12/28/05
Of course end of year means lots of best/worst of clips shows are taking over the airwaves. God bless these rehash segments because I’d almost forgotten all about the Rosie masterpiece Riding the Bus With My Sister. I have a shorter term memory than I realized. I don’t have any year’s end ruminations, but I do have lots of non-pressing unrelated odds and ends I haven’t bothered to write about but will now. They should really be broken down into tiny paragraphs, but I don’t want to break with tradition. In 2006 I plan on continuing to post long blocks of unbroken-up text. But I am toying with a bloggy convention that I’ve resisted for at least the past few year: comments. When did this become standard? Maybe three years ago? To me, this is the component that made something a blog rather than a static website (though plenty of blogs don’t allow commenting) and I didn’t really get what the big deal was. I rarely comment on anything, but it recently struck me that I like reading them on other sites (that could also be the sign of a too-small work load). You might think that I’d be wary of comments because they lend themselves to abuse and nastiness (though off the top of my head I can only recall a handful of nasty emails over the years in response to my disdain for Jacqui Malouf, Puerto Rican pride, and dismay that the editor I’d only just started getting assignments from at the Village Voice suddenly died. It’s not like I post photos of kooky, possibly retarded, overweight Australian teens). But my real fear is simply that there would be lots of 0s (oh, that’s a tricky grammar thing—do you use an apostrophe with number. I thought you did with letters and not with numbers like abc’s but 123s. And I really should know because on Christmas Eve I participated in this small gift exchange thing and lucked out because I drew number 13 and there were 13 attendees, so using the rules of the game I was allowed last pick or steal. Being a dork, I grabbed a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves from one of the host’s mother). Indifference is worse than hate, right? At least that’s what I used to say when stalkees wouldn’t acknowledge my presence. Anyway, I’ll experiment with it on my 2006 inaugural post. I haven’t said anything about Peter Braunstein since his capture, and I must admit, if it hasn’t already become apparent, that I’m a bit of a sympathizer. I found this lengthy New York article from earlier in the month to be pretty balanced and dare I say insightful (not a term I use often in conjunction with New York). And not in an ironic way. It’s weird how so many snarky media type sites who’d normally find a story like this amusing all want to see the guy fry (and by the way, kidnapping and arson aren’t punishable by death) or pay somehow. He’s clearly a fuck up, I wouldn’t want to be one of his victims (drugging and sexually abusing sounds pretty bad, but I’m not sure where humiliating--my favorite inclusion in all the news stories--falls on the crime scale) but it wasn’t like he was targeting the general public. I get upset about dads raping their daughters with the aid of elderly men, parents who beat their children to death, teens killing for iPods, not over social retards acting out their perverted vendettas against fashion editors who wouldn’t give them the time of day. I always suspected that Braunstein had a little librarian in him. Apparently, he’d worked off and on for years as an archivist at a Manhattan school, which I can’t seem to find the name of again. You just knew he had a history of cooped up, isolated, dusty work in his past. Anyway, I don’t plan on concerning myself with the bitter and deranged (beyond myself) in 2006.

12/26/05
I thought those upbeat multicultural folks playing with sparkly garlands and fireplace log image on their car seat video screens in that Hummer holiday commercial were annoying enough. But they’ve so been topped, and I almost fear that I hallucinated this new hideous commercial because I haven’t seen it again since I was introduced to it last week. There’s a gaggle of maybe late 30s women driving around in a Chrysler Pacifica all sequined and gussied up for a night on the town, very Sex and City, which apparently is just now becoming all the rage with women who live nowhere near a city. I was already not liking them. I hate people-having-fun-in-vehicles commercials. But that wasn’t it, the driver gets out and hand her keys to the valet and says “take care of my baby.” This is when the camera pans to show a pregnant belly bulging against her silky fluttery sleeveless blouse. Hurl, hurl, hurl. I’m not saying that pregnancy makes you ugly or that you can’t be attractive and be a mom or with child or whatever. I just think they’re trying too hard to be sexy, and I’m not sure who they’re trying to impress. I assume other women, like look at me, I’m fearless