Tess Rafferty's Blog, page 3
February 28, 2017
Hillary Clinton’s Day Off
A month or so ago I started writing Hillary Clinton Fan Fiction after everyone started bitching about where she was during the women’s march and I posted this mini-rant on Facebook:
“Where was Hillary? I don’t know. Maybe taking a nap. Or getting a massage. Or hopping a jet to Paris. Or reading a fucking book. Or binge-watching Fleabag. Or masturbating to Pride & Prejudice. Or playing with her fucking grandkids. Or drinking wine with Betsy Ebeling. Or buying a pair of fuck me pumps. Or going to goddamn pilates. Or eating oysters by the ocean. Or any of the fucking things that she has given up for the last 35 years. We made this mess. She tried to fix it. Stop riding her like that goddamn horse in Gone with the Wind. She carried you out of Atlanta. Stop whipping her because you didn’t realize it was burning and now you need to get back home.”
I realized that I enjoyed writing about what she might be doing so much, I wrote a whole essay about it. And I enjoyed that so much, I couldn’t stop and wrote 2 more. And then I performed them all in one night. It made me strangely happy in a way I hadn’t been since 11/8/16. It was like having a beloved pet pass away and just wanting to know they were in a better place. That’s how the stories make me feel: like Hillary is in a better place.
So here’s the first episode of my Hillary Clinton Fan Fiction, Hillary Clinton’s Day Off, shot by Steve Cohen at Muse, Studio City. Special thanks to Justine Ungaro, Gary Kordan, Renee Harvey, Aaron Barrocas, Robin Budd, Megan Betley & Chris McGuire.
The post Hillary Clinton’s Day Off appeared first on Tess Rafferty.
January 30, 2017
Grab the Good Times While You Can
Last night we entertained for the first time since New Year’s and had a group of 7 for dinner. We all stood around the kitchen talking and drinking the excellent wine our guests had brought while we cooked. As food was ready we just plated it and stood around eating it without even sitting down. We opened an 8 year old bottle of Bordeaux that someone had given us as a gift just ‘cuz. We then watch a campy 1965 Italian film that imagined life in the 21st century, and other than thinking Pan Am would still be around, it was eerily prescient. (And that’s just what we understood.)
The talk was frequently politics, as it is going to be for a very long while, and people were alternately fearful, outraged and incredulous, as we’re going to be for a very long while. The important thing was we were not alone. We got together to eat some good food and drink some good wine and remind ourselves that we have each other. If you’ve read any of my book, you’ll know that this has always been important to me. And now it is more important than ever. I urge every one of us to grab the good times while we can, create these moments as much as possible and always remind each other that we are not alone.
xoTess
The post Grab the Good Times While You Can appeared first on Tess Rafferty.
January 27, 2017
How the Cookie Crumbles
A week ago I heard the news story about the Girl Scouts marching in the Inaugural parade.
A week later I am still thinking about it.
Initially I started to dismiss it. I mean, there’s so much to be outraged about, what’s this one more thing? My experiences with the Girl Scouts were limited to my brief stint as a Brownie when I was 8 and my boorish boss who used to bring in his daughter’s order form for cookies and pass it around with a fake “no pressure” caveat. It certainly never seemed like the most progressive of organizations, so was I really shocked?
But then I thought, “Wait, the Girl Scouts. These people are in charge of young girls, young women. The shape their minds, they teach them things about the world, they chaperone them. They cannot be a custodian of young women and support a sexual predator at the same time.”
That statement hit me somewhere deep. Because all of our lives women are being given the message that we are not entitled to decide who can touch our bodies, that they are there to serve men, and that when someone does touch our body against our wishes it was no big deal, or our fault, or something we were probably making up. Telling little girls to march to honor Donald Trump, was just another way of sending that message.
I heard people try to parse who exactly was marching, it wasn’t the Girl Scouts, it was the National Capital Council of Girl Scouts. By the CEO’s own admission in Time it was 75 girls. Seventy-five girls being told it was an honor to parade for a man who doesn’t value women and thinks he has the right to their bodies.
