I wanted you to know...

Winter is Coming...and a Bell.

2011-12-27T16:33:00.002-05:00

Well, what'd'ya know, it's the end of December. I wonder if I'll ever have anything to blog about!
The last time I seemed it fit to visit was to discuss my Christmas wish list. Good news! Mark purchased for me a beautiful Tibetan singing bowl! One out of three 'exotic' items is not too shabby.
At first I was a little sad because I couldn't get the bowl to sing. Then I was angry because Mark could and it was turning into the inanimate equivalent of our parakeet Claudia wherein it was purchased for me but was in love with Mark. Then I laughed at the irony of the whole situation that a Tibetan singing bowl, used for help in meditation and clearing the mind, was actually making me frustrated. But eventually I just picked it up and very half-heartedly starting rubbing the striker around the edge and tadaaa! it was singing. It was cool.

I'm really into the book series A Song of Ice and Fire which is the basis for the HBO show Game of Thrones which is the name of the first book in the series and then each successive book having its own name. I found the first book daunting. Maybe it was just because it'd been so long since I had read a book where there are a bazillion characters you're supposed to try and keep track of. And I had no idea that it was a bit fantasy- as in dragons, and sorcery, etc. But it is also all about kings and lords and knights and that's right down my alley.
So now I'm on book three with two more waiting and I was just told by a friend that there might be more after that. I'll need something light and girly very soon just to rest my weary brain.
And of course I started reading the books so that I could watch the show and then be all snobby about how the story is different and I know how and 'oh if you read the book you'd know what was happening'. Which is really why I read almost every other book nowadays since most movies and a lot of tv is based on novels. I just have to wait forever until is comes out on DVD since I don't have HBO. Sigh.

I'd like to think I'll be back before the New Year but that's iffy. But: I will be back. Until then:

It's No Red Ryder BB Gun

2011-11-27T12:17:00.003-05:00

Well, it's that time again where Mark and I feel that as adults we have to somehow pool together our funds and procure simple, hopefully thoughtful gifts for our immediate families. Currently we're taking care of the West Coast family.
Sometimes we do a nice toy for just the kids but last time we did we saw the gift just tossed aside in a mess. It's not their fault, they're kids and quite honestly, in good ol' American fashion, they just have too many toys.
This year we're just getting a simple, personalized item for each family unit. Sure, it might also be tossed aside but at least we attempted to be tasteful and we just want to show we're thinking of them.

I was laughing the other day about how my tastes have changed as an adult and how if I were to make a 'list' what would be on it. I came up with three things:

a Tibetan singing bowl
an African rain stick
and a new pair of Uggs.

They're totally useless things but they are items I've always wanted. I won't bite the bullet and buy them because I don't really have expendable income to justify something like a singing bowl. But apparently if I had a chunky wallet my apartment would look like a Pier One Imports store and a Sam Ash.

Tress Stress

2011-10-31T13:07:00.004-04:00

From the very minute I shaved my head about two years ago I've had dreams of long hair. But every time I have my hair near the length of my dreams I get the itch. Not the lice itch but the itch for something different. Especially since I don't really change anything else. I've always been a tshirt and jeans person. I like my glasses to stay the same shape. I work with young kids who live blocks from my house so I have no office to wear new clothes to. My hair is all I have to possibly change how I look.
I'm really jonesing on this one particular look. Like most girls I dare not go into bang territory. It's not that I don't think it will look good. Not that I think it will be either good or bad, I have no freaking idea. It's more the curl to my hair that concerns me. With length my curls become more wave and with cold weather I have perpetual hat hair. So if I cut my hair to bangs, will I end up with ridiculous curls springing on my face. To look like a toddler from the 80s? Nor do I want to wield heating & straightening tools daily. Ugh! Don't even get me started on finding someone who can actually cut hair!

Mid-whif-ery

2011-10-31T12:25:00.002-04:00

Well- November has arrived and the passage of the time really only emphasizes how little I'm accomplishing. Not that I have any goal I'm reaching for. You know, other than financial security and a generally positive feeling of self-worth. Minor issues really.

I babysat for a woman who had graduated from Purchase College back in the 90s as a singing major. She said that after college she did the waiting tables thing and babysat for this opera singer who was divorcing her husband. She said the opera singer was an anxious mess because she was broke, with a kid, barely being able to afford living in the city which was a necessity for her work. The mom realized that she didn't want to be 40 and finding herself in that situation so she found this nursing program at Columbia University that was designed for people who already had a non-nursing degree and she became a midwife.

She told me that she thought I would be a great midwife, how I was nurturing, smart, blah, blah, blah. She admitted that it was pretty expensive but that in the end you'd be a nursing graduate from Columbia and that speaks volumes.

I won't deny that she was like a voice from the heavens. A nursing degree from Columbia! Already having a random degree is required! Be a midwife, so interesting and unexpected! I looked up the program online. I'd have a year of pre-requisites before I could even apply. My conservatory degree kicking me in the ass with the whole no science/math requirements. I'd have to take the GRE. This girl here, the person whose last math class was a remedial my senior year of high school. Suddenly it was daunting but I signed up for the Open House.

That was the nail in the coffin. Was the school great sounding? Sure, it was Columbia University. But it was also a bit more expensive from the 90s when the mom had attended. It's a two year, super intense program. The first year you're in class from 8am-8pm. At least. You don't work. As a matter of fact the director of the program said “Don't get married, don't move, don't have a kid, don't go on vacation.” The first year ALONE is about $100,000. And that's this year. What happens in two years when I'd actually be ready to attend? I'm a married, 30-yr-old. If I get in debt for almost $200,000 now it really makes the rest of our lives a living hell. Having money for a kid, buying a house or car, just moving out of a one-bedroom walk-up would all seem a lot more impossible.

The head of admissions was honest (another great thing about them) she said “We are Columbia University. We are expensive. But let's face it, you will be nurses. What does that mean? It means you are like teachers. You are not going to be paid what you should be getting paid. So you need to really examine if this is the right choice for you and your family.”

So. No, it's not the right choice for me. You've got to do the test. If someone asked me “Do you want to be a midwife?” I would not run up to a mountain top to scream at the top of my lungs 'YES! I DO!' Not for 200k. I mean midwifery is cool, kind of earth-mother, respectable. But it's an idea. It's not a calling.

Customer Service

2011-08-29T17:13:00.002-04:00

Dear Dollar Store Employee;

It was raining and so I thought I'd check out the store. See if any of your poorly manufactured items caught my eye. When I reached my favorite aisle (drinkware and plates- oh how I love to stare at all the goblets) you where there desperately tipping your 'We Are Happy to Serve You' coffee cup dregs into your mouth. When I appeared in the corner of your vision I noticed how quickly you fled the aisle. Oh...so quickly. Guiltily.

My instincts were awakened. Having lived for the past five years with a male I recognized the glint of fear in your eyes. But alas, I pressed onward. Two or three steps into the aisle I was stopped by a wall of noxious fumes that had- seconds before- passed through your rectum and out of your ass cheeks. Oh how horrid these fumes where! How disgusted I was! How angry I was that you had ruined what was to be my bliss. Part of me believed, believes still, that you should have owned up to your actions. Waved me away. Warned me 'Don't Enter, Move away!' But no- instead you ran.

I left the aisle. I walked down the significantly less exciting gift bag, non-sticky saran wrap, tissue-thin aluminum foil aisle. I vowed that somehow I would let you know that I knew your crime. You hadn't fooled me with your running away. As I returned to the front of the store, having no choice but to walk through the residual ass cloud you had surely trailed you appeared at my left exiting your brief hiding spot. You looked up. We caught each other's stares. I squinted and raised my eyebrows oh-so-slightly. You seemed embarrassed and looked away. I felt better. Spent $2.53 and went on with my day.

And then...?

2011-08-20T10:59:00.005-04:00

Have you read The Piano Teacher? It's one of those books that is obviously created for women. You know, pretty woman, sad posture, romantic, tortured, all splayed on the cover. Anyway, while I can revel in the fact that I didn't purchase the book myself I cannot deny the fact that I was happy my Mother-in-law (I have a mother-in-law!) passed it forward. I find it funny and frightening that we have pretty much the same taste in books (except crime/mystery, I cannot abide by those).

So I read it. It's not a complicated book but there is still a vagueness to some of the story that drives me mad! MAD! I can't figure it out. Am I suppose to figure it out or is there supposed to be the question mark? Well, I don't like that. I'm not as bright as people like to think so I like my stories to resolve neatly. I mean, not like "the bad guy gets his due" or "they lived happily ever after" but more like "Oh, I know where everyone stands at the end". I think. Unless I'm contradicting myself then I don't know how else to explain.

Instead I get: Victor has Will drive up the hill and they exchange some cryptic sentences and then Victor, in a bit of a panic, says he's changed his mind. He doesn't have to go wherever it is they are going. Take me back home! And for some reason they never discuss it again and Will starts getting paid double for no reason. The End. What is this?! What does it mean! Where were they going? What was going to happen?

I'm embarrassed that I don't know. I am. But I'm shouting it across the rooftops in the hopes that someone out there will give me their thoughts. A book club moment if you will.

Don't Call it a Comeback

2011-08-20T09:47:00.003-04:00

I disappeared. I shut down. People use blogs to discuss things that are happening with them. The only thing that was happening to me was the planning and celebrating of a wedding. I didn't want to talk about it on a blog. Many people seize the opportunity and then it miraculously turns into a money maker for them and they live happily ever after. That shit doesn't happen to me.
Honestly, I didn't want to discuss it over guilt that I wasn't inviting everyone I'd ever met and so I didn't want to dangle all these stories and thoughts in front of everyone and then be like "It was fun! You didn't get to enjoy it!" Even though, in a small way, I'm doing that now.

Basically it was crazy stressful and the last thing I wanted to do was blog.

