Wednesday, June 29, 2005

linkydinks

*If you ever find yourself being attacked by a leopard while tending your potato and bean crops in rural Kenya, put down your machete and rip its tounge out.

*With his obvious insanity and recent criticism of psychiatry, Tom Cruise has joined Mel Gibson on my growing list of male "heartthrob" celebrities whose movies I intend to avoid for the rest of my days. This fictitious debate between Tom and the American Psychiatric Association is a hilarious and concise summary of the idiocy. [via Gawker]

*Although I have had no need for birth control of any sort for over three months (my God...THREE MONTHS!!) it is good to know that New York is on my side, as opposed to my former state of residence.

mark your territory

One summer back in college, I convinced a couple of high school friends to come visit me for a weekend. It was about 99 degrees on average then, and one of my friends, Sheila, hadn't been feeling so well. Nevertheless, Sheila insisted on walking around Central Park until we found the big white bridge and wanted to visit the Metropolitan Museum afterwards. We never did find the damn bridge, but we did drag our increasingly green-faced friend through several wings of the Met. Given Sheila's dramatic tendencies, we ignored her proclamations of sickness until she slumped to the floor in what can only be described as a swoon. We scooped her up and made a mad dash for the entrance, terrified that she'd throw up on a Rodin. We made it to the entrance all right, where Sheila proceeded to vomit the previous night's Asian Fusion all over the grand middle doorway at the top of the steps. She was mortified (though probably less so than the arriving museum patrons) until I told her that, hey, if you're going to puke in public, it might as well be in the main entrance of the main museum of one of the main cities in the world. Score one for Sheila!

Why did I tell you that story? Well, aside from the fact that it is one of the best things I've ever seen, I had my own Sheila moment last evening. Friend E invited me to an opening at her new place of work, another major NYC art museum. Probably not the greatest idea, since free wine and I get along a little too well. We were having a lovely time pondering the gofugyourself.com-worthy fashion choices of the attendees (red, white, and black horizontally striped socks with a red, white, and black diagonally striped sweater? seriously??) when I decided I needed a cigarette. We guzzled down our second plastic cupfulls of cheap chardonnay and proceeded out the front entrance. On our way back in through the revolving doors, as I stepped aside for E to go in first I tragically misjudged my distance from the doorway. Before I knew what was happening I was hopping through the doors on one leg, motioning for E to keep going. One of the doors had run right over my bare big toe, leaving a puddle of blood in the footbed of my cute sandal and a trail of droplets from the museum entrance to the ladies room. Thanks to the wine and a certain degree of shock, it didn't really hurt and I amused the little bathroom ladies by laughing uncontrollably as my mangled digit soaked through paper towel after paper towel. I still haven't quite discerned what the damage is, since I've only been brave enough to change the original bandaid once. What I do know is that the door sliced straight through my toenail and 24 hours later it's still bleeding. Needless to say, I think the Museum left more of a mark on me than I did on it. Score one for the Museum.

humble pie

I've been back in New York City for almost a month now, and I have yet to earn a penny. Given my psychological history and the reality of my financial situation, I should be a lot more depressed than I currently am.

Last night, shortly after my employment analysis, I found myself wide awake around 3 a.m. I checked the New York Times TV listings and, while encouraged that Dr. Phil received a star for "recommended series," I was discouraged to see that there were no Blind Date, Elimidate, or Cheaters-type programs to be found. There was, however, Sister Wendy: American Collection on PBS.

I had a minor obsession with Sister Wendy in high school and had since forgotten her. For the uninitiated, she is an elderly South African/Scottish nun with an inspirational appreciation for the visual arts. I grew up Catholic and had relatives in the nun business, and Sister Wendy, with her amazing buck teeth, weird accent, and inability to pronounce the letter "R" is truly something special. In her analysis of varied works of art, she directs the viewer to intricacies that in a casual museum breeze-through one would never see, and she describes her emotional reactions to each piece in compelling detail.

Between Sister Wendy, the subsequent program about Robert Frost's necessary stint as a farmer, and the Science Times blurb about a 100-MILLION-YEAR-OLD daddy long legs preserved in a piece of amber, I embraced Dr. Phil's advice to GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELF. Though it might not feel like it right now, the fact that I am even agonizing over how to pursue a fulfilling career is a luxury, and being able to have thousands of dollars of credit card debt is something that 99.99% of earthly beings are never afforded. Because, of course, if the Somalians could wear Marc by Marc Jacobs the world woudld be a better place.

