Girl Detective

Girl Detective

( 9:32 PM ) Girl Detective

As I've mentioned, I wrote a novel for NaNoWriMo last month. As I've also mentioned, I just finished a 6-week writers' workshop. I did both of these and kept this blog up all the while.

I'm kind of tired.

I'm thinking of taking a break over the next two weeks and returning on January 6, all bright and shiny.

I encourage anyone who is radically opposed to this plan to write me and let me know. Otherwise, have a happy new year.

| ( 9:23 PM ) Girl Detective

Since this week has been about jobs, I'm wondering what other people out there do after work? When I get home, I take off my work clothes, put on pajamas--tonight I've got on a tank top with pink roses and ducky pants; it sounds strange but works in a kinda psychotic garanimal way--wash my face and then try as hard as I can to do little else but write, read and watch TV.

When I first realized how much of a ritual this had become, I thought about being alarmed, but couldn't quite swing it. Do you know how incongruous it is to be alarmed in ducky pants? By losing the work clothes and the makeup immediately, I found that I'd made an effective demarcation between my work and my home. Also, I realized that many, many things clamor for my attention. The new catalog in the mail; any of far-too-many magazines I subscribed to this past year; making dinner, cleaning it up, doing laundry, returning phone calls, cleaning, etcetera ad nauseum. And many of those things aren't that fun. So instead, I try to minimize the boring stuff and maximize the fun stuff. Which is much easier to do when one is wearing ducky pants.

So tonight we got home, I changed, we dished up take-out Thai food and watched Scrubs. Then I did the few dishes quickly, accidentally started to straighten, then was reminded by George and am now writing happily. Next, I will begin The Club Dumas, by Arturo Perez Reverte. I finished the Lovely Bones last night. It was quite good.

And yeah, our place isn't all squeaky clean. But no one is scheduled to visit, so I'll just wallow in the fun and the filth while I can.

( 6:33 PM ) Girl Detective

Since I've discussed my two worst jobs ever, it begs the question: what was my best job ever?

My best job ever was working at a comic book store. I did this while I was in graduate school. I made a smallish hourly rate and had few benefits since it was a tiny, family-owned operation. I loved it.

I worked at a store outside of Philadelphia. It had a steady clientele of regulars, plus a rotating host of college kids. I worked with the manager, a great guy and a recent dad, plus a couple others. We were a diverse crew but we got along. I was getting my degree in religious studies; the manager had formerly worked at a toxic-waste plant; one of the guys was in college for art classes; and another woman just loved comics and wanted to be around people, though she was initially quite shy. Together, we sold comics and graphic novels, games and videos. Each of us had a niche of expertise. The manager knew all about Warhammer. The art guy knew all about anime. The shy woman loved the dark, goth comics and was great with all the surly goth customers. I got to pass on the graphic novel knowledge that I'd picked up from comic shop people who'd helped me before. As a group we balanced each others' strengths.

There were some downsides to the job. There was the occasional shoplifter, and a grifter who completely snowed me soon after I started. There were obnoxious kids, obnoxious parents, and some scary guys who were WAY too into the porn comics.

But overall we got to sell comics and games, play the music we wanted, work at our own pace and interact with customers who shared our interests. There wasn't a lot of stress; and most people left the store very happy, so the job satisfaction was very high.

I left the job to move to Minneapolis. Since then, all my jobs have paid better and had better benefits. But at none of them have I been so happy. It's a distracting thought, some days.

( 6:42 PM ) Girl Detective

The pizza kitchen, however, was only my penultimate worst job. My worst job ever was my day job the summer after freshman year in college; I was a receptionist at a tanning salon.

When I applied for the position in the springtime it seemed like a perfect job. It was within walking distance of campus, it would be quiet and easy so I could study and I would get a great tan. I was wrong on all counts.

While one location was within walking distance of campus, the two others were not. Soon after I started working, the owners said that they had too much staff at that location and they'd need me to work at the others, both of which involved long bus rides. Soon, I was never scheduled at the convenient location again, though they did hire two new male employees, both of whom worked the plum location till they were caught "stealing" tans from the system for friends, and fired.

During the summer, I asked for day hours. This meant opening at 6:30 or 7 a.m. Why so early? Because people wanted to tan before work. This meant getting up at 5:30 or 6, when I'd probably been out until 2, showering, getting dressed, waiting for and catching a bus. I was late. A lot. So much, in fact, that I was given a warning, then suspended for a week. But I went back, and they took me back for the rest of the summer.

