She's Hearing Voices

once a NY asshole, always a NY asshole

2010-06-21T17:57:00.002-04:00

today was my first day back visiting WI before i move to atlanta. i spent the afternoon hitting up target, famous footwear, and the post office. yep - it only took one day to become a suburban housewife.

i went to the post office completely unprepared. no pen, no box to ship the item, nothing. luckily the madison post office is nothing like the brooklyn post office. along with the standard issue boxes, they keep a roll of special issue tape around and some good samaritan left a pen for people to use when addressing boxes. it took me no time to tape a box together and weigh out the correct postage. i wanted to include a quick note in the box and hadn't brought in any scrap paper. it just so happened that the guy in front of me at the automated postage machine had left his receipt. perfect. i could be a recycler AND include a note in the box. i write a quick note, place it in the box and tape it up. just as i'm putting the package into the chute for it to be shipped off, the guy in front of me comes back with an employee. he's looking for his receipt. too late. the box is in the chute, completely taped up. i just can't bring myself to confess.

i guiltily leave the premises. as i leave i overhear a plan to pull up the information on the computers and print out a new receipt. that doesn't change the fact that i'm the asshole in the situation. guy seeking his receipt i'm really sorry, but once it's down the chute it's lost forever. i hope you understand.

graduation

2010-06-20T18:06:00.004-04:00

yesterday marked my last day as a NYC citizen. i'm sad about leaving my friends, the 24 hour pizza joints, the brownstones of brooklyn, and many other things, but excited for the prospect of beginning my "adult" life. in commemoration of my departure, i've compiled a list of my favorite memories (in random order):

- exploring the "forgotten" borough of staten island. rhythm and booze, the SI ferry, bbq pizza, with a finale at a downtown diner. all on a sunday afternoon.

- finer things club. we'll now be able to add trips to savannah, but it will never rival the adventures had in the greater 5 boroughs.

- brooklyn alliance. the few, the proud, the f and g train riders. those manhattan kids never truly understood.

- amateur burlesque night at galapagos. i certainly never performed, but the tribute to abe lincoln will be forever etched in my brain.

- first dates at the gate. minus the belgian sour ale. check please.

- group gchats. this will continue into my life in atlanta, but still deserves to be on the list.

- searching for bahn mi in chinatown. we never found what we were looking for exactly, but the journey was half the fun.

- old glory specials at cherry tavern. always a terrible idea in the morning, but a whiskey and PBR for under $5 is never a bad idea at the time.

- lifetime movies and wine in harlem. i am not ashamed.

- day trips to coney island. god, nathan's, and the wonder wheel can be found there.

- beer pong at whiskey river. what better way to show off eye-hand coordination?

- above ground subways. the D, Q, J always gave the best view of the city.

- the brooklyn flea. long live hillbilly gold.

- oko. frozen greek yogurt and fruit. let's pretend we're being healthy.

- attempting to go to free concerts. they were always too overrun with hipsters to actually make it in, but the events that ensued post-attempt was always worth the disappointment.

- visits from cloud. cheesy poofs, photo booths, phat farm, and leprechauns.

- alligator lounge. if i hadn't moved away from that place i would be a full-fledged member of pizza addicts anonymous.

- outdoor drinking, especially during the day. no one judges when everyone gets around via cab.

- the beer garden. see above.

- the walk from 42nd to union square. highlight had to be walking 30 blocks next to david from newsies.

- the chicken place. only dining establishment in midtown i'll miss.

- sunny days in prospect park.

- eve's in astoria. those women are vastly underpaid for their skills.

- failed rec teams. namely kickball.

- the evolution of pearl and the beard. they started with a handful of family and friends at free shows, now they're about to embark on a legit tour.

- amNY crosswords on the daily commute. my day always felt off if i didn't finish by the time i made it to the bryant park stop.

- dram shop sports viewing. that poor server was always there.

- craigslist roommates. out of two there's always one nutjob and one keeper.

i hope if/when i leave the south, i'll have as worthy of a list. it will probably reference just as much food.

naked time

2010-04-22T23:10:00.002-04:00

"i went out onto the back porch yesterday and i saw a chipmunk so i said outloud, "ew what are you?" then i noticed the next door neighbor sneak back inside. i think they may have been naked."

- text from my sister

i miss her.

this only happens to me

2010-03-07T16:45:00.002-05:00

or so i've been told by multiple people. especially this week.

i scheduled an appointment a few weeks back to get a consult for wisdom teeth removal. i've needed to get them out since i was 14 but have just continually pushed it back. i ran out of excuses the last time i got my teeth cleaned. i figured it was just time to grow up and get it done. how often to do you hear of 50 year olds getting their wisdom teeth out? drooling and vicodin is cool when you're younger - not so much when your kids see you flopped on the couch in a prescription drug-fuelled catatonic state.

my appointment was at 5pm on wednesday. i bailed out of work a bit early (quitting time for me is usually in the 7-8pm range) and walked the 3 blocks to the appointment. this is one of the great conveniences of working in midtown. typically there is a handful of non-sketchy establishments for health-related needs. unfortunately there is also typically a larger array of sketch-tastic places that I wouldn't will anyone to even bum a glass of water from the establishment much less entrust them to extract a tooth. the place i go to isn't uber pretentious but it did get some pretty stellar reviews from some coworkers so i gave it a shot.

i walk in to the appointment, where a hygienist promptly take me in for xrays. afterwards, she takes me into an examination room - a one swanky enough for there to be a TV and phony dental portraits that were taken in the last five years. the doctor comes in 5 minutes later with my x-rays.

"ok, the left ones look pretty easy to take out. we're just gonna do those today and then you can come back in a few weeks for the right side."
"so you're just gonna take them out today?"
"is that a problem?"
"i guess not"

so the doc shot me full of novocain and yanked them out. when i say yank, i mean pliers and all. it was like every dental horror movie rolled into one. it didn't hurt - i was completely numb - but it was weird feeling some virtual stranger pull and prod and eventually force out two teeth that had been with me since adolescence.

i left the building with a mouth full of gauze, a numb face, and a prescription for antibiotics and tylenol with codeine. the pain wasn't too bad - even when the anesthesia wore off and i stopped drooling uncontrollably. i put some ice on my jaw when i went home, and bit on some teabags and slept right through the night. the next morning, i went to work as though there weren't two gaping holes in my jaw (i guess that's not entirely accurate since they're mostly sewed shut). i felt fine, not terrible enough to merit missing work. from all of the horror stories i've heard from people, it was sort of absurd to be there. half my friends speak of their wisdom teeth removal as if they had a lung removed. it entails blood, gore, days of painkillers, and the dreaded DRY SOCKETS. granted, i still i'm not out of the woods completely 4 days later, but i felt sort of foolish being at work right after something like that and didn't tell anyone about the ordeal until mid-way through the afternoon.

once i told the story, it traveled through my entire team. the first response, "this would only happen to you." since i've recounted the tale, i've gotten that from additional friends and MY MOM. thanks, i guess.

it's a small world after all

2010-03-06T22:35:00.002-05:00

last night i went to go see jocelyn's band play. they were opening for their buddies' album release party at webster hall. her band went on at 8:30, then the main act was at 10. i was recovering from my widsom teeth removal (a forthcoming post will recount that experience) so the plan was to go to the show then head home early. a surprising number of my friends had showed up to the show - very surprising since usually whenever i put out the invite i get a whole lot of maybes and a whole lot of reinforcement that it's good that i like to do things solo. so here we were waiting in between jocelyn's show and the main act, when who do i see standing less than 5 feet away?

my prom date.

turns out andrew lives in brooklyn too. and has for the past two years. we both were in complete shock and actually struggled to formulate coherent sentences for the first few minutes of conversation. it was one of those moments that really makes me appreciate my high school experience. for all those people who felt they had an awkward and cringe-worthy four years, i feel my high school was a great exception. yes, we as people were super awkward, but we were awkward together. i ran into a good 3/4 of my high school at a bar over christmas and realized how happy i was that i can look back and feel grateful that i shared the experience with such an eclectic group of people. andrew and i hadn't seen each other in almost 8 years, but we could talk as if we has stayed in touch since the day he was voted prom king (true story - my date was crowned king). only in new york can you be thousands of miles away from home and run into the guy who 8 years ago sang american pie with you and your closest friends around a campfire while drinking natty lite post prom.

GTL...part 2

2010-02-06T10:06:00.002-05:00

the world was swept away by the jersey shore. or at least everyone in my world was fascinated by MTV's lowlifes. their lack of manners, stupidity, and well stupidity made for great TV. i watch my share of good shows and really have no guilt about spending an hour a week watching 6 idiots try to find mates on a dirty boardwalk.

season 1 ended somewhat predictably. jwoww ended up with her boyfriend who sent her the "rarest roses eva" (blue ones), snooki's 15 minutes of fame includes her pushing tanning products and being the word's largest proponent of the "bumpit", and the man who swore his #1 rule was to not fall in love at the jersey shore left in a serious relationship with a girl who broke up with him because he said she had a "fred flinstone toe". this is TV at its finest.

for all the talk about "jersey shore", MTV seems to be the only one who realizes their "talent" will be lucky to survive a second season. like all reality shows, once the first season (or less) is done, you just get a bunch of people who are playing towards the camera. "classic" moments like jwoww's proclamation of eating ham instead of cheating with her boyfriend are going to be completely contrived. girls will hook up with mike "the situation" because he's "the situation". not because he's s dude who looks 45 but has a nice 6 pack that he shows off at the bar. pauly d's DJing is probably sub par, but he's already blowing up the tabloids with his favorite "love" mixes for valentine's day. and snooki will finally find a guy to hook up with, one who likes her "for who she is"...

by the time season 2 airs, we'll all have found a new bunch of trainwrecks to follow. i'm not saying i won't watch, but it would be nice to watch the second season of something where you know a producer isn't involved in the mix.

where were you the night of the 1st?

2010-02-01T23:02:00.002-05:00

i have been trying to pinpoint why i have had writer's block lately. i fear it's because i've become boring. i get up, when i'm lucky i hit the gym, and spend 9-11 hours at the office. go home, attempt to make a meal, watch some tv, read, then go to bed. i can figure out what day it is by what's on TV or which client status meeting i had in the afternoon. weeks and months blend together. goal for 2010: try to remember on friday what i did on monday. the more i watch these crime dramas, i realize i would make a terrible witness. they say everyone actor in NYC has been in an episode of "law and order". i best practice in case life ever imitates art.

only freshman

2009-12-28T17:18:00.002-05:00

"for the life of me - i cannot remember. what made us think that we were wise and never compromised"

oh the verve. this song has been running through my head all day. why? because i belted it out in a real-life version of rock band into the wee hours last night. why? because i'm an idiot. and a really awesome wingman.

though it doesn't seem like it from my posts, i don't go out very hard most nights. it's rare that i venture out more than one night during the weekend and school nights are reserved for QT with the DVR unless it's a special occasion. somehow though, i find myself still getting into ridiculous late night situations. somehow i manage to push back any thoughts of bedtime at a decent hour and proceed into the murky abyss of karaoke at 5am. and this is how it happens...

i started the evening with a few glasses of wine at dinner with my dad. i met some friends at a classy joint where i sipped on jameson and ginger ale. 2 to be exact. after these drinks, the responsible thing would have been to have a nightcap and then head home.

instead me and my friends decided to continue to quench our thirst at another nearby establishment. this place was rowdy. rowdy enough that i agreed to take a shot. rowdy enough that we closed down the bar. rowdy enough that it seemed like a great idea to join some new friends at their studio at an abandoned milk factory. what i'm leaving out of this story was the purpose of me coming along. i was wingman for the evening. arguably the world's best wingman in the history of all wingmen for what went down.

i tell this story as a warning. kids - don't ever agree to hang out at a studio that some guys rent out by themselves at an old factory in wisconsin. it's guaranteed that they're probably really terrible musicians. it's also a lesson in which band members to hang out with. it's probably also guaranteed that the drummer and the keyboard player won't be the best vocalists. nor the best guitar players.

all this information is great to know in hindsight, but when you end up participating in a 3-hour "jam session" that includes such green day favorites as "basketcase", "boulevard of broken dreams" on repeat, there's a lesson to be learned.

nothing good happens after 2am. especially if it involves musical instruments. and spiked egg nog.

"my shadow's the only thing that walks beside me..." my shadow is feeling pretty rough today. pretty rough indeed.

shine on

2009-11-30T23:20:00.007-05:00

i officially have a thanksgiving tradition. if you complete something 2 times it's a fun repeat; the third time indicates it's a tradition. 3rd annual also means it's necessary to make t-shirts to mark the occasion. the tradition goes as follows:

night before thanksgiving - i ride the penn station bus to rosslyn, va. per tradition, i also sit next to an odd older man who is not old enough nor odd enough to weird me out. just enough for me to take notice and watch my belongings.

i spend the evening at the home of my friend tracy (now mrs. casey).

we wake up, shower, put on jeans to pretend like we're leaving the house, but just watch football and eat for the remainder of the day. casey is forced to go to boston market to purchase our "turkey for 3"; we leave the couch long enough to make green bean casserole to complement the ready-made meal. after 3 years of boston market, we have yet to figure out why exactly they have a meal for 3, but we don't question the awesomeness of the deal, nor the 3 sides that accompany the turkey and gravy.

after dinner we half-heartedly throw out potential activities that would involve leaving the apartment: shooting pool, darts, etc. a pseudo-lengthy debate ensues until we decide to watch a movie on the couch.

friday morning we head out to the mountains. prior to entering the wilderness, we stop at virginia's version of culver's - aka spelunker's. the color, taste, clientele all scream culvers, right down to the cerulean pleather booths.

we end our last civilian journey by hitting up the gas station restrooms. while i have to say the outhouse accommodations have improved vastly since our first-year's cabin (we wore clothespins on our noses until we had drank enough to not notice the smell)it's no bathroom with an attendant. or really anything beyond a hole in the ground with a toilet seat.

when entering the state park, it's mandatory to play john denver. we have to take the battered road carefully; the treacherous roadway taunts casey's ford focus. one of these years we may have to abandon the car on the road.

friday night it's just the three of us: casey, tracy, and myself. we spend a few hours searching for firewood and setting up the cabin. darkness sets at 5pm - time for dinner and to crack open our first drinks. as any good wisconsinite would, we drink miller lite or mgd with dinner but have a nice cocktail as an appetizer before our meal. since we're "adults" now, the drink of choice is an old fashioned.

we don't have electricity in our humble abode so dinner is cooked over the stove and a tiny gas cooker casey has from camping. this year we managed to make curried chicken and rice. (we're way craftier than we sometimes appear). after dinner it's time for games. it's customary to play at least one game of oregon trail, a drinking game (naturally) that i created a few years back from a deck of cards. sixes are the worst: "oxen died. mystery flask." the first year we went camping, casey brought a flask in which he had no idea the type of alcohol. from that year on, he takes it upon himself to bring the flask with a new poison. no one is allowed to speak of what's in it until everyone has tried it. year one was whiskey, year two was peach schnapps, and this year it was tequila. the kicker was that the flask still smelt of the schnapps. speaking from experience, it's pretty brutal to take a sniff of faux-peaches before gulping down a swig of jose. another staple of friday night is scrabble. there's really nothing funnier than playing scrabble by candlelight and headlamps. bedtime resides somewhere around 10:30 or 11. there's something about hitting total darkness by 5pm that evokes an early bedtime. no wonder the settlers got up at dawn every day.

day 2 begins with the three of us slaving over the stove to make breakfast and coffee. we're not fancy enough to grind our own stuff; we just make the instant java. all of us have worked in the corporate world long enough to be able to down the really crappy brew. the first part of our morning is spent scouring the woods for firewood until the arrival of the rest of the crew. with the exception of myself, all other members of the cabin team are DC friends (and sometimes their significant others) of casey and tracy. i see these folks once a year - and always after i have been in the woods sans shower overnight. at casey and tracy's wedding this fall, i saw a handful of the cabin crew and one of the girls couldn't quite place me in "real-life" clothing:

"hey! i didn't recognize you without your bandana!"

our group of 10 mainly consists of wisconsin transplants. this means that it's necessary for at least 3 members of the group to bring brats, and any salads include blocks of cheese. once everyone gets settled into the cabin, we go on a hike. last year, we tried to do a 2.6 mile hike (each way) to the end of one of the trails. after a good few hours of hiking, we were convinced we had missed a turn. this year we had a GPS watch tracking our distance. turns out we needed to hike another 40 minutes or so to get to the end. after our hike, it's cocktail hour. basically that means we don't play any drinking games while sipping our beverages.

the next few hours mainly consist of multiple rounds of food: chili, pasta salad (with cheese, of course), brats, hot dogs, kabobs, brownies, smores. really there's no particular order to any of it; it's not unusual for anyone to finish up a few smores with a brat. in between rounds of food are rounds of catch phrase and/or card games, all of which necessitate the need to utilize the mystery flask. this year we had the special treat of authentic moonshine (corn whiskey). that stuff is a brutal combination of shitty alcohol and the faint taste of stale popcorn.

per the usual, we're all in bed by midnight (it's easier to stay up later with a big group). we wake up early and start the day with a meal of leftovers and some sort of bacon product. then it's time to head home: everyone else makes their way back to the burbs, i load onto the bus (hopefully after a shower) for my ride back to ny. all in all it's a tradition that can't be beat. we're already starting to brainstorm t-shirt ideas for next year.

the way you've always been

2009-11-14T15:53:00.003-05:00

my first friend in NY that i didn't know from the midwest was my roommate jocelyn. she has previously been mentioned as a ringleader of awesomeness in some of my more debaucherous tales while living in brooklyn, but has steered clear of any recent blog acknowledgements as of late mostly because of my detour in queens and her starting a band.

recently i've been able to make it to more of her shows. i realized a few months ago that i was a total slacker the past year in making time for extra curricular activities. a good portion of that had to do with my heath (read: gallbladder/gluten fiascos of the last 14 months) but i came to discover that i was doing a crappy job of keeping up with my friends. while "adult jeni" still needs to get at least 8 hours of rest whenever possible, i've made it a priority to make it out to see people on a regular basis - especially whenever they are showing off any of their skills.

jocelyn is a fountain of craftiness. there is nothing that she can't do - with the exception of anything related to watching/participating in organized sports. i have no doubts that she would master "playing" any game she chose, but that's not really her style. she has plenty of other things to fill her days/nights: burlesque dancing, knitting, drawing, and writing/singing songs that are so masterful i sometimes watch in wonder as to how this girl and i shared a 400 sq ft apartment (with another roommate, no less) for a year and i only had small hints into her creative genius in musical endeavors.

we've never lost touch over the past few years. it gets hard to get together often since our schedules are so off from one another, but we have remained in constant contact throughout even after her stint back in jersey with her parents, breakups, and borough hopping.

last night i went to her show at a bar in greenpoint. it was the final stop of the bands tour - i was also fortunate enough to make it to their first show in the tour (they started and ended in NYC).

the place was packed wall-to-wall with people as it grew nearer to when it was time for pearl and the beard to go on. people were constantly coming up to jocelyn to congratulate her; there was a constant stream of fans tipping their drinks to her as she bounced around the space prior to when they went up.

somehow in this craziness, jocelyn and i had a moment to talk. the crowd was getting revved up, the previous band was great but it was obvious the great majority of the crowd had come specifically to see jocelyn and her bandmates perform. she looked around at the crowd and then gave me a huge grin.

"do you remember when we were living in that apartment and how i said i wished i would do music again?"
"of course i do. i remember one of your first shows when it was just you and jeremy and your little xylophone. there were probably 10 people in the room counting you guys."
"it just makes me so happy that there are so many people here that love what i'm doing and who loved me when i wasn't doing music."

when the band went up to play, the band could have forgotten all of the words and it wouldn't have mattered. the crowd knew all the songs, shouted out requests, and booed when the venue wouldn't let the band play an encore (the sets were already an hour behind).

i meet probably 10 people a year who say they want to do x,y, and z. they should be an actor, a business professional - whatever. jocelyn is the only one i know who has made it happen.

this is her in action:

halt - thief!!