and having a fetus imbedded in my body isn’t going to stop me from having fun. Because if you’re hoping to wow men, you’re just going to get pregnancy fetishists (Pregnancy Bang and Pregnancy Fux are two classy sites I just discovered) which is about as mainstream as guys who get off on granny and fat chick porn. Or maybe I have men all wrong and they totally dig aging knocked-up women in camisoles. This is true, just a few minutes ago I was flipping channels and there was a segment on one of those fluffy news shows about lingerie-clad pregnant women getting professional glamour shots taken. If it was good enough for Demi fourteen years ago, why not middle-Amercian moms-to-be of today? Anyway, I’m not being very Christmas-like, whatever that means. I was a total bum yesterday and didn’t even leave the house though I had every intention of going out last night. I’ve only been able to read one measly chapter from my holiday break buckle-down and get literary library books, Lunar Park and Indecision. I did muster the strength to make a Eurasian Christmas curry, which is about as exciting as it gets. Actually, I did receive an exciting, unexpected gift. As usual, James went to visit his parents for an indeterminate amount of time (this is bizarre to me—how can you not know when you’re coming back from a destination? I casually asked when he planned on returning, assuming sometime before the new year, and he totally lost his shit like I was asking something outrageous). Christmas Eve he informed me that I had a present hidden downstairs, and I was scared that it was the $9.99 J. Crew outlet slippers that we’d bought to give each other (I wanted the slippers, despite being men’s, but it didn’t feel like an appropriate surprise in absentia gift). You think I’m leading up to a ring or some shit (ha, I was just joking last week how the best way to propose to someone would be to put it in the litter box. Enough with this gem hiding in the tiramisu or champagne glass. Wouldn’t it be awesome to sifting cat turds [with three cats we have lots and lots of sifting opportunities—I clean two boxes twice a day] and litter and feces crusted diamond begins emerging?). Please, I’m talking about a video iPod. I really didn’t expect one and it’s not terribly likely that I would’ve ever bought myself one, but it is pretty slick. I was going to say something about having bad luck and likely losing it or getting it stolen, but that’s just too self-cursing. I need to start 2006 off totally jinx-free…and with 7,500 portable songs.

12/24/05
Hmm, so far I haven’t done anything terribly Christmassy. I didn’t even bake this year (maybe I didn’t last year either, I can’t remember, but I’m fairly sure I made fruitcakes). Usually, I feel like I’m missing out on something by staying nearly alone in NYC, but I’m kind of indifferent. I’m not sure if that’s maturity or apathy. Yesterday I was glad not to have to walk eight miles, but that did mean I had to show up for my half-day at work. But it all turned out well because our supervisor took the day off and we were able to crack open the bottles of cava a guy in our office gave as gifts (I was bad and didn’t bring any this year—there’s no formal gift exchange, but judging from the two Christmases I put in at this company it seems that our boss gives us a bottle of wine, one gives a bottle of cava and another brings boxes of candy) and make mimosas using little cartons of deli orange juice. It’s fun to be buzzed by noon, but I find drinking during the day (and not continuing on through the afternoon) makes me tired and cranky. I’m going to a low key party where I’m not sure I know that many people in a few hours. But if I sat at home I’d just waste the evening watching bad TV and drinking sparkling wine and pomegranate juice (is there a name for that cocktail? I’m only half-way through my first glass and already tipsy). Speaking of bad TV, last weekend I inexplicably became intrigued by Superman II on cable (funny that a friend would mention this film out of the blue). I was fascinated by how Margot Kidder was able to smoke in her office. Then last night I got stuck watching the ’95 remake of Village of the Damned, where Kirstie Alley plays some mysterious doctor (I liked Mark Hamill as a priest). She also chain smoked through the movie, even in the hospital. What these two flicks had in common was Christopher Reeve as a main character. Is there a connection? I think having these female characters as smokers was intended to portray them as headstrong, and by the ‘90s, as a kind of badass or outsider. I’m not sure about the ‘00s. Wasn’t there an angry hoopla surrounding Sissy Spacek’s character smoking in In the Bedroom? Doesn’t like 90% of Hollywood smoke, anyway? Regardless, we all know what happened to Margot Kidder and Kirstie Alley—they both went bat shit crazy (or at least got really fat).

