“Volunteers Needed,” was the subject line of the department-wide email sent out on Friday morning. Normally, I would just delete such an email without opening it, but my only option was to read the other unopened emails in my inbox which were titled, “This is the third time I’ve requested this report,” and “Christ, does anyone even work in the marketing department?!” so it seemed to be my best alternative.
The email read as follows:

As you all know, Valhalla Inc. is committed to providing employees with a safe work environment. In the event of an emergency, we need to be prepared to react quickly and ensure the safety of all employees. Currently, however, we are very short-handed on our fire safety team.
Additionally, we don’t have anyone on our side of the floor who is CPR/AED certified. Please contact me if you are interested in volunteering for either of these opportunities. Thank you!

I almost wished I had just deleted it because now, having heard the cry for help, I couldn’t ignore it. But… me? On the fire safety team? The last time we had a fire drill, I limped for a week after having to trudge down the 23 flights of stairs. Being on the fire safety team is a big responsibility. It means that in the event of a fire, I would have to don a blaze orange vest and cap, calmly direct everyone to the nearest fire exit, and stay behind to ensure that everyone had safely cleared the floor before heading down myself.
And while the “staying behind” part might seem the scariest, what concerns me the most is wearing that orange cap. I’ll put the vest on, no problem, but do you have any idea what my hair looks like in a baseball cap? I was never one of those girls who could look cute in a cap, all sporty, yet still sexy, the kind of girl who might pull a ponytail through the back of her hat, so it would swing rhythmically while she walked down the street.
Sadly, this is really what my hair looks like in a baseball cap:

Now, some people may read this and think, “Oh, that Jenny. She’s just exaggerating again for the sake of humor.” And my response to those sweetly naïve people is, “You’re very kind, but no, I’m not exaggerating.”
If you need any further proof, let me share with you this photo I dug out of the box of nostalgia I recently reclaimed from my mother’s house. Behold, my softball photo from what I’m guessing is about 1980 or 1981, so I would have been about nine or ten years old. See if you can find me.
[click to enlarge]

Having trouble? Here’s a closeup:

Now just try to imagine a baseball cap on top of that melon. It’s not a pretty sight, trust me. This photo also serves as partial explanation as to why I was mistaken for a boy until I was about 28.
I replied to the email, stating that I was interested in volunteering, but wanted to find out if the orange cap was optional. I added that I would gladly carry the cap and use it to direct my colleagues to the nearest fire exit. But the response was that wearing the cap, along with the blaze orange vest, was non-negotiable.
This left me with no alternative but the CPR/AED training. Like many people, the only experience I had with CPR was from my junior high school health class. I remember well the awkward moment when we each had to kneel down in front of the legless Resusci® Anne and give her mouth-to-mouth, but only after sterilizing her gaping and teenage germ infested mouth with isopropyl alcohol.

“If I hear any more giggling, I will start handing out detentions!” yelled the health teacher/wrestling coach/girl’s basketball coach. “CPR is no joke!”
Would there be similar snickers from my colleagues? What if, just as I began the chest compressions, my VP yelled, “OHMIGOD! Jenny totally just got to second base with Resusci® Anne!” Would I blush? Would the instructor throw him out?
And then, what if I actually have to someday use my new skills? What if I have to breathe life into the limp body of that accounting clerk who refuses to add me to the distribution list for monthly P&L’s, even though I’ve asked her to add me at least seventeen times? What if I have to sweep her mouth clear of vomit with my bare fingers? Will I hesitate? Might I choke under pressure?
I hope I’ll never have to find out, but after my corporate sponsored training sessions in a couple weeks, I will be known by all as Jenny Amadeo, CPR/AED trained associate for the southwest side of the 23rd floor. It has a nice ring to it, I think.

Filed under: General on May 1st, 2006 | 23 Comments »

“Jenny, never forget that even more important than having talent,” my grandmother once told me, “is knowing talent.”
I hesitantly nodded my head in agreement, not fully understanding what she meant.
She continued, “That way, you can surround yourself with rising stars, wait until they get famous, and ride their coattails to success. Then, at the pinnacle of their careers, you write a crushing tell-all book about them, and laugh all the way to the bank.”
My grandmother grew up during the Depression, so she understood that sometimes you have to do whatever it takes to get by in life, ethics be damned.
With that in mind, I’m excited to give a shout out to one of the most remarkably talented people I know – Jen Benka – and share the details of an upcoming reading she has in New York City.

