underage thinking

Sometimes you just have those nights where all responsibility goes out the window. We all have them. For me it's those nights when I really contemplate how I'll make the true leap to adulthood and cut myself off with a 3 drink limit. I know people get to a point in their lives where maturity takes hold and they fully realize the stupidity of staying out until 3 when they want to be productive the next day, but I'm not quite there yet. At least not fully.

Lately i've become a fan of getting up early on weekends. Prior to last year, I would easily sleep past noon on any given Saturday, but now I do my best to make it out of bed by 10am and doing something worthwhile (blog writing probably doesn't fit into that category, but for sake of argument i'll say it's right above watching TV or perusing iTunes). But more often than I'd like to think, I lapse back into the throws of stupidity and the bar hopping tales of the days I would like to say are behind me. And this is where this story begins.

It happened more recently than I'd care to admit. Things started out innocent enough - dinner at a sushi restaurant with a friend. We spit a bottle of wine - a bit ambitious for us with dinner - but neither of us had anything to do the next day so we saw no harm in it. I think it frightened the waitress to witness two women down a bottle of wine themselves, but we were well behaved and tipped well, so whatever qualms she had went out the window by the time we exited. From there, we hit up my favorite local dive, where we played pool, dominated the jukebox and proceeded to down two "old glory" specials apiece (a shot of whiskey and a PBR for $4). This right here was the crossroads of our evening. The night was still young (approximately 9pm) and we could easily head home and call it a night. My whiskey drinking abilities on the whole are pretty impressive and despite the "Old Glories", sobriety was still with me. This is where Responsible Jeni would hop in and drag Carousing Jeni to her couch to read a book or maybe catch a rerun of "The Office" before bed.

But Responsible Jeni apparently was stuck at the office for the night and Carousing Jeni made the decision to join some friends at another bar in Brooklyn. After a few rounds of beer pong, my friend from sushi is feeling ill. It's time to get her home. I help her into her apartment, hold her hair while she ralphs her sushi to oblivion, and make her drink some water before she crashes into her bed. Then my phone rings. Our friends have moved bars and want to continue the party. I check on her to make sure she's somewhat coherent (albeit already cursing an impending hangover), and head to the next bar. I finally make it back to crash on her couch by 2:30. (Given the hour my apartment just seemed too far of a journey to make & i didn't want to shell out the cash for a cab.) My relaxing evening of sushi and wine has now turned into the equivolent of an 8-hour tirade of drinking. Thank god I have enough sense to not do this on a "school night", but better luck next time on this whole maturity thing.

Ludlow and Stanton, PLEASE!!

Tonight I took a cab from work to my friends' concert tonight:

Me: "Ludlow - between Stanton and Rivington, please"
Cabbie: "Downtown?"
Me: "Yes, please."
Cabbie: "Can I take broadway?"

- The cab driver pulls over on broadway -

Me: "No, Ludlow and Stanton please. You said broadway."
Cabbie: "Can I take broadway?"
Me: "Please take 5th so we don't go through union square"

-10 minutes later, the cabbie tries to drop me off at union square -

Me: "Uh, Ludlow and Stanton, please!"
Cabbie: "Ludlow."
Me: "Yes, please just keep going downtown. Turn left on Houston"
Cabbie: "Houston?"
Me: "LUDLOW, please!!"

There are some days when I actually miss driving. Today was one of them.

A Case of Mistaken Identity

This afternoon, I received an email from some idiot named Aaron:
____________________________________
Date: Dec 14, 2007 5:44 PM
Subject: Gym

Noelle,

When I saw you at the gym and didn't say anything that was childish on my part. There really is no need for that. Take care, good luck in the future.
___________________________________

What i'll omit from this post is the guys' professional signature that was at the bottom of the email. It listed everything from his title all the way to his cell phone number. Seemingly Noelle and this fellow had some sort of romantic tryst that ended badly. With all of the other frightening ways that people can stalk one another these days, it's somewhat unbelievable to me that somebody could send an email to the wrong person on an issue like this. Why even risk it? Did this guy think an apology would get Noelle to jump into bed with him once again? Being the compassionate individual that I am, I proceeded to forward the email to most everyone, asking for advice as to a reply to craft. Within 5 minutes, I had almost 10 responses. Most we're long strands of "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA", but a few gave me some great comebacks:


- You're right, it was childish. I felt bad about f****** your brother but after that last encounter I'm no longer guilt ridden. I hope your test results come back negative. If not, good luck in the future .