Donald Trump should not be a role model for boys or girls. Period. The fact that some of this country voted for him will never change that. We are living in a time where the President of the United States cannot serve as a role model. He is a bully. He makes fun of people with disabilities. He makes racist statements. When a woman challenges him he insinuates it’s because she’s on her period. He lies. He cheats. He refuses to pay contractors and probably his taxes, not that we’ll ever know that because he refuses to release them. He incites violence. He asks other countries to hack citizens of ours. He’s not even a good businessman. He’s declared bankruptcy numerous times and is thought to be in debt to his eyeballs, not that we would know that because again, he refuses to release his tax returns.
Oh, and he is an admitted sexual predator. He forces himself on women by his own admission and by their own testimony. It was bad enough that he sexually fetishized his own daughter, called any woman who disagreed with him a pig and worse, but he also in his own words says about women “I just start kissing them,” “I don’t even wait” and “You can do anything…grab them by the pussy.”
The Girls Scouts excuse was that they’re non-partisan. No, Girl Scouts, you don’t get to be non-partisan about sexual assault. And maybe it seems like there’s so much more to be outraged about and that this shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but I am so sick of no one looking out for girls. The very people who are supposed to protect them are leading them to the slaughter and colluding with their predators. And it’s not just organizations like the Girl Scouts. It’s parents, too.
And again this hits me somewhere deep. Because our parents are supposed to protect us. They’re supposed to tell us that no one has the right to touch our bodies; that we shouldn’t put up with bullies or people who are verbally abusive. They’re not supposed to vote for them to be President. It breaks my heart that there are little girls out there who are being let down by the people who are supposed to be looking out for them. If you’re a parent of a daughter and you voted for him knowing all this, I question how much you really love your daughter. You certainly don’t care if a man forces himself on her. You just told her that was OK, that you were willing to overlook it if it meant lower taxes or building a wall. At the most Trump’s presidency will last 8 years. You gave your daughter a message that she will carry with her for a lifetime. When she’s in situations where she has to look out for her own safety, she will remember that you said it was locker room talk and no big deal. She won’t leave that abusive relationship or think she has the right to say “No” or report her boss when he crosses a line. She’ll spend a lifetime trying to be physically pleasing to men: starving herself, inducing vomiting, getting surgeries, all because you valued a predator who ran a beauty contest over an intelligent woman who worked her ass off fighting for women and children.
I’d say you deserve all that heartbreak, but your daughter doesn’t, so I can’t.
The real joke is that these are the same hypocrites who want their women to be vestal virgins never in need of birth control or abortions. You’re not supposed to have pre-marital sex, but if a man wants to grab your pussy that’s totally fine as long as he’s white and Republican I guess.
Just writing this right now fills me with such a rage for the people who voted for him. We have to do better for our girls. Why do we keep telling people they can do whatever they want to them as long they don’t make our lives uncomfortable or complicated? Or do you think it will just happen to other people’s daughters? Do his comments and actions not bother you because it wasn’t you or your family? Because you’ve been taught to think it must have been someone who deserved it. There should be penance for what you did. You should have to go volunteer at a rape crisis hotline or donate all the money you save on taxes to an organization that supports sexual assault survivors. Because it’s not too late to protect our girls and for you to be a good role model for them. But first you have to start.
The post How the Cookie Crumbles appeared first on Tess Rafferty.
December 8, 2016
Prove It
Steve Cohen and I made a follow up to Aftermath, for all of the people who voted for Trump who told me they were good people.
For those who want it, the transcript is below.
Since I’ve posted the video Aftermath: 2016, I have been told that good people voted for Trump. I have been told that people who voted for Trump aren’t racist. ..They have gay relatives…Half-Mexican sons…Are disabled themselves…And love and respect women. I have been told they are good people.
(I have also been told that I’m a cunt who should have been aborted and should be raped by ISIS. But I’m sure those are good people, too.)
So you voted for Trump and you say you’re a good person? Prove it. You obviously like reality shows, you voted like you think you’re in one. Pretend you’re a contestant on “So You Think You’re Not a Racist.”
Your first challenge is to clean your side of the street. You want me to believe that white supremacists are taking over your party, but you’re not one of them? Take your party back. You wouldn’t let assholes crash your actual party and then let them stay just because they like cake, too. Denounce the white supremacists. You can start by not calling them “alt right.”
