Two years ago I published this list of things to discuss at holiday parties. How things have changed! What a difference two years makes!  Of course you’re going to discuss politics! The mere mention of Aspen will cause your interlocutors to go pale with disgust at your conspicuous consumption. Not to mention Izzy! I mean, no one even cares that T.R. Knight is leaving. Or do they?! And it is so not apocalyptically warm. It is apocalyptically cold from where I’m sitting. O, 2006, when things were so much less complicated! O, 2006! When people actually had holiday parties! Herein, a quaint relic.

Reprinted here with permission from the author, “Good Conversation Topics for This Week’s Holiday Parties,” 18 December 2006.

You’re so busy! I know! This time of year! You can’t zip your jeans but you’ve stopped caring! Egg nog! You’ll never finish your shopping! Carols ’round the spinnet! Egg! Nog!

I know it can sometimes be difficult to come up with stuff to talk about with drunk strangers at the office party, the other office party, the cocktails in Hoboken, the holiday just-because drink with your college roommate, the New Year’s bash full of not strangers, just friends you have yet to meet, if only you had an entree! You know the old chestnut: Steer clear of politics, money or religion. Okay, but what do you talk about? Herein, a list of good topics for breaking the ice, and select topics to avoid.

YES!
That actress who plays Izzy on Grey’s Anatomy. Everyone loves her. They find Meredith annoying and Ally McBeal-ish, but they love Izzy! She earned that Golden Globe nod. Did you see the Season 2 finale?

NO!
Dead pets.

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YES!
Last year, in Aspen. You can’t go wrong with a raucous tale that involves snow, a bearskin rug and celebrities.

NO!
How your jeans don’t fit. No one cares. Theirs don’t either. Pass the cloved ham.

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YES!
How great people look. Don’t overdo it, because then they’ll get suspicious and think they were fat before, but I find hearing how great I look a good way to get me to warm up to you. “I haven’t seen you since last year’s tree-trimming! You look great!” NB: If talking to a co-worker, appear unthreatening, and do not follow with “baby” or a wink, because this can be construed as harrassment.

NO!
Don’t lead with the controversial party game “Good for the Jews/Bad for the Jews?”. This can be a good time (”Britney Spears: Good for the Jews or Bad for the Jews?”) and get people thinking, but some may take offense or not get it. Try “Alive or Dead?” if you want to be piquant. Like “Mickey Rooney: Alive or Dead?”. No one knows, but everyone cares!

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YES!
Sledding.

NO!
Itemized deductions.

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YES!
What happened the last time you went on eBay. This is always amusing. Everyone loves an eBay story, especially if it involves Depression glass, old comic books, last-second bids, or how much you got for a pair of beat-up cowboy boots.

NO!
February. It’s going to happen. We don’t want to think about it.

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YES!
iPod playlists. Very neutral, potentially hilarious.

NO!
X-Box. Limited appeal, never funny, always slightly lonely.

YES!
Your Top Ten Anything of 2006. People love Top Ten lists. Movies, Songs, Shags, Stomach Flus. Everything is interesting when listed. Try Top Three to really up the tension! It forces people to be really discerning! Who can choose their Top Three Naps? Top Three Physician Visits? Top Three Arguments with Grampa About Obama’s 2008 Aspirations? That’s hard!

NO!
The weather. Come on. It’s apocalyptically warm. No, no one can believe it. Dead end.

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YES!
Emerging Adult ADD. Everyone thinks they have it.

NO!
Anti-fungals.

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“How absurd. How depressing and disheartening and just plain dumb this whole business is.”

I don’t for a moment begrudge Hillary her victory on Tuesday. But if victory came for the reasons we’ve been led to believe – because women voters ultimately saw in her, exhausted and near defeat, a countenance that mirrored their own – then I hate what that victory says about the state of their lives and the nature of the emotions they carry forward into this race. I hate the thought that women feel beaten down, backed into a corner, overwhelmed and near to breaking point, as Hillary appeared to be in the debate Saturday night. And I hate even more that they’ve got to see a strong, smart and savvy woman cut down to size before they can embrace her as one of their own.

Judith Warner in the New York Times

I realized today that email isn’t just email. I’m a writer. As in it’s my job. Email is work. It stresses me out. In 2008, I’d like to email less and talk more.