Monday, June 27, 2005

adventures in employment

So I'm back to being job-free again. I'm not surprised that Chichi Soho Hotel didn't keep me on after a few trails, because, while I can fake being fake long enough to impress during a five minute interview, I can't pretend to be "polished" for a whole five hour shift. And, hey, they thought I looked good enough to wear short shorts and serve $15 cocktails to really really famous people, so I consider the whole endeavor a minor success. However, now I am no longer delusional about my ability to secure traditional employment. Since making a list of all my past quasi-things was such a resounding success in solving my relationship issues (*snort*) let's take a look at my 13-year work history and see if we can find the problem(s).

*Babysitter. At age 11 I took a babysitting course at the local library and received my CPR certification. I watched kids for quite a few families (mostly acquaintances of my parents) over the years, and pretty much sucked at it. As I've mentioned, I'm not really a kid-oriented person, and I also had a knack for falling asleep on the couch just as the parents would come home. There was only one family for whom I did a good job, and it was because their kids were a rare breed that I got along with, and the parents would leave us money to go to the movies and order Kentucky Fried Chicken. Since they were awesome and smart, they soon moved away to a big city and left me jobless for a few years.

*Telephone Cheese Sales Representative. In my first job on the books, I answered the telephone for a renowned Central Wisconsin-based purveyor of cheese and really ugly shit. I got paid $5.50 an hour to sit in front of an archaic computer for eight hours at a time and either answer the phones or, when they weren't ringing, familiarize myself with the paper catalog. It was utter torture and I quit as soon as the busy holiday gift-giving season was over, when folks across the country were calling to complain about the untimely shipment of their cheese logs and Precious Moments figurines.

*Medical Office Assistant. The summer after high school graduation my mom got me a full-time job in the private facility in which she was a physical therapist. My duties largely consisted of mindless filing and envelope-licking, and I would finish extremely quickly and then fall asleep at my desk. Even though I was constantly asking for more work to do in order to stay awake, I got a good talking to by the head doctor (whose kids I no longer babysat.) Finally they started sending me downstairs to do transcription (80 wpm, baby!) and organize boxes of old files, and we were all much happier campers.

*Coffee Shop Counterperson (Barrista is a stupid word.) This is one of the few jobs upon which I often look back fondly. Though the cafe was located in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Manhattan (at the time--said cafe was a gentrification pioneer) and I had to walk alone between there and the gated loveliness of Columbia at either 5:45 a.m. or 11:30 p.m., it was great because the work involved actually producing something, even if it was just annoying beverages and sandwiches; I made up for my paltry $7 wage by eating and or/taking with me two meals a day; and, most significantly, I either worked alone or with just one other person. Never quite got the hang of the cash register, though.

*Library Assistant. I didn't get enough hours at the coffee shop that summer so I also worked in the “Reserves” portion of the campus library. The “Reserves” portion is, um, reserved for books and readings that professors reserve for classes, and, since there's not much going on class-wise during the summer, the job involved a lot of sleeping in the back room. Not surprisingly, I don't remember too much else about this job.

*Doggy Daycare Provider. The next year I got my dream summer job. Essentially, I was paid to take care of 50-100 dogs at a time, instruct illegal immigrant Mexican workers to clean up the mierda, por favor, ogle the hot illegal Brazilian immigrant walkers of the in-house dog walking service, and work with some interesting folks, my favorite of which was a woman in her late 30's who was married to the Fifth Avenue plastic surgeon who'd done her boob job. The work was extremely messy and smelly and sweaty, and on my last shift I was badly bitten by an enormous beast of a canine, but it was a good time, overall. Still, I'd never do it again.

*Teaching Assistant. My junior year I applied for and got a Teaching Assistantship for my favorite class to that point. This meant that I got to take the class again, only I didn't have to take notes or exams and I got paid very well. I enjoyed having the power to write and grade the tests, and having my peers come groveling to me with hopes of better grades was totally weird but not at all unenjoyable. The downside, of course, was that I could no longer get away with sleeping in class, and also it was kind of embarrassing when it was MY cell phone that went off during the midterm.

