Issues and Complaints

- My cat has taken to falling over sideways. She'll be fine, running around like the spaz she is, back and forth, length-wise across the apartment, and then just stop and keel over onto the floor. This can't be good. Is there such a thing as kitty vertigo?
- I JUST decided what I am writing my 20-25 page paper about, due Wed. evening. This is the fourth topic I have 'decided' on. Hopefully, fingers crossed, knock on wood, it will be the last.
- I am still only five pages into my other, 15-20 page paper. At least I have a definite topic. Knock on wood, fingers crossed, hopefully.
- I still have not finished my Christmas shopping. How am I supposed to do this, when I must constantly write papers?
- My Christmas package from La Gap started in Ohio, traveled to NJ, traveled to NY, and is now, according to tracking, BACK IN OHIO. Why? WHY? How am I supposed to get this by Christmas? Why would it go back to Ohio?
- I am out of food. And diet coke. I will have to leave the apartment. I don't really remember the world outside, but I feel it's unsafe.
- I will also have to leave the apartment to visit the library and use 'microform'. I have never used microform before. I am NOT looking forward to it.
- I have not had a haircut since I moved to New York. Ew.
- My gym membership is totally going to waste...on account of my never leaving the apartment.
- It is becoming difficult to walk through my small bedroom, as it is covered in books and printouts from literary journals.
- I can't remember the last time I did laundry. I might be running out of clean underwear.
- My vocab is slipping. I say "eff this and eff that" all the time. And the word 'Whatever' (sometimes as 'Whatevs,' which is worse). This morning my roommate and I slumped on our bright red couch and orally wrote the new hit children's book, "Eff you, Moon."

And on that cheerful note, I return to my paper writing.

I have no title for this blog.

I have stumbled into a morning where commonplace thinking becomes very difficult (after all, it just took me three tries to type 'stumbled'- forgive all typos in this entry).

For example: this morning's shower. I had to think very hard about whether or not I was wearing any clothes. While standing under the water, I still was not fully convinced that I wasn't. Then, I had the following mental dialogue: "Is this shampoo or conditioner? Shampoo or conditioner? The bottle says conditioner... hmmm...Conditioner." Then my glance fell on the face wash, and I thought: "F--- you, face wash!" The face wash, I assure you, had done nothing to warrant such a sound mental thrashing. It was merely sitting on the side of the tub, being face wash (originally typed: 'fash').

I know I had a point with this blog. It is eluding me.

Hmmm...

Anyway, last night at eleven o'clock, I decided that the paper I had been writing about Wallace Stevens for two weeks was unusually bad. I decided to write a paper about Robert Frost instead.

Usually this kind of mania deserts me after half a page and I return to finish the original paper.

By 2 AM, I had four pages and by 5 AM, I was rounding out eleven. All that remains now is a few finishing touches on a paper leaps and bounds above the original Stevens concept.

Paper must be turned in at six-thirty. I must go to work now. Head is a foggy, foggy mess.

The IM Self-actualization of Artists

R: YOU WILL NEVER FIND HAPPINESS IF YOU DON'T GO LOOK FOR IT

Me: I understand the concepts behind self actualization and fulfillment.

R: Prince Charming does not fall into the lap of girls like us.

R: we're made to get broken

Me: Yeah, yeah. Wait...what?

R: we're artists.

Me: Ah. I see.

R: we need a little sadness.

R: otherwise what would we write about?

R: but you have to keep looking!

R: aye-carumba!

When I realized I had totally lost track of the Wallace Stevens paper...

"This music is the music of the poem Peter Quince and not music produced by the individual players of the poem. It is an important distinction."

I paused. I read that sentence. And I said, outloud, to my empty apartment: "I have no idea what I'm talking about."

Those Crackpots and These Men

I love the guys in my grad school classes. Well, the ones I actually know and spend time with socially.

They are a new and unusual phenomenon.

I have never before been friends with men in my field. There were about two of them in the English department back in undergrad. My male friends were in other fields or in theater. I discussed literature with women outside of class (I remember one incident that involved yelling over the resolution of Jane Eyre in the Quad) but not so much with the other gender.

It's just so refreshing to talk to men who are interested in literature (and most of them more interested in literature than I am) and then have a beer and talk about television (postmodern aesthetics of LOST or just general plot points) or stupid drunk things we did at parties and then talk about our take on Derrida.

Anyway, I'm spending the weekend in bed with Wallace Stevens. Or on the couch. And I'll probably mix some 10 Things I Hate About You in there, since it is my paper writing Muse.

But for some reason, I can't sleep right now, even though I'm exhausted. So guess which West Wing episode I'm watching?

Deep? I am the poetry club.

Feminism be damned, I want a man to cook for.

Or, to not end with a preposition: A man for whom I can cook. Which sounds dumb.

Also, according to my roommates, I am the only person in NYC who makes casseroles.

Lately, I think mostly as a procrastination tool, I have been doing a lot of cooking. I like casseroles because they fulfill my need to cook while only utilizing the bare minimum of dishes. As much as I love to cook, I hate to wash dishes (in fact, we almost started World War III and a health hazard in our apartment senior year of college because none of use liked to do dishes). My two most recent culinary experiments have been a Moussaka casserole and Sundried Tomato Potato Gratin. Any recipe with rhyming words is fine and delicious by me.

I watched 'John Tucker Must Die' tonight, while compiling notes on the reception history and criticism of Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet 'I shall forget you presently'. I found this teen movie much less satisfying than '10 Things I Hate About You'.

It had a few good lines, however. Including: 'Dude. I'm deep. I'm dating the poetry club.'

Dude.

It IS the most wonderful time of the year!

Welcome to Christmas decorating day in my apartment. It involves cursing, carols, and many mugs of glorious spiced hot cider.

Instead of cementing my tush to the red couch and my thighs to the laptop, as per usual, today, I joined my roommate on a quest for some holiday spirit.

We found it in the form of a Christmas tree lot outside of our local grocery store, where a nice hippie with a lime green van sold us a Christmas tree from Nova Scotia. A real live Christmas tree! I can't remember the last time I had one of those. So, we paid the nice hippie (who still believes in capitalism), lugged the tree home, struggled to get it into its tree stand, and decorated the suckah.

It is the most beautiful tree ever, and the smell of evergreen mixed with the smell of spiced apple cider is absolutely intoxicating.

While my roommate tackled the lights (she likes putting them on tree, I promise), I cast my eye on the rest of the apartment...

"Have you ever been to my parents' place around Christmas? It's like my Mom walks into the center of the house and vomits gold glitter onto everything. I take after her."

Last year I made those gold poinsettias into a treetop decoration.


"We are not decorating with a baby Jesus."
"But he's so cute."
"He can be baby Fred."
"How can you resist this? Look. Mary is wearing birkenstocks."

Darcy did not get into the holiday spirit, mostly because Darcy hates happiness and joy. So far she hasn't eaten any Christmas decorations yet, so that's a blessing at least.


I would like to end this blog with one of my favorite Christmas decorations, a special message from Mr. Bond:

And then I laughed

marriedtothesea.com

If you've been spending a lot of time lately reading late eighteenth/early nineteenth century seduction fiction (guilty) and proscrastinating on important papers by writing blogs (also guilty- see last three entries and this one), this comic just hits home.

And when I'm really tired of Wallace Stevens...

I take useless online personality quizzes.

Which West Wing character am I?



The idealistic speechwriter is well-liked by just about everyone. He's known for his excellent writing, sense of humor, and tendency to be clutzy. Although being younger than the rest of the staff, he's often treated as so, much to his dismay.

:: Which West Wing character are you? ::

I scored Toby on a different one. I think it's the writing thing. But Sam works much better for me than Toby.

Also, I would focused more on idealistic in Sam's description (except for when he comes back at the very end of the show and is mean and jaded...but we don't count that as real Sam) and the part about being younger than the rest of the staff isn't true, cuz he's the same age as Josh, and I don't remember him ever getting upset about being treated as younger.

Mallory: Don't play dumb with me.
Sam: No, I am dumb. Most of the time I'm playing smart.

This is me paraphrasing off the top of my head, but it certainly describes how I'm feeling about these papers right now...

Sigh. Anyway, back to Wallace Stevens. The paper used to be about 'Music, Gender and Sexuality in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens'. Now it is about a bunch of notes I typed out that I'm having trouble fitting together. I liked the old topic better.

NYC Observations and General Paper Avoidance...

Nine o'clock on a balmy night brings all the couples out in Union Square. Couples and skateboarders.

I can't figure out which bothers me more.