I resolve to stop emailing long letters to friends who are in the same town, whom I could get together with easily. Email is for quick communication. It’s for business that doesn’t require tone. Writing a long email feels more and more like an obligation. Communicating with friends shouldn’t feel that way. I’d rather send one postcard a week via US mail than write an email update on “what’s up.” I’d really rather talk on the phone.

I know this is unrealistic. Email is easy. People are at their desks all day, it’s an efficient way to catch up without having to make noise or wait until after work. When writing is your job, you sit down at the desk to do your job and then there’s email and it’s exercising the same muscle you use to do your job but the job doesn’t get done. Then when you (or I) go to do the job, the muscle is frequently tired. The job is harder for having emailed.

In 2008 I resolve to make things easier.

Is it obnoxious to ask friends to call me to catch up rather than email? It seems mean and anti-social. It’s mean and anti-social not to return emails, one could argue, or to do so without an explanation. It does sound rather “I’m above your whole ‘technology’ thing” for me to try to exempt myself from email. But socially, I’m going to try. If you’re a friend of mine with whom I exchange long rambly emails, let’s try to do it less. I care about you. (Some of you more than others–YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. I’m kidding. Wouldn’t that be funny if I weren’t? Or ridiculous? Oh well. I find it a little funny.) I don’t want our communication to feel like work.

I’m not going to stop emailing altogether or get mad if friends email me. That would be sociopathic. But I’m in need of a moderate lessening of intensity. Obviously it goes without saying that if you EVER have anything even remotely emotionally delicate to say to anyone, don’t do it via email. With me or anyone. No tone. Email. Has.

NB: Please keep emailing me constantly: business associates, Girl’s Guide fans, people who want signed bookplates, people who don’t know my phone number, people who want to offer me money, secret admirers, people who want me to send money to Nigeria or purchase misspelled prescription drugs.

What’s the point of the blog if it has not a theme, is sporadically updated, acts coy and withholding when it comes to intimate details?

I don’t know either. But you care, so I persevere, with vague promises of posting more, and my evident discomfort with really revealing everything is maddening even to me. But I think that anyone who really wants to get to the kernel of what is what with me should read/study/commit to memory the following mundane facts about my week.

1. I have yet another ingrown toenail. I’m suspecting it’s genetic. This one can’t be attributed to running shoes because I haven’t been running because either I’ve been working too much, it’s getting cold, or whenever I’m not working I think “Oh it’s too cold I’d rather crawl under the covers and think about work.” Suspicion: combination of the three.

2. I tore through Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett, Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, and now I’m slowly making my way through Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates and pretending it’s the book version of Mad Men because I’m sad that the Mad Men season is over.

3. I remain enthralled by the Larry King video podcast and I don’t care who knows it. I watched Kid Rock. I watched Eric Clapton. I watched Jenny McCarthy for chrissakes. I don’t care who it is, if it’s Larry King and it’s on a 2×2″ screen, I am rapt.

4. I started watching The Wire. I never like to admit anything is too hard, but I am having a hard time understanding what the hell.

5. I went to a spelling bee. I felt I could have outspelled the pants off everyone there but that’s an ego thing. I pride myself on being a really good speller. I make typos sometimes and this is painful for me because I kind of think of myself as also a really good typist. And a show-off. I’m braggy.

6. I can’t dress for this shit. I mean, I know: LAYERS. But I hate any season that’s not summer.

7. I felt overwhelmed by malignant envy maybe 2 times this week. This is average for me.

8. I felt sorry for myself maybe 4 times this week. This is a lot for me.

9. I got a new gear shift on my 15-year-old bike that is a non-stop target for neighborhood vandals and man, gear-shift technology has really come a long way since I bought my twice-used Specialized Hard Rock Sport in 1992.

10. My new bike basket is not working out. It’s not attaching properly to the handlebars and it slowly or sometimes quickly starts to dump all my stuff into the street while I’m riding. I get a lot of compliments on it, however, so I’m thinking: who needs stuff? The surly guy at the bike shop even complimented me! Thanks, Jean!

11. I almost missed Halloween because I was holed up at Paragraph and then emerged at 2am and nearly got trampled on 14th Street by drunk revelers and I realized eh, Halloween, not my holiday. My holiday, for those who keep track of these things, is Bastille Day because it’s French and it’s in the summer. And it involves heads on poles. No, not for that reason.