2009-11-08T14:03:00.002-05:00

last night we had a roommate excursion to ft. greene. due to our lack of planning and laziness, post dinner we decided to go back to park slope for a drink rather than continuing our fun near our dinner locale.

saturday night train rides - or really any weekend riding - is a tricky experience. sometimes you can be lucky enough to catch a train within the first few minutes of waiting, other trips can leave you hanging out at the prince street station with a woman hugging her knees and telling you about the dinosaur "conspiracy" for upwards of an hour while you struggle to stay awake.

last night we ran into the g station just in time to grab a train. for no explicable reason, the g train is shorter/smaller than most every station it pulls into, forcing anyone on the back end of the station to sprint to the last car in order to make your way inside. as we were fleeing towards the final car, the three of us were stopped by a policewoman:

PW: "you can't take that train."
hannah: "why? it's right there."
PW: "i need to swipe your cards to check that you guys paid."
- the three of us look at each other in disbelief
me: "you're really going to make us miss this train?"
PW: "yes. come up with me to check your cards."

the train exits the station. begrudgingly, we follow her back up to the turnstiles. she goes to the info booth, checks our cards, then lets us go.

we go back downstairs and wait for the next train. luckily another one came within 5 minutes, but man. i still can't figure this one out. with all of the crime, crazy people, and general unrest at late night subway stations, this police officer took the time to stop us to check our tickets at 10pm on a saturday. this was one of the entrances with the full body turnstile - unless you're really making an effort to share the space with another human being, you can't jump over the bar or squeeze through without it turning.

i used to wonder why new yorkers don't have the patience to deal with people just doing their job. this cannot fall under any job duty, with maybe the exception of being annoying so you don't have to do any real work. like catch criminals.

score one for me

2009-11-05T22:27:00.003-05:00

yesterday was my mama's birthday. an excerpt from our email exchange:

mom: "...had an amazing bd...Becka downloaded all of the songs from GLEE for me and made me cupcakes..."

me: "sorry i couldn't be there to watch you blow out all 30 candles"

mom: "you are a smart and wonderful daughter"

why yes i am.

it's not the crunch of the leaves

2009-10-21T23:15:00.002-04:00

my new apartment is nice. it's nothing extravagant, but a very charming little place that's clean and is the habitat of two awesome roommates. (it also contains numerous religious artifacts purchased at nearby dollar stores - there are good auras all around.)

i moved in knowing there had been a mouse sighting a few weeks back. in ny, rodents, creatures, cockroaches, and all sorts of etymological wonders aren't uncommon encounters on a regular basis. felix- a baby mouse - was the animal de jour in our abode. if i'm going to share my space with any rodent it better be a teeny companion over something with giant teeth, plus felix was elusive - a recluse. i wouldn't have believed his existence if not for the photographic evidence the roomies were able to capture, so i didn't think anything of him. out of sight, out of mind.

when i got home tonight, i ran for the loo as soon as i got home. i took a two steps into the bathroom before turning on the light. on my second step, i felt a crunch. a bone crunching, life smothering, blood spattering crunch. i turned on the light, expecting to come face to face with the world's largest cockroach. instead i was confronted with the lifeless carcass of felix. after weeks and weeks of evading capture, i managed to smush him while blindly going to pee. the odds of this event are unbelievable, yet all i can think of is how grateful i am i was still wearing my shoes.

funny bone

2009-10-15T23:31:00.003-04:00

i'm awkward. not in a completely socially inept sort of way, but the kind where i trip and fall a lot. for that reason (and my almost complete lack of rhythym) i try to avoid the dance floor sober as much as possible. my awkwardness reached new heights last night. i was running into the bathroom (i drank a tall starbucks chai on the ride home) and crashed into my sink. it was a very fashionable fall - i was still in my work clothes. but beyond that it really wasn't pretty. i didn't injure myself majorly, but i swacked my elbow just about as hard as possible without cracking it into two. there's no bruise, but it hurts like a major biotch. add that to the fact that i spend all day, every day using my arm to navigate my computer (yup - its a very physically demanding career). i know i'm a whiner, but man, it hurts.

the thing

2009-10-14T22:00:00.000-04:00

we all have "things" we don't really divulge to the public. "things" we consider private. we keep them to ourselves, or at least a very small contingency of friends. we try to make a conscious decision when to share them, who to share them with, and control the situation as much as we possibly can. with gossip and just general human nature there's only so much to control, but usually a person has some say in the matter.

that is unless your pregnant.

i should preface this by saying i'm not pregnant. not that anyone is surprised by this news, but i do live thousands away from my hometown. if not for facebook, i could probably show up with a 3 year old for my high school reunion next year and no one would bat an eye. regardless, when i say "friend" in this post, i really mean it.

i've suddenly reached the age where i large contingency of friends are having kids. from my experience in this matter, the chain of events for the baby announcement are pretty standard. the happy couple waits a few months to make sure everything's on track before they spread the news. there are plenty of signs of what's going on in the meantime, but it's all rumor. no one wants to be the jackass to ask the question. or be the first one to start the whispers. privacy is upheld, the public pretends they have no clue, we all go on ranting about the latest vh1 celeb-reality show. all is quiet on the homefront.

eventually the announcement is made, and that my friends, is where it turns into one giant free-for-all. for the rest of us non-vessels, our "things" carry limited publicity. we can control the message, unveil it in a press conference or via twitter - whatever suits you. but for the lucky few (many if you've been witness to the NYC epidemic this summer) who are anticipating visits from the stork, the body rebels. you're SOL.

before you can be comfortable with what's going on, the whole world knows what's up. they feel entitled to provide advice, pry into your personal life, and well - touch your stomach. the stomach thing is something i find both fascinating and awkward. i don't want to touch a friend's stomach in any capacity in daily life. i mean, i love my friends, but it's just not necessary. i find it odd that relative strangers suddenly reserve the right to touch what was months earlier a sacred, no-touch zone. no woman wants to have their stomach touched by anyone outside of their significant other. even if they do have abs of steel. i think it's a deep-seeded fear of it being the future home of a FUPA, but whatever the case, it's just not cool to touch the tummy.

it took me a while to realize, but "bad" or "good" stomach touches aside, everyone carries their "thing" with them through their adult life. that's just how it is. most "things" take an adjustment period - not unlike the first trimester of incubatory secrecy - it's just that for non-pregnant folks the incubation can last years or months. there comes a time to share with the people you love, but it needs to happen at a time where you feel safe and comfortable sharing with the world. the women with babies percolating inside them are forced to mentally prepare themselves to divulge their "thing" with the world. the rest of us should take a cue from them. i'm not talking about facebook status updates, but in an honest, non-shrink sort of way. i look at many of my "friends" status updates and worry...we're all good at saying what's "on our mind" NOW, but 140 characters of immediate public awareness doesn't really provide a great arena for reflection. nor does it really provide a great outlet for honesty with your non-virtual friends.

cha-cha-changes

2009-10-10T14:15:00.002-04:00

oct is a big month for me as life changes go:

new job.
new apt.
new phone.

really, if you tally all of the major parts of my life here, those are some major life-defining items besides my friends. (with my old phone, i lost all numbers and purged any extraneous ones.) what's odd about ny is that really all i'd have to do is change the borough i live in to have an entirely different life. in psychology, there's an effect (sorry, the name is escaping me and i'm too lazy to google) where one's identity and friendships are completely defined by where they live.

in ny, it's like a long-distance relationship to interact with people who you don't work with/live in a different borough. i dated a guy in the bronx a few years ago when i lived in williamsburg. though we could take trains to get to each others' places, it was the time equivalent of commuting from madison to milwaukee every day.

i got to a point a few months ago where i felt like i was in a rut. nothing was wrong or terrible, i just felt like i needed some changes. i didn't anticipate all of these happening all within days of each other, but i really can't complain. with all these changes, i'm working on stepping it up in the blog writing dept. i've been a total slacker lately - that needs to change.

over the hill

2009-09-30T21:29:00.002-04:00

today i was asked what i hoped my life was like in 10 years. i remember getting that question in college and being able to babble on about my career, my house, my serious live-in boyfriend (marriage has never been high on my list of priorities). when you're 18, your mid-twenties seem like some distant enchanted land.

you'll have money to buy whatever you want! you can drink whenever - without ever getting carded! friends will have lavish wine parties where you'll talk politics and eat tiny hors devours with toothpicks!

some of these things are true, but drinking loses its glamour once you don't get carded trying to get a miller after work. sure gadgets are within reach, but disposable income is not as plentiful as one would think after bills and food. wine parties are fun, and there are toothpicks and little sandwiches, but the political talk always seems doused in $5 trader joes (or in most cases something in the $15 variety) and the next morning the only lasting effects are a hazy headache and gut rot.

don't get me wrong, i don't think i honestly could have imagined a better life if i would have tried. i'm happy, (relatively) healthy, and i have a great group of friends. i have a career i love, and i managed to move halfway across the country and find a new home. but in my mind there is no reason to answer the 10 year question. a year or two ahead, maybe more, but i have a hard time identifying with my peers who have a set plan for their lives down to what the next year will entail. i'm all about goals, but i just can't be that planful.

maybe that's why i need to live in ny. i'm surrounded by millions of people - many of which who are in a stage of arrested development. most of us are career focused and work very hard to achieve a level of success. there are plenty of examples of organized folks whose paths i can emulate when i am ready to be more organized, but this place allows me to be the norm rather than the exception for having no idea what the next year will have in store for me. sure i have goals, but i can take a few detours and never feel like i'm on the wrong path.

ma'am, can you repeat that?

2009-08-30T23:42:00.002-04:00

this morning i woke up to screaming. actually, i think it was yelling. whatever it was, it was damn loud and really scary. some dude was banging on my neighbors door, calling them a f&$*^# b^%&# and telling them to quit banging on his ceiling. my guess is that he's the same douche that cranks shitty 80s music at 7am every weekend, but i have no actual proof.

all of the other 5 apts in my section of the building have kids living there. this means that he was probably screaming a)in front of his kids (or loud enough for them to hear); and b)at an apt that had 2-3 small children inside.

as a 115lb white girl, i don't have a ton of pull in a situation like this, so i thought it best to leave it to the authorities. the police here are pretty shoddy in their response, so i opted to call our on-site management company. at the very least i figured they'd send over one of the hulking dudes that has let me in when i've forgotten my keys. they all look like former linemen - the least they could do is tell some enraged idiot to shove it.

so i call the "emergency" number we have for weekends:

"please state your name and apt #"
(i provide it)

"i'm not calling because of maintenance. some neighbor is calling another a 'f$&*^#$ b&$*$' and banging on their door. it's scary."
"ma'am, can you please repeat your phone number?
(i provide it, AGAIN)

"ma'am, am i correct to understand that this man is cursing?"
"yes, he's banging and yelling FUCKING BITCH"
"oh, alright ma'am. so he's cursing."
"yup. and banging. it's woken up the entire building and i assume everyone is as scared to come out of their apt as i am"
"ok ma'am. can you hold please?"
"yes, but can you just send someone over here?"
"hold please."
(i wait for 3-5 min)

"ma'am, i think it's best for you to just call the police.

thanks sir. like i didn't think of that before. hopefully i won't be knifed in my sleep in the next 30 days before i can move out.

pancakes and fish hooks

2009-08-01T21:40:00.001-04:00

there are days in ny that are indisputable reminders that this is where i'm meant to be (at this stage in my life). trying to plan these days are like trying to plan new year's. high expectations and hype that lead to utter disappointment - and usually a terrible hangover. today was a spectacular day, completely without a plan. it was a string of random events - mostly mundane and obscure - but collectively they made me so happy that i live in a place where these days can happen on a fairly regular basis without it being strange. i'll try to explain it as best i can but on paper (screen), though i can guarantee it will seem ridiculous and boring.

the day started with banana pancakes. it should be stated that i really don't like pancakes in general, but banana ones are pretty awesome. bananas are the only fruit i'll tolerate in anything beyond pie. meg was cooking - which is important to this story only in that i completely forgot she moved this week. here i am goofing around at my apt cleaning up and doing random chores for a few hours, when i really should have been moving my ass to harlem. luckily i realized this just as i left my building, but nonetheless going to brunch in the wrong borough is usually not the makings of a great day.

despite any geographical snafus, the weather was amazing and i really didn't care about the extra trek. plus there were fresh blueberries waiting for me when i got there, making up for my lack of planning. after pancakes the decision was made to go to central park. in the 3 years i've lived here i can count the number of times i've been to the park on one hand. one was a borderline-scary first date where i feared i would be chopped up into little bits, scattered on the great lawn. this has since left me a wee bit fearful of the park in general. today though, i saw the place with fresh eyes. maybe it was because we entered at the northern-most point. maybe it was because it was daylight and i had no suspicions that i may end up as the season opener of 48-hours. whatever the reason i was damn happy to be there.

when we got to the park, we saw a sign for canoeing. not just canoeing, but FREE canoeing. we jumped in line next to a bunch of little kids, soon finding ourselves in the middle of the pond in the nexus of the park. surrounded by greenery and gorgeous architecture, we barely noticed the surplus of algae building up on the corners of our boat. i've left out the racial profiling the park rangers did on us: assuming we had canoed before because we were white. but that's a minute complaint compared to the tiny turtle that hung out next to the boat and the little kid who stopped to tell us about the GIANT snapping turtle that he caught with his lure. (he was probably 5 with a lisp and an insanely loud voice. one of those boys who is great to talk to for a few minutes, but you'd want to strangle if you had to babysit.)

thankfully we made our way back to the mainland without maiming any turtles (or children) and headed to the bathroom. post-loo, we ran into some little kids fishing. we come to find out that fishing is FREE too. turns out the park will give you lures and corn (?) as bait for an afternoon of "catch and release" fishing. early-on, we realized the allure of fishing (HAHA - get it?) was not so grand. neither of us wanted to touch any fish we caught, and the danger of a turtle attacking our lures just added to our stress. those suckers are MEAN. so here we are camped out on the steps of the pond, two 25 year-olds too afraid to even fathom having to grasp a slimy, googly-eyed fish. BLAH. the object of the game then became to avoid catching ANYTHING. for the fish that wasn't too hard. counter to the "expert" advice of the parks department, fish don't actually like corn. you could hit the fish over the head with a kernel and they wouldn't bite. (i tried a few times.) the turtles though, those suckers have corn on the brain. the second meg put her lure in the water, a giant turtle surfaced and tried to attack her bait. after a good 15 minutes of anti-fish fishing, we thought it best to leave it to the 7 year olds and their parents. we weren't fooling anyone that we were being hipster "ironic" by taking up elderly activities. we turned in our lures and headed to the santeria shop.

my interest in the practice mainly lies in the sublime song. the song was the ringtone on my first cell and will always hold a special place in my heart, somewhere between "the general" by dispatch and "crazy game of poker" by O.A.R. these songs symbolize my first taste of independence, doused in smirnoff and natty light. in terms of a spiritual following though, i'm a total gringa and don't know the slightest thing about santeria. but why not? with no church and no true spiritual beliefs, the least i can do is check out what else is out there. plus candles and nice smelling things are always a plus. so we moseyed on down to the santeria store in spa-ha (ahem - spanish harlem) from the park. on the way, we passed a lively street fair that turned out to be a giant ruse to get people HIV tested.

the folks at the fair were so nice that we couldn't say no to the test. fishing, santeria, pancakes - why not round out the day with a sexual health exam? all it involved was a cheek swab and a list of somewhat vague questions, "have you been to the doctor in the past 2 years? if so, how many times?" we both had been tested before - i think doctors dole those out with almost the same frequency as pregnancy tests for the common cold at the university health center - so it was more of a courtesy to the nice folks running the place rather than any sort of fact-finding mission.

after our mobile health test, we moved on to the santeria store. once inside, we learned about natural african sponges and bath incense meant for "money growth". these things will probably serve me well somewhere down the line, but true hunger took the place of spiritual hunger, and we made a beeline for a nearby mexican restaurant. post tacos, we parted ways, and i headed to 500 days of summer (a movie). i won't ruin it for any other fans of the indie faux-love story, but all i have to say is that there's no way better way to round out a solid afternoon with a solid movie with a killer soundtrack.

so here i am sitting in my apt, a little burnt, a little sweaty, but more than a little content. i know i'm in danger of a breach of confidentiality with this statement, but the only thing negative about my day was my HIV test.

13 going on...

2009-07-13T22:48:00.004-04:00

on my walk home this evening, i made the comment to one of my friends that her 13 year-old self and her 30 year-old self sound exactly the same. it got me to thinking...what was my 13 year-old self like?

and have i really changed all that much? 13 year-old jeni was tall and gangly, not unlike my physique now though i think when you're gangly as an adult you become pathetic and awkward. but lets do a quick assessment of where i was when i was 13, compared to now:

13 year old
- watched TV like it's my job
- daily uniform: t-shirt, jeans, converse
- lots of friends who are boys, no boyfriend
- covertly listened to top-40 pop music and read angsty pre-teen novels
- fought with my sister over the remote every night

25 year old
- watching tv is part of my job
- daily uniform (outside of work): t-shirt, jeans, converse, and messenger bag
- single
- thanks to facebook, not so covertly listen to top-40 pop music. still unwilling to buy the twilight series on my own - in the process of mooching copies off of friends
- still fight with my sister over the remote every night - now the fight includes wrestling over DVRed shows

hmm...maybe i should give myself a few years on here before i start judging myself.

a thousand words

2009-07-13T22:40:00.002-04:00

i just found my camera. its been missing since december. i searched high and low for that damn thing. where was it? in my brown "adult" purse that i never use. it was the strangest thing. i was sitting on my bed, on the phone, and just started staring at that thing. i KNEW my camera was in there. how i didn't figure that out a few months ago is pathetically beyond me. i am an idiot. absolutely ecstatic that i found it but seriously WTF. this is how gaping holes of college and my youth have emerged. let's hope that i improve on this, otherwise my children will think i'm negligent.

be on the lookout for choice pics from my thanksgiving trip. yup it's been THAT long. pathetic.

sumo surfing

2009-07-09T19:33:00.002-04:00

today there was a 350 lb man sitting outside my apt building. his weight wasn't of note, except for the fact that he had the tiniest laptop i have ever seen in my life. it was like the scene in zoolander where derek has the tiny phone, "god, is that you?"queens is one of those places where nothing fits quite right.

amer-i-can

2009-07-07T13:00:00.004-04:00

i have returned from a trip to the motherland. i can no longer call it "home"; the word is now reserved for my east coast post-college life. i spent the last week in chicago/madison/milwaukee/wausau visiting relatives, being force-fed endless amounts of food, and sleeping.

a few highlights from the trip:

- 99.1's "top 99 from the 90's". a chicago radio station with what seems to be the strongest signal known to the fm airwaves decided to celebrate the 4th with a listener-ranked top hits from the last decade. i don't know how i feel about "mmmm bop" beating out the likes of "motown philly" and any song from the gin blossoms for #1 but it was still a solid road mix. plus if you missed out on any part of the countdown, 99.1 repeated the countdown ALL weekend. sort of takes the sting away from meg forgetting her iPod before even leaving NY.

- sultans. if you've ever gotten a falafel in chicago, this is where it should be from. if you haven't, your life is just that much worse. andrew promised us we'd "eat like princes" on our journey there and we did. twice. it doesn't hurt that the dirty hippies serving the food are so attractive that they make you forget that they are serving food in clothes that probably haven't been washed in weeks.

- ping pong. our friday night was planned to be spent by a night out on the town. one ping pong-challenge later, we ended up spending our evening in a round-robin tournament for the king (or queen) of the basement. think of your favorite nights in hs, sneaking beers and goofing off in your friends' basement while her parents are at the opera. luckily this time, no one had to flee from the house with an armful of empties and a half-consumed bottle of malibu.