The job was not easy. I did not simply slap people into booths, but I was on a commission-based sales program for tanning packages. I had to explain the system to all new clients and over the phone, schedule appointments, not overbook, hurry along dawdling people, then wipe up the beds.

Ew.

There is a peculiar smell particular to the sweat of tanning beds that I hope to never encounter again. If people were nice,they would have wiped up their own sweat with their towel and I just had to Windex the beds. Most people were not nice.

So in between the times I was selling in person and on the phone, cleaning beds and moving people in and out of rooms, did I have time to study? No. One of the owners would often "drop by" just to see how things were going. If I ever looked unbusy, he would suggest that I "lemon pledge the baseboards".

OK, first of all, lemon pledge is not a verb. Making it one is a very scary type of brand loyalty. Second, at a receptionist job the occasional magazine should not be out of the question.

One week, two very disturbing things happened, one after another. A friend who worked at another location called to say her paycheck had bounced. I called my bank; mine had too. She called an owner, who said he would bring over replacement checks from their private account right away. She called me to tell me that and wondered if they actually had the money. I immediately got a call from the owner. "I'll be right over. And yes," he added sarcastically, "I actually have the money." They were listening in on our phone calls.

From that point on I made no more calls and cashed my check at the bank it was drawn on. But still, I continued with this job. The owners continued to give favor and attention to the male employees until my friend quit and I was the only woman working for them. They checked on me daily and made me wait in the chilly dawn for them to come open the store. Each week, they drove a different car, all of them rentals. One of them liked to tell me lies that were so offbeat that I didn't know not to believe him. Once he said that he had been married when young but his wife had died. I expressed sympathy, then a week later he said he'd never been married. When I asked him about it, he laughed and called me a sucker.

Finally, at the end of the summer, I quit. I only planned to have one part-time job during school that year, and it was going to be the good one. When I told them I was leaving, they expressed regret. When they sent me my last paycheck it included a sizable commission bonus and a note that they missed me and that I should call if I wanted to come back.

Ha! I thought. The only reason I'll ever come back is to tan.

That is, until my dad noticed a weird red spot on my shoulder that hadn't been there before and told me I should get it checked out. The dermatologist said it was not cancerous, but could become so. He cut it off, as well as several others like it, and told me to never go out in the sun again.

That's just great, I thought. I spend over half a year at this wretched job, only to get the bait and switch on the location, then get spied on and patronized while wiping up people's sweat and finally not be able to tan ever again. That's why it's my worst job ever.

( 9:52 PM ) Girl Detective

Most people don't have to think too hard when asked what was the worst job they ever had. I, on the other hand, had two. Worse, I held them both at the same time, along with a third.

The first summer I lived away from home was after my sophomore year in college. Two friends and I rented a dingy basement apartment. It was a tiny one bedroom with twin beds and an alcove off the living room separated by a makeshift screen. I'm sure it had bugs and atrocities beyond the rugby players who lived above us, but it was too dark to tell; and we didn't look too hard. For this hovel--the worst place I have ever lived--we paid $870 a month and were glad to have such a reasonable rent.

My parents were unhappy with my decision not to return to Ohio for the summer and said that if I chose to stay I would have to support myself. Fair enough, I thought. I already had two part-time jobs during the school year, so I decided to do one of them full-time during the day, and add another at night.

It should be at a restaurant, I decided. I was surviving on the poverty diet--I could only eat what I could afford, which was ramen noodles and Busch beer. I sometimes splurged on a wedge of cheese and grated it into my noodles for a special treat. I applied at several restaurants to be a waitress, but was turned down again and again because I had no experience and because no one had yet advised me to do what would prove successful the following summer: lie. Finally, I was able to get a job in the kitchen at a pizza place not too far away and on a bus line.

I worked from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. at my day job, came home and took the bus to the pizza place to arrive by 4, when employee pizzas were served. I tried to have 4 slices of the deep-dish pizza a night, then worked from 5 p.m. till 9:30 p.m. three nights a week. I then took the bus home, showered, changed and met my friends at the campus bar where we stayed till close, then I slept for a few hours, woke up and started all over again, alternating with my other night job.