12. I stood behind the so so so pregnant Drea DeMatteo at my pharmacy (or should I say “our pharmacy,” since it’s mine and Drea’s) and eavesdropped on her conversation but held myself back from chuckling along or making a calculatedly clever comment because in spite of the fact that we share a pharmacy and I found her black suede hobo bag with tassels that TOUCHED THE FLOOR remarkable, she is not my friend and I am not a starfucker.

13. Two friends’ bands are playing tonight and I want to go to both. I don’t like going to see bands but I happen to have a minimum of three friends who are in legitimately good bands.

14. I have connected with more random people from my past on Facebook than is healthy or seemingly necessary and it makes me nervous that my policy of being apparently personal but not divulging anything truly personal is going to start getting dicey.

15. I realized that when you interview someone for a story, they Google you. Sometimes you interview like 20 people and you see in your site logs that they all Googled you. I find this creepy and I think this is me just being ridiculous because I mean, everyone GoogleS everyone, and of course I’d Google a reporter who called me. I think Google etiquette involves not admitting you Googled someone, as one of my sources did and I got very “this call is coming from inside the house” scared.

16. I am nursing a very cautious crush.

17. Julie brought me a big bottle of 100% aloe vera and I drank the whole thing as the directions advised me, 2oz. twice a day, and I don’t know what it’s supposed to do but it hasn’t done it yet.

18. Don’t not return an email, especially a business email. Don’t not return a call unless you never want to hear from someone again. Never forget to thank people whom you ask for advice. Don’t take the advice and run. People are busy being important/famous/having ingrown toenails and they took the time to give you, a total stranger, advice via email. Say thanks.

Can I pause here and just say that about 9 months ago, in the throes of doing publicity for my book, a stranger emailed me for advice. I feel no compunction in revealing the details of the scenario because I think she acted abominably. She was trying to decide between the MFA programs at Columbia and NYU, both of which had accepted her, and an old professor of mine suggested she contact me. I gave her a whole boatload of advice, a thorough compare/contrast of NYU/Columbia, based on my experience at NYU and friends’ experiences teaching at/attending Columbia–even though I found her sort of supercilious and full of herself. I was in primo advice-giving mode at the time as I was touring-slash-doing a lot of interviews where I was being asked for my opinion a lot. But I tried to abide by my “all unsolicited advice is self-serving” motto and really help her. We should all be so lucky to have such “problems,” but anyone who ever really wanted to get into one of those programs knows that. Anyway, I never heard from her. And I’m kind of pissed about it. Because if there’s one thing I hate it’s people who don’t express gratitude. I’m old-fashioned: I like to send cards. I like to send gifts. I don’t want to appear entitled, even if I feel entitled. I’m showing off again. Anyway. It’s shitty not to thank someone.

It is also shitty to not RSVP to a party; it is shitty to work very, very closely with someone on their book and then not acknowledge its publication (more common than you’d think!), it’s a good idea to kiss someone’s ass just a tiny bit when you ask them for a big favor, but in a genuine way that shows that you respect them and their time. I’m getting ranty now. I forgive you all. But come on people. Be human. Be nice to each other. Acknowledge people. It’s not a zero-sum game. Even if I am totally winning.

19. I think I should turn this more positive. I like my new shoes. Even if they look a little Wednesday-Addams-ish.

20. I worked hard this week and think I will reward myself this weekend. This means I will go running for pleasure and not beat myself up for only doing half my normal distance because I’ve not been running in weeks. This sounds like a dumb reward but I tend to be extraordinarily hard on myself and I think I will try to give myself this gift. Oh who am I kidding. I’m going to get that Cole Haan bag.

“A recent Yahoo study indicates that the days in which emoticons were considered as unacceptably casual as flip-flops at work are over.”

From the NYT. Let me be clear here. Flip-flops are still not acceptable in an office. They are even less acceptable now that they are either all jangly-jangly trussed up with rhinestones, or as slappity-slap-slap loud as Havaianas. Beach shoes. Shower shoes. Leave them in Negril.

Just because Havaianas are the “cool” brand of rubber flip-flops now does not make them haute couture or acceptable at work. It also does not make it acceptable for them to cost over $10.

Furthermore, those flip-flops with the inner contour footbed situation are not acceptable either. They’re probably more comfortable than your basic rubber flop, but they are still too devil-may-care for the workplace. Unless the workplace is the pool at the Y.

