3/21/06
So, supposedly spring is in the air. Actually it’s freezing and I’m presently the opposite of light hearted. The longer daylight hours may have minutely boosted my mental fog, but not by much. And my 9-6 routine has pushed me to limits I didn’t even know existed.

I don’t know why I feel like this webpage is somehow secret and won’t get me into trouble because it has and likely will (in fact, I just deleted a healthy chunk that I’d originally written. Urgh, it’s so frustrating because I have some really sad/hilarious tales to relay. One involves Levar Burton, one involves autoerotic asphyxiation and another has to do with stealing a little kid’s social security number, and they’re all hysterical, ok?). But not for long because I declare this my last old me entry.

Why not make a clean break with a new season? We’re already a quarter into 2006, there’s no need for prolonging the inevitable. As some may have observed, I removed the main Project Me page. I went nuts this weekend and made a bunch of changes that no one would notice but that had to be done to give me peace of mind. I am going to leave all of the monthly Project Me pages floating around for eternity, though. I don’t like erasing the past. Moving forward is fine, but I can’t do it exclusively.

Boldly go where no man has given a rat's ass about going before

3/14/06
Ok, I’ve really gone and done it. Project Me! has officially moved into the ‘00s. It’s still a mess and I’m working out URL kinks, but it’s just about good to go. However, I’m hesitant to start posting there exclusively because I’m resistant to change and old habits die hard. It’s not just that blogs are blogs and that’s why I’m adverse. It’s because there’s something airy and exposed about them, almost a little too accessible. I sort of like being muddled, hidden away and hard to find (kind of how psychologists and Oprahs say that fat women are fat because they’re subconsciously keeping people at a distance. I think there are plenty of attention craving, self esteem filled pigs, sorry). There’s something scary and forthright about neatly titled and categorized entries, a little too look at me, even for someone who ridiculously titles their site Project Me!

Maybe you have them in your office building too, but the mini TV screen that gives you completely random news headlines and the time in the elevator is totally new to me. I do like it for the time because I don’t wear a watch and I only vaguely know if I’m late or not (it makes no sense because I always leave the house between say, 8:15 and 8:20 but I can arrive at work anywhere from 9:00 to 9:30, like yesterday the V never came and I had to walk two stops and was consequently late. No one ever says anything here, if only because I’m next to invisible and sit where no one sees me, which might be the only perk of this job) but there’s something insidious about the news coverage, and even more insidious about the company producing it called Captivate Network. No matter how many times I remind myself, I still think it’s Captive Network because they’ve totally got you trapped.

So, today I was in a rotten mood, which later (as of a few minutes ago) turned into a I-don’t-really-give-a-shit mood (it’s really weird how when you don’t care about the impression you make, how assertive you can be. This is novel to me because I’m always very passive and internally angry in the workplace and well, everywhere, and now I’ve started doing things like being super direct, vocal and critical, and I think it actually gets results. I don’t know why it’s so hard to be aggressive rather than defeatist) and I was pissed while waiting for an elevator because two came at the same time on opposite sides and I was dumb and didn’t look and started to get on the up one, backed out and then missed the down one and had to wait for another. At least I was alone on the one that eventually came, which was good because I started laughing out loud at the blurb on the Captivate Network.

There was a paragraph about the recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report and how librarians were leaving the profession “en masse” due to retirement and how there would be a shortage in the near future and that the median salaries for librarians is “nearly $47,000.” How near is nearly? Is $25,000 nearly? $38,000? That’s just sad because I fall fairly close to the nearly number but I’ve only had my degree a year and a half. This figure accounts for all levels and years of experience in the U.S.? God forbid, I’m 50 and still making shit. And they wonder why the profession is going the way of nuns, where they have to recruit from third world countries? At least nuns explicitly take an oath of poverty, and aren’t they like serving a higher purpose? Performing research isn’t charity work.

And it’s weird because in the past couple years I’ve come across countless people who are considering or who have enrolled in library school. At every party there will be a girl (and yes, it’s always a female) who says she wants to be a librarian or is already in the process. But I think that’s a NYC pauvre hipster caché thing. I don’t think mainstream America thinks there is anything sexy or cool about librarianship. But for the time being, I’d better start fooling myself into believing it because I don’t think I’m going anywhere any time soon.

I’ve been victimized by two hiring freezes in totally different industries since 2006 began. I didn’t really think the NY Post thing would pan out into a full time gig, I’m a skeptic for a reason. But I think I am going to start helping out with editing the paper every couple Sundays so I can get more solid newsroom experience.

