One Reason I Hate Ice Breakers is I Always Overshare
If you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be and does this exercise make you as uncomfortable as it does me?
The brilliant
has a post up on his Substack about ice breakers; I thought I’d take the opportunity to reiterate here how much I, too, dislike them. Please don’t ask me to introduce myself along with a food, object or animal that begins with the same letter as my first name. I can only pretend to like apples so much. Same with aardvarks. I’m more of a platypus person, really, but my parents didn’t have the foresight to name me Patti. If you ask me in a professional setting what keeps me up at night, and I’m honest and admit, say, “whether wisdom tooth extraction1 has a noticeable effect on one’s jaw line and ages you by 20 years overnight,” then I’ll feel like an idiot when the man who takes the floor after me thinks of an insomnia-inducing dilemma that’s actually job related, like how he might optimize systems integration processes for C-suite clients headquartered in EMEA. Two truths and a lie? You already asked me about food so you know I love a good anchovy.2 Let’s see. I once performed at The Lincoln Theatre, which is the same venue where Dave Chapelle taped his 2023 Netflix special, Dreamer. I drive a Subaru Outback but I’m not a lesbian. In February, I dined at Philippe by Philippe Chow on Wharf Street SW with a good friend and her husband; we shared the Peking duck and closed out our evening with a nightcap at Crystal City Restaurant, a nondescript Gentleman’s Club located next to a 7-113 and adjacent Kabob Palace in Arlington, in a business district renamed “National Landing” to appeal to Jeff Bezos.4 The dancers exceeded my expectations; all head-to-toe butterfly tattoos color-coordinated to match their lingerie, but I kept getting distracted by a bottle of Windex on the barstool just off center-stage. If you’re going to disinfect a surface — a stripper pole, say — and immediately disrobe against it, isn’t Seventh Generation the healthier choice?My concern about chemicals comes from my mother. These days, she worries mostly about glyphosate — the active ingredient in Monsanto’s controversial weed killer, RoundUp. Her chemical sensitivity developed in rural Georgia, where we lived circa 1992; our neighbors worked for Lockheed Martin and it’s rumored a few of them were paid off to store toxic waste on their land. I was six years old. Mom drew me baths with bottles of Evian water she heated on the stove.
Wisdom tooth extraction at least has its benefits — some models take them out to accentuate their cheekbones! My friend Travis, who still lives in Lockheed Martin land and drinks the groundwater, lost most all of his teeth for no apparent cosmetic reason.5
You’re right that I should try La Grande Boucherie at 14th and G. It seems like the kind of place a girl named Alicia who drinks Apérol Spritz would go, and she will. But I’ll admit I balk at the prices. The thing I love about France — the “real” France, say, James Salter’s France — quality is accessible. In the village where my host family raised me, a demi-sec champagne from the neighbors won’t set you back more than 15 euro, and a perfect meal is an apéro dînatoire, featuring, perhaps, a cake salé6 with some apéricubes. In that vain, nothing can compare to the pandemic-shuttered restaurant Montmartre, a 20-year staple of Capitol Hill, where rabbit leg with truffled linguine never cost more than $30. My ex, the Parisian lawyer, used to take me there on date night and always gave his compliments to the chef. He liked to choose the wine — more often than not, a bottle of Sancerre.7 We broke up partly because he never realized I (sometimes) prefer red wine and also because he insisted I couldn’t get hired in Paris as a stripper.8
If my jawline doesn’t heal, I might have to accept he’s right.
Various Things I’m Reading / Watching / Listening to in My Post-Wisdom Teeth Extraction Chipmunk-Era Convalescence:
This Brené Brown9 podcast episode featuring my favorite investigative journalist, Michael Keller. This piece on a murder trial by the always eloquent and thoughtful
. on interiority in fiction writing and, ergo, Edward P. Jones’ “An Orange Line Train to Ballston.” Berlin, a debut novel by Bea Setton (a bookseller’s index-card recommendation at Kramer’s in Dupont said it would appeal to fans of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar; I agree!) ’s generous hands-on editing and a powerful deep dive into juke joints by my friend and fellow Substack writer . This incisive takedown of Lauren Oyler’s No Judgment (and Freddie de Boer’s positive reception of the same.) ’ Washington Post Op-Ed and his moving eulogy at Washington National Cathedral. The incredible Baby Reindeer on Netflix and a note on Substack’s DC soirée by co-founder . (Did my invite get lost in the mail?!)
Worst ice breaker award might go to my dental hygienist, who, after carefully detailing the risk factors of periodontal disease and sticking a suction tube in my mouth, asked: “but I want to hear this in your own words! What do your teeth mean to you?”
This one. This is the lie. Though
may change my mind. (Chicken that tastes like a fish is surprisingly delicious.)My best friend down there was named Polly, and as far as I can remember she had no particular affinity for platypi.
The cookbook Gâteau has some wonderful recipes for French savory cakes. My aunt gifted me a copy for my birthday one year and it’s been my go-to whenever I find myself missing life abroad.
Speaking of both chemicals and Sancerre, and since you asked, I’ve decided my favorite track on The Tortured Poets Department is “Alchemy.” (“These chemicals hit me like a white wine…”)
The first time my mother met the Parisian lawyer, she famously broke the ice by asking: “what is the first thing you noticed about my daughter?” He did himself no favors when he replied: “her boobs.” My next boyfriend, Micheal, had a heads up re: this particular ice breaker gone awry and prepared his answer in advance. When she asked, he replied: “honestly, Karen, I’ve always been more of an ass man.”
Loved this post Alicia. It reminded me of a particular skill my wife and children say I have that is the opposite of an ice-breaker. A conversation stopper. Not in the interesting sense, but in the sense that supposedly, I can effortlessly divert a good conversation into a dark cul de sac where the once healthy conversation is quickly strangled.
In the most complimentary way, probably because of the footnotes, but also because of the delightfully widening details, this essay reminds me of David Foster Wallace, but easier to read and funnier