more ranting about men and pool

People think I overreacted to that guy making fun of my billiards skills. But this morning on the train, instead of concentrating on the admittedly useless essays in the back of "White Noise: Critical Edition" I eavesdropped the whole way on these two guys talking, mostly about the new French fiancee one of them has. Toward the end the subject turned to pool...
Guy 1: "So anyway you'll have to meet her...she likes to shoot pool, which is cool."
Guy 2: (excited) "Wow, that's great."
Guy 1: "Yeah I mean, but she's so bad at it, it's so cute."
Guy 2: "Well I mean at least she likes it, that's the important part...I've dated so many girls who won't go near a pool table."
Guy 1: "Yeah, she likes it, I try to teach her stuff, she tries really hard. But like you don't want a girl who's like really good, who makes all the shots..."
Guy 2: "But that can be hot..."
Guy 1: "Well yeah, as long as she still acts like a girl about it, not like a guy. One time I was playing and there was this girl who was way better than everyone else in the room, like insanely good, but she was like so pompous about it, you know? She was making all the shots. So I made fun of her, I was like 'oh is this your first day playing pool? it can be tough to learn on your first day' and all."
Guy 2: "How did she take that?"
Guy 1: "Oh she was good, she got it, she laughed about it."

Well what choice did she have? I'm sorry but it's still just not funny. Ask yourself why you feel you need to "take her down a peg." And then tell me, because I don't understand anymore. And then stop doing it, because it sucks.

And then I came out of the subway and saw a fat weird crotchety old man wearing a knit cap which said DIG IT DIG IT DIG IT all around it, and felt better.

trivia report

Isn't this feature boring by now? I'm more interested by "lunch report." Well Bryan, Marya, Mia and I went to Buttermilk for trivia on Monday and set up under the now-established name "The Real People." I'm not sure how we got this name but it's based on the television show. This was one of my favorites as a child, along with Love Boat. Since it ran from 8 to 9 and my bedtime was 8:30, I had to cut a deal that I'd put my jammies on and have my teeth all brushed by the time the show was over so I could go straight to bed at nine. It makes me laugh that I loved the show so much but perhaps it presaged my later interest in anthropology in college. And hey, Fred Willard was on there, he later came into his own in the Christopher Guest movies. When I was seven we went to Florida and I actually got to see one of the hosts, the "cute" one (Skip Stephenson), in a personal appearance at Circus World. My first celebrity sighting! Though it doesn't make the list since it doesn't count if you have to pay to see the person. Which begs the question, if you're walking in Times Square and see Carson Daly broadcasting TRL through the MTV window, does that count as a sighting? Um, not that I looked.

Back to trivia: it's quite exciting because we finally tied for second with such luminaries as "Steve Gutenberg Bible" and "The Neuticles," who both win consistently. However "Suspicious Package" had us all beat by two points. I think what really did us in was the visual identification round, which was all hockey players. Now, Bryan is extremely masculine of course, but this knowledge was just too esoteric. He did get two of them, which is terrific. I could only come up with "Bobby Labonte," which is the wrong sport. As usual there was a lot of second-guessing and guesses vying for dominance against other guesses, only to find that the other guess was the right one. There was an amusing category where he read the capsule reviews of movies from the Sunday NY Times TV section. I screwed up and guessed "Coffy" as the movie starring Pam Grier as a vigilante nurse, when it was simply the more notorious "Foxy Brown." I thought I was being so clever. But redeemed myself on the next question: a bad western starring Gene Hackman and Sharon Stone. Apparently this information had been living in my ass all along because at the very last moment, when the answer card was being collected, I managed to pull it out! "The Quick and the Dead"! Many thanks to Mia for the assist: she knew it had "and the" in the title, which proved very important info. Buttermilk trivia is on vacation next month.

