Dear Intertubes

You know what you are doing.  We know what you are doing.  So now that we all know that you know that we know let us discuss it.  

DON’T BOTHER!  Don’t bother telling your Bridesmaids any of the following:

“….and the good thing is you will be able to wear it again!”

“….and the good thing is that this cut looks good on anyone!”

“….and the good thing is this color looks good on everyone!”

Really?  Where will anyone be able to wear this monstrosity again?  Is this an episode of Dallas?  Will I be able to wear it at the Oil Tycoons Ball?  Will I get into a fight with a drunk Sue Ellen (oxymoron)?  Does Vodka stain?

We all know that you are the pretty princess and everyone should be looking at you.  NO ONE IS TRYING TO STEAL YOUR SPECIAL DAY!  If they are, maybe you should examine your past behavior at the weddings of others.  Are you sure they are no inappropriate speeches hiding back there?  

Does no one ever think that making your “friends” wear ugly dresses makes you look like you have terrible taste?  Calm down, it’s just a question!  You are soooo pretty.

Not to worry, Bridesmaids will take solace in the fact that five minutes after the reception is over, said dress will be a cold, black lump of plastic in the trash can of their hotel room.  Back from whence it came, eh!

Post Script- I am not the wearer but the one whose job it occasionally is to try to make one of these plastic sacks actually look good.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.  

Yes, the Hug has replaced you.  Why?  That is a fair question.  The answer is not clear, however I do have a few theories.  Before we get to your untimely demise, let’s talk about our two friends, the Handshake and the Hug.

The Handshake is old fashioned, yes, but also respectable.  It doesn’t take liberties, it is the strong and silent type.  The Hug is comforting and friendly, but also too eager and can be overly friendly when not operated properly.  I find it strange to meet someone for the first time and then end that meeting with a hug.  Slow down there, bub!  We are not there yet.  When will we get to the Hug?  It varies from person to person, so just keep it to yourself until that time.  

I blame operator errors of the Handshake that has allowed the Hug to take over.  Some of the classic Handshake mistakes are so foul you can totally understand why someone would rather hug the offender than shake their hand.  Let’s look at some classic mistakes together, shall we?

Mistake #1: The Limp Fish

Everybody knows the Limp Fish.  You put your hand out and your Handshake partner totally fails and just places a cadaver hand in yours.  No grip, totally lifeless, and not even a glimmer of a shake.  Totally unacceptable.  Consult an encyclopedia, ask your Uncle Herman, or you-tube it but please, do NOT simply place your hand in someone else’s hand.  They want to shake your hand not hold it.  When my Handshake partner does this, I assume that they really do not care what impression they are making on the world.  Are they depressed?  Do they go home and eat a bowl of cereal in the dark?  

Sad.

Mistake #2: The Overly Firm Grip with the Lean In

This is an aggressive one.  Perhaps overcompensating is a better word.  Firmness is most important in a Handshake, but when the grip is too firm it is frightening.  Don’t worry, my hand isn’t going anywhere.  No really, I’m good. I’ve already had my daily hand crushing today.  

So let’s say your Handshake partner is not only gripping your hand like iron but then they lean into it.  Yes, that’s right.  They lean into it, towards YOU!  What exactly is the expectation here?  Are you fishing for a kiss or is this some kind of power move?  Are we going to lock horns in the parking lot?  What is going on?

Reel it in, loosen up, and stop trying so hard.

Mistake #3: The Princess Shake

Do not ever put your hand out like someone is going to kiss it.  EVER!!!  Unless you are Scarlett O’Hara or Eliazabeth Bennet, you should not expect that a person is going to kiss your hand on the first greeting.  It makes you look like a total weirdo that you think someone is going to kiss your hand.  Do not expect that another person is going to kiss your hand.  Who are you?!?!?  Who do you think you are, the Queen of Sheba?!?!??!  Are you insane?!?!?!  

Yep….you guessed it!  Two separate occasions in my life, upon participating in a Handshake experience, my Handshake partner put her hand up like I should kiss it.  I grabbed it and shook it because I am not Cyrano de Bergerac or The Count of Monte Cristo.  

NO ONE WANTS TO KISS YOUR HAND, BUNNY, THE SEWING MACHINE SALES LADY!!!!  

Now if your Handshake partner decides to kiss your hand, that is their business.  It can be a nice gesture and very surprising.  To expect a hand kiss is a little desperate and just plain strange.  This shake is not common, but it is the most offensive.

Helpful Handshake Operator Instructions:

Your hand must be dry, firm, and when you shake make sure it is two shakes only.  Overly shaking your Handshake partner’s hand hits all of the points that we have already discussed.  Overcompensating, invasive, desperate, and weird.  Weird, weird, WEIRD!  Stop it!  Let go of my hand, freak!