- i would have approached you but i think i love you. that made me scared.


I'll be accepting submissions until midnight tomorrow (saturday).

A Woman of Few Words

Insomnia is kicking in hardcore tonight. I'm watching the Democratic debates on TV, but of course I needed something to multitask with so I googled myself (yeah, I know it's kind of narscissistic, but boredom calls for absurdity in my life). An article from my college newspaper comes up. Apparently I'm not very quote-worthy...

_____________________________________________________
February 9, 2005 - Minnesota Daily

New Student Weekend to expand for fall 2005
Last year, approximately 850 students attended the weekend.
By Liala Helal

University program that has been around for 85 years will be growing again in 2005.
Organizers of New Student Weekend, an orientation program for first-year students that is held during the last weekend before fall classes, said it will have more attendees, more student leaders and will add a fifth site this year.

Jenny Rachmaciej, an assistant director of the program, said it is also merging with the Student Leadership Institute to teach leadership skills to participants this year.

"By merging the programs, we are able to meet a larger population of first-year students and better meet their needs and prepare them for their first year of college," Rachmaciej said.

Approximately 850 students attended last year, she said. With the extra site this year, officials said, they are anticipating 1,000 students.

Rachmaciej said New Student Weekend tries to help new students have a seamless transition into their first year of college. It's successful, because students meet new people and learn about college life, she said.

Planning for the weekend is a yearlong process and is organized mostly by students. Two program coordinators, 14 co-chairmen and co-chairwomen, and approximately 150 leaders plan and orchestrate the event annually.

Rachmaciej said 151 students applied to be New Student Weekend leaders this year, and training starts next week.

The two coordinators for this year, University students David Leonard and Jeni Dill, said they met at New Student Weekend in 2002. They still keep in touch with the first people they met in the program, they said, which is one reason they wanted to stay involved in the program.

"I was looking for something to get involved in where I can not only help myself out but help other people as well," Leonard said.

He said he can help new students by sharing his experiences.

"I remember when I was a freshman, I was freaked out, and I didn't have a clue, so what I liked most about being a leader is being able to relate my experience and try to help new students along the way and get them started on the right foot," Leonard said.

Dill said there are many leadership aspects in the program. The two coordinators trained this year's 14 co-chairmen and co-chairwomen, who will later train approximately 150 volunteer leaders.

New Student Weekend camps for the upcoming year will be at five Minnesota campgrounds: Camp Friendship, Camp Courage, Camp St. Croix, Camp Induhapi and Camp Pepin.

#2 w/ Orange Drink

Now that I'm post-college and post-uncannily quick metabolism, McDonalds is a dining experience reserved for only two situations: 1) while i'm waiting for my plane at the airport; and 2) after a night of heavy drinking. On occasion, I'll sneak in an egg mcmuffin for breakfast here and there, but that too really only happens nowadays when I'm in the need for a quick fix on a road trip. In high school, I went through a twist cone phase, but that ended when most franchises discontinued their chocolate and vanilla treats in favor of the more cost-efficient vanilla. In my opinion, at this point in my life there are really only 3 offerings on the menu not counting breakfast: 2 cheeseburgers, fries, and H1-C Orange Drink. To those of us obedient followers of the value menu, this is the classic #2.

When I was a child, McDonalds was a special treat. Though my parents tried to expand their childrens' palettes to appreciate fine dining, my sister and I ALWAYS opted to eat at Mickey D's. My mom worked next door to one for the better part of my childhood, and more often than not Becky and I were able to convince her to take us there if we had been well-behaved while having to tagalong while she had to work. (We learned to play the guilt-card from an early age.) We alternated between splitting the #2 and having our own Happy Meals. We had quite the array of toys from our Meals, and kept a drawer under our bed that consisted solely of McDonald's toys. No matter what our meal selection, the beverage was always HI-C Orange Drink. Up until I was old enough to drive to McDonald's myself, I never really considered that there were other beverage options than that sweet elixir.

