I’m bringing privacy back

I have funny phone habits. Some people would say that I’m a phone person, others would say that they can barely get me to talk on the phone. I neither leave nor listen to messages. I have Caller ID for a reason – I see that you called, I call you back. (or not) I have a better habit of answering text messages. It’s that simple. I don’t want to either a) make a phone call only to hear someone say “Hi. It’s me. Call me back,” or b) listen to a rambling 3-5 minute message about something that probably makes no sense to me when I’m listening to it.

I used to have privacy manager, but in an attempt to cheapen my phone bill, I got rid of it. I was mortified when I examined my bill, only to find that I had made exactly 22 calls from my home number in one month. In my opinion, if I’m only making 22 calls, I should be paying as little for that service as humanly possible. For 22 calls, I could install a freakin’ payphone in my house, and come out cheaper than the bill that I was paying, even at 50 cents per call.

Why am I talking about this? It’s a bit of a digression, because I decided to check my messages at home this morning – largely because I have an answering machine and I’m sick of that thing picking up on the second ring, as opposed to the fourth when there are no new messages.

I had no less than 20 new calls, and ½ of them were from politicians campaigning for the primary. There were people that I’d never heard of, never cared about, and certainly won’t be voting for whose campaign offices decided to play their blaring, crackly pre-recorded messages on my machine . . . only for me to have to go through and systematically erase each one.

I don’t remember this barrage of pointless messages from the last election, and that’s largely because I had Privacy Manager. The campaign zealots got a big ‘talk to the hand’ for calling from unknown numbers.

I’m bringing privacy back!!

New column . . .

. . . or should I say additional column.

As if I don’t have enough to do, I pitched a new column about a month ago and actually got it. It’s with Metromix — still affiliated with the Tribune. Not really RedEye, but is distributed through RedEye, if that makes sense. It will be called “Date Night with Gina B.” or some derivation of that name. The purpose is to rate either date or pickup spots across the city, depending on my mood. I will be rating them on ambience, the convo factor (ability to have a conversation), whether it’s a cheap date, or a place that says “I’m trying to seal the deal.”

It debuts in the Saturday edition of RedEye — which is the one that you have to get delivered to your home — or online at http://www.metromix.com on February 16 — right after Valentine’s Day.

If you have any ideas for names, feel free to comment.

bad names and other observances

I’m always amazed at what people decide to name their children. How could you work to conceive something, carry it for 10 months, gain 40+ pounds, endure an entire day of labor, only to squeeze it out in a bloody mess and name it something like Velashae. Seriously, people, WTF??? Velashae? Really? Are you KIDDING me?

And yes, I saw that name on a name tag, and was driven completely to distraction. Hours later I couldn’t remember if I’d even gotten my credit card back. It was just that traumatic.

I think that people forget, when they have a child, that they’re not just adding to their accessories. That person will have to live his/her life with whatever their parents either recite dutifully during the pregnancy, or utter spontaneously in the delirium of having been ripped in two. This person will need to get a job, and explain for the rest of his/her life the origin of his/her name. She doesn’t want to tell friends or future employers that her parents got her name off of a medicine bottle, or that her father was crazy about Velamints, and her mother loved shea butter, so they combined the two and got Velashae!!

Or, one of my teacher friends told me that one of the children on her class roster is named Chez Paree. I SO wish I were kidding, but I can’t make it up this good. I laughed until I realized that poor Chez Paree has to put that on her — at least I hope it’s a her — resume one day.

And there are other names and spellings that perplex me. Some people start off with a good idea, and then they fuck it up with a bad spelling.

For example, I once knew a man named Dennis. I’m sorry . . . I misspelled his name. It’s actually Denis. And sure, Denis Leary uses the one ‘n’ spelling, but I can help but think that some people must refer to him as Dean-us, and that when correcting unsuspecting people on the spelling of his name, he says “It’s like penis, with a d.”

It’s because of these people that I often get asked how to spell my name. It’s Gina, for Chrissakes! A four-letter word. G-I-N-A. A common name in Italy and the US. Think Gina Lollabrigida or Gina Gershon, NOT Geena Davis (whose name is actually Virginia). No, it’s not Jena, Jeanna, Jeana, Jeena, Geena, Gena, Giina, Ginaa, Geeeeeena, Xpefina (the x, p, and e and silent, and f makes the g sound — in some country somewhere, maybe), and for God’s sake, NO, it’s not Gyna.

So, do me a favor, would you? If you’re pregnant, all I ask is that you give your child a chance. Admittedly, I’m not wild about kids, but I’m really not excited about children who are named after illnesses, vehicles, snack foods, clothing designers, weapons, or candy bars. Also, I’m a bit put off by Americans whose childrens’ names contain too many consonants, misplaced vowels, and clicking sounds.