At first, I was glad of the paycheck and the free food. I got to take home entire mistake pizzas, learning quickly that there were mistakes, and "mistakes" with my favorite toppings of pepperoni and mushroom. My first sign that things were not going well was the night I joined my friends in the bar and one of them sniffed the air.

"Do I smell onions?" she asked, in her strong Boston accent. "My god," she shrieked so half the bar could hear, "you smell awful!"

I raised my hands to my face and realized with horror that she was right. And given that she was cleaning bathrooms on campus all day for her job, I knew that it had to be quite bad. Even a shower couldn't wash away the smells of the pizza toppings. I chose to be grateful that few people ordered anchovies.

After a few weeks of this grueling schedule, I stopped going to the bar after work so I could get a little more sleep. In spite of this, a co-worker at my day job asked, "Are you alright? You look, kinda, well, um, grey."

Tears welled up in my eyes and I considered bagging everything and running back to Ohio and the safe shelter of my parent's house. I was granted reprieve in a phone call that night. It was the director for my other night job, which was my good job that paid well and that I enjoyed.

"Hey, we've got another opening for two more nights a week. Can you do it?"

I quickly did the math in my head--two more nights of that job would pay more than three nights in the pizza kitchen, plus have me working fewer hours.

"Yes!" I crowed. "Thank you! Thank you!"

There was a pause on the other end of the phone; I don't think he'd ever received such an enthusiastic response. I didn't care. I quit the pizza place the next day.

I've never been able to eat deep-dish pizza since.

( 9:05 PM ) Girl Detective

Tonight I finished the sixth and last session of my class on writing the short essay. In spite of my friend Trash's insistence that every writing class has that person, this one did not. It started off with a bunch of people, ended with about ten, and was a great experience. There was no one person who hogged attention; and over the course everyone gave helpful and insightful feedback to each other that was honest without being hurtful. For our last night, we each read a piece aloud, many of which we'd workshopped earlier in the course. Without exception, the pieces had become tighter, more potent and more powerful, and as a group we took joy in celebrating the success of what each piece had become. As one woman finished up her piece, I caught the eye of the woman sitting across from me. We both were smiling and nodding at the minor adjustment the author had made that had a major impact. Where before as a group we'd mused that we liked it, but something wasn't quite right, then had a lengthy discussion on what had worked and what had not, this time there was universal agreement. Her revision had hit the mark.

What was also refreshing and encouraging were the instructor's very realistic remarks about publishing before we began our readings. It's rare to get published and its hard to make money, she said. Often, once publishing is involved, it limits the risks you can take with your work. If you want to be a writer, she implied, write to write, not to be published.

The class itself embodied her advice. The pieces we read were all quite good. They were funny, touching, happy and sad. Are any of them likely to see print someday? Probably not. But they all got an appreciative audience tonight, one that applauded without artifice and with feeling. When I read my piece, which I'd begun about eight years ago, wrestled with, put in a box and then resurrected from memory, I felt like I'd finally done justice to the story I was trying to tell.

Tonight, that's more than enough for me to feel happy about myself as a writer.

( 7:38 PM ) Girl Detective

There is skill and art to having a good day off from work. I've never quite managed to have the relaxing, productive day that I hoped for. I usually end up feeling guilty if it was relaxing, or stressed if it was productive. While I don't have any vacation days left, I plan on being prepared for the next time that I do.

One thing I've found is that busy times at home usually coincide with busy times at work, so that if I take time off to catch up on stuff at home, I end up feeling like I don't make a dent, plus then I have a backlog at work. Double screwed, hurrah! Often if I just wait, I stop feeling so busy and then don't feel like I need that day off that doesn't seem to help much anyway.

But part of why I've felt at least as avalanched (Yes, it is an adjective. Because I said so.) at the end of a day off than I did at the beginning is because I've made some stupid choices, which I'll list as

Don'ts for days off:

1. Don't do things that you can just as well do over lunch or a break on a work day. Possible examples include doctor appointments, going to the comic store, trips to the bank, shopping, going to the gym.

2. Don't set unrealistic expectations. If you make a giant list, even thinking that you'll just get to some of the stuff, you'll make yourself depressed by all the undone things at the end of the day.

3. Don't do chore-type things that are just as easily accomplished one at a time on weeknights or weekends. Examples include laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, bill paying, waiting for the cable guy and checkbook balancing.