[Photo by Captain Semantic]
Among so many other things, Jen is an amazing poet and an outstanding performer, and on May 1st she will be reading from her recently published book of poetry, A Box of Longing With Fifty Drawers.
Jen Benka
Monday, May 1, 2006 at 8:00pm
The Poetry Project
St. Mark’s Church
131 East 10th St. (at 2nd Ave.)
Manhattan
In fact, those of you who just met Jen* at TequilaCon also know that she rocks a fake tattoo like nobody’s business, and can hold her own in the face of an overwhelming volume of blog talk, which says a lot.
So – if any of you will be in the NYC area on May 1st, her reading is not to be missed. This may be one of your remaining chances to see her perform before I write my scathing unauthorized biography and she ends up on the front page of The Star where a “close personal friend” reveals that she is the reason for the breakup of Brangelina.
And if you aren’t able to attend, but still want to check out her work, you can pick up a copy of her book here. It will only go up in value once the scandal hits.
An excerpt:

America
an unsolved mathematical equation:
land plus people divided by people minus land
times ocean times forest times river.
escape and the delusion of discovery:
across the mad ocean to the rocky shore
step foot onto land call it yours.
promised land lemonade stand.
auction block stew pot.
the dreams:
of corn field wheat field tobacco field oil
of iron cage slave trade cotton plantation
of hog farm dairy farm cattle ranch range
of Mississippi Mason-Dixon mountains
of territories salt lake lottery gold
of saw mill steel mill coal mine diamond.
topographic economic
industry and war.
a box of longing
with fifty drawers.

*Occasionally, I like to call her Vivian.

Filed under: General on April 26th, 2006 | 19 Comments »

For less than the cost of a cup of coffee a day, you could help Mr. Lionel Richie get the prosthetic arms and legs he needs so that he can live a normal cat life. Won’t you please open your hearts and your wallets?
Miss Dionne Warwick, however, is a lost cause. You really have to want to be helped.

Filed under: General on April 14th, 2006 | 22 Comments »

Addiction, thy name is ringtone.

Filed under: General on April 13th, 2006 | 23 Comments »