- american flag apparel. milwaukee had a lot of it, and we found it. the best by far was the girl in the flag tube top. her chest was too large to keep all of the stars in full view.

- karaoke: not the kind where someone stands up by themselves like a drunken fool mumbling through a song solo. this is the dance circle, full-on belting out sing-a-long. choice favorites included "mr. jones" and "king of wishful thinking" (such a forgotten goodie).

- jello salad. ingredients are pineapple, cottage cheese, cool whip, and jello flavoring. it's whipped straight from heaven - especially for the under 12 crowd, or any of my friends from college.

- scooters. ordinarily i would give a snide, 'boys and their toys,' but i want one. definitely an upgrade from my schwinn cruiser.

i love my friends.

don't wanna miss a thing

2009-06-15T01:16:00.003-04:00

it's 1am and i can't sleep. i've been napping all day like the 6th member of golden girls (i hope a reference is not in bad taste since bea arthur has recently passed). the cause of this insomnia (and catnaps) is due to my stomach. it's killing me. not like rip it out of me i need to go to the ER, but a more subtle i'm going to make your life miserable so you can't relax sort of way. and so i'm here at 1am on a sunday. trying desperately to go to sleep. to aid in this, i'm blogging and watching "space cowboys" on free demand. it's my new favorite movie to fall asleep to. disaster movies are the best for this task. the plotlines are easy to follow, there's no real danger that will scare me into staying awake, plus they're relatively short. a movie about a bunch of elderly dudes who save the world seems to do the trick. it's no armageddon, but that's why it's on demand for free. ben affleck and bruce willis are still of the caliber that warrants pay-per-view. clint eastwood has a billion movies that are better, so i think cinemax is willing to toss the public a bone with his attempt at becoming "relevant" once again by bridging NSYNC and their "inspired" theme song ("space cowboys" - duh) with james cromwell, tommy lee jones, donald sutherland, and james gardner.

please guys, help me catch a few good hours of sleep. i promise i'll watch "babe" and "the notebook" whenever they come on demand too.

why my mom loves tina turner

2009-06-01T22:05:00.002-04:00

1) she's got a killer body. we all know that. i knew that when i was 12 and saw my mom's cassette tapes. there's something about a woman in fishnets and giant heels that is commanding - even when you're pre-pubescent. you have no idea what sex appeal means, or who the hell ike was, or what "love" has to do with ANYTHING, but whatever she has, you know it's different. it's sort of like the realization that you make when you're an adult (or teenager) that your "crazy" relative or family friend is actually a drunk.

2) music in adulthood is never as good as it was when you were a teenager. for my mom that means that michael bolton and tina turner are good, but never as great as those folk heroes that she grew up with. her and her sisters gather every christmas and harmonize to old favorites as my aunt strums her guitar.

for me, i don't think i had the good fortune of growing up in a time when truly great music was made (just check out the billboard top 100 from the mid-80's) but to me, music is 80% emotion, 20% greatness. growing up in a household where my dad managed rock bands, i certainly hold a great place in my heart to meatloaf (i knew all 3 parts to "paradise by the dashboard light" far before i could do long division). if i had heard that song for the first time today at a bar, i'd think it was absolute crap. i mean, that's a lyrically challenging - and equally terrible - song. but it will forever remind me of all the summers of my childhood that i spent traveling with his band. and that's completely different.

take most any boyband song from the early 90's. N'SYNC, backstreet boys, hell - even 5ive (AHEM - "baby when the lights go out") - and i love it. not because my heart swooned over lance bass or that kid howie with the creepy chinstrap beard, but because i think of all the car trips i took with my sister where we sang those songs at the top of our lungs. the lesser known "drive myself crazy" was a staple, mostly because we could sing the high part along with the bug-eyed dreaded dude, chris. "bye bye bye" and "baby hit me one more time" was an all-time classic staff water ballet routine at seminole pool. we each had a part, and we sure as hell weren't letting a few bug bites stop us from getting those steps right after hours. any britney song from "oops" should be played while wearing a pleather skirt and glittery top, as per how we drove to milwaukee and caught her show on a tuesday night with a handful of friends - without any parents. (i still cannot believe my mom okayed that.) even edwin "i'll be" mccain conjures up memories of driving through the mountains spring break senior year as my best friend reflected on her relationship.

high school also had the requisite "DMB" phase - the roadtrip to see dave one last time before impending "adulthood" in ohio, the mixes with zeppelin, and "tiny dancer" on our way to senior skip day. every white kid in the midwest has a marley phase (for me, i also had a bob marley poster freshman year of college that i almost dared my mom to rip off the wall while it was clinging to its poster putty).

now i'm only 3 years out of college and i'm already my mom. i have NO idea what the kids are listening these days. i'm forced to be the lame one in my group of teacher friends who have to explain the "superman" and "soldier boy" dances are. i sort of know the popular jonas bros' song ("burning up") and follow a fair amount of new bands thanks to my trendy friends, their musical ventures, and the latest and greatest that yahoo music has to offer, but no matter how hard i try i don't think any of it will ever erase my love for some of the old standbys. or increase my ability to once again regain any shred of "coolness" i once had. (or think i did.)

it's certainly not because the music was better, or that my taste has waned in my old(er) age, it's because it doesn't evoke nearly any of the same emotions. ben harper's "roses from my friends" can easily draw parallels to an adult breakup or falling out with a friend. sure i go through heartache and rough patches in friendships now, but i have ice cream and lifetime movies, and booze to fill that void. i can ride the subway aimlessly for hours, wander the town, do a billion different things to try to clear my head. if i'm feeling particularly proactive i can even exercise. as a teenager, all you're left with is your solitude and music to fill your sorrows and angst. my junior year of high school i think i listened to ben harper's "burn to shine" so much that i had to "re-burn" a copy from one of my friends. (making homemade cds was at the forefront of technology at the time.)

sure i love a handful of recently introduced-to-me-bands to the same degree, if not more than the classic songs of my childhood. at least musically or lyrically. but i really can't think of "mardy bum" in the same light as "wonderwall". i will love dave matthews no matter how many albums he puts out like "american baby". justin timberlake can become as big of a tool as he wants to, and i'll still have a soft spot for "it's gonna be me." really zeppelin can never do any wrong, and i think i'd be a fool to think that i'm the only one in the world who thinks that...actually - i take that back. robert plant collaborating with p. diddy (or 'puff daddy' at the time) for the godzilla song may have been literally "wrong". it was certainly against a few laws of nature and against most of the better judgement of anyone who believes VH1 should have maintained its integrity as a music channel pre-celebreality.

what i'm trying to say is simple. music can come and go, but the nostalgia will always be there. like my favorite cliche dave says, "it's not where you are but who you're with that really matters"

whether i'm 14 or 40, somehow i think part of me will always think that's true.

patience is a virtue

2009-05-27T00:12:00.003-04:00

there's probably some sort of irony in publishing this, as the immediacy of posting it completely defeats the point i'm trying to make. but my overarching thesis is that i'm a work in progress, so i guess i'll claim it as a draw thus far - at least until the proverbial jury returns the verdict.

i graduated college no more than 3 years ago. actually almost exactly 3 years ago. at the time, i had a skill for being ridiculously patient. it was certainly a learned skill - as a child i was bursting full of energy and unable to keep my mouth shut - and it was a hard-earned skill. one that i was proud of and used it to my advantage when plotting my move to ny and the subsequent job search that got me to where i'm at today.

my other learned skill was my ability to listen. as a myers-briggs (and self-) identified "introvert" i considered it one of my greatest assets that i could spent days at a time without having to mention a single word about how something related to me or my life. if i did say something, it was after careful deliberation and what i would like to consider a very objective perspective. believe it or not, i won a leadership award in college, one that i wholeheartedly believe came from my ability to listen. it wasn't just that i was able to hear people, it was that i was able to focus my whole being on whatever was being said. i could tune out everything else - or listen to everything else but retain every fact, figure, or statement that was divulged.

i made it a rule of thumb to never multitask when other's were speaking to me. on the phone, at school, work, the only multitasking i tried to consciously do was to walk and talk at the same time. other than that, i considered it a poor reflection on myself.

maybe it's adulthood, maybe it's the crackberry age, maybe it's that my morals have been diluted since moving here, but i've lost that ability to be so patient. i try to continue to be a good listener - though i unfortunately have picked up a mad case of multitasking. i can't say the multitasking can change, but i need to refocus my priorities.

i once did an icebreaker exercise where we were asked to write down the answers to 5 questions. the "takeaway" was that if a person writes down everything they need to say, they will listen better to others. lately as my listening abilities have been eroded with a mess of multitasking, i've tried to remember that exercise the best i can.

the heart of the mission is to regain my patience. i don't just mean avoiding anger when a tourist cannot swipe their metrocard fast enough. i mean in that i don't let things play out how i used to. my laid back self has turned into a control freak. i have turned into my (lovely but neurotic) mother and worry about everything. i don't let the chips fall where they may. in 3 short years, i have effectively become the hyperactive soul i swore i would never become.

don't get me wrong, i don't consider my soul wholeheartedly ruined. it least not with any irreparable damage. i just have come to realize lately that i need to take a step back. i think that it's effectively called a quarter-life crisis when this happens, but i'd like to consider it a re-evaluation. a re-assessment of priorities and choices, and most of all i need to re-establish my ability for patience.

in the season finale of the office, michael is asked about why he didn't make a move on his "soulmate" holly:

'I didn't find the perfect moment because I think today is about just having today. And I think we're one of those couples who'll have a long story when people ask how we found each other. I will see her every now and then, and maybe one year she'll be with somebody and the next year I'll be with somebody and it's gonna take a long time... And then it's perfect. I'm in no rush.'

for me, it's not about my "soulmate". it's about avoiding that sense of rush. i feel like i've been in a rush for the past year or so and i'm finally realizing that there's no point. right now i'm a few months shy of 25. i'm hoping by the time i hit my quarter-century mark the rush will have waned. that doesn't mean i'm quitting my job or moving to some obscure island and writing my memoirs. i just need to approach my life, my friendships, and my choices with the knowledge that today isn't the end-all-be-all. obviously the first step is admitting it. now it's just a matter of accepting it.

law and order

2009-05-01T18:15:00.002-04:00

i don't own many movies because i rarely watch movies multiple times. especially without a friend prompting me to. as a kid i watched pippi longstocking and wizard of oz so much that my mom still can quote those movies from beginning to end. 20 years later, i don't share the same affinity to watch the movies over and over, but i have a serious problem when it comes to law and order. i can literally watch that show for days. it's been that way since i was a kid and i can't explain it. that show is like a drug. i know it affects millions of others in this way, and is a similar epidemic to diet coke addiction as a new wave "illness". still i really don't understand it. dc involves chemicals coursing through one's body. but law and order? wtf? it doesn't have continuing storylines - half of them are reincarnations of each other - but i still watch it incessantly. i really think it's starting to hinder my ability to watch other tv shows. there are literally 10 shows that i want to pick up. instead of spending my viewing hours on those, i will hunker down for a l&o marathon - AND dvr episodes to watch when "nothing is on". am i crazy? "nothing is on"? i have 500+ channels. i am officially pathetic. i really should be concerned as to why reading isn't higher of a priority for me. or exercise for that matter.

quarantined

2009-02-02T19:49:00.003-05:00

i am 24 years and 6 months old. i have a full-time job, my own health insurance, pay the gas bill every month. i own 3 business suits, can legally purchase alcohol, and today i woke up with conjunctivitis. aka pinkeye. there's nothing more embarrassing than having to call out for work because you have the most common ailment on the playground. i called my mom to tell her; she laughed and reminded me not to rub my eyes. no shit, mom. thanks for the advice. i'd find it funny too if i didn't look like i've been marathon hot boxing with cheech and chong. my eyes were so painful and swollen that i couldn't even watch trashy tv today. the one good thing about being home from school/work is the movies/soaps without the constraints of bedtime. today i had to settle for listening to 'ellen' while under a warm compress. thanks to the wonders of modern medicine i am now finally able to connect with the world and catch a csi marathon or two. but it's just not the same.

25 things

2009-01-31T12:43:00.004-05:00

back in the old days, a friend would send a chain email with a list of 25 things to fill out about yourself: favorite colors, scariest moment, blah, blah, blah. usually none of the questions were particularly probing, but somehow they were always much more fun to fill out than doing trig homework or writing a research paper. now most things email related are old school - it's all about going "viral" and doing things via social networking. thus these lists have made their way onto facebook.

i resisted these lists at first, much like i initially did with facebook itself, but last night gave in and filled it out. i assume most people spend a fair amount of time writing these lists, stewing about how certain elements of the list will portray their personalities. i chose the first 25 things that came to my mind that i felt didn't elicit any sort of strong emotional response from anyone who's reading it. why? isn't that the point? not really. and i think sometimes people forget that.

facebook shouldn't replace friendships with close pals. it's about keeping track of people, having a place to connect on a social level, and about having a marketplace for information and an easy way to share it. i don't want everyone i went to high school with, plus 1/2 of my coworkers knowing my deepest, darkest secrets. i understand that some people use it as an outlet to share that information, but that's not me at all. and it frightens me that some people use it as a tool to bare their souls. even on this blog i'm careful to make sure nothing posted goes beyond anything i would say to someone's face, or have to answer to on a job interview. it's not a journal - it's a way for me to post stories that i think are appropriate for the general public to know. granted i probably have bared more than the usual person with some of my stories, but there's nothing in here that i wouldn't tell my grandma. (seriously, that's my barometer for posting.) i guess that puts me as a part of the paranoid generation who is not ok with having their whole lives posted on the internet. but some things should be kept personal. knowing more about a person is earned through honest connection: face-to-face or on a one-to-one level. not a status message. once again i suppose i'm climbing high on my soapbox, but i really hope this social networking trend fades out soon. i enjoy facebook as much as the next person, but when are people going to want to go back to coffee hangouts?

cracked out

2009-01-07T22:14:00.003-05:00

i've officially entered the world of crackberries. it was a long process to come to this point. i've always liked tech toys - i had a palm pilot back in the day - but i could never bring myself to admit that i needed a full-fledged electronic phone/email/organizer to make my life easier. until now. i used to make fun of the people on the subway typing away at their teeny keyboards. i have now joined the cult. at least it was on my own terms - and i didn't have to go down kicking and screaming. i've been asked more than once why i didn't get an iPhone. the truth is, i don't trust myself with it. all i would do is sit around and play with it. with the bberry there are limitations to the fun. i know myself too well and know i need boundaries. and a little bit of guidance to throw myself into maturity. the last thing i need is another toy to distract me from sleep.

kendra: the worst media buyer in the world

2009-01-07T21:26:00.001-05:00

the economy is tight, people on madison are losing their jobs left and right. yet one brilliant media buyer decided she should post her lack of integrity on the job in the Auseillo files. it's a section on ew.com where people can write in questions:

Question: I am a Media Buyer and, as God as my witness, Friday Night Lights will be renewed again. I am recruiting the buyers in my office to watch and purchase it. Best show on TV - Kendra.

Ausiello: Fight the heck on, Kendra. Don't miss tonight's penultimate season 3 ep, which features (skip to the last sentence of this answer, no DirecTV subscribers!) the long-awaited Tyra/Landry reunion, as well as a nail-biter of a state championship game. Programming note: FNL's NBC run kicks off on Friday, Jan 16.

1) that's not a question.

2) what an idiot.

the test

2008-12-29T21:36:00.003-05:00

today i went to home depot. this was particularly ambitious because: 1) this is peak tourist season in NY and therefore impossible to do any mundane task without coming face-to-face with a hundred people on the street taking pictures; and 2) i had just gone to the eye doctor and my eyes were completely dilated. i could see 15 feet in front of me, but struggled to read anything within an arms length.

i had a mission at home depot. besides the double-sided tape to mount my spice rack (true story) and a random assortment of incidentals, i was in need of a few bookshelves for my apt. nothing fancy, just something to hold the 6 boxes worth of books i've had stacked in my kitchen since i moved.

so here i am in the basement of home depot in the middle of manhattan. there are probably 5 workers for every square foot of store, but they each are relegated to a section. they can move freely between areas if they are escorting a customer, but beyond that they stick to their borders. once i found the bookcases, i felt that i had really scored. my orange vested saviour (brandon) was standing no less than five feet away from my desired purchases. brandon was talking to another customer, so i gave him a little wave and a head nod to show him i'd like him to swing by when he was done. i know he saw this, because he nodded back, much like a bartender nods when they non-verbally promise to come back momentarily to get your next round. i wait around for another 4 minutes before i start to get antsy. i begin to eavesdrop on brandon's conversation with said "customer" and realize that this dude is not even looking to purchase anything and the two of them are engaged in a blatant pick-up situation. they are chatting about exhibits at the Frick and grad school, not bookshelves or hinges, or even power drill mechanics. i give brandon another nod, but this time he averts eye-contact. i start to walk towards him, but he turns the other way. this is when i begin the test. in an unmedicated state, i probably would have just gone and complained or pulled him away from his potential date, but my temporary blindness was clouding my judgement.

test #1 - the lap. i stare intently at the items i want, pace around for a bit, read the contents of the boxes, and make it obvious that i'm perusing the items in his area. i then exit the aisle, circle back through another aisle and come back around to the same spot i was in. this was no doubt a majorly passive aggressive move, but if i were to make a media analogy to this, i was trying to work the frequency angle.

test #2 - the substitute. i walk away from the items and attempt to flag down another orange vest. miraculously it takes me a good 3 aisles before i find another vest. well it turns out that this vest is assigned to another dept. i accompany him to drop off a cart to brandon; then he leaves us, assuming that brando will be so kind to help me out. brandon looks up at me, glances at the cart, and then continues chatting away.

test #2 - the weak girl. i'm not particularly strong these days - it's been at least 5 months since i've hit the gym. i'm still not back to my normal weight pre-gallbladder, and don't look like i could lift a ton of weight. that said, most normal employees go out of their way to make sure customers don't have to lift heavy objects. especially when the customer is a female. also, i wasn't wearing sweatpants, which usually earns me a fair amount of brownie points when asking for assistance in a store. despite my nods, and even a verbal plea for help, it's apparent that brandon isn't going to help me. from there, i take the cart and bring it over to the shelving with the boxes of the bookshelves. really truly at this point i would have thought brandon would have stepped in - even if i were a dude and he was in the middle of helping someone (which he wasn't). keep in mind my eyes are still dilated - actually getting worse - and somehow lifting objects seems like a great idea to me. i slide one of the 35 lb bookshelves off of the second shelf. after two attempts of wobbly swinging around the awkward box (the weight was distributed oddly so that one side was way heavier than the other) i manage to drop it into the cart. i swing the cart around past brando and his future boy toy, thank him for all of his help, and proceed to checkout.

now i can't say i was completely right in this situation - i was messing up his game after all - but jesus. this was not a matter of waiting my turn. for the record, i don't recommend following my testing techniques. nor do i suggest doing any heavy lifting while experiencing impaired vision. i suppose it serves me right for disrupting the opthamological gods.