12/21/05
I suppose today could’ve been way more traumatic than it was (tomorrow will certainly be a bigger pain in the ass) but it was still enough to nearly throw me into conniptions. I was lucky to be driven to Queens to catch the water taxi to midtown, and I must admit that the morning commute was bizarrely smooth. We left here at 7:30am got to Long Island City by 8am, I had to wait 20 minutes for the ferry, then it seriously only took three minutes to cross the East River. I was in midtown by 8:30am with only a twelve-minute walk to work. It actually pissed me off to be twenty minutes early for work, as it would make it seem that it was no big deal to get to Manhattan from Brooklyn, which isn’t true at all, I just had the luxury of a ride, which I won’t have for another week. So, despite the frigid cold I dilly dallied, bought a bagel with lox spread, and then started slowly feeling irked for having to waste time like this and broke down and bought a pack of cigarettes, which I maybe do four to five times a year. I forced myself to stay outside until 9:05am. It was absolutely dead when I got to work. Of course all my coworkers were already diligently tucked into their desks, but I swear there wasn’t anyone else on our entire floor. This is when I started feeling whiny and resentful. Anecdotally, from mailing lists I’m on and blogs I read, it appears that everyone gets to telecommute. I think that’s the benefit of being middle class versus working class--you’re skilled, trusted, and allowed to work from home. Not so, in my case. And it’s not like tons of work was pouring in since the bulk of my duties entail answering research requests and there wasn’t much requesting going on. So, I got to spend eight hours playing on the internet while practically everyone else in our entire building (minus the security guards and mailroom guys, very telling of a librarian’s status) stayed home or went out of town for the holidays. And when I unwrapped my bagel it was buttered (more likely margarined) not cream cheesed and that was the final straw. I do not like buttered bread for breakfast. I felt like punching someone in the neck. Luckily, my time wasted on the web led me to cute overload, and there’s no way you can stay down for long when you’re confronted with unbearably adorable shit like this. I was able to leave at 4:30pm, which is nice on the surface, but not so helpful because James was to pick me up at the ferry at 6pm and the river crossing is so damn fast that I made it back to Queens by 4:56pm. And if I wasn’t so retarded I’d have a cell phone, not so I could call him and let him know that I was killing an hour at a bar/restaurant a block away, but so that I’d have his blackberry number saved to enable that call. I know his work, home and cell numbers, but can’t seem to keep the blackberry’s digits in my brain. Wasn’t there a NY Times article a few months ago about how no one memorizes phone numbers anymore because they’re all saved in electronic devices? So, I spent more time than necessary downing two pints of Stella and he showed up early and had to wait and it took an hour just to get back down to Carroll Gardens and I seriously almost peed my pants in the car (what happens if you’re stuck in traffic and are struck the violent urge to urinate?), but it really wasn’t all that difficult. What I’m dreading is walking to the World Trade Center tomorrow (one hour estimate) and then attempting to take the PATH into NJ, then popping back into Manhattan at 33rd St. It’s really the best solution I can come up with, as convoluted as it seems. But that’s it, I’ll do the longwinded trek tomorrow because I only have three days of work left and it won’t kill me to suffer for one day, but there’s no way in hell I’m commuting three-plus hours on Friday to work four hours. Half days aren’t always such a nice thing.

12/20/05
So, is everyone like photoblogging the strike? Look, it’s me walking over the bridge. Isn’t this fun and cool? We should totally throw a strike party. I love all the white hipsters (and not so hip) on the news claiming solidarity with the transit workers. I suspect that quite a few of these sympathetic folks don’t have real jobs (stylist, dj, bartender or artist don’t count), or a job at all, live in Manhattan or very close, or can telecommute, or get off on espousing the environmental benefits of biking. I’m certainly not as bad off as outer outer borough people in say, Sheepshead Bay, East New York, etc. And I’m not an hourly worker, so presumably I’ll figure out a way to get paid for today. Life could be much worse. But I still feel no inclination to brave the chilly weather and masses of amateur pedestrians. One, because I’m lazy and apathetic, and two, because I only have four days of work left at my job anyway. What are they going to do to me if I stay home? It does make me look bad because the four other people in my office have no problem getting to work. Two live reasonable walks away in Manhattan, the other two live in Westchester and Long Island and take trains rather than the subway. I could walk half an hour to the Brooklyn Bridge, half an hour over it…and then, I’m kind of screwed with about fifty-five blocks still to go. I’m thinking that tomorrow, at least for the morning commute (James goes home for Christmas tomorrow evening) James can drive me to Long Island City and I can either walk over the Queensboro bridge and walk down from 59th St. or possibly take the water taxi to 34th St. On a good day we can drive from Carroll Gardens to Long Island City in less than 15 minutes, but during this tumult, I don’t know. The most outrageous, beyond bizarre part of all this is my supervisor’s reaction. She actually suggested that I stay with her for the duration of the strike. What the hell? I quit, I don’t even want to be in that office, but I’m going to stay in Westchester with her and her husband? That’s like the nuttiest fucking thing I’ve heard in a long time (almost as nutty as that retarded Crumbelievable ad). And you wonder why I’m leaving. I see tennis shoes and many layers (though I still refuse to wear a scarf) in my future. Why can’t I be like everyone else and go away for Christmas? I swear, half the city will be out of here in the next few days, they don’t give a shit. Not only will I be metaphorically stuck in Brooklyn for Christmas, I physically won’t be able to go anywhere either.