Confidential to Lisa Belkin: Why wasn’t I interviewed for this article?

[T]his is the first time in history that four generations — those who lived through World War II, Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y — are together in the workplace.

Managers tell stories of summer associates who come to meetings with midriffs exposed, baring a belly ring; of interns who walk through the halls engaged with iPods; of new hires who explain they need Fridays off because their boyfriends get Fridays off and they have a share in a beach house. Then there is the tale of the summer hire who sent a text message to a senior partner asking “Are bras required as part of the dress code?”

I’m all over that shit, yo. Just kidding. Kind of.

Which brings me to emoticons. It’s possible I’m coming around. I have long lamented the lack of tone on email, mostly because no one gets my deadpan humor and I’m terrified of insulting people. I don’t know if I could bring myself to “wink” at you after I make some comment, but I do appreciate people smiling to let me know they still like me after they send me something I might construe as mean and/or disappointing.

I have been watching a lot of Kathy Griffin. Who was ROBBED of her rightful seat on The View, PS. (I haven’t dignified yesterday’s announcement of Whoopi and Sherri Who-the-Hell-Are-You-Again-Besides-A-Little-Conservative? as Rosie’s “replacement” because I am now giving The View one year. Those two people are not interesting to me. Nor are they funny. Or provcocative. Or good-looking.)

Anyway, Kathy. I think she’s funny. I saw her on my Larry King Video Podcast (Yes, this is what it has come down to) and found her hilarious. So, inspired by KG, my new excuse for anything I say that is or is not funny is “That’s something I’m working on for my act.” I have decided to have a fictional “act” that I’m working on, as if I were a stand-up comedian. This is not unlike One Woman’s Opinion, the fictional book of everything I think. It is fun to say “Oh, sorry I hurt your feelings, that’s just a bit I’m working on for my act.” Or when someone laughs, “Oh good, I’m thinking about using that in my act.” Or if something falls flat, “I guess I’m going to have to refine that bit before I put it in my act.”

The foundation of my act is a one-liner I came up with at dinner with Leigh & Stefanie the other night. It’s a little dirty and I don’t think I can repeat it here. I think it’s a stellar bit, really a very good joke, but too racy for this family website. Because I don’t want my six-year-old fans, or my sizeable senior citizen readership reading a joke about roofies. Email me if you want to hear it.

Oh dear god that emoticon looks LiveJournal-idiotic up there. It hurts me to leave it. Like I am getting acid stomach just looking at it. I won’t look at it.

PS I have been posting more frequently to my Tumblr blog recently. It’s good for quick inspirations. Also I find myself curiously drawn to Facebook. Who am I to spurn LiveJournal. I’ll be blogging there soon, just watch me. Next stop, Webkins.

Would you believe me if I told you it was some of the weirdest and best and also most hilarious ice cream I’ve ever had? Pop rocks in your ice cream! That is fun ice cream! Maybe not for every day, but once a year, come on: impossible not to be thrilled by.

I’m back in the hottest city ever after a long stay upstate, where I not only went to a rainy Fourth of July cookout in a log cabin in a town improbably named “Andes,” I also wandered several sleepy towns along the Hudson Valley, had several iced coffees and smelled nature, which you notice when you get out of New York, you notice the smell of the trees. I slept. I decided to give up on The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe and read American Sucker by David Denby instead. I saw an opossum (not a possum) up close. Very cute if you can get over the looooong rat tail.

Meanwhile, in the blogosphere.

I have that Regina Spektor song “On the Radio” playing in my head as today I start another round-robin national radio tour. Watch out, North America (I have my first ever Canadian interview in fifteen minutes and I cannot wait to discuss the Louisiana Purchase. Or graduation gifts. Whichever the DJ thinks is more relevant.)

Male interviewers, whether on radio or television, tend to take a sort of offensive approach to talking about The Girl’s Guide to Absolutely Everything. When I’m being interviewed by a male/female team, the woman always asks the hard-hitting questions about the book, the man sits back and cracks jokes about how uncomfortable he is with discussing body image, how he doesn’t know the first thing about the changing nature of friendship and doesn’t care. The guy typically becomes this fratty, mischievous sidekick who undermines the interview. I tend to joke right back with the uncomfortable guy and this, not surprisingly I guess, throws them off and they get sort of petulant. I’ve learned, however retrograde it is, that male interviewers need to be the funniest, they need to mug for an audience, and the interview will go much more smoothly if you just laugh politely and agree.