BUSted

2008-12-13T14:52:00.005-05:00

when i lived in minneapolis i took the bus every day. i had a car with me for the better part of my collegiate career, but the price of gas and incidentals encouraged me to take public transportation when the distance of my destination was greater than walking to the west bank of our campus.

during my year-long stint as an intern at an ad agency in st. paul, i took the 16 route to and from work every mon, wed, and fri. in retrospect, this was excellent preparation for my current relationship with public transportation. here in nyc, most everyone is at the mercy of the MTA. (with the exception of the park slope stroller moms who drive their suv's into the city and are using their clout to block the city's proposals for toll fees at the entrances into the city.) from lindsay lohan to beyonce, the nyc subway is the great equalizer of the five boroughs. the buses here however, are a completely different story. especially when it comes to interstate traveling.

for every nearby destination, there is an ill-organized bus service to ferry young professionals (or collegiate-age persons). these vessels' popularity peaks around any holiday that involves a day off from work/school. while immensely cheap and usually easy to use, these services are not for anyone who needs to be ANYWHERE in any reasonable span of time. a new rider can easily be spotted thanks to the "reservation" slip they wave at the workers while trying to argue their way onto an overcrowded bus. "but i have a reservation on the 3:30!!" you can hear them shout as they are shown to the back of the line. for the next hour, you can usually hear the newbies on the phone with their parents, whining about how they are never riding the bus again because it's causing them to miss ______. i highly doubt that any of these kids actually make good on their promises, because each and everytime i ride the bus over thanksgiving i see one of these said individuals, now joining me in my fascination with the rookie experience.

these buses must be oozing cash, literally leaving a path of benjamins as they head down the new jersey turnpike. each bus is filled to capacity with people under 30 (with an occasional woman from queens going on her annual trip to see her daughter in DC) who each pay in cash for their way to our nation's capital (or another high-traffic area on the greater east coast).

quite honestly, for a $25 trip, i really don't expect much. i've gotten to the stage of being a new yorker where i no longer feel a sense of empathy towards the rookies of the bus service. it's probably sad that part of my soul has been ripped away by the MTA screwing with any semblance of timeliness in my life, but at this point it's these little things that cause me from going mad when i am stuck between the vernon jackson and court square stops and missing the start of my 9am meeting. when it comes to the choice between being chauffered by public transit on a daily basis or having to scrape my windshield while blasting the defroster in the throws of december, i'll wait in line for the bus, thank you very much.

'tis the season

2008-12-04T21:02:00.005-05:00

i have a friend whose golden rule is both a blessing and a curse: thou shall not say no to social engagements. she will hit a bar mitzvah in the morning, a baby shower at noon, then a bachelorette party in the evening. somewhere in between she'll probably find time to get a manicure or book a trip to florida. this woman cannot find a free evening 2 months ahead of time. she is not the first of my friends to follow this ideology, but she very well could be the one who gets screwed over by it most routinely. this week's turn of events is worth repeating.

my friend is quickly approaching her wedding anniversary. the exact details of the planned events were not divulged to me, but they're pretty irrelevant for this tale. let's say that they intended to spend the night with a quiet dinner, lots of wine, and no set plans. that's what my ideal anniversary would entail, though my night would also include heather grey sweatpants and snack foods. what they planned to do really doesn't matter, because the said anniversary plans were put on the skids by her well-intentioned but ill-timed sister-in-law. good 'ole SIL planned a birthday party smack on top of the no set planned-anniversary. for some, this would just mean that you tell SIL tough shit and that you'll see her next time. but golden rule or no golden rule, no compassionate person can deny the invite when there are nieces and nephews in the mix. so the heather grey celebration was put on hiatus for the little tike's bday party. (for the record - that also means a gift must be purchased.)

my friend is resourceful, and instead of making a big deal about this, she and her husband just moved their plans (or lack thereof) to the next weekend. BAM. SIL strikes again. this time with a family christmas potluck. now there's cooking involved in the list of mandatories. oh, but don't worry - there's gifts for everyone! not only is it a christmas gathering, there will be a secret santa exchange. the typical white elephant gifts are out the window - this is a $25 secret santa gift. i can only speak for myself on this one, but few of us are in a high enough tax bracket to afford anything beyond the $10 standard. (my all-time personal favorite from a gift exchange was the $9.99 toaster one of my friends found at walgreen's on the way to the madison west leo club 2000 holiday party.) regardless of income status however, we all know that it's the thought that counts. for this very reason, the exorbitant amount of dollars required for the gift minimum was secondary to the anticipated gratitude that my friend was sure her gift recipient would feel upon opening her gift. she imagined her nephew gleefully unwrapping his much desired bob dylan bootleg collection, ensuring her spot as the second favorite extended relative (close behind uncle jim who cemented that position eternally by purchasing the young nephew a rubber band gun for his 8th birthday).

at this juncture in her life though, #2 will remain out of her reach indefinitely. this morning my friend got her secret santee in the mail. it's becky. you know - becky - the realtor. that's right, the realtor was invited to the family christmas gathering.

my friend is now double booked with the little tikes bday extravaganza (i can only guess there will be magic tricks and/or a clown) and a special holiday evening spreading cheer to the century 21 sales leader of oct 2007 in lieu of the quiet anniversary. i guess i know at least one person who won't be getting coal in her stocking this year.

phases

2008-10-18T14:56:00.006-04:00

unfortunately i've been to a few funerals this year. i'm hoping the latest was the last of it for a bit, but we'll just have to see what the future has in store. what amazes me about funerals for people who pass in their old age is how possible it is to know so much of someone for almost 25 years of their life, but not really know anything about them. two of my grandparents have died this year. i knew a fair amount about my grandfather's past as an ad man - probably most because it became my chosen profession and that my mom's side likes to tell stories. we used to spend a week or two every summer with him and my grandmother when i was little, and there he would tell me little bits of his past life. since i started working in media, we would exchange stories of how things have changed since his day in the industry. to me, it always seemed like he was talking of a different person. in my life he was a retiree who loved his faith, and spent a decade as a crossing guard at the local elementary school. he volunteered with knights of columbus, and read at least a book a week. it wasn't until his funeral that i was able to connect his two lives together. the one of the man in minneapolis who worked at the local TV station to the crossing guard. then it came into focus how tiny the frame of time my 24 years on the planet has been compared to the 80+ years he had here. the same is true of my grandmother - my dad's mom.

grandma baird was a consummate hostess in my existence. she had a giant pool with a diving board in her backyard where i would show off my moves from the swim team and lounge on pink pool furniture while blowing out my birthday candles. she spent the winters of my childhood at her house in ft. myers, and her time was spent volunteering for various charitable organizations. up until i started in the working world, she was the only person on the planet who called me jennifer without me correcting her. grandma drove around town in a white cadillac with a maroon felt top. she owned a mobile phone in the mid-80's - back when you had to drive from cell to cell to have reception. in the past year, i had forgotten much about her hospitality. the trips to florida. the cadillac. she still wore her mink coat when i took her to chemo, and would only let me see her with her wig on, but her illness started to cloud her memory of who she had been, and mine as well. and i realized at her funeral that my memory of her didn't even begin to touch the surface of who she was as a person. i found out she was a pinup model for a magazine given to troops about to ship out for war. i saw photos of her and her husband having lavish nights out in costume. her as a socialite. her with her siblings. it made me realize how much your adulthood can be compartmentalized into different phases. and how easily it is to be part of someone's life for only a phase.

as a child i found it fascinating that adults would reference 'my oldest friend' or buddies 'from high school' and didn't understand the distinction of the titles. in elementary school your friends are selected for you by the class roster or bus schedule. that's not to say its any different once adulthood has begun when making friends - the easiest places to find are usually still through parties (but this time there's booze) or where you live - but keeping them is an entirely different obstacle. once everyone's old enough to vote, there's effort involved. i came to realize a few years ago that also means that you can be selective about your friends. adulthood equates to having choices and one of those includes spending the free time you have with those you truly value. that doesn't mean i have the opportunity to hang out with everyone i want to, or that just because i hang out with someone sporadically is a sign that i don't like them. it just means that there were friends i had in specific phases of my life that were meant to be friends for only that phase. i'm not belittling our friendship or the meaning behind it - just that friends sometimes grow out of each other. there may come a time sometime the road where we rekindle a friendship, but i don't need facebook to tell me i should reconnect with someone.

where are they now?

2008-09-02T21:18:00.002-04:00

i know for a fact that eric carle of "very hungry caterpillar" fame is still popular among the masses, but i came to the awful realization a few weekends ago that any young woman growing up in the 21st century will no longer have her tween exploits include the babysitters club (or as it's known bsc to true fans).

i was at a barnes & noble with a friend when we started talking children's books. though we grew up on different coasts, both of our formative years were shaped by ann m. martin's tales of the girls from stoneybrook, ct; it is the defining literature of our youths. so on this not so long ago saturday afternoon, we decided to scour the shelves to find the books. we were curious as to the number of books now in the series, plus we couldn't quite remember the author's name. ( i kept thinking it was ann b. davis - but soon realized that was the actress who played alice on 'the brady bunch'.) five minutes into a fruitless search we were forced to enlist the help of a barnes and noble employee. she woefully informed us that bsc is no longer in print, but the chain does carry comic versions of the first few books of the series. not only were the books out of print, but masterpieces like "kristy's great idea" and "the truth about stacey" are now reduced to graphic novels. BLASPHEMY.

as an homage to the hundreds of regular books in the series, not to mention the tens of super series that took up an entire bookshelf in my bedroom, i have taken the time to formulate a special "where are they now?" tribute to my favorite girls from connecticut - think 'now and then' without crazy pete:

CLAUDIA - graduated from a local community college with an associates degree in art history. she now sells her watercolors on the streets of downtown stanford for $10 a piece. though now in her mid-30's, she still hides food in her room, causing constant roach infestations in her townhouse.

MARY ANNE- continued to date her boyfriend, logan, throughout high school. the couple went off to college together at UCONN. in their sophomore year, mary anne became pregnant; logan immediately dropped out of school to afford his impending duties as the breadwinner of the family. shortly after the announcement of the pregnancy, the pair was married in a shotgun wedding at mary anne's dad and dawn's mom's barn. logan now attends law school at night while managing a local cinnabon during the day. still concerned with upholding her role as a proper wife, mary anne is a homemaker and mother to their brood, which now includes four children (aged 6 months - 6).

DAWN - attended berkeley after a 2 year spiritual journey to "find herself" in montana after high school. she now runs a vegan scone shop in sonoma, ca with her life partner, thomas. as a side venture, she also co-owns a chain of montessori pre-schools in northern california - the first to offer courses on ancient mayan dialects for children under five.

JESSI - continued to pursue her dreams of becoming a ballerina until an unfortunate stumble on the sidewalk forced a career-ending injury to her knee. this was a catalyst to a five-year tailspin characterized by heroin addiction and a seesawing weight problem.

STACEY - moved to NYC for college. during her first semester it was revealed that "the truth about stacey" was not only her diabetes, but also her lesbianism. she and her partner julia live in brooklyn with their adopted daughter zoe. stacey is the editor of an international fashion magazine.

MALLORY - spent the last 10 years of her life still in the shadow of her 10 brothers and sisters as well as kristy and her "great idea". she continues to run the bsc out of the duplex she shares with her husband (and former favorite babysitting charge) jackie rodowsky, and now outsources her babysitters from stoneybrook middle school. she moonlights as a romance novelist - her latest book "the fire below" - cracked the connecticut public library 25-most read for the month of july.

KRISTY - had her "kit-kits" - cardboard boxes filled with magic markers, stickers, and imaginary toys - patented while she was still in high school. she lived a lavish life, selling 5 million boxes in the first year, until toys 'r us sued her for breach of contract. it turns out her "idea" was actually a rip off of the store's "kid activity set". the parties settled out of court, but the disgruntled kristy never quite got over the dispute. now known to most as ms. thomas, kristy teaches economics at a small boarding school in maine, while still scheming for her next "great idea".

pieces of the puzzle

2008-08-24T21:49:00.006-04:00

admittedly i'm a big nerd. i love learning, reading meandering biographies, and subscribe to pbs' "frontline" podcasts. that being said, it shouldn't be too big of a surprise that i like puzzles. i can't think of too many things nerdier than taking time out of a weekend to dive into a 2,000 piece representation of "where's waldo" rather than be at the bar.

this certainly stems back from a childhood filled with summers on my grandparents porch. i suppose it's pretty cliche to spend a week with your grandparents in wisconsin mastering 1000 piece puzzles of hot air balloons while sipping lemonade, but growing up in wisconsin has an inherent set of cliches. we didn't exactly have cows in my backyard, but that doesn't mean i was clueless as to where to find them.

if i'm being judged on this one, it's fine by me. i like crossword puzzles and DVR jeopardy too.

proof of purchase

2008-08-21T22:58:00.002-04:00

so we're now in a "paperless" world. or at least are aspiring to be one. i signed up for paperless statements for my monthly bank assessments, but somehow they still end up coming to me in an envelope the first week of every month. the best part of it has to be the page insert that is always in the envelope encouraging me to do paperless statements. i've signed up 3x on the website, yet it still without fail comes to my apartment. computerized billing is a little big brother for some so i can understand the hesitation of doing all banking online - and having all records of your life on there. if the government hijacks your identity a la sandra bullock in the net you're completely screwed. most of us aren't smart enough how to blackmail the government to give our identities back the way sandy did; i know i'd be screwed and probably working as a hawker who hands out menus on the corner of 42nd street in the morning.

in the recycling movement, i still cannot grasp the point of giving customers receipts for everything. some stores around my office promise they'll give you $5 off of your meal if you're not given a receipt. unless it's a business expense, why do you need one? and if you really want one, why not just ask for one? it doesn't make sense that the whole world gets them. i guarantee 85% of the people who are given receipts - if not more - throw them out at their first chance. the only proof i need of buying that ice cream sandwich is looking down at my swollen stomach. i carry that around with me all day. i don't need a carbon copy as well.

when i grow up

2008-08-14T21:22:00.000-04:00

i saw 'sisterhood of the traveling pants 2' over the weekend. as a 24 year old, i should probably keep such things to myself but i'm really not ashamed. i know a lot about boy bands and crappy tv - this is not an indiscretion that i'm concerned will tarnish my reputation. the movie was ridiculous in it's simplicity, but i realized that's what i like about those type of movies.

i was of the belief until a few years ago that there were rules you followed as an adult. i wasn't dense enough to think that adults were always right, but i really thought that as you grew older maturity was just one of those things that was granted to you by the gods. like a diploma that you earn just by having a birthday. the older i get, the more i realize that experience doesn't necessarily bring maturity. you can easily go through years without taking anything in. this is probably the one of the reasons adults always look so fondly at the times when they had no responsibility. there is no expectation of maturity - or any sense of failure when you don't have it. plus it's a hell of a lot easier to take things in when you don't have to remember 1000 things at once.

what i love about movies like "sisterhood" is that everyone's complicated stories can be wrapped up in 2 hours. and a pair of ugly pants can solidify friendships for life. i've always been a sucker for sappy movies. the way that life's problems can be wrapped up into a monologue at the end of the movie. you don't have to think back to what you should (er - shouldn't) have said in an argument - things are said and done and everyone lives happily ever after. coping over a major life event is complete in one meaningful montage with the characters pensively drooping over their furniture. they stare off at the distance or glance down at their phone while acoustic music weighs down the sequence. the characters seem to always find clarity in the way rarely seen in most adults. they admit when they're wrong, learn from their mistakes, and somehow have the funds to travel around the world on a whim.

in real life, maturity is tricky to master in your teens; even trickier once it becomes intangible in adulthood. when i was a kid, i was considered mature because i did my homework without being asked to. i got points because i knew how to handle my alcohol and didn't get busted for underage drinking. i guess finishing my work on time and not making an ass of myself at happy hour are considered mature adult things to do now that i hold a job, but the line gets awfully blurry once you surpass 18.

in real life adulthood, friendships can easily become overcomplicated. at least the ones that are based on the farce that everything can be solved in an acoustic montage. once mix tapes and trips to taco bell are replaced with jobs and happy hours, it's easy to tell who are the friends who you'll chat with beyond a facebook wall conversation. who you'll call when shit hits the fan. you don't need to see them every day, but they're the ones who will go with you to see embarrassing chick flicks (see above film referenced) and tell you when you're being ridiculous.

i've take on plenty of responsibility in my life, but i am always looking to try to learn a better way of doing things. if i were to make this into a food analogy, i used to think i'd always be of the thought that sandwiches always taste better when someone else makes them for you. eventually i'll grow out of it and want to make my own, but at the moment i have a complex when it comes to sandwich making. no matter how many grilled cheeses or pb&j's i make, i always feel subpar to the adults who made them for me when i was little. no matter how many times i've watched someone else slice the bread or spread the jam, i don't have it down pat yet. there's always someone who can prove that it tastes better when it's cut diagonally rather than in squares. there will come a day when i think my own sandwiches are just as good as theirs, but to do that i'll have to remember that there are no rules for the perfect pb&j.

the land of enchantment

2008-08-04T22:20:00.004-04:00

did you know new mexico is the land of enchantment? and maine is the pine tree state? this is all information that has been locked inside of my brain for years but did not make it to the forefront until my road trip last week.

i flew from jfk to lax, then drove to wisconsin from la. over 30 hours in the car but it felt shorter than most drives i took to college in minneapolis from madison. i was with my best friend, who besides always being up for a good time has the ingredients for a perfect road trip partner: an off-key singing voice to match my own, a knowledge of crappy 90's pop songs, and a history with me that dates back to high school. our friendship was formed over our love for food - we co-chaired the food for the national honors society's annual blood drive. in our adult road-tripping years, this means we share an excitement for spotting wendy's in new mexico - or even better - a culver's in southern wisconsin. culver's is a modern marvel in the art of fast food. when i was a swim coach, we loved culver's so much that we coaches dressed as culver's drive-thru workers as one of our costumes that we wore for our big swim meet. fast food, however, was not the highlight of my trip.

we skipped out on the vegas route and opted for the southern route. tess' '89 buick century was only questionably up for the challenge of high altitude driving, plus we feared a backlash when the two of us would choose going to bed at 11pm after watching a movie on HBO rather than hitting the slot machines or doing body shots at pure. instead we selected what tess dubbed "vision quest". this mystical journey through the southwest took us through arizona, new mexico, texas, oklahoma, missouri, kansas, iowa, and finally the southern part of wisconsin.

day 1, hour 7 or 8. we're moseying through arizona. i use the verb moseying because her car's speedometer only goes to 85 and we were traveling on a route with a 75 mph speed limit. apparently speedometers in '89 weren't particularly accurate. somewhere along I-40 i found myself being pulled over by officer plumb of the arizona highway patrol for going 86 mph. on one hand, i'd say it's a scientific miracle that defied the limits of physics. on the other, we should have probably been concerned that the mphs that the car projects aren't its real speeds. whatever the case, i ended up on the side of the road in arizona, explaining to the officer why i was a ny driver but only had a (valid) wisco license. (my ny license was in my wallet when it was lost/stolen a month or so back and i haven't replaced it). while laying out the situation to him, i had a flashback to the scene in 'super troopers' where the kids think they're safe, right before the squad car backs up a few thousand feet to bust the kids. tess would have to come bail me out of the only jail cell in the county - and our road trip would be delayed for a few days while tess washed dishes to scrounge up enough dollars to bail me out of the slammer. this of course was far more dramatic than what actually happened. the cop didn't even care about my license situation; he just had me walk to his squad car to tell him my correct information to fill out on my warning sheet. (which incidentally will soon be posted on my fridge).

but this story isn't about my brush with the law. or my vast knowledge of state nicknames (virginia is the old dominion state). it's about how much i really love driving places. with gas prices the way they are, it's just not practical to drive everywhere. nor do i really have the time to hop in a car for 24 hours every time i want to go visit my family. (plus i don't even have a car to hop into). but every day i get on the subway - f train all the way to work unless i mix it up and take the 6 so i don't have to walk the mile from bryant park if it's cold out. i spend the weekends in my backyard, or in another borough. i have a few trees in my backyard and prospect park has pretty sweet greenery but i should really get out more - outside of the little bubble i've made for myself in the empire state.

i really should thank my parents for all of the road trips as a child. besides being able to claim visiting 47 of the 50 states (washington, oregon, and alaska are the only ones i've not been to) i have a great patience in the car staring off into space and listening to music. tvs in cars are a modern convenience that i'll never understand. i get the idea to keep your toddler content in the back seat. but i'm old school - i hate the idea that all these kids are growing up having to be entertained 24-7 by dora or hannah rather than having to play the license plate game. my childhood involved trips to florida twice a year. my grandma had a winter home down in ft. myers and she insisted that her caddie was with her for the duration. we'd drive the car down to florida right after the new year, then go get it sometime around april fools. thus my childhood seasons were divided into four parts: pool opening, pool closing (aka the school year), drive down to florida, drive back to wisconsin. somehow with all of this time in the car, i get carsick when reading. i'd probably be a much more intelligent person if i could have spent all that time in the car reading sarte. instead i excel at scattergories and catch phrase - probably a product of the quick thinking games i learned on the road.

as i sit here in brooklyn, i can't help but think that i should do a better job of traveling more. i'm far too poor to go abroad on a regular basis, but i really should take some strides to do some more serious roadtripping. we hit two big cities on our whole trip - albuquerque and dubuque. most of the time all you could see was rock formations and open space. and it was perfect. tess joked that i was pumped when we hit dubuque because i was missing the skyscrapers. honestly, i get in such a groove here sometimes that i forget that i'm surrounded by giant buildings. it's just a bunch of metal that blocks the sun. when i leave and come back though i'm happy to see them. i love the open road but i'd end up with more than one run-in with officer plumb if i were left to such vast stretches. plus i much prefer a night out at a nice restaurant over wendy's spicy chicken. those sandwiches are amazing but i they need to stay a special treat for the good of my cholesterol. and anyone who may need to see me in a swimsuit.