4. Don't call people who you talk to all the time anyway. These phone calls invariably last an hour.

5. Don't think that you'll have plenty of time so you can do ______. Fill in the blank here. Your time is precious and it goes quickly. I often try to cook--eggs and bacon for breakfast, soup for lunch and cookies in the afternoon. Then I spend the entire day cooking and cleaning and am exhausted when my husband G. Grod comes home and wonders why in the hell a day off has made me so cranky. Then he barely survives asking the question if there's a plan for dinner.

Lest you think it's all negative, here are the more positive things.

Dos for days off:

1. Before the day, or the morning of, think about what one thing or couple of things you'd really like to do. Then center your day around that. The last good day off I had, I decided to finish reading my book. A friend of mine just wanted to relax and go window shopping and see a movie. Your one thing might even be something from the don't list. But if you ask yourself what you really want to do and center your day around it, then you won't piss away the time on little stuff, or feel like there's too much to do.

2. Have a plan to eat out, or have leftovers so that you don't have to spend a lot of time cooking, cleaning, or figuring out what to do about food when you're going out of your mind with hunger. This latter is a pathetically regular occurence for me.

3. If you want to call someone, pick someone that you don't talk to regularly, so that if it takes an hour or more (which it will) then it will leave you feeling happy. I usually call my grandmother.

4. If you want to watch TV or a movie, pick something special, or that you wouldn't have time to watch on a weeknight. I spent a lovely sick day once watching old episodes of Wonder Woman and The Hardy Boys. TV Land was good to me that day. (Plus Melanie Griffith was the guest star on the Hardy Boys. Hilarious.)

5. In general, try to avoid all feelings of "should" and instead give yourself permission to have a nice day.

And while that last one sounds kind of sappy, I've found it's rather difficult to pull off. If any of you have been more successful than me, please write me and let me know. I'm looking forward to my next day off to see if I can put my theory into practice.

( 7:41 PM ) Girl Detective

Let's talk about bras. Here are some facts, in no particular order.

Most women wear the wrong size bra.

The ideal way to care for bras is to hand wash and hang dry them. With this gentle care, they should last about a year.

Since I don't have time for this crap, I put them in a lingerie bag and wash them on the cold, gentle cycle. Unless I can't be bothered, then it's the warm, usual cycle. But I do hang them to dry. With this method, bras should last about six months. Except this seems like a ridiculous expiration date for a piece of clothing, so I just wear them until they're sagging and drooping. The bras, not my boobs. My boobs are actually too small to sag and droop.

One should never buy a fancy bra and wear boring cotton underwear. If you're going for the fancy bra, you should get the matching panties.

Thongs are neither that bad, nor that great. They're very useful for preventing VPL, or visual panty line, which some men say is endearingly sexy. My husband G. Grod, who is a bit of an ogler, says this is complete crap.

I have never had a good experience buying bras in a discount store like Marshall's or TJ Maxx. Usually, there's a damn good reason why that bra is there.

A good, well-fitted bra can change your life.

For years, I wore a 36B and whenever I shopped I didn't try bras on, I just bought a couple in that size.

Then I walked into a shop in Manayunk in Philly, and the woman called out, "Get in a dressing room. Take that bra off. It doesn't fit. Where'd you get that bra?"

Embarrassed, I stammered, "Uh, I think my sister gave it to me."

She waved her hand. "Totally the wrong size. Let me measure you."

She whipped out the measuring tape and pronounced me a 36A.

"Are you sure?" I asked, beginning to realize that there was a psychological comfort in a B cup.

"No question. You'll see."

And I did. I left with three new bras and matching pants and they all fit much better than anything I'd ever worn before.

Since then, I've never shopped again at Victoria's Secret. I find their bras are cheaply made and that they fit poorly. The company spends more on the advertising than on the product. Instead, I shop the department store brands: Natori, On Gossamer, Felina, Le Mystere and Wacoal. I do wait until a sale or clearance event, since these brands rarely go on sale, but I find that they are well made and true to size. Also, since I'm now even smaller than I was then, I find that I have a better chance of finding a small size in these better stores and brands. This is also true for larger sizes.

I've tried to dabble in some of the mid-range brands. Olga makes a few t-shirt bras that are pretty good. But I've tried a Maidenform and the Vanity Fair Illuminations that sells so well, but they're simply not that good. Cheap bras are flimsy and they gape. I've found that when I take the time to find a good fit in a good brand that the bra lasts for a while.

