Last weekend my boyfriend and I head over to Vanderbilt for his homecoming weekend. It was like I walked onto a movie set. Frat row was swarming. Front lawns were overflowing with people, music and beer. Kids were walking down the sidewalks with drinks. I sat on a bench, sipped a lemonade and felt OLD.

We head to the tailgate party. Vanderbilt class of ’68 is there in full force. I don’t feel so old anymore. We find a seat at a table with a guy my boyfriend used to live with. Across the table is a couple he doesn’t know. But that guy won’t let that last long. He offers,

“We live in LA in the Palisades, that’s where all the stars live. The paparazzi are going by all the time. They were following Spielberg the other day.”

My only regret from this dinner long conversation is that I didn’t keep a tally of how many famous people this guy name-dropped.

The guy continues,

“So Jessica, you’re from Boston? Matt Damon lives up the street from us. The other day we were at the park with our kids, the same park that Ben Affleck takes his kids to, and they were all wearing Boston Red Sox gear.”

Yeah and the other day, I walked by Harvard, that’s where Obama went and then I got a coffee.

The bar is almost full. I’m the only one behind the bar. I serve a couple some drinks. Fifteen minutes later the guy asks me,

Have you ever thought to yourself, ‘hmm I wonder if this hair-do is too big’? I haven’t, but after my most recent foray through airport security I will.

I slip through airport security in Boston with liquids scattered haphazardly through my bag, no ziploc bag in sight and no problem.

I head back home through Raleigh, North Carolina. The young woman ahead of me stands in the naked-picture-taking machine. They retain her. One TSA official remarks to the other,

“There’s something metal in her shirt around here.” The official gestures to her boobs.

Seriously? It could be a knife but it could also be the underwire of her bra. They motion me into the machine and let her move along. As I’m about to walk away, the TSA official barks,

“Don’t move. We need to inspect your hair.”

The lady official spends the next few minutes poking around in my bun. She finds nothing, but then again she didn’t really try.

Moral of the story: you’re on your own to watch out for hair grenades and boob bombers.

I made it back and Jesus loves me. How do I know? The billboards, the bumper stickers and a little girl’s shirt all told me so. Other things I learned: America is great and we need to impeach Obama. For what I’m not sure.

My boyfriend and I head to Dollywood. If you’ve ever thought about creating a museum in honor of yourself, you can take a lesson from Dolly Parton. All you need are a lot of photos of yourself, some awards and an enormous amount of sequins. Which now that I’m writing it it sounds a lot like my childhood bedroom. For $59 you can walk around my room and use the bathroom, food will cost extra.

The roller coasters were awesome. My boyfriend and I stumble upon a Birds of Prey show. We sit down to watch. They’re showing a movie of Challenger the Bald Eagle from Tennessee. It’s like an E! True Hollywood Story, complete with embarrassing baby photos. Music is blasting, the kind of music that plays before a football game and then there they are, the bird keepers. Each bird has it’s own entrance song.

The bird keeper welcomes out a falcon. He exclaims,

“She has the best legs!” The song “I’m sexy and I know it” blasts over the loudspeakers.

Then the bird keeper is holding a bald eagle aloft. He quotes from the Bible,

“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; Isaiah 40:31.”

It is time for another roller coaster.

Yes, the small child behind us makes this seem a little less scary.

Tomorrow morning I leave bright and early for the South. I’m headed to North Carolina, the Great Smoky Mountains, Dollywood, Nashville and my boyfriend.

My cowboy boots are packed and if my boyfriend has the mullet he’s been threatening to get, then we should fit in no problem.

I’m also in the market for some Dolly Parton inflatable titties.

Four women come into the bar. They look like they’re in their forties. One of them looks at me and gasps. She nudges all the other women to look at me. Everyone is staring at me. Finally one of them speaks. She points at one of the other women and tells me,

“You look just like her daughter.”

“Oh.”

Normally when people tell me I look like some famous person or other I say thank you whether or not I have any idea who they’re talking about. I’m tempted to thank these women, but I’m not sure. No one is reassuring me about how cute this woman’s daughter is. Or saying the standard “that’s a compliment.”