*Computer Lab Assistant. The next semester I continued receiving the aforementioned great pay by working in the department computer lab. The lab was located in a remote corner of the level below the basement in the psychology building, and after a few shifts of sitting around in a totally empty room, I decided to show up very late and/or leave very early, and I eventually stopped showing up at all. This worked wonderfully until some sort of meeting was scheduled there during a shift for which I did not come to unlock the room. Amazingly, I got scolded but not fired, and I had to spend the latter, prettier part of Spring '02 20 feet underground.

*Dog Walker. That summer I called the ol' doggy daycare and requested to be a walker and only a walker. This was awesome because I worked entirely by myself, I got to see lots of bajillion dollar apartments, and dogs are far less annoying when there's just one to three of them. Early on I almost got fired for oversleeping by four hours after getting incredibly wasted with a band the night before, but I somehow managed to walk eight hours worth of dogs in four hours and was able to spend the rest of the summer destroying my knees, sweating my ass off, and picking up rich doggie poo. I am strongly considering being a dog walker again.

*Admissions Office Assistant. On a tip from Fat Asian Baby, I spent my senior year working in the Undergraduate Admissions Office. As mentioned in a prior post, it was unbelievably easy to fudge one's timesheet, so I once again got paid pretty well for doing very little. My boss was a hilarious Caribbean dude with two lazy eyes, and the work consisted of organizing and opening application materials. This provided ample fodder for joking around with my equally delinquent work study buddies, and it made me want to kick myself for worrying so much about my own chances for admission back in high school.

*Research Assistant. Senior spring, I was only taking two classes so I decided to take a second job. It was a temporary position for a psychology study being conducted way the hell uptown. My job was pretty much limited to filing and tracking down missing study participants, and I was jealous of the full-time assistants who got to call people and ask them a long series of really invasive personal questions. My boss was a cold, uptight lesbian, and, even though the office was casual, she scolded me for wearing a shirt that sometimes showed my bra strap and a sweater that sometimes showed a sliver of my lower abdominal region. I neither quit nor got fired, but, like many a Quasi-Thing, we just stopped calling each other.

*Bond Sales Assistant. Aaah, my first Real Job! Through a connection I acquired a position at JPMorganStanleyGoldmanStearnsBrothersBank&Co.,Inc. I sat in front of four computer screens at a desk on a trading floor for 10 hours a day and didn't do a whole lot, other than read blogs and blog. Because I respected my boss and got paid a lot and didn't have any better ideas, and also because no one there asked or expected me to do a lot, I lasted for over a year. I was almost fired when I freaked out one Saturday morning, boarded a plane for Wisconsin, and called my boss on Monday saying I'd be out for a week. After a stern scolding from an evil HR lady, I decided it would be best to move on, since I knew I could never think of the position as a "career, not a job."

*Marketing Assistant. Needing something else quickly and not knowing what I wanted to do, I signed on with a temp agency. I was placed at an entertainment company that had some good perks like the ability to listen to music out loud all day and free coffee and pretzles. I got my very own cubicle and quickly earned the trust of my bosses, for whom I shuffled around paper and sent emails and made spreadsheets of really boring stuff. This was a gross mistake on their part, as the sparkles soon wore off and I started doing less and less work, to the point where I pretty much did nothing at all, which was perpetuated by the fact that all the bosses were constantly away at conferences. One night I got a voicemail from the temp agency saying they'd "no longer be needing my services," and when I snuck in to retrieve my gym clothes the next day, I felt very, very sorry for the pour soul who had to sort through the disorganized mounds of unfinished work in my cubicle. And by very, very sorry I mean more amused than actually sorry.

*Waitress. This job rocked, for the most part. Since a friend of a friend had hooked up with someone at the restaurant, I got a coveted position in the Ithaca Collegetown scene. I'm not naturally very good at waitressing and after a week of training I was sure they'd let me go, but things improved to the point where the management even complimented me on several occasions. Many of the coworkers were in the same lost stage of life as I was (am,) I got to get drunk while working, and I enjoyed the hectic physical labor and small, family-like atmosphere. If I could find something similar in NYC I'd be a waitress again and would probably be ok at it, but that's not looking so good, since none of my friends have slept with any employees of hip yet laidback restaurants lately.