Mark and I like to think we're low key so we went for low-keyish with some traditionalism in there. We're not giant ballroom, tacky chandelier, printed carpet to hide vomit stains, servers in fake butler-wear type people. We wanted a place that allowed us to do whatever we wanted and not some cookie cutter package. I think we did well. The weather, while hot, was rainless. The caterer (after a very dreadful and painful search) was great. We have guests who are still telling us the food was awesome & her servers were crazy nice and hard working. The florist totally wowed me since my directions were pretty vague. I loved my dress and I am so depressed that I can't wear it over and over again.

In an attempt to get my blogging legs back (if I ever had them) I'll probably get a little nostalgic and add a post here and there about how it all came to be. But I'm going to try my best to be better. Now I have free time on weekends again! I hope you'll check in.

Much Love,
Me

Double the C, Double the S

2011-06-07T21:07:00.004-04:00

The stuff I usually think would be good to write is just too risky. So I've been silent for what has turned into months. Basically my days are spent pretending I don't hear parents arguing. The dad who was dropping the F bomb more than there were regular words in his phone conversation only to realize he was talking to his wife. The wife who disagrees with her husband only to have him stop her and say "really? can I just finish telling her so we can go?" (enjoy that date night); the kid who listens to my "funny" story about how I gouged Mark's car door back in Tahoe and when she asks me if Mark was angry with me she says "When he's angry does he not go to sleep with you in your bed that night?" Hmmmm....

Anyway. That's my great f'ing life. I gotta say all those years when mommy told me I was so smart and daddy said I'd be something great I bet you they didn't foresee an almost 30-yr-old with a useless Bachelors, no job aspirations, and no hidden talents to make me worth hiring (unless it's to take care of other, more successful people's children).

So now it's super hot-as-hell here and I get to pretend like I enjoy the small children I see on a daily basis. So it's just that much harder.

The good news is I finally got new glasses and I dig the different color and slightly different shape. I didn't get Transitions lenses this time so after 5 years it's a bit rough getting use to sun glare again. But alas, these rust colored spectacles look great against my finally-reaching-my-shoulders hair. Yippee!

Ayuda me!

2011-04-08T10:45:00.003-04:00

Watching a two year old eat is pretty entertaining. Yesterday as part of his lunch I gave little man some sliced apple and peanut butter. He would scoop up the peanut butter on the apple and then eat the pb using the apple only as a spoon. It was pretty funny considering the whole reason for giving him apples and peanut butter is that the two flavors go good together. He also spears his pesto-covered tortellini with his little fork and then grabs the nugget with his other hand and shoves it in his mouth. It's pretty adorable except you have to wipe his pesto and oil covered hand for like twenty minutes after he's done.
******

Most people will feel rejuvenated by spring's arrival but I feel a big case of the blahs approaching. I'm starting to burn out on some of my babysitting and I'm sleeping a lot less because I lay there and just think about how my work future is looking more and more bleak. There's nothing special about me. I'm not a lawyer taking time off. I'm not some math genius who can go into accounting. I'm not getting anywhere taking care of these kids and I'm not feeling inspired by anything. Nothing makes me want to really go out and fight for it. Let's face it, the only job I can do can be done even better by 21 year olds getting out of college with loads of internships under their belts.
******

I'm sitting around hoping that my super will show up today to examine what the heck is going on with our toilet. We've always had a pretty strong flush. So strong you had to flush with the lid down for fear of your deposit flying across the bathroom on a giant rush of water. But a few weeks ago it became harder to push the plunger down and when you release it the pipe makes a crazy clang noise. It sounds like something is going to burst through the wall. You could hear it in all the other bathrooms on our line too. But recently I feel it's gotten even harder, I've noticed the other bathrooms aren't so audible anymore, and the clang is so hard it's waking me up in the morning when Mark is getting ready for work. So I mentioned it to the super who is very nice but pretty busy and the language barrier is pretty strong so I always feel embarrassed speaking to him because I should know how to tell him in Spanish but we all know the bitter story behind that...

I Walk These Rubber Streets

2011-03-20T14:23:00.003-04:00

Ah, spring is here and love must be in the air because everywhere I go used condoms litter the ground. Oh, Inwood. How you continue to do me proud.
Anyway, I suppose that if you're the type of person who throws a used condom on the ground then I should be happy that you're using a condom and not creating a smaller version of you to join our society. Of course this leads to me thinking of reasons why there might be used condoms on the sidewalks.

*You live with your parents and don't want them to discover this item in the garbage and then you'll never be able to have what's-her-name over to the house again.

*If the Honda is a rockin' don't come a knockin'. And if you throw your soda bottles out of your car door then why not a condom?

*School kids are just playing with them to see what one looks like and then just tossing them aside after they are done giggling about how gooey it is. If this is the case that means I have to look closer to see if it really is used. But I'm not going to do that. Isn't it enough that I've thought about it this much?

So this obsession started when I was doing my babysitting. I got the girls dressed for school, gave them breakfast, bundled them up, and headed out the door with them. And as soon as we stepped out of the apartment building there was a bright pink condom right in our path.
I panicked. Why?
Because even though I was able to non-verbally and gently move the older one out of the way so she wouldn't step on it I cringed to think that any minute she was going to ask what it was...why was it there...who put it there...why is it pink...what do you use it for, can I touch it...etc.
Not only was I totally stumped at what I would say (if it was my kid I would probably just answer "It's a condom." and then just not elaborate) But with this kid there is never just one question. She is QUEEN of the Thousand Questions. I mean...she just goes on and on and on and on and on to where you just want to shake her. Plus, I feel it's not my place to give her a 5 year old version of a sex talk. And it was only 8 o'clock in the morning, I hadn't had breakfast and I wasn't ready to deal with it.

So since then the fluorescent condoms have been a no-show which I'm grateful for. The standard issue ones are still around but those are harder for her to spot. I'm all for people having safe sex. I'd just rather they keep everyone else out of it. Between the condoms and all the people who aren't picking up after their dogs we're running out of space to walk.

Mini-Escape

2011-03-01T13:30:00.005-05:00

Happy March!
People across New York City mourned the end of mid-winter recess as children went back to school. Well by people I mean teachers and students. Parents on the other hand are probably thrilled to get the kids out of the house.
This means I'm back to work shuttling two sisters to and from school and other various babysitting gigs. Oh gee golly!

Some of my charges did not need me last week due to the lack of school and so Mark and I decided to take that opportunity to hightail it out of the city. We considered Savannah, GA, I dreamed of Florida, and even for one second of madness I imagined an island easily hopped to from JFK. So we booked our trip and headed off last Thursday to...Philadelphia, PA! WoooHooo.
It got to the point where we realized everything was either too far by train or too expensive by faster airplane. I discovered that Megabus was giving away free tickets, which when full price aren't very expensive anyway, and so I booked a round trip to Philly, found a hotel room in the Center City area and away we went. Mind you, a semi-warm beach would have been great but when it came down to it we just wanted to wake up and not be in our own apartment with a parrot screaming in the living room.

Hmmm. Philadelphia. What can I say? Strangely sketch and quaint all at the same time. Of course there is beautiful, colonial architecture everywhere. That's always fun if you like that sort of stuff (not total sarcasm, I do find enjoyment in lovely structures). In Center City, where we stayed, there are restaurant options aplenty. We had vegetarian Chinese, food court Indian, trendy Mexican, convenience store 'hoagies' (aka best sandwich EVER), amazing soft pretzels, artful chocolate, nice wine bars. Etc. Etc. Even the breakfast at the hotel was a shade better than breakfasts I've had at other hotels.
However, wander around the tiny sidewalks or hop aboard a bus or subway and if you're not blind and have any sort of social conscience at all you'll realize there is a serious problem with race and poverty. I'm not claiming to know anything about Philadelphia but it was quite clear that people of color do not have it easy there. And that's coming from someone who grew up and lives in a neighborhood where the majority is considered a minority and public services help make ends meet for most of the households.

But anyway-it was nice to get away. So now we're back. We're busy. We're already exhausted.

Literary Woe

2011-02-22T12:38:00.004-05:00

I've been reading Brick Lane by Monica Ali for what feels like eternity. I had requested it from the NYPL and eagerly awaited its arrival. I started reading it and didn't quickly dive in. I like it but I don't loooove it. But then one day after starting it I made the mistake of looking at the New Arrivals shelf and spotted Claude & Camille which is a novel based on Claude Monet and his longtime model/lover/wife.

Because it was considered "new" (some of their new books are actually old news) I'm not allowed to renew it (I think) and it has a shorter lending period so I put aside Brick Lane and dove into the Claude & Camille which was easy because I did really like it.
But then I was done and it was time to finish Brick Lane which was starting to grow on me. I wanted to finish it so I could pick up my new book just in time for our little trip to Philadelphia (we're dying to get out of the city so we end up going to another city...all the beaches are too far away and expensive) So here I am on a lazy President's Day reading, reading, reading away. Something happens and the story gets a little more interesting and I'm thinking "Wow, I'm near the end...what a peculiar way to end the story." Reading, reading, reading and then I get to the end and realize that a giant chunk of the novel is missing. W-T-F.

I was so annoyed. I was annoyed that I won't be able to scratch it off my list. I was annoyed for the last however many persons used the book and failed to alert the library they returned it to that a chunk of the book was missing. I mean...the only excuse really is that you're the one who was in possession of the book when the pages fell out and now you're afraid that you'll be responsible for paying for it. Which is still just crap. These books get handled by so many people I'm sure you wouldn't have to pay for it.
Anyway, the guy who checks out my books most of the time is this very friendly, puppy dog, kinda guy (there's one cantankerous grumpster I try to avoid) and I told him and he had a deep sigh and shook his head. He signed me up to get the book again and so now I wait...

Meanwhile, I'm reading Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth which apparently is a ginormous bestseller and is getting refreshed attention because they made a miniseries out of it. (AKA That's how I heard of it, though I've not seen the miniseries)
Also, I now am the new owner of a nook, Barnes & Noble's e-reader so I will be adding a feature to the side bar. I'll have my standard Reading Right Now but I'll also have a Reading on nook. Not that this changes anything for you, dear blog reader. You'll still poop and pee and move on with your life. But...just so you know. However, in the future when more of us have nooks we can share books with each other. Apparently you can "lend" a book to a person one time for 14 days. So...one day it may happen.

