be my guest

Spring. A time of renewal. A time of regrowth. A time of really pretty flowers.

And a time of neverending houseguests.

For the past three weeks, my roommate and I have played hostess to a veritable conga line of out-of-town guests. We've had friends, family, former colleagues. And we're going to keep having them. Until, like, July.

This weekend, the houseguest in question is my mother. She's flying into town today for some sort of business trip - what kind of business, I don't know. Spreadsheets are involved, I think. And money. But beyond that, I couldn't tell you.

(I have a mental block that makes me completely unable to process descriptions of financial job-type things. This mental block has a very real purpose, as my mother is convinced that I would make an excellent banker, and I have made it my life's work to convince her otherwise. So, the more insistent she is, the dumber I decide to be. Unfortunately, the longer I stay at my abysmally low-paying job, the more insistent she becomes. It's only a matter of time, really, before I just start shoving dollar bills into my mouth - "You mean I'm not supposed to eat it? That's funny. What were you saying about UBS Warburg again?")

Anyway, my mom has meetings through Friday and then she'll be spending the weekend with me. We'll probably eat, wander through a museum or two, and dig around Chinatown for cheap jewelry.

My mom will invariably tell at least a half dozen people "This is my daughter - she lives in Brooklyn! In her very first apartment!" And I will do my best not to remind her that my current apartment is, in fact, my eighth.

However, all things considered, my mother is a pretty easily contented lady. All I have to do to make her happy is keep her company and not mention my father. Or my grandmother. Or my job. But other than that, she could really care less what we actually do.

Most out-of-town visitors are not so pliable.

The moment you move to New York City, long-distance friends will come crawling out of the woodwork, just like the adorable multi-legged creatures with whom you now share your living space. Your friends will bubble over with plans to visit and, oh, by the way, can they crash on your couch? Just for a couple of days? You can't really say no because you know how much hotels cost here and you sympathize. And, also, you don't want to be an asshole. Not so soon after moving here, anyway. Personality shifts are a lot like scotch: you have to let your inner asshole age for a few months before releasing it into the world.

So you really can't help but agree to let them stay.

It doesn't seem so bad at first. You fold out the sofa, hand your guest a pillow, and make a few empty gestures of welcome: A glass of water? A stick of gum? Last month's issue of National Geographic? But then, just as you turn to escape into your bedroom, it happens: "So what are we going to do tomorrow?"

Congratulations: you've just been appointed cruise director. And this is when the trouble starts.

Because in New York, local is local, and tourist is tourist, and never the twain shall meet. Except in Times Square.

Tourists come to New York to see the Statue of Liberty, visit the Empire State Building, and stroll through Little Italy. They want to take in a show and traverse the city. On foot. And, occasionally, horse and buggy.

None of these, of course, are activities that locals enjoy on a daily basis. Show me the New York City taxpayer with a reservation at Tavern on the Green, and I'll show you someone with an out-of-town guest.

I think this will help illustrate what I see as the crux of the problem:


(This is the same rigorous Excel work, by the way, that got me a passing grade on my undergraduate thesis.)

See, given the choice, I would always prefer to spend my time at a dive bar with a 2-for-1 drink special. Obviously, though, I can't do this with my out-of-town guests. I don't want to ruin their visits, after all. Nor do I want them to think that I have a drinking problem. So, instead, I've developed a houseguest strategy.

Which I am going to share with you.

Herewith, my tips for entertaining out-of-towners with minimal expense, effort, and exasperation, either on your part or your guests'.

First of all, be sure give your guests a spare set of keys and a detailed description of how to get to your apartment. This will give you the freedom to ditch your guests at a moment's notice. If, for instance, there is a motion on the table to go to ESPN Zone, you need to be able to leave and leave fast.

This will also get you out of at least one night of entertaining, because if you know what's good for you, you're going to have a sudden crisis at the office that will require you to work late. If your guests are youngish, send them to a live-music venue - specifically, a live-music venue frequented by hipsters. To you, hipsters might be "annoying" or "completely fucking intolerable". To them, however, hipsters will seem "exotic" and "cool".

If your guests are oldish, send them to the Oak Room.

Be sure to text your guests regularly with apologies. Feel free to blame your boss, as in "I can't believe he/she is pulling this shit last-minute! I so wish I could be out with you!"

You don't, but it's okay to lie. Hospitality, after all, is just another kind of falsehood.

If you have a car, or access to one, I highly recommend using it as much as possible. Not only does this provide an opportunity for wide-ranging, minimally enervating sight-seeing, but you'll also be able to waste shitloads of time while looking for street parking. This technique came in handy most recently when my cousin came to town. He was very insistent about needing to go to the Hard Rock Cafe to purchase a "New York Rocks" t-shirt for his girlfriend. I managed to circle around long enough that by the time we finally got there, well, shoot, it was already time to go.

If you don't have access to a car, you can achieve a similar effect by finding a way to include the G train in your travel itinerary.