So what have we learned from all of this? Much like my dealings with dudes, I don't like most jobs and fuck up grandly when I try to stick them out, and the jobs I do like and idealize either aren't suited to me or have no long-term potential. Of course, dudes can easily be replaced altogether with a nice vibrator, but a vibrator will not pay my rent. And with that brilliant sentence, I am off to try to fall asleep before the sun comes up.

Friday, June 24, 2005

hang the dj

Much fun has been made of the "art" of DJ-ing, but tonight I learned that it is the DJ who has the last laugh. I just finished trailing for my first evening shift at Chichi Hotel, and a DJ came in to "work" for three hours. During this time she bopped her head a little, talked on her cell phone, and stood behind the sound equipment (no turntables that I was aware of) looking cute. For this arduous task she gets compensated $300, $50 in food and alcohol which she can consume while working, and drink tickets for her friends. Meanwhile, the waitstaff scurries around in the required high heels for eight to ten hours and typically makes half that amount, minus the extra goodies. Perhaps it's time to rethink my career plans...

Thursday, June 23, 2005

nightclubbin'

I love it when I "discover" a not-so-new blog and it's so good I have to read all the archives. If you want to dispose of several hours of your workday, I recommend Clublife, the chronicles of a bouncer at a New York nightclub and the Guido idiocy that ensues there on a nightly basis.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

it's official

I am a lost cause.

One night back in Ithaca, once I was sure I was moving back to New York, I browsed the Nerve personals partially out of curiosity but mostly out of boredom because there's not much else to do when you're in Ithaca and still awake at 5 a.m. The first profile that popped up was a guy who seemed pretty much absolutely perfect for me. So I wrote to him, and we've since gone on two dates, and sure enough he is absolutely perfect for me. Very cute, in amazing shape (he runs marathons and surfs,) very smart (getting a PhD soon,) speaks five languages and has traveled all over the world, has shit in common with me like being from a hick town and loving cheese, likes to get drunk and stay out till 4 a.m., etc., etc. And, go figure, I feel nothing. I can't even allow myself to begin to flirt with him, even though I want to so fucking badly. Instead, I'm still hung up on the Canadian, with whom I'm suddenly back in touch with. We've texted back and forth and talked on the phone no less than six times in the last 24 hours. The Canadian doesn't even have a job, is a little overweight and a lot alcoholic, hasn't bothered to visit me in the past six months, and is hoping to move to England or France in the fall if he can get enough money from his disgruntled parents. What. The fuck. Is wrong. With me????!?!?!!

Perhaps tomorrow is the day to make an appointment with a therapist like I've been meaning to do for the last two or three years.

Monday, June 20, 2005

who wears short shorts? she wears short shorts! nair for short shorts!

I got a job, y'all! It's at one of the restaurant/lounge things at a chichi Soho hotel. The three people I "interviewed" with (and I use quotes because they didn't really ask me anything) gave me wildly differing information, so I don't know exactly in which part or what time of day or how often I'll be working, but that is not important right now. What is important is that soon I can start spending money that does not belong to Shitibank. In the next day or two I have to go in to get fitted for the uniform, which consists of a black tank top and baggy white short shorts, or as I like to call it, Hooters Chic. Though I've finally made peace with my thighs, I think they look best under a layer of clothing. Sigh...guess who's going for a run tonight!

hateration

*Is Lindsayism hating on Mulgrew? I do believe so. While I've enjoyed some things on her blog, criticism of someone who writes consistently funny stuff on an almost daily basis, coming from someone who writes (on her blog) maybe 100 words a week, the majority of which are neither funny nor interesting to all but a select few, is rather pathetic. I'm also going out on a limb here and assuming that she has never read Mulgrew's blog. Nice.

*While I'm ranting, might as well mention that nothing warms my heart more than a company telling girls to hate their smelly and gross vaginas in order to sell products. Thanks for promoting the notion that my crotch should smell like a field of daffodils, Daily Candy!

Sunday, June 19, 2005

no sleep till...

On Saturday E and E's BF and I went out to Coney Island to see the community art project. While many of the new signs are quite cool, my favorite one is an old standby:

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

After some rather pathetic attempts to win prizes (one carnie took pity and gave us plush toys of a cow humping the moon...he later tried to take them away, but no matter,) we headed out to Brighton Beach, which, despite remaining stagnant since like 1952, is not impervious to the spread of American corporate culture.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

A trip to Coney Island is never complete for me without visiting Brighton Beach. Though it reminds me of how little I remember from my college Russian classes, there are some awesome restaurants on the boardwalk, beautiful sunsets, and fugtastic fashion statements.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

There are also vendors selling utterly ridiculous crap, such as these "Flashing Mouth Totally Amazing Party Attractions."