I’m afraid to look for a recent past entry about how normally nondescript guys kept grabbing my attention because I just know it’ll be from a month ago, totally cyclical. Nature is so disgusting and inescapable. This morning it was happening again. I started having impure thoughts about random average looking men on the street, on the internets, everywhere. I have to find that study about women preferring squarer-jawed, muscular men while ovulating and softer featured gents otherwise because it’s just plain creepy. But that’s not my thing. Earlier, I got hot for some floppy haired '80s looking guy that I would normally scowl at. I get monthly bouts of bad taste. Thank god I’m not single and drunk because I’d inevitably do something regrettable. But then again, I’m not married, so one of these days I might give in to a gross impulse. I’ll be sure to let you know.
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3/10/06
The last Urban Outfitters catalog that found its way into my mail pile spazzed me out by the rampant showcasing of leggings and stirrup pants. I eventually calmed down, the dismay faded from memory. Until last night when I got home after eating at Sigiri, a newish Sri Lankan restaurant in the East Village (black curry and hoppers rule) and observed that a new Urban Outfitters catalog was waiting for me in the foyer. Ok, lately I’ve been super tired and lazy at night, so I could be mistaken, but I swear one of the photos had a girl holding a Nu Shooz record. Not “Poolside,” but possibly a 12” single because the art looks very much the same (but to be fair, lots of art from that era resembles each other). I can’t be bothered to find my old entry (which could soon be rectified—look for a totally revamped website in the next few weeks) but I know that I’ve mentioned this Portland one-hit-wonder more than once, if only because it tidily sums up all that I loathe about recycled pop culture. When the kids start turning to a forgotten-for-a-reason NW band for fun and inspiration, you know the world is in big trouble. I didn’t actually bother to look up album art last night when I had the catalog near me (I don’t currently) because I was tired and have ADD, but don’t think I’ll forget. This will be rectified this evening, believe, me.

Ok, record geeks. I found the offending Urban Outfitters catalog online, but the image is tiny so you have to drag the “close up” magnifying square over the “12 in the foreground. The more I dwell on this, the more I doubt that it’s Nu Shooz, after all. So then, what record is it?
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3/9/06
Hey, look at me. I had a story in yesterday’s NY Post. And I’m not one to care much about being edited, but I will say that I would never use the word succulent. Just so you know, the word succulent didn’t come from my keyboard. I have more to say than that, but can’t muster it at the moment.
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3/7/06
“You look like a positive person.” Uh, nice try. It doesn’t take much to convince me to buy candy, but that was totally the wrong approach. I do my best to avoid those teenage boys (they’re always boys—well, once a little girl in Union Sq. approached me and suckered me out of $2 for a standard sized bag of M&Ms. That was the first and last time I bought candy from strangers) on subways or street corners (in this case) who try to get you to buy candy to support a sports team or some other good cause. I’m so ridiculously un-positive and growing more un-positive by the day. Even street candy won’t help me now.

Ha, I like this bit on most unpopular careers that I couldn’t help but click into while checking my hotmail. 95% of the time I avoid their stupid teasers, but I just had a suspicion about librarians being on their list that needed to be confirmed. #3 most unpopular, way to go!

Friday, I was mindlessly poking around the internet as I’m less and less likely to do lately. I never recall the chain of events, series of links that gets me where I end up, but somehow I found myself at stuff on my cat, which was silly enough to temporarily lift my head cold fog (I’m 97% back to normal now, thank you). I was most impressed with their one entry, which was a prime example of one of my favorite genres, the interspecies friendship. I didn’t initially see where this Flickr set came from but it had Malaysia written all over it. I swear, if a study was conducted on interspecies bonding, S.E. Asia would be the epicenter. I don’t know if it’s the climate, the culture or the creatures themselves, but that part of the world seems ripe for unholy couplings.

Then this afternoon I was faced with another inexplicable phenomenon: how websites all glob onto the same subject at the same time. This cat monkey thing was new to me, as of four days ago, yet today it’s all over the place. Even Gawker, which has nothing to do with animals in foreign lands (unless they’re being sodomized by a B-list celebrity) posted one of the feline-simian pics (which came via cityrag) next to an completely unrelated post.

Which brings me to another thing I don’t understand: blog linking. There’s that convention that’s developed where rather than citing the original source, a blog links to another blog, which has written about the original bit. And I’m not sure if the rationale is to give credit to the blogger who found it before you, or to name check and create visibility for yourself when potentially traffic is driven to the linked site from your own (or is that what trackbacks are for?). Despite doing this web thing for quite some time, I feel like I missed out on some blogger orientation session. That wouldn’t be surprising since that’s pretty much how I feel about life in general.
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