The skateboarders need to be dodged. They don't really view the sidewalk as a place to walk...it is their personal skateboard track. You are a moving obstacle in a deadly game of chicken. And you'd better chicken out first.

The couples need to be dodged as well. Because they walk slowly, holding hands and full of lingers. Lingering touches, lingering looks...lingering neck sucking. Seriously, I don't mind PDAs to a certain extent. Hold hands, kiss romantically under a streetlight, whatever. But why in the world would you suck on your boyfriend's neck, in public, while surrounded by people who are waiting to cross the street? Why? One: ew. Two: don't you know his neck is covered in NYC street grime? Ew.

I encountered these nine o'clock obstacles on the way to Barnes and Noble after class tonight. I didn't go out drinking in the Village with my classmates because I am sick, stressed, and tired. But I stopped at the bookstore to buy a light book to read in between bouts of paper writing, to keep myself sane. This effort will probably fail. I can already feel insanity setting in.

On the way out, I saw the New Yorker and laughed, because I remember how, when I first moved to the city, I resolved to read it every week, for fun, and to keep up on life in the city. Now the only things I read for fun are blogs and emails, and I never really interact with the city.

I also bought another bridesmaid book at Barnes and Noble. That brings the total up to two. I am not allowed to buy any more. But a girl needs a little instruction on how to be maid of honor in a beautiful, southern wedding.

Fun fact gleaned from my new bridesmaid book: It is considered good luck to have bridesmaids that are shorter than you. This makes me lucky for my bride. It also means that the only bridesmaids I can have, if I want luck, are my sisters and my army of friendly midgets.

Totally Whelmed by this Paper...

I've been thinking very hard about this (while writing a three page paper on all the theories I've encountered that say we can't find meaning in literature), and I have decided that '10 Things I Hate About You' has been the most quoted movie of my life. It beats out 'Empire Records' in high school (and that is a hard thing to do...after all, "My name's not f***kin' Warren" is still popular) and all the movies my sister and I quote (even harder to do). But I know this is true because I've been watching the movie while writing my paper and every five minutes an oft-quoted quote pops up.

Actually, just kidding. My sister and I quote other movies more than this one. But still, this movie is fabulous and good and absolutely essential to movie writing.

And if you want to revel in the utter quotability of this movie, here are some choice opportunities.

Why I Rock, Volume XXIII

Over 50,000 words in a month, baby.

Not that my novel's done. It is a little over half way done. Ivy Piper is pregnant and wallowing in her misery right now. I have to make her life better.

Still, my November was chock-full of accomplishment. Woohoo!

I'm not going to my high school reunion...

toothpastefordinner.com

...which is strange, because I totally seem the type. I am nostalgic. I keep extensive photo albums. My high school year books made the move to NYC with me. Hell, I live with one of my best friends from high school, in a strange twist of fate.

I've even got things to show off. After all, I got the hell out of Dodge. I am getting a master's degree at NYU and living in the Big Apple. I don't have the ultimate merit badge (a man) but I'm not doing half-bad.

But I'm only going to be home for a few days for Thanksgiving Break. And I'd rather experience my hometown than relive old experiences. I'd rather see my family and the friends I'm still in touch with than reach out to older memories.

While I'm home this week, I'm going to kick off the last Christmas season I ever get to spend in my childhood home. My youngest sister will turn fourteen (which, believe me, is terribly old). I will go wedding dress shopping with my oldest friend (I met her when I was six).

Life is changing so fast, and there's no point in trying to hold on to things that long gone. My high school reunion's hardly a blip on the radar.

But maybe I'll make it for ten years.

And I'm spent...

That's right. I remember why I stopped going out on weekends.

It isn't because I can't spare a couple of hours in the evenings. Okay, sometimes I can't- sometimes there is far too much homework. But mostly it is because I can't spare the recovery time the next morning.

Not that it isn't pleasant spending all day in bed watching West Wing reruns. But it doesn't get the work done.

Thoughts that keep me from paper writing...

1- Where were Princess Buttercup's parents? I mean, obviously she's not just the poor peasant girl the movie leads us to believe: she has a hot farm boy working for her. And yet, it appears that she lives in a barn with a woodstove. I'm not exactly sure what's going on here.

2- I used to watch a cartoon called 'Attack of the Killer Tomatoes' when I was a kid. If you ask me, I can sing for you what I think is the opening line of the theme music, even though it doesn't really sound like music. What was this show about? I did some research on this highly scholastic site, and apparently it really was about killer tomatoes, and it was based on not one, but two movies from the seventies. How were the plots for multiple episodes squeezed out of that?

No Sleep...til Christmas!

It's official.

The worst thing about making the transition from college to two years in the 'real world' (notice the quotes) to grad school is not learning to study again, or learning to write papers again...it is nothing academic at all.

The worst thing is that I had gotten into a regular sleep pattern: early to bed and early to rise (at least very early compared to my college years). And now I've thrown that all away to return to college's motto of: We'll sleep when we're dead/all the work is done/we have a blessed free weekend. I'm again catching snatches of sleep between the hours of 3:30 and 9 (AM). And it's a lot harder than it used to be.

Halloween II (better and bloodier)

The thing I love best about Halloween in NYC is that so many people dress so strangely here anyway, that very often you cannot tell what is a costume and what is their actual clothes.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

Happy Halloween (bwa-ha-HA-ha-ha)! I am being a revolutionary this year, so I will have no opportunity to laugh in an evil fashion and must, therefore, get it all out of my system in this blog. I asked my revolutionary expert friend (who brought the beret I am wearing back from Cuba (drink)) what revolutionaries do...all we could come up with was drink vodka and wear berets at a jaunty angle. I hope it is okay if I drink the vodka in the form of a dirty martini.

My boss is not in the office today (again), so I took a nice, long walk around the East Village and had lunch in an Organic Vegan restaurant with aging hippies that could not get over the fact that I had come all the way from Queens for lunch, despite my efforts to explain that, really, I worked just around the corner (also: half a mile is apparently not just around the corner in NYC, the way it is in the country).

This afternoon, I have to hike out to a much nicer section of the city than I am accustomed to (and by hike, I probably mean take the 6 train) and drop off a folder at my boss' place- more specifically, I am to leave it with her doorman. Then all the way back down to Washington Square for class and then my revolutionary side will explode and run amuck all over the Village. Yay!

In posts to come: my reaction to the Cuba (drink) summit. Really. I promise. The sixteen pages of notes I took have to be good for something...

Poetry of My Namesake

A Drinking Song

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

~ William Butler Yeats

Twilight Zone

I can tell I am really getting into a novel when I start having the character's dreams as well as my own...and then when I'm awake, I have a lot of trouble distinguishing reality from fiction...I start wondering if conversations I have in my memory really happened...I'm a walking mess (what else is new?).

I'm very into my new NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) Novel (plotting it, at least- I don't get to start writing until November), and last night I had some very messy dreams that got my past love life all mixed up with my main character's love life...and then I ended up at some sort of reunion that mixed together my middle school, high school and college people with her middle school, high school and college people. The problem was, while everyone at this reunion could remember me/her, what they couldn't remember was all of...our...past failures in life. And they would get...us...into conversations where we had to recount them (Example: Random Person: Wasn't hockey great our senior year? Me: No, remember, I only ever made JV hockey, they cut me junior year. OR Random Person: Wasn't it great to be his date for that music awards ceremony? My Main Character: No, he only invited me as a date for his drummer, he took someone else.)

So that was a fun dream.

Project Runway Didn't Quite 'Make it Work'

Yes, it's true, America.

Uli was robbed.

In the end, the girl from Germany who so adores our country was sold out in favor of a boy who exhibited America's favorite television tendencies: drama and redemption.

Not that Jeffrey's collection wasn't good. I definitely agree with the judges that Uli and Jeffrey both had pretty rocking collections. Some of Jeffrey's clothes were absolutely beautiful...but I didn't want to wear them. I wanted to wear Uli's clothes. I've pretty much ALWAYS wanted to wear Uli's clothes.

And yet, while feeling this sense of betrayal on behalf of Uli and her beautiful clothing, I can also understand the judges' decision...to a point. After all, Uli is set. People want to buy her clothes straight off the runway. And I feel she's already learned the important lessons she needs to succeed in the fashion world (moderation, don't always use prints, variety, etc.). She takes criticism well. Plus, she's bubbily, nice, and pretty and people will always want to work with her.

Jeffrey, on the other hand is kind of scary and intimidating. And he didn't always take criticism well...I feel both Jeffrey and his collection will benefit much more from a design internship than Uli would. Uli doesn't need a design internship (though the money would have been nice). I think the final decision may have come down to Uli is going to succeed in the fashion world no matter what now...but Jeffrey might need a little help.