Your hand should NEVER be damp.    

I occasionally do perform the two handed Handshake but this move should only be utilized if you are an experienced Handshake operator.  It goes like this:

1. Offer your hand.

2. Shake your Handshake partner’s hand once.

3. Put your hand on top of their hand.

4. Shake once more.

5. Release.

The Two-Handed works best when either you are shaking hands with someone whom your really appreciate or speaking passionately to.  Going overboard with it will make you seem…..you guessed it…desperate and weird.

Not that we are all informed, get out there and put your Handshakes into action.  If you are making Handshake mistakes, practice until you get it right.  It might save you from some awkward, I just met you but I don’t know what to do so I think we should Hug, Hugging.  

I can not guarantee that your Handshake will always be accepted, but there is no harm in trying.  Once, while attempting a parting Handshake, I offered my hand and my Handshake partner grabbed my hand and used it as a device to pull me into a Hug.  

I guess some people insist on their Hugs as much as I insist on a Handshake.  

What a world!

I have heard that all the world’s a stage.  I have seen that all the world’s a toilet, however it still surprises me that people use a rush hour crowded subway car as their personal bathroom/dining/breast feeding area.  No.  I am not talking about the homeless.  Well……fine!  I don’t know for sure that these people aren’t homeless.  They don’t look homeless, ok? 

Alright, just calm down!  I get that maybe you got caught on the subway and you child needs to feed and it a beautiful part of nature and blah blah whatever.  Sometimes you just need to eat.  Sometimes you need to eat from a giant square styrofoam container of the stinky-ist food you could find.  Hey, sometimes you just needs to feed.  At least you are using a fork.  

Some people are so oblivious to anything other than their own existence that they have absolutely no qualms what so ever with putting on an entire face of makeup on the subway.  So I am, of course, talking about you….redheaded girl on the subway.  Totally packed 7 train, morning rush, and I’m reading my book…….get over it….I still read a real book.  Reading my book and out of the corner of my eye I catch movement.  

Of course I look over.  I might need to deal with whatever this supposed movement might be…..zombie, xenomorph, general what not.  Then I saw you, red headed girl, doing your makeup.  The movement I caught was you taking big swipes on your face with your foot long makeup brush.  You are in it to win it aren’t you?  Mirror, big giant brush, and the gallon size ziplock bag (that looked old and dirty) filled with makeup (which also looked old and dirty).  Congratulations.  If your goal was to get people looking at you and then talking about you, job well done!  I’m guessing you are just a selfish jerk who considers the subway to be an extension of your apartment.  If that is the case, you should move.  You have a crappy apartment.  

WARNING: This letter will and does contain spoilers about the book I am Legend, the films The Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man, and I am Legend.  If you want to read, view, read while viewing or view while reading any of the above mentioned material, burn this post now!  CONSIDER THIS YOUR FINAL WARNING!

Dear Books,

The bald lady said it about you and we all know it is true, “Nothing compares to youuuuuuu”.  When you and I get together it is like magic, we go anywhere we want, we do anything we want and every time it is special.  But I am not a fool.  I know you spend time with other readers and I am okay with that.  I’ll find another book, or at least that is what I tell myself.  Eventually I will forget you and maybe I will come back.  Then again, maybe I won’t.  The point is we had our moment in the sun and it was beautiful.  

Of course a film version of you can not possibly compare to the hours we have together.  I am a big girl.  I can get over plot lines altered, characters dropped, endings changed, and so forth.  As long as the main themes are still present.  Most of the time I view a film version of you as being a different story all together.  I know it will not compare and I don’t expect it to.  Regarding one book in particular, the straw has finally broken the camels back.  I mean, it broke a looooong time ago.  I just haven’t been able to really effectively express myself about it.

I do NOT like to play favorites with you, Books.  Seriously, whenever someone asks me what my favorite book is I usually start by saying “Well, what genre and what author and do you mean I have to pick just one and I love Kurt Vonnegut and every time I read something of his I haven’t read that one becomes my new favorite”.  You get the picture.  I really do love you all….well most of you.  Some of you I just did not enjoy.  No really……it’s not YOU, it’s ME. By that I mean I HATE YOU, but that is not your fault.  We just weren’t a good fit.  But I do…I really, REALLY DO love you all, but I need to talk about one of you in particular.  I won’t say he is my favorite, but he is up there in the top percentage……..

I am Legend 

The way you have been treated is so unfair it makes me sick.  There have been four movies made out of you.  Admittedly I have only seen The Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man, and I am Legend.  I am Omega, being a direct to video release, will not be viewed by me…..probably.  Hey…..I have many bouts of insomnia and sometimes I watch things……thaaaaat should not be viewed by anyone.  I’m just being honest.  Back to the point…..there have been four movies made out of you and not only have none of them done you justice, but all of them but one may as well not even bothered saying that they were born out of you.  The Last Man on Earth comes the closest……but really?