It's a little known fact that Mickey D's sells the Orange Drink powder for special events. They'll let you rent out buckets with pour spouts and purchase mass quantities of the Drink. (I capitalize Drink because I think it should be emphasized that it is neither a soda nor juice). My pool when I was a kid had an annual triathalon to supplement the social events for the children of the pool. My swim coach used to buy the Drink to give us during the running portion of the race. One year, he used hose water to fill the tubs. The Drink tasted like orange-flavored dirt. We all spit it out as we were running and the sidewalk was a minefield of sugary orange oil slicks. I think some poor kid slipped and fell into it at one point, but I don't remember the event clearly enough to ridicule anyone about it 18 years later. After the dirt incident, it took me a few months before I could acclimate my body to drink the stuff without thinking about mud. But alas I finally got back on the horse and was able to enjoy the Drink in all its glory after a short sabbatical. Forgive and forget.

I'm sure McDonalds is linked to defining moments in every kid's life, but I think few can relate a dining experience there to the demise of their parents' marriage. When I was eight, my mom took my sister and me there on a wintery day in march for what we thought was a routine trip to Playland. After eating our Happy Meals, Becky and I spent a bit of time doing jumps into the ball pit, then were asked by mom to come sit down. She proceeded to tell us that she had decided to get her own apartment - to move away from Daddy's house for a while. But we would have a room there to come visit too. I really didn't get it. And quite honestly, Mom did an absolutely terrible job explaining what their divorce would entail in kid-speak, though I can't imagine trying to tell your children anything of the sort. Mom eventually figured out how to lay-out the whole situation into 8 year-olds' language and i finally understood. I knew my parents' marriage was pretty volitaile (my sister and I had started having to stay at my aunt's place when they got into shouting matches and mom had gone on a solo 'vacation' just prior to our endeavor at Mickey D's), but was still understandably crushed. I waited until we got into the car before freaking out, but then threw a full-on tantrum. Straight from McDonald's, mom took us apartment hunting, but I refused to get out of the car. In the 15 years since, I still have a tendency to contain my emotions for a short period, but the price is usually costly and involves a major outburst of emotion at an inappropriate time.

Somewhat in the same vein of the Playland-divorce incident, mom introduced us to our future-stepfather at McDonalds as well. I did love my (now former) stepfather, but I thought the McDonalds meet and greet was somewhat forced, as only a month earlier we had our "mommy's new home" conversation at a Playland on the other side of town. I suppose mom thought a place that brought her children so much joy was perfect for introducing major life-changes, but I think I would have much preferred a less-popular franchise like Hardees or Arby's to conjure up unhappy memories. Those are two fast food joints I rarely come in contact with and have no qualms connecting a Frisco Burger to joint custody agreements.

Over the years, I've come to understand that my parents function much better apart, but after the bombs that were dropped on me at McDonalds, it wasn't until High School that eating there was a stress-free trip. I think subconsciously I blamed the golden arches for my two-turkey thanksigivings, but learned to let it go. As a senior, I wrote a memorable essay called "Happy Meals Make Me Sick" that sarcastically recounted the whole ordeal. I've since moved on and can eat there painlessly (relatively speaking, given the strain it gives my intestinal track), but Ronald will be eternally intwined in my childhood.

Now, every so often I get cravings for a #2. Today, it's the only thing I really wanted for lunch, though I ended up at a nice Italian restaurant and had to opt for a baked chicken breast over a cheeseburger with no pickles a poorly toasted bun. (This can be blamed on a late night out last evening). It's unfortunate that in the new "healthy" salad-infused menu offerings, the classic #2 has been replaced. Now #2 is a quarter-pounder, the chicken mcnugget option has been moved further down in the numerical system, and I think we're probably only a few menu changes away from the value menu being dubbed the "daily calories meal", where it's touted that you only have to eat one meal a day if you go with one of the 20 selections. But I will stay true to my McDonalds roots and continue to ask for the two cheeseburger meal, whether it's on the glowing menu or not. They can steal my parents' union, but they cannot take away my #2.

Isn't it Hanukkah?

One of my roommates is Jewish. She isn't a close follower of religion, but is probably as in-tune with her religious background as I am with my catholicism/lutheranism (my family converted to lutheran church when i was 14, while my grandparents attend catholic mass daily). Since a fair amount of my friends in NY are Jewish, I consider myself pretty in-the-know with where the holidays fall.

Me: "Hey, isn't it Hanukkah still?"
Roomie: "I'm not sure. Is it?"
Me: "Well, it started last week. Tuesday I think."
Roomie: "Then I guess it's still going on."
Me: "Shouldn't we light the Menorah?"
Roomie: "YEAH!!! Let's do it."

