had a less abrasive personality I could have easily been kidnapped. I don't think I live dangerously on purpose I just lack common sense for the most part and more than make up for it with obscure knowledge of Iran's Pahlavi dynasty which almost never comes in handy.

I recently made another egregious auto error. Since my experiences with Uber are often terrible as you can read here, I decided to drive myself to a going away party downtown. My friend Jean-Luc is moving to Atlanta. Many of you will recognize Jean-Luc since he is frequently featured on this blog and most people from my hometown think I'm dating either him or Brendan.

 Brendan

Jean-Luc

I say let the voters decide. (We obviously dance a lot. We've also been known to marathon.)

Jean-Luc has gotten really into the Raleigh running scene in his time here and I was actually going to get involved too but he's moving so oh well. He did his farewell tour at Runologie in downtown Raleigh after running a mile in jeans. I never really got that part of this whole shindig and I definitely did not participate. He knew not to put me down for cardio.

Since the party was downtown my parking choices were a parking deck, metered spot, or street parking. All of which were unappealing to me. I feel most comfortable when parking at a Walmart, Target, McDonald's or Michaels. Anything beyond that is stressful. So once I got in the general area of Runologie, I found a parking deck and went for it. I even backed into my parking space, what confidence! Here's a little foreshadowing...this is going to go south real quick.

My 1st mistake was choosing a 2-hour parking spot. I don't know. I just picked a spot. I panicked. And I didn't know how long the party would last. We're all old. We have bed times to meet and pets to care for and reality shows that aren't going to watch themselves. So I exited the parking deck and used my phone to navigate the streets. My phone got super confused, I had no idea where I was going, and somewhere along the way I realized that it may be a good idea to remember the location of my parking deck. But I was no longer at my parking deck. So I made a note of Tasty 8's and thought "perfect! I parked by Tasty 8's" without realizing how completely insufficient that information was.

Had I simply walked from my parking deck to Runologie and then back to the deck, I probably could have figured it out. I would have walked down Hargett Street until something looked familiar. But I was really thrown for a loop when we walked from Runologie to a restaurant. At the restaurant I was too busy eating to worry about the fact that I now had no idea as to where my car was. I ordered a side baguette, to be served on the side of my water. I would normally say ice water but we were all served water in liquid form only, not a cube of solid water to be found. It was like Europe without all the...and I have to be really careful what I say here because I'm big in France right now so I'm gonna go with...English tea? Polish sausages? German cars? Croissants are great though. Can never have too many croissants.

Once everyone was leaving I realized that locating my car was going to be much more difficult than walking to Tasty 8's. But what else was I going to do? I got Jean-Luc to point me in the direction of the mediocre hotdog restaurant and embraced the "figure it out as I go" approach that has served me so well in the past. It's dark. I'm walking around downtown Raleigh alone. I can't find my car. I'm looking for landmarks but all turned around because we walked all over Wake county that night. Since when do parties involve so much foot traffic? But don't worry y'all. That's when God intervened. I followed a couple into a parking deck - under normal circumstances that would be weird but considering my situation, it was very weird. How did I think having more witnesses to my stupidity was going to be helpful?

By some miracle, that very parking deck happened to contain my car, smugly staring at me from the 2-hour spot I had reversed into a mere 5 hours earlier. "Hey stranger, remember me?" I literally LOLed at my good fortune and bad real world skills. Very sorry to the couple I followed into a parking deck at night while giggling to myself. There are no words. I'd love to promise that it will never happen again but I think we both know that would be another case of my mouth writing a check that my brain (or lack thereof) just can't cash.

What I Did(Watched) This Summer

Summer is winding down, this is my last work-free Wednesday for a while and I'm taking some time to reflect. What I'm realizing is that I didn't really do anything this summer. I went on some walks, swam in the ocean, floated in the lake, walked around New York, but most importantly...I watched Real Housewives. This summer I completed the first 6 seasons of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (and 4 seasons of Vanderpump Rules) and made substantial progress into the New York iteration. If I've seen you this summer and told you that I watched an entire season of Real Housewives the previous day, that wasn't an exaggeration. So today's post is dedicated to the lovely ladies of RHOBH whom I have loved and hated and envied and pitied. Remember that no matter what your sign is, we're all a little Erika Jayne.

Aries - The Bold

Brandi Glanville

I know that she tops several "most hated housewives of all time" lists but I love Brandi. She keeps it real and I think Vanderpump was very unfair to her. Brandi will always be my favorite Mrs. Cibrian no matter how many more pop up.

Best (slash most appropriate) quote:

Taylor: "Eddie Cibrian says you slit his tires - is that true?"

Brandi: "Yeah! I owned them too. I just took the tires and I put the knife into his motorcycle and then I told him don't ride them - you're probably going to get hurt."

Do you know how many Brandi quotes I had to go through to find one that was appropriate for this blog? But this quote really captures the essence of Brandi...abrasive, aggressive and unapologetic. I love it.

Taurus - The Generous

Camille Grammer 

Camille came in pretty catty but once she lost 250 pounds of Kelsey Grammer she really blossomed into a lovely lady. She's not at all pernicious and it's totally unfair that people made fun of her for having 4 nannies on rotation for her 2 kids. I want to have 6-8 kids and you better believe that when I marry Michael Cera I'm going to want at least 4 nannies.