These women look like they would have children who are twelve-years old.

I report all of this to my bar manager, and ask,

“Do they think I look like a twelve-year-old?”

My bar manager glances at my chest,

“They’re old enough to have a fourteen-year-old who is just starting to develop.”

My mom, Booker and I head to the dog park. Booker is my dog. He’ll forgive me for using his real name in my blog. At first he is shy and needs to poop. Then he warms up to the other dogs and commits himself to following one old dog around. Booker coats him with drool and occasionally tries to mount him. All seems to be going smoothly.

My mom and I make small talk with all the other doggie parents. One doggie dad is walking around in the dog-park gravel barefoot. I’ve gone barefoot in hostel showers before, so who am I to judge? I’m going to judge. Walking barefoot in urine coated gravel is gross.

I notice another random looking guy with a big camera around his neck. He points at Booker and asks,

“Is he yours?”

“Yes.”

“He’s beautiful.”

“Thanks, which one is yours.”

“Oh I don’t have a dog. I just like coming to see them.”

My mom turns to me,

“He’s like a pedophile at a playground.”

A coworker of mine has an on-again off-again boyfriend, who does not seem to have any redeeming qualities. I know she was trying to get a day job so she’d have more time to be with him. She finally found something. I ask her,

“Did you tell him you got a day job?”

“Yeah.”

“Is he excited?”

“He told me I’d never be more than a bartender ever.”

Did you tell him you’re a server too?

I head to Starbucks. Don’t judge me. They have an amazing pumpkin spice latte. It’s like drinking Fall with a cup full of sugar. Perfection.

I stand bleary eyed behind a huge line of people. Yes it’s noon, but I just woke up and rolled out of bed. I contemplated putting underwear on, but decided it was too much work to take my pants off and I walked straight to Starbucks instead.

There are three young women in their twenties ahead of me. A fourth walks up to join them. One of the three looks the fourth up and down and says,

“Is that what you’re wearing?”

The woman tries to look at herself. She’s wearing a t-shirt and shorts. She answers,

“Yes.”

“You can’t wear that. We’re going to Boston today.”

“I know.”

“What are you going to do? You can’t wear that.”

I’m waiting for the woman to speak up and declare that she can wear whatever she wants. She does not.  I check out the three women in line. Their outfits are fine, but nothing special, even if they are wearing underwear. The head bitch of the pack yells at her friend again,

“You have to go home and change.”

The woman stands and stares back at her, drops her head and walks toward the door. The queen bee declares to the two remaining women,

“It doesn’t even look like she showered today. It’s already noon, what’s she been doing?”

Her friend replies,

“I think we need to resolve to be nice for the rest of the day.”

GOOD LUCK.

I completely forgot to tell you: when I went through airport security in Boston it was like upside-down day.

Bar guests say strange things to me all the time, but last night one guy was going for the record.

He’s a middle-aged guy who comes in every so often. That describes two-thirds of my regulars. Last night he has a couple drinks and eats his dinner. Then he demands,

“Tell me something bad about myself.”

“Tell you something bad about yourself?” I repeat it because I’m not sure I have any idea what he’s talking about.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Tell me something bad about myself, anything.”

“I don’t know you.”

“C’mon.”

“I have no idea what you want me to say.”

“I hit people.”

“Ok.”

I walk away. I’m not sure who he hits, but maybe I don’t want to stand too close. He waves me back over and says,

“I want to talk to you down there.” He gestures to the end of the bar where all the servers pick up their drinks for the dining room. I head down there. I know I don’t want to get too close to him, but I also have a blog to write. There’s one server waiting for cocktails. He tells the server,

“Can you give us a minute?”

“No.”

I pipe up,

“This is the server station. You’re welcome to tell me whatever you want, I’m sure the server would love to hear it too.”

The server mumbles,

“Maybe.”

The guy who hits people continues,

“I want to shock you.”

“I doubt you can, but go ahead.”

“Guess how many people I’ve slept with.”

“I know men who’ve slept with hundreds and men who’ve hardly slept with any.”

“I’ve slept with four.” He turns to the guy server. “All women.” He turns back to me. “Can you believe that?”