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

And yes, they are Made in China.

googs

A good percentage of the people who get to my blog (i.e., not very many at all) are directed from Google searches. Oftentimes, I can tell that my posts probably provided them with the information they were looking for, or at least directed them to where they could find it. This generally includes searches involving online shopping, Upper West Side grocery stores, and, the most popular one, hot blonde rapist of junior high boys Lauren Annette Summers. Certain things, however, I'm sorry but I just can't help with. These include anything related to the bodyparts on which Kelly Ripa puts her shoes, "Why did Gillian Anderson Divorce Clyde Klotz" (who the hell is that?) and, most perplexing of all, "learn how to put my ass into viagina of girl by sex." Call me naive, but I'm not certain that such a position is physically possible. Nevertheless, best of luck, bro.

Friday, June 17, 2005

wisconsin, you've let me down

While certainly not the last state, Wisconsin was not the first I'd expect to do this. [thanks, FAB] As Perplexa so eloquently said, banning the morning after pill on state university campuses is clearly an initiative by "conservative fuckers who hate women, gay men and women and sex in general." Because only a great deal of ignorance could lead someone to conclude that this is a good, helpful idea. For one, emergency contraception does essentially the same thing as the birth control pill and condoms--it prevents conception--and hence does not violently murder a four-celled organism. If the morning after pill is wrong according to whatever logic they're using, then so is regular ol' birth control. Secondly, college is the place where kids go to get drunk a lot and make stupid mistakes and be too poor to seek healthcare other than what the university provides. Speaking from experience, I don't think there are many girls running around thinking, "hey, I think I'll have some unprotected sex during the middle of my cycle so that I can make an appointment with health services the next day where they will shake their heads in disdain and lecture me for half an hour about safe sex and then give me a series of pills that will probably make me feel like I have food poisoning for a few days." So basically if this thing passes, if a couple of kids have no condoms and are too ragingly horny to stop themselves, or the condom breaks, or a girl passes out drunk and gets raped by the whole basketball team, her only option is to have a baby she can't adequately care for and fuck up her life plans or have an abortion and suffer the emotional, physical, financial, and oftentimes spiritual/moral pain as a result. Genius!

Thursday, June 16, 2005

rant 'n rant

I realize that making fun of Craigslist Personals is like hitting fish with barrels, or whatever, but there is one particular recurring display of stupidity that almost makes me want to meet the posters so that I can shake them violently (if I were bouncer-size) and scream "HOW CAN YOU BE SO FUCKING STUPID?!." Recently on M4W, I spotted the following posts, all in a row:

HANDSOME INVESTMENT BANKER SEEKING SWF WHO'S... (Manhattan)

WEALTHY BACHELOR FOR TROPHY WIFE OR GIRLFRIEND (Manhattan)

SUCCESSFUL MALE SEEKING BLONDE BEAUTY (Manhattan)

FOR LOVE OR MONEY? (Manhattan)

SEEKING EUROPEAN GIRL (Manhattan)

YOUNG FINANCIER SEEKS FUN GIRL FOR ADVENTURES IN SPONTANEITY (Manhattan)

HANDSOME ASIAN MALE FOR BEAUTIFUL SWF (Manhattan)

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE ONE OF THIS WEALTHY GENTLEMAN'S LOVERS (Manhattan)

Obviously, these posts were all made by the same person, as evidenced by the ALL CAPS TITLES, the same location format (you can type whatever, e.g., UWS, Midtown, or my personal favorite, Manhatten,) and the general theme of an impossibly handsome and wealthy man (*snort*) looking for a woman in possession of certain physical characteristics. The only possible reason for one person to post multiple ads would be to increase his or her odds of getting responses, which isn't too likely to happen if the person doesn't even try to be sneaky. Back when I had a real job and read these all the time for masochistic entertainment, there was a poor guy who was "clever" and changed some details. Tragically, that it was all one person was still clear to anyone with at least the intelligence of a six-year-old or maybe even a large parrot, and the dude must've posted 20 ads a day. For like a year. I was thinking that maybe if there are people stupid enough to do this, there are people stupid enough to fall for it, but I don't even think that's the case in this situation. God my head hurts.