It was Friday following a long workweek, and after a casual dinner in the neighborhood, Natasha and I decided to get one quick drink before calling it a night. We stopped at a local bar we used to go to, because with its diverse crowd and good dance music, it was always good fun.
As we walked in and our eyes adjusted to the soft lighting, it became apparent that the once diverse crowd had shifted to an almost exclusively gay male one. What also became apparent was that the dance floor had been converted to a stage. And on that stage were scantily-clad male dancers.
“Uh, Nat?”
“Yeah. I know. ”
“No, but are you aware that-”
“Kind of hard to miss, Jen.”
“Holy crap!”
It’s difficult for me to write these next words, so I will try to be delicate. You see, although I won’t be coy and pretend that I have never seen a male exotic dancer before, I just had never… Here’s the thing. It was very apparent to me, and everyone in the bar, that the dancers were enjoying their work. I mean, that their work was making them happy. What I’m trying to say is that these men enjoyed dancing very much, and it showed. And we shall never speak of this again.
“Nat! You can’t leave me here!”
“Jenny – seriously, I have to pee. It’s a one-person bathroom – what do you expect me to do?”
“Fine. Go. But make it quick!”
Trying to appear as though I had a purpose other than leering at the twenty-something man on stage dancing to the pounding techno beats, I ordered a scotch that I neither wanted nor needed.
Natasha joined me at the bar a few minutes later, and wisely brushed off the bartender when he asked her what she wanted.
“Okay, let’s get out of here now.”
“But, I just ordered a scotch.”
“So drink it and let’s get out of here.”
“What the hell are we doing here?”
“Look, Jenny, we didn’t know. We couldn’t know. How could we know?”
“We couldn’t.”
“Exactly.”
I took a sip of my drink, turned back toward the stage and said, “He really is incredibly attractive, though.”
“Yeah, but is he even old enough to be in here?”
“God, I feel like a letch.”
“You are.”
“Shut up – you’re a letch, too, then.”
“I just needed the bathroom. You’re all bellying up to the bar watching strippers.”
“I don’t see you leaving.”
As the dancer gathered up his tips and stepped off stage, he flashed us a smile. Sensing what was about to happen next, I grabbed Nat’s arm and told her to look like we were deep in a serious conversation. It didn’t work.
“Hello, lyadies. How are you doink tonight?”
My expert linguistic skills told me that the handsome young entertainer was Russian. He was still in his tiny Speedo when he sidled up to Natasha and me, and put his arms around us.
I burned Nat a wide-eyed stare and said, “Uh, fine. We’re fine. And you?”
“Vyery good. I see you girls comink here before? What’s your names? I’m Nikolai.”
In stressful situations like this, it is at exactly this moment when Natasha’s survival instincts typically kick in. Sometimes she just slyly walks away, but often, she creates a distraction with a prop of some sort. Once, after accidentally spilling wine all over the table of people next to us in a restaurant, she grabbed our friend Dee-Dee’s glasses and put them on before turning around to ask our wine-soaked neighbors, “Oh, sorry! Did I get ya?”
What the hell did you do that for?
I needed a disguise.
This time, it was my scotch. Just as Nikolai’s hand settled on my shoulder, I felt my drink being ripped from my grasp. Natasha grabbed my scotch and stretched across the bar to get another straw. Then, like an alcoholic possum, she remained motionless at the bar, a white-knuckled grip on the glass.
“Hi, I’m Jenny and that’s Natasha. Yeah, um, we’ve been here before but not with… not with the dancing. Is this new?”
“Uh, I think maybe ees new. I’m dancing here Friday night for last few weeks.”
“Okay, well, uh… that’s cool. It was nice to meet you, Nikolai.”
And with that, he walked off to chat with a rowdy table of men toward the back of the bar just as another dancer was getting ready to go on stage. The next dancer strutted in wearing white fur chaps, a white fur vest, and a cowboy hat. He carried a toy horse with him.
“Dear god, we’re in trouble. And yet, part of me so wishes I had a camera right now.”
Nat’s eyes lit up, “I have a camera!”
“You’re kidding! Ohmigod – you totally need to take a picture! No wait – you can’t take a picture! Do not take a picture. No. Wait. You have to take a picture. But don’t make a scene – turn off the flash.”
As the dancer galloped around the stage on his toy horse, I watched carefully, waiting for just the right pose. “You have to be discreet about it. Okay, do it now. Go!”
Natasha is a woman of innumerable talents, but discretion is not one of them. She held the camera at arms length in front of her and about six inches above her head, looked away, and then snapped a shot.
I was horrified as I saw a red beam shine directly on the cowboy’s face, at which point he stopped dancing, turned to Natasha and smiled.
“Oh shit. Shit. He looked right at me.”
“He did? Oh crap. Oh. Okay. Grab your coat – we gotta go. We gotta go now!”
Natasha fumbled to put her camera away, and just as I was about to grab my coat, I stopped. “Wait, Nat. You can’t just take his picture and leave. He posed for you. You need to give him a tip.”
“No way!”
“Seriously, Nat. Give him a dollar!”
“No.”
“You have to.”
“No.”
“Nat, you took a picture of a stripper and he smiled for you. Give him a dollar!”
“I said no!”
“Okay, look. I’ll give you the dollar. Just take this dollar and go give it to him.”
“Jenny, no.”
“Natasha Louise! You are going to take this dollar, and you’re going to get up there, and you’re going to put it in that man’s underwear right now!”
“No! And that’s not even my middle name.”
“It isn’t? Well, it should be. What’s your problem, anyway?”
“I don’t… I don’t know how.”
“What do you mean you don’t know how? You just go up there and stick the dollar in his pants.”
“Have you even been paying attention? That is not at all what’s happening up there, Jenny. People are pulling the dancers’ underwear out like a cash drawer and stuffing the money inside. We’re talking full frontal view. I mean, what the hell kind of elastic do they even have on their underwear here?”
“They’re special stripper underwear, I guess. Okay, here’s the deal. I’ll give you five dollars, plus the one dollar if you just put this dollar in his pants. Just hand it to him.”
“No.”
“Ten?”
“No.”
“Twenty.”
“I’m not doing it!”
Suddenly, Natasha grabbed the wad of bills from my hand and held it over her head, much like she had held the camera that had caused this whole problem in the first place.
“Christ, would you stop waving that money around? Give it back! What’s wrong with you?”
As if on cue, Nikolai bee-lined over to Natasha and her fistful of dollars.
“Oh shit, Nat. Put the money away. Put it away! He’s coming over here!”
At that point, Natasha shoved the money down the front of my shirt, grabbed my drink again, and stared at the bar with roadkill eyes. After quickly retrieving the bills from my bra, I exchanged a few more pleasantries with Nikolai, but he left abruptly once he could see what cheap bastards we were. As soon as he left, I whacked Nat on the shoulder and grabbed my coat.
“Nice frickin’ move, Nat. Here’s an idea – why don’t you take some more pictures of strippers, not tip them, and then wave a wad of cash around like you’re Dean Martin? Let’s go.”
“We can never come back here.”
“No kidding. Except maybe sometime on a Friday.”
“Exactly.”

