"Look at the stems on you!"

Funerals are the worst; the whole family, together again so soon after The High Holy Days, because a ninety four-year-old relative has passed. And you never really knew them to begin with. Their loss, obviously. And technically, is the mother of your ex-aunt even family? You’d wear black and your big sunglasses to the funeral, but that’s so trite. You go with deep maroon and your big sunglasses instead. That FCUK dress your gay best friend picked out so you’d buy it for an astronomical amount of money and he could wear it vicariously through you. Though he’d probably like to wear it to a trendy restaurant with great shoes and not to some Jewish cemetery where the grass is dying and people who don’t know any better have brought flowers.

“Instead of shiva,” I say to my mother, whom I haven’t seen in days since she’s been helping with funeral arrangements, “let’s go to dinnah.”
But she says, “You can’t do that, Steph,” so I settle with a black and white cookie from Karsha’s at the Kiddush. I eat just the vanilla part, the best part. It helps with the pain.

You know what else helps with the pain? Xanax. My ex-aunt takes two and goes to sleep until December. I watch her retreat to her room with her dogs. She’s still wearing her sunglasses, which is a tad dramatic for my taste, but I don’t really know how I’d react in this situation. I’ve turned off all of my feelings except “quixotic”. I can’t even think about being in her position. I won’t think about being in her position.

I sit quietly in a corner of the living room and sink into the oversized white couch with a glass of Perrier, which I don’t like as much as Pellegrino, but I’ll deal. I was wishing for a lime when my dad plops down beside me. The two of us, who are the same height (though, I might be slightly taller, but don’t tell him), silently observe how our feet dangle off the couch without touching the floor. He gingerly kicks my foot with his and I nod to say, yeah, I noticed it too. He rubs my arm while trying to maneuver a roast beef sandwich on rye into his mouth with his other hand. In this moment, he couldn’t have been more Jewish.

My cousin walks in then. She’s thirty and gorgeous with new breasts and a boyfriend whom she loves dearly but probably won’t marry. The last time I went to LA to visit her, she asked me for three words that would describe her for some “about you” paper the audience for Ellen had to fill out.
I said, “Pret-tay, Wit-tay, and Shit-tay.”
When I asked what I should put for mine she said, “I don’t know.”

“So!” she begins and I know what’s coming, inevitably, this question is always proposed to me at family gatherings, “What are your plans after college? What are you going to do?”

I hate that question. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I don’t even know what party I want to go to tonight.

If I go.

But I do go. Because the funeral got me thinking, life is short et al. Also, I hadn’t been out in forever. So, I went. Or, actually, I have been out, but not to a party. I don’t want to sound like a hermit, but I kind of am; holed up in my living room with a TiVo remote and a one hundred calorie pack of Teddy Grams. If I see friends its so we can study at Starbucks or walk around like pretentious assholes at Kierland. Neither of which really count.

"Andrew you said? Margolis?" I repeat when he gives me his name over some Kanye West rap monstrosity.
"It's a German name!" He shouts back into my ear, but all I caught was that Kanye said I could be his black Kate Moss tonight. I nod.
"Yeah," He continues, "And it's Jewish, so..." he trails off. My little ears perk up.
Jewish?

I find that Jews are a lot like Apple Computer users. The second we overhear someone discussing how much they love their Apple computer, we have to jump in about how much we love ours too. Jews are no exception. The second we hear Yiddish or someone mention they love bagels, we have to casually slip that our rabbi told us the best place to buy bagels downtown.

I also feel the instant need to marry this boy. Now. Not even because I think he's interesting. Just because he's Jewish. I know I shouldn't, but whatever. Call me old fashioned. I get so incredibly giddy talking to the good looking Jewish boy, that I completely forget how to be charming. I instead turn into a thirteen-year-old girl meeting Justin Timberlake.
"Oh me too! I am too! I'm Jewish. Look at us," I announce, pointing to him and then myself, "Two Jews."

I instantly regret saying that. Why didn't I just hold up a big, glittery cardboard sign that said, "I love you!! Marry me!!" like the girls do for Sanjaya at the American Idol tour concerts?