Speaking of stupidity, the new Tommy Hilfiger reality show/Project Runway wannabe is so atrocious that I can't remember what it's called even though I've seen both episodes (I only get basic cable now, sadly.) For one, Tommy Hilfiger makes my skin crawl. He is to Ralph Lauren what Jessica Simpson was to Britney Spears before Newlyweds. No matter how frequently he claims to be on par with real top designers (remember on Rich Girls when he bought a Ferrari because Ralph had the exact same one? no? ok well he did, and yes I watch too much TV), name drops celebrities he's designed for, or comes out with new "hip" bridge lines, he and his brand still suck. And, appropriately, so does his show, with its lame and uninteresting challenges and even lamer and more uninteresting contestants. Not even I am masochistic enough to watch one more second of this sludge.

holy crapper

After just two weeks of looking for NYC restaurant jobs, I was about ready to start banging my head against a wall. It seems that unless you've fucked the general manager or an important bartender, the best you can do is walk in, smile, hand your resume to the bitchy hostess and be told "we'll call you." Which of course is about as believable as when that phrase comes from a guy you've hooked up with. So today I went to two places (nice places, even) that had posted ads for waitstaff on good ol' Craigslist, and then I begrudgingly called my temp agency to see about some fun-filled office work for Monday. Lo and behold, I just got called back to both restaurants I went to today, within ten minutes of each other. Thank you, Ella Moss. I could very well still have to resort to temping, but this smidgen of progress, essentially a chance to speak with managers for more than 45 seconds, is tremendously encouraging. Since both interviews are tomorrow, I will be spending this evening studying wine varietals, cocktail ingredients, and various restaurant terminology for the inevitable quizzes. As if I couldn't just learn what "position numbers" are AFTER I got hired.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

the continuing saga of my hair

Today I went out and got myself some hipster hair. I'm not quite sure what to do with it yet, but I think I like it.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Better to look like Leif Garrett circa 1977 than Jennifer Aniston circa 1994, in my opinion.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

And best of all, it was free thanks to Bumble and Bumble's program that teaches already professional stylists how to do razor cuts. I'm not a fan of the way they shelac your hair with eighteen different products so that you have to wash it again as soon as you get home, but if you're lucky and get a stylist who's done the program before (like I did this time) and isn't a newbie who cuts herself with the razor twice (like I did last time) it's a hell of a good deal.

Monday, June 13, 2005

rats!

You want rat stories? Ok. So during my sophomore year of college, I slept over at my boyfriend's a lot because his dorm room was a two bedroom apartment. Mine essentially was too, only it had seven people living in it. (And yes, once upon a time I had a real, live boyfriend. I can't believe it either.) Anyway, sophomore year my insomnia was raging, and having two 6 foot tallish people in a twin-size bed wasn't conducive to helping me sleep, so sometimes I'd spazz out and go lie awake on one of the three couches in the living room instead. One fine morning, Ex-Boyfriend's roommate was leaving for crew practice and noticed some movement on top of the garbage can, which was situated next to the couch I was on, and hence next to my head. Apparently it was a foot-long rat, and it scurried off, nearly missing my head, when Roommate walked through the room. Miraculously, I was asleep for a few minutes and have no recollection of this event, nor any knowledge of where the rat had been spreading its diseases before perching itself a few inches away from my face.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

occasional and awkward foray into music bloggerdom

Bands for me are a lot like boys. I'll find a new one, become immediately attached and listen to it constantly. Eventually, the novelty and excitement wear off and it's over. And then a few weeks or months later I'll try to get back into the songs again (yeah, sleep with him,) but I'm just not that into it anymore. And then I'll long for a replacement, which seems like it's never going to come because something that good can't possibly exist (ha,) so I'll toy around with new ones that are fine enough, but just not filling the hole (that latest image is not part of this extended simile) and so I fantasize about the old one for a little longer. Case in point, I had my honeymoon period with the Arcade Fire, and I got back into them again when I was in Ithaca, and they will have a place in my heart forever but all the while I was wishing there was something else to get excited about, and now there is, and it's called Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Err, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! Like the Arcade Fire, the lead singer has a voice my parents would cringe at, a hokey instrument is used--accordion/harmonica, and they sound more than a little Talking Heads-ish. (Guilty as charged when it comes to the psych phenomenon of looking for characteristics in a new partner that an old partner had, even if you didn't necessarily gravitate toward said characteristics before.) I like the Gramophone's description of one of CYHSY's songs: "it sounds like so many bands, just way better." So now I just need to find a boy so I can stop thinking about the Fucking Canadian (2004 was the year for Montreal to invade my life, apparently,) and all my holes will be filled. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) Actually, come to think of it, I really just need a goddamn job.