Putting alt in front of anything sounds like they’re doing something cool and unconventional. These aren’t people who believe in a flat tax and enjoy listening to the Smiths. There is nothing cool about painting swastikas on a playground, giving the Sig Heil salute or saying Jews aren’t people. And if you think there is, that makes you a white supremacist, too, and we fought a World War to prove they weren’t good people.
But if you are one of these Trump voting good people, show us. Start a petition saying that you don’t support the appointment of Steve Bannon as chief White House strategist. You don’t support men who refer to any women as a “bunch of dykes,” – which is what he said – because that is hate speech. You don’t support someone who is also praised by the KKK and other white supremacist groups. Say that you’re a Republican but this is not what you’re about. It shouldn’t be that hard if it’s not.
While you’re at it, add Trump’s pick for Attorney General, Jeff Sessions’s name to that petition. Many horrible things can be said about his record on race, but it can probably be best summed up by the fact that he was found too racist to be confirmed by the Senate for a Federal judgeship by 1986 standards. You want to make America great again. Seems it was pretty great in 1986 when we didn’t think people who were racist should be judges.
Let your chosen reps know you’re against a Muslim registry. Unless you think it’s OK that we register Americans based on their religious beliefs. All religions, right? Or do you think it’s just OK that we register non-white Americans based on their religious beliefs? That would make you racist and/or xenophobic and since you claim to not be either, come out against a Muslim registry.
And you’re not a misogynist, you just didn’t like Hillary. It didn’t matter that she was a woman. So I’m waiting for you to treat your President Elect’s transgressions like you would treat Hillary’s. Like what about the Trump Foundation’s money being used to help Trump and his campaign? How about Trump making an official phone call to the President of Argentina and 3 days later having his long delayed building permits for his construction project approved? Why aren’t you in the streets demanding that he release his tax returns finally so we know what his conflicts of interests are? I mean didn’t you criticize Hillary for using her foundation to trade favors and misuse funds? Remember those speeches to Goldman Sachs you were so upset about because you thought Hillary was beholden to Wall St.? Trump wants Steve Mnuchin to be Treasury Secretary. He actually worked for Goldman Sachs for 17 years. In terms of conflict of interest, that’s like hiring a pedophile to be the gymnastics coach. But I’m sure you’re making your outage at this known. Or was Hillary different? Just not different because she’s a woman, different.
Also, if you have LGBTQ relatives, that doesn’t automatically make you not a homophobe. It’s not a get out of jail free card for bigots who enjoy the theater. You need to do some work here, too. Say you do not agree with Vice President elect Mike Pence, who once signed a bill that would imprison gay couples who applied for a marriage license and tried to take funding away from HIV research and use it for gay conversion therapy. Ask the GOP to not role back marriage equality as they have said they want to, and protest the appointment of Supreme Court Justices who will do just that. Tell them you support the Obama administration’s anti-gay bullying campaign in schools and encourage them to continue it. Or are you OK with your LGBTQ relatives not having the same rights as you, undergoing shock therapy and lacking safety at school? You love them, you just don’t care if they get beat up, imprisoned or electrocuted. But you want us to know that you’re a good person. Just not the type of good person who can be bothered to stand up for people you love.
Maybe you voted for Trump not because you like him, but because you’re a Republican and you vote straight down party lines. Then what are you doing to get the word out about reasonable GOP candidates: reasonable being the ones who actually have experience and AREN’T white supremacists or sexual predators? That’s a pretty low bar. It should be easy to find someone.
And this should be a no brainer and I can’t believe I have to say it but would one of you have the courage to say Trump was wrong to mock a disabled man? This shouldn’t be a political thing, this should be a human being thing. You would reprimand a child for this behavior and yet you looked the other way when an adult man did it. Or you participated in the excuses about why it was taken out of context. What is the context for making fun of the disabled? In your opinion as a good person, that is.
Say that all of the 1000 plus hate crimes that have been committed since Trump was “elected,” that all of the people who have said, “we don’t have to tolerate your kind now that Trump is President,” tell us all that these people do not speak for you. You’re probably wondering, “Do I really have to tell you that?” The answer is yes, you do. Because you blew your last chance to tell us that these people didn’t speak for you when you voted to elect Donald Trump to speak for you.