A Small McProblem

2011-02-21T13:25:00.005-05:00

This is an embarrassing tale. They say the first step in recovering from an addiction is to admit that you have one.
My name is Jamie and I am a Mc-aholic.

I am addicted to McDonald's. It's true. My addiction has been under control for a few years now but every once in awhile I slip up. I have a little bit. It silences the voices in my head asking for it. But then I drown in guilt.

If you knew me in my youth (ah...youth) you would know that I didn't grow up in an organic-vegetable, dinner around the table kind of home. We ate rice and beans and meat. And takeout. Lots of takeout which is normal in NYC, the land of Chinese take-out and pizza shops. Throw in a low-income neighborhood (you know, before Inwood was getting blurbs in New York magazine and yoga studios) with fast-food restaurants and not one but two McDonald's and you become a member of childhood obesity before people are even talking about childhood obesity.

Then there is the summer of my 13^th year. I had my first summer job with childhood friends and we spent every, yes, every evening dining away at McDonald's. Instead of going out and drinking and smoking weed my friends and I found our kicks seeing who could eat the most chicken nuggets in a 20 nugget container. I kid you not. Oh...here is a picture of me from that year at school:

Anyway, in college I realized that this stuff is evil and guys won't make out with you if you're a beast (at least in my personal experience) and I actually did enjoy the feeling of a good workout so I slowly lost 40 pounds. I still have really poor habits when eating. Fresh veggies just don't exist. Not that I don't like them, I just don't make them. And weight is a constant battle.

But I am an addict. Sometimes I just need some special sauce. Or a fry. And I do it in secret. Or I did before this post. I would wait until Mark was not home and eat my snack. Possibly even throw the paper out in a separate garbage can instead of our kitchen. Yes, I know this screams SICKNESS. Actually while reading Kathy Griffin's book she describes doing the same thing and it made me feel better.

Well I write this post because I've been scared straight. Well...maybe straighter. A few weeks ago Mark was out all day and I had had a great 'eating' day. No snacks, regular meals, a really good workout. But then here it was, dinner time, nothing at home and so I went in and bought some food. I ate it at home and within seconds I was sick as a dog. I felt lethargic. I felt my heart slowing. I was sweaty. I was so mad and disgusted at myself that I somehow managed to get off the couch and went back to the gym.
I went back at 9pm because I was so pissed that I had eaten so much fat and calories. Of course it was a mediocre cardio session as my body was riddled with McPoison. I would say that the only good that comes out of that experience was that I was so aware of my body's reaction that I'll run the other way when the golden light beckons me.

Nerds Drink Lattes

2011-02-15T20:29:00.004-05:00

**
Nerd Alert: I went to the gym this evening and the girl next to me was reading a book. I was able to squint enough to see that it was The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett which was just requested from the library. She looked nerdy enough (i.e. just like me) that I figured I could start a small interaction. I asked her if she was enjoying it and she said "Oh man, it's soooo good."
Now I'm really excited.

**
Mark didn't think this was a funny thought but I was walking to the grocery store the other day and then it just sort of hit me (strangely enough I was walking down Seaman Avenue) Whose idea was it to perform the first circumcision? I mean...hygiene, no hygiene, that takes a lot of guts and trust, no?
Hey...I've got this skin here attached to a part of me that appears to be extremely sensitive. I'm thinking I should just slice it off. You want to go next? No...better yet...let's do it to a baby.

**
I'm now the new owner of an espresso machine. I babysit for a woman who gets TONS of free shit and while she 'pays it forward' a lot of the time it's mostly candles and trinkets.(don't get me wrong, my hoarding tendencies love candles and trinkets) There have been some great things: Jessica Simpson jeans and a fun purse (which all ended up belonging to my sister) she recently gave me a slip of paper from KRUPS. All I had to do was put my mailing address on it, stick it in an envelope, and send it on it's merry way. Three weeks later a brand new espresso machine was sitting on my kitchen counter. I had more lattes this past weekend than I've probably had in a year. And it was awesome....

**
Nerd Alert: Mark has become super active in the education world as he tries to develop a career out of teaching experience. He was a member of the VIVA project New York Task Force and got to go to Albany to present the work to the NY Senior Deputy Commissioner of Education. He's also starting a website which will help teachers help each other build curriculum. I think. Anyway, if you read this and you're a teacher in NY visit these sites. The Opendoor site is still in it's infancy stage but if you're interested in learning more feel free to contact Mark through the site. He eats this shit for breakfast. And lunch. And dinner. I'm not allowed to talk to him. But sometimes I squeeze his shoulders as he's hunched over the laptop.

The Lazy Blogger

2011-02-13T10:02:00.004-05:00

I have plenty of time to write posts but I either forget what I wanted to write about or I think I won't be able to make it funny or interesting. Or maybe it's not really substantial enough to be a blog post. But then I realize that every post is not funny or interesting or substantial enough but I write it anyway so why not just write a post and maybe someone will be interested. So I think from now on I'll write even when it's just little nuggets of thought. Which might have been the original idea for me starting this blog anyway. Well that and to document my trip to Colombia which of course was not the most positive, funny, or interesting. So there.

Some random nuggets while I ruminate on a larger post:

**
I dream of living in a neighborhood where everyone, including 80-yr-old grandmothers, don't spit giant globs of mucus on an extremely constant basis. (Read: I want to live where there are lots of white people. But the kind that don't chew tobacco) I'm so sick of of seeing spit flying. Or hearing hunks of mucus come through someone's throat. Am I grossing you out? Well then just try living in my shoes. Well not really because then you'll just be walking on mucus. But that's my point. Dear slightly-fresh-off-the-boat latinos of Inwood: It's fucking disgusting. Have I offended you with my daring generalization? Well guess what- I'm offended by the disgusting habit.

**
Okay- so you're a college educated girl. You've had mini-adventures. Most of them revolved around jobs so you were, in some way, developing a resume (little accent thingy on the e. New operating system again and can't add it.) Character building. All that stuff. You live in a major metropolis. You had what some would consider a solid job. But it was sucking your soul and you had to leave. And you feel lost and confused and angry (very angry).
So instead of having a nice apartment on a street where very few people spit with cute, young children, and a fairly satisfying career you babysit for other young-ish couples who have nice apartments, a fairly satisfying career, and cute (sometimes) young children. And on Wednesdays you babysit until about 10pm. Then after being handed a check for a small sum that will, at least, cover your groceries for a week you -literally- run three long blocks and down a giant staircase to the bus stop because if you have to watch a bus go by you'll freak out because now you're too far from the train station.

This is the scenario where you face your worst enemy. What is your worst enemy you say? Let's see: You've babysat. It's late. They got home later than usual. It's FREEZING. You're exhausted because you're not sleeping well because all you do is lay in bed and think about how you're life is going (see above) and you've run three blocks to catch a bus which may or may not show up soon. (It is the MTA after all. Schedules are more or less a suggestion) You get to the stop. Up ahead in the distance you can the tiny, yellow twinkle lights that dance above a bus. You shiver as the wind roars around you. You smile a bit to yourself. Yes! That run on icy sidewalks paid off! You'll get home fairly quick. But then. The bus gets closer. And you see it. Emblazoned across the top in bright yellow lights.
NOT IN SERVICE.

DVD on Repeat

2011-01-30T19:07:00.003-05:00

I was finally able to see How to Train Your Dragon this weekend. And so I watched it two days in a row. I figure if TNT can do it why can't I? It was enjoyable. I mean...it had one of those things about movies that always irk me. That being when everyone has an accent except the main character.

The previous offender was Wolfman. Everyone is English and then here comes Benicio del Toro just strutting around with his strange, soft voice and we're all just supposed to pretend like nothing weird is going on here.
What's funny is that I was less annoyed with the voices in H2TYD. Probably because I actually liked it. Wolfman is a horror film and I didn't get past the first 20 minutes but I'm a sucker for animated, funny movies. Though the whole voice thing was pretty bad. They're supposed to be vikings but all the adults had "Scottish" accents, the female was American, and the main character, a skinny, awkward boy had your wry, sarcastic, sorta whiny voice courtesy of this guy:

No, I don't expect the accents to matter because casting is casting and let's face it this is a cartoon. But some movies it does drive me crazy. Imagine if they had casted a Harry Potter film that takes place in England with all English actors but Harry is some giant Hollywood star so we're just supposed to roll with his non-English voice. They do that stuff all the time and it's a pet peeve. That's the point of this post.

Also-who wouldn't love How to Train Your Dragon? Is Toothless not the cutest, coolest pet ever? I want one so bad.

Hey There Lonely Girl

2011-01-22T13:04:00.002-05:00

Dear young people who suffer from low self-esteem. Who spend hours trying to look and act a certain way because you think no one will ever want/desire/love you. News Flash: It really doesn't matter how unattractive you are or how unattractive society and pop culture tells you that you are- you'll get laid. Don't worry.

I'm mean really. If you lived in college housing then you discovered this pretty quickly. Sure there are the "hot" people. The ones who dress nice and who make themselves appear unattainable. But really, as long as you're not smelly or a total social pariah, as long as you find that group of people who share the same interests as you, you will find amor.

Think about this: at my college there were pirates. No, it did not have a nautical studies major, nor were there any large bodies of water present. There were simply some dudes who must have been seriously into D&D. Who had long greasy hair. Who enjoyed parachute pants, large black boots, flouncy shirts, and who were very talented at creating swords and other pirate-like weapons out of cardboard, foam, and duct tape. And all of these guys had girlfriends. Not just girlfriends but wenches. Girls with flowy skirts and possibly even a corset thrown in there.

Then there was a rather rotund guy who always-ALWAYS- wore a poncho. A giant, floor-length poncho. (Who I actually got to know a tiny bit because we ended up being R.A.s in the same building for a semester, nice guy.) Not only did he always wear the poncho but he always had Birkenstocks on. In the winter. Because, oh yes, in the spring/summer he went shoe-less. And he had a serious girlfriend. So serious she was moving back home with him after they graduated and I'm pretty sure at that point they would be married. Whether or not they did is beside the point. The point is this guy was not a Kardashian or a Brad Pitt and he was getting some. And he was in love.