In other news, my friend saw Tim Gunn on the street this morning and resisted the urge to kidnap him in her shopping cart (she was returning it after purchasing a microwave) and take him home to be her life consultant. If it were me, I'm pretty sure Tim Gunn would be desperately trying to escape a small apartment in Queens right about now...

2 down...

Hello all.

Today is my two month anniversary. I have lived in New York City for two months.

How do I feel?

I'm still shocked by the idea of being 24, so not really older. Tireder. Much tireder, but that has more to do with my grad school workload than the city. I've picked up some of the eyes-straight-ahead, hate-anyone-blocking-the-sidewalk attitude. I know my way from home to work/school- and much of the rest of the city remains a mystery. I'm amazed by the fact that celebrities live among us (the rumors are true- I DID see Daniel Vosovic walking down the street this weekend). I've had the best dirty martini of my life. I've fallen asleep- multiple times- on the subway. I'm much more interested in what other people are wearing than ever before. I'm no longer fazed when I have to change my route because a movie is being filmed on the sidewalk up ahead. I'm in more debt than I've ever been in before in my life.

And most of all, I'm in love with the sparkling, seething possibilities that make up this city.

Happy two months!

Role Call...

3 Negative Ways in which Graduate School has Affected My Life:
- Dirty, Messy Mess. Today was the first time I've done laundry in a long, long time. How long, you may ask? Well, I pulled 27 pairs of underwear out of the dryer (and that answer will teach you to ask such personal questions).
- Extreme Poverty. Recently I discovered how much more money than me my roommates make (how much more money my roommates make than me? I can't structure this sentence properly). I wasn't being nosy or anything- they offered the info. I am poor.
- Exhaustion. Tired from these late nights doing homework, I fell asleep on the subway on the ride home today. Fell asleep sitting with my backpack wedged between my feet, to keep it from getting stolen. Sitting wearing my just below knee length black skirt. I'm sure sometime during that lovely little nap, I flashed a large portion of the N train. So...Exhausted and Accidentally Slutty.

Yes, this was me in high school...

image courtesy of toothpaste for dinner

My father and I attended the same high school and the same college. I was an Honors student and he was the quarterback of the football team. He's always said that if we attended school at the same time, he probably would've tried to shut me in my locker or hang me up by my underwear.

Things I think about when I should be reading late 18th century epistolary novels...

Joey Lucas is a deaf character on The West Wing (was, I suppose, is the proper terminology). She is (was) therefore, mostly voiced by a man named Kenny (the actor Bill O' Brien- thanks imbd!).

I know a man is speaking. Somtimes I even see him speaking. But mostly, I see Joey Lucas with this man's voice coming out of her. And because of this audio/visual oxymoron, I cannot think of the voice as a man's voice. To me, it sounds like a truly feminine voice.

Kind of like Tracy Chapman (shudder), but not really.

Oops, I'm gonna do it again...

While sitting on the couch with my roommate today- a location we have both left as infrequently as possible this weekend- I introduced a novel and fascinating idea:

We should start training for a marathon.

So, I have my beloved 'Marathoning for Mortals' book open on the arm of the sofa and I've started a training schedule. We're going to the Shamrock Sportsfest in March- not sure yet if we'll be aiming for the half-marathon or the whole. Either way it will be terrifically challenging and rewarding. I have hours of sweating and sobbing and aching ahead of me. And I can hardly wait.

Happy reading.

Everybody knows this is Nowhere...

How, how, HOW did it get to be October already?

This means the semester is practically over. Which means, really, my master's degree is almost finished. Which means I seriously have to consider what my next step is going to be...

Seriously.

Anyway, I'm worried about my hair. This morning, I was watching some quality TV during a homework break- the classic film Camp Nowhere to be exact- and I couldn't help but notice shades of resemblance between my style and the boy who played Mud. I have nineties preteen boy hair.

Also, I've taken to dressing in what I call 'Graduate School Chic', which means, when not at work, I wear clothing that just barely identifies me as human.

I am a fetus of unattractive mess.

AND it's October.

Tasty AND Delicious

I am currently devouring (but in a delicate, feminine fashion, I assure you), the world's best lunch: Harvest Pumpkin Soup from Au Bon Pain (and yes, I did just look on my Au Bon Pain bag to see how to spell that, because it seems wrong that bread, the best thing in the world, should be spelled P-A-I-N) and Chicken Curry Salad with mango, apple, coconut and currants from Karen's on Astor.

Yes, this dream lunch did require me to walk a multi-block circuit. But it is totally worth it.

Subway PDA PSA

There are many times and places where I do not want a boyfriend: where the joy of singledom rushes over me like...I don't know, some kind of refreshing, rushing body of water. New York City is a GREAT place to be single. You walk down the street with your arms mentally flung out (not actually flung out, because as much as you desire it, your life is not a musical, and you don't want to be that weird girl walking down the street with your arms flung out) and just soak up the glorious freedom and possibilities of the world.

Of course, there are other times and places, where you do in fact want a boyfriend: scary movies, weddings, lonely nights curled up on the couch, etc. To this list, I would like to add: The New York Subway System.

The Subway is apparently THE place to have a significant other and show him or her off. The subway is open to: cuddling, kissing, nuzzling, whispering and this strange public habit New Yorkers seem to have of untucking/re-tucking in their S.O.'s shirts (I have seen this behavior with three or four different couples now, where one person stands, leaning into the other, pulling the shirt out of the pants, then sticking it back in. This behavior is not particularly sexual in nature, but it is nonetheless a strange and scary epidemic).

I understand that the primary interaction between New Yorkers on the subway is the shared fantasy that no one else exists. Pretending to the point of making the subway your own little love nest, however, seems absurd. The blue or orange seats are not decadent, the bright track lighting is not romantic. And, more importantly, though everyone on the crowded subway is trying his/her best to keep eyes to his/herself, we can all see you!

Just so you know, you lustful little subway riders of New York.

Como se dice 'oops' en espanol?

I am supposed to be pretty much fluent in Spanish for my new job. Which I'm not. Not even close. But I've been muddling through with my book 'Mastering Spanish Business Vocabulary', the babel fish website, correspondence with my friend who IS fluent, and all those murky memories of high school Spanish class.

And the boistering thought that, if I fail, there's another part time assistant who can clean up after me.

Today I came in and logged onto my computer, which I share with the other part-time assistant. She had left the babel fish translator site up. The phrase she had translated was:

Hello, I do not speak Spanish. Please call back Monday.

Apparently, I'm the expert.

Smells like activist...

I don't want to write about school, because I spend all the time thinking about it.

Instead, I will write about:
A- The party I attended on Friday night.
B- My new tendency to say "Boo, whore!" all the time.

A: On Friday night, I attended a loft party in Brooklyn. This party represented, to me, all that the crazy-city bohemian life should be (not my life, per se- I'm a sell out). Everyone brought a bottle of alcohol and just hung out all night- evenly distributing time between the loft and the hodgepodge of broken patio furniture set up on the roof. The loft had been a huge, single room studio, and the four inhabitants built walls and rooms- some of them with multiple stories. It was covered in home-made art work and lights and had three couches and reams of mismatched fabric and was the most wonderful mess. The party was inhabited mostly by drunk activists. When I first headed up to the roof with a red, plastic solo cup of red wine (which I later spilled all over myself- while still completely sober), I was warned by one of the guys: "Don't sit next to him! He smells like activist!" We didn't spend too much time speaking of activism, but I did learn that a bunch of the guys road-tripped down to Texas where they protested outside of an Exxon dressed in tiger suits and got arrested. The party ended in the wee hours of the morning. I was made to salsa dance with one of the hostesses before I left, and I danced right into a table. The bruise is a glorious grey-blue.

B: Saw Mean Girls the other day, and have been running around the apartment saying "Boo, whore!" to the roommates. Nothing wrong with this, though I do have this fear that I will carry my new favorite phrase into grad class with me...

DRAMATIZATION

Classmate: I disagree with William James on this point. 'To You', and ultimately 'Song of Myself' as well, cannot be whittled down to pluralism. If you interpret the superlative terms as comparitive terms, you do eliminate some of the abstractions, but you also lose the essential essence of Whitman's work.
Me: Boo, whore.