Your side of the street is filthy. And whether you’re lying down in the gutter with the trash or just stepping over it to get into your house doesn’t change that fact. Right now you’re a bad neighbor. You’re letting your trash blow into our yards while you refuse to do anything about it and tell us to just get over it. So be a good neighbor and prove to the rest of us you’re not all the things we think you are. Prove you’re a good person.
Denounce these things to us. And most importantly denounce them to each other. Because your lack of saying something, whether it was in your families, in public or in your own party, is why we’re here. You might be a good person, but I know many more good people who are afraid for their lives and the lives of those they love, and they have good reason. Good people need to ask themselves tough questions sometimes. And friends, we are past the point where any good person should be able to stomach this just because they want less taxes, or someone to abolish Obamacare, or Hillary voted for Iraq, or any of the reasons you told yourself you voted for Trump.
For weeks now I’ve been thinking of this photo of Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, the first group of African American students to attend classes at the segregated Little Rock Central High School. The photo is of Elizabeth on her way to class, being followed by a group of white people, one of whom was caught mid-yell. That woman’s name was Hazel Bryan. You don’t need me to tell you what she was yelling. It wasn’t “Welcome.”
I think about that picture a lot and most of what I think is, “If you voted for Trump, right now you’re in that photo.” If you’re not Hazel Bryan, then you’re one of the white people standing silently with her. You didn’t yell, “We don’t want to integrate,” but you stood by the people who did and said nothing while they said it. You’re on the wrong side of that picture and the wrong side of history. Don’t stand by the bigots while you say nothing. Stand up for what you say you believe is right and say something.
Hazel Bryan did. She realized that wasn’t how she wanted to be remembered, how she wanted her children to learn about her. She got into activism and social work. She apologized. And she did something.
That’s what good people do.
The post Prove It appeared first on Tess Rafferty.
November 19, 2016
Aftermath 2016
I wrote this piece on November 10th, 2016, 48 hours after the election. My good friend Steve Cohen said, “I want to film this,” and together that’s what we did with Aaron Barrocas. Since then it’s been picked up by dailykos.com and Occupy Democrats.
If you like it and you want to find out more about any of us, you can follow Steve and I on twitter at @TessRafferty and @Flamdiddle or go to AaronBarrocas.com
The post Aftermath 2016 appeared first on Tess Rafferty.
November 17, 2016
Welcome to C World!
C World is open and ready for visits! Click on the link below for more info!
The post Welcome to C World! appeared first on Tess Rafferty.
November 2, 2016
Be Nice to the Women in Your Life Right Now *
Be nice to the women in your life right now.
I mean, you should always be nice to the women in your life. And I will say this before some asshole shouts “All lives matter” that we should all be nice to each other, too, yes. But be especially nice to women right now.
Two weeks ago I watched as women – in public forums, in secret groups, in private emails – began to confess to each other experiences they had had, much of which they had never told anyone before. They were sexually assaulted, sexually harassed, sometimes at work, sometimes by family or friends, sometimes just getting out of bed and going to school in the morning. But it wasn’t just the events that were purged, it was the long suppressed emotions that these events precipitated: shame, anger, fear, self-doubt. And as each woman re-lived this experience sharing her story, and then again, reading others, she also watched aspects of her own play out in the news: the initial outrage give way to people minimizing the behavior, excusing it, or even just out right denying it. All of this followed by brave accusers with more guts than I coming forward to far too many cries of “Why didn’t she come forward sooner?” The answer to which is so goddamn obvious it will drive you mad as if the chorus of “It’s happening again. It’s happening again” that echoes like a steady drumbeat in your head wasn’t doing it already.
That was two weeks ago.