Then there is Mark and I. I am the poster child for low self-esteem. I wear ill-fitting clothing. I love hats in the winter because I don't have to worry about my frizzy hair that hasn't been professionally cut in years. I'm borderline overweight. I've had chub in the same place since the 4th grade so it's going NOWHERE. I have terrible posture. I never wear contact lenses. Mark is a unicorn. And he has hobbit feet. And oh the farting......
But anyway. I love him. And he loves me. At least he loves my cooking. But we have each other and in the core of me I'm happy. I might not be a bouncy, happy-go-lucky person but even on my bluest day I know I have the super important stuff.

So:
Dear Young Person. Stop wasting money on things that you think other's will judge you favorably on but you don't really like. Stop trying to make friends with people who seem cool but treat you like shit. Just be you and go out and find someone who'll notice. It might take awhile but my goodness, we've got years.

Before January Ends

2011-01-20T18:43:00.004-05:00

New Post, new post, new post. Everyday I tell myself to write one and then I don't. What is there to say? I'm a blue person. I don't want to be depressed and mopey on my blog, I save the special honor of listening to my sad self for poor Mark.

Anyway, here I am waiting for another blast of snow to start. Were you out on the Tuesday after MLK day this week in NYC? My god that has to be the worst weather I've ever experienced. EVER. I mean it wasn't snow it wasn't rain. What was it? It was like it was raining pure slush. Not like snow falls then turns to slush- it was raining slush. I was totally amazed and horrified.

Today as I left my babysitting gig I was passed by a stroller being pushed by the dad. And in his hand was a shopping bag bursting with tampons and pads. And I couldn't help it: I released an immature giggle. Here is a dad staying home with baby, which is all Go Dad! Go Equal Parenting! but then there is that silly cliche of the wife who forces the husband to do the menstrual shopping and I just cringe for the poor guy. Maybe that's why he was walking so fast. He had to get out of the open.

I'm on a reading binge. I can't stop. I read so much in one week that my eye was literally exhausted and couldn't even focus anymore. I was reading a trilogy that my pal Mario had hooked me up with. That was entertaining if also a little strange. But right before I was swimming in Young Adult, Sci-fi, post apocalyptic world, I was looking for something to do and I picked up an old book that I've had since my AmeriCorps years. I didn't remember everything about it but I did remember enjoying it. So here I am diving in and suddenly it makes itself apparent. Holy Crap! This is a romance novel! I had no idea. I definitely remember 'those things' happening but I guess it just didn't dawn on me when I first read it that it was a romance novel. There's no Fabio on the cover. No woman busting out of her corset.
So I read it. Also, I had discovered a number of months ago that the author had decided to develop the characters and create a series out of it. And low and behold I had bought the second one for 6 bucks at Barnes & Noble before I was reintroduced to the first one so I had the second one waiting for me and of course I dove in because I was hooked. It's romance. But it's also historical fiction which I'm a total sucker for. And it's tasteful. :)

1-1-11

2011-01-01T21:13:00.001-05:00

So I attended a get-together and I walked into conversation about New Year's resolutions and the fact that they were being discussed as part of a game. But then the conversation turned into just discussing resolutions in general and I personally don't create resolutions. I could be perceiving it wrong but I think one of the persons thought I was mocking the idea of resolutions and became slightly defensive about the fact that they make resolutions and last year they stuck to it and because of it their life has changed and so why wouldn't they stick to it this year. I hadn't wanted to make it a big deal- I find it commendable that people will actually stick to their resolutions- it's just a behavioral modification that's never worked for me.

I jokingly said that I'm not much of a goal-oriented person so resolutions are kind of pointless and Mark said that it wasn't true. I make goals all the time it just takes me awhile. I jokingly compared myself to the tortoise in the tortoise and the hare stories. Another person said “yes but the tortoise wins”. Which, surprisingly, made me feel better about myself. I might go slow and steady but hopefully I do get there, wherever there is. I mean...I make plans to do something all the time and most of them fall through. I don't make the lasagna on Thursday that I thought I was going to. I didn't go to the post office today like I said I would. My desk didn't get organized by the end of the weekend. But there is some big stuff coming my way and as long as I take it step by step (with a few anxiety melt downs and sobbing along the way) I can actually achieve something.

I'm trying really hard to begin attending school this spring. I'm terrified. The classes are already full. I might have to pay out of pocket or getting AmeriCorps money will be difficult. The schedule will stress me out as I try not to lose any babysitting hours. And in general I will just feel out of place and lonely. But I've been fighting to start these classes since early October and now I'm really close. The next two years will be pretty rough. But I do allow myself to get excited about what might happen when I'm finally a bit more financially secure. So I guess I am capable of some positive future thinking...I just don't like to talk about it.

Past Reads: 2010

2010-12-31T13:56:00.001-05:00

The books I've read in 2010. That's for the entertainment Literary World!

PAST READS: 2010

Strange but True by John Searles
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve
Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Whitehorn Woods by Maeve Binchy
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch
A Fair Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates
Day After Night by Anita Diamant
The French Gardener by Santa Montefiore
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Things You Should Know by A.M. Homes
Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner
Honolulu by Alan Brennert
Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler
The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
The Piano, Screenplay by Jane Campion
The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg
Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand
Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petersen
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Rules of the Road by Joan Bauer
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Fortune's Rocks by Anita Shreve
Body Surfing by Anita Shreve
Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan

Odds & Ends

2010-12-20T08:29:00.004-05:00

Don't complain to me about how you have no money. I mean, can you be any more tacky? I just spent my evening in your lovely 2-bedroom apartment with a sunken living room feeding, bathing, and putting your kids to bed so you can throw me some cash so I can put food on the table. And you sit there complaining you're broke while you take off your designer coat, sit in your designer dress, remove you fancy high heels that you bought earlier that week, and say thanks for working until midnight while me and my husband attend our annual soiree that we throw every year at a lovely Manhattan location. Oh, by the way, my husband will drive you home in our luxury car. Good Night!
*Fantasize about stabbing in the throat here*

+++++++++++++++++++++++

My parrot sucks. He's yelling at epic volume even though he got more quiche this morning for breakfast than I did. Sometimes I just want to let him fly out the window. It's just so hard to keep my already fragile state of mind set to calm when he's going ballistic.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

I was finally accepted as a transfer to a community college so that I can begin my studies in radiologic technology. As you can imagine it's my dream come true to get ready to spend years of my life in scrubs lifting smelly old ladies and men onto tables to photograph their broken hips. So considering I'm filled with joy to go and begin this journey it would only be right that the universe has to make it as difficult as possible. Congratulations, you're finally accepted- except you have to get a physical with no health insurance, and you have only two classes you really need to start the actual program but they're already full because everyone needs to take them and registration was over weeks ago. Enjoy!

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Mark is going to get me a couch for Christmas which I actually find very inspired of him even if it is over his budget. I'm so excited to be done with this futon. Don't get me wrong, the futon has been good to us. The pad was Mark's for many years and even acted as our bed for awhile, the frame was found by my mother and so the futon cost us nothing and has been useful. But it's extremely uncomfortable. It has zero padding and quite frankly I've run out of large blankets to fold and stuff underneath the pad to mask the feeling of sitting on wood planks. Here's to couch shopping!

Mission: Turkey

2010-11-26T17:19:00.004-05:00

Happy Day After Thanksgiving!

I hosted for the first time ever. I've been hoarding these recipes from Real Simple magazine for years. The article is dated November 2003 and I'm not sure where I was when I found it. Maybe AmeriCorps. Maybe somewhere in California. But either way when I saw this spread I thought "One day I might host Thanksgiving I might as well be ready".

Well, it happened.

It started off pretty rough. A dad I babysit for asked me "Are you going to brine your turkey?" I started to panic because I had been prepping for this day, reading recipe after recipe and nowhere was brine mentioned. So I emailed my uncle who is the cooking person in the family and who has hosted Thanksgiving for years and asked him what he thought. And he essentially said "Hell yes. Brine away!"

So I googled and emotionally prepared and I began to brine. I created the salt water mixture in my tray and even though I remember Bill Nye the Science Guy teaching me about displacement I still managed to put too much water in the tray so when I plopped that turkey down briney, raw-meaty water spilled all over my counter. And since my counters are crooked that water quickly spilled all over my kitchen. Yay.

The next day I prepped the turkey. It was a roasted orange and sage turkey. Mark ventured to Trader Joe's just to buy the sage as the Inwood supermarkets have heard of no such thing (what? herbs existing that don't go in sofrito?)

I stuffed that turkey good full of garlic and oranges. Later that night, a full ten hours later as soon as my head hit the pillow I realized that I totally spaced and forgot to put the sage in the turkey. Genius! So Thanksgiving morning I woke up early, cut the twine off the legs, unstuffed the turkey, shoved it full of sage, and replaced the oranges and garlic.

Well, eventually my meal was ready:

Roasted orange and sage Turkey with roasted orange gravy
Apple and Sausage stuffing
Rosemary Cornbread
Homemade Cranberry Sauce
Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Vanilla Sauce
Pumpkin Pie
Chocolate Orange Mousse

my mom brought over potato salad and arroz con gandules....you know the Puerto Rican parts that I just can't do. It was soooo good.

That truly was the best turkey I've ever had. It was so moist, no one even used the gravy!

After a massive dish washing event (dishes were washed in three separate parts. A trifecta of dirty dishes, if you will) Mark and I went for a walk. I hadn't been outside all day and my belly was way too full to fall asleep without a little walk. It was about 10pm and yet Inwood would not let us down. Walking down Broadway we managed to see a heavy-set "butch" woman meandering across the street completely topless and then as we approached the very brightly lit Bank of America we were blessed to catch a homeless bag lady run right under a spotlight and squat to take a very urgent leak. So loud it still haunts me now.

Needless to say we hurried home.