And so I found myself learning my first Hebrew prayer this evening. She had been given a Menorah by a few gentleman passing them out on Flatbush a few years ago. The candles were rainbow-colored and curved on top of one-another, but it was still cool all the same. Sadly I didn't know any of what the prayer meant until after she explained it to me, but I do have to say I have an appreciation for religious ceremonies.

The only problem with our Menorah is that the flames are CRAZY. A recent pyrotechnic incident rendered my hand useless for a week and I'm fearful that the candles will start our kitchen on fire. Not to be a downer, but that would probably seriously alter my appreciation for ceremonies of any kind involving flames.

No bed, no boyfriend, no clothes, no apartment

Memorial Day weekend was supposed to mark a weekend of fun. My best friends from college were all coming into town for a girls' weekend. We made a pact when we graduated that no matter where we lived, every year we'd all reunite for the weekend. Since all of us are new to the 'real world', we decided that New York would be a good first endeavor. Three of the five of us already live here, so only two had to pay airfare. There was plenty to do and see, so there was no fear of boredom. Plus, when it really comes down to it, all we need is a place to crash (and preferably a liquor store). We can make fun wherever we go.

The night before my friends' arrival, my team from work decided to all go out for a drink together after work. We occasionally do happy hours, but it's rare that the entire team makes it out. I had outstanding plans with another friend, but they weren't until later, so I decided to join in for a few rounds. I was looking forward to just relaxing for the night before the girls weekend. My boyfriend and I had decided to take a break the previous weekend and I was doing my best to put it out of my mind.

Breaks to me in relationships don't make any sense. When you're with someone, you don't have to see them every second of every day. You can give each other space without formally announcing a "break". In my mind, "breaks" are excuses for someone to hook up with someone else and not have it count. This is why I never call breaks. If I'm with someone, i'm with them, and I think you're asking for trouble by throwing the "break" card into the mix. But I had agreed to the break out of kindness (with absolutely no intention of cheating whatsoever). In our last conversation, I had given my boyfriend an ultimatum. We'd only been dating for about 6 months. If he wanted to break up (for real) that was fine, but we couldn't do this whole "break" thing for more than a week. His family was coming into town for the weekend, so we had agreed to wait to have a follow-up conversation until they left on Monday. I didn't want to have to put a damper on my friends being here, nor him to be distracted during his weekend with his family.

So I went to drinks, trying to relax and put my mind at ease. While at the bar, my phone died. I had lost my charger a few days earlier, but didn't particularly care. I would just buy a new one the next day, plus my plans with my friend were easy to coordinate phone-less. There was no one else I needed to contact by phone for the night, so the lack of communicability was rather appealing for me. When the rest of my team from work moved from drinks to dinner, I opted to venture back to Brooklyn to meet my friend.

Back in my own borough, I spent the night downing beers and watching crappy television at my friend's place. I would routinely crash on her couch when it was too late for me to want to take public transportation back to Williamsburg. It got to that point on this particular evening, so I set an alarm to go to the airport to pick up my friends and passed out on the pullout.

The next morning, I checked my messages on using her phone before heading to the airport. There were two messages from the boyfriend.

A summary of the calls -

Message 1: "Hey, it's me. I wanted to talk before my family gets into town. Please call me back soon."
Message 2: "Hey, well, I didn't really want to do this over the phone, but my family is coming soon and I want to tell you this before they come. I can't be your boyfriend right now. But I hope we can be friends. Let me know if you still want to hang out with my family."

I'm upset, but can't even begin to fathom this because I'm late to pick up my friends at the airport. I hop in a cab and decide I better buy a charger at the airport so I won't miss anymore calls. Somehow I end up having a bit of time to spare before my friends' plan gets in, so I buy a charger at the travel store. I find a outlet near one of the cafes and start juicing up my cell. The second it's plugged in, I get a new voicemail notification.

"Hey, it's S (my roommate). The guys from Gothic Furniture came to drop off your bed. There wasn't any room to put it together, so they just left the pieces in your room."

AWESOME. My new bed was supposed to be delivered no earlier than 11am. It was 8:45. I knew my mattress was the only thing in my room in the way (I was planning to move it right after I went to the airport), but it wasn't any use to try and deal with it while I was still picking up my friends. I focused on trying to find them in the crowded airport. 15 minutes later we were all reunited. There are only a handful of people in my life I would have wanted to be with that morning, and it just so happened two of them had just arrived in the airport. We headed to Williamsburg to assess the damage.