Filed under: General on April 11th, 2006 | 26 Comments »

“I don’t think it’s a big deal at all.”
“No, it’s not a big deal. Not a big deal at all.”
“I think he was making it out to be a big deal.”
“Well, it wasn’t. Wasn’t a big deal so I don’t know why he was making such a big deal about it.”
“I think I’m done. We’re done, right?”
“I’m done.”
[sings] “Halle, halle, hallelujah. Halle, halle, hallelujah. Halle, halle, hallelujah. Halle, hallelujah!”
“I always liked that song.”
“I like that song a lot.”
“Does the bathroom in here work?”
“I don’t know if the bathroom in here is working.”
“Is it working?”
“If the bathroom isn’t working, we’ll just go straight home.”
“I don’t know if it’s working. We should ask if it’s working.”
“If it isn’t, we’ll just go home, all right?”
“Okay.”
I often wish I were better about cooking dinner at home. It would be so much healthier, and I’d certainly save money. But if I didn’t go out every now and then to enjoy a hamburger sandwich at a diner with my fellow Chicagoans, how would I ever witness the above conversation, which occurred between a 40-ish man… and himself?

Filed under: General on April 8th, 2006 | 10 Comments »

“Okay, do it now. Go!”
“Oh shit. Shit. He looked right at me.”
“He did? Oh crap. Oh. Okay. Grab your coat – we gotta go. We gotta go now!”
“We can never come back here.”

Filed under: General on April 6th, 2006 | 18 Comments »

It seems like there’s a birthday frenzy going on lately. I mean, first there was mine a few weeks ago, and then there were probably some other people who had some birthdays, and now, my little twin babies are turning six. Six years old? It’s hard to believe.
The timing seemed right to celebrate their birthday this year with a special tradition in the Amadeo household: the renaming ceremony. No longer would Maddox and Zahara be named after a homewrecking UN Ambassador’s adopted children. I decided they needed names that were befitting of their class, style, and sex appeal, so after much deliberation and consultation, I decided on:
Mr. Lionel Richie and Miss Dionne Warwick!

Six is a big year for cats, because according to the bag of Science Diet I just read, at seven, they switch over to senior food. This is their last real hurrah as youngsters, their final truly carefree year before all the responsibility and stress of being a cat sets in. So I wanted to let them get wild on their birthday, but I had no idea what I was in for.
I went to the pet store and, in addition to 20 pounds of new harder clumping style cat litter (which they did not, by the way, seem to appreciate in the least), I picked them up a fresh container of catnip. I know, I know. I probably shouldn’t have, especially after Mr. Lionel Richie’s last brush with addiction. But you only turn six once, so I cracked open an Amstel Light for myself, popped off the lid of the catnip, and stepped back.