And on another note — on the Spears front (speaking of unfit parents) — I was cracking up when I accessed the website of RedEye, and saw the news item that Britney Spears has mental issues. Hmmm . . . YA THINK????

Potholes et al

The thing to love about this time of year is the formation of craters in the ground, otherwise known as potholes. Seriously, I hit one today that was SO big that I was convinced that another car was already down in there. I looked in my rear view mirror, expecting to see a hand emerging from the ground, hoping for assistance.

What scares me is that I recently invested nearly $2,000 in my car — specifically the brakes, tie rods, and other things that are effected when one hits a pothole at 80 mph. (Granted, 80 mph is a wee bit fast to be travelling down a residential street. That’s hardly the point.)

The city will fix these hazardous caverns, and then it seems like they will come back with a major vengeance and have to be fixed not 6 months later. WTF?

On another note, there’s a question that I’ve been meaning to ask . . . why is that it took about a year to determine that Anna Nicole Smith’s son died of some crazy drug overdose, yet it took exactly 5 minutes to determine that Ike Turner OD’d??

Just a point of curiosity.

A Catty Bitch Moment

Okay, I’ve written a column about this in the past, but I had forgotten about how gratifying this can be. You might think that I’m being a catty bitch, but I don’t care. Just read, enjoy, and take it for what it is.

So . . . the back-story is that many years ago, I dated a guy who only gets referred to as “Satan,” because he is truly from hell. He is literally the most self-centered, mean bastard that I’ve ever met. I was sucked in at a very young age because a) he knew how to have a good time and b) I was a young, dumb idiot.

Long story short, it took WAY too long to get him out of my life, but now that he is, he REALLY is. Truthfully, I’m pissed off at myself for having dealt with him at all. The writing was on the wall, and I chose not to see it.

Because I’m one who tries to learn lessons from past mistakes, I’ve taken steps to make sure that Satan and his like-minded minions never have a shot again. First, I refuse to date a man specifically because he’s a lot of fun (see this column), and second, if ever I run into Satan, I pretend as though he no longer exists.

Sure, it might be a bit immature to know that someone’s in my presence — someone that I know really well and shared a piece of personal history with, but seriously? I don’t give a shit. I only run into him semi-annually, and having a conversation with him would only piss me off further. I’d rather make a mental note that he’s in my atmosphere, and refrain from speaking to him, or looking in his direction. I’m a much happier girl that way.

It’s actually a bit deeper than how I’m making it sound. I don’t speak to him because I don’t feel that he’s been a decent person throughout the time that I’ve known him, and has actually stolen from me. He is equally upset with me because he left something in my trunk that I refuse to return (cough-homepornvideowithtwosluts-cough).

Anyhoo . . . last night I was at a birthday party at Tini Martini, and lo and behold, the satanic bastard arrived.

For a while, I was standing at the bar signifcantly behind him and got a chance to check out the visual.

And . . . can I tell you something?

He looked like SHIT! Shiz-nit! Ass! On a stick! Seriously . . . I’ve scraped things from the bottom of my shoe that look better than him.

His hairline is receding, and what hair he has left is rapidly graying. Not only that, but it appears that Satan has been eating his way through every barbecue joint on the north, south and west sides. He’s proably also drinking his way through every keg. Egregiously.

To mask this girth, he was wearing what I refer to as “the big boy shirt,” a button-down that’s about a size 52 and designed to mask the specifics of whatever lurks beneath it. It’s extra roomy to accommodate that extra pizza or impromptu chug fest. Fetching!

The shirt was hanging loosely over a non-descript baggy pair of jeans.

I didn’t check out the shoes for a few reasons. 1) I was afraid. VERY afraid. 2) I really didn’t want to want to look so hard. I know that it seems as though I spent a great deal of time studying him, but the reality is that I’m very observant — especially when it comes to fashion, and I was far more concerned about the next choice of libation, and less dedicated to nauseating myself further by looking at him.

Now, let me be clear . . . Satan was never what we would classify as a “fine” man. He’s an odd-looking man who had his moments. He definitely had genetic tendencies to be a bit rotund, but he certainly had moments of being more fitness conscious. He was also vain enough to get his hair regularly colored in the past. These days, I’m guessing that salad is no longer his friend, or that his colorist met an untimely death?

And, let me say without one shred of overblown confidence or narcissism that I looked pretty good last night. It was understated, and the outfit took 5 minutes to assemble.

