Just Call Me Snooki

My first experience with an airbrush spray tan was two years ago when I purchased a Groupon for a tanning package at a salon near my work in Westwood. After my first appointment, I didn’t really think anything was particularly odd until I spoke with my friends who are also fans of the spray tan. The salon that I went to for my first airbrush tan went out of business about a month after I used up my tanning package which is a perfect preface to my story…

 

I showed up on time for my tan, showered and exfoliated and wearing the recommended loose black clothes and flip flops. I may have been an airbrush tan virgin but I was ready to get it over with and excited for the outcome. It seemed as though I waited for almost half an hour (thank God I brought a book) but just figured they were busy back there. When the lady came out to let me know that it was my turn, I got up and followed her to the back room. She was about fifty years old but wanted to be twenty and by the looks of her plastic surgery, teenage clothes and bleach blonde hair, she was giving it her best effort. She told me to take off all of my clothes except for the disposable thong underwear she gave me and paper flip flops that stick to the bottom of your feet. She left the room to fill up the airbrush gun thingy and when she came back I was naked and freezing in front of a stranger.

 

As she began to apply the first layer, she also began to tell me her life story. And then she kept talking and spraying and layering and talking. At one point she left to smoke a cigarette while I was ‘drying.’ She came back and assisted me with the drying portion of the tan with the hose from the airbrush machine thingy. After she helped me dry the tan, I swear to God she took her lunch break and told me to wait and she would be back to apply the last layer. I honestly didn’t know that there was anything wrong with this thinking, she knows what she is doing and her skin looks nice and tan (she actually looked like Magda from There’s Something About Mary now that I think about it). When she came back, she applied the very final coat of bronze-ness, then I had to dry off again for about ten minutes. Once she was finished, I looked in the mirror and didn’t see myself but an African American lady staring back at me. Well, I wasn’t that dark but I was definitely a dead ringer for a cast member on The Jersey Shore. When I walked outside it was dark (my appointment was at 4:30pm) and I felt like I had been there for an hour. I looked down at my watch and realized that I was there for an hour and a half. I did end up finishing the last few tans on the Groupon package but I made sure I didn’t let ‘Magda’ spray me and told the girl that I only wanted one layer.

 

RYAN!!!

Many of you may not know that Ryan Gosling has a band named Dead Man's Bones. Well, I wasn't aware of it either until Grace and I read that they were playing at an underground club in Cambridge, MA a few years back. WHAT!!?? We had to be there! Not only to check out the band but to check out Mr. Gosling himself. We got to the club early that night and were willing to wait in line as long as it took to get to the front of the stage because it was general admission. Surprisingly, a lot of people had no idea that he was even performing and when we got to the venue, we had no problem getting in and marking our spots near the stage. We were like little kids in a candy store waiting for Dead Man's Bones to come out and when Ryan hit the stage, we both went weak in the knees. The band was actually amazing and of course Ryan was a dream boat.

After the show, we were determined to talk to him and hopefully get a picture, so along with all the other girls there we lingered/stalked in the bar area. I of course was convinced that he would lay eyes on me and fall madly in love and the rest would be history. As Grace and I were just about ready to give up on our hunt for the Gosling, I spotted a familiar bright blue sweater walk through the kitchen and into the bar. With no shame and as if he was an old friend, I screamed, "Ryan!" and he turned to us and walked over. With my heart beating out of my chest and my little sister standing there speechless, I asked him if we could get a picture and he obliged. But being Erin, I then proceeded to ask him if I could buy him a drink to which he said that he couldn't stay because he had a plane to catch. There goes my love match! And as fast as he entered into our lives, he was gone. Oh well, at least we got that photo...the prize photo that Grace and I both cut each other out of and made our Facebook profile pictures of course!

Disco Sticks And Peacock Feathers

I am extremely creative when it comes to my Halloween costumes- the Honey Badger who didn’t give a s*&t, ‘The Walk of Shame,’ Harry Dunn (stay tuned, it’s this years costume) and a Peacock back in 2009 when I was living in Boston. My plan for the night was to go out with my friend Callie (who decided to wear roller skates the ENTIRE night including when we walked/rolled her down the cobblestones in the North End) and my little sister Grace aka Lady Gaga. Grace is also very creative and sewed her red costume together to match her blonde wig and homemade disco stick. What the hell is a disco stick you might ask? In Grace’s case it was a silver wrapping paper roll decorated with silver glitter. “I want to take a ride on your disco stick!”