Although this might seem mean-spirited, as long as you can keep up a running monologue about life in the city - "What's the deal with alternate side parking!" - your guests will be pleased. For them, it's all part of the New York experience.

Follow this advice and you, too, can make it through an entire weekend with minimal houseguest-related hassle. If you can suck it up and find it within yourself to enjoy one real cheeseball activity (a trip on the Circle Line, cupcakes at Magnolia, tickets to Wicked), they will never know that you weren't super-psyched to see them. And, even better, you'll probably get a free dinner out of it.

Just try not to let that dinner be at Tavern on the Green. (More)

apparently, I'm more transparent than I think

Because a colleague just gave me this book, which pretty much looks like the best book ever.

From the back cover:

"Issac Newton, Michelangelo, Anne Rice, Barry Bonds, Haruki Murakami. They and countless others belong to a subculture that will never join hands, a group whose voices will never form a chorus. They are loners - and they have at least one thing in common: They keep to themselves. And they like it that way."

Most of the time, publishing makes me feel like Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby: so many books are a labor of love gone horribly, horribly wrong. But occasionally it makes me feel like Mia Farrow must have felt when she realized she could pawn Woody off on Soon-Yi. Every so often, books are a delightful and liberating surprise. (More)

how to be alone

The past two weekends I've been a very well-behaved Elizabeth. I dressed up in my girl clothes and I played nice with the other kids. I made stuffing, I mashed potatoes, I washed approximately nine thousand dishes. I didn't lose my temper when the airline misplaced my suitcase on my flight back to New York after Thanksgiving. Or when they misentered my name on my boarding pass. Or when they lost my seat assignment at the gate. Or when they ran out of bourbon on the plane.

No. I spent a week and a half being a perfectly reasonable and almost charming example of humanity. Honestly, I'm surprised I had it in me.

Which is why I felt perfectly justified this weekend in telling the world at large to fuck off and die while I holed up in my apartment and watched approximately twenty-two hours of Veronica Mars, a show so good it almost makes me want to go back to high school and do it all over again, Kristen Bell-style.

Seriously: how awesome would a misanthropic 6'1" girl detective have been? Way awesomer than a misanthropic 5'1" girl detective, that's for sure. I'm so conspicuous that I'd be inconspicuous. (Although I made this same argument when I applied to the CIA, and they didn't quite seem to buy it.)

(I also choose to believe that they rejected me on the basis of my association with dangerous subversive groups.)

(i.e., Canada.)

Here's the complete list of alternate careers I am considering for when I finally lose my patience with the daily humiliation I endure as a low-level media minion:

1. Girl Detective
2. Femme Fatale
3. Miss Tall International
4. Vampire Slayer
5. Cab Driver

Now, I'm probably most qualified for #3, as I meet the standards not only for Tall Clubs International (5'10") but also for the elite California TipToppers (6'0"). I'm an aggressive and maniacally unforgiving driver, so #5 is a strong possibility. 1, 2, and 4 might be more difficult from a practical standpoint, but I'm sure my affinity for dark eyeliner and cult television will give me a leg up.

But the real reason I'd be inordinately well-suited to any of these jobs and the real reason I love the idea of any of these jobs is simple: all of those girls get to work alone.

Because I prefer to be alone. And when I can't be alone, I prefer to be aloof. It's why I'll happily blow off weekend plans to gorge on Indian take-out and teen drama. It's why this city is, day by day, driving me a little bit crazy. And it's why I fantasize about spending my days stuck in rush-hour traffic, making minimal conversation and next-to-nothing tips.

Like most everything else, I'm pretty sure my parents are to blame. I couldn't help but turn out this way: I'm a only child. (I have yet to pin down the precise reason for this. My mother claims that they realized fairly early on that they needed to outnumber the children or else they'd have no hope of survival; my father claims that he was sure that, had I been the eldest instead of the only, I would have gone evil. Both of these statements ring true.) As a result, I spent a large portion of my childhood happily keeping my own company. It's what I know best and it's what I like best, dammit.

Annoyingly, though, people don't seem to get this. A close friend told me that I have "intimacy issues." My mother claims that I "have no tolerance for human weakness." A boy I knew once called me "a callous bitch." All this because of my tendency to bail on dinner plans in order to investigate the offerings on HBO OnDemand. But it's not about hating people, people. It's just about liking their absence better.

I'm not a hermit or a social maladjust: I have friends and loved ones, acquaintances and mortal enemies. I don't sit at home concocting nefarious anarchist schemes or writing Family Matters fanfiction. I give good chat if you make me, and if I'm under duress - or, well, drunk - I can be downright lively. And if you look hard enough, you'll probably find people who can corroborate this.

That's right: I'm not a loser by circumstance - I'm a loser by choice.

So I'm going to quit trying to justify my behavior to people who are never going to understand and focus instead on more important matters. Like whether or not Veronica's going to come to her senses and suck face with Logan again already.

Because no matter what you think of prime-time programming, it's a hell of a lot healthier to worry about televised melodrama than it is to worry about what other people think. If people spent more time alone maybe they'd understand that. (More)