Some Classy Questions

Okay, I have a week of classes and what feels like a week worth’s of homework (already) under my belt. So now the questions…

Can I do this? Do I want to? What’s the point? Am I a scholar? Will I be a scholar? Do I want a Phd? Is the boy with the tattoos on his arms really as good-looking as I think he is? What is the foreign language requirement, exactly? How about the guy who sits down at the end of the seminar table- is he attractive? Does the fact that my homework bores me indicate that I am not cut out for scholarly pursuits? Does the fact that the overall idea of this program is terribly exciting mean that I am perfectly cut out for graduate studies or just in love with the idea of graduate studies? Is there any point in making friends outside of my department? Is there any point in making friends inside of my department? Aren't they the competition? Why does the W run to 8th street, but the N doesn’t? Why did I only figure this out on the first day of class, making me late for class? Is it okay to feel this overworked and overwhelmed after just the first week?

Have You Seen This Man?

I have.

Tonight. Barnes and Noble. Astor Place.

I was walking into the store and he was walking out, looking all dark and brooding. And wet, because it was raining. I thought to myself, "Hey. That guy looks JUST like Chris Noth" (though I probably actually thought MR. BIG).

Then I arrived inside and all the girl cashiers were squealing, and I realized, that guy IS Chris Noth.

I love this city!

It's So Hard to Answer Phones in the Dark

Okay, I'm contracted to stay here another ten minutes...but they've started turning the lights out on me...

Everybody wants to rule the world...

I am at work for another half an hour. Today, it's a big private investing firm on Park Ave. with lovely fountains outside. The kitchen is extremely well-stocked...for lunch, I had a salad with avocado, tomato, blackened chicken, bleu cheese...and fresh mango! And fabulous snacks- yogurts and candy and pita chips. If I didn't have somewhere to go after work tonight, I'd probably rob the place blind.

I am so bored. The phone has not made a peep in the past two hours.

Yesterday, I spent a great day in the city with one of my roommates. We started out with lunch at Max Brenner's. Max Brenner may be my soulmate- he has my exact views on life, writing and chocolate. The food was absolutely divine. I had the dark chocolat drink (their specialty- it is hot chocolate served light and foamy, like cappucino, in what is called a 'hug mug') and a sweet potato crepe. My roommate had a mocha drink (served in a similar frothy fashion) and the salmon quiche. Di-vine.

While still enjoying our chocolate high, we went shoe shopping (more shoes...but I NEEDED them for work) and bought the rest of my books at the NYU bookstore.

I am starting to be a little nervous about my grad classes. Some of my books are scary. The readings I have to do for the first class of Seduction in the Age of Revolution are scary. I am worried that everyone will be smarter than me, and that is also- you guessed it- scary. I've always been smart English girl. If everyone else is smart English...how do I compete? And by compete, I mean win...

Tonight we are going out to Dallas BBQ in the Village, and I expect to meet a lot of my roommates' friends. Yay! Other plans for this weekend: none. So far. I'm almost afraid to do much, since I know that once classes start, I will never rest again...

My beautiful new shoes...

Here they are!


Exsquisite.

Though these portraits in no way do them justice. My shoes deserve a real fashion photo shoot, not my dinky Kodak, cheap software, and bad overhead lighting.

Check out more Miz Mooz here.

Foot fetishists, I do not want to hear a peep out of you. There will be no feet on this blog. Just shoes.

In a New York Minute...

I have had a fabulous day.

New Yorker Moment of the Day: Stopping on my way home from work to buy a day's wages worth of shoes.

Non- New Yorker Moment of the Day: Apologizing when I hit a woman with my bag as I was sitting down to lunch at Whole Foods. It was so Non-New York that she actually commented on it.

Other Fabulous Moments Du Jour:
- My first full day of work in NYC
- Getting Season 3 of Arrested Development on DVD
- Watching the Pilot of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (this show looks SO GOOD)
- Cooking and eating a FABULOUS curry.

How many more times can I say fabulous in this post?

In other news...

This weekend I saw The Illusionist. And it was fabulous (1). The whole movie is very pretty- much of it done in Sepia, with gentle, lovely accents. Jessica Biel actually managed to hold her own against actors such as Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti- this was surprising. The movie was different and interesting, though adult magic movies seem to be gaining popularity (I cannot WAIT for The Prestige, starring two BEAUTIFUL and fabulous (2) men- Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman).

Yesterday, I watched the entirety of The Flight of Dragons, one of my favorite movies from my childhood. If you were also a fan of this fabulous (3) movie, which is only available to buy on VHS for almost one hundred dollars, the whole thing is on YouTube now. So go for it. It is the best thing I have ever seen on YouTube (except for my sister's Harry Potter video, watch here). Like many kids' movies that I've rewatched recently (ex: The Last Unicorn), there is so much more to it than I knew at the time!

Also realized while watching The Last Unicorn with my roommates this weekend: Schmendrick (a word which means 'fool' in yiddish) the Magician was kind of the animated love of my life as a child. And he has a HUGE nose. Hence the fascination with large-nosed men in my 'adult' life.

FABULOUS (4).

What I'm Doing Today

Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars is an excellent song to feel homesick to on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Atwood's Brilliance Continues...

I just liked that title because it's all A-B-C.

Today, on the subway en route to an interview, I started Margaret Atwood's The Tent, which was a late birthday present from a fellow Atwood-lovin' friend. I'm still working on The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (which is HUGE and NEVER-ENDING), but I thought reading Atwood would look more intellectual, in case anyone at the job interview judged me on my reading material.

Of course, no one did.

Most of my experience with Atwood has been her novels. This is a book of short essays, illustrated by Atwood herself. I don't know how it's possible to fill so few pages with such substance, with such beautiful phrasing that it seems almost like poetry. I'm including one essay here, entitled "Encouraging the Young", that I found absolutely chilling. If you want to read more of the essays (and you SHOULD) go out and buy them or borrow them. Here goes:

I have decided to encourage the youth. Once I wouldn't have done this, but now I have nothing to lose. The young are not rivals. Fish are not the rivals of stones.

So I will encourage them open-handedly. I will encourage them en masse. I'll fling encouragement over them like rice at a wedding. They are the young, a collective noun, like the electorate. I'll encourage them indiscriminately, whether they deserve it or not. Anyway, I can't tell them apart.

So I will stand cheering generally, like a blind person at a football game: noise is what is required, waves of it, invigorating yelps to inspire them to greater efforts, and who cares on what side and to what ends?

I don't mean the very young, those who can still display their midriffs without attracting derision. Boredom's their armour: to them I'm a voice balloon with nothing in it.

No. It's the newly conscious young I mean, the ones with ambition and fresh diffidence, those who've learned the hard way that reach exceeds grasp nine times out of ten. How disappointed they are! And if and when they succeed for the first time, how anxious it makes them! They develop insomnia, or claustrophobia, or bulimia, or fear of heights. Now they will have to live up to themselves. Bummer.

Here I am, happy to help! I'll pass round the encouragement, a cookie's worth for each. There you are, young! What is a big, stupid, clumsy mess like the one you just made- let me rephrase that- what is an understandable human error, but a learning experience? Try again! Follow your dream! You can do it!

What a fine, shining person I am, so much kinder than when I'd just finished being young myself. I was severe then; my standards were exacting. The young- I felt- were allowed to get away with far too much, as I had been. But now I'm generosity itself. Affably I smile and dole.

On second thought, my motives are less pure than they appear. They are murkier. They are lurkier. I catch sight of myself, in that inward eye that is not always the bliss of solitude, and I see that I am dubious. I scuttle from bush to bush, at the edge of the dark woods, peering out. Yoo hoo! Young! Over here! I call, beckoning with my increasingly knobbly forefinger. That's it! Now, here's a lavish gingerbread house, decorated with your name in lights. Wouldn't you like to walk into it, claim it as your own, stuff your face on sugary fame? Of course you would!

I won't fatten them in cages, though. I won't ply them with poisoned fruit items. I won't change them into clockwork images or talking shadows. I won't drain out their life's blood. They can do all those things for themselves.

Margaret Atwood. The Tent. Doubleday. 2006.

Puppy Killers!

Dear Scientists of the International Astronomical Union:

No one likes a puppy killer.

As a child in school, I was taught a very important mnemonic device to learn the order of the planets. Now, since the decision that Pluto is NOT a planet, said mnemonic device goes like this:

My Very Extraordinary Mother Just Sent Us Nine.

NO MORE PUPPIES.

I hope you're happy.

Wikipedia lists ideas for non-pluto mnemonics here. It's not the same.

Apparently, this has happened before. Ceres used to be a planet but got demoted (I wonder what mnemonics were used with Ceres and how people coped with its disappearance). What's next? Earth?