In the last 24 hours I have seen another group of women, again far more brave than I, come forward to talk about the absolute worst day in their lives: the day they had to terminate a wanted pregnancy in their 3rd trimester. I wouldn’t wish this experience on my biggest foe and I can wish ass cancer on a nemesis with the best of them. That this is hard for those women who are revisiting a place they never wanted to be in to begin with solely in order to make some of us understand the reality of political word play goes without saying. But it is also hard for the women who have been in their situation, but who aren’t able to talk about it. It is hard for the women who lost pregnancies far earlier. It is tough for women who have chosen to terminate a pregnancy for reasons we can never know, the ones who tried like hell and never got pregnant and the women who are pregnant now who have to spend the next months wondering if this will happen to them. Far too many of us read their stories and are reminded of painful parts of our own life.
Both these issues strike at our most basic sense of self: our body. Who has a right to touch it, to say what happens to it. We should be in control of our own bodies, and all too often we can’t be whether it’s on account of someone else, or something beyond anyone’s control. It’s no big surprise most women spend a large portion of their lives hating their bodies.
And the truth is this election was wearing on far too many women before we got to this point. Watching a woman

We’re watching Hillary carry an elephant while riding a unicycle across a tight rope with no net….
who has worked her ass off her entire life be characterized as ruthless, crooked, pushy, overly-ambitious, cold, and evil, hits too close to home for women whose contributions are often over-looked in the workplace or criticized when they’ve asserted their hard won authority. We’re watching Hillary carry an elephant while riding a unicycle across a tight rope with no net, and as in awe of her as we are, we can’t help but think of all the tight ropes we have to walk to be feminine but not too feminine, or pro-active but not aggressive, or whatever other bullshit needle we’re trying to thread just to be seen as men are seen. Every time they talk about Bill it’s a reminder of all the ways in which our husbands or boyfriends get more respect than us, or that a woman is never allowed to be her own person like a man can be.
I just googled “Hillary Clinton Cunt Meme” and found 5 different ones before I stopped looking. Earlier this week a guy tweeted a photo of himself pointing a gun at Hillary on the TV and asked Donald Trump to just say the word. I’m fucking exhausted. I’m spent.
So be nice to the women around you. Some of us are taking this hard and know exactly why. Others of us feel on edge and can’t quite place it. Whether you like Hillary or not, everything about what it means to be a woman in the 21st century has been scrutinized and taken apart and criticized these last several months: who we are professionally, sexually and in our families; the decisions we make, how we achieve them and what say we have over our own actions and bodies while doing so.
And women let’s be nice to each other, especially. Sometimes we can be the loudest critics of the difficult decisions we all have to make.
*originally published Friday October 21, 2016
The post Be Nice to the Women in Your Life Right Now * appeared first on Tess Rafferty.
October 7, 2016
Why I Don’t Care That You Have to Think Before You Speak
As I’ve said here, I’m pro-political correctness, although I don’t much care for that term. I don’t think it’s “political” to treat people with basic kindness: to refer to them by names they don’t find offensive and to not perpetuate harmful and hacky stereotypes. If it wasn’t for what people call “political correctness” we’d still be calling people of color by the n-word and I think we can all agree that the fact the majority of people know this is wrong is a good thing.
So when I hear people deriding “political correctness” I want to say, “Fuck you for demeaning basic human kindness as some sort of “political” mollycoddling.”
But I’ve already said that. (Although it does feel good to say it again.)
But one of the constant “harrumphs” I hear about “political correctness” is this, “Well, now we have to think before we say anything.” I use the word “harrumph” because it sounds blustery and white and old and that’s the majority of the people I hear it from. It should come as no surprise to anyone that it’s mostly straight, white dudes harrumphing over having to think before they say anything – because they’ve never had to before. And the rest of us have to think before we say everything.
I just want to say here that I like straight, white dudes – I’m married to one. But I don’t have a problem with them needing to think before they speak for awhile. Welcome to what the rest of us have been doing for years. When you are part of a minority – a person of color, a woman, a member of the LGBTQ community, or disabled – you don’t have the luxury of just being yourself. You are the test case for everyone else like you. You are representing all of them. You have to prove that you can take it; that you will blend in like a white man and not get “uppity” “bitchy” or “queenie.” Oh, and you have to do your job, not just as good as everyone else, but in a way that you are above reproach. They are already not paying attention to you because you are other. They have already dismissed you as being there as a token, as if they haven’t been the real beneficiaries of an affirmative action that’s lasted for hundreds of years.