So if you suspect that you're wearing the wrong size bra, or if it's time to throw away that threadbare rag you're wearing, here's my advice.

Go to a small boutique or good department store. Have someone measure you. Try on different styles and brands till you find one that doesn't bind, doesn't itch, yet still enables you to jump up and down and reach your arms over your head without it riding up. Then figure out a way to pay for the ones you find, get about three of them, and enjoy.

Your posture will improve, you will look better in sweaters and t-shirts and, if you get padded ones, no one ever needs to know how cold you are.

( 8:12 PM ) Girl Detective

As I've written before, I've had a little problem with astrology. But in spite of my bad experience, I continue to read Rob Brezny's Real Astrology column each week. They're entertaining and thought provoking whether or not I choose to believe they have an prescient insights.

Last week's column advised me to seek out five new experiences to delight and amaze me. It cautioned against old standbys that I turned to when feeling blue and said that the benefit would be a good defense against future mood swings.

Whether or not there was any foresight involved, this seemed like good advice. I'd been having some difficulty at work lately, and had tried many of the old standbys to calm me and keep my mood up:

Reading
Writing
Calling friends and family
Watching TV and movies
Obsessing over stuff I wanted to buy in the cosmetic department at Neiman's
Sleeping
Hanging out with friends
Organizing (or rather, trying to organize) my clutter
Cancelling all magazine subscriptions to stem the tide of stuff I don't have time for

But none of these seemed to have much of an effect. I did enjoy them and, except for the preoccupation about Neiman's (which I haven't acted on, but I suspect it's only a matter of time. There's a Nars event tomorrow, and I think their new moisturizer has my name on it.) none of them are harmful.

But none of them are new, either, and none of them have had a transformational effect on some of blue moods I've had lately. So I've been thinking about some candidates for the five new experiences, but haven't yet had the gumption to try any of them, or felt that any were really worth the gumption to try. Here are a few:

Volunteering for a charity
Meditation
Video games
Art lessons
Staying up till 2 in the morning
Drinking too much coffee
Moving to Portland
Telling people how I really feel about them

So if any of you out there have any brilliant ideas on cool new experiences that you've had, please email me and let me know. These either seem silly, dangerous, or like they'd require a major life commitment of some sort. And I'm not quite ready to make that leap. I'm still obsessing nerdishly over what I'd like to buy at Neiman's. There's got to be a better way.

( 8:22 PM ) Girl Detective

I am now a novelist.

I spent the month of November madly cranking out a novel. I took part in National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. The challenge was to write a 50 thousand word novel during the month of November. It was a crazy, maddening but quite rewarding process. My husband G. Grod was a huge help, often making dinner AND doing the dishes so I could reach my goal for the novel AND post to my blog. He grumbled during the first week, but after that he not only gladly did everything else in our house so I could write, but he also cheered me on if I flagged before getting to 2000 words. OK, sometimes he mocked me, too, but the result was the same. I started on November 5 or 6, set myself a goal of 2000 words per day, did it most days, and reached a comfortable 52K by the end of the month, with a nice cushion over the 50K words required by the site to be a winner. I even reached a not-too-contrived closure to the story so it's an entire draft.

I never quite got to the point of writing "very" two thousand times, but sometimes it was close. I was writing by the seat of my pants, without a plan. So this finished product is a tremendously rough draft. But I got my main characters, I got some of the situations, and I got some good dialogue. So now I'll take some time away from it, then start the editing process.

I took a writing workshop last month in which the instructor recommended that you do as much research and pre-writing as you can possibly stand before getting to the book. And this is certainly one way to do it, and a way that worked for her. She did acknowledge that it worked rather better for non-fiction than for fiction. I have a friend who writes fiction, though, who says she writes to find out what happens to her characters. This was the approach I took since there was no time to stop in the middle of the month and put together an outline.

I was intrigued to find that the story wasn't about what I thought it was about. I wrote about a high school girl with synesthesia, which is the experience of a blending of the sense perceptions. I thought it was about her struggles with the synesthesia to be normal and fit in. Instead, it became about her falling in love, travelling, getting dumped and moving on. She was still synesthetic, but it was just a part of who she was; not a big deal.

I highly recommend NaNoWriMo for all aspiring writers. The challenge motivated me and helped me to focus, as well as letting me off the hook in the quality department. By encouraging me to crank out a "shitty first draft", as the writer Anne LaMott calls them, I could silence the inner critic that slowed me down. I stopped editing and just wrote. There will be plenty of time for editing later. Right now I'm going to revel in the feeling of having completed a novel. In a month.