Not Even a Ghoul

2010-10-31T21:39:00.006-04:00

I was totally ready this year. A whole month ago I wandered into Rite Aid to get my drug store fix, you know, stare at the lotions, ponder the need for more mascara, try to convince myself that I do indeed need some more shampoo when I came across the candy aisle. It was still hot out, fall hadn't entered anyone's radar and Halloween candy was already experiencing sale prices. I thought I'd grab a few bags of it and be fully prepared for perhaps ungrateful yet possibly excited children to ring my partially functioning door bell.
Two weeks after that, Mark bought me 3 mini pumpkins and when Halloween arrived I sat them outside my door in a very 'come hither' manner. I was announcing to the children in the building "Processed sugar available here!".

And yet here it is, 9:40pm and not one single knock. I'm surprised at how sad I am. And I can't even eat the candy myself because then I will never speak to me again. Though I won't deny that I tried only to be spoken to in an unkind manner by Mark who warned me of all the evil things that will happen to me if I dared keep all these snack-sized Snickers to myself.

Bah Humbug!
Oh wait...wrong holiday.

Adventures in Babysitting

2010-10-29T22:04:00.001-04:00

Almost everyday I write a list and every time on this list I put 'write blog post'. And yet, I never do. So here I am. I'm excited to be writing a post again I just don't have the discipline. Which is exactly why my degree never worked out for me. I'm just not strict enough with myself. But anyway moving on...

I'm almost a full time babysitter now. I watch three sets of siblings that's six kids total. I'm exhausted. I know you're chewing your nails dying to know what my schedule is so I'll cut the suspense and just share:

Monday

7:30-9:00 AM

Go to The Girls (2 sisters) home. Help get breakfast and last minute morning things ready. Take them to school. One in kindergarten at 8:30 and then another gets dropped off at 9 at nursery.

2:45-5:30 PM

Pick up Girls at school. One at 2:45 the other at 3:30. Take them to the Big Girl's soccer class where she has an anxiety breakdown because she doesn't like being the only girl in the class. That ends about 5:10. We walk home where mom is just arriving and dad's probably been there for hours. I'm done and I let myself out.

Tuesday

7:30-9:00 AM

2:45-5:15 PM

A lot of the same without the soccer. Instead of soccer we go to the park if the weather is good which, luckily for me and babysitters across Washington Heights, it has been. I get them home by 5/5:15 and I'm done.

Wednesday

7:30-9:00 AM

The mornings are the same. I'm with the Girls and get them to school. But I'm done with them after drop off.

The Dread Begins.

5-9:45 PM

I pick up Big Chubby. She's an older sister. I get her from her after school program and try my hardest to convince her to walk the 5ish blocks to Lil' Chubby's (her brother) daycare so we can get him. As you can imagine by her name she's not a fan of walking and demands either bus or taxi but if I'm firm and quick-witted I can usually get her to walk. Since her mom never pays me for transportation I'm not about to spend money on a practically 10 second bus ride. (Though, in mom's defense, if I work really late for them they will call for a cab and pay for it)

We pick up Lil' Chubby and head to the park (again, weather permitting) or home. They play pretty well together while I microwave their heavily processed, always from the freezer dinners. I'm pretty sure they keep the chicken nugget market in the black.

Dinner, bath, naked running around, one pre-school themed show On Demand, book, teeth, and then a battle for them to sleep. Lil' Chubby NEVER sleeps. He has to be kept out of the bedroom just so Big Chubby can fall asleep, which she doesn't want to so she never complains if he's keeping her up. It takes her about 40 minutes to crash and then I'm trying the rest of the night to trick Lil' Chub to fall asleep. Either on the couch or mom's bed. He won't have any of it. He's holding out until a parent comes home. They totally know this but mom still seems bugged when she's the first one home and he's still awake. Dad never seems surprised.

I will be brutally honest (me, no!) These are not my favorite kids to watch. They are the kids that started my 'babysitting career' but they are not my favorites. And don't get me wrong: the other kids are difficult but I'd take them any day over The Chubs.

Big Chubby is a bi-polar, smart-mouth, grown-up ignoring, diva, tantrum-throwing QUEEN. If you waiver IN ANY WAY from the standard routine she freaks THE FUCK OUT. I mean...it's ridiculously scary. Now, I know kids need routine. I'm all for it. But the rest of the kids I sit for if I'm doing something “wrong” or not like mommy, they tell me. For the most part they tell me in a pretty level-headed, reasonable way and they explain how mommy does it so I can fix it and they can be happy. They understand that I'm not mommy so sometimes they give me some leeway and are pretty forgiving. BUT NOT BIG CHUBBY.

The other night I started making the personal pizzas with Lil' Chubby at the kitchen counter and not at the dining table and she turned bright red, screamed bloody fucking murder, threw her body on the floor, got up, ran to her room, slammed the door (so hard that she was actually stuck inside when she tried to come out which triggered another tantrum) and yelled 5-year-old obscenities about how much she hated having me as a babysitter. And this shit went on ALL NIGHT. You couldn't blink without her freaking out.

Again, kids have tantrums, but she takes the fucking cake. And I think that what really gets to me about it all is that she's THE OLDEST kid I babysit but she's the most difficult, unhelpful one.

FUCKING WEDNESDAY.

Moving on.

Thursday

8:30am-3:30pm

I arrive at The Boys apartment. I hang with Little Boy who is THE BOMB. He still shits in his pants but he's my absolute favorite. We chill, play, go for walks, eat snacks and lunch, he takes a nap but it sometimes takes me an hour to try and get him to fall asleep. But it doesn't matter. He's awesome.

3:30-9:45 PM

We go and pick up Big Boy from school. Depending on the day Big Boy can be charming or stressful. But I feel we've found a good rhythm and I just have to keep the peace. He's pretty independent and it's just a matter of making sure he doesn't physically hurt another kid as he doesn't quite understand that not everyone loves being punched in the face.

We chill, I avoid the playground as much as possible because he'll get into it with another kid. If I'm convincing enough we'll walk in the park and go look at the woodchucks who live by the flower garden and are out finding dinner at that time. We'll go home. I cook them dinner (ugh), give them baths, and put them to bed. It's not easy, they don't love bedtime but some days are easier than others. I just have to remain calm because Big Boy loves knowing that he's annoying you. But still-he can be pretty cool.

Friday

Back to The Girls. 7:30-9 AM and 2:45-5 PM. If I survive (Friday's are hard simply because I'm exhausted from two late nights in a row and Thursday's epic hours) I get paid and try and enjoy the weekend.

High Class Hoarding

2010-09-21T09:20:00.005-04:00

Frittata: The Next Step

I finally grabbed the bull by the horns and made this:

I got the recipe from the Williams Sonoma catalog that I am now on the mailing list for after using a gift card given to me by awesome parents at my former job which wasn't so awesome but seems awesome because it was during a time when I received paychecks-ya dig?
Anyway, it was tasty and it looks really pretty and I'm sure if you leave the sausage out it's a nice vegetarian option. I had become really comfortable making a simple spinach frittata and so I thought I was ready to try something a tad more elaborate. Mark's stomach approves. (and it actually did look like this when I was all done)

I DON'T LIKE
Did you see the Mad Men like two weeks ago? The one with the Don Draper voice over? I'm so not into it. He's 'journaling' or something. Maybe...I don't know. All I know is I don't want to hear it ever again. It really bothered me.

ARE YOU SERIOUS!?
So Hoarders on A&E is sometimes awesome. Awesomely horrible. There was this one new episode about this family of four: Mom and Dad, ages 70 and 71. Daughter and Son, ages 38 and 39. They all live together in the home which just tells you something is off with the clan. I mean...you have kids living at home almost 40 years old and it's not like they were married then divorced or have fallen on tough economic times....they just never left.
So anyway, they live in absolute filth and they are a creepy, angry family who is very much not liking participating in Hoarders because their home is private! Dammit! Basically mom fell in the home and was pinned under stuff, firefighters were called in and when they saw the monstrosity of the home they were reported to city officials who said "Clean up or lose the home".
So basically the episode ends with a cleaned out home that is in such horrible disrepair the city condemns the house and they are forced to leave. BUT the point of the story is that during the show there are lots of camera shots that sweep through the home to give you an idea of the cluster f*ck of garbage that is heaped into these rooms.
So at one point angry, creepy dad is watching tv in his hideous recliner and he's watching....a flat screen tv. A FLAT SCREEN TV! I'm sorry. You live in a garbage heap. You have no running water (none, not even in the bathroom, just imagine), you have zero access to your kitchen, your ceiling has partially collapsed in numerous rooms but you have a flat screen. I don't have a flat screen. As a matter of fact it's offensive how large and boxy my tv is! What is wrong with this world.....

Where Was I?

2010-08-28T13:42:00.003-04:00

I've read nine books this summer. I turned through them so quickly I never even updated my Reading Right Now section. I'm not bragging. I'm more like "wow, look at that" mixed in with "wow, I'd really like to have a job". Because while having all this free time is great having money is great too.

I am trying to get my job applying go get'em attitude back. Once I went out to California I went on "I'm gonna enjoy this summer if it's the last thing I do" mode. Which I did. I might have done it too well. I've gained six pounds this summer. And that's just the pounds I'm aware of/will admit to. So imagine the possibilities. Or more like horrendous truth.

But Mark is helping me and I'm trying to buy a lot more fresh produce and I haven't purchased a sour cream in a long time. And I'm trying to get to the gym again like I was doing before California/My Great Depression hit. I've even managed to jog/shuffle on the treadmill - juffle. It's a challenge because it puts more pressure on the ankle which doesn't like it but if I juffle on the edge of my foot and I put up the U2 on my ipod a little louder then I can ignore the burning pain shooting up to my knee and juffle along imagining more calories are being burned. So it's a work in progress.