My bar manager pipes up,

“On average, throughout their life, men sleep with five women. According to Esquire.”

I went to my first mothers’ group the other day. No I do not have a baby, but my friend has two so there were plenty to go around. She found a mothers’ group online so I tagged along for my first internet mommy date.

Maybe it’s because I’m not a mother, but that group was not a good time. Boobs are great. Who doesn’t love a good boob conversation?  But talking about milk production and blocked nipples takes the fun out of it.

I’ve had a puppy. My puppy would crap herself, it sucked. I do understand how it’s nice to commiserate with someone else taking care of something that craps itself.

As I kept meeting the other moms, the conversation would go as follows,

“Hi.”

“Hi, I’m Jessica.”

“Do you have a baby?”

“No, I’m here with my friend, those are her two over there.”

“Oh.”

No baby. End of conversation.

My take away from all of this is that internet mommy dating is a lot like regular internet dating, it’s rarely great but it would be somewhat better with a drink.

I just spent the last four days with a one-year old and a newborn. More on that tomorrow. First I need to go to the bar and have a drink and/or work.

I’m going to San Diego to visit a newborn, a one-year-old and a couple thirty-somethings. I think about what to take them. I’d just take a lot of alcohol but that whole carry-on liquid restriction is a bitch. You can only fit so many nips in a Ziploc baggie.

I head to the toy store instead. I know what I would want if I were one, but what would I want if I were three weeks old? Plus how long is this kid gonna be three weeks old for? Not long. I should probably just get him a cell phone. A hybrid dinosaur pacifier catches my eye. If that’s not a guaranteed good time I don’t know what is.

Don’t tell him, it’s a surprise.

The whole family will love this, am I right?

My brother came to the bar the other night. I haven’t seen him in over a year. He skips the small talk and gets right down to business. He asks,

“What are you gonna do? Are you going to be bartending when you’re 40?”

I don’t know. Am I going to be blogging when I’m 40? It’s hard to say.

Although the owners of my bar are instituting a fifty-cent raise every 6 months, so it would be in my best interest to stick around for another ten years.

97-year-old bartender

I was chatting with a couple at the bar. I’d never seen them before and we were hitting it off. One of them asks me,

“Where are you from?”

“Worcester.”

“Really? Then why are you so cheerful?”

I got a new phone a few months ago, a Samsung Galaxy S4. I’m in love. It’s big shiny and I know how to do everything on it except make a phone call. I plug in the headphones it came with and call my mom. I can hear her fine,

“Hello? Hello? Hello?” Click.

I call her back and explain I’m trying to use my headphones. I tell her,

“Don’t hang up even if you can’t hear me, I’m going to try to get them to work.”

I try the headphones again. She can’t hear anything. I press a button on the headset and it ends the call. I call my mom back. Busy. I call back again. Busy. So telling my mom not to hang up may be backfiring.

I gave up on the headphones for awhile, but now with a boyfriend in North Carolina I’m determined to figure them out. I go online to Samsung.com. There’s a tutorial for everything related to my phone except the headset. There’s an explanation for how to turn on your phone, how to send a text message, how to find the internet, but no mention of a headset.

I start an online chat. I ask for headset instructions. ‘Tom’ tells me,

“Would you mind holding for 3 minutes while I look into this for you?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you for holding. There are no instructions. It should just work.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“Try plugging the headset into another Samsung Galaxy S4.”

“I don’t have another one.”

“I would recommend going to Best Buy.”

The other night at the bar we were serving a salmon salad special. The salmon is farmed. I describe it to a 75-year-old regular. He pounds on the bar,

“Honey, you know I like my salmon like I like my women. WILD.”

He reaches out to grab me.

A young couple is at my bar. I’ve seen them a few times before. They are the epitome of hipster. They are so hipster that they could be non-hipsters dresssed ironically as hipsters.

Wrap your head around that one.

The woman tells the man,

“You are a terrible public speaker. You have the same problem I do, but you’re worse. You don’t know how to talk to the bottom half.”

“I don’t want to talk to the bottom half.”

I’m chatting with two guys at the bar. One tells me,