When I first moved to New York, I had a lofted twin bed that my sister used in college. It was easy to bring cross-country in a car, plus it allowed for a ton of storage space underneath. And it was free. By May though, I was ready for a big kid bed. I talked it through with my roommates, S & J, and couldn't find any reasons not to finally put some money into my room. I wasn't planning on moving anytime soon and now that I had a 'real' job, I had the money to spend on it.

Enter my brand new full-sized bed. This was a thing of beauty. Oak with two giant rolling drawers underneath, it was sleek and ready-made for storage. When I got home though, my dream was sitting in 6 pieces on my bedroom floor. I called the furniture store immediately.

"Hi, my bed was delivered this morning in pieces."
"Ah - yes. You were not home."
"That's because it was supposed to be delivered between 11-4. It was dropped off before 9. And no one even called me to tell me it was being dropped off. You were supposed to call."
"Ma'am, what is your number?"
"612-"
"You have an out of town area code?"
"Yes, so does almost everyone nowadays."
"We don't have long distance on our company phones. There was no way to call you."
"You can even use pay phones for long distance. Are you serious?"
"Very, ma'am."
"Fine. I have a long distance number. My bad. Can you please send someone back over here to put it together for me? I'll pay for it."
"We can send someone out on Tuesday or Wednesday."
"That's almost a week away. Is it possible to just explain to me how I can put it together myself?"

The conversation lasted another 5 minutes, where it was told how I could assemble my bed. I'm a fairly handy person, so I preferred putting it together myself rather than waiting for these guys to come back. I postponed the building project until my friends were out of town and instead set my sights on picking up my clothes at the laundromat.

Drop off laundry places are one of the great offerings in New York. I don't mind doing laundry on my own when I have the machines in my apartment, but when I have to lug my clothes to the laundry in the first place, I really prefer giving it to someone else to take care of. They do such a great job - the folding is impeccable and it frees up a few hours in my day to do other things. I usually wait 3-4 weeks between trips, which is a product of my work schedule, coupled with my laziness. On this particular laundry excursion, I literally had sent 6 weeks of clothes to the laundromat. I had no clean clothes left, with the exception of a few random outfits that don't fit into my regular rotation. I made one of my friends go with me to pick it up out of fear that I would need an extra hand lugging the load back the 6 blocks to my apartment.

Oh, if that was my only concern. As with all trips to pick up my clothes, I handed my slip to the laundress, then waited for her to dig my clothes out of the piles and piles of giant bags with perfectly folded apparel. A few minutes go by and she still can't find my stuff. She looks at me apologetically, then continues her search. Another 5 minutes go by before she musters up the courage to tell me that my clothes are MIA and asks me to come back later. They may show up by then. Strike 3 for me and it's not even 3pm. My luck has certainly run out.

The remainder of the girls weekend was fun. I did my best to sort my life out. One of my friends came over on Sunday and helped me put together the bed, the laundromat came through with finding my laundry, and I was handling the breakup with as much grace as possible. Fast forward to a week later. The tape holding together my life was somewhat flimsy, but it was doing the job.

Enter my roommate, S. (See the "push it" entry for reference.) When we originally agreed to be roommates, it was decided that everyone living in the apartment would have to be there for an entire year. Everyone could stay as long as they liked, but a year was the minimum. We didn't have a lease - S had signed one a few years earlier - but hadn't resigned in quite some time. The lack of lease didn't really bother me. We all seemed like rational adults, I didn't need a piece of paper to prove that I was living somewhere. Over Memorial Day Weekend, S asked me what I planned on doing for the next year. I cheerfully responded that I had just gotten a new bed (which we all had discussed and decided was a good decision), and wanted to stick around for a while. Then she asked what I would do if she moved in with her boyfriend. She assured me that there was no rush in their decision. They would take their time with moving in together.

Me: "Well, ideally, I would move into the bigger room. [I had the smallest room by far in the apt] Then, we'd find another person for the third room."
S: "Yeah, okay."