raising the bar

If you've lived in New York long enough, you've probably got a good cockroach story or three. I happen to have about ten but it's not because I'm a dirty person, I swear! I'm just a little messy. Anyway, as Drone and I were leaving my apartment building this evening to go for a walk, I heard him mumbling behind me. "There's something in my shoe...I've gotta get it out now or it's going to bug me." (Pun not possibly intentional at this point.) I turned around to see the shoe be thrown to the ground and Drone say "oh my god" for about three solid minutes with a look of sheer panic on his face. Clearly it was a bug in there, but I didn't know the gravity of the situation until he collected himself enough to dump out a two-inch, intact cockroach from his New Balance sneaker. I had phantom "something in my shoe" feelings for the whole walk. And stomach pains from laughing so damn hard. I'm still a little creeped out since the cockroach clearly came from my apartment, but vermin are pretty unavoidable here, as evidenced by the footlong rat we later saw scurrying into a nice brownstone on 77th. Oh, New York...

Friday, June 10, 2005

note to self

The return home from a dinner of chips 'n salsa, beer, and cigarettes is not a good time to implement my new "exercise plan" of always taking the stairs to my 10th floor apartment. Lungs. Hurt.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

something really dumb that i do constantly and will continue to do even though it annoys the crap out of me

Every time I return to my apartment from a trip to Starbucks or the new Bed Bath and Beyond on 64th Street or out drinking (pretty much the only reasons I leave my apartment,) I spend a good five minutes in the foyer/lobby/entryway/whatever frantically rifling through my bag to find my keys (frantically, because I usually really have to pee.) This is because I have one of those giant tote bags that is unnecessarily large and filled with unnecessary crap but that I can't seem to leave the house without. In reality, I could probably survive with a small purse that contains my wallet, keys, cellphone, iPod, and cigarettes, but you never know when that mini-deodorant, six pens, eight packs of matches, three jelly bracelets, bottle of Lubriderm hand lotion, box of Band-Aids, handful of tampons, whole arsenal of makeup, stack of bills that have yet to be opened, and package of fake tattoos will come in handy. Of course, said bag has two small interior pouches in which keys could be deposited and retrieved fairly quickly, but who has time to spend an extra millisecond putting them there rather than chucking them in the gaping bag? Certainly not me with my jampacked schedule!

Monday, June 06, 2005

this post has nothing to do with public urination

*On my recent drive from Ithaca to New York, I heard the following on the radio:
-An advertisement for a Buy One Pair of Leather Chaps, Get a Free Pair of Fingerless Gloves Sale
-A lady talk about how drunk she was from a booze cruise with her husband and then slurredly mention she was in the car on the way to pick up her "goddamn kids" from daycare
-A C & C Music Factory song on the Oldies station. Not even a 70's/80's/90's station. I think they played the Four Tops afterwards.
Yes, all of the above were heard in New Jersey.

*I've made a brilliant discovery about which I'm so excited that I have to share it: As we all know, going to the grocery store can oftentimes be a pain in the ass. I happen to live in the Grocery Store Epicenter of Manhattan, where Whole Foods, Citarella, Fairway, and Zabar's all lie in the same 20 block stretch on Broadway. A trip to any of the above will result in some excellent cheese, produce, or creamed herring, and also getting trampled by crazy soccer moms and old jewish ladies. But just a block south of Fairway is the no-frills, cavernous chain store Gristedes, where I will be doing all of my shopping from now on. Because there is never, EVER anybody there. When I approached the cashier on Saturday afternoon after not waiting in line for one second, she had been picking at her fingernails for a good ten minutes. There's also a rather creepy lifesized cartoon cow figurine that talks to you on your way down the escalator. And you all know how I feel about talking cows.