12/16/05
I told you that I was softening on things, and maybe camera phones should be one of them because yesterday as I got off the subway and was about to head up the stairs I got a double dose of no-nos. A girl in a sleeping bag coat (which I’m not against anymore) was inches behind a girl wearing pajama pants, as she went through the turnstile. I couldn’t believe my eyes and ran fast as I could up the stairs (I lied the other day about not getting winded) and then had to brisk walk fast as I could to get close enough to the PJ offender to see what the pattern was. It was awesome, bubblegum pink flannel covered in Betty Boops who were dressed Parisian. I followed her for a block. A photo would’ve been a nice touch, but even if I had a camera on me I would’ve been too self-conscious to snap a shot of her backside. This afternoon I went wild at lunch and got a really good roasted pork, coppa, pickled pepper relish and fontina on grilled country bread sandwich from the ‘wichcraft stand in Bryant Park (there was a baffling/irritating Italian family in line ahead of me who wanted a chicken sandwich without chicken and grilled cheese without the cheese—I’m not joking. Remind me, if I ever travel to Italy, which I probably won’t [I’m trying to come up with a European side trip for Aug. when I have to go to Wales for my sister’s wedding. I’m thinking Scandinavia or Switzerland/Germany/Austria] to make sure to order linguini without the pasta and see how well that goes over) $10.02 is way over my usual $5 lunch limit, but hey I got $20 Christmas money from my grandma yesterday. I’m not making fun, I bought a treat I normally wouldn’t and have enough left for another on Monday. So, it’s that time of year where I’m once again shocked and amazed (yet, less so with each passing year) at income disparity. (I don’t mean like Robb Report craziness, I like the current issue’s bit on personalized jets, not simply private, but personalized. Actually, I could really go for a green diamond, which they were blathering on about last month. I only read this because we get it at work.) It’s bonus time. Not for me, duh. I was excited that I’ll be getting a $7,000 increase at my new job and then James gets a bonus that’s exactly double my new salary. It’s so weird that someone could get the same amount in one day just for existing that another person would make after two years of actual work. I won’t even get into how with his new raise there’s $95,000 separating our annual incomes. And I thought I was doing alright…well, for me. I was going to contribute a little extra to the rent once I started my new job (currently, I pay about a third) but now I’m like no way. Even those strike-threateners at the MTA have starting salaries of $52,644, which is bizarrely high compared to the NYC median of $25,751 (Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2004 American Community Survey), not to mention stressful jobs like teaching and policing. Meanwhile, I just found out the reason that I’ve never received my diploma despite finishing school nearly a year and a half ago is that I owe about $2,500. I had no idea, and have asked numerous times why I didn’t have my diploma and no one knew. There weren’t any holds on my record. As I don’t even have $2,500 in my bank account (well, technically I do but only because James hasn’t cashed my rent check yet) let alone $2,500 extra to spare, I will now be adding to my already substantial credit card debt. Loans and credit cards combined I owe the world over $50,000. That is less than many bonuses. Chump change, yet I’ve played with those debt calculators and at the rate I’m paying back I will be well into my 60s before this is paid off. I don’t know if I’ll even be around in my 60s.