Think about what you are unleashing here, oh scientists of the International Astronomical Union.

Also, I bet you're all geeks.

Geeks and Puppy Killers.

Look at what the dog is refusing to drag in...

Tonight I joined two lovely young men for dinner at the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park. I had a chocolate shake (which I’ve been craving for about a week now- I think ever since I watched the scary Johnny Depp and the Chocolate Factory movie) and a burger. Shake Shack does their burgers California style. The jury is still out on what that actually means.

Anyway, it was delicious and lovely to sit out in the park, devouring burgers and chatting. We washed the whole thing down with slurpees from what is, apparently, the only 7-11 in the city. The evening ended up on their beautiful terrace overlooking the Empire State Building, the Chrysler building, and two other big tall beautiful buildings, where we saw five rare stars in the Manhattan sky and discussed such burning issues as coffee snobbery (will people look down on you if you bring a 7-11/Dunkin Donuts cup into work instead of Starbucks), television (and excitement over the new Aaron Sorkin show), and random NYC trivia (the smallest county in the country is New York County, a.k.a Manhattan).

I.love.this.city.

I’m still unemployed, a fact that is probably apparent from my posting at 1:30 in the morning. Nothing to get up for tomorrow. In fact, I may read a little before bed, too. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, people who won’t employ me.

Not that I’m desperate or anything. I started my job search on Sunday evening. It is now Wednesday evening. I quit my old job two Fridays ago. This is exactly eleven days that I’ve been out of work. Hardly a significant number.

The thing that gets me the most is the dog-walking companies. I really want to be a dog-walker. They make decent money, I could do it before classes, I could take an evening job still if I needed to, plus I would totally lose weight. What more could I want? But these dog-walking jobs do not come easy. They want cover letters and resumes and references and experience.

Hi. I graduated Summa Cum Laude. I am very smart. I am in the process of obtaining my master’s degree. I like dogs just fine. I have two years of excellent and irrelevant office experience. I ran a half-marathon in March. Please let me walk your dogs.

Speaking of Conslutting...

During my job search thus far, I have found openings for girls at foot fetish parties, phone sex operators, and something that advertised potential mistresses but seemed to be some kind of non-sex S&M role-playing gig.

No, I have not applied for any of the above.

But they sure do offer a lot more than the waitressing/assistanting type jobs I'm looking at.

Yes, toothpaste for dinner is hilarious.

No, this is not my goal for life in New York.

Weekend Revue

1- Sac's Place

I visited this Italian restaurant with my family and all the roommates (future and present). They're famous for their coal-oven pizza (I tried my sister's and it was delicious). Everything was good: my French Kiss martini, the hot antipasta appetizer, and my pepper and mozzarella ravioli. The only thing lacking was my birthday tiramisu, which was round and liquidy. Will definitely be walking to this Astoria restaurant in the future to pick up some pizza.

2- The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Our cheap tickets from the TKTs booth turned out to be very good seats (second row). This show was hi-larious. The best part: my sister was one of the audience members chosen as a bee participant. She spent at least half an hour onstage and, despite her horrendous spelling, got 'indigent' right. Also,
Barrett Foa, who I also saw as Princeton in Avenue Q, is my new, probably gay, celebrity boyfriend.

3- Aliada's

My first authentic Greek restaurant. Now that I live on the edge of Astoria, there are sure to be many more. I tried the Mousaka, which is what lasagna would be if the Greeks had invented it instead of the Italians. It was good but...weird. My fabulous married friends, visiting from New Haven, had the Greek Mixed Grill. Too much meat but all of it very tasty, especially the goat cheese and pork. Delish (I've been saying this 'word' a lot lately, I figure I may as well write it).

4- The Fantasticks

I was definitely spoiling myself with two shows in one weekend- I'm pretty sure this will never happen again. My high school performed The Fantasticks during my sophmore year; I had vague but pleasant memories of it. The show only opened four days ago, but it had everything together. I loved the cast and the simple staging of the production. I'm at an age in my life where I feel this show should be very relevant- it's about growing up and relating to the world. I think. In all honesty, I'm not sure exactly what the intended message of the show is...but I enjoyed it!

5- Rice to Riches

When my roommate said we were going for rice pudding, I was skeptical. I do not remember ever really liking rice pudding. She promised I would, once I tried this rice pudding. This was the Cold Stone of rice puddings. And it was absolutely terrific. I tried the tiramisu with whipped cream on top. And the store itself is adorable, filled with signs saying such things as "We Have a Deal with the Bank- They Don't Serve Rice Pudding and We Don't Cash Checks" and "Eat as Much Rice Pudding as You Want- You're Already Fat". Also delish.

Summary of Revue: I loved everything.

Baby's First Solo Trip

On Wednesday, baby took her first solo trip into the city.

She walked to the subway (all alone!) and picked the correct line going in the correct direction. She got off at the right stop (all by herself!). She figured out which way to walk (without any help!). She arrived at the NYU offices on 12th street and got a very crappy looking ID card.

Then she doubled back to the most magnificent thing she had ever seen, which caught her eye on the way to 12th: The Strand Bookstore.

Baby spent a lot of time in there. Too much time. It is heaven in a store. She should probably never go there again.

Then she grabbed a sandwich and wandered around the Union Square Farmer's market.

Then she got back onto the subway (all alone!) and picked the correct line going in the correct direction. She got off at the right stop (all by herself!). She walked home (without any help!).

I am amazing.

I'm gonna be a part of it...

I’m here.

Still moving in. Still adjusting. My mother is wondering why I haven’t gotten a job yet. I’ve only been here three days.

Last night I had a fabulous New York experience. We went to Magnolia’s for birthday cupcakes (a day late, but just as good) and then to see a fringe festival show…which was sold out because it was an equity showcase. So, instead we went to Dallas BBQ, where we sat around with Texas-sized drinks and played Scrabble...which, believe me, is hard once you have some Texas-sized drink in you.

Tonight we are going to see a show for real. We think.

I’m really enjoying my new neighborhood. I like walking places…to the store, to pick up some lunch, to the subway…everywhere!

And I’m 24. Mid-twenties. Eek.

Still. I’m loving this city.

If that's Moving Up, then I'm...

T-minus (where did that come from) 3 days until I leave for the Big City.

Friday is my last day at work here. In honor of this momentous occasion, I am sharing my phone quotes (I'm a sucker for keeping track of funny quotes, no matter where I am).

My funniest phone experience ever (though also kind of creepy) was when someone called me up at my restaurant receptionist job to talk about my feet (and offer me money to lick them...I considered it). I also had some very funny moments working in the Box Office at Theater on the Hill. And then there were the funny convos at my current place of employment...

Caller: What's your name?
Me: (my full name)
Caller: I hope there's a man deserving of that name.

Caller: Is JR in?
Me: No, he's actually not going to be in until next week.
Caller: That communist.

Caller: Why don't you get up, go down the hall, tell him I'm on the phone, and slap him?
Me: I really can't do that.

Me: Good morning, (company name).
Caller: Hi, who's this?
Me: (my name)
Caller: What's your name?
Me: (my name)
Caller: And you're with (company name).
Me: Yes.

Caller: When you slap somebody, what do you generally do: slap on the cheek or the arm or what?
Me: I don't generally slap people.
Caller: But if you did?
Me: Uh...the cheek.
Caller: Self defense lesson: if you want to slap someone, slap 'em in the ear. They'll go down.
Me: I'm going to see if Bob is available yet.

A couple funny conversations, face to face (funnier, I am sure, if you actually know the people):

JR: Now, who has an adding machine?
Di: An adding machine? It's right next to my abacus.

Me: What do you call the color of that shirt?
Todd: Flamboyant.
Me: I think it's mauve.
Bob: It's mauve. Let me never see you wear that shirt again.
Me: Is that a cheerleader on the pocket?

Jaimie (on phones): How can I hold you?
Caller: Uh...

Me: There's a lot of things you can't take into Preakness that you used to be able to.
Todd: Like guns?
Me: Yeah, you can't take guns.
Todd: Aw, I can't take my arms!

Goodbye, oh office-o'-mine. It's been a good run.

Thoughts for the Future...

Once we get fed up enough with the American government, my cousin T and I are going to open a bar in Australia called 'Why We Left America'. There will be many drink specials, a lot of menu items stolen from Padonia Station (flavored eggrolls), and a two bedroom apartment over the bar.

There are so many alternate realities out there, and I can't live them all.

Quandary of the Day: When did I become the kind of girl who greeted people with a mutual cheek-kiss? I did this a lot at my friend's gig last night, to people I haven't seen in ages. Why? Why is this an effective method of greeting people?