Within seconds they had devoured an entire stalk of catnip, and then started rolling around the floor, purring wildly, and rubbing against everything in the house. It was like the 70’s all over again. I could sense that they were feeling peckish, so I brought out their final birthday treat – a baby chick!

I barely had time to lay down a backdrop, adjust a few clamp lights, and brush back their whiskers when they started to attack the poor Peep. Usually they just lick them a few times, bat them around a bit, and walk away bored. But this time they went nuts – it was like a feeding frenzy!
The first thing Mr. Lionel Richie did was decapitate the helpless Peep! Yellow dust splattered everywhere.

Then Miss Dionne Warwick got into the mix, and pulled the headless chick away from Mr. Lionel Richie. They tore at the bird like a pair of blood-soaked hyenas. Mr. Lionel Richie continued to chew up the head of his prey, while Miss Dionne Warwick dug out the Peep innards with her fangs – marshmallow fluff was stuck to her face and whiskers. I had to look away.

When they had finally had their fill, they lorded over the carcass with such satisfaction, it turned my stomach.

My god, what have I done?

Filed under: General on April 4th, 2006 | 19 Comments »

I watched as the muscular twenty-something man lugged an enormous duffle bag up the steps to the upper level of the train. He tossed the bag on the seat in front of him with a thud, and from across the aisle, I could make out the word “rugby” stitched in orange letters on the maroon background of his bag.
He wore black athletic pants that snapped up the side, and several of the snaps were undone, revealing his hairy calf. Broad streaks of dirt stretched across the back of his white t-shirt. As I looked up at his face and noticed mud in his closely cropped blond hair, I thought, “That must have been some rugby game.”
My new favorite Nine Inch Nails song came on my iPod, so I turned up the volume and focused my attention on the buildings rushing by. A few minutes later, from the corner of my eye, I could see the man digging through his bag, then turn around to ask the woman behind him a question. She shook her head ‘no.’ He got up and asked the woman behind her something, and she shook her head ‘no’ as well.
Cyndi Lauper came on next.
I noticed that the man looked upset – he rifled through his bag several more times, then put his head down and stared at the ground. He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and… was he crying? I turned down the volume on my iPod just as he got up to ask a woman in front of him a question.
“Excuse me, ma’am? Do you possibly have a cell phone I could use? I just lost mine and I need to call my mom.”
It was at that moment that I realized this twenty-something rugged man was actually just a teenage boy – maybe seventeen years old. The third woman shrugged him off with a quick shake of the head, and he slumped back into his seat, rubbing the back of his neck.
I reached down into my bag and grabbed my cell phone, then caught his eye from across the aisle.
“Do you need to use a pho-“
Before I could finish my sentence, the woman behind me said loudly, “I wondered if he was looking for a phone! I have a phone. It’s a government phone – I hardly ever use it.”
The boy walked down the stairs and back up to our side of the train. He hung his head low to avoid hitting the ceiling.
“Tell me the number – I’ll dial it for you,” the woman barked. “And be sure to stay right here.”
“Oh, I will,” he said.
As the boy waited for his mother to pick up the phone, the woman said in a booming voice to no one in particular, “This is your tax money at work here, people!”
“It’s busy. But, thank you,” he sighed, as he handed the woman her phone and started to walk back to his seat.
The boy still within earshot, the woman cackled, “Even if he tried to steal it, it wouldn’t do him any good. Thing’s so old.”
Which leads me to my open letter to the 6:00pm Metra train:
First, to the three people who told the boy they didn’t have cell phones, I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt, which is probably undeserved since I saw one of you whip a cell phone out of your purse minutes after getting off the train at my stop today. But if any of you did have a cell phone and were just too… what? Scared? Cynical? Lazy? to offer it to this young man who was clearly distressed, I hope that someday you are in a situation where you are in desperate need of a simple favor from strangers and are turned down just as coldly.
Next, to the obnoxiously loud government employee, when you make the recipient of a good deed feel like a criminal, and you try as hard as possible to draw attention to your random act of kindness, it doesn’t make you a Good Samaritan. It just makes you a jackass.