**addendum to previous post

2008-07-20T23:09:00.002-04:00

key food is the name of this establishment. not "key foods" as would be grammatically correct. i know my irritation with this oversight is a telltale sign that i'm white, as per "stuff white people like" but it's annoying. i'm getting multiple foods to eat - not just one.

15 items or less

2008-07-16T22:02:00.003-04:00

tonight i went to the grocery store here in brooklyn. i'm not talking about a bodega. this was a full-fledged grocery store with aisles, a deli, and even a parking lot. it's one of those places that's right by my apartment that i always forget about. i rarely "cook" for myself beyond steaming some veggies and cooking a piece of meat on occasion. most nights i stick to a bowl of raisin bran and lactaid (gotta love the my gallbladder-free, lactose intolerant system) so i don't really bother going beyond the deli around the corner.

the cats in all of the bodegas in the area frighten me, but i figure there can't really be any cat hair in my sealed corrugated cardboard (biodegradable i'm sure) carton of lactaid. i should note that i just finished reading "freakonomics". i say this only because i really think they should do a study on "why do bodega owners always have cats in their stores?" cats can be smelly, shed, and really don't guard the place from any robbers. i can't imagine they keep better company with these guys than all of their buddies that are constantly visiting them throughout the day. i'm not sure if it's advantageous economically, but i do wonder about any causality or correlations it may have in sales. but i digress...

this grocery store i hit up tonight had ample supply for me to stock up for the bbq i'm having this weekend. i had brought my NYer cart - an item of shame for me but shockingly handy when shopping in the neighborhood for bulky items. so i charged through the store, filling up an entire cart full of foodstuffs. when i got to the checkout there were 2 lanes open: no's 1 & 5.

numero cinco had a line of 4 people while lane 1 had none. completely empty. had been since i entered the store - probably around 10 minutes. without looking up, i entered lane 1, ready to empty my cart on cue. in a former life i was a grocery bagger. i held the job through my junior year of high school, and not to brag, but my skills in packing groceries are unrivaled by most of my skills outside of the office beyond facebooking and recreationally drinking.

immediately the bagger stares at my cart and mumbles, "mifteenitemserless". sadly i've lived here long enough to translate that to its true meaning "15 items or less".

fine. i get it. i had too many items. that's not what killed me about the situation. it was the five employees all standing near checkout staring at all the people in line as they waited. and how the express worker didn't offer to take any of the other 4 people waiting in line (who all had 17 items at max) to her line. and that out of the 15 lines of possible checkouts, only 2 (really 1) were open. if you have the gargantuan grocery store and ample customers, flaunt your services a little. show a little pride.

while i'm on it, i should also note an important feature of the parking lot. to dissuade anyone from stealing any carts, all entrances/exits to the store are surrounded by a fence only large enough for a person to fit through. this means that anyone who has parked a car in the parking lot must leave the cart in this little holding pen and carry the bags to the car instead of rolling it to its spot. for me this evening, i had to position my cart in such a way where it tilted under the bars. i then had to put my hands through the fence to grab it on the other side without it tipping over. i achieved this feat with no droppage of my cargo, but it was a close call. my wavy lays were almost lost to the sidewalk of prospect ave. and immediately i was thrown from my grocery fantasy back into the world of bodega cats. the moment of serenity was fleeting, but as long as i'm not paying for gas i can't really complain. if i'm honest about it, this will probably be my only trip to the grocery store in the next 2 months. i can fool most of the world into my "maturity" through big words and early bedtimes, but my messenger bags and cereal for dinner will always get me in the end.

say cheese

2008-07-06T22:29:00.002-04:00

i have an aversion to being spontaneous in photos. i'm fine when i'm directed to smile or freeze and strike a pose, but something evil takes over when people capture me in a "moment". half the time my eyes roll up in my head, the other half i look "like i'm about to die" as one friend put it lovingly this weekend. 8.1 megapixels somehow captures every awkward physicality i possess into one frozen frame. it's sort of a miracle of modern technology. like canon added a feature on their cameras that refuses to capture me in my natural habitat. or so i hope. i can live with this unfortunate curse in photography, but do i really look like that in real life? is my mouth often open awkwardly? do i gain double chins with a quick tilt of the head? are my eyes constantly red and irritated and my forehead crinkled? this is what happens when you work in advertising. you can be concerned with this over saving people's lives. thank god no one's cameras are yet in HD. i'm fascinated by looking at all the celeb's imperfections while watching awards shows in HD. i'm just not ready for that reality with myself.

journey to the center of the earth

2008-07-06T21:15:00.000-04:00

recently i played in a touch football game in roosevelt island. if you're not familiar with this magical place, do not feel bad. it's a tiny sliver of a land mass located just east of manhattan - between the big island and queens. it's best known for an incident some years back, when the tram that runs between roosevelt and manhattan left a handful of passengers swaying over the east river. i have been there exactly two times in my life - both times to play football - and i can't really see any reason for traveling to the destination if you don't live there. from what i can gather, it's an alternate universe for those who want to live near the UES, but can't deal with the rent. it's quiet and unassuming, and a complete bitch to get to when the trains are not running properly. i was able to find my way to the island after some tricky subway maneuvering, but once there i had NO clue as to how to get to the field. i had brought with me a zoomed out googlemaps print-out with the field name highlighted, but it lacked any street names. apparently roosevelt island is akin to the town in 'twin peaks'. none of the employees at the duane reade next to the subway knew any of the streets on the island. i had wrongly assumed that the islanders all knew the places of their community. i also wrongly assumed that the folks working at the subway station knew the area. (turns out they all live in brooklyn.) lucky for me, the subway folks knew north from south (i didn't) and were able to point me in the general direction of the field. by luck i ran into another guy from my team who was over 45 minutes late for officiating the game prior to ours. of course 2/3 of our team had the same issue that i did and we started the match two people short. fast forward to the post-game report. i was able to wander my way back to bizarro duane reade and eventually back to my home borough. i'm not quite sure which borough roosevelt technically belongs to, but i doubt i will be returning to it often enough for it to be something i need for my repertoire. i want to be the type of new yorker who freely travels between borough borders, but i'm not sure i can be so altruistic. besides the tram, i'm not sold on this roosevelt. teddy's fine in my book, as is fdr. this island however, is in the same realm as daytona beach. it's just not my kind of party.

god knows when you've been drinking

2008-06-29T22:32:00.002-04:00

due to gallbladder issues, i've been off of the sauce for a good few months. not that i'm a complete lush or anything, but i have been known to drink on more than on occasion. 3pm is a timeframe usually reserved for football kickoffs or dismissal of middle school. for me, the hour marked when i sipped my first drink yesterday. ordinarily this wouldn't be an issue. do a little bit o day drinking an move into the evening with a slow and steady progression. this would keep me awake - and with enough time i would hopefully forget that i was supposed to be going to a club at midnight. that's right - midnight. usually by that time i'm either halfway home or plotting my exit. we're talking midnight arrival - not departure. also keep in mind folks that i've been off the sauce for a few months. 2 drinks turned into 4 at the garden, and there i was getting ready to go to a friend's birthday party at a club in the city. i put on a dress and some leggings (yep - i said leggings) and took my tipsy self to the club. (i drank another 2 mixed drinks in between the garden and the bar). in my mind i should have gotten out of the club appearance for intoxication, but my BAC didn't do anything to keep me from hitting the velvet ropes. by the time we got to the club, i had enough of the bar scene. the alcohol had saturated my system, and i was ready to go to bed. after a few solid years of knowing my drinking limits, i no longer pretend that i can move past this limit into anything other than bedtime. i dutifully said my hellos to all at the club and promptly pretended i had to go to the bathroom. immediately i made a beeline to the exit, hopped in a cab, and made it safely to my bed prior to midnight. this is why i don't go to the clubs. the psychological prospect of having to go causes me to overmedicate. it's best in the future if i stick to dive bars and t-shirts and jeans, and i think my liver will agree. as a punishment, i was blessed with the worst hangover i've had in years. combination of cranberries, beer, and rain. god's perfect storm of gluttony, guilt, and grain products.

my belly button is deformed

2008-06-23T19:46:00.003-04:00

you'll have to excuse the long delay in my writing. a venezuelan surgeon sucking your gallbladder out of your body quicker than daniel plainview drinking someone's milkshake puts a person out of commission for a while. especially when they're given vicodin to help them heal. i'm not a big believer in using pain meds. i avoid them when i can, but MAN do those things help you feel good. actually they just make it so you can't remember how shitty you really felt. at the time i remember laying on my back and staring at my punctured stomach, asking myself why i didn't feel as good as i should for being so drugged up. five minutes later i could have remembered the 10th round of a flip cup tournament better.

it's lucky that none of my friends (who doubled as my caretakers) took advantage of me. they had free reign of my wallet and all my credit cards, and i was freely telling anyone who may need any cash my pin number. plus they could have dressed me in just about anything and i would have gone along with it. though they probably didn't recognize the gold mine of opportunity, i felt like they could have done a remake of 'weekend at bernie's' but had me half-heartedly cooperate.

i've never had any scars before - at least not any real ones. i have two from the chicken pox and a tiny one on my ankle from getting my foot pinched between a car seat and my heels when drunkenly cramming into a taxi in the middle of winter in college. my new scars are slightly more bad ass. they're a little symmetrical and tidy to claim a knife fight on the subway, but i don't despise them too much now that the swelling has gone down. four days after my surgery, i had looked like i was in my second trimester. i'd sit and stare at my pooch wearingly - WHAT IF IT DIDN'T WORK? i'd become cranky and pale and sleepy with food deprivation. i stopped even wanting food and wasn't even a bit hungry when my coworkers were chowing down on full meals while i picked at rice and miso soup.

in the end, all is well post-surgery. though i eat portions not even large enough to qualify for a "mighty kids meal" at mcdonald's, i can eat again. i had the great equalizer in food products last week - a lunch special from the sushi restaurant down the block from work. i tested the waters with a few beers last week, but the big test will be a birthday bash this weekend. as stomach problems go, i'm hoping that the worst will be a bit of heartburn from a slice at 3am.

midwest thang

2008-05-24T14:57:00.002-04:00

at the moment i'm writing this, i have been in the midwest for 8 days. my trip started with my sister's graduation, hit a mid-point with a quick jaunt in minneapolis, and i'll end my journey with an evening of camping with my friends near milwaukee. in between these major events, i'll have dropped my grandmother off at her home in wausau (wi) and visited my other grandma in milwaukee.

since i moved to new york, i have yet to spend this much time back home. ordinarily it's a hyperactive vacation - for every day that i'm home, there's events planned from the time i wake until i sleep. there's always people that i don't have time to hang out with, and promised dinners or coffees that never occur thanks to me double booking on the fly.

not on this trip. with the exception of a lunch that i had to cut out because of my sister needing the car (sorry, cloud) i've done everything i've wanted to do here and more. and it's really made me appreciate where i came from. i joke that the best part of growing up in the midwest is that i didn't end up with a jersey accent and that i like to go camping. while that's true, there's more to the story. there's a kinship i feel with the folks here that i'll never have in new york. yes, i love my life in new york and i'll stay there indefinitely, but despite what borough i live in or how dark i dye my roots, i will always be that girl with green hair who spent her summers at seminole pool. i will think of memorial day and labor day weekend as synonyms for brat fest; the fourth for summerfest. christmas always has snow, and saturdays in the fall are supposed to smell like badger football. summer sunsets are meant to be seen from a green or yellow chair at the union, and you're weak if you can't handle a scrambler from mickey's with a chocolate malt.

there's an unspoken understanding here of how happy everyone is that they live here - especially in the summer. you can even feel it when you talk to people who just came here for college. i chose to leave for college to see what else was out there and i know that if i lived here permanently i would not have the appreciation that hits me everytime i come home, but i have it now. and it gives me gratitude for not only my hometown, but that i live in a place now that is so very different - but great in it's own right.

i'll never forget in high school when my friend maria and i were walking around in beloit (we were there for a swim meet). we had just stopped at burger king to grab some dinner and were on our way back to the pool. "i'm going to go home tonight and thank my parents for raising me in madison," she said after looking at our surroundings. i worry that if i stay in new york when i have a family that my kids won't have that. they'll use swear words in public that i can't say at 23 without turning scarlet. they'll know how to avoid eye-contact with panhandlers on the subways. granted a family is a long-way off for me, and i'm not leaving nyc anytime soon, but i hope that my kids can grow up like i did. yeah, the winters are awful and i ended up with an accent that elongates anything with an "a" or two "e's", but i was given a disposition that made me love where i'm from, while at the same time want something more. the part of me that wants something more keeps me thousands of miles away from madison and my family, but i really do love coming back.

i hope there's a hell for faulty gallbladders

2008-05-23T15:35:00.000-04:00

rumors have been running rampant throughout madison and minneapolis, and i feel that i need to clear this up on record. to follow up on a previous post, i do not in fact have 2 pancreases (pancrei). while it is possible for that to happen (look it up naysayers!!!) i only possess one.

a shadow in one of my abdomen CT's led my surgeon to believe that i may have two pancrei (pancreases) but this was disproved after my latest small bowel series. (basically i was forced to chug two bottles of barium as quickly as i could; then the doctors took pictures of my stomach every 10 minutes to watch it travel through my intestines.)

it has now been determined and proven through multiple tests that my gallbladder is the culprit of my stomach pain. or at least it might be. the doctors aren't sure about that, but they are sure that it's about 1/4 of the size that it's supposed to be, so it should come out of me ASAP. in doctor-speak, that means june 3...10 days from today. at 7:30am, two tuesdays from today i will be sans gallbladder and up 4 scars from where i started the day. i hope this means in the near future i will have booze-filled evenings without ridiculously painful stomach pangs and can once again enjoy sushi (and any type of food that involves flavor). if not, i may to have to become a vegan or fruitarian. something that makes my life more exciting than bran muffins and nila wafers. i used to love the "simple goodness" of nila wafers, but i think one box too many has made me a bit more simple-minded than i was when i first started eating them.

satellite blues

2008-05-18T23:55:00.002-04:00

i'm in madison this weekend for my sister's college graduation. it was a whirlwind weekend - lots of food, friends, and relatives - and an excellent time was had by all (or at least that's what we can gather from the lack of leftovers). tonight i wanted to take a quick break from the action - watch a bit of TV before heading downtown to hang out with my sister's friends. i fixed myself a bowl of cereal and got in perfect lounging position on the couch. i clicked on the TV using the remote , only to find out that our satellite was NOT working. (later i found out this was because the whole system had been screwed up when we watched 'hot fuzz' on the DVD player on our other TV the night before.)

out of the 950 channels we are supposed to get, only 1 channel worked on the TV: CBS. at first i wasn't too upset. maybe 'csi' or 'criminal minds' or even a rerun of 'two and a half men' was on. but then i saw fringe and cowboy hats and heard twangy music. it was the american country music awards - LIVE from las vegas. ugh. i immediately uprooted myself from the TV to the computer. i have a decent tolerance for pain, but everyone has a limit. mine is easily reached when carrie underwood steps onto a stage with a sequined microphone.

on the subway today...

2008-05-10T23:18:00.004-04:00

- i spent 20 minutes on the subway debating offering the woman standing in front of me my seat. those 20 minutes were spent trying to determine if she was in fact pregnant, or just wearing an ill-fitting shirt. i wasn't about to offend her by insinuating her pregnancy if she wasn't.

- a kid grabs the center pole (that i'm holding onto) and starts whipping around it in circles. he crashes right into me, so i attempt to try and grab the railing on the side of the car. his mom glares at me for impeding his "playground".

- a woman is sitting with her 3 kids. her children are all hitting each other; without any warning she reaches across two of the kids and starts smacking the youngest across his legs. he starts squirming and pouting, then swings around and whaps the random hipster sitting next to him. the mom starts yelling a story about some $^%$^% motha &*^$^% with their &*^# attitudes with no class. she's speaking so loudly that no one can hear the train stop announcements.

- a greasy old man starts attempts to engage in eye-sex with me. while i attempt to avert my eyes from his view in any way, he keeps tilting his head, bobbing and weaving to get my attention.

unfortunately, today was just a regular day in the company of ny's finest citizens

happy saturday

2008-05-04T00:44:00.001-04:00

as heard from my bed this morning:

9am - screaming and crying (my roommate fighting with her boyfriend)

9:30am - my roommate babbling about bleeding all over the place

10:00am - the other roommate's dog running around. this was due to the fact that babbling roommate leaving the stove on. roommate with the dog went and turned off the stove, cleared the room of smoke and proceeded to try to go back to bed to no avail.