I was psyched. The one downfall of my current room was its lack of space. S' room was about 2x the size of mine, and she paid only $80 more a month. I started to dream up possiblities for my new room and started telling my friends the good fortune. One of my friends was debating a move to New York and offered up taking the room if it ever became available. She was in no rush to move, but whenever the opportunity presented itself she could pick up and leave her current situation. This seemed like a perfect remedy to a possible roommate search, so I shared the news with S the next day.

Me: "Hey, I know there's no timetable when you move in with your boyfriend, but I have a friend who's interested in the place whenever you would want to make an exit. I'm not pushing you out, but that might help out you guys with a little flexibility with moving."
S: "Oh...yeah. Umm, well, when I was talking about moving in with him, I didn't mean that WE would move out."

I knew I was about to be kicked to the curb. Now that tape was completely ripped off from my breaking psyche. No real dignity was left, but now I did have my clothes and a brand new bed. Thank god for that bed.

Thank You, Steve Jobs

An update on my iPod...Friday morning before taking it to the Apple Store, I tested my nano out once more. The night of rest must have been all it needed - it works fine now. Phew. I'm still note sure what happened, but I really dodged a bullet.

Revenge of Bill Gates

I fully defected from the world of PCs about 2 years ago. I never really liked the cold black machines, but used them because it was what my parents bought me. After the harddrive crash of '05, there was no way that I could go back to a PC. I lost all of my music, any papers I had written in the first three years of college, and any dignity that I had left in the virtual world. I still feel the loss of my music. I started college in the heyday of kazaa and napster - I had over 5,000 songs, not including the stuff transfered from my "archaic" CD collection. I felt physical pain when that damn blue screen forever cut me off from my rare acoustic versions and live renditions of forgotten pop songs. So I got a Mac and didn't look back. Until my iPod broke. TODAY.

My day started out like any other. As with my regular morning routine, I read for the first 30 minutes of my subway ride, then transitioned to my iPod for the last few stops on my journey. I need a little psych up (or serenity) on my way into the office, and like to walk into work with a soundtrack. My little nano seemed a little slower than usual, but I figured maybe it was cold, or needed a little juice from the power cord attached to my work computer. I listened to it sporadically during the day and it seemed to be in working order. Radiohead sounded a little groggy, but I wasn't listening too intently - I was in the middle of doing a few reports.

Tonight on the ride home, I finished up my New Yorker and decided I needed to have a bit of music before I entered the chaos of my apartment. (I also had "Bizarre Love Triangle" in my head for the 6 day in a row and felt I needed a quick fix.) My iPod turned on, it let me change the song, play with the volume - literally everything was in working order. Except the songs won't play. The names just sit there and taunt me, but don't start, no matter how long I tap the start button. It's pure evil. And makes me sad about my allegiance to Mac. I stand up for them, and this sort of crap happens. But no, Bill Gates I don't want a zune. I don't even understand what those things really are. Plus I'm really scared of things that start with a "Z". Zebras, Zubas, Zoos. Nothing good really comes from anything starting with the letter "Z".

Spilt Milk

I don't mess around when it comes to my cereal. I probably eat cereal for dinner 3-4 nights a week and keep inventory in my head as to whether my cupboard is stocked with options and my fridge has a gallon of skim (or 1%). When I'm reaching the end of my gallon, I keep a second so I don't risk drudging to the store to re-stock. Once I'm home for the night, I hate leaving my apartment. Especially for milk or cereal.

All I wanted when I got home today was a bowl of cereal. I don't feel well, i'm tired, and all i wanted before I go to bed was a bowl of chex. I stopped at the corner store to grab some juice to go with my cereal. There's no need for anymore supplies. I know I have at least 1/2 box of cereal and almost a full gallon of milk I bought over the weekend. I trudge home, drop my bags in my room and put on my pajamas before heading to the kitchen. After pouring a bowl of chex, I head to the fridge for my milk. It's gone. There's a glass of milk sitting on the top shelf, but my gallon is nowhere to be seen. I start yelling obscenities (I soon find out both of my roommates are not home), pull on my boots and head to the corner store. AGAIN. I will not be defeated. On the way, I call my roommate, who I felt probably had something to do with it.

Me: "Hi, my gallon of milk mysteriously disappeared."
Roomie: "Oh, yeah. It started leaking like crazy. I saved a glass for you."
Me: "I saw that. Leak, huh? Well, thanks."