*The latest scandal in my illustrious hometown is that two seniors from my high school stole a wooden tiger statue that had been hanging on a wall in the commons. A former classmate of mine writes to the Local Paper:

Alumnus heartbroken over mascot

Editor: Re "Tigers snatchers face felonies" (May 27, 2005)
Being a 1999 graduate of Marshfield High School, I was heartbroken to have heard what had happened. In high school the majority of students respected and honored the tiger as our mascot and would never think about acting on any dishonorable act. The four years I was there everyone had so much school spirit and enjoyed being active in school functions in some way or another. Obviously the individuals that performed this crime has no honor for their school. At first I thought it was a senior school vs. school prank but now that I heard the real story I cannot believe that individuals from the same school would do such a thing. I am sure that the situation will be handled in the most serious of manners and they will be punished for what they have done.


As soon as I read this I recalled an incident in which my friends and I, who were at school late at night for one of our many extracurricular activities, did indeed "act on any dishonorable act." We'd found an unwrapped maxi pad stuck to someone's locker, so we transfered it to the aforementioned (and anatomically correct, I might add) tiger. Needless to say, we weren't really pep rally types. Gooooo Tigers!

Saturday, June 04, 2005

welcome to new york

Aaaah, nothing like missing your exit and being hopelessly lost when it's pouring rain in Jersey City, aka the Armpit of America, and forced to pullover on the side of the road to pee into your morning coffee cup and dump it out the window (two cupsfull, for the record) because you've been stuck in traffic for an hour and there are no gas stations or McDonaldses in sight, and even if there were you'd be too afraid to unlock the car doors and get out for fear of being attacked by one of the many toothless homeless people roaming the middle of the streets that are flanked by boarded up storefronts, pipes spewing brown smoke, and powerlines galore. I do not <3 NJ.

But it's all ok now. I managed to rent a car, pack up my shit, get directions, make it to the city in one piece, find parking half a block from my apartment, unload my shit (in the rain,) get gas on 46th and 11th (thanks, Friendly Gay Neighbor,) and return the rental car, all by myself! I have never felt so adult. To cap off the evening I bought myself a nice bottle of wine at enormous Beacon Wines (a white Bordeaux that the manager described as fullbodied and fruity with a surprisingly dry finish reminiscent of a good Sancerre...for $9.99...sold) and began putting my beloved little apartment back together. The welcoming committee also provided me with an immediate celebrity sighting (so tall and skinny!) and a nice clear view of the morbidly obese naked woman in the building nextdoor. Oh how I've missed New York. And it turns out most of my Ithaca friends will be either moving here soon or visiting frequently. I'm scared shitless about money and job stuff but so damn happy right now. And though they are largely responsible, I don't think my happiness is ENTIRELY a result of my Burritoville visit (they jacked the prices in my absence!) and consumption of 3/4 of the bottle of wine.

Thursday, June 02, 2005

*sob*

I am really going to miss my time in Ithaca. I came here knowing but a single soul and without a clue as to what do with myself, and just a few months later I've made a bunch of friends (most of whom of course I will probably never see again...so it goes) and experienced a lot of *cough* new things. Though people talk shit about it all the time, Ithaca is actually a neat little town. It's like where I grew up only with lots of places to go and things to do and interesting people. Or at least a higher concentration thereof. Like these fine characters:

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
my waitress partner in crime (literally) and the friendly line cook

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
homegirl can drink and she's moving to the city soon too...yessss

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
he is awesome and looks like a giant cherub

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
little wendy lou the bassist and licensed massage therapist

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
shakespearean actor with quite possibly the most amazing farmer's tan ever

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
how pretty is this girl?

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
he's actually one of the smiliest people i've ever met, and one of the stonedest

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
the bitchin' barristas

Thumbs up, indeed.

mmmmm

If you know me, you know that I always go out with a bang. Often, literally. It is now time for me to leave the great town of Ithaca, and I made sure to stick around for my restaurant's end of the school year employee party. I decided beforehand that there was perhaps a chance in hell that my lips would touch those of another at some point, but I'd forgotten about this dude [see the last sentence...yeeeah] until we looked at each other at the party's afterparty and mutually decided to "go hang out at your/my place." Between him and my roommate's new puppy, I'm going to have a seriously hard time dragging my lazy ass away from here. But it will happen. See you on the other side!