11:30am - the two of them fighting over depositing rent checks on time

i have no way of knowing whether this timeline is accurate, but these were the events that proceeded my exit from my room this morning.

my life...as told by someone else

2008-05-02T23:42:00.004-04:00

as i was cleaning my room tonight, i came across a bio one of my friends wrote for me in college. i asked him to write a few lines for me to put in the newsletter that was introducing me as the coach of a local swim team. just a quick blurb about me and how i looked forward to teaching kids how to swim the backstroke. this is what he came up with:

"jeni's swimming career is shrouded in mystery, a loose patchwork of folklore, half-truths, and hearsay. legend has it she fell through the ice on lake wingra as a small child, and instead of panicking she simply taught herself the breaststroke underneath the frozen surface. if the rescuers hadn't come so quickly she might have perfected the surface dive as well.

by the age of five, jeni was regularly practicing her stroke technique whenever and wherever she could. it was not uncommon for jeni's family to discover her missing, only to find her later attempting to crawl into the drainage ditch near her home, or the penguin sanctuary at the vilas zoo, or the lobster tank at red lobster.

by seven, jeni was swimming competitively against the nautical prodigies of the former soviet bloc countries, thanks to a fellowship granted by the eccentric and reclusive dr. wilford longfellow, a retired industrialist and lover of both traditional kabuki theater and olympic swimming. supposedly, longfellow spotted jeni at the local YMCA and said, "i have seen true beauty but twice in my life. the first time was when i spied a great white shark off the coast of antigua and barbuda, so aerodynamically perfect, a graceful dancer of the sea. i killed it and placed its fearsome plaque in my study. the same beauty i see now, in this little girl. she will bring home the gold medal, and i shall place it around the head of the great white shark"

there is no proof that longfellow ever said this. in face, there is no proof that longfellow even exists. there are medical records for a w.p. longfellow, but all pertinent information has been mysteriously blacked out.

after rigorous training with the finest swimmers of the former soviet countries, jeni inexplicably walked away from competitive swimming for five years. some say the pressure was too intense. others insist she simply sacrificed her own career to further the aspirations of her new friends. a scattered few claim her decision came after weeks in a communist isolation bunker and session after session of unspeakable torture. whatever happened, no one can say, but this much is known: at the age of 14, jeni was found by an excavation crew in the middle of the mojave desert, 23 miles from the nearest town. when they found her, she kept repeating the same phrase over and over. they could not understand it, for it was in russian. years later, one of the excavators, a prominent archaelogist named rachel suarez, would stumble upon what she had said. it was this: 'the phoenix has risen from the ashes. i will swim again.'

she would swim again, but only after fifteen labor-intensive months of physical therapy. for reasons known only to her, she had lost all motor functions below her neck. she had to relearn how to walk, how to tie a shoelace, and, most importantly, how to swim. those who had seen her swim before would remark that she was only a shell of her former self, that she would never live up to the expectations for her once promising career.

no longer a competitive force, jeni turned her attention to other areas. she studied the works of the great french enlightenment thinker, voltaire. she learned american sign language and provided translation for the deaf attendants of rock concerts at san francisco's historic fillmore theater. she even ghost wrote the autobiographies of a handful of celebrity chefs. but her estrangement from the world of swimming would not last long. at the age of 18, jeni was asked by the europe swimming board of regents to serve on the planning board for the 1st annual parisian underground waterway classic. the classic was intended to be a world class swimming competition in the elaborate system of underground sewers below the city of paris. though the event had may critics skeptical, jeni's guidance and business acumen made it an unqualified success, drawing some of the world's biggest names to the humble catacombs of paris. in gratitude to jeni's foresight and dedication the mayor of paris presented her with a key to the city of paris. the key was soon stolen by gypsies.

jeni has worn many hats in her short yet rich career. she has worn the hat of world renowned swimmer. some may call this a swim cap, not a hat. she has worn the hat of athletic expatriate, of crippled survivor, and of organizing guru. yet there is more space in her closet for even more hats. who knows what the 21st century has in store for the enigmatic jeni dill."

estoy loca?

2008-05-02T00:13:00.004-04:00

i can't sleep. i've been tossing and turning for the past hour and a half, so i thought a little quality time with my tv would make me drowsy. i went to the abc family website in an attempt to watch the latest episode of 'greek'. in order to be able to do this, i was directed to sign-up for one lycos' viewing parties. i know i should not sink this low, or admit to the virtual public that i'm willing to create a user password for this, but it was free and i'm really upset that i missed monday's episode. in order to sign-up, i was prompted to create a user name and password. as you would suspect, i tried to use "jenski". (i may be willing to make a user password, but am not providing any evidence of my last name to link me to my addiction to tween comedies. that's a step too far.) i didn't add any numbers or letters, just typed-in "jenski" to see what my options were. these were the choices i was given:

jenski.loco

brat.jenski.loco

jenski.brat

locojenski

jenskiloco

brat.jenski

i don't know who chooses the name options, but i'm a little bit offended. sure i can be a brat and am borderline crazy, but a program that randomly assigns username isn't supposed to know that. i would have rather youre.too.old.to.do.this.jenski or jenski666. i just got cyberburned by a network website. a network whose most popular show 5 years ago was 700 club. brutal.

up in smoke

2008-05-01T22:16:00.004-04:00

i took a cab home from work tonight. i was there late and just wanted to peacefully sit in the back of a car rather than trudge to the F. given that i tried to get one at 8:30 on a thursday in the rain, i really lucked out by even getting a cab. the driver seemed a bit sketch, but that's not unusual. i'll settle for any cab that is willing to take me to brooklyn. as soon as we cross the bridge, the driver starts talking to me:

"you smoke?"

"excuse me?"

"ma'am, do you smoke?"

"what?"

"you smoke weed?"

"uh..."

"it's raining, traffic is slow. you want to smoke?"

"no, no thanks."

"you live in brooklyn. the people in brooklyn and the bronx, they always want to"

"no, not me."

the last 15 minutes of my trip was pretty awkward. i have a sneaking suspicion that he was high already or just trying to gouge me for my ride. either way, pretty damn sketch.

pancreases galore

2008-04-28T23:08:00.004-04:00

the latest theory on my stomach issues is that i may have two pancreases (pancrei??) the debate is raging in my workplace as to what the correct plurality would be for the word. pancrei sounds european - thus somewhat superior and refined - plus pancreases makes me giggle a little bit. one of my co-workers likened the word to breasteses. juvenile humor gets me every time.

so as an expecting mother would search for names for her impending bundle of joy, i am on the hunt for the perfect names to encapsulate all my pancreases (pancrei) have to offer. since the two seem to be brawling, cain and abel were suggested tonight. this brought me to thinking about other famous duos. and the tale of rosemary and osemary.

as an instructor of any kind, it's quite common to come across unusual names. for every jacob and sarah, there's a kid named zanzibar or gfarhdln (pronounced "jack"). when i coached swim team the first week of practice usually had a lengthy amount of time devoted to learning (or avoiding mangling) my kids' names.

as the story goes, one instructor had two little girls in his class - identical twins. their names were rosemary and osemary. when he asked how to tell them apart, "osemary is smarter".

the music of the night

2008-04-23T19:56:00.004-04:00

i really love american idol this season. in all past seasons, i've lost interest after the auditions phase. but this year, i did the opposite. i didn't really watch many of the audition weeks, but have watched with full-attention since we hit the top-12.

i think it's the instrument thing that may have really gotten me hooked. i have a greater appreciation for musicians who can also pick up a guitar or play the piano while they're giving an awkward nod into the swinging camera or winking at one of the hand-waiving "fans" in the first three rows.

but what was up with the andrew lloyd webber songs last night? i thought we had evolved and moved past some of the more horrible theme nights. (enter 'big band night' in season 1.) the whole night was AWFUL. even the front runners didn't know what to do with themselves. david cook talked about his past in musical theater, while ALW knocked other (robot) david for choosing a song normally sung by a woman. i really don't understand what the issue was with that. last week, the top 7 all sang songs by a woman (mariah carey). what made that so special?

my vote for next week is songs by nickleback. all of their songs sound the same and the lyrics are all mumbled. that would make for an interesting hour of television.

dante the detailer

2008-04-20T22:47:00.003-04:00

yesterday, meg decided that she needed to be spray-tanned before her trip to the DR tomorrow. i glanced at my pasty skin and pondered. a faux-tan could be the catalyst i need to get out of my barium induced funk. so we decided to venture to the beach bum tanning salon in queens this morning. to give you a quick schooling in faux-tans, there are two main ways to get instant gratification. mystic tan - where they put you in a room and shoot tanner at you like a car wash; or airbrush - also similar to a car wash, but at this place they have a guy named dante using a handheld tool and a drying hose. either option isn't particularly glamorous, but as we were told by many a tanning expert, airbrush is the "natural" way to go (aka less streaking).

after two failed missions to beach bum locales in queens, i found myself at the UES beach bum at a 1:45 appointment with dante. the guy at one of the queens locales considered him THE BEST when it came to "tanning detail". in my mind, this meant no streaks, freaky hairlines, or orange spots. little did i know i would come out 3o minutes later with defined biceps, six pack abs, and a realistic tanline on my hips.

my hollywood tan will have faded by friday, but dante's expertise will live on in my mind indefinitely. some make their mark helping children, curing diseases, or in my case performing competitive analyses of the top-10 adult cable networks. dante's gift to the world rests in a sterling silver squirt gun, and a vision of the perfect body. he is a master at his craft.

it's berry good

2008-04-18T19:24:00.006-04:00

today i had a classic waiting room experience. my stomach's been giving me trouble for the last month, so my docs decided to do a CT of my abdomen to get a better view of what's going on. i've already done the sonogram and endoscopy of my abdomen, so this was really the cherry on the cake.

i grew up in madison, wi. madison may not be the size of manhattan, but the major thing that my hometown has going for it is its medical services. the university hospital is world-renowned, but beyond that it's all in one place. if you need to get your blood drawn, you're taken to a room down the hall, your blood is taken, and that's that.

here, the doctors scribble hieroglyphs onto their notepads which you must hang onto for weeks at a time, and you're expected to wait upwards of 50 minutes for a vile of your blood. the worst comes when you need actual tests done. these tests are rarely done in the same building as the one you're being examined at, but that really doesn't matter. you can't be seen for the procedure for at least a few days. if you're lucky (like i've been recently) they push to see you as early as possible. i have probably the most understanding workplace possible when it comes to exiting for a doctor's appointment, but i'd be screwed otherwise. it's not often that you're given more than one option for an opening in the near future and they're always smack in the middle of the workday. why would a hospital employ its doctors to have to work past 5pm? as a worker in the media world, this often perplexes me. my biggest concern in a day concerns the placement of a commercial and i routinely work past 7pm. but if my spleen needs to be taken out, i'll know it in 8-weeks worth of 9-5 appointments.

today i found myself at a diagnostic imaging lab in lower manhattan for a CT scan of my stomach. my appointment was at 2:30, but they asked me to arrive at 12:30. i would have to "drink a little something" so that they could see how my insides were functioning.

i arrive promptly at 12:20, taking a seat in the crowded waiting room after filling out a packet of paperwork with my symptoms and SSN. beth israel hospital must have at least 10 versions of the same signed packet. i've started changing up my wording a bit - "abdominal pain", "stomachache", "chronic stomach ailment". i doubt the hospital has noted my creativity.

"banana or berry smoothie?" i'm asked when returning my paperwork. i'm relieved. the barium's flavored. it really can't be that bad. err...well...a cup of it isn't. but i'm handed two 425 ML canisters of berry smoothie barium. essentially 1L of this stuff. the containers resemble two classroom size refills of glue. the receptionist points to a water cooler on the other side of the waiting room. "grab a cup from there. just finish by the time of your appointment."

i take my solo cup and dignity and grab a chair. i soon realize i'm the only person in the room under the age of 40, but not the only one with the barium concoction of fun. a few older ladies nod their heads at me in support (they're the designated drivers - their husbands are the ones doing the drinking today). i feign a smile, then give the first container a few good shakes before opening it up. bottoms up. the scene does oddly resemble a midtown bar during happy hour on a wednesday night. old men and cheap shitty drinks. i give a nod and half cheers to an old man across the room, but he just stares at me in annoyance.

it takes me an hour and a half to drink the potion. the taste itself isn't horrible, but the docs make you fast the 6 hours prior. nothing else is in my stomach but those faux-fruit flavors. all 1 liter's worth of them. by the time the tech comes to get me, i'm feeling somewhat faint. my stomach is churning, but i can't tell if it's just the barium doing its business or my stomach uprising against the chemical agents. in either case, i'm extremely uncomfortable, but ready to get this over with.

i'm told to put on a gown, but leave on my sneakers - lime green converse. this is definitely a fashion statement with my pasty white legs. the tech makes small talk while he sets up a main-line in my arm. i'm getting the full-treatment today. barium and an iodine injection. woo hoo.

the CT itself takes moments. there's a notice right in my line of vision on the machine that says "do not stare directly at the laser." i do my best to not react, but i'm now i'm curious. i have no idea where the beam is located, but i want to know what it looks like. my eyes start wandering, trying to spot the mysterious laser beam.

they do one version of the tests with just me, then another set of images with the iodine coursing through my veins. rarely have i felt medicine coursing through my body (i hear heroin does that to you, but i've never tried it, nor will i ever). but i could feel the iodine. the tech warned me that i'd probably taste metal and feel a warming sensation in my crotch (no joke). nothing prepares you for the feeling that you've peed in your pants. especially when sucking on a fist-full of nails. i guess that's why iodine never caught on as a drug of choice for anyone. there's no real high from that, unless you get your jollies from the moment of panic that hits when you think you've completely lost control of your bladder while working at a construction site. thank god i hadn't really peed. i don't think i could have bared the shame of leaving berry pee stains on the CT gurney.

the barium's been messing with my stomach all afternoon, but beyond that, i'm physically fine for the moment. mentally though, that's another matter. it's going to take me a while to get back on the horse when it comes to berry products. probably a few months at the least. i had a similar issue in high school when a friend and i split a bottle of raspberry twist mixed with berry punch. i endured a monster hangover the next morning to meet my grandmother for brunch, only to be forced into eating a berry muffin. it took me 2 years to get over that. this time, i'm hoping i can overcome the berry adversity sooner. summer is coming, and there's a jamba juice on my way to work from the subway.

eggcelent

2008-04-10T20:58:00.000-04:00

"apply to become egg donor. help an infertile couple! $8,000 compensation for time and effort. healthy females age 21 to 32 can apply up to five times"

this was an ad i encountered on facebook this evening while checking my profile. it was accompanied by a photo of a woman holding her pregnant torso. here i was looking at my friends' updates and writing random messages on their walls when this ad was served on my screen. when they say, 'apply up to five times', does that mean that you can be rejected four times and still provide your dna to some loving couple wanting children? i consider myself on the more-responsible end of the single 23 year-olds of the world and i'm frightened at the prospect of this.

remote control

2008-04-02T21:33:00.002-04:00

the remote for my cable is broken. i can't figure out what's wrong with it. i've changed the batteries, pushed all of the various button combinations, and even banged it against my sofa. this is awful. in the old school days, it was easy enough to get up and switch the channel. we had the broadcast nets plus a few key cable networks. 20 channels at most. but now the channels i like to watch are 50, sometimes 100 away from one another. i can't surf between shows whatsoever, and even have to buy myself a bit of time when switching to a new show. i'm forced to compromise missing the end of one to catch the beginning of another. so here i am on a wednesday night, forced to watch the american idols' ford commercial instead of checking in on criminal minds or last night's real housewives of ny. i know you're shocked by this, but yes, i am single.

definitely

2008-04-01T22:07:00.001-04:00

i generally take offense to bad grammar, but two spelling errors stand out in my mind as capital crimes: 1) "definately"; and 2) "wierd". why are these two magical (and commonly-used) words so often mangled? even as i write these, my computer flags them in red as misspellings. in a time where we have phones that complete our words and computers that allow us to double and triple-check words and definitions, how does this happen?

i fear it's my generation. us (not-so-fondly) referred to as the millennials. there's all sorts of buzz going around about the folks born between 1980-2000 - the newest addition to the list of gimmicky generational names (i.e. "gen x", "baby boomers", etc).

according to the latest news, we're hard to handle in the office and need an exorbitant amount of hand-holding. we're used to our lives being scheduled-up by our overbearing parents and we all think we're special. honestly, i don't doubt that most of us fall into this label in some way, shape, or form. but this my fellow peers, is terrible. some of the ideals of the millennial generation are great - shared purpose, civic duty, forward thinking - but some of them are crap. absolutely horrific. step up and take responsibility. realize that we're going to have to pay our dues. understand that we're not all good at everything. and for god sakes, check your spelling. something glaringly obvious (to me) that has been left off of all of these special reports is the millennial desire to create shortcuts. most of us barely (if at all) remember a time when we weren't allowed to copy and paste our manifestos and most of us do anything in our power to save a minute. somehow with all of these quick techniques, some of us have lost a desire for accuracy.

definitely becomes definately, weird becomes wierd, and worst of all - says becomes sez. i'd like to make a plea for better grammar. we've already become the generation of text messaging and "like". please do not let us completely lose our integrity. spare 20 seconds from your day to check the spelling of words you're not quite sure about. take a second glance at that email before you send it out. we're supposed to be arrogant because we're the most educated generation yet. not because we're ignorant. and too proud to admit it.

jhon doe

2008-03-26T22:15:00.002-04:00

i replied to an ad on craigslist yesterday to check out an apartment. at approximately 9:15am today, i received a response from a mr. jhon doe asking me to call gary to see the place. i give mr. doe style points for the creative spelling of the traditional, "john". i can't decide if it was intentional, or whether it was a spelling error. i would like to see my 24th birthday, thus i will not be responding further with any personal information.

the life story

2008-03-25T22:08:00.002-04:00

with the advent of technology, most people have gotten extremely lazy. "U" instead of "you", lots of apostrophes. most people are probably well on their way to grammar hell with half of the emails and text messages they send on a daily basis. (i take full responsibility for the lack of capitalized letters in this post.) so why oh why, do people feel compelled to write long-winded "catch-up" postings for facebook and myspace that everyone in their network (or on the web) can read?

the ones i'm talking about are the messages that many people in my generation trade for any substantive conversation. they're akin to the awkward encounter one may face when bumping into someone that they can't quite place, or a person they have no real intention of ever wanting to talk to again. it's similar to the half-assed promise to hang out with someone who you haven't seen in 3 years and then exchange numbers when you are at the same party or out christmas shopping with your sibling when you're home visiting your parents. the classic facebook posting goes something like this:

"hi jeni!
how are you? i haven't talked to you in so long! it's been _______. i hear you're in NY. things are good. after i graduated school i ______ and now i'm ______. i live in _______ with my _________. if you're ever in _____, let me know. we should hang out.

- ______ (fill in name here)

the kicker is the signing of the name. the other stuff can be well-meaning and nice, and i truly apologize for offending anyone who over the years my have written this on my wall in an attempt to reconnect (i hope i crafted a nice response). but why the name? your post is linked to your entire profile. with one click, i can have access to a photo montage of the last 6 years of your life. i know who you are.

*in an effort to save time, i welcome anyone to fill in the blanks and copy and paste onto my facebook wall.

break of day

2008-03-19T18:27:00.003-04:00

tonight i was pleasantly surprised to get off the train and be greeted with daylight. (i use this term lightly - it's been raining all day and they sky is grey and gloomy - but it's better than the dark sky that usually awaits me when i step off the F train after work). i'd like to say that i would have done something exciting if i wasn't home early because i'm sick. but the truth is, i would have done the same thing regardless of my reasoning for being home: put on my pj's and headed for the couch. weekdays are not days to be adventurous.

wild and crazy kids

2008-03-18T20:44:00.000-04:00

after viewing the commercial a few times, i can confidently say that i'm 99% sure that donny jeffcoat, former host of nickelodeon's 'wild and crazy kids' is in the new nesqwick chocolate milk ad.

a spritz of scandal

2008-03-12T20:38:00.003-04:00

unless you're 6 feet under or spent the last week in a casino, you've heard by now that eliot spritzer has been implicated in a prostitution scandal. being that i work across the street from the ny governor's offices, the past week has resulted in the possibility of ending up in b-roll footage on a national news source each and every time i step out of my building. in fact, one of my coworkers is of the belief she ended up on telemundo on monday, but we have no firm confirmation as neither of us are viewers of the network. regardless, it's been a zoo in our parts, which has escalated our attention to the scandal. and probably caused me to think more deeply about the situation than i really should.

to be honest, if he had met up with a prostitute on his own time, with his own money, i would be disturbed, but would have considered it completely no one's business but his own. what someone does on their own time is between them and their family. get federal funds muddled up in it though, and the whole thing has a different ring to it. it is what it is though, and mr. spitzer bowed out of his position before it could be ripped away from him in a call for impeachment.

the question that lingers in my mind is not why did he do it (i'm pretty sure the reasoning for people getting a prostitute is pretty obvious), but why a prostitute? i'm sure there's plenty of scandalous women in ny that would sleep with a man as powerful as the governor. i'm certainly not one of those women, but i can guarantee they're out there. why not an aide or some socialite who champions his fundraising? you know - the usual suspects in a sex scandal. i don't condone cheating in any way and think it's pretty despicable, but seriously - a prostitute? c'mon - that's just too 1980's cliche. if you're going to ruin your career, reputation, and life, at least do it because your hooking up with someone who you potentially have feelings for. not someone who you're paying to keep you company.

the internet gods are never smiling down on us...