I'm not in the mood for accusations, plus I had a feeling the incident was accidental. I buy my new gallon, pour it on my cereal, and stick it in the fridge. After living in my current living situation nothing really should surprise me anymore, but still I sit and stare at a puddle of milk I see on the second shelf. I realize I left my milk on the bottom shelf. And that no gallon of milk could fit on shelf two. There are few things that are sacred in my kitchen and milk is one of them. Brutal, brutal day. At least now I can look forward to bed.

Push It

When I first moved to New York, I lived in a tiny three bedroom apartment in Williamsburg. Craigslist led me to this little $500/mo gem, and I certainly had no reason to complain. The rent was cheaper than I paid in college, the neighborhood was safe, and I was 2 blocks from the train. Plus my roommates seemed like good people. For the purposes of this tale (and future ones), I'll dub them J and S. J majored in fiber (as in textiles) and worked as a professional knitter, while S worked in graphic design (though in a former life sold knives door to door).

If you've gotten any roommates from Craigslist, this is pretty run of the mill. It's your typical assortment of artists and young professionals, with a few crazies sometimes thrown into the mix for good measure. After multiple open houses, I felt like I had really lucked out. Despite my addition to the crew as the corporate america kid, the three of us got along great. We'd go to concerts together or occasionally grab a beer, exchanging funny stories and hitting up trivia nights at a neighborhood bar.

J loved taking me on "cultural excursions". She's extremely talented and creative - and literally up for anything. The first weekend I moved in we went to a gallery opening. As are most things in Williamsburg, it was for experimental art. One of the main showcases was an abandoned bathroom packed with a rainbow assortment of spray-painted stuffed animals. J had answered a posting on Craigslist to play in a one-day band for the opening. The planned called for the members to meet at the gallery and improvise each number. J's contributions to the group were tap dancing, singing, and kazoo playing. The big number for the evening was an tribute to spaghetti.

Not to be outdone by the spaghetti number, J's next trip for me was to the monthly amateur burlesque show in our hood. She had asked S to join us but S declined, saying "I see enough nakedness when i get out of the shower." (Remember this for future stories - it greatly foreshadows what's to come.) J's dream was to have the gall to enter the burlesque show herself. With each time she attended, the confidence to enter grew. When J puts her mind to something, it happens. And no less than one year later, I found myself at amateur night cheering on J as she made her debut on the burlesque circuit. The pinnacle of the evening came with her second number, "Push it". J came out dressed as a pregnant old maid. She started out prim and proper, dusting and tidying up the stage. As the song progresses, the maid starts letting loose. Right as the chorus hits a high point, J "gives birth". To an analog tape player. The deck is attached to her with a phone cord, and J continues to rock out with it - resting it on her shoulders like an 80's rapper. With this crowd pleaser, J effortlessly wins the competition and is asked back to defend her title the following month, which happens to coincide with the week of our great nation's birth.

J is a patriotic girl and as any true patriot would, she felt it only right to use her talents to celebrate independence day. To pay homage to our 16th president, J's finale for the show was an ode to abe lincoln. She managed to find an "abe lincoln disguise kit" at a local thrift store (a perfect example of Williamsburg's humor), complete with a beard and top hat. Minus the fish net stalkings and leotard, the girl was a dead ringer for mr. president. Sadly, J did not bring home the win that evening in July. But let it be a lesson to all of us with a dream. Though it may not include tassles or fake beards, or even analog tape players, we should all take the chance to go out on a limb every once in a while. You may even win some prize money along the way.

Perpetually Single

Sometimes I question why I generally prefer singledom over serious relationships. Then all I have to do is remember these slew of incidents and appreciate why I try to hold out for the good guys. It happened over a year ago, but it still makes me cringe to this day.

1. Showing up for a first date wearing a shirt with a 9/11 "joke" on it.
2. Taking a date to your "favorite" restaurant in NYC, the applebees in time square. When it's full, trying to take her to olive garden.
3. Ordering your date a beer with dinner even after she says she does not want one and only wants a glass of water.
4. Ordering your date a second beer when she's in the bathroom after she did not want the first one and explicitly asks you not to order her one when she's away.
5. Running up a $80 tab and leaving her with the bill.
6. Calling, emailing, texting, and facebook messaging every day for two weeks just to make sure she got the previous message you left.

For the record, this was all one guy. I gave up on the whole responsible adult thing. I emailed him and told him to leave me alone.