Thanks, NaNoWriMo.

( 7:37 PM ) Girl Detective

A former writing instructor of mine professed to hate parentheses. (Though perhaps hate is too strong a word.) Instead, she counselled use of the em dash--two hyphens strung together that signal a double pause. The em dash is expansive--giving more. (In contrast, what is in parentheses is parenthetical--secondary.) Her opinion was that if something was important enough to stay in the work, it was important enough to stand on its own--outside of parentheses.

( 9:06 PM ) Girl Detective

I work in the advertising department of a retail firm. Our planning of this year's holiday advertising began about a year ago, and the production of it happened a couple months ago. As of now, I've been hip deep in Christmas for about two and a half months. And I'm sick of it.

Previously, I have been an enthusiastic participant in the orgy of consumerism that is the hallmark of the American Christmas season. Last year I had a long list of family and friends for whom I spent hours planning what to get. This year, I simply can't muster up the energy.

I look around my own living space and see shelves and drawers stuffed to bursting. I see the pile of books that I don't have time to read, and the list of writing projects that I have yet to tackle. I realize that I don't think I have the time or space for any gifts this year. In fact a lack of gifts would seem like a huge relief.

The scale of this turnaround for me is astonishing. I'll let you in on a shameful but true family secret. When I was much younger, I complained after one Christmas that my sisters Ruthie and Sydney had gotten more gifts than I did. So my poor, harried mother started keeping receipts and every Christmas thereafter would make sure that she hadn't spent more on one daughter than any other. I'm really, really sorry, Mom.

Every day as I walk into work, the fruits of my day labor bray at me. Sale! Holiday message! 40% off! Buy now, pay later! Yet I have become immune. I've bought just a few small gifts for family and friends. I'm not sure my husband and I will be exchanging gifts, and I've encouraged our families to scale back on gifts for us too, if that would feel right for them. (My mom was thrilled to hear this. Can you blame her?)

This year, the thing that I look forward to about Christmas Day is that I will be spending it in my own home, not travelling, and not leading up to it in a frenzy of shopping and spending. I hope my company does OK this holiday season, because even though I've worked to get others to do so, I won't be contributing much to the bottom line.

( 7:29 PM ) Girl Detective

My husband G. Grod and I aren't travelling for the holidays this year. This decision had been slowly building for me for a while. Each year, I scrambled to get good rates on flights, then stood for hours in holiday airport lines, sat in a delay on the plane and arrived, tired, stressed and poorer. Looking around at the crowds, I felt like a sucker. I had to pay extra because demand was high, then endure the dubious privilege of travelling with everyone else in the world. And since I live in Minneosota where Northwest Airlines has a near monopoly on the flight paths, I usually got a lame snack, an old plane and shitty service to boot. Last year, I calculated that I'd been travelling for the holidays for fifteen years. That thought made me feel tired.

I resolved to visit our families on off-peak travel weekends, when we could pay less, fight fewer crowds and be in a much happier state of mind, and therefore be much happier guests. Since we travelled to Italy for two weeks with several of my family members earlier this fall, this decision made even more sense.

So last Wednesday before Thanksgiving day, Grod and I picked up a take-out dinner from one of our favorite restaurants for the next day. Thursday we watched a dvd at home, went out for Thanksgiving lunch at another favorite restaurant and then out to see Solaris. We came home and read books, called our families, then I passed the 50K mark on my bad novel for NaNoWriMo, plus achieved a semblance of closure while doing so. I made pie. Later we heated up our Thanksgiving dinner and watched CSI. We had an idyllic day, with no cooking, few dishes, and lots of the things that we love.

When people had asked what we were doing both before and after the day and I'd explained, a vague look of pity clouded their eyes; and they usually didn't bother to try and hide it.

"I'm sure that will be nice for you" was the standard response.

While it would have been lovely to be with family, it was also lovely to just be by ourselves. We'll see how it goes for Christmas.

( 6:54 PM ) Girl Detective

Achilles' weakness was his heel. Superman's is Kryptonite. I believe that mine is the elevator.

On not one, but two separate occasions I have made an ass of myself in front of someone important on an elevator, but perhaps more importantly, because of the elevator.