Let’s start with the lead character, shall we?  Robert Neville is an everyman, not a scientist working on a cure, not a doctor with a home lab, and not a military whatever who specializes in airborne diseases…..or whatever.  He is the neighbor that you might borrow hedge trimmers from.  He doesn’t find a cure, he doesn’t find any other humans, and he does NOT sacrifice himself.  Sure he finds a microscope and some books at the library, but his studies are rudimentary at best and the only answers he gets are from a young lady (is she still a young lady if she is the undead?) tied up in his house.  The character of Robert Neville has the best ending that any character can have.  He dies, FULLY AWARE, that he has caused an entire society to force themselves into better circumstances, adapt or die.  Not by giving them a very unsanitary looking blood transfusion and then screaming “Your all FREAKS and I’m a MAN” (in a very pinched voice), but by the fact that they had to find a better way of existing, as a society, or they were imminently going to die. Like……the next time they took a nap in the wrong neighborhood.  The last words of the book are “I am legend.”  He is dying and he knows that the entirety of this new society has changed it’s trajectory because of him.  They will know who he is, he will be remembered.  Everything he went through, which was a lot, meant something.  

It is not so much that he is played by Vincent Price, who is great in many other things. It is the fact that, in this particular film, Vincent Price looks like he couldn’t blow the seeds off of a dandelion, much less stake half the city’s population.   At one point he has to fight off the vampires to get out of the huge crypt, it looks like Grant’s tomb, that houses his wife’s coffin, even though anyone that died was immediately burned on the ever burning body pile so a giant crypt makes no sense and wait who had time to engrave a marble coffin while everyone was dying and coming back and what the heck is……….yes…..I said vampires.  Well, yes…..they are supposed to be vampires.  No….not albinos……not mutants…….no…….not zombies either.  The vampires….YES….they are supposed to be vampires…..stop interrupting!  Great. I lost my train of thought.   Whatever…….it isn’t a great film, however The Last Man on Earth gets one thing right. There is a giant body pile that is burning and it has been burning for a long time.  Since the Government first found out that people were dying and then turning. This burning body pile, and the fact that it is still burning, is important because it shows us that his has not been fiddle farting around.  He has been methodically going through the surrounding area, street to street, and totally dusting any vamp he comes across.  Then they go on the pile like so much more grist for the mill.  AWESOME!  Most importantly……the kid gets thrown onto the burning body pile….Neville’s kid.  They actually had it in this movie, I was kind of impressed.  She doesn’t get dragged off screaming and Neville doesn’t take her there, but it still happens.  Not sure if I am remembering it correctly but I like my version so I will keep it.  Yes, in my version Neville brings his own daughter to the body pile, alive, and stands there as she is dragged off screaming.  LOVE IT! 

So….okay….I feel like I need to apologize for this letter having taken a weird left turn but we have gone to far to turn this letter around now.  Onward!

Get it together, books.  Enough is enough.  The tragedy of I am Legend should be a lesson to all of you.  Don’t let this happen to you.  Line your spines with knives and the next person that suggests you would make a great film, shank them.  Make sure you get an artery so that they bleed out all over you.  Then you can dance around in the rapidly growing pool of their blood, saying things like “How ya like me NOW!” and “Alls well that ends well” and other quips of that ilk.  I know it sounds extreme but if you don’t start defending yourself the same tragedy will happen to you.  To arms, books!  TO ARMS!!!!

Spoiler alert…..you are getting married.  I had a feeling this day would come.   Not because I read your status updates, wedding invitation, or tea leaves.  I came to this conclusion on my own.  No…..really!  I alone predicted this!  ME!  ONLY ME!!

Alright, let’s talk about your wedding.  Now I know you think you have it all planned out and everything buuuuut you are wrong.  Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong……WRONG!  The Brooklyn Historical Society?  Oh well, I am sure it is very nice…..for a bunch of NERDS! You know you could have gotten a very nice wedding hall on the island for the same price and it would be much nicer.  I bet this place doesn’t even have any gold trim or cherubs on the walls.  Oh, the ceremony is in the library?  Greaaaat……so….what?  If people get bored because you have made them wait so long because you must be the prettiest on your special day and it is your day because you are the bride and oh my GOD your sister is wearing sneakers and where the hell is your bouquet and the wedding co-ordinator put the chairs like that and oh great who lit your grandma on fire….well I guess they could just read a book.  Sooooo…..you made the flowers, favors, and cake topper yourself?  Well that is so nice…..if you want to go with homemade.  Yarf….I just threw up in my mouth a little.  Well at least I’ll get a free meal out of this.  Oh, only a cocktail hour?  Oh.  So let me get this straight.  You invite people to a party and they won’t be forced to make small talk with your shut in cousin that you stuck them next to because you were tired of playing musical chairs with the seating chart and you just wanted it done?  Well…..I guess that is fine if that is what you want.  I mean I guess it’s nice….you know it is your day…..I suppose.  