(Trust me — I was not entirely committed to go out, and was therefore half-dressed when my ride arrived. I still managed to make it outside within 2 minutes of his call. )

Let’s be clear that I’m not in the best shape of my life. BUT, I know how to dress to camouflage my problem areas. So, I was wearing a regular pair of Levi’s — low-waisted, slim cut. I wore a ribbed tank top made of a stretchy lycra blend that was slightly low-cut and long enough to tuck into the jeans. To top it off, I wore a black belt and matching boots. My hair was pulled into a high ponytail to hide the fact that I need to wash it.

Nothing fancy, but at least I didn’t look like a wildebeest. And if somone believes that I did, at least I can say with surety that I didn’t look as bad as Satan.

Regardless, I was having a great time with my friends, dancing, drinking, celebrating with the birthday girl. And everytime I see Satan, it’s a reminder of how far I’ve come.

Another Spears Meltdown

I don’t have much to say about this . . . except WTF???

I’ve had arguments with a coworker about this. This particular coworker and I get along — I would consider her a friend — but she grew up in rural-back-ass-bumblefuck in an area that might make the map in the next printing. She’s also ever-so-Republican, but for the sake of it. Anyhoo . . . not the point.

The point is that I have found a way to have sympathy for The Brit. My coworker thinks I’m crazy, but I do feel sorry for her. First of all, we all made adolescent mistakes. Whether we failed a class, dated someone we shouldn’t, got our hearts broken for the the first, second, or third times, and some of us even had the accidental pregnancy. Not me, thank God, but there were plenty secret “procedures” among the girls that I knew.

However, we had the luxury of doing all of that in private. There were no cameras. We didn’t have careers. We weren’t millionaires and certainly not anyone’s role model. We got the opportunity to make our mistakes in the privacy of our own bedrooms, and sometimes our own parents didn’t know what we were up to. (At least that was MY saving grace).

My point with Britney is that while, yes, she is fresh from the trailer, and a generally pretty trashy, talentless girl, she’s also a person, and one who deserves to suffer through her bad relationship and post partum depression without having stalkerazzi swinging from her fence, trying to get a shot of it. Yes, she is cracking down, but it’s somewhat disturbing that the general public is finding SO much pleasure in it.

I’m not excluding myself, because I’m certainly no stranger to clicking on the links that say “Britney Shaved Head in Public,” or “Britney Exposes Crotch” — although, admittedly, I was tired of seeing that girl’s vagina all over the internet.

I think that there should be a moratorium on Britney news for at least the first quarter of the year. Let that girl get herself together so that the next time she fucks up, it will at least be something socially salacious and not just plain pathetic.

New column today!

A good man, or a good time? You decide. Check it out on the Chicago RedEye site.

Things that women do that men should never do

I will admit that I spent a good percentage of NYE watching a few episodes of Keeping up with the Kardashians. I’m in disbelief of that household. My parents would probably not find the humor in a gift of a stripper pole in their bedroom. I would find it uproarious, personally, but in an I-can’t-wait-to-see-their-faces-and-I-hope-I-don’t-get-slapped kind of way.

I also find it interesting that Bruce Jenner, lucky stepfather of the Kardashian girls, looks like he’s had about $50,000 worth of plastic surgery. He almost looks fake. WTF? He’s certainly having a Jocelyn Wildenstein moment.

So, the Jenner observation prompted a big rant about things that women do that men shouldn’t do.

1. Excessive plastic surgery. It’s not attractive on a woman, but I don’t want to see a guy with a face pulled so taut that it’s shiny. Ever so un-cute. Barry Manilow is also the poster-child (or should I say poster-old-man) for egregiously having his face sliced and pulled.

2. Fur coats. I have no trouble with fur in and of itself. I own fur. But if my man came home wearing a fur, I might find a tranquilizer gun and try to put him down. It’s not a good look for any build. If the guy is big, he looks like a better groomed version of Bigfoot. If the guy is skinny, he looks . . . well . . . like a pimp. Or maybe a rat. Whatever the case . . . not cute.

3. Purses. I don’t mind the masculine man bag, but I saw a guy on the bus that was carrying a closer to what I would consider to be a purse. It’s a bit too metrosexual — or should I say hetero-flexible — for me.

4. And speaking of hetroflexuality, I’m not into nail polish, or should I say Male polish. A big-ass no-no. Particularly on the feet. Seriously. I don’t mind the buff finish, but the shiny finish has got to go! I know that there are men who will defend it by saying that they’re taking care of themselves. I don’t mind a man who takes care of himself, and hate crusty hands and feet more than most. However, I never, ever, EVER want to hear a man tell me that we have to wait until his toes dry before we go out. Did I say never? I meant NEVER!

5. Blow-dried and curled hair. Think Al Sharpton. Don’t do it!

If you have any more, leave a comment!