So that's that: Reading. Eating baby heirloom tomatoes. Juffling. I went to go see Eat, Pray, Love. I read the book awhile ago while travelling through Colombia. I hated the book. I was annoyed with Elizabeth Gilbert and her whiny, entitled, fully funded, find-myself story. But watching Julia Roberts acting all entitled about her self-discovery was actually more enjoyable because once it's a movie it's all make-believe! That and I really wanted to see Inception but the next showing wasn't for another two hours and it was Imax and girlfriend is on a strict budget and can't afford it.

HaHa?

2010-08-02T20:43:00.003-04:00

Well now we're even and I don't want to be teased anymore.

A few years ago, while living in Tahoe, Mark and I flew to New York for Christmas. It was a standard visit. Then it came time to leave. I remember being stressed (shock!) because I knew it would be crowded at the airport and we hit the road way later than I had wanted to because my parents, who never fly anywhere, started getting ready to take us at the time that we should have been getting on the highway. They don't really get that during the holidays if your flight is at 8am you don't get there at 7:45am (or anytime you fly, but you get the idea). So I was worried.

So we're standing on this line at United Airlines and it's loooooong. And I'm sad to leave because it was my first time back visiting after my time in Tahoe became more 'permanent' therefore the mood is grim already. So as the line crawls forward they keep calling people forward who may be on the back of the line but whose flights are really soon. "If anyone is on the 8am flight to San Francisco please step to the front of the line" and so on, like that. Only after awhile Mark and I start to wonder why our flight is not getting called since we're eeking closer and closer to departure time. But we don't do much about it.

FINALLY, we get to the front, to the self-check-in kiosk, which is all most airlines have now, and it won't find our flight info, and it won't find our info, again and again. So we call for help and tell the woman it's not coming up, she asks for our paperwork and I hand it to her. And in very-loud-not-so-nice-customer-service-because-this-is-NYC form she goes "Your paperwork says your flight is on American Airlines. Welcome to United!" and she waves her arms all Vanna White style along the big letters on the wall.

Jaws drop and so does my stomach and the tears are immediate. I couldn't believe it but there it was. So basically after realizing that my father would be mean and tease me about it for the rest of my life I announced that I didn't think it was fair that I be the only one to handle all the travel arrangements as it was very stressful. So I retired from it.

So here we are in Tahoe. Mark has done all the arranging. We had epic layovers on the way out here. I couldn't believe it and I wondered if that would have been the case if maybe "someone else" had taken care of the trip. But whatever- we got here and had fun and we were preparing to have a great, laid-back last day at Fallen Leaf Lake when Mark's cell phone rings and it's his dad asking where the heck we were? What'd'ya mean? He was at the airport in San Diego waiting for us to come out of the terminal because we should've been on a plane the whole morning we were lounging at a breakfast place and planning our outing.

Basically Mark got the days mixed up and we missed our flight. And in true Tahoe form we only had one last shuttle to Reno to catch before it shut down and we were stranded with no way to get to the airport even though it was early afternoon. So we had to scramble to pack, call our host to let him know what had happened and luckily he let us use his truck (which by some miracle we actually had available to us today) to drive ourselves to the other side of town. So now we're sitting in the Reno airport...for hours...before we can fly to LAX where we wait...for hours...before we can fly into San Diego at 11 at night when we should have been there at like 11 in the morning.

Even though I'm glad we were able to get here and all will work out, the 2 hours where our travel world was thrown upside down really frazzled me and now I'm an anxiety mess. Which is a total bummer because Tahoe had me in a total zen. So...San Diego, your challenge is to return me to that vacation mode. GOOD LUCK.

Greetings from South Lake Tahoe

2010-07-30T17:28:00.004-04:00

I've travelled back in time.
After hours and hours spent in a variety of airports Mark and I finally made it to Tahoe with the shuttle driving over and back down mountains until Lake Tahoe appears in front of you like the Holy Land. Just as I remember it. And that's a good thing.

It's almost as if this place is a fountain of youth for me. I've been running on empty but haven't seemed to break down yet. I've had more alcohol than water which is unheard of for me and I'm doing just fine.

Our host, Jonathan, has a sweet "fixer-upper" which sprawls on his plot just outside of town and he took us sailing on Fallen Leaf Lake, which I was never able to do when I was here before and I also got to paddle board . I never made it to my feet, I have no faith in what balance my ankle can provide, but years of catholic school had me on my knees just fine.

We grilled with a great turn-out of old camp buddies and today while Mark and Jonathan are on some ridiculous hike I've been baking in the sun on the beach. I had to abandon the sands because I could feel myself headed for heat stroke but it was a great morning.

And now, here I am, sitting in the South Lake Tahoe library using the internet just like I did that first winter I lived here (sitting next to a heavy mouth breather, I won't be able to stay here long...I can smell him, gross. The only blemish on the trip so far- so that's a good thing, right?)

So it's only been 2 days but they've been grand. I hope it continues. Mark and I have no plans for the rest of the days here but we should get planning tonight since we'll have to work out borrowing the buddy's car since he has to go back to work.

Ahhhh. Workin' folk.

Getting a Literary Groove On

2010-07-26T12:08:00.002-04:00

The time has come for me to fly to California. Our big 2010 "Tour" as we will visit both Northern and Southern parts. Hip-Hip Hooray? I'm going to do my best to not let what waits for me at home to mess up my attitude while I'm away.
It will be hard.

Of course the biggest item to tackle was to decide what to bring to read. I checked out a bunch of books from the library but didn't love them so returned them. Then I tried a book I already owned but don't like it (was a freebie) so I'm going to get rid of it. So I ended up back at the library and decided that maybe what I need is a nice dose of Young Adult. They're so much different than when I was a young adult (Dear God! I'm not a young adult. I might vomit.)

Didn't Young Adult use to mean Ramona Quimbly and Fear Street and anything R.L. Stine? Remember that guy? Now they have New York Times bestselling authors and fancy cover design and for the love of god, Twilight is "Young Adult" and look at the millions of dollars there.

So for my vacation reading I'm going to read the voice of a 16-year-old protagonist and pretend like I know what it's like to grow up in suburbia (nope) what it was like during my first teen love (didn't happen, I was fat(ter)), and imagine, perhaps, being the child of a divorced couple (which I'm not, even though my parents can't stand each other.)

Happy Summer Reading!

Getting Older

2010-07-13T13:49:00.004-04:00

So for my birthday Mark and I went out to Jackson Heights to get some Indian. We went to the Jackson Diner which we were told was once a diner but now a really popular Indian spot. For you non-NYCers if New York City is a Melting Pot then Jackson Heights is like...more? I don't know, cleverness is lost to me today but basically there's a fuck-load of Indians in Jackson Heights so you go there for more than just the one option we have up here in Inwood.

I knew I was in the thick of it when the man next to me was eating his dish with his bare hands, which is the way they do it in India. It's actually impressive because you're talking curry here: liquid, runny stuff. He was actually a neater eater than me.

We were there for the lunch buffet which is exactly what you want when you're wearing a tighter fitting dress and you already have issues about how you look. What's this? No flowey layers? Wanna have a buffet of your favorite ethnic food? Sure! So we ate lunch with a friend and then headed to MoMA because I can still get in for free and we were only 2 train stops away.

At MoMA the Indian theme accidentally continued. There was a woman there wearing a stunning sari. It wasn't brightly colored or cheap looking like they can sometimes look. This was a beautiful, tapestry-like sari that flowed and hung over her body. I instantly wished I was Indian. So bad.
You get to be curvy...sometimes more. You get to wear comfy clothing. It can have beautiful, bold prints. You have long, dark, delicious hair that never seems to know it's humid. Ugh.

So we had people over for drinks in the evening and it was a lot of fun. It was a nice mix of people. A weird 'reunion' of sorts where the only thing that everyone had in common was me. A girl from college who I haven't seen until just a week earlier. Two girls from MoMA which I thought was really awesome too. I keep in touch mostly through Facebook but when you really think about it, I only worked with them for two months two years ago but they came and I had a great time talking with them. My buddy Steve who, poor thing, sat in the corner for a short time and I didn't really get a chance to talk to him. And some others who I was happy to have. I think everyone hit it off well.

Anyway, here it is. We're thick into summer. We've had our first heat wave and I've applied to 12 jobs. I'm starting to wilt. I've got myself a little cozy corner to make mine and it does help with my motivation to sit down and send out a resumé but I'm a victim to my defeatism.

Soon we'll head out to Lake Tahoe and down to San Diego and I'm gonna try really hard to just have a fucking blast. Just enjoy what will be my last vacation for a long time and not worry about what's waiting for me at home. But it will be hard since my brain just isn't wired that way.

Melting

2010-07-05T22:18:00.003-04:00

Hope you had a nice 4th.

I made Mark sit all day in a North Jersey backyard while I marinated in an above-ground pool filled with Puerto Ricans and a sprinkling of Italians. It was actually perfect. It was refreshing and sorta fun, considering the alternative was sitting on my futon developing swamp ass and probably getting into a fight with Mark as we would have been hot and grumpy.

We checked out the fireworks from a Penthouse view in Chinatown where we did end up getting into a fight but somehow composed ourselves and I think overall the day was a success! And I didn't have to worry about my birds because they had been taken over to Grandma's place to be kept cool in the AC. What a nice Grandma.

On Monday we hit up Midtown for some sales. Here's a bullet point presentation of the day:
-Mark updated t-shirt wardrobe.
-I updated bra collection.
-My boobs are bigger than originally thought. I'm not necessarily ashamed of this. It will actually benefit me when I start turning tricks to pay the rent.
-Ghetto People will talk about anything in a dressing room. It's almost disturbing.
Conversation 1:
Dressing room attendant talking about a recent experience in court and how someone's wages are being taken for child support back payments and how you can write letters to explain to the judge that you're losing too much money and blah, blah, blah..
Conversation 2:
Girl 1 talking to Girl 2 about how she met her boyfriend's recently-born baby. And how she swears it wasn't his son because he don't look nothing like him and so the only thing she could think to say was "Wow, he has your smile." Only two weeks later he was talking to her and said "This may make me sound like an asshole but I don't think it's my kid." And other really gross personal shit that doesn't need to be announced to a dressing room. But when it's mentioned that someone wants to go to the pool at Highbridge Park the response is "Nah man, that place is so fucking ghetto." OOOOOkay.