I begin to pray that with the effects of low key lighting and beer, he could be tricked into thinking my breasts looked big and I was Scarlett Johannson.

Usually, I don't have to rely on good lighting. Usually, I can rely on my conversation skills, especially at Halloween parties when every other girl dresses like a cat wearing lingerie or a sexy Alice in Wonderland while I dress like an involuntarily celibate college student. Being amusing is the only way I can keep a guy's focus. I haven't been on the dating scene in about six months, but that's times twenty four in Co-Ed Years. It seems like it has been forever. Lack of free dinners and movies tends to make time pass so slowly. And apparently dissolves all social skills.

"You from here?" Andrew, no, Adam? No, Andrew, wants to know. He leans his tall body against the wall.
"I'm from Phoenix, yeah," I say. Is he skinnier than me? Crap.
"You have, like, a weird accent I can't place," he shakes his head and takes another sip of beer.

Keep drinking. I want to pour the whole thing down his throat if it'll make me more interesting.

"I get that a lot," I shrug. "My mother's from England and my dad's from Jersey so I say everything different than most Americans."
"You sound Canadian!" He laughs.
I wrack my mind for a witty retort. I have nothing. I panic. I have completely forgotten how to be alluring and funny. And now I'm annoyed with myself. Boys don't normally disarm me. I am a ball of nerves. I remind myself that this is exactly why I did not want to go out tonight.

Amanda tries to console my girlie Boys-Don’t-Like-Me-Because-I’m-Not-Slutty woes before the party, "I know its been a while but you have to just get right back up on that horse and ride after a big fall," she says.
"Yeah, tell that to Christopher Reeves," I say.
"I can't," she says simply, "He's dead."

I begin to ask Andrew a lot of questions to cover up the fact that I have nothing to say to him. I find he does enough talking for the both of us, anyway, and the more he speaks, the more I realize how full of crap he is, and is obviously just looking for someone to stay with him tonight.

As I ask him how his midterms went, he touches my arm for absolutely no reason. It almost makes me want to roll my eyes, but I control myself. My friend Lauren notices from a few feet away at a table covered in cupcakes and liquor and gives me the thumbs up with the hand not holding a baked good. A part of me wishes I could be free from his grasp so I could grab a cupcake, too.

Andrew has already ended the portion of the conversation I am included in, and begins to ramble on about his hometown of Berkeley. I tuned him out for the most part, but every sentence seemed to end with, "its great." Every attempt I made to contribute to the conversation was dismissed. I think about cupcakes until he finishes his monologue, "And I have a fifty-seven foot yacht my dad gave me."

I quickly read through his lie. His dad owns a yacht. Sometimes he takes it out to impress girls. Oh, and it is actually a speed boat.
"Is she yar?" I ask.
"What?" He's confused.
"Yar," I repeat. "Haven't you ever seen The Philadelphia Story?"
"You're misquoting that movie," he tells me.
"I am not! Tracy Lord says yar!" I argue, pretending it is in jest, except I know I am right, but again he dismisses me, like a king, with a wave of his hand.
"It's fine," he swats at a piece of lint invisible to me. "Anyway, what do you do? Do you work?"

Still thinking about that cupcake. Damn, I want a cupcake. Suddenly, I don't care so much that he's adorable or Jewish. Or that he has access to some boat.

"I'm a writer, actually," I say.
He clicks his tongue, "I thought all writers drank to excess and beat their wives. You know, at one time I wanted to be a writer."
"Ahhh," I say, understanding his reference to The Philadelphia Story, "Good one."
"That's what she said!" he blurts. I look off to the side and contemplate this 'joke'. It makes me happy that I left my sparkling sign of marriage proposal at home.
"So, are you gonna write about me?" He wants to know, he moves in closer. I notice that now, there are only four chocolate cupcakes left and one vanilla.

The vanilla one is mine.

"Eh," I shrug, "Probably."
"Gonna write about how awesome I am?" He laughs.
I nod, "Definitely. Can you excuse me a minute?"
I walk away before he can really answer. It's cupcake time.