28. January 2009 by Jenn.

A trend: Recently I received two calls, on different nights and from different men, at just about 10 minutes before one a.m. This seems evidence to me of two American problems - cell phone culture, which allows people to do all kinds of rude things in the name of reaching out and touching their neighbors, and the hell of dating. Oh, and drinking. Make that three American problems. Allow some backstory/overview here:

I should say that I’ve never “gotten” a boyfriend through dating - I’ve always spent time with the person some other way, and when we realized we enjoyed talking, spending time together began to include dinner and movies and so on. Anytime an appointment was made with scant reason to back it up (a fifteen minute chat in a bar, say), it was damn nearly a waste of time. So, dating: the weirdness of setting up what amounts to appointments, more or less, with people you barely know who might already want to see you naked.

The cell-phone part of this: a lot of us would agree that cell phone chat is the cigarette prop, the Something to Do With Your Hands, of our time. Many people don’t seem to want to buck up and read a book, call up a daydream, or understand that they’re not that important. (I realize that calls made from home, which the following calls surely were, might not qualify as cell-phone problems, but the cell thing has change the way people use phones, period.) 

So, do many people find calling in the wee hours appropriate? Or do I just attract the presumptuous sort?

My guy friends think it’s all about trying to get laid (”They want you,” “A booty call!” My friend Rob: “Has he seen you naked? If he hasn’t already seen you naked, it’s not okay.” )

Drinking is surely a factor - at least one of them sounded drunk. I didn’t answer that call. We met for the second time about six hours earlier at a local jazz bar, and I decided to, in keeping with this doing things I don’t normally do thing, give him my number. I just thought he’d be fun to know, probably. We had a fun chat for the second time in a few months, exchanged cards, and set off for different scenes, me a house party and him a businessy get-together. The text message arrived within an hour or so: How’s the party? Okay, now that would be cute if it stopped there for the night. A voicemail was left about an hour later, trying to get me to stop at the restaurant/bar where he was having drinks with other lawyers. I didn’t get either of these messages until after the fact; I left my phone in my coat pocke. So there was a pile-up effect to his messages that made me uncomfortable.

Then the call after I arrived home and was getting ready for bed, at 12:50 a.m. He sounded, on the message,  a bit slurry; he invited me to do something with him the next afternoon. The next day I sent a text. I figured some feedback might be the right thing to do.

The call from the other guy, which actually happened first, came about after hanging out a few times, but also after not having talked for three weeks.

The phone rings. I look at my watch. It’s 12:48 a.m. I pick up. Being the about-town person that I am, I’m curled up on my couch, watching Elf (this was Christmas week, after all).

I pick up; I don’t recognize the voice. He identifies himself. Me: “What time is it?” He may have sounded sheepish. “1.” A pause. “Is this an appropriate time to call me?” No answer. Me: “I’ll be around tomorrow if you want to call then.” Click. He hasn’t called again. 

It’s funny. He has performed in a unique, ironic-cover band, and the cd has been part of my home soundtrack for a few weeks. When listening to the band’s version of Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love”, and his plaintive-in-an-ironic-way vocals on it, I can’t help smiling. The phone is not his friend.

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23. January 2009 by Jenn.

When you’re spending time with someone, in particular someone who professes interest in you romantically, watch how he treats your pizza. Why? Because pizza is, at least in this country, a canvas that can be painted any number of ways depending on your mood, whim, personality, budget, company, region, and/or ethnicity. And how open-minded, reasonable, and generous the players are can come into play. 

Because there’s so much room to play around, so to speak, a pizza order can speak volumes, serve as a litmus test, predict a lot about your interactions with the person with whom you’re doing the choosing. It can serve as a gauge of how amenable someone is to such things as change and compromise. You can determine how discerning someone is regarding matters of taste and balance. You may be able to see, in something as simple as a pizza order, how much someone cares about you, or put another way, how stuck on himself he is.  Is it all about him? Is he open to learning something? Is he a tad cheap? Does getting everything he can for his dollar (as he sees it) trump a tasty, well-balanced pie with a firm crust?  

Of course, this all applies to you, too. I try. I object to multiple toppings and indiscriminate combinations, but you could probably talk me into a pie with pineapple or something barbeque. Once. 

Topping a crisp ring of dough is an opportunity for creativity, perhaps, but it shouldn’t necessarily be, given the simple rules of the game:  

*Don’t overload your pizza with toppings, or you’ll detract from the, we hope, expertly rendered crust**, sassy sauce, glob of boring, pointless mozzarella, or other, more worthy, cheese. 