12/15/05
I don’t know if I’ve just grown new layers of blubber in the last seven years, but I’m not finding temperatures in the teens to be as distressing as I used to. Sure, it’s bone-chilling out, but not unbearable, it’s almost invigorating. Maybe I have a disorder—does diabetes make you unseasonably warm? I thought it just rotted your eyes and extremities. Or maybe I don’t go outside as much as I used to so this isn’t an accurate assessment. Hmm, and technically it’s not even winter yet, maybe after a few straight weeks of freeze I will be changing my tune. Not only have my perceptions about the cold shifted, I’m starting to lighten up on winter attire. I’m still down on scarves, so-so on gloves (I gave in to hats a few years ago) but I’m starting to ease up on those long puffy parkas. The fact that they look like you’re wearing a sleeping bag used to disturb me, but now the fact that they look like you’re wearing a sleeping bag seems comforting. Maybe I’m just tired. Wearing sleeping bags in public is just one step away from wearing pajama bottoms as pants, which is uber white trash, way beyond sweats. Like baggy flannel ones with a repeating pattern like Cookie Monster. I swear, December 2006 I will be admitting that they’re comfy and not such a bad idea after all. Apparently, every year after 30, you lighten up on a concept that fills you with hate until you’re really old, really open minded and a really bad dresser. I really hadn’t thought much about Brokeback Mountain, despite finding Jake Gyllenhaal mildly hot (more Donnie Darko than Jarhead, though). Gay cowboys? Eh, not so fond of period pieces. But then I realized it wasn’t wild west era (admittedly, Deadwood wasn’t half bad and well, who can resist the charms of Little House on the Prairie? It’s too bad morphine addiction was as edgy as they got, I can totally see a great plotline involving the big city, Sleepy Eye, and a little frontiersman fudge packing) but late twentieth century, and then I got curious and read the short story (you can read it in like an hour or less if you have the urge--urgh, I guess The New Yorker took it down) a couple days ago. And now I’m totally obsessed with Brokeback Mountain. One of my monumental pubescent reads was Boys on the Rock (I hate the cover art they’re currently using. When I checked it out from the young adult section of my library in ’84 it was hardback and had pastel-hued illustration of a young golden haired skinny guy with his shirt off sprawled on his back on a rock. The face wasn’t shown full on, so you could imagine what he looked like. For some reason I used to think he would resemble Simon LeBon, and don’t get the wrong idea, I never had the hots for Simon, I was a John girl) a fairly explicit gay teen love story, so I cut my teeth on boy sex. But over the years I’ve grown out of it. Now I’m back in. Much of the appeal of Brokeback comes from the sparse language and knack for description. Plus, it’s heart wrenching enough to make you cry and I get off on unhappy endings. It’s really an unabashed love story and if this were a heterosexual romance it might make me barf, many of the lines would be corny, but somehow when said between two passionate, repressed men, the words are ok. I’m not sure how well the charm will translate into film, there’s not a lot of talking, these are rugged guy guys, action not words. It’s Hollywood, there’s no way anal sex is even going to be simulated, off screen or from a distance. How do you portray strong and silent and scenery that speaks for itself on the big screen? I’ll probably find out this weekend. I’m still recovering from last weekend’s excursion to Woodbury Common and the onsite Applebee’s.

12/12/05
Ay yi yi. I try not to talk about work, as to not get into any unnecessary trouble, but I’m about to start fresh so who cares. I worked up the nerve to give my notice today (well, picking today was more strategic than anything. I originally planned on doing it Fri. giving three weeks warning, my last day being Dec. 30. But that wasn’t allowed by HR because we have that week off, they politely suggested Dec. 23 instead, exactly two weeks. But since my new job starts Tues. Jan. 3 that would leave me without a job for a week. There’s no way I’m not getting that holiday week off paid, so I decided my last day will be Mon. Jan. 2, which is totally lame and a little Costanza. How retarded is it to be off for Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and the week in between, and then go back to your old job for one day in 2006. Plus, it’s going to make my taxes screwy. But hell, I can’t afford to lose the money) and then my boss didn’t even show up to work, which is rarer than rare. The woman could be missing a limb and she’s still be sitting at her desk at 7:30 sharp (we don’t technically start until 9am). I guess her husband injured his back or something and had to go to the hospital. Ha, which brings me to my fun filled Sat. night. Earlier in the day, my cat peed all over my coat that I left on a dining room chair and the urine not only soaked my wool jacket, but my purse, the chair and pooled in a nice circle on the hardwood floor below. This has happened probably four-to-five times in the past year. It’s a nuisance. I cleaned it up the best I could in a hurry, put the coat in the washer with Woolite, and we headed out to Woodbury Common. We returned home relatively late and somehow a leak had dripped through our ceiling and had created puddles in the kitchen, which thankfully weren’t cat pee, as we