2008-03-10T23:33:00.002-04:00

for months i have been half-ass attempting to get a password set on our wireless account. it's one of those things i've been meaning to do, but never really had the patience to stick through until the job was done. 15 minutes on hold with the folks at time warner and it didn't bother me so much that people were stealing our internet.

today i felt like i had let the task fall on the wayside for far too long and it was time to do something about it. it was a late night at work, so by the time i got around to doing this, it was about 10:45. i started out by trying the live chat on time warner's website. I've taken out my 'analyst's' last name and deleted my personal information, but everything else is verbatim from our 'chat' [minus the brackets]. We begin from the start of our chat...

Barbie: In this case, now I will need to use a tool that will allow me to access your computer remotely. This will help us to troubleshoot the issue quickly efficiently. Please go through the following notes and confirm your acceptance: 1. I will be able to see your computer s desktop and manage your computer. I request your presence while I perform the required troubleshooting. 2. However, if you are not comfortable with this procedure at any point of time, you are free to disconnect the remote tool by clicking on Disable Remote Control button in the center of the screen.

Barbie: Sorry. [for what, i'm not sure]
Barbie: Hello, thank you for choosing Road Runner technical Chat. My name is Barbie D. How may I assist you?
Jennifer_: it's fine to remote connect
Jennifer_: i need help setting up a wep password
Jennifer_: i can't find how to do it on your website
Barbie: Jennifer, I'll try my best to assist you with the issue you are facing.
Barbie: Before we begin, I would like to bring up your account. May I have the following four pieces of information from you please?
1. The account holder's 10 digit telephone number. (xxx-xxx-xxxx)
2. The account holder's Full Name (First and Last)
3. Please tell us your name.
4. May I have your preferred e-mail address?
(Preferred e-mail address is the one that you use frequently; it may be different from the Road Runner e-mail address)

Jennifer_: [i give her this information]
Barbie: Thank you, Jennifer.
Barbie: Jennifer, if I understand you, you want the WEP password, am I right? [keep in mind that when i registered for the chat, i explained that my problem was that i needed to set a WEP password]
Jennifer_: yes please
Jennifer_: right now, we don't have one set
Barbie: Thank you for the confirmation.
Barbie: Jennifer your WEP key would be your Modem Mac address and fourteen 0 s.
Barbie: MAC address is a 12 digit alpha-numeric address on the sticker at the bottom of the modem.
Jennifer_: yes
Jennifer_: i have that number
Jennifer_: where do i type that in to set the password?
Barbie Dcosta: Jennifer, WEP key is required when you try to setup the wireless router.
Jennifer_: the router was set up when i moved in
Barbie Dcosta: Alright, is that provided by Road Runner?
Jennifer_: i can just click on the name of the router and it lets me hook up to that connection
Jennifer_: yes
Barbie: Alright Jennifer, in this case I'd request you to contact our concerned department as I do not have the required expertise for the same and they would be in a better position to assist you with the issue. I'll provide you with the phone number.
Barbie: The number is {XXX-XXX-XXXX]
Barbie: Is there anything else I can assist you with?
Jennifer_: no, that's it. thanks.
Barbie: You are most welcome. For further assistance please logon to our website help.rr.com and check for online FAQs.
Barbie: I would appreciate if you could provide us with your valuable feedback on the support experience, after the end of this chat session. It will help us to serve you better. Please submit your comments at http://surveys.rr.com/chat
Barbie: Thank you for using Road Runner Technical support today, I hope you found our session helpful.
Barbie: Analyst has closed chat and left the room

so Barbie and i parted ways. Ii called the 'concerned department' and let me tell you, they're not particularly concerned. i waited on hold for 35 minutes before even reaching the main menu. this was due to the 'large number of calls' that TW was receiving (past 11pm). once i got a rep on the phone, our conversation proceeded something like this:

Rep: hello. thank you for calling time warner. please provide your first and last name.
me: [provided this info]
Rep: thank you. can you please provide your MAC modem number?
me: [i provide the number on our router. turns out the number on the router is not a time warner number - it's the manufacturers number. i need to call them to set up the password.]
Rep: ma'am...sir?? ma'am, is there anything else i can help you with?

AHHHHH

i continue my quest by calling up the manufacturer of my wireless modem. after a "short" wait of 5 minutes, i get someone on the line. he walks me through how to set up the password, and we're all set. i have to set a lengthy one - it's some sort of system requirement and it's not particularly flexible.

45 minutes since my endeavors begin and we're all set. not too bad as any issues with the cable company goes. in my next life, i'm starting my own monopoly.

a tearjerker

2008-03-09T19:54:00.002-04:00

http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=ithct48cqw

child's play

2008-03-04T19:47:00.001-05:00

on sunday, i encountered an all-too familiar scene at a coffeeshop. a girl no older than 11 stood in line in front of me. she asked the barista for the house blend - w/ 2 sugars and extra half and half. she ordered it with an air that i don't think i'll ever have when ordering a cup of tea (i quit coffee in november). most of the kids i encounter here are like that. sometimes their 'cultured' street smarts are things that i'm in awe of (like when the kid next to me on the subway is talking about his vinyl collection), but most of the time it freaks me out.

at water aerobics (yes, i've recently taken up the sport) last night, i overheard two kids talking about their ipods:

"i just got rid of my shuffle."
"for a real ipod?"
"no, well, like, maybe. it was from when ipods were first invented. i couldn't listen to all of my stuff. it was my brothers."
"i have a real one. it holds all of my music."
"whoa - my parents said i could get one of those for my birthday."

the conversation went on for quite some time. they started exchanging gigabite information and something about transferring files that i just couldn't follow. but my main questions hinged on my belief that it's not possible for either one of these children to have been born when ipods were 'invented'

but they know a hell of a lot more about the tech, so i'm going to keep my mouth shut. a few years from now, one of them will probably talk to me like a child when i'm trying to buy a new computer from them at the apple store. and so continues my descent into adulthood. i'm catching up to you mom - one new tech item at a time.

just for you

2008-02-22T20:51:00.002-05:00

i am a big fan of itunes. and usually i'm a fan of the 'just for you' music selections. it's as if the folks at apple know me better than i know myself with the music they choose for me. today though, i really hope that i know myself better than apple. the top three songs on my 'just for you' list were the following:

1) 'see you again' - miley cyrus (hannah montana 2)
2) 'i'm a flirt' [remix] - r. kelly featuring t.i. & t-pain
3) 'buy U a drank' (shawty snappin') - t-pain featuring yung joc

i'm not sure what to think. i don't know who i am anymore.

airport folk

2008-02-20T13:51:00.002-05:00

i'm at the airport in milwaukee. the man in front of me had two carry-on bags - a backpack and a rolling suitcase. the backpack presumably contained his clothes. the suitcase was full of bags of instant rice, hershey kisses, and super-sized aerosol containers of shaving cream. i'm going to venture to guess that this man hasn't flown since 1980. and he probably won't fly for another 30 years after the hassle it took for him to pass through security here at mitchell international.

rental delinquent

2008-02-10T12:34:00.000-05:00

i've recently realized that the only things that i should rent are apartments. i'm terrible with due dates outside of work. whether it be movies or books or really anything that i have to take back, i'm terrible. i start off well and do a good job of being on time, but after a few months or so i find myself down the slippery slope of denial when it comes to having to turn things in.

take for instance a library book. i decided when i moved to ny that i'd try to get my books from the library rather than buy each and every one that i read. what use are they sitting on my shelves? they're nice to look at, but a pain in the ass when i have to move. plus you can calculate the amount of money that has been spent by looking at the number of books. every night i fall asleep surrounded by the remnants of the hundreds of dollars i've spent on paperbacks and hardcovers. when i first got my library card, i turned back my books early. i'd even request ones and come to pick them up when they arrived at the library. somewhere around thanksgiving i got out of the groove. i checked out three books, neglected to finish them, and kept them stacked in my room rather than returning them. now i'm pretty sure the NYPL will be sending some guy to slap me around in the next few weeks.

what i don't understand about this whole book borrowing business are the fees. a book costs a set amount of money. it may cost a bit more money to ship it and get it into circulation into a library, but at the end of the day, there's a final dollar amount that was spent to replace a lost book. so why can the library just keep charging people? i'm a screw-up and i know it. i'm more than willing to pay my debt to society for my indiscretions when it comes to library delinquency, but when does it stop? when do they say enough is enough, accept my debt card swipe for the book + labor + a few extra dollars and just call it even? when can i be forgiven for forgetting to return that novel from oprah's book club or the crappy sequel to 'the other boleyn girl?' at this rate, i fear that this is something i will be judged for when i die. and because of that - and the fact that i end up paying more in late fees than i would if i just bought the book - i give up. from this day forward, i'm done with the library thing. i tried - i really tried. i guess i'm not as ready for adulthood as i thought.

social suicide

2008-02-08T22:00:00.000-05:00

i am home on a friday night. i'm sitting in my pajamas (which incidentally have skiing bears and beavers on them), lounging on the couch. about 5 minutes ago, i put away the pint of haagen dazs that i've been picking at. in some circles, people would consider this a sign of the end of a long-term relationship or a pity party following my boss serving me a pink slip (side note- my favorite term for being fired is 'separation from employment'). to me, this is the ideal friday night.

i do like to go out, to see my friends, have a big dinner at a nice restaurant, stay out late at the bar - all the perks of being young and living in a big city. but really, those things come second to the enjoyment I find with just taking a night to relax. i know that probably makes me antisocial, but the fact of the matter is that without nights like this i go a little bit mad.

psychic reading

2008-02-07T21:41:00.000-05:00

a promo for channel 5 news tonight...

b-roll: footage of woman in the back of a police car

reporter: "did you predict this happening?"

"a local psychic was arrested today. details at 11."

the peanut gallery

2008-02-04T22:37:00.001-05:00

i'd like to thank the couple behind me at the movies on saturday for their commentary.
i especially liked how they spoke louder when the movie volume increased to the point that they were almost yelling.
that they didn't even try to whisper and that they expanded their conversations to things outside the realm of the theater.
i too was curious what had happened on CSI last thursday. especially given that it was a rerun - and that it's been reruns since december.
i also wondered multiple times during the movie why a character was doing what they were doing.
and recognized someone in the movie from another role but couldn't quite place him.
at least 5 times.
you may still be wondering why i was constantly turning around and glaring at you.
and why the rest of the people in my row were doing the same.
it wasn't because we thought we knew you from the subway.
or that we thought your shirt was really cute.
we really just wanted you to shut up.

i hope this note finds you well
and perhaps still pondering the movie's outcome.
because here's the thing...
if you're going to talk so loud that the better half of the theater can hear you, at least pretend to know what's going on.
or make people think that you didn't walk into the wrong movie.

Committed

2008-01-30T22:27:00.000-05:00

Am I a committed viewer or should I be committed? I've watched all 3 seasons of Lost in the past 3 1/2 weeks. That mean's i've averaged about a season a week, each of which had at least 20 hour-long episodes. (The season finales were all 2 hours long.) Granted, the writer's strike has left a wasteland of viewing options and i'm over reality TV, but I think I'm a little bit ridiculous. If only I had that dedication with working out or getting 8 hours of sleep a night. I'd probably add a few years onto my life.

No apartment (part 2)

2008-01-27T12:21:00.000-05:00

My living situation in Williamsburg was somewhat idyllic for the first 10 months. As i've described in previous blogs, S, J, and I all got along well. S wasn't quite as social as J or myself - she spent most weekends at home in her room with her boyfriend - but I'm a homebody by nature so I understood the appeal. As long as she wasn't disrupting my life in any way, she was welcome to do whatever she pleased. Even if it was weird. And involved her boyfriend hanging out at our apartment all the time in a bathrobe.

Really the only thing that bothered me about our living situation were the notes. Instead of telling us anything, S would tape up "friendly" reminders in various spots around the apartment. In the bathroom there was the "please clean out the drain after showering" and the "please hang up the mat to dry" notes, in the kitchen and living room windows there were instructions on how to lock the windows.

The drain fight is something that would always give me a good laugh. I had wavy sandy blonde hair at the time, S had long straight (dyed) black hair, while J had buzzed her head (leaving her bangs). I'll admit that probably once a month I would leave hair in the drain. I'd remember about it within 15 minutes of my shower, but by the time I went in there to take care of it, S would have already cleaned it out. (And then proceed to passive aggressively huff and puff in my direction for the next hour.) Now most people in their mid-twenties would just throw the hair away or flush it. Not S. She wanted to "teach" me a lesson. Any hair she found, she then put on display on the top of the tub, which I would promptly get rid of as soon as I saw it. Our guests didn't need to see that. The funny thing about the hair was that 99% of the time drain refuse on top of the tub it was definitely not mine. Or J's (she didn't have any hair to lose). It was black and certainly not a follicle of mine. But i wasn't about to start a war about hair. So I just took care of it and kept my mouth shut. Until S decided to kick me out of the apartment.

As I recounted in a previous entry, S decided that passive aggressive behavior should not be limited to notes - it should also be used to give roommates the boot. She took the time to independently ask me and J what our plans were for the next year, supported me in my decision to purchase a big kid bed ("because you're not moving any time soon"), and told me that she was planning on moving in with her boyfriend. What she neglected to tell me in the whole boyfriend living scenario was that I would have to be sacrificed to the craigslist gods.

Once I had suggested a friend to take her room, S realized that it was necessary to call a roommate meeting. J and I had figured out her game and it was time for everyone to sit down and talk. In the two weeks that went into finding a time for the three of us to meet, J and I had deduced the following: 1) S was kicking one of us out so that her boyfriend could move in; 2) My room was the obvious choice for her as her boyfriend needed the smaller room to store his stuff; 3) Neither of us wanted to live alone with S and her boyfriend.

The meeting began on friendly terms, but the niceness didn't last long. S started by saying that she and F had decided that their relationship had progressed to a level where they needed to live together. (This was shocking - especially since F stayed at our place every night, had a key, and was normally seen in our apartment wearing a bathrobe.) That being said, her and F had decided that he was going to move into our apartment. And that she was very sorry, but one of us needed to leave. And that there was no rush, but it needed to be done by August (it was June 8).

From there, the conversation went from awkward to ugly. J and I pointed out that we all had agreed to live at the apartment for at least a year. We were holding up our end of the bargain by being good roommates, but she couldn't just decide that one of us needed to leave. If her and F wanted to live together, they should find a nice little apartment SOMEWHERE ELSE instead of displacing someone. Also, neither of us had agreed to living with a couple, and to do that means that the single person is always going to be the odd person out in any discussion. Finally, we pointed out that it wasn't her apartment to kick us out, even if she had been rearranging the furniture and leaving us notes everywhere. In the end, I just didn't have it in me to fight. I said I'd move out ASAP. S had created a hostile living situation and I didn't want to be a part of it. I'd be out definitely by August, but maybe even July.

This entire dialogue was also probably transcribed by F, who was "hanging out" in S' room during this whole conversation. I really wish he would have transcribed it. Then we would have evidence that I said July. And that S said this was fine. As it happened, I found an apartment no less than two weeks later. No one was home when I got back to my place. There was no way of knowing when we all would be in the same room - especially since we all had been avoiding each other. I wrote up a nice email to both J and S, letting them know that I had found a place and my stuff would be all out of the apartment by July 1. I'd take care of canceling the cable, leave my share for the utilities in June, and just needed to know the protocol on how we would need to proceed on getting my security deposit back. It KILLED me to write that letter. I wanted to insert swear words and mean comments after every sentence, but I didn't. I probably should have, because S' response opened with the following:

"It's great that you found a place, but as per New York City housing laws/common courtesy, you must give 30 days notice before moving out of an apartment in order to receive your security deposit."

That was one of the few moments in my life where I came close to punching a wall (a la Andy in 'The Office' when Jim takes his phone and hides it in the ceiling). I decided that it was best to not write anything, just wait until I got home and talked to her about it in person. Most of this was out of maturity, but I really think part of it was that I didn't trust myself to send an email back that wouldn't be flagged by our IT department at work for the number of obscenities. Luckily, S wrote me again later that day saying that this was probably a conversation that we should have in person. Given the responses I had dreamed up and the suggestions my coworkers were providing me with, this was really a good idea.

That night, S and I had our little chat. She opened the conversation by saying she couldn't believe I could do this to her. F was apparently still on his lease through July and she didn't understand how I didn't think about this when setting up a new place to live. I countered with pointing out that I had told her July was a possibility, and that I needed to do whatever was necessary to get out of the apartment and be in a good place before she kicked my butt to the curb. It wasn't my concern that F didn't have his stuff ready - they should have thought of that before they kicked people out - plus all I wanted was my security deposit back. I was not willing to pay for his stuff to occupy my room for a month. S told me I was being unreasonable and that I couldn't imagine how it felt to get an email saying that someone was moving out without giving proper notice. I was being inconsiderate to others.

I had held myself together well and was polite until that second. The rest of our conversation went somewhat like this:

Me: "Yeah, I have a good idea how that feels. It feels a ^%&^% lot nicer than when your roommate tells you she's kicking you out so that her boyfriend's band equipment can have a room."
S: "You know F has to be by the L train so he can go to band practice"
Me: "F is a big boy. He could transfer trains if he had to like the rest of us do for our jobs. It's not even about the money anymore. You can have it. Fine. I'll pay for F to keep his guitar in my room for a month. All I'm saying is that if anyone is being inconsiderate in this situation it's you. All I'd like at this point is for you to acknowledge that you are the one being discourteous. I cannot even FATHOM how I ended up the bad guy in this. That i'm the one not upholding COMMON COURTESY. I hope you and F have a wonderful, boring life together in your little apartment."

That marked the one and only time in my life where i've actually told someone off. I packed up my things the following week and left that place as soon as I could move into my new one. The day I moved out, F was already moving his stuff in. He didn't even wait until I was gone.

