nightmare, reality
Birthday nightmare
I am hosting a party. It is a party I don’t want to be hosting. There is palpable family pressure on me to be a good host. I am trying to be a good daughter/sister/aunt, to prioritize other people's needs over my own.
The party is in some kind of grand hotel ballroom. There are well over 100 people there. I don’t know 90 of them. They are people my family members have invited without telling me.
These guests/strangers are being difficult, demanding, and rude, both to me and the staff. I am stressed out and embarrassed on their behalf, but still trying to help. There is a lot of party noise. It is so loud I can barely hear the people right next to me.
I look over my shoulder and see, at the opposite end of the room, a stage where every member of my family, dead and alive, is standing. My mother, my father, my mother’s mother, my Texas relatives. Their faces are red and contorted with rage, like what you see when you look in your rear-view mirror while driving in New Jersey. They are screaming my name. Apparently I am supposed to be on that stage with them.
Because, apparently, this is my birthday party that they insisted I throw. For them.
I ignore them and try to help these strangers. One has a prosthetic leg. I cannot figure out what she wants. Another woman has lost an Egyptian gold bracelet worth a lot of money. A third woman is holding a 2-year-old. She decides it’s time for baby boy to pee, so she takes off his diaper, holds him up in the air buck naked, and squeezes on his stomach until he pees all over the carpet. At one point I learn the guests have let dogs into the (humans-only) pool and I am chasing wet golden retrievers around the resort. In real life that would be fun. In this dream it is a source of great anxiety.
Suddenly it’s time to check out. My guests have utterly trashed their rooms.
I go into a bathroom and see the woman with the prosthetic leg sitting naked in a bathtub filled with water. There are other people in the tub with her. It is a big tub.
I say something about housekeeping and kids needing to go to bed, and the woman lets loose with something about how these n***ers need to something-something.
I rip her fake leg off her body, hurl it into the other room, and tell her to get the fuck out of here right now. It does not occur to me that she might be able to leave faster on two legs.
The man with her, who is just as racist as she is, tells me that because I have created an inconvenience for this woman, it is now my job to cancel all her upcoming appointments with her clients.
Then I am completely alone. I cannot find any member of my family, and learn that several party guests I'd never met before had rented a giant room that cost something insane, like $5K a night, and skipped out on the bill.
I’m walking around in a daze. I wander into an employee lounge, and they’re all staring at me. I assume they are angry at me because of my guests. One comes up to me to hug me and I burst into tears.
Then I wake up.
Birthday reality
I turn 51 in 7 days. So I'm taking next week off, going on a short trip, and spending time with some friends. My first stop is the Vanderbilt Tennis Club. They had me at that photo above. I am gonna play tennis inside Grand Central Station.
Links
I rarely look at property listings, and the last place in the world I'd want to live is Georgetown, but these floors kill me. New band name: Floor Fetish. (Washingtonian)
The keys are in the ignition, you can take one. Which one do you take? The only acceptable answer is the A-Team van. It has room for all my friends and whatever I find at junk shops, it's completely safe and indestructible, and it can hide in plain sight. I pity the fool with the sports car. (Twitter)
Blanket --> pillow sorcery. (Lifehacker)
Twisted dentist crafts. (Twitter)
A reader let me know about this one: Two years ago, an unhinged right-wing internet troll told a Smith College graduate: "Smith College is why I would never let my children attend a Gay Communist College that disciminants (sic) with anti-white racism. SATAN'S SCHOOL OF COMMUNISM should be their motto!" So she responded in the best possible way: By making Satan's School of Gay Communism merch, and donating the proceeds to good causes. My hoodie arrives in a few days. (Woman About the Internet)
And here are a whole bunch of awesome TikToks I've saved recently: This kid rapping with Logic. Imagine having that kind of poise/confidence at that age. Nala the golden retriever doing stomps and flops. I need this man to be my therapist. A clever duet with a dog. A rant about pulp in orange juice. Traumatic PE class in 1984. And finally, this story about a McDonald's drive-thru just gets better and better. Give this person her own podcast STAT.