I also made my costume from scratch with a bright green tutu and a ridiculous amount of peacock feathers. After hours of prepping for the night, we were all dressed up and ready to go to the Liberty Hotel for some pickle martinis. Well, we made it there okay at around 9:00 pm but all the rest of the details from that night are a bit fuzzy. Grace is convinced it is because she wore her sunglasses all night and couldn’t really see anything at all but I think it was one too many martinis.

After we left the Liberty Hotel, we apparently jumped in a cab and went to McFadden’s and who knows where my friend Callie went. I apparently left my peacock tail in the cab and Grace lost her disco stick who knows where but we made it inside nonetheless. As I was downstairs probably chatting with some other birds, Grace vaguely remembers falling face first down the stairs in her Gaga outfit, unable to see where she was going due to the martinis, err…dark glasses. From that point, we somehow walked to the T station (after a trip to Shaws to buy some chips and salsa that I apparently dropped on Grace’s foot which sparked a drunken fight) and made it back to her apartment in the North End. What time were we in bed that night? 11:00 pm, yup- 11:00 pm. The next morning I woke up on the couch (Grace never let me sleep in her bed) with my false birdlike lashes still on and Grace woke up with a huge swollen ankle from the dropped salsa jar on her foot that we don’t really remember. Who knows what happened that night but it was a blast! (Sorry Mom!) And if anyone has a video of Lady Gaga falling down the stairs face first at McFadden’s from Halloween 2009, please tag Grace in it on You Tube.

Somebody Call 9-1-1!

When I lived in El Segundo with Alicia back in 2004, we shared a room and each had a twin sized bed. Yup, the real life Burt and Ernie! One weekend, Alicia’s friend Ed came to visit. Well, he wasn’t so much her friend as her ex-boyfriend who wanted her back and Alicia wanted nothing to do with him. So, he was a tad unhappy and seemed to be taking it out by drinking a lot. One night, Alicia, Ed and our friend Jeri went out to a bar in Westwood while I stayed home with Alicia’s English Mastiff, Sampson. They were out pretty late, so I decided not to wait up for them and took Sampson into the bedroom to call it a night…in my twin size bed.

The sound of our front gate buzzer and Sampson barking like crazy awoke me about an hour after I went to bed. I wasn’t sure why Alicia would be buzzing to get in since she had keys, so I was a little confused. Naturally, I always get scared when someone rings the doorbell or knocks on the door especially when it’s the middle of the night. I reached for my cell phone and called Alicia and she said they were still at the bar. Even more confused, I tried to convince myself that the person outside just had the wrong apartment buzzer. I tried to get Sampson to stop barking but the buzzing would not stop. In order to open the gate out front, I had to go into the living room, pick up the phone and punch in the code. I hesitated but decided to go into the living room and pick up the phone. Quietly, I listened, not wanting to say anything to this stranger and figured if it were someone I knew, they would have called my cell phone first. I didn’t hear anyone so figured maybe the person left. But Sampson didn’t think so and kept barking like crazy. Just as I was about to go back to bed, there was a loud knock at my door. I jumped and ran back into my bedroom as Sampson was now officially going nuts. I was terrified and thought that I was going to die. Who the hell was knocking at my front door at one in the morning if Alicia, Ed and Jeri were still at the bar? I called Alicia again but she didn’t pick up. I immediately started to cry when I realized that the person on the other side of the door was now trying to get in through the window. Terrified, I called 911 and told the operator that someone was trying to break into my apartment. It all seemed like a dream and all I could hear was the banging of some stranger trying to get in my apartment, Sampson howling and the 9-1-1 operator telling me that the cops were now at the gate and I had to let them in. I went out into the living room, opened the gate and heard the officers running up to my door and yelling for the trespasser to put his hands up. Just as a wave of absolute relief rushed over me, the 9-1-1 operator told me to open the door because the officers were there with the guy and he said he knew me. Huh?

So confused, I opened the door to find Ed in handcuffs between two police officers. I rolled my eyes and told them I knew who it was and he was actually staying with me. They asked him why he was trying to break in and he was so drunk that he literally just fell onto the floor and passed out once they un-cuffed him. I thanked the officers, yelled at Ed (who probably didn’t hear a word I said) and went to bed relieved that I wasn’t dead. Apparently, he was mad that Alicia didn’t want to take him back and took a cab from the bar back to the apartment without letting Alicia and Jeri know. He was so drunk that he actually climbed over the front gate and tried to get into the apartment. My one question-why not just call me, Ed? What an idiot!