The (first) Requisite Moving Post

everyone else did one, so why can't I?

A successful move, I am beginning to feel, is in the details. The painstaking little tiny details. Anyone can throw junk into boxes and pile it into a truck. It's the details that work.

I've had a list in my martini-covered briefcase for two weeks now. Everything that has to be done moves on and off that list. It's the conveyor belt of tasks. It includes everything from 'sell car' to 'library books back' to 'Kristin's show'. It is the Bible of My Life.

Yesterday's big task focused on the cat.

My cat, Darcy, is not particularly likeable. I wish I had one of those adorable, cuddily kittenish cats who plays with string and only climbs in your lap when you want her to and doesn't shed profusely or scratch. However, I don't. I have a fairly unhygenic fat cat who only wants to hang out when you're working (the other day, I was writing and she pulled the space bar off of my laptop), gets clumps in her fur that make her back half unpettable, sheds, and scratches anything she can reach.

And I'm about to unleash her on two new unsuspecting roommates.

So yesterday was Extreme Makeover: Cat Edition. I knew if I, who kind of love Darcy, was finding her hard to live with, new people would find her intolerable.

First problem: excessive shedding on the furniture.

I know there is only so much cat hair you can tolerate on your furniture. So I decided to try No Stay, which will apparently keep the source of all cat hair, Darcy herself, off of the furniture. I am trying it out with this small black couch in my bedroom that she loves to sit on. So far...well, nothing. But it's supposed to take four days to work...Also, it's organic. I always feel better when I spend my money on organic products.

Second Problem: The CLAWS

Having decided, after much internet research, that de-clawing is in fact inhumane and only to be used as a very last resort, I happened upon Soft Claws. These puppies glue onto Darcy's paw, rather like Press-On Nails, and are supposed to last for three months. A pack contains 4 sets of nails, so that's a year's supply. For twenty dollars. Not bad, if it works. I wanted to get her the pink so she would be totally stylin'(black, white and pink are HOT together), but they weren't available in her size. Maybe next time.

Getting them on her was monstrously unpleasant and took two hours of television watching and a leash. I had to calm her down enough to cut each claw, put glue in the plastic claws and stick them on. She was NOT a happy kitty. But now she is not a scratchy kitty either.

Problem Numero Three: Icky, matted hair.

No one wants to pet a cat with clumps of nasty hair on her backside. Not even her sometimes loving mama. So, I decided to try this, recommended by a friend for just such problems. So far: not working. The rest of her hair is silky smooth, but the clumps remained clumps. So I cut them out. Maybe you have to catch clumps when they are just forming and not when they've been hanging out on the cat's back for a couple of weeks. Ew.

Yes. I was good business for Petsmart yesterday. But now Darcy is ready for her move to the big city and will, possibly, earn the love and respect of my new roommates...if they can get past her many behavioral problems.

Also: waa, waa! I hate packing.

Pieces of Web: Heath, Harry and Hemingway

what I enjoyed on the interweb today...

From my daily newsletter, The Writer's Almanac:
"The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination." ~ Elizabeth Hardwick
"An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex." ~ Aldous Huxley

Heath Ledger will be playing the Joker in the next Batman (Begins) movie...can I handle Heath Ledger and Christian Bale in the same movie? Oh, the beauty! I hope Tom Cruise's child love slave skips this film (she is not yet listed in the cast on imdb.com). Also: how far from Jack Nicholson can the casting agents get?

What will the wine industry think of next? First they started making excellent wines with screw caps (which are much more reliable than cork). Now good wines are being put into boxes and jugs. Pretty soon, wine afficianados (or in my case, wanna-bes) won't have anything to be snobby about!

Grey's Anatomy spoilers(ish) discussed on TV Guide's Ask Ausiello here. Apparently, Patrick Dempsey is tired of McDreamy being so wishy-washy about his women, and Ellen Pompeo is boring. Also, the first episode takes place mere hours after last season's cliff-hanger. I can't wait! Over at Grey Matter, Shonda Rhimes has 1006 comments on her latest blog. If only I had that kind of following.

I wish I could have made it to NYC for this event: John Irving (genius) and Stephen King (blockbuster), acting as 'warm up bands' for JK Rowling (goddess). What I don't understand? How any fan- of the book OR movie- could possibly still think that Harry and Hermione are meant to end up together.

The many uses of myspace continue to multiply: the writers/show producers of America's Next Top Model are using myspace to promote their strike.

Discourse on the main 'curse' word of my childhood. No, I didn't cuss as a child (I still don't use foul language around my parents), but my mother would blanche and yell over the word 'sucks'.

And, just because Hemingway has been popping up so much in my blog lately- here's a bit about his cats. Hemingway's six-toed cats, named after celebrities such as Frank Sinatra and Pablo Picasso are a fixture at the writer's home in Key West. But for how long (cue ominous music)?

And a note from my personal emails: I will have Tivo in the new apartment. It doesn't get any better than that.

Creed

I believe the chicken before the egg
though I believe in the egg. I believe
eating is a form of touch carried
to the bitter end; I believe chocolate
is good for you; I believe I'm a lefty
in a right-handed world, which does not
make me gauche, or abnormal, or sinister.
I believe "normal" is just a cycle on
the washing machine; I believe the touch
of hands has the power to heal, though
nothing will ever fill this immeasurable
hole in the center of my chest. I believe
in kissing; I believe in mail; I believe
in salt over the shoulder, a watched
pot never boils, and if I sit by my
mailbox waiting for the letter I want
it will never arrive—not because of
superstition, but because that's not
how life works. I believe in work:
phone calls, typing, multiplying,
black coffee, write write write, dig
dig dig, sweep sweep. I believe in
a slow, tortuous sweep of tongue
down the lover's belly; I believe I've
been swept off my feet more than once
and it's a good idea not to name names.
Digging for names is part of my work,
but that's a different poem. I believe
there's a difference between men and
women and I thank God for it. I believe
in God, and if you hold the door
and carry my books, I'll be sure to ask
for your name. What is your name? Do
you believe in ghosts? I believe
the morning my father died I heard him
whistling "Danny Boy" in the bathroom,
and a week later saw him standing in
the living room with a suitcase in his
hand. We never got to say good-bye, he
said, and I said I don't believe in
good-byes. I believe that's why I have
this hole in my chest; sometimes it's
rabid; sometimes it's incoherent. I
believe I'll survive. I believe that
"early to bed and early to rise" is
a boring way to live. I believe good
poets borrow, great poets steal, and
if only we'd stop trying to be happy
we could have a pretty good time. I
believe time doesn't heal all wounds;
I believe in getting flowers for no
reason; I believe "Give a Hoot, Don't
Pollute," "Reading is Fundamental,"
Yankee Stadium belongs in the Bronx,
and the best bagels in New York are
boiled and baked on the corner of First
and 21st. I believe in Santa
Claus, Jimmy Stewart, ZuZu's petals,
Arbor Day, and that ugly baby I keep
dreaming about—she lives inside me
opening and closing her wide mouth.
I believe she will never taste her
mother's milk; she will never be
beautiful; she will always wonder what
it's like to be born; and if you hold
your hand right here—touch me right
here, as if this is all that matters,
this is all you ever wanted, I believe
something might move inside me,
and it would be more than I could stand.

~ Meg Kearney, An Unkindness of Ravens
from The Writer's Almanac

Culture Check: 1,2,3 and 1,2,3

This weekend, I enjoyed a few cultural experiences that I have been putting off:

1) Reading The Old Man and the Sea.
I have been a huge Hemingway fan since eleventh grade, when I devoured For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Sun Also Rises. He's one of the reasons I'm moving to Key West once I become a famous writer (Hemingway + classic literary writer Meg Cabot). But the subject matter of The Old Man and the Sea never really interested me. It's an old man out in a boat, fishing. There's no doomed love affair. I was sure I wouldn't like it. But this Sunday, I took the book to the pool with me and read the entire thing in one sitting. The way to read that book is definitely in the baking sun with quick breaks in the cool water, floating, looking up at the sky, and thinking about the book. I should never have doubted Hemingway. I loved it. And now I really want to write a paper about Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, The Old Man and the Sea, and the myth of Isaac and Abraham. Yay, graduate school!

