Stirring the Pot (4 page)
Authors: Jenny McCarthy
RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
Ingredients:
Several bottles of (decent) wine
You and your closest girlfriends
Disguised Pizza (see
this page
)
Netflix
Directions:
Open the bottle to allow it to breathe. If it doesn’t look like it’s breathing, give it mouth-to-mouth.
If I were to make a list of the great loves of my life, several on the list would be women. No, I’m not coming out in these pages! I’m simply saying that some of my female friends have loved me more and known me better than some of the men I’ve palled around with.
For all the excitement and intimacy that goes along
with a romantic relationship, sexual attraction can cloud your judgment, and sexual tension can build resentment (not to mention resentments over dirty laundry, left-up toilet seats, and the other annoyances of cohabitation). With family members, for better or for worse, there’s baggage. But with certain girlfriends, you can take off the mask you wear during the day—wife, girlfriend, daughter, mother, colleague, Girl Scout, or bitch—and just be you, which may be a little of all those things, but not just one. Girlfriends are happily leaned on. Which reminds me that all the talk about leaning
in
to our careers and our goals in life somehow misses a big part of the point: leaning
on
each other is the way to get ahead! Best girlfriends pick each other up when they’re down, celebrate each other’s successes, and coach self-forgiveness after major fuck-ups.
Given that outpouring of mushy girl-adoration, it’ll come as no surprise to you that girls’ night is a date I hold sacred on my calendar.
In my two tens (see
this page
for an explanation), girls’ night meant girls’ night
out on the town
. Short dresses, high heels, candy-colored cocktails with fruit skewers or umbrellas. Good tunes, good times. We’d get dolled up, go dancing, and protect each other as we explored the hell out of the world.
Even if the club we went to was dead and no one bought us drinks or the guy we liked wanted someone else’s number, it didn’t matter because we were together. We were invincible! Put together, the three or four of us were a six- or eight-legged, glossy-lipped, sexy beast. Girl power! (So the next time you see a pack of young girls out on the town like that, resist the urge to think that their tipsiness or their seeming availability means that they are shallow and careless. Trust me, they are less on the prowl for men than they are on the prowl for adventure. They are celebrating their freedom, their femininity, and the safety they feel when together. End of lecture!)
Now that I’m older-ish, girls’ night
in
is the thing for me. Being dressed to the nines in a trendy nightclub has its merits and I still go that route from time to time, but I’m less into the pounding dance beats, laser lights, and the jackasses who try to take a selfie on their smartphone with me.
Now when I get together with my girlfriends I want to wear sweats or pajamas, eat good food, drink really good wine, and indulge in great conversation. And then I want to ice the cake by binge-watching an entire season of a television show featuring handsome, chivalrous, or devious Englishmen, or the vicarious drunkenness of the movie
Bridesmaids
. The concept is
still the same—we are celebrating our freedom (because Lord knows it gets harder and harder to coordinate as we all get busier with kids and careers), our femininity, and the safety we feel in each other’s company.
How many more ways can I say it?
Hands down, girls’ night
in
body-slams almost anything else in the cage match of fun.
Girls’ night
in
is a staycation from my daily troubles. It’s more rejuvenating than a trip to the day spa and more nourishing than ninety minutes of hot yoga.
I look forward to girls’ night
in
more than Black Friday sales or Chris Hemsworth films.
It’s Christmas without all the shitty seasonal coffee creamer flavors and pressure. (A side note to the person who approved the creation of eggnog latte creamer: if you won’t quit, you’re fired!)
DISGUISED PIZZA (AKA PEAR GORGONZOLA FLATBREAD)
Ingredients:
1 ball of store-bought pizza dough (per guest if you’re not dieting!)
1 pear
A handful of Gorgonzola cheese
A handful of arugula
½ lemon
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
Using a little flour so that your hands don’t stick to the dough, stretch the pizza dough into a flatbread shape and place it on a sheet pan or pizza stone. Thinly slice a pear, then line pear slices up on the dough all pretty-like. Sprinkle Gorgonzola cheese over pear slices. Bake in the oven for 10–15 minutes. While that is baking, clean the arugula and squeeze lemon juice over the greens. Add olive oil, salt, and pepper. Toss. The flatbread is done when the cheese is melty, the pears tender, and the crust golden. Top the hot pizza—whoops, flatbread—with arugula.
1. Weren’t you a dude?
2. Weren’t you voted Most Likely to Succeed? What happened?
3. What class did you teach?
4. So what time do you have to report back to your parole officer?
5. I was sad when you broke up with me, but I eventually got over it. Listen, my helicopter is here, so I need to go. Good luck with your door-to-door costume jewelry business. I’ll check you out on Pinterest!
Texting or tweeting is hard enough when you’re sober. First there are those tiny little buttons on your phone. And in my case, big old clumsy thumbs. Recipe for disaster right there. Add the fact that I’m usually in a cab or walking down the street or trying to pretend I’m listening to you while trying to type, and you get some crazy-ass messages.
Add alcohol to the equation? Well, if you think I’m uninhibited when I’m sober, you ain’t seen the half of it.
