Not So Needy to Need a Text, Tray, Soy Milk, Deals, Hot Wax Parrifin

The plethora of clearly mass-directed Happy Valentine's Day text messages almost rivals the onslaught I received around New Years Eve. I fell for ALL of those, because I'm a tool. I actually texted back, like "wow! It's been so long since you've gotten in touch with me! Happy New Year to you too, buddy!" and then when I started to put two and five hundred together, I realized these people were probably getting my earnest notes of good cheer and thinking 'wow, what a tool, I sent that to like, people I slept with in the nineties and like, classmates from junior high ..." And sometimes I was that person from junior high. Or you know ... the other thing.

So look, you, obscure co-worker who I speak to maybe once a month and have had ten conversations with maybe ever: really? Really?! You really want ME, specifically, to have a happy Valentines Day? I'm sorry--"v-day"? Right, just like you wanted me to have this great New Years Eve AND a Merry Christmas (P.S. Jesus? Christ-mas? CHRIST-mas? Not my day, not my day!)...enough! Enough! I don't need your trite mass-sent wishes of good cheer. See, if you knew me, you would know that I'm a borderline-sociopath. You'd know that although I cry on the subway when I'm reading a sad book, and although I cry when I listen to Spring Awakening on my ipod or Kelly Clarkson, and that I cry when people say nice things to me, I am also all-in-all a relatively cynical person.

That's why I have a blog, to blast my cynicism. You know how many valentines I am giving out this year? One. That's right. Just one. To my Mom.

Just kidding, I didn't send my Mom anything. I am sending out one, but it's not for her.
I'm still expecting my Godiva from my Mom, maybe it's delayed on account of the weather.
I actually have a bad habit of sending things on the holiday itself, rather than in anticipation of the holiday.

So FYI, here's some things I don't need. And--if you're my actual friend who actually loves me and sent a mass text today, that's fine, I appreciate it, seriously. It's all the half-strangers that boggle me with their totally misdirected love.

Save yourself the trouble, kids:

That Black Tray at "THE CINDERELLA CLUB"
The "Cinderella Club" is not, as it's name might imply, an underage porn web-ring or a gathering place for exotic dancers. The one thing it has in common with those places is the Tackiness Level. The Cinderella Club is an almost unbearably hot-pink and well-lit outpost for the sale of crappy but trendy jewelery, like a less ambitious Clarie*s, and they are all over the city, and it has an employee-to-square-foot ratio of about 1:2. They should send some of that extra manpower to Duane Reade. During my last visit to the Club, I was offered a black tray not once--not twice--but three times. The third time I yelled "REALLY! I SWEAR! I DON'T NEED ONE!" Carrying one of those things--which I assume they employ mainly to deter shoplifters from slipping $5 rings into their pockets--feels very unnatural. It makes me feel like a bodybuilder drinking an Ameretto Sour with a cherry. I have big hands. I can handle carrying whatever I want in those hands. Should I change my mind, I'll ask you--or her, or her, or him, or him--for a goddamn "tray." What is this, Old Country Buffet?

"SPECIAL DEALS" Offered by Companies That Have Already Ass-Raped Me And Then Trapped Me in An Abusive Relationship Where They Always Say They're Going to Change if I Change One Thing or Another But Then They Never Change, They Always Find a New Way to Hurt Me?: I'm Talkin' To YOU Sprint PCS, Chase Bank and Fresh-Direct
It hurts enough that I have to pay $5.99 for 3 slices of cheese, don't tease me with that $60.00 for new customer coupon you know I can't use now. I'm an old customer. OLD! I already pay a $3.00 fee every time I consider using my debit card and $6.00 every time I offer to pay for dinner with my debit card but then retract and $9.00 if I dare to actually use it to buy something and $12 if I use it at an ATM on an even-numbered street--and it makes me feel worse to see you offering free checking and all kinds of goodies to new bankers. It hurts enough that I never talk on the phone, because I'm a phone-a-phobic, and yet I have an astronomical phone bill that I can't seem to decipher or change, and that my phone is crap and I really want a treo, but I can't have one, because even though you are selling it to new customers for $100.00, I would have to pay $800, and if I dared to cancel my contract, you would fuck me so hard with a cancellation fee that I wouldn't be able to walk for three days, let alone send a text message.