2) Watching She's the Man.
Do not mock. I wanted to see this in the theaters and made myself wait. I had hopes for another 10 Things I Hate About You. Teenagers have the perfect amount of angst for Shakespeare's comedies: oh, how they suffer, but you really can't take them seriously. While this movie wasn't quite on par with 10 Things..., everyone watching found it hilarious (the line that won the most laughter: How come when I wanted to ask Eunice out everyone made fun of me but when Sebastian likes her she's hot? No, screw you guys. I hate high school.). I was slightly disappointed that all the sexual edginess of Twelfth Night completely disappeared. Viola was introduced to Duke Orsino (that being his full name in the movie, not his title and name) early in the movie, at a kissing booth. Duke then became interested in Sebastian's twin Viola instead of having a very strange relationship with Sebastian himself. I love how, in the play, people just fall in love with each other without having any idea of their actual gender (of course, later, everyone ends up in gender appropriate relationships)...but this was a teen comedy. Also, there was a tarantula named Malvolio.

3) Salsa Dancing!
I went to a wine festival this weekend with some friends from Texas who have been taking salsa dancing lessons. They know the moves. I don't (it seems to be a lot of 1-2-3s and hip movements). But I'm trying to learn...it's a great workout and a lot of fun. And, I'm going salsa dancing next weekend, so I'll have plenty of opportunity to hone my skills.

In other news...

I've been finished Guilty Pleasures for awhile now, despite its continued presence on the blog side bar. Are the Anita Blake vampire hunter books any good? Well, I'm on the third one now, and I have a strong, persistent desire to start wearing a cross. Preferably a big, silver one.

It's hair cut time. Time to find the perfect style that is a) hip enough for New York, b) easy enough for lazy graduate student maintenance, c) compliments my round face and d) doesn't need to be touched up very often. Any suggestions would be more than welcome.

I found this article about the girl who wrote The Washingtonniene an interesting look at the legalities and purposes of blogs. Check it out.

Television Without Pity has started recapping the first season of Grey's Anatomy. Best work distraction EVER.

Disturbing, unmagical news...

I have no desire to see Harry Potter, boy wizard, playing the lead teen role in Equus. I don't want to see Harry Potter being naked, having sex, or doing horrid things to horses.

In other disturbing and unmagical news, I am out of Coke Zero, both at my desk and my home.

Project. Run-away.

I wish I could make my own clothes. I wish I could take a blue bedsheet or a curtains or placemats or even legitimate fabric bought from a store and transform it into something stunning.

In college, I had friends who could make things. As our four years flew by, they created quilts, hats, shawls, skirts, pajama pants- you name it. I crocheted a very ugly hat that my friend wore in a play once. And I started to make a pink polka dot dress, until we realized it was about three sizes too small, and I just gave up.

The other night, while watching Project Runway, I snipped the plain green buttons off of my Old Navy Jacket and added funky vintage buttons instead (after looking for advice on how to dress well on a budget). The coat transformed into something new and beautiful. I felt so talented. I thought I had tapped into a previously hidden talent for fixing old clothes (thoughts fueled, no doubt, by the heroine in Queen of Babble) and could move onto other clothing projects I had sitting around: like my green wrap-around skirt with the bohemian pattern.

This skirt has been sitting in my closet for two years. I ripped it my senior year of college, on the way to a friend’s graduation party. I was sitting in the back of the car (which I hate) when we stopped at the Wawa to get gas. I climbed out of the back and stepped on my skirt. It promptly fell to the ground. I shrieked, “OH MY GOD, I’M NAKED AT THE WAWA!”, which is when the entire gas station turned and looked and saw me- not naked, but bottomless, at least, at the Wawa.

It took two years to heal enough to even consider fixing the skirt.

Inspired by my recent success with the jacket, this morning, before work, I decided just to sew that tie right up, good as new. It took less than ten minutes. I was feeling like a project whiz, like I might as well audition for Project Runway and start designing my own clothing line. I was visually planning my spread in Elle magazine.

And then I untied the ties (I’d left them tied when I sewed the skirt- it just seemed easier) and discovered that, somehow, I’d managed to sew the skirt so that one of the ties connected to both ends of the skirt and one wasn’t sewn on at all. It was completely un-wearable. My fashion dreams fizzled.

But I’m still in the market for other projects…

Weird Like Me

Note before I officially begin post: Something in my office smells like baby formula. There are no babies here. Conclusion: Someone's lunch smells like baby formula. Why would anyone eat something that smells like baby formula?

I've gotten stranger since I left college. Maybe even since I moved out of my parents' house one year after college. Strange in a I-role-play-on-the-weekends-wanna-see-my-Magic-cards kind of way. Except I don't roleplay. What I do is watch the Sci-Fi channel. Some of it. Like Firefly reruns, Battlestar Galactica (which I'm pretty much obsessed with), and the occasional Doctor Who.

And I've started reading paranormal romances. Which basically means vampires and anyone other supernatural being that happens to be befriending the vampires.

I haven't been too worried about this outlandish behavior, as my college roommate (who, ahem, needs to start posting again) independently took up Sci-Fi and vamps around the same time.

Turns out, however, it's just college grads in the suburbs of Bmore who are getting stranger. It's everyone! Paranormal romance is the new pink. It isn't just that, now that I read vampire romances, I suddenly see them popping up everywhere...they really are popping up everywhere. Which just proves that America obsesses over strange things...and now I'll probably grow bored of the entire thing.

For instance: I read everything about the Titanic disaster I could get my hands on until the movie came out and the market was flooded with an overabundance of Titanic books. Then I lost interest.

Anyway, if you wish to be inducted into the vamp-romance phenomenon, I have a few recommendations:

1)Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
This is the series that got me hooked. Harris creates a world where, thanks to synthetic blood, vampires and humans can peacefully co-exist. Her heroine, Sookie Stackhouse, is so great that HBO is creating a television series about her. My former roomie prefers the Mary Janice Davidson books, but I think the Southern Vampire series is much smarter and more engaging.

2) Happy Hour at Casa Dracula by Marta Acosta
This is a fun, chick-lit type vampire romance only recently released. I found it made an excellent beach read. Check out a full review here.

3) Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton
I've only read the first chapter of this book (so take this recommendation with a grain of salt), but I've been trying to get ahold of the book ever since. Hamilton is, apparently, the Queen of the Undead books, so it should be pretty good. If I ever get it.

And if you want to get into Battlestar Galactica before the start of Season 3 in October, get going...there's a lot of space fighting to frakkin' get through! Though I'm pretty sure once I got hooked it only took me about two weeks to catch up. Yup, I'm a big, strange geek. And lovin' every minute of it.

Happy Birthday, Ernest Hemingway!

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."

“Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.
“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

~ The final lines of The Sun Also Rises

"I know the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started."

~ A Farewell to Arms

"If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it."

"Never write about a place until you're away from it, because that gives you perspective."

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime."

~ Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961

Writing, writing everywhere (and not a drop to get published)

At work I am supposed to be working on the things they pay me to work on and not my own work. I understand this concept.

Yet I have a sneaking suspicion that I follow it even less than previously imagined.

Case in point:

Today, I decide to do some of MY work for just a little while, because I am tired of working on this marketing power point presentation. So I log onto my other email account and pull-up a baby novel I emailed myself (baby because, at this point, it is still only about five thousand words long). I look over what I have in the email- not even everything I've written thus far- and decide screw it, I want to work on something else.

So I open a new word document and start typing about my favorite heroine (probably because she's not even remotely based on me, except for being short and blonde and loving books, because most of my heroines end up being short and blonde), Narnia Jones. And I can't remember what her ex-boyfriend the reporter's name is. Is it Tad? I feel like it's Tad. Why do I keep naming things Tad? It's a very stupid name. Am I really sure it's Tad?

So I click into My Documents (which includes, among other things, a file called 'The Tad Show' which is the first non-work related piece I wrote in this office and consists of an interview between me and a fictional talk-show host named Tad about my job in commerical bidding) and I have five files about Narnia Jones saved. Five. And that is only a very small percentage of the non-work related writing in this file.

Oops.

Also, his name is Tod Lear, not Tad. Thank goodness. Tad is a very silly name.

Of course, then I got to worrying (for some reason) that Tod Lear was the name of Elizabeth Wakefield's boyfriend in Sweet Valley High and I unwittingly copied it and, if my book is ever published, people will mock me mercilessly.

But no, his name was definitely Todd Wilkins. Aw, Sweet Valley High.

In other news, the title of this post is a lie, as I am about to have my poem Your Women published in the Poetry in Baltimore.com anthology. Not sure how much of an accomplishment this is, as I believe less than three hundred people were eligible to submit poetry to this anthology. Still. I love Baltimore. I love my poetry. It's pretty cool.