Men have told me that they cannot possibly walk into a bookstore and buy a book with “Girl” in the title because it’s just not done, because the salespeople will think god-knows-what — the most “liberated” men I know feel their masculinity could be questioned if they buy a book targeted at women. Most women I know would buy any book, no matter who it was “geared toward,” no matter how “embarrassing” the title. Do men still feel emasculated buying tampons? Does this account for the shock jock morning show hosts who use “Whatever!” as a response when they can’t come up with anything clever to say to a female author?

The true professionals, and maybe this comes with age or experience, have no problem talking about the book, its girly intricacies, and comfortably say “This is a book I could use!” or “I’m going to get this for my daughter and my son! I’ve been interviewed by many fantastic radio hosts (I wish I could remember the cities, because I fell in love with this male duo who interviewed me on the radio somewhere out there in some city, they were just so funny without being mean, it was amazing).

One guy this morning asked me what was up with everyone being so PC in the northeast and why had they fired Imus? He gave a good interview but I was struck once again by how easy it is to wander around New York and assume the rest of the country agrees with us or doesn’t exist. Not that I didn’t think that there were people who protested Imus’ firing; I just like to pretend we’re all aspiring to be more liberal and politically correct, and it’s easy to forget that smart people disagree with us. This is why people tend not to wander too far from their own backyards — “People out there disagree with me, but I don’t plan to meet them.”

“On the radio, we’ll hear ‘November Rain’…”

Don’t say “excuse me” when what you really mean is “excuse YOU!”

I find it hilarious that we can me passive-aggressive with strangers in millisecond confrontations, but it’s sadly true. The situation is always one where an “excuse me” is not called for: You’re walking blithely down the street and someone briskly pushes past you and says “Excuse me!” even though there’s plenty of room to walk around you without any physical or verbal contact. The message is “you’re walking to slowly,” not “I’m politely pushing past you.”

People always say “excuse me” when they mean “excuse YOU!” in lines, like checkout lines, as a means of saying “I was here first!” so you don’t cut them. There’s usually no way you were going to cut anyway. The “excuse me” is always uttered in a distracted, neutral tone, as if the person were just refexively dropping a token nicety because they’re polite, instead of fiercely staking their claim to one square foot of real estate in the universe.

“Excuse YOU!” is, of course, outright rude, but it gets the message across. People say this when they think you’ve just done something that required an “excuse me”: They’re pointing out what a heathen you are. A misused “excuse me” comes off as haughty, brusque — it’s a offense play against a clueless stranger.

Obviously, “excuse me” should be invoked when you truly want to excuse yourself. Come to think of it, I think I used the passive-aggressive form of “‘excuse me’ when I meant ‘excuse YOU!’” the other day. I was in a long taxi line at LaGuardia, and the guy behind me kept creeping up so close that he’d trip over my luggage. After the fifth time, I smiled sweetly and said “Excuse me.” (So bitchy! But I was tired! I was home! Forgive me, dear reader!) He, however, handled my maneuver quite deftly, “That’s okay, ma’am” he said, taking me at face value instead of giving me what I was unconciously desiring — an apology. He took the fangs right out of my passive-aggressiveness.

I’ve said it before: Good manners are a tool that can be used for good for evil. Having good manners does not give you the right or the responsibility to educate the ruffians in your midst.
Good manners should be used to make other people feel more comfortable, to grease the wheels of society so we get along better, not to create a caste system in which haplessly rude people are taken to task by their finishing-school-tutored betters.

Okay, so I have this Sitemeter software on my website that gives me some info on visitors to melissakirsch.com, including what they enter into Google searches that brings them to the site. The most common search terms are my name, the book title, questions about email sign-offs and — fascinatingly, comfortingly — subterranean zits. But sometimes people Google the most random, bizarre things and end up here.

Some recent searches that brought people to melissakirsch.com that baffled/amused me deeply, either because I cannot believe someone was searching for such a thing, or because it seems very unlikely that such searches would bring you here:

PS I’m doing my taxes, and I am here to say that even the girl who wrote Chapter 3 of the Girl’s Guide has a teensy psychotic break when faced with the task. You’re not alone.