But all in all it was a busy day. I should enjoy this little shopping spree because at the end of July we're heading out for our "California Tour" and that's gonna really stress out the piggy bank and then it's gonna get ugly from there. So wish me luck. And like...for real...keep an ear to the ground for jobs! Otherwise I won't leave the house much and you'll just end up with boring posts like this one.

Holy Heat Index

2010-06-28T11:33:00.004-04:00

Things I've recently learned:

*People actually do read this blog, what a motivator!

*That there is a "before you sprain your ankle" and "after you sprain your ankle" life.
Basically "before" means you never think about your ankles. Unless you have cankles and you hate them. But I didn't.
"After" means it always hurts. When you get off of an airplane it will be gigantic. When you step out of a car door and you put all your weight on it because that's how you climb out of the car. It hurts. And it's just really awkward and you have to change a lifetime of habit to actually turn your whole body out of the car to push up. It's so....elderly.
People get tired of hearing about it but you can't stop obsessing because no one ever tells you that it will never be the same. Never. And you didn't even break it.

*That if you wait 2 years to go back to yoga class it definitely is awesome to make your first class back an outdoors class with two drummers and a field full of people all moving together. It almost makes you understand that whole hippie religious aspect of yoga. Almost.

*It's really a nice way to spend an afternoon with people from college who had a common interest with you. What do I mean by this? Well recently my old RC from my RA days organized a "reunion" of sorts of former staffers from his favorite time(s) at Purchase. While I wasn't really part of any of their closer social circles (I don't recall sharing dark secrets with any of them) we all spent time together being RAs. Which meant we all had a common goal, we all had the same desire to be part of that community, we all worked together, and we all respected each other. So it was a really pleasant afternoon.

I was genuinely happy to be there and hear what was happening and what was not happening in our lives. We're all the in the late 20s to early 30s range so some of us are in early career stages, some of us are in "starting all over" stages. Some are in serious relationships some are still out there but none of us are like super settled with three kids and a house sort of thing so it was funny to see how we have all changed but we're still the same... in a non-depressing way.

*And lastly I learned that being around you first "peer" you first friend who is pregnant can be really trippy. Here is this girl you shopped with and hung out with and suddenly there is this...human inside of her. But she's still the same person. It becomes even more surreal when you're chatting away and then the baby shifts inside and you see it move. Whoa.
Anyway, I'm really happy for her. She has the nice little American set-up going on (house, job, growing family) and she's a great example of working hard and knowing what you want and earning it. Love you.

So Far, So Good

2010-05-16T17:31:00.003-04:00

So the weather has been getting nicer and I find myself in a fairly good mood ever since I moved to the New Place. New Place is great. It has a better vibe. Larger floor plan. Less sketch neighbors. So far not so bad.
So it's crazy that I'm not in a constant state of panic ever since I told my employer that I wasn't going to be returning to work after this school year. What's that? It's a recession and I have no special talents and therefore I'm running the risk of total destitution by giving up guaranteed employment?

You're absolutely right.
But I just couldn't do it anymore.

I'm just so tired of pretending every day that I give a crap about these spoiled, sometimes horribly behaved, privileged children. If I wanted to clean up the same messes over and over again, break up the same fights over and over again, and try really hard not to beat a small human senseless over and over again I'd just give birth to a fucking kid myself. Having my own kid would be as thankless and pay about as much as this job paid me. As a matter of fact I could try and get welfare with my own kid and probably be living better than I am now because that's just how it works in this place, the great USA. Or in this here part of NYC.

Anyway. Don't get me wrong, every couple of hours I feel a little panicky and sad and nervous and horrible and I just want to cease to exist. But I haven't been losing sleep which is a pretty good sign of taking it in stride for me.

But I'd check back again come mid-July. I'm not making any promises for optimism come mid-July.

This One's for R.J.

2010-03-31T12:44:00.004-04:00

One of my favorite things to have for breakfast is a Baked-Potato Egg. I love it. It's all the best things about "big breakfasts" tucked into a small ramekin. Less guilt? Sure. Let's go with that. I'll share how I make it which differs just slightly from the original recipe I learned it from. You end up with 4 ramekins full of goodness. Mark and I usually eat two each, I won't lie.

2 large baking potatoes
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
2 sausages of your liking, precooked, diced
4 large eggs

Oven to 400 degrees. Scrub taters, pierce with fork. Bake for 45 minutes. I don't wrap them or put them on a tray. I slap 'em right down on the rack.
Carefully cut open baked potatoes and scoop all the innards into a mixing bowl. Discard skins.
Stir in the butter and cheese, fold in cooked sausage. Spoon mixture evenly into your ramekins and make a hollow in the center of each. Break 1 egg into each hollow.
Arrange on a baking sheet and cook 10-15 minutes until your eggs are set.

The key to success is making sure all your whites are not runny but that your yolk still has some runniness inside of it. Because when your yolk breaks and mixes with the sausage and potato that's when it emulates that awesome Sunday morning diner breakfast flavor.
Hot sauce, ketchup, salt, pepper: Pick your poison and enjoy!The picture is of the day I used bacon instead of sausage because that's what I had on hand. Personally, I don't recommend it. It rocks way more with the chopped sausage.

Because I'm Just That Lucky

2010-03-31T12:16:00.006-04:00

So here in NYC, schools have had off all week and a bit of next week too. It's Spring Recess. I think it's funny that with all this separation of Church and State our vacations are still totally dominated by the dates of Passover and Easter. We just don't actually acknowledge it. Well, I'm not going to complain.
Or am I???

But that's not the point of me writing this. Mark and I weren't going anywhere. We had moved the week earlier and on one hand we thought it a financially wise idea to not compound moving expenses with travel expenses. Also, we were really excited to have a week off to get cozy in our new place and get done all those little things that help you personalize an apartment. Maybe throw on some downtown excursions, some burger eating, maybe I could squeeze a movie out of Mark and you've got yourself a not-so-terrible staycation.
Except on Saturday I was feeling all gung-ho. Ready to battle the laundry. Start using our new laundromat down our new street. I got down two steps holding one bag of laundry in my right hand, the old lady shopping cart in the other when the wheels got caught, the cart apparently being too large for me to carry that way and I fell down a flight of stairs. I remember the pain shooting through my ankle. I remember covering my face so that the cart didn't crash onto my face and that's about that.

I started to cry pretty loudly almost instantly. I recall trying to muster everything in my body to stop crying but it was totally involuntary, the pain was so intense. I was definitely a little in shock that it had just happened. I called for help and no one answered. I felt "let down" by my new neighbors. I've decided that maybe no one could hear me.
I called my mommy and she headed over. While I tried to figure out how to hobble back up to my apartment a man, who turns out to live next to me, came up the stairs from outside and helped me stand, deposited my stuff next to my door and bid me a "feel better".

So of course we hit up the ER. Everyone was impressed with my swelling which the picture does no justice. (Though a nice reminder of how poorly maintained my feet were. Luckily I had shaved that morning!)I overheard the nurse be surprised that it wasn't broken but it's as sprained as you can get I suppose. So here I am. On vacation. On crutches. On futon. On Motrin. On frozen peas.
Some people try and say "Well at least you don't have to go anywhere. At least you don't lose any sick time." But I'm still pissed. I don't lose any sick time (not that I don't get crap for using it anyway) But I do lose Jamie time.

Le Sigh.

A Really Shallow Example

2010-03-20T12:47:00.003-04:00

I can't say I totally, without a doubt, believe in it but sometimes when things work out (in my favor, I'm a fair weathered optimist) I think it truly is Destiny.
Here's what I'm all smiles about:
Back in May. As in last May when I moved to Vermilyea I was constantly walking by this little local shop. You know those trendy boutiques on 207th street that are totally overpriced but the closest thing we have to real fashion here in Inwood? (Though I am so far from fashionable) So one day last year, as I was all bald having recently buzzed my head, I peeped in the window and saw hats.

I'm obsessed with hats. I buy them constantly and then don't wear them. The last two years I've been really cracking down on myself. While I still indulge here and there I actually make myself wear them. Having bitter-cold winters helps.
Anyway. I loved this hat at first sight. But I refused to go in and spend money. I've been cracking down on that, too. Having a relationship with Mark helps.
But then one day I was feeling all Carpe Diem! and I went in and tried the hat. My sincere hope was that it would look really crappy on me and I'd move on. But it looked cute. I loved it. And I still didn't buy it. I couldn't deal with $40.

IT'S BEEN ALMOST A YEAR.
For almost a freaking year I've stared at this $40 summer hat and wished it belonged to me. At one point it moved from the window and I was sad thinking someone else bought it and then it reappeared and I felt better. It still wasn't mine but it wasn't anyone else's either.
But now I'm moving and I won't be walking by this window constantly and it was sunny and my eyes were bothering me because I've stopped wearing contacts which means I've stopped wearing sunglasses and I'm trying to do little things to enjoy myself so I went into the store.

And I bought the hat.
And it was on sale.
And the label with the Designer's name?
It says Grace.
WHO IS ONLY MY BFF!
(even if she is only 5 yrs. old)

Destiny.

Peace Out!

2010-03-19T17:37:00.003-04:00

I don't think I can underestimate how excited I am to be moving to our new apartment over this weekend. It's literally just a few blocks away and it's a world of difference.
Since the weather has been warm every cretin and scoundrel and asshole and degenerate that lives in my current building complex has taken station on our stoop and it's like running the worst gamut ever created just to get to our entryway. It's fucking horrible is what I'm trying to say.
I truly believe that if we had resigned our lease and then started experiencing the warm weather crowds I would have plummeted into a suicidal fog knowing that I was stuck here all summer. But we didn't! We're escaping!

Of course life has been hectic. Because I'm trying to pack but probably haven't been as efficient as I could've been. The apartment has been a giant mess as I deconstruct it and so it's frazzling my nerves and I haven't grocery shopped in awhile to avoid having to move perishables so we've been eating some takeout. My anxiety ridden self is about 4 more days from an implosion. I spend my whole work day surrounded by loud chaos and I need my home to be an oasis. I need order! Neatness!!!!