Best quote: "The morally corrupt Faye Resnick."

I actually like Faye but this is the most iconic quote to come from Camille and it officially cast Faye Resnick as the "villain" of this franchise to viewers who had yet to witness the narcissistic acid trip that is Kelly Bensimon.

Gemini - The Expressive

Taylor Armstrong

Taylor, Taylor, Taylor. It just saddens me that Taylor and Lisa Rinna couldn't share a screen for an entire season and they certainly couldn't share a lip balm for more than a week. Maybe a new series...Fake Lips of Beverly Hills.

Best quote: "I'm almost envious, in some respect, of people who are content with living the middle-class lifestyle."

Honey, I have a lot of choice words about living the middle-class lifestyle and content ain't one of 'em. Taylor reminds me of Luann in that I don't think she's trying to be condescending I think she's just actually really out of touch with reality. Bless her heart.

Cancer - The Nurturer

Kyle Richards

Kyle is my all-time favorite housewife (so far) and Mauricio is definitely my favorite househusband. Kyle is a mother to 4 daughters and 1 sister so you know she's seen her share of dressing room drama, running mascara and first date nerves.

Best quote: "I'd rather have a hot dog."

Me too girl. Kyle's White Party is generally the first big event of each season. The other housewives throw parties with extensive bar spreads but the White Party always has food trucks and burgers so whenever Bravo is ready for me, I'm requesting an invite to Kyle's.

Leo - The Confident

Lisa Vanderpump

Mrs. Vanderpump. I like her less and less as the series progresses. She's as cunning as a snake and as confident as Bobby Fischer. If she were kicked of RHOBH she could find success on Animal Hoarders.

Best quote: "You're not important enough to hate."

This quote is technically from Vanderpump Rules, a show that consumed my life for about 2 weeks. This really conveys the attitude that Lisa tries to display, she's above hating you...while hating you nonetheless.

Virgo - The Practical

Lisa Rinna 

I actually really like Lisa Rinna. Her daughters are gorgeous. I love how she calls her husband Harry Hamlin. And she's not above anything. The woman starred in a Depends commercial. God love her.

Best quote: "I'm like a cockroach. You can't get rid of me."

Lisa also knows how to stay relevant. She's perfected stirring the pot without getting burnt. She stays on the fringe of all the drama because how would you rather make money? Lunching in Beverly Hills or wearing diapers?

Libra - The Fair

Eileen Davidson

Eileen is like Switzerland. She likes to stay neutral and a lot of the time that means boring. Her husband is awful but her step-sons are gorgeous. But she also got an almost apology from Vanderpump and that's no small feat.

Best quote: "I love therapy."

A. Men. I think everyone could use a little therapy and some of the housewives could use a lot. Props to Eileen for taking that in stride.

Scorpio - The Intense

Kim Richards

Oh Kimmy. I feel like Kim and Ramona could be great friends, one turtle lover to another. At the beginning of the series I felt like Kyle was kind of a jerk to Kim but now I think that the real problem sister here is Kathy Hilton. She's a bully and this family needs Dr. Phil, Oprah and Joe Biden.

Best quote: "Why don't you have a piece of bread and maybe you'll calm down."

Why don't we all have a piece of bread? I'm sure this quote was part of an alcohol-fueled rampage but still, don't threaten me with a good time.

Sagittarius - The Independent

Erika Girardi

Another favorite. And I know her husband is old enough to be Ken's dad but you have to admit...he's adorable. As Mrs. Girardi she's a Yolanda apologist and as Erika Jayne she's a pop star.

Best quote: "Sorry. Well...not really."

And that's Erika Jayne ladies and gentlemen. She's in a catsuit, she's with her glam squad, she's making Kesha look understated and she's not sorry.

Capricorn - The Focused 

Yolanda Hadid

I think that David Foster tainted my opinion of Yolanda because he's the worst. But I really admire her dedication to finding the right combination of treatments and I love her showing up at parties and to film with no makeup.

Best quote: "I don't remember what it's like to be normal."

Me either girl. I just really feel for Yolanda and as a resident of the east coast, I blame myself for her Lyme disease. And I blame David for everything else.

Aquarius - The Bright

Andy Cohen

God bless Andrew Joseph Cohen. I mean the impact that this man has had on popular culture is tantamount to that of all the Kardashians put together. Andy Cohen is what Ryan Seacrest wants to be when he grows up.

Best quote: "I mean, you did Diving with the Stars."

This quote was after Kim Richards claimed to be a more selective actress than Miss Rinna and Andy Cohen called. her. out.

Pisces - The Peaceful

Adrienne Maloof

When she's not causing the drama or yelling at Paul or Colin, Adrienne is a wonderful mediator. I swear she yelled Colin so much that I forget she has other kids. Maybe she should borrow one of Camille's nannies.

Best quote: "Uh oh! Somebody's crying."

She really said this to alert the ladies to the fact that...I believe Kim...was crying so everyone could resolve whatever issue Kim(?) was having. At any given point there is a 90% chance that Kyle or Kim is crying so the eldest Richards sister is my best guess.