*Toppings should be lovingly prepared but considered supporting players to the main events, the aforementioned sauce, crust and cheese. 

*Too many vegetable toppings (say, more than one) result in a soggy, droopy crust. 

**A tip: When ordering a pizza for delivery, consider ordering it well done. I don’t advocate for well doneness any other time, but as the pizza will steam in the box on the way over to your house/gathering, having them cook it just a bit longer than standard can prevent a soggy crust. My friend Tom, owner of a pizzeria, supports this idea. “The pizza you eat in the shop is not the one you eat at home,” he says, referring to the differences in crust due to the boxed trip. 

And now for our story. Some months back I invited a friend over for a movie and pizza. I supplied the movie and of course, the venue, he the wine. He may have paid for the pizza - I can’t remember, and his paying may have something to do with what followed. We’ll call him Kurt. It went something like this: 

Kurt, perusing the pizza offerings on the takeout menu of a respected local establishment: They have a special; you can get five toppings. 

Me: Oh. I’m part Italian-American. Italian Americans - We think anything over two toppings is disgusting. [The special he was interested in featured pepperoni, sausage, peppers, onions and mushrooms, I believe.] 

Kurt: But they’re having a special.  

Me: I’m pretty open – anything except mushrooms – most places use canned. And I’d rather not have more than one meat, unless we do a half and half. 

Now, this was actually me stretching a bit. I knew three vegetables, for example, would be a disaster: They release water as they cook, making the crust soggy. But I had decided to let things happen more often in my life, to not seem to be trying to teach my friends things so much. But really, I was practically retching at the thought of a mountain of crap topping our order.  

I thought of ordering a hoagie, as the place doesn’t have a small pie fit for one. He could get the smallest pie and take the leftovers home. But maybe this wasn’t such a “social” suggestion, and I felt sick of being a tiger in a lions’-pride kind of world. 

Kurt: But they’re having a special – five toppings. 

Me: But I don’t like that. [Translation: What good is a special if I don’t want to eat it?] 

[Insert dramatic pause, a pause that seems to indicate that I’m tampering with his happiness and wallet here.] 

Me: Okay: I can do two meats and maybe a vegetable.  

Aside: Now, if you think I complicated this matter, realize that I’ve said “I can’t eat that” and he’s not relenting. I’m being flexible and trying to make sure I can eat what we order. 

I’m not sure what happened next, except that he ordered a pizza with a minimum of four toppings. There may have been five. The slices hung vertically when picked up, they were so soggy. I slogged through two pieces because I was really hungry and several hours later threw the leftovers in the trash without hesitation, unheard of for me. I was proud, though, that I let this happen, sat back and saw where the night (and his less than stellar pizza taste) took us.  

The lessons: It’s hard to have any kind of sustained fun with someone who doesn’t listen to what you want, doesn’t take your pizza seriously. Subsequent events, not important here, proved this. I never considered Kurt a boyfriend, but if I was moving in that direction, the pizza incident would have sounded an alarm. (It’s funny: I’m not a pizza girl anyway; I suggested pizza with the movie as an easy, democratic way to have a meal.) Overall, it’s simple: With pizza, and in life, it’s easy to adjust up or down one or two ingredients. It’s not that difficult to be considerate as well as satisfied in most situations. I, for one, will continue to work on it.

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19. January 2009 by Jenn.

It seems I may be more of a journalist, or at least one better-rounded, than Katie Couric, the first solo female anchor on a major broadcast network. At least according to one controversial cultural commentator. Of course, the only national exposure I’ve had includes a tiny front-of-the-book piece in Gourmet and a lamely edited page in Ode, and I’m print, not broadcast, with all of its special requirements. But still.  

In a recent Salon.com column , Camille Paglia discusses the media take-down of Sarah Palin, whom she admires for being scrappy and perceptive as well as a lot smarter than many people believe. Paglia here makes reference to the Couric/Palin interview on foreign policy, and wags her finger at what she sees as the hypocrites who won’t give Palin a break, stating, “And let me take this opportunity to say that of all the innumerable print and broadcast journalists who have interviewed me since I arrived on the scene nearly 20 years ago, Katie Couric was definitely the stupidest.”

I interviewed Paglia in spring of 2005, and as we had a three-hour, wide-ranging conversation – I was excited to be meeting her and didn’t want to let her go – she may actually remember me as she mentally flips through the pages of the various reporters she’s encountered. And I stupidly brought her something - olives, which I’d read she loved since she was four. I heard later that, though she would normally not accept anything let alone avail herself of whatever it was, she ate them and loved them. So there. I’m smarter than Couric. Now if I could just be richer.

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