The moral of this story is to stick with amateur burlesque show winners/tap dancing kazoo players like J. Those are the roommates that remain friends for life. (Making sure that you're on a lease is a close second in the morals department.) The S' of the world end up sharing a tiny apartment with their boyfriends and wearing bathrobes all day. J told me after I moved out that I missed an unfortunate incident where F accidentally flashed her due to a wardrobe malfunction. I'm glad I got out when I did.

i've got a knock-knock joke for you

2008-01-16T22:15:00.000-05:00

will ferrell's "landlord" skit on youtube may exploit children, but it is pretty funny. with each day that passes, i wish more and more that pearl was my landlord. she may be 2 years old, but i often think that she has more sense than my landlord. since i moved in last summer, we've been lobbying for a new door for our apartment building. the old door was a push lock, so it was often left open by forgetful tenants or visitors.

one night, my roommate woke-up at 3am to sounds right outside our door. at first she assumed that it was a couple having a little fun before they headed into their own apartment. turns out it was a homeless man who passed out right in front of the door to our apartment - not the building door - our apartment door. it happened that she was the only one home, so she called on the cops, the landlord, and a giant butcher knife. all that divided her from the homeless guy was our thin door that we were also waiting on a replacement for.

somehow after that incident in october, he waited until two weeks ago to get our door fixed. (this was despite my roommates talking to him routinely about this.) the door replacement started mid-morning on a saturday. i knew we were in trouble when the carpenters left the door wide open that night since the job wasn't quite finished. as a solution, they turned off the lights in the foyer. (cause burglars are scared of the dark?) i should also note that i use the term 'carpenters' loosely. i haven't quite figured out if these guys are friends of my landlord, or just dudes who owe him favors. whatever the case, it's clear that the people that he 'hires' for handiwork should not be called professionals.

when the door was ready 2 days later the landlord dropped off keys for those who were home. instead of calling, emailing, texting, writing, he just stopped by your apartment and left them with whoever was home. this meant that 1/2 of our building was locked out when they came home for work in the afternoon. i was lucky enough to have a roommate who works from home so i didn't have any trouble, but the poor girl spent most of her workday letting people in and out of the building. (the new door wasn't hooked up to the buzzer system, so she had to get up and let everyone in.) it's quite obvious that the new door doesn't quite fit the framing, but it was an improvement from the old clubhouse door that we had prior.

i made it home from work tonight around 8:30. i had stopped at the store on my way home and picked up a few things to make for dinner. i sort of had to pee when i left work, but figured i could hold it until i made it home. the commute's close to 50 minutes, but once i had my jacket on i didn't want to have to take the time to do my business in manhattan. so here i am with a full bladder and my groceries. it's freezing and nearing 9pm. i put down my groceries in front of our building door to fish my keys out of my messenger bag. i try to turn my key in the door and nothing happens. it moves a little bit, but won't budge more than a cm each way. i jiggle the key around, try it three different ways, and count to three before moving on to a string of four-letter words. i try buzzing every one of the 6 apartments in our building but no one answers. i continue alternating buzzing doors with jiggling the lock for the next 15 minutes or so. finally i start calling my roommates. i assume no one is home (i've rang the bell now about 5 times), but don't see the harm in giving it a try. turns out one of my roommates was napping. she comes out and tries to let me in, but now the door won't budge from the inside. she's now stuck INSIDE the apartment. after playing with the lock for another few minutes, she tries to find another person in the building who may be able to help us out. no one's around, so she gives up and tries once again to let me in. (i REALLY have to pee now.) finally something in the door moves and she's able to open it. we call the landlord, who calls a locksmith, who claims he fixed the door. i haven't left my apartment since then and i fear the worst when i try to leave tomorrow morning. i've never tried to scale my backyard fence but tomorrow may be the day to do it. if i don't make it into work tomorrow, you'll know why.

what almost kills you makes you older

2008-01-15T23:04:00.000-05:00

i used to be a good swimmer. if you would have asked me this morning if i was a good swimmer, the answer would still have been "yes". i swam competitively for 12 years, and to this day still hold a record or two around the city i grew up in . i don't announce this to brag about my so-called glory days, but to give a reference of what used to be. no longer, my friend, no longer. today i embarked on my first journey to the pool for laps since 2005. I decided to start out "easy" - 1000 yards. I used to swim about 10,000 yards a day - 1000 seemed like a decent number. 40 lengths. Nothing extravagant, but something to get the blood flowing. I started out strong. I felt as in shape as i did in high school. At least for the first 3 lengths. I wear two bracelets on my right hand from a friend visiting Africa. By lap 4 it felt like my bracelets had been replaced by that friend hanging onto my wrist. My arms dragged as I tried to slice through the water, I felt every kick in my ankles, knees, and pores of my skin. I survived those 40 lengths, but just barely. As a kid, i remember laughing at the adults as they tried to keep up with our practices while they were in the lap lanes. Tonight I joined the ranks of the old people - I even had trouble getting out of the pool.

clap for me!

2008-01-10T22:42:00.000-05:00

I try to avoid using the word "hate" but it fits into my vocabulary more than i would like. sometimes i use it for emphasis in the same way that i sometimes use f*** as an adjective. it creeps in there, i don't mean it literally, but alas my grammar is imperfect and i say that i hate something when i don't actually do, just dislike it. f*** is the same way. it gives a sentence a nice little UMPH that you just can't get by using "darn" or "stupid".

there are those few things in the world that i actually hate. downright despise them. and one of those things is people clapping at movies. i CANNOT stand it. i can't explain why, but i actually sometimes shudder when it happens.

here i am enjoying the final moments of solitude in the movie theater. my popcorn or milk duds (perhaps even both) are gone, i've successfully escaped the real world for a few hours. then it begins. the overemotional lady in the third row (center) starts it. pretty soon the whole theater is in on it. are they clapping for the projectionist? maybe the guys who come in after the movie to clean up the popcorn? no. my theory is that the movie clappers are clapping for themselves. "Yay for me - I watched a movie!!" It has to stop. clap after a symphony. clap for the girl who gets a perfect score in the 10m diving competition. but please do not clap for Tom Cruise after he's played himself (but named Ethan or Jerry or Charlie or even Maverick) for the past 2 hours. he's not there to hear it.

Nerd Alert

2008-01-08T22:14:00.000-05:00

My friend and I had a bet last year regarding Dick Cheney. We won (though in our minds truly lost) if we could find one person who legitimately liked him. She maintained that he is the most unlikable guy on the planet. I agreed with her. Until NYTimes had an expose on a little girl (i think she was 6) from wyoming who was OBSESSED. She compared his voting records and collected his campaign buttons. She followed him like she would her favorite character from sesame street. Now that the Bush administration's reign is coming to a close, I hoped that those dark days were behind us. Cheney could go back to his bunker, Bush to Connecticut (he's from New Haven, not Crawford folks). And then came the primaries. And the Republican nominees.

I have full faith that the Dems can take back the White House, but I really can't figure out where the Republicans are going with this election. No matter where it goes, I'm glued to my TV right now. It's not for the NFL Playoffs or the latest episode of Project Runway. It's for the New Hampshire caucus. I can't get enough. It's sort of sick if you think about it. It's not like in football where a play that determines the winner. I'm literally at the edge of my seat while a computer tallies up votes that were filled out hours ago, for a final vote that will take place 10 months from now. But I don't care. I'm loving every second of it.

Except for Huckabee. Why do people like this guy? It fascinates me. Tonight I told my coworkers that I'm giving notice that I'll leave the country if he wins. I just don't understand how so many in this country can get behind him. The dude from Law and Order, fine. Maybe you caught a marathon on TNT or you saw him in "Hunt for Red October". There's a face recognition there. BUT HUCKABEE?? I went to his website in hope to get a little bit of insight. I'd like to think that most of the citizens in this country have a brain in their head. That they think things through. They may not agree with me all the time, but at least there's a logical stream of thought in their ideas. But then there's Huckabee...

He has all the benchmarks the conservatives that have taken the forefront in the new breeds of Republican superstars. Huckabee is a faithful churchgoer, pro-life, and he's all about "winning" in Iraq. These are all points that I happen to disagree on, but that's par for the course. HOWEVER, his major selling point seems to be his ignorance (i believe "everyman" is the term used to describe him) and lacks the trail of controversy that follows Romney and Giuliani (flip-floppers) or McCain (ALL war-talk, all the time). For Huckabee, i'm tempted to hone in on my favorite liberal rants - stem cells, abortion, terrorism - but I've decided to take it another, less-traveled direction: immigration. His views on this aren't unlike his conservative counterparts, but while I'm on my soapbox I'll get down to the nitty gritty details...

Huckabee has what he calls "The Secure America Plan - A 9-Point Strategy for Immigration Enforcement and Border Security" [Sidebar - all of this info is from his website, except the brackets of course].

1. Build the Fence - a literal fence and camera system around our borders [THIS WILL ALSO BECOME BRAVO'S NEWEST REALITY SERIES, PROJECT INFILTRATION]
2. Increase Border Patrol - more border agents [SO THAT MORE PEOPLE CAN PREVENT 17 YEAR OLDS FROM SNEAKING INTO CANADA TO BUY BEER]
3. Prevent Amnesty - "Policies that promote or tolerate amnesty will be rejected" [DO NOT SHOW WEAKNESS]
4. Enforce the Law on Employers - penalties and fines for employers of illegal immigrants, prevent IRT/SSA from accepting fraudulent SSN's
5. Establish an Economic Border - "Move toward passage of the FairTax. The FairTax provides an extra layer of security by creating an economic disincentive to immigrate to the U.S. illegally." [I'M WILLING TO BET THAT THIS ECONOMIC BORDER WILL ALSO INCLUDE GUNS]
6. Empower Local Authorities - promote cooperation on law enforcement and encourage local police training to turn in illegal immigrants [THIS SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING THE MOB WOULD UNDERTAKE.]
7. Ensure Document Security - no more "matricula consular" cards and do not allow exemptions for the US-VISIT program. [THEY SHOULD HAVE TIME WARNER SET THIS UP - THEY RUN THE TIGHTEST SHIP I'VE EVER SEEN WHEN IT COMES TO BILLING]
8. Discourage Dual Citizenship - Inform foreign governments when their former citizens become naturalized U.S. citizens. [WILL THIS ALSO COUNT AGAINST PEOPLE IN HAWAII AND ALASKA?]
9. Modernize the Process of Legal Immigration - "increase visas for highly skilled and highly-educated applicants" and "improve immigration process so that those patiently and responsibly seeking to come here legally will not have to wait decades to share in the American dream." [YES, KIDS. THE AMERICAN DREAM ONLY HOLDS TRUE FOR SKILLED AND HIGHLY-EDUCATED APPLICANTS.]

So basically, once the 9 points are enacted, we can look forward to martial law and isolation and landscaping with barbed wire fences. This will probably go over well, especially since we'll have no civil liberties. Have no fear though, the sanctity of marriage will be saved.

In this day and age, it's not surprising that a stream of emotions can lose a candidacy (Howard Dean) and supporting role on a TV show can put you in the mix (Fred "I Think I'll Run for President" Thompson). But how can an "everyman" like Huckabee be revered? I understand the need to want a guy who is in touch with the people. Bill Clinton is a self-proclaimed hick (he said it when I saw him speak in college), but he's also an incredibly intelligent and articulate man who just happens to have started his political career in the exact same position as Huckabee. This standard of intelligence cannot be held to the man who has said that people with AIDS should be "quarantined". I'd like to think we want someone running our country that is more intelligent than the average person. They don't necessarily have to be richer, but smarter would be nice.

crappy music

2008-01-06T17:10:00.000-05:00

i'm a big believer in spreading knowledge. if there's a band i like, i tell everyone about it. same goes for movies and random current events/entertainment news. half the time i'm sure it comes off as me being a know it all, but i just like to keep everyone in the loop. one thing i do not appreciate though, is loud music. it's one thing to tell your friends about your new favorite cd, it's an entirely different issue to blast it at them and make them listen.

my neighbor downstairs has been blasting music ALL afternoon. it's so loud that it makes my room shake. it'd be one thing if it were good music, but for the most part it's terrible. there are a few stevie wonder songs (good stuff), but it's mainly lionel ritchie's "hello" and what i think is captain and tenille. ("hello" is the song that had the music video with the blind sculptress who managed to make a bust of lionel of lifesize proportions. his geri curl in the bust was even more defined than in the video.)

this is a plea for all those who blast music from their open car windows and shooting through their apartment walls. i know you don't need the music that loud. if you want me to pick up the cd, just suggest it to me. i refuse to admire anyone's musical taste when it's preventing me from thinking clearly.

be better

2008-01-05T16:15:00.000-05:00

last year for new year's, my friends and i submitted our resolutions into a notebook at 2:30am. while they weren't the most articulate or well-thought out, at the very least our resolutions were honest. this year, i have the following resolutions:

1. get at least 7 hours of sleep per night
2. cook a meal at least once a week
3. drink no more than three drinks on a "school" night
4. work out three times a week
5. avoid using the word, 'like' in any other context than 'such as'
6. put a portion of each paycheck into my savings account

we'll see how i do. 2008's goals a much more quantitative than 2007, so at least i can mark my progress.

underage thinking

2007-12-30T12:04:00.000-05:00

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!!

2007-12-18T00:29:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-14T22:17:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-14T00:59:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-13T00:05:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-12-10T19:34:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-09T20:23:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-09T18:33:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-06T23:51:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-04T00:57:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-01T21:57:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-01T01:06:00.001-05:00

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.

A Guide to Trashy TV

2007-11-28T22:01:00.000-05:00

Since i spend my days researching TV, I try to occupy my time outside of work with reading, writing, exercising - things that are somewhat productive. Or at least I aspire to. There are plenty of nights where I hunker down in front of my tiny TV and waste away the hours staring in its direction. I'm just too damn tired to be productive. Sadly, my current cable package doesn't afford me the glorious evenings I once had with old movies on TMC, Top Chef, Project Runway, or Entourage. Until I'm able to sacrifice my first-born child to Time Warner and provide a sworn affidavit in blood, I'm stuck with the fare on the most basic cable. After 10 years of obsessing over "Law and Order" reruns when I need to just veg, I've transitioned to the slippery slope of reality television. Now before I go any further, I should preface this. I slowly feel my IQ seeping out of my soul with every viewing of "Celeb-reality", but feel it's necessary to share with the world a few insights to the world of trashy television. I fully suppot the writers and their plight, but sometimes it's necessary to watch a few hours with some seriously dysfunctional fame-seekers to really put your life into perspective. Here (in no particular order) are my favorite shows that I probably shouldn't admit to liking:

- Gossip Girl: XOXO! This show couldn't be different than my high school experience, but somehow this show has completely knocked Criminal Minds out of my regular rotation. I guarantee i'll go through burnout and ditch it in season 2 (probably when it is revealed that serena's dad impregnated dan's mom and they're actually siblings), but wow has it been fun while it's lasted.

- The Bachelor: It's not truly trashy television in the Joe Millionaire sense of the word, but it's mind-numbing in its own right. The men seemingly get worse each season. This year, the guy chose NEITHER of the girls. I feel bad for ABC. Here they are trying to make a show for all the hopeful romantics who get their ass kicked by love and this jackass doesn't even like either of them enough to pretend to date them after the show.

- Kenny vs. Spenny: The meat eating contest was pure genius. It's rare to see that sort of creativity in reality tv competitions.

- Shot of Love with Tila Tequila: A bisexual whose fame stems from having the most friends on myspace, Tila's show is a mix of bar fights, meltdowns, and challenges involving physical activity. I will admit that this is certainly the trashiest show I watch, but the lack of viable shows in my cable package on Tuesday nights has certainly lowered my standards. Plus I'm really rooting for Dani the firefighter to win Tila over.

- The Hills: LC is a completely likeable person. She may live in a psuedo-scripted world, but I don't care. She somehow has risen above her insane friends. I often hope that Heidi's robot head will headbutt Spencer at some point in the season, but more than anything I hope that this fame-mongering pair won't be included in Season 4.

-Rock of Love with Bret Michaels: Sadly the reunion show divulged how quickly Bret abandoned the courtship of Jes, but I thought the aging rocker was pretty endearing (though not extremely bright). Despite my appreciation, I won't be watching season 2 - i think there's something unjust about having multiple seasons to help the same person find their "true love" on VH1 (aka telegenic, bubbly, and probably somewhat unstable match with a hot body).

It worries me that I can pontificate on this at will. I could write a whole rant about how the republican debate on wednesday panned out, but I'll save that for another night. Anyway, you're probably going to check what's on VH1 now.

A desperate plea

2007-11-27T00:27:00.000-05:00

Transcribed from a voicemail left by my sister, Friday, November 23 at 9:23pm:

"Mom won't let me listen to the radio and we still have 10 more minutes left in our drive and i don't want to talk to her. So I'm leaving you this message. Please call me back in the next 10 minutes."

Ah, the joys of living across the country.

Turkey Weekend Pt 2 - You have just died from giardia

2007-11-25T23:13:00.000-05:00

The cabin was a 0.9 mile hike from our car. We brought only the essentials on our journey - sleeping bags, clean underwear, and a few cases of beer (there were other important items too, but nothing worth explaning further). The area surrounding the cabin was absolutely stunning. Hardcore backpackers and families alike frequent the area - impossible hikes and slow winding paths wrap for miles upon mile across the virginian "wilderness".

We really lucked out. The leaves were still contemplating seasons and varied in their shades of brown, and the temperatures had yet to reach the subzero digits that I'm accustomed to facing on turkey weekend. Our cabin was located in a spot i fondly call, "Little House on the Prairie-ville". It was in the middle of a small clearing on the top of a slightly-slanted hill. Our front porch housed a little stone fireplace and table, which was unfortunately a little too welcoming to weary travelers who would park themselves in front of our cabin, unaware (or ignoring) that we had rented the place for the weekend. The inside of the cabin was surprisingly roomy. We had a wood burning stove, four bunk beds, and a giant table in the middle of the room. The outhouse of death (the smell will haunt my dreams for weeks) was a minute down the path, and a spring on the bottom of the hill provided us with water for cooking and any beverages that didn't include booze.

One major item we were without was electricity. The windows in the cabin plus the doorway gave us some extra light during the day, but at night we lit our room using candles (and ocassionally turned on the lantern when playing a round of flip cup). The darkness caused us to make it until 11:30 each night. When it gets pitch black at 7pm, it's hard to tell the difference between 10pm or 3am. Our main source of entertainment when hanging out in the cabin was a homemade version of oregon trail i created using a deck of cards. The game was complete with such gems as "Joker - You have just died from dysentary. Finish your drink." or "10 - Civil War breaks out. Round of flip cup ensues." There were only really two things i feared during the weekend - ending up face to face with a bear and getting giardia. It's all fun and games until someone gets a gastrointestinal virus.

Turkey Weekend Pt 1 - Manassus is for lovers...and shotguns

2007-11-25T22:51:00.000-05:00

I spent Thanksgiving day in Washington, D.C with my friends Tracy (girl) and Casey (boy). We celebrated as any other person in their mid-twenties does when they live on the opposite coast as their families: watched football, drank beer (wine with dinner), and got the turkey for 3 from boston market. Tracy bumped us up a notch by making scalloped corn and three-bean casserole, but admittedly none of us is quite ready to baste a bird all morning or whip up some gravy during halftime. This was my first endeavor with Boston Market and let me tell you - I was impressed. Granted the corn bread could have been a little more crumbly, but all in all it was a meal well done.

Friday morning we set out for the Shenandoah Mtns. Casey rented a cabin for a few nights and the three of us were spending the first night by ourselves before 5 others joined us for the second night in the wilderness.

Hour 1, day 1, we're on our way out of D.C. We stop for gas in a town called Manassus. While Casey's inside the station, we notice a truck parked about 2 spaces away from us with three men hanging outside of it. Presumably, the three friends are on their way back from hunting. Orange hats. Cammo pants. A gun sitting shotgun outside their monster truck. There's a sticker on the back passenger window, "Southern-style", depicting an extremely flexible woman on all fours, covered by a confederate flag. Real porn enthusiast stuff. The guy closest to us has blood on his pants from his knees to his ankles. Just before they leave, Casey sees them drop a bag of deer entrails in the garbage. They hop into the truck, tear out of the parking lot, squealing their tires as they pull away. Welcome to appalachia.

Did You Hear What the Crazy Lady Did?

2007-11-20T22:24:00.001-05:00

My sister and I call my mom "the crazy lady". It's an endearing label, one we bestowed upon her after years of her hilarious behavior. Most kids through go through a stage in their lives when their parents are an embarrassment. I never hit that stage in my life and have always loved mom's company. I think she's slightly offended by the nickname, but we've assured her repeatedly that if she actually were crazy, we'd just smile and nod rather than call her crazy to her face.

This morning I received a call from the crazy lady at work. Sadly, there was a deadly fire in the house next to my sister's place from last year. An alderman in the area went on record saying that the college kids living there should have done a better job keeping their apartment and in working order, somewhat insinuating that the kids were to blame for the blaze. Mom was so pissed about it that she sat down and wrote a letter to the alderman. She told him how wrong he was, asking where the landlord was when this was all going on. The alderman was so taken with her letter that he passed it onto the local college newspaper that had interviewed him about the fire. Last night at 11:30, she received a phone call from a reporter from the paper. He asked to reprint an excerpt from her letter and use her name in his article for today. Fearful that my sister would face repercussions from her landlord or friends depending on the tone of the article, mom asked for her name to be withheld, but agreed to the use of her letter. (This ended up being an unnecessary precaution - my sister has been sharing the article with everyone after it was printed.) Today the article was featured in the Badger Herald:

http://badgerherald.com/news/2007/11/20/bedford_street_blaze.php

The reporter dubbed the Crazy Lady, "Carolyn".

What impresses me most about this situation is not my mom's words, it's her course of action. She was angry, wrote an email, and ended up in the paper the next day. The alderman - to his credit - not only read her rant, but even passed it along to the masses. In an ideal world, this is how the political process should work. A citizen takes action and their representatives react. It's unfortunate to see its efficiency under such tragic circumstances.