When I’m drinking with friends, they usually help keep my thumb diarrhea in check. Text policing is just another thing that good friends do for each other, after all. Where I run into trouble is after they’ve dropped me off or when they’ve all gone home (or when I’m drinking alone). Some recent examples of my late-night outreach to the friends I have been drinking with:
“CAN U COME OVER AND BRUSH MY TEETH?”
“OH NO. Cunt find batteries for vibrator. Do u have AAs? Cum quick.”
Or this beauty that I sent to my agent:
“Thoughts on expanding career. Go with me. What about playing Meryl Streep’s daughter who decides to end her life, but its funny? If not Streep, maybe Cher? Make a note to look up A-listers who can play mom to me. never mind, I just made the note myself and stuck it to the phone so I wont forget. But, seriously, lets keep thinking outside the box. Because my box isn’t getting younger. Hah!!!”
Or this one to Evan’s teacher:
Dear Ms. West
,
I luv you so much. Don’t be afraid to talk to me outside of class
.
You can call me Jenny. Or anytime
.
Kisses
,
Jenny
Or this to a local dog shelter:
Dear dog people
,
Please stop sending pictures of sad-looking dogs. It makes me so sad and even though they are cute and sad I can’t take another dog, because you know how it is. So stop. Please stop it because I am crying now
.
Jenny
Or this email to myself:
Subject: DON’T FORGET: READ THIS WHEN YOU WAKE UP. Go get the morning-after pill.
Love, me
1. An app that can detect your blood alcohol level through the keys on your phone. When you’re texting late at night (see previous chapter) it will block your message and politely ask in a computerized voice, “Is sending this [angry rant/indecent proposal/picture of your ass] the strongest choice you can make right now?”
2. On a related note, how about a device that allows you to erase any message you have sent—text, email, or voicemail—if it hasn’t been viewed or listened to yet? Sure would cut down on my drunk dialing. Wait, has that already been invented? Somebody send me a message!
3. Did you ever see that Michael Douglas movie
The Game
? Someone hires a company to trick Michael Douglas’s character into thinking his life is in danger and that he’s gotten mixed up in a dark,
dangerous world. The hoax is amazingly elaborate, and it’s done to make MD reconsider what a dick he’s been all his life. Well, I’d like to hire a company like that, a whole team of actors and stuntmen and hundreds of people in on the scheme—but I wouldn’t use the service to mess with people like in that movie. Instead, I’d hire them when I needed breakup help. I don’t mind being made the bad guy—just find a way to make the person I want to ditch think it’s all my fault and not his so that he’ll walk and I won’t have to!
4. I know stolen cars can be recovered through Lo-Jack, and pets can get a microchip so owners can locate them when they get lost. I heard somewhere they make them for kids now, too. But how about a tracking chip that could be inserted in your boyfriend or husband without him knowing? A little something I could stuff into the olive of his next martini? Or put in his toothpaste? Or slip painlessly up his nose while he’s sleeping?
5. While I’m wishing and hoping, how about something that makes anything from
Star Trek
possible … like a beaming-up device that would allow me to skip my commute, or at least a warp-speed attachment for my car?
6. The world also needs a roofie detector. They should be built into cocktail straws and put in every bar. If someone slips a roofie into your drink, the little wand thing would immediately send a text to the bartender so he or she could be sure you don’t leave the premises, and it would also send an emergency message to the nearest police department. Take that, pervy strangers!
7. Last but not least, is it too much to ask for someone to invent no-hangover alcohol pills? I hate having to make such an effort to get my buzz on (all that sipping is
such
hard work). I want to swallow four vodka or tequila pills and then avoid the frying-pan-to-the-forehead feeling the next day. I know there are pills already available that would do the trick, but I want my no-hangover alcohol pills to be totally legal and FDA regulated (because the FDA
always
knows what’s best). Oh, and these pills should be zero-calorie and made from all-natural ingredients. I’ll buy stock in your company if you’re working on this.
It’s news to no one that there are millions of ways to waste your time online, right? One minute you’re looking for a clever synonym for “useless” on thesaurus.com, and click, click, click … suddenly three hours have gone by and you’ve lived the word in any number of ways: you’ve watched nine previews for movies that won’t be in theaters for another six months, you’ve taken a quiz to see if your boyfriend might really be a narcissist, you’ve looked at the red carpet snapshots of the best- and worst-dressed at the Oscars going back three years, you’ve read an obscure article about the Estonian synchronized swimming team, you’ve tweeted about how inspiring those Estonians really are, you’ve checked flight costs to Rio in the event you decide to cheer on the Estonians in 2016, and you’ve connected with three new people on Facebook that you think you knew in preschool.
And if you’re like me, you did all that when you could have and should have been playing outside with your son.
I’ve tried to curb my surfing/email/Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest addiction, really I have. I
know
that I should give my son my undivided attention and never miss a moment of his childhood. I’ve read all the books, too, and I’ve beat myself up plenty. But here’s the thing that I know a lot of moms will agree with. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that sometimes little kids are boring. Sometimes their stories reveal their creative and emotional development, but … sometimes the story is really just about a Play-Doh snake. And sometimes, given the choice, even the most inane online crap is more stimulating than conversation with them.