Filed under: General on March 31st, 2006 | 16 Comments »

Step Three: Experience the local flavor
After our gourmet dinner the night before, I figured that I needed to let Jessica experience traditional Chicago cuisine, so I took her to a neighborhood dive for a true Chicago-style hotdog. My plans were foiled when she told me that her dad taught her never to eat hotdogs because they’re made with cow noses.
“Yes, but 100% beef cow noses,” I added. She chose the hamburger. Yeah, because I’m sure there aren’t any noses in a hamburger…
But still, I schooled her in the proper way to eat a Chicago hotdog. For the uninitiated, it involves exactly these ingredients:

• 100% all beef red hot
• Onions
• Tomatoes
• Pickle
• Sport peppers
• Neon green relish
• Celery salt
• Mustard
• Poppy seed bun

“Seriously? You put all that on a hotdog?”
“Yes, although I admit, I’m not a big fan of the relish. But the one thing you must remember above all is the mustard. You must never, ever, order a hotdog in Chicago with ketchup.”
“But what if I like ketchup on a hotdog?”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s just not done. Some places won’t even serve it.”
“Really? No one eats ketchup on hotdogs here?”
And then I told Jessica about how ketchup almost destroyed my friendship with Natasha. She was born and raised in Chicago, but due to a tragic congenital birth defect, prefers ketchup on a hotdog. I can’t even watch her eat it – it’s like watching someone burn the American flag or put a crucifix in a jar of pee. So anytime we go out for hotdogs, it’s like ripping a bandage off a partially-healed wound. It always starts with:
“I can eat whatever I want on a hotdog! I’m paying good money for this, and if I want to put peanut butter on it, I can!”
“Peanut butter would be less of an abomination.”
“Shut up!”
“No, you shut up!”
“You’re not the boss of me!”
“Oh, hey. Our order’s ready.”
“Cool.”
Step Four: Expose yourself to culture
After my karaoke shaming the previous night, I wanted to put the spotlight on someone else, so I took Jessica to see my friend Seamus perform in a play at a local church. I promised her an evening she would never forget, and sweetened the pot by telling her that we would be able to drink beer from cans in a church gymnasium.
For the past three years, we have gone to see our friends in a play at this church. Each year, the story involves someone rich who wants to shut something down, and then there’s some singing, and a big dance number, and then the townsfolk band together and the rich guy has a change of heart. One year it was the local newspaper being bought out. This year, it was a classic hotel being torn down to make room for a new high-rise. These are the kind of heartfelt battles that made Chicago the city it is today.
And each year, there is at least one key scene that makes absolutely no sense, but sticks with us more than any of the others. Last year it was some talking bears who were feuding with chipmunks. This year, it was a group of hotel guests who loved to use words containing the letter “X.”
I forgot to warn Jessica about the obligatory nonsensical scene, so this was the look on her face for a good portion of the play:

Shortly thereafter, there was the big dance scene, and the rich guy had a change of heart.

Step Five: End on a high note
Once our evening of Miller products and metal folding chairs was over, both Jess and I were pretty wiped out. We decided, however, to stop off for one quick drink before heading back to our respective homes. I took her to my new favorite local bar that specializes in fancy cocktails. I ordered an old fashioned, and Jessica got the dirty martini.
”I love dirty martinis! But I’ll just have one.”
These would be famous last words. Although I am a lady, and a lady never calls a friend a lush, I will say this much: Jessica ate 18 olives that evening. I’ll let everyone figure out for themselves how many martinis that was.
Our “just one drink” turned into many drinks, and even more laughs, when suddenly I saw Jessica waving to a table of men behind me. Within minutes, we found ourselves flanked by a quartet of the most handsome and best smelling young men this fine city has to offer.

“Oh honey! You smell good! What are you wearing?”
“It’s Burberry.”
Chicago men wear Burberry cologne, and they’re damn proud of it.
As hard as we tried, we could not get the bartender to keep the bar open longer for us. Something about the law. So our quick nightcap turned into you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. Somewhere around 3:30am, I sent Jessica back to her hotel and immediately crashed.
The next morning, or rather, later that morning, I called Jessica up before her flight back to St. Louis, and all she said was, “Ohmigod – that was so much fun! I love Chicago!”
Works every time.

Filed under: General on March 30th, 2006 | 20 Comments »