Recommendations from Amazon.com Based on My Browsing History
Look, y'all need to get everyone together and start knockin' heads because this system is deeply flawed. You ask us to buy gifts for people on your site, and then when we do, we're punished by three weeks of Grilling Cookbooks. You ask us to buy books for school--but thanks, really, 6 books about the holocaust is plenty for me, I def. do not need 6 more. Nor do I need any more explorations into the world of Statistics 350, and I definitely don't need any recommendations based on graphics I was retrieving to update the website at the lit agency or any recommendations based on YA novels I was looking up while writing my book to remember what I used to read. Elizabeth George, Nora Roberts, "Rainbow Boys"--not my thing really. Are there any people that only use Amazon to look for things they want to buy and for no other reasons? (e.g. graphics for blog entries? um, using "the haviland touch" as a graphic for a myspace comment? ?) That might sound like a dumb question to people who don't work in publishing.

Spa Pedicure? (said by nail-lady, very beseeching, kind, innocent, unsuspecting-like)
I am so not falling for this one again. Post-spa-pedicure, my then-boyfriend did, indeed, gamely stroke my legs and say "they do feel a lot softer," and when I said "you're just saying that to make me feel better," he was like "no, they really do," in this really genuine voice, which was sweet, but not as sweet as the 40 bucks I was told I needed to shell out for the innocuously suggested upgrade, which involved a lot of lotions caked onto my then-not-softer-than-usual legs and wrapped in saran wrap. Tight. As soon as I put on my cowboy boots again, my feet were effectively re-ruined.

Erotica From Strangers
Like every egotistical writer and blogger, there is nothing that warms my insecure little heart like fan (e)mail or fan myspace messages. But: 1. I don't write erotica anymore, I just did it for a little while back in 04-05, and that was super-fun, but you know, I'm certainly not in a position to be anyone's mentor or dispenser of advice, and 2. you can just like me, you don't have to like me and send me a story involving graphic descriptions of sexual activities in a sort of sportscaster style play-by-play "lovemaking" voice.
Unless you're hot and I want to have real sex with you, then you can send me whatever you want. Note: this is a very limited group, and it doesn't include 50 year old men who describe women as if it is still 1923, when it was okay to act like women didn't have brains. There's a market for that stuff, and that market is soooooo not me.
This happens more often than you might think.

MySpace Event Invitations, Especially When that Event is a Threesome
I really like this in spirit, but I find it a bit flawed in practice. (the threesome reference above is actually something I get in normal messages, not via events, I just thought that would sound clever sorta) I tried to do one a few weeks ago for "The L Word" and that was kinda fun, but I think totally ineffective. I actually didn't realize that people really looked at them until I noticed when my friends opened their myspace pages, it didn't say "new event invite!" whereas I sort of like, figured that was part of my template. Why don't I look at them? Because they are 95% parties with people like that guy on the left. I'd say "that guy and those girls," but something tells me those girls aren't big conversationalists. Also, is that really his stomach? Is he jealous that the other girls are showing their stomachs and he wants to flash a little midriff too? There are a lot of things about the world I just don't understand.


The Free Newspaper
The thing about that free newspaper is that there are plenty of free newspapers to be found as your day goes on. Usually, I will find an am new york or metro on every subway bench, often expanding their mess onto the floor of the subway. Furthermore, you may find some at the coffee-fixins area at Starbucks, perhaps in the ladies room, in a taxi cab, at a friends apartment or office, on an empty chair at hale n' hearty soups, or in the waiting area at the subway station as late as 10pm. You might find one in your very own apartment, brought home by some roommate or other vagabond. I feel that taking one from the newspaper person is just creating more mess that will annoy me as I try to make my way in the world. I'm not too proud for second-hand-newspapers. Save the trees!

Samples of Random Products at the Gym
Girl, look at my hair. What am I gonna do with a Sunsilk volumizer? I'm a Jew, I already have a volumizer in my genes that I have managed to kill with careful product selection. What am I gonna do with a bottle of Soy-Milk while I'm working out? How about instead of handing out free bottles of Soy Milk, which would be so gross to drink during a workout, you should concentrate on other liquids, like the soap dispensers or the showers.

Jesus
I think he's great but I'm trying to read and/or listen to my ipod, so shut up. Anyone who converts because of what you said on a 9am B-D-F-train is a total lunatic.

And, just to reiterate:

No Mass-Texts. EVER
I just don't know what the point of it is. Seriously, someone, make a case for this. I mean, how can you possibly feel special or entitled to a greeting that was mailed to everyone you've ever called, ever? If you want to make us all feel loved, then shoot us a mass email which is slightly less annoying , or a mass postal mailing, which is actually quite sweet. Or just you know--love me. REALLY love me. For who I am. As a person, and as a wilderness explorer.

HAPPY V DAY TO EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD WHO EVER LIVED