Oh People Harrumphing, do you think it will be difficult to do your job with this added burden of having to think first? No kidding. And the rest of us do anyway. We must be awesome.
I’ve worked on a show where white people have referred to black performers as “doing that black thing again.” And no, it wasn’t the Ed Sullivan Show, which might have been forgivable in a historical sense. Conversely, there’s a bias against the performers who don’t fit into the stereotype of what they expect from a black man or woman. People have said they don’t know what to do with them. Many talented and hard working people just keep at it and are themselves and are eventually able to find a success in that. But how many don’t? How many are denied an opportunity because they are “too black” or “not black enough?” How many of the people who do break through would be further along if they could just be themselves without carrying this extra weight of how to be black enough but not too black?
Any of us who are different are going through the same thing. And it’s not just in the workplace. Socially, too, we have to thread needles with our public performances that straight, white men just don’t have to. We are not allowed to conform to their identity: we can’t be brash or aggressive or ambitious. And yet we can’t conform to our own identities either without risk of being labeled as too emotional, too passive, too street, too angry, too effeminate, too butch. How we’re all not in an insane asylum is a mystery to me.
So no, I do not give one whit of a fuck that you have to think before you say something. Enjoy it. You just may learn something. Even if that thing is what it’s like to be the rest of us.
The post Why I Don’t Care That You Have to Think Before You Speak appeared first on Tess Rafferty.
September 13, 2016
Elegy for Sad Poncho
All my life I have been cursed with an eerily good memory. I’m not Marilu Henner good, but I am stalker good. If you and I met only once 15 years ago and you told me a story there’s a very good chance I’ll remember it. I remember things you don’t remember telling me. I remember things that you no longer remember.
This used to be cool. It was certainly a huge help as a student, making it so that I skated through much of school never having to study. It was great for memorizing lines, whenever I did that sort of thing. And it’s awesome for trying to win an argument with a spouse. In recent years, however, it’s mostly become a drag.
Dates don’t leave me. I’m like my very own Facebook “On This Day app.” “On this day last year you were doing this. This is who you were with. This is what you were hoping for.” Lately that all too quickly has translated to, “This is what didn’t work out. This is who is no longer in your life. These are the bad things that haven’t changed and the good things that never happened.”
I can also usually tell you exactly what I was wearing. This has become oppressive. I have far too many items of once loved clothing that have just become imbued with bad memories like some sad aura. I can’t put them on without thinking about the bad time during which I was wearing them and before I know it, I’m experiencing it all over again. My closet needs a trigger warning.
So I’m coming to accept the fact that no matter how good some of these clothes still are, I have to get rid of them for my own mental health. This may be the very definition of a first world problem. But it’s also just an unfortunate side effect of a brain that just can’t stop remembering. And no amount of wine can change it despite how many experiments I’ve performed over the years.
So as I prepare for this purge I’ve written an elegy for one of the items my “Sad Poncho.”
I mourn how happy buying it made me. I had coveted it all summer after seeing it on a friend. I’d never done that before then, both wanting to wear a poncho as well as seeing something on a friend and having to have it for myself. I decided it was too expensive, however, and instead waited all summer for it to go on sale. I day dreamed about all of the times I would wear it, thinking of all the things it would be perfect for, and every time one of those occasions came up and I didn’t have it I would think wistfully, “Soon.”
I mourn all of the happy times that I had pictured myself wearing it that never came. All of the, “Soon’s” that never happened.

Sad Poncho & I in happier times.
I mourn the friend I first saw it on who is no longer around. I can’t look at it without thinking of her, how much fun we had shared and how, ultimately, I felt abandoned and let down by her.
I mourn all of the bad times I wore it during. Not because I am sad to see them go, but because they have never passed. They’re still with me, stuck to this stupid piece of clothing, like burrs that I can’t shake off and whenever I try to brush them off, they just prick me all over again.
And I mourn myself. I mourn the parts of me that got chipped away during all of those bad times I wore it during; parts that I may never get back.