Ex-boyfriends in Heaven

Ex-boyfriends never go to hell,
no matter how many times
you suggest it. No, they ascend straight
to heaven, where they speak French,
wear matching socks, and always,
always arrive on time, with a full
tank of gas and a bottle of wine.
They never curse your cat
or your mother, never call you up
drunk doing Arnold Schwarzenegger
impressions, never say Hey Rita
if your name is Tammy,
never say Hey Tammy
if your name is Joan.
They're better trained than dogs
and they smell better, too, better
than Twinkies or camellias, better
than anything on earth. Once
in a while, they take a holiday,
drive their Porsches down
through the clouds
in one long line and ring
the doorbell in your dreams,
offering tender apologies, tender
chicken cutlets, tender love.
But before you take one sack
of groceries, before your lips
graze a clean-shaven jaw,
before you let one polished
Oxford loafer through your door,
remember that as soon as they cross
the threshold, the truth will slip
in behind them: ex-boyfriends only
exist this way in heaven, or
whatever you want to call it,
their new lives without you.

~ Gwen Hart, Lost and Found

Debate for an Icecream

Back from the beach: tanned, blonde and fat.

Every year I go to the beach with my mother's side of the family. Every year I walk on the beach, do some running (my cousins are exhaustingly athletic), and swim a lot. And every year I come back a couple of pounds heavier.

Why? Because we are food-pushers. We are a family of food-pushers (this term coined by my cousin's boyfriend).

At the beach, there are big breakfasts and lunches and dinners and cocktail hours (that go on for several) and lots of chips and cookies. How can a little bit of swimming against the current compete with all that?

I went down there, carrying a few extra pounds from the European cruise still, determined not to gain any weight. I would eat like a normal person and not be victimized by the food-pushing.

But then I got to thinking about how poor I am going to be once I move to NYC...shouldn't I eat now while I still can?

Now that I'm back on terra firma, I've picked up morning runs and a lot less food (partly because I can't actually afford to buy food but running is free). I want to be at least one step closer to svelte when I move. I want to be an attractive and elegant New Yorker. I also want the wardrobe department from some major television show set in NYC (Friends...Sex and the City...) to redo my closet.

So I have to lose a bit of weight and gain a bit of style before the big move (26 days!!!).

But one of my co-workers won free icecream for the entire office. From Maggie Moo's, which I've never had, but I've heard good things about.

How can I turn down free icecream? I won't be able to afford ANY icecream once I move to NYC!

Ow, my jaw, oh, god, ow...

I'm awfully tired of the words 'ball valve'. Luckily, I started a brand new job search today. The beginnings of job searches are fun. You're hopeful, there's a ton of options out there, and you get to update your resume.

Three weeks down the line, when you're stil listening to 'ball valve', they are decidedly less fun.

In the meantime, I'll search, and try to figure out what is wrong with my jaw. The left hinge hurts a lot, and it hurts even more when I tilt my head to the right. The following diagnoses have been offered:

- Heart Attack (my friend Lizzie, who apparently does not realize that my slight hypochondria combined with the awesome search powers of google, will take this idea and run with it)
- Hypochondria (my mother)
- Tooth infection (my mother...her solution: floss)
- Contagious jaw disease ("I don't know, but your sister has the exact same thing.") (my father)
- Forgetting that I accidentally kicked myself in the face earlier today (my cousin/co-worker...the kicking being the cause of the pain, not the forgetting)
- TMJ (my uncle. and Lizzie). This apparently stands for Temporomandibular Joint Disorder (thanks, google). I would have sworn the 'J' was for Jaw.

I am Jack's throbbing jaw hinge.

In other news, I now know my new address in NYC, so if you're the sort of person who needs my address, let me know!

Also, Happy Kafka's Birthday!

"We need the books that affect us like disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."
~ Franz Kafka

Musings on a subject close to my heart

Thought of the Day: Maybe I am ready for an adult relationship.

This weekend, I met up with my little from Alpha Psi Omega, my college (theater) greek organization. She graduated from college a little over a month ago. And we spent a lot of time discussing the transition from college to real livin', as I had thus found it.

In college (we discussed), you met a guy on campus. You didn't have to worry about getting his number or even learning his name, because when you live on a campus of less than two thousand students, you will find the guy again. He will pop up at the cafeteria or the next frat party or one of the few sporting events you end up attending. He will happen to have dated two of your friends and spilled beer on a third at a party last week. You will find him. No problem.

And then you find out what party he will be attending on Friday, Saturday, or Thursday night (I was an Honors kid- my partying nights were limited). You show up. There is no need to dazzle said boy with your sparkling wit and excellent conversation skills...because you are both drinking heavily, and suddenly "Hey, you want another beer" IS sparkling wit and excellent conversation. And if the stars are aligned properly and you both get similarly intoxicated and aren't seeing anyone else (or, sadly, maybe you are), you could end up back in his room (or yours), 'watching a movie' and whatever watching a movie may lead to.

And that's meeting men in college.

Suddenly, in the real world, you have to drive places to meet men, you have to go to bars or restaurants or sporting events or other people's weddings, and everything is off-campus, because there is no on campus. If you take a liking to someone, you have to get his number or give him yours, or risk never seeing him again. After all, the world is much larger than a college campus. And you have to do all this in a state of semi-soberness, as you have to drive yourself home afterwards.

And I've been resisting. So far, in real world livin', though I have exchanged the occasional phone number at a bar, I've still been trying to stick to the tried and true 'drunkenly run into each other' approach to romance. It's been working all right. I do, after all, have a fully stocked fridge and a very large collection of DVDs.

But I think it has stopped working. I mean, the method still works. Guys are guys, no matter what the age (and they're generally a step behind anyway, right?). But I think it's stopped working for me. Which, in a way, is a shame. I'm giving up a certain light-heartedness. But that's the difference between college and real livin'.

Which returns me to the thought of the day: Maybe I am ready for an adult relationship.

Maybe.

Everything I Needed to Know in Life I Learned After an Ill-Fated Visit to the Beautician...

Lesson of the Day: If you happen to have a large, pink scar forming above your left eye, it will not help your looks to try and cover said scar with pink eyeshadow.

At worst, you create a pink, mottled effect that is really quite ugly.

At best...you create a pink, mottled effect that is really quite ugly but people don't really notice the injury and think you're just really bad at make-up or have suddenly started applying your face in the dark. Because of this, you receive no, "Oh my god, what happened to your face?" comments.

Maybe I should just wear dark, dark sunglasses for the next week or two.

Eyebrows, not Europe

I expected that my first post back would be about Europe but instead it’s about eyebrows. I favor the everyday and mundane.

Getting your eyebrows waxed has become fairly important in this day and age. Sloppy eyebrows are hardly tolerated. I have very light blonde eyebrows and I get them waxed. My father gets his eyebrows waxed (my mother, ironically, does not).

Today, I went to get my eyebrows waxed. I went to my usual place, which has become my usual because they only charge $8. The first time I got my eyebrows waxed, I paid $17. Mistake.

Eyebrow waxing is always slightly unpleasant, mostly because, at least for me, it never hurts exactly the way I expect it to. I expect pain, but it still always manages to surprise me by being different than how I remember. The same can be said for at least one of my past relationships as well: ‘Oh, it’s time for the scheduled pain, I’m ready…ow…OUCH! Now that’s different than I remember. I didn’t expect that.’

Anyway.

So when it hurt more than usual (or at least more than I remembered), I didn’t worry. Unexpected pain is to be expected. I looked in the mirror and my eyebrows looked clean and neat and, as usual, surrounded by red puffiness. It wasn’t until I got into the car and really looked in the mirror that I realized that long strips of flesh under both of my eyebrows had been completely ripped off.

So now I’ve got some kind of strange scar face thing going on. Excellent.

Anyway, on a different note, now that I’m back from Europe, I really need to get on my writing again. I feel kind of guilty about how much I’ve neglected it, recently. I’ve created all of these fabulous people and instead of giving them the happy or unhappy resolutions they’ve been waiting for, I’ve just kind of left them in the limbo of my laptop. Bad form.

Adventure on the High Seas

I am sitting at a desk overlooking the Mediterranean Sea through my balcony doors. Another ship is just a little white spot in the distance and besides that, it's all blue.

I am so happy to be on this boat.

My vacation with the sister in Spain was great...but it wasn't in any way a vacation. It was a trip and I was (except for one less than memorable incident) the tour guide, chaperone and camp counselor all in one. Here, I have a ship to glide me from port to port. There are no more maps and rushing to make flights and finding other travellers to share taxis with. Much nicer.

Anyway, tonight is the formal captain's gala and I must dress for dinner (v. Titanic). Later.