product review: gooey moisture socks

Well ever since seeing in Lucky magazine that Shoshanna Lonstein uses this product, I have been curious about the Bliss Spa moisture socks, which are impregnated with a mineral oil gel and effortlessly moisturize your feet overnight. I don't want to deal with foot baths and pedicures and so on. But as I get older, my feet get dryer and dryer. Last night I was wandering down 5th Avenue when I saw that Bath and Body Works has launched a skincare line from CO Bigelow Apothecary. I said "what the?" and walked in. They are making a big splash. It seems like Bigelow's is going head to head with Kiehl's, which is now owned by L'Oreal. L'Oreal has Lancome, L'Oreal, Maybelline, and now Kiehl's. The Limited has Henri Bendel, Limited, Express, Victoria's Secret, Bath and Body Works, and now Bigelow's? Though Bigelow's is still independent, they just have a distribution deal with BBW. My second cousin-in-law is a chemist at L'Oreal and after talking to him I became even more skeptical about just what these "different" brands are offering. It seems like all that differentiates them is price point and market targets, not the merchandise itself.

Which brings me back to the socks. Looking across that overpoweringly scented shop, I spied the Bliss moisture socks I'd been wanting. I thought what the hell I'd get them but after careful scrutiny I realized they were knockoffs. Knockoff Bliss products? They have the same font, same color, same styling, everything. But the True Blue Spa socks were $10 cheaper. ($38, by the way! but they're reusable indefinitely.) I was really puzzled about what to do. After all, it's a silly pampering item anyway...scrimping on pampering just seems like a contradiction in terms. And for $38, it had better be good! I mean, only $10 more and I could have the best? But I decided since I was already holding it in my hand and seemingly in a buying mood, I would just get it. I planned to wear them overnight but by 9 pm my feet were already feeling dry and cracked, just crying out to me for the gel socks. So I put them on for three hours. At first they were super cold and clammy. Then it started to heat up in there and activate the moisture oils and lavender scent. At the end it was really hot in there and sweaty, so I took them off. If I'd been asleep it wouldn't have mattered. Afterward I could definitely feel the presence of oil on my feet. But could I have just put oil on my feet instead? I think that the heat really helps it penetrate. When I had my facial they put heated mittens on over hand lotion and had me sit there and bake. But that could have just been gimmickry too! To make me feel like my $65 was going somewhere. I don't know what to believe. I notice that Conair has come out with a heated lotion dispenser, going along the same principle. That sounds gross to me. Most lotion will separate under heated conditions, I think. But you know the real purpose of the product is to improve hand jobs and masturbation anyway. Which makes the product just doubly creepy.

The Verdict: moisture socks are of unknown efficacy at this time, will require further trials.

Spelling Bee Page Six

Prospect Heights was all "abuzz" last week for the fourth Novelty Adult Competitive Spelling Bee at Freddy's Bar and Backroom. At 23 entrants, it was the biggest turnout yet. And was anyone there not a blogger? Emcee Josh Reynolds has one, as does Heather. Jimmylegs was there, with his new gf, and did I spot two of his exes as well? They're exemplars of "staying friends." And Douglas was there too, with his new gf! Cute! Books blogger Alison spelled well as usual, accompanied by man-friend Karl. I also saw que sera sera Sarah, and a big group of Very Young Lesbians. (Jill Krementz take note, that could be a good new book project for you.) Former spelling champ Linus was conspicuously absent. We spelled for three contests, I'm not sure who won since I was having a lot of attention deficits. I do know that I nearly won, but was robbed! when the other finalist was given the pedestrian "eohippus"-an evolutionary precursor to the horse, while I was saddled (no pun intended) with some greek word, I don't even know what it was, some kind of pointy hat thing I've never heard of. My embarrassing moment came when I tried to spell "narcoticism" and couldn't-- I tried it as "narcotocism" saying, "it has an o, like erotocism!" not noticing that that isn't how you spell eroticism either. I might have saved myself. Last night apparently the Jane Pauley Show went to Freddy's in order to film Knit Night in action. As a friend pointed out, Jane Pauley going to Freddy's sort of points to us now being in The End Times. Surely the plague of locusts is next. After walking home after work through icy pellets digging in to my face, the idea of leaving the house again was just more than I could bear. If anyone went to the event I would love to know how it turned out. Bloggily yours, Kathy