quarantined

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

 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

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.