originally feared. The bathroom downstairs was a bigger mess, streaming with brown water. So, James went on a mopping rampage. He’s scary fanatical about cleaning. It’s totally beyond my comprehension and I try not to get involved. I thought he’d stick with the dirty water downstairs bathroom, but he managed to work the stairs into his manic plan and then decided to re-clean the scene of the earlier cat pee crime (I’m explaining more than necessary to illustrate the original impetus for mopping—the leak, not the cat pee—this is an important differentiation). The mopping whirlwind then morphed into clutter straightening. I still had serving dishes upstairs from my party the previous weekend, and this was making James nuts. I find this irrational cleaning and running around incredibly irritating and unnecessary, my nerves were beginning to frazzle. He grabbed my Eva Zeisel gravy boat and started heading downstairs, yelling out, “wouldn’t it be funny if I slipped and broke your dish?” which was instantly followed by a huge thud and a crash. I couldn’t fucking believe my ears. What is that—irony? Karma? Random happenstance? Angry, but slightly worried because the apartment was then dead silent, I peeked down the stairs and could see two legs, a nonmoving body, a ladle snapped in two, a crumpled Kirkland grape soda can and sticky purple fizz all over the walls. Miraculously, the gravy boat, itself, was in one piece (priorities). I really can’t assess the seriousness of these situations because honestly James seems to exaggerate pain (he doesn’t read this or else I wouldn’t say as much or he’d kill me). I don’t know if he has a really low threshold or what, but he makes deals out of things no one else does, like when he had his wisdom teeth out he was making such a fuss about how much it hurt that I was considering calling 911. So, it looked serious. He couldn’t move his legs or sit up, but I figured that if I was mellow and didn’t make a big fuss that he’d get it together. I know that doesn’t sound very sympathetic, but I’ve learned over the years that if it’s truly an emergency it will make itself apparent. Eventually, he was able to hobble his way upright and blame my cat for making him have to mop and subsequently fall. Of course, I have a very different take on the whole matter. I do have to appreciate that he managed to save the gravy boat by falling on his arm, but jeez, I would’ve taken the damn thing downstairs on my own and I wouldn’t have tripped down the stairs in the process. I get this lack of empathy from my mom who in turn inherited it from her mother. It’s my dna, I can’t help it. I don’t know what I’d do if someone I knew actually had a heart attack or got shot or ran over in front of me. Years ago, I got into trouble at the movie theater where I worked because someone in the audience was having a trauma of some sort and I didn’t call 911. It just seemed like overkill, I didn’t think the guy needed an ambulance, and he didn’t. I know, I know, better safe than sorry. If anything, NYC is making me more desensitized. Pity the poor “sick passenger” on the subway. There’s no better way to piss off hundreds of people at once than to hold up a commute. So, thankfully, James’s tumble didn’t require a hospital visit, and really it was pretty humorous when it was all said and done. Though I can’t say I’m thrilled about my pee coat and broken ladle.

12/9/05
I’m a bad picture taker, meaning I don’t take them. I detailed my dinner party from last weekend, but I’ll admit it’s not impressive image-wise. I think I took about six photos the entire evening and none have people in them. I guess that belies my priorities—food or humans?

12/8/05
I feel like my, or maybe it’s other’s, timing is always off. I was home sick today (yes, again) because I feel like I’ve had emphysema for the past week, my lungs and throat are killing me and I swear I coughed up a hard white chunk this morning that was either cartilage or bone. Disgusting, right? I really hope I don’t have lung cancer. I’m wondering if smoking has finally caught up with me. I’ve never been one of those people who wakes up hacking or runs out of breath running up the stairs, but it’s probably about time that I’ve started feeling ill effects, despite maybe smoking one or two cigarettes a day rather than the twenty or so I used to rely on a few years ago. I’m sure I’ve mentioned Adam Brown before (though I can’t any evidence of it while using Google to try and search my own site. I actually do that, you know, when I think I’m about to repeat the same stupid story for like the third time. After writing about yourself for over seven years, you’re bound to become repetitive). He was this 25-year-old clean and sober ex-junkie me and my sister were friends with as teens. He worked at the café we hung out (La Patisserie on the ground floor of the Galleria, for all you Portland old-schoolers) and would give us free stuff. We’d drive him around (and every single time he’d ask, “don’t you have any Christian Death?” and every time we’d say “no.” I was never into that kind of goth. It was like an old boyfriend of mine who’d always if had any XTC, no matter how many times I told him I didn’t own any) and occasionally bring him out to the suburbs to hang out at bad Chinese restaurants (Chu’s Eatery in the Albertson’s parking lot on Powell and 171st—I think it’s still there) and buy him concert tickets (Ramones, which were an expensive for the late ‘80s $20). I wistfully recall him paying us $5 to buy him a copy of On Our