So tell me about the dress.  No wait….let me guess.  Ummmmm……ok I am seeing something like Kate Middleton or……no….wait…..I’ve got it…….Kim Kardashian!  Oh yeah yeah yeah!  Lots of ruching and super fitted down to below the knee with a very full skirt and beading, beading, beading, beading…….BEADING!  MERMAID STYLE….WAHOOOO!   Oh…..that’s your dress?  Well, isn’t that special.  I mean I guess it’s nice.  But I just….well I don’t mean to be rude…….but your open toed shoes and cocktail length dress just tell me that……well the fact that you are wearing THAT tells me that you are not taking this seriously…..and NO VEIL…….someone fetch my smelling salts.  Why are you like this?  Why do you have to be this way?  Don’t you care how this is making me feel?  What?  You think you can just have whatever YOU want at your own wedding?  How dare you!!!!  So everyone else’s hopes/dreams/desires/expectations means nothing to you?  How selfish are you?

I think that this is all very indicative of your total lack of propriety.  Have you no decency?  Have you no shame?  

Well…..FINE!!!  

I’ll drink your drinks, eat you hors d’oeuvres, and knock over your cake.  

But I won’t like it.

So……how ya doin’?  Great.  Let me just start by saying I appreciate you.  I know, a LOT of people are talking and what they are saying…..well, let’s just say it is NOT flattering. They are saying you are huge, angry, retaining water and full of hot air.  I know, right?  I, on the other hand, admire your power and strength.  You know that we go way back and I will gladly play checkers and do Mad Libs by candle light, just like the old days.   I may even go up on my roof to admire your power.  I am not intimidated by powerful women.  So…..maybe you could calm it down before you get to my house so I don’t have to abandon my sewing machines? Sweet, I knew I could count on you.  

On to you, Mayor Mike……seriously?  FIrst off, we all know what you are doing.  You are totally over compensating for the xmas blizzard.  Why don’t you just drive past our house a thousand times in an Escalade with Irene on your lap?  Or better yet, have a press conference from your tricked out panic room saying “All is well, folks.  But before the storm can abandon you and leave you for dead, we are going to do it first.”  FINE!!!!! BREAK UP WITH US ALREADY!  But we are going to tell everyone that we were just using you ANYWAY!  

So they have taken our transport away and might possibly strand us further by closing the bridges, but they will never take our FREEDOM!!!!  Until we are caught in a mandatory evac zone, fined $500 smackers and jailed for 5 days.  Swell.  So if the winds don’t blow me into the East river I can look forward to drowning in Rikers and some other jerk will use my bloated corpse as a life raft.  That is excellent planning.  Okay everybody, look for me on the evening news……I’ll be the idiot on top of a roof getting rescued by the Coast Guard.  Screw your evac zones, MTA total shutdown, and collapse of society……this gal is holdin’ out for a hero.

And now the Media.  Oh you,  aren’t you cute?  With your non-stop coverage, total freak out disaster scenarios, and everything.  Didn’t you get your rocks off enough this week with the East Coast earthquake?  I am not afraid of you and you will not make me anymore paranoid than I already am.  Don’t you know who I is?  I am a FLORIDA girl, dammit! That’s who I is!   I know what a category 1 hurricane is.  You think you are so smart but not mentioning that category 1 is just above a tropical storm rating.  Category 1 means really windy and rainy, it does NOT mean Katrina.  How dare you!  

Alright so maybe I am much better prepared for a Zombie apocalypse than a hurricane. Let me just say this I will NOT be buying 12 cans of tunafish and 3 pallets of bottled water.  I am concerned that I don’t have enough alcohol but I have all day tomorrow to get some. And guess what?  Tomorrow morning I am going to the LAUNDRY-MAT….yeah, that’s right!  I know you want me to put my head between my legs and kiss my butt goodbye and you won’t be satisfied until I am crying in the fetal position in some high school gymnasium/shelter.  HA!  That’s what you think!  I will have clean underpants, just try and stop me!

 I will NOT give up!  I will NOT go gently into that goodnight!  I WILL fight for my right to party, I WILL come on and feel the noise, I WILL open up and say aaaah!  You can’t trick me into stimulating the economy and creating my very own hurricane bunker just to boost your ratings you sluts.  Yeah…I said it…SLUTS!  Now get back in that kitchen and make me a sandwich.

How are you? Just wanted to let you know I will be posting letters to you from time to time.  You should be getting them shortly.