There’s a list of ways in which I wish I felt “normal,” like I imagine other people might. Today at the top of the list is envying people with the ability to forget. Who can put a piece of clothing on and not make it a huge thing. Because it’s not just a few items of clothing I need to shake off sometimes. It’s also people, or places…sometimes whole cities or parts of the country, that aren’t as easy to stuff in a bag and give to Goodwill. And as I send Sad Poncho off to what I think will be a better place, I can’t help but wonder if I will ever be in one, too.
September 8, 2016
How to Get People to Leave
I entertain a lot which means I stay up drinking and talking with people well past the hour when I should be in bed.
Even on “school nights” when The Husband and I swear a blood oath to each other that we will be finished by a very specific and agreed upon time, that time will come and go, our guests somehow failing to read our minds and The Husband and I finding the only words that come out of our mouths isn’t, “Well, we should be going to sleep,” but rather, “Who wants another bottle of wine?”
I don’t blame our guests: we’ve reciprocated at plenty of other peoples’ homes. One minute it’s 9:30 and you’re about to eat dessert, the next thing you know it’s quarter to two, you’re on your 5th bottle of Sangiovese and you make a mad dash for the door, apologizing profusely for being THOSE people and hoping THESE people still want to be your friends when they wake up later this morning.
Conversely there are times when I’m so afraid of that happening that I will stand up suddenly and announce to The Husband in front of everyone: “We need to go.” That’s often no less awkward.
There is a time to stay up late with friends, eating and drinking fabulous things and putting the world to rights. However, there are times in life when we have to put the brakes on an evening and end it sensibly. And yet, every morning after I fail to, as I curse myself, and my headache, and the luggage under my eyes, I wonder why I couldn’t. Why couldn’t I just see clearly enough to see my way to saying, “This has been wonderful, but I’m afraid we have an early morning?”
Part of the reason is simple: I don’t like a good time to end. This is why I don’t do cocaine. But it’s no reason to show up for work hungover or sleep deprived.
…Or is it? I’m just saying life is short, get it while you can, and fuck work anyway, works sucks.
But setting aside my emotional immaturity, fear of dying, and Matthew McConaughey-esque life philosophy for the moment, “This has been wonderful, but I’m afraid we have an early morning,” seems a little stodgy, like something uttered in a BBC drama where a cop’s wife has invited his partner for dinner. (I watch a lot of BBC cop dramas and that happens a lot.) In part it’s the fear that this evening, which has been unfolding genuinely for the last couple of hours has now become stunted and choreographed, rather than letting it come to its natural end. So few things in life happen naturally and spontaneously once you’re an adult. Having a night that goes on too long because everyone is having too good of a time to pay attention otherwise, is one of the few examples of living in the moment we have left. And as you know, Buddhists say living in the moment is very good for you.

Buddha wants you to stay up all night with your friends!
Nevertheless, sometimes you do need to put the brakes on rather than coasting to a stop and the biggest reason I can’t do it in these circumstances is because I simply can’t think of what to say. Oh sure, the next day while staring at my chalky, reapered complexion in the mirror it all seems so simple. But the night before, I choke. I can’t think of how to say, “Get the fuck out,” in a way that is polite and yet also doesn’t sound like Masterpiece Theatre.
So here’s a couple of tips that I’ve come up with that you can refer back to when you can’t think of what to do and you can pop off to loo and take a look at your mobile. (I watch a lot of BBC)
Stop serving liquor
I know this may seem painfully obvious, but if you stop opening up bottles and refilling glasses your smart friends will eventually get the hint and your friends with a drinking problem will leave even sooner, becoming bored with you now that they’re sobering up.
Ask anyone if they’d like coffee or tea
Yes, this is a wee bit BBC, but it also is a good way to signify the end of the evening. And once people have had dinner, dessert and coffee they’ll realize there’s nothing left in your house for them to possibly consume, unless they want to hang around until morning and eat breakfast.
Tell them, “This has been wonderful, but I’m afraid we have an early morning.”
It’s direct and more importantly, it’s the truth. And you don’t have to say it like that. Put it in your own words. “You fuckers are going to kill me. I’m having a great time but I’m going to hate you for it in the morning.” Practice in your head so you remember after 3 bottles of Bordeaux.
And remind yourself that while a fabulous night might be ending early, sometimes it’s necessary to know when to fold them, so you can live to indulge another day.