Backsat a lesbian bookstore because they wouldn’t sell it to men. He was sleazy, talked about sex all the time and had a fucked up apt. with no bathroom or kitchen, a car door inside and a tube of KY on the shelf (he later moved into a room/closet inside of Sunflower Recycling, in this mini industrial area behind the Pizza Hut where I worked summer 1990) but he was harmless and entertaining and had freak ass style. Like completely unaware of fashion, mainstream or alternative. He had short cropped dyed black hair when we first met him, later he went for blue tufts that were more like Sideshow Bob than dreadlocks. My favorite item of his was this motorcycle jacket that he’d adorned with green feathers along the seam of the arms. He’d painted a wolf howling on the moon on the back, and down the arms he’d scrawled Badder Than Thou. It was so wrong, it was endearing. But my point is that he quit smoking at 25 because a doctor had told him his lungs were a mess, and he passed this info along to me and my sister as a warning that we’d better stop while we were ahead. And we were like whatever, you’re old, we had another decade to mess around with our health. I don’t know why, but I often remember that moment, how 25 was so ancient that, duh, someone at that age shouldn’t be smoking anymore. I still can’t believe I’m eight years beyond that, and now I’m coughing up hard white chunks. So, I was home today and got the call I’d been waiting for, a job offer. I verbally accepted it, now I’m simultaneously excited and nervous. I’ll start in the new year, but am feeling skittish about giving my notice. I feel guilty for using a sick day today, like it was planned, but who cares. Now the really weird part is that I’ve been going round and round with this p.r. firm for probably a month now. I think I applied in Oct. out of desperation because I was irritated by how nothing had happened with the job I thought was a sure bet at the advertising agency I’d interned and freelanced at last year. They’d called me back in late August when I was in Singapore. I knew the supervisor, they approached me, I interviewed twice, and then didn’t hear a peep after late Sept. Really bizarre. This frustrating kind of thing happens all the time with NYC jobs, but I didn’t expect it from a company where I actually knew the staff and had done the job before. Did they find someone better? Did I ask for too much money? Either way, they should tell you. So, I’m on my elliptical trainer watching my favorite 4pm combo of Judge Judy and People’s Court where I go nuts with the remote control every couple minutes to maximize my viewing, and phone rings. I can see the caller ID is from this ad agency I’d long forgotten about. What the fuck ever. It was their HR dept. wanting me to call them back, which I didn’t because it was too late by the time I was off the machine and checked my voicemail. I just accepted another job literally minutes before their call. I’m not sure what to think. I’m assuming it was a potential job offer, but maybe not, they could just be calling two months later to tell me they’re not interested, but they could’ve done that in a message. Originally, I wanted that job, what if it pays a lot more (I doubt it)? We never got super specific with numbers. I know it would be a lower-key, less responsibility job, very similar to what I’m doing now, the kind of thing I tend to gravitate towards. The one I’m taking will be more demanding on skills and time (longer hours than I’m used to and no little advertising industry perks like summer Fridays or the week off between Christmas and New Year’s, which I’m definitely still going to get paid for this year). Anyway, I already made up my mind (and do you really want to work somewhere that keeps you in the dark for months) it was just a bit unnerving to receive two calls in one day.

12/7/05
A hundred and fifty bucks for this shit? I can’t believe the giant fork and spoon has become Pottery Barn-ized. I always associated this peculiar dining room decor with lower class, possibly Hispanic households. (Apparently, it’s a big Filipino thing too, scroll to #74.) My aunt Belia (pronounced Velia, I remember seeing a prescription bottle with the correct spelling and being baffled how a B could make a V sound. I so don’t know my Spanish) who we probably only visited three or four times in my life (and died maybe eight years ago because her foot needed to be amputated from diabetes complications and she ignored it. I swear, my dad and his six dead siblings [there are still three left] all met untimely fates due to diabetes. The last time I was at the doctor my blood sugar was elevated and they wanted to do more tests and I haven’t gone back because the last thing I need is kidney troubles. I will let both my feet rot off before I give myself insulin injections), had a nice big wooden set hanging over the dining room table. I scared myself imagining how my mom might get the bright idea of using the outsized spoon as a butt paddler. My mom was a big proponent of the wooden spoon spank. I still fondly recall how she managed to snap one in two one on my ass during some holiday at my grandma’s. Kids today don’t know how easy they have it. Time outs? Please. Those coddled Carroll Gardens snots could use a few swats with a wooden utensil. See? This is why I don’t have children, I’d totally resort to ‘70s style corporal punishment. And then blow second hand smoke on the darlings, feed them canned vegetables and frozen Banquet chicken, and not make them wear seatbelts.