Several years ago when I lived in Philly, I got in an elevator that I thought was going down. No big deal, I thought, I'll just ride up and then back down. Then I noticed who else was on the elevator. It was Ed Rendell, then mayor of Philly and now Pennsylvania's governor. He had pushed the button for the top floor. We rode in silence until the doors opened.

Here is a complete transcript of our conversation:

Ed: (After a pause as he waits for me to exit before him) Aren't you getting off?

Me: (mistakenly thinking he said "Isn't this going up?") No, it can't go up, we're at the top floor.

Ed: I know; I just thought you were getting off. Did you get on the wrong elevator?

Me: Um, yeah. I meant to go down.

Ed exits the elevator, and I burn with shame and self-recrimination.

Last year, I was walking to a work-related holiday party in the building across the street from where I work. Once inside the building, I headed toward the first elevator I saw and recognized the senior vice president of my area. She's going to the party, too, I thought.

She smiled and said hello. "Where are you off to tonight?" she asked.

Oh, she's being funny since we're both going to the party, I thought.

Wherever you're going, I smiled back, thinking I was in on the joke.

Then the elevator went down, rather than up and I realized that there were only four floors, rather than fifty one, which was the location of the party.

She wrinkled her brow, then got off at her floor of the parking lot and said good night.

The door closed and someone on the elevator said, "I think you're looking for the other set of elevators. It's around the corner."

Face burning, I returned to the main floor and exited the elevator, having convinced my SVP that I was a complete and utter nut job, if not a stalker.

Ever since, I try to maintain a polite silence on elevators, since they clearly bring out the brazen half-wit in me.

( 9:12 PM ) Girl Detective

Now that it's mistletoe season, with holiday parties and tipsy flirtations on the horizon, I thought I'd do a public-service entry by providing Girl Detective's Dos and Don'ts of Kissing.

For the most part, kissing is a progression; it's not an on or off activity. It's one that starts slow and builds.

Start with closed mouth and dry lips, especially if you're not certain the other person will return the kiss. Take it from me, this can save you lots of embarrassment.

Next, open and soften the lips, perhaps doing a little smooching around your partner's lips, but still mostly dry and soft. Don't open your mouth too wide, though, or unpleasant suction can result.

As things progress to hot and heavy, it's time to add the tongue. As with the kiss in general, start slow and build. Don't just ram your tongue in there. Dart it out and in, gently. If the other person engages, then return the favor, but be careful and don't overdo it. There's almost nothing so unpleasant as a person with an over-agressive tongue. Keep it light to start and pay attention to your partner to see how s/he reacts and engages.

Once you've made it to tongue, you have to change it up. All tongue, all the time gets boring, if not exhausting. Now's a good time to do some exploring--along the jaw, down the neck, along the ear. Light, soft, open-mouth kisses are good, even some gentle nibbling and biting (except for on eyelids--that's a closed-mouth, dry smooch). Remember to pay attention. Chances are the other person will let you know if they like what you're doing. Silence is bad; try something different. Moaning is good; try to press your advantage.

OK, pop quiz: where are your hands? Somewhere around the time of the tongue introduction is a good time to start moving your hands. It depends on the person and how well you know them, but hands and kisses are quite similar--a little variety goes a long ways. You can start by caressing the face, the neck. Stroking the chest is also good. Vigorous squeezing of breasts is generally frowned upon, though squeezing of ass can be pretty hot in the right circumstances. Movement is critical--don't just treat the other person as a hand rest. Test for nipple sensitivity, both on guys and gals. Sometimes this is a turn-on; sometimes it does nothing. Keep paying attention to the other person's responses to see how you're doing.

If you've made it this far, you're on your own. Keep in mind the two key points: start slow and build; pay attention to your partner's reactions (or lack thereof). Both of these should ensure a holiday season of very successful smooching. Best of luck to you.

Girl Detective the person is a titian-haired sleuth, intent on fathoming the mysteries of the world at large, with particular (and some might say obsessive) attention paid to the mundane details of female life.

Girl Detective the weblog is not about girl detectives; sorry if you came here looking for that. It is, however, an homage to the inquisitive nature, untiring spirit and passion for justice that marked these great literary heroines.

Girl Detective the weblog is a forum to practice my writing. It is about whatever strikes me on any given day. I am a woman writing for other women. If guys find it interesting, bravo. If not, that makes sense, but don't complain.

All material here is copyright 2002-2004 Girl Detective.

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