12/5/05
I don’t know if it’s the snow, all the holiday parties messing with my liver and kidneys, my permanent low grade cold, general antsy-ness or what, but I’ve had zero concentration skills in the past week. All I want to do is eat bad food and watch TV (though I was good enough to tackle my library books I checked out for Thanksgiving weekend. I finished Veronica and am 85% through with Little Children. I prefer the former, mostly because it’s the kind of writerly writing that I have no idea how to reproduce, my mind doesn’t work like that, where the Tom Perrotta book almost seems like something I could write. That’s presumptuous, it’s not like I have any idea how to write fiction, or have any inclination, but he basically tells an amusing straightforward story with sharp details. I can see how that’s done, reading the book is like watching TV, not like Yes, Dear, but maybe more like Weeds, which I never really watched. The Mary Gaitskill style is very smart and unsentimental, wry. I can’t think of a single TV show that captures the spirit of a middle aged, former model with hepatitis C thinking back over her life and focusing on a former frumpy fag hag friend who died of AIDS in the ‘80s. It’s certainly not a comedy.) Luckily, I took Friday off so I could get ready for the dinner party I threw Saturday night. It was fun, I don’t think there were any major disasters, but it’s tricky cooking food for 25 in a kitchen the size of a walk-in closet (not an MTV Cribs closet, just a regular person closet, you know, like a Trapped in the Closest closet. Ok, I’m starting to get unhealthily obsessed with the R. Kelly saga). I also had a half-day the week before, so I’ve been treated to some sorely missed daytime TV. I’ve been out of that loop since working full time for the last year or so. I can’t figure out who Judge Alex is, and why they need another judge show. I thought for sure that this was a dying genre. I also can’t figure out when the phrase “I’ve been knowing him for…” became acceptable English. It’s rampant on all the judge shows, like “I’ve been knowing her for five years” and no one blinks an eye. I guess if baby daddy is ok and mainstream, and where you at is a commercial tagline, then this phrase is pretty innocuous. Yes, I’m officially old. Speaking of, I was totally sweating to the oldies last week at the Special Libraries holiday party, it was a total freak show. After a certain point, say four or five drinks and a tequila shot (not my idea, but who am I to turn one down?) it’s easy to say fuck it, admit that you’re uncool and might as well give in to the Del Shannon and J. Lo. (that spastic Six Flags theme is a total siren call) and join all the lumpy poly-blend suited gals (and the requisite smattering of non-hetero gents) tearing up the dance floor. You have to have a good sense of humor (about yourself—that’s another small claims-ism, “I have good self esteem about myself”) to be handle these situations. The scary thing was that next morning my obliques were killing me like I’d been working out. It must’ve been that “Twist” medley (do you know what I’m talking about? It’s this horrifying mix where Chubby Checker morphs into other radio classics). Egads. I ended up sitting with the former me, the woman whose job I currently have who lives down the street from me, and she looked down at my shoes and asked if they were Ann Taylor extended calf. They were, which weirded me out that she called them out like that. I guess she has the exact pair (despite being a very medium person, probably a size 8, which just furthers my claim that large calf boots need to be mainstream rather than specialty). Of course, because they’re the cheapest non-ugly version without a high heel. Librarians are all about thrift and practicality, so predictable. This has nothing to do with anything, but I want to say that B61 bus, and NYC busses in general, have a bad rap but they’re not always hideous. The weekend before last, I got stuck in Williamsburg because neither the F nor the G were running (how lame is that? They weren’t even offering a shuttle or alternative route) to my neighborhood past midnight. And I just can’t justify spending $20 on a car service when I know that it’s only a ten minute journey (yet somehow it took me an hour to get there on the subway). I swear I’m smarter after having a couple drinks because it didn’t even occur to me until around 2am that I could catch the B61 right where we were and it would take me within eight blocks of my apt. despite it seeming further because it goes through that Red Hook/Columbia Waterfront/Carroll Gardens West area and I don’t associate that as being my neighborhood. The B61 only runs once an hour, so I had to wait until 2:57, as I’d just missed the 1:57 and it meanders like hell—I saw pockets of Hassidic Williamsburg that I didn’t even know existed, but it’s faster than it feels. Including the ten-minute walk home from the stop (which was fun because it was warm out and I was just tipsy enough to enjoy the desolate streets and view from the BQE overpass, and then Pelle Carlberg’s Riverbank came on my mp3 player, and while I know next to nothing about him, this is the perfect jaunty walking song, full of hand claps and doo doohs) it took exactly 45-minutes, faster than the subway, I walked in the door at 3:42. It felt like a feat, and I was certainly glad the next day when I woke up with the unspent $20. It doesn’t take much to fill me with accomplishment.