DEEP BREATH.

It's okay. I'm moving and it will be messy and crazy but I have some great family and friends helping me so it will all work out.

Cats and Dogs

2010-03-13T14:10:00.003-05:00

I like going to the gym after work because it lets me blow off some steam but I also feel overwhelmed after work with things I need to get done: try and make it to my parents to walk the dog, get home because there are lonely birds, get home to make dinner, get to the gym quick enough because it gets unbearably crowded. All those things would get the best of me and I would find some excuse to not do most of them, including getting to the gym.

So this past week I thought I'd give the 5am gym routine a go. You know, wake up early and get it out of the way. Uh...not so successful. Tuesday was painful because it was Day One. I was EXHAUSTED all freaking day. No matter what I did I just couldn't snap out of this fog.
Day Two was the same. I'm just tired all day and I can truly feel my cells in my body tingling with pain and exhaustion.
Day Three I just stayed in bed. And I felt great all day.

I just couldn't do it. It wasn't the waking up at 5am so much as it was having to stay awake for the rest of the day. I never felt rejuvenated, ready to face the day. I was so out of it for the workout that I could never put the same effort I could do at the end of the day so I was barely breaking a sweat.
I also learned that coffee doesn't so much make me more awake than it is an actual joint lubricant. Which is just f'ing crazy. Apparently I need coffee not so much to think better but just bending down to pick up a dropped item hurt my achey knees so much more before coffee than after.
I guess this New Yorker needs to learn to embrace the crowds.

*******

So it's total shit outside and that's a total bummer because Mark and I are down to the wire in laundry and we were really hoping to take some things over to the new apartment. Ahhhh that new apartment. It's lovely, exciting...and empty. I'm dying to get in there. Everytime I run late in the morning because I had to wait for water to appear in my shower I dream of the day when I can turn on a faucet and there it will be. Hot, gushing, ejaculating water. It's so exciting. Mark and I have set the move date. It will be next Sunday, March 21st. We're just going to bite the bullet, rent a van, pull a favor card with friends, and make our escape. I pray that the weather is nothing like this weekend.

Also Known As...

2010-03-06T19:44:00.004-05:00

There isn't much to say so I'll just get right down to it. Mark and I were talking the other night and I really wish I could remember what we were talking about but the entire conversation ended with Mark saying "You should totally rename your blog Cynical Bitch."

I can't agree with him more. I mean the problem is that it's a dead giveaway. But if you read this blog it's because you already know me so it's not like you'd be surprised. You'd be more like "Cynical bitch? Oh yeah, totally. But I have a good job where I can sit around and check her blog so I'll keep reading anyway."

And for that, I thank you.

But if I warn newcomers with the title then perhaps I'd stop getting really mean comments about my Colombia posts where I whine like I've never whined before. But really...we know that's not true.
White people from the Midwest would never just accept me for who I am. They just want to gush about South America because they're afraid to ever talk bad about an ethnic place for fear of sounding racist. They want to love everyone. Unless they are a nameless entity on a comment page. Then they have no problem being mean as shit. Trust me. Why do you think your comments have to be approved?

Food

2010-02-27T21:39:00.004-05:00

I'm not going to be The Pioneer Woman or anything (she's the bee's knees by the way) but I take pictures of the food I cook when I'm super thrilled about it. So Mark has all these pics floating around on one of his many laptops- they're like leather bound books to him -and I've decided to just start posting them. So be prepared. You should probably know now that I do a lot of egg dishes 'round here.

This was my first quiche ever. Strangely enough I got the recipe from The American Girls Julie cookbook. Yes, like the dolls. One of my students left the book in her cubbie and I fell in love with the pictures and the little historical tidbits about food in the 70s. Apparently Americans thought foods from France were groovy so quiche and fondue really took off.
So I made this bacon and cheese quiche. I also made the crust from scratch. No store-bought pie crusts for me. So the edges are all a little wacky but they were made with love.

This one was called Sour Cream Oven Omelet. It was pretty weird. I liked the way the finish product looked but I don't think the taste and texture was anything to write home about. As a matter of fact it was insanely fluffy. Cutting into it was like, hmmm, I don't know, angel food cake? Or a meringue? I'm not sure but here it is! I think I just liked the pic and baking it in the skillet.

I Just Want To Feel Accepted

2010-02-27T21:20:00.003-05:00

So like, crazy things have gone into motion. Mark and I got a new place! Woohoo! It was (not surprisingly) horribly stressful. First, I thought I'd be all proactive and call a realtor right away. So I do, he's friendly if a little young sounding. We make an appointment to meet on a local street corner. He says he'll call me the day before to confirm.
He never calls me.
So I call him because I'm the one who needs something here, right? Though I won't say I wasn't slightly annoyed by the lack of professionalism (Take 1). He answers, has no idea who I am, finally 'remembers' and we confirm the appointment. The next day I'm standing on street corner with my dad for 45 MINUTES and eventually we leave. L-O-P Take 2. So I decide this time I'm not going to call. He should call me.

Eventually he does and has the gall to complain that his guy was standing there waiting for me. Listen dude, if a young woman is standing on a street corner to meet a realtor she's never met do you really think that she should just walk up to every guy who passes her way. No. That Fucker should walk up to the young woman who is standing around for no apparent reason, and ask "Are you Jamie?".

So then we decide to give it one more go and this time I'll just go to the office and meet him there. Simple right? So that President's Day morning it's a messy snowy morning and Mark and I are off so we trudge over there at the precise time.
And the Fucker isn't there.
My palms are sweaty. Anger is wide spread.
The receptionist tells us to hang someone will be in shortly. So we get hooked up with another dude, we see 5 apartments, we apply for one, we scramble for paperwork, all that annoying shit.

We get rejected. Remember this whole catastrophe.
So the public record thing comes back and I pretty much do this.

But this company was a little different and we showed them the old paperwork from my dad's landlord that the issue isn't with me and it's all a paperwork mistake deep in the underworld of bureaucracy. So they approved us!

Hip-Hip Hooray!

And Then...Gone

2010-02-19T13:55:00.005-05:00

I was reading this:

Then as I approached page 23 I realized it wasn't there. Nor was page 27, 35, 51. A few here and there in the beginning of the binding. I was shocked and annoyed. I've had this book on my shelf for going on 2 years now. So there is no hope of just returning it. I was pissed off by a lack of assistance from Barnes and Noble though not surprised. I remember them being fairly uncaring back when I worked for them. Basically I need Diana to help me because she's the Queen of Schemes.

I've had this whole week off and it's been glorious. I've kept myself busy for most of it. And by busy I mean I've had at least one task for each day which is apparently all I need to feel accomplished.
I took a tour of a culinary school. I don't know if it really put a fire under me, since taking a massive loan to pay for it will take some sort of miracle for me to just bite the bullet and do it. But at least I got the tour out of the way and can get some of the mystery out of my mind.

We applied for a new apartment on Tuesday afternoon and still haven't heard anything. Which of course leaves me in a panic. But I haven't persisted in looking at other places because what point is there? If I find another suitable place, it's not as if I'll put in an application while I have another application floating out there somewhere. Well I'm getting all agitated just thinking of it so I'll stop there.

A Week Off

2010-02-12T18:24:00.002-05:00

I should feel relaxed. HA!
I have the next week off but I've been methodically filling it up to keep myself busy. Whenever I have a few days off I have these hallucinations that I'm going to be busy and exciting but then I sit around in dirty sweats and go back to work all depressed. Not this time!

Saturday I'm going to look at an apartment in the morn. It's in Washington Heights, not Inwood, and that gives me heartburn even though it really doesn't matter (does it?). Then in the evening Mark is having a gathering of Teaching Fellows at our place. I'm all nervous that no one will show up and we'll just feel more lonely and isolated. So if you're reading this and you're nearby you're invited regardless of profession. Saturday, the 13th. Our place. I'm making Mexican black bean dip, baking focaccia, and possibly a spiced chai cake. Feel free to bring your favorite drink.

Sunday. Well in the evening I finally get to use my tickets to the NY Flamenco Festival. I'm muy excited. Monday, more apartments with a realtor (ick). Tuesday, a tour of the Institute of Culinary Education. Wednesday afternoon, a Swedish massage.
You get the picture.

But I'm stressed because I'm gonna end up paying rent for two apartments at one time. I can sense it. And I'm gonna be freaked out about handling tuition for ICE. I really should just go with it. And sometimes I can tell myself to chill. To remind myself of my college slogan 'go with the flow'. I was actually a pretty calm person in college.

Dolla Billz

2010-02-04T21:37:00.003-05:00

On Monday I was looking at my puny checking account online. There were two charges that had appeared, dated for Monday, still pending. They were pretty small amounts but I was annoyed, slightly worried. As I was on hold to my bank to ask WTF? I suddenly remembered being really tired and feeling "flamboyant" and popping into my nearby Dunkin' Donuts for an extra morning coffee a few days earlier. Ah ha! That's what that is, DD taking forever to put in my charges. Taking so many days actually that I thought it was really weird and I filed it away in the back of my mind. Because that's what I need. More shit to obsess and worry about.

So today my cell phone ring-a-ding dings and it's good ol' Wells Fargo calling. Apparently there are some suspicious charges on my account. And a tingly feeling goes off in the back of my mind. So they list the usual boring charges "C-town Supermarket, C-town, Dunkin' Donuts, Dunkin' Donuts, a $1 charge from iTunes for today, and a $92.73 charge from some website that was declined."
I literally guffaw into the phone. "Nope, No, No, Nay. I've never bought anything from iTunes, ever, and I've never heard of that website, and I haven't even been on the internet all day, I've been at work"
And even though I'm all calm and professional I'm totally freaking out on the inside. This isn't exactly someone using my credit card. This is someone using my debit card. This is actual cash from my checking.

So I was pretty lucky that the 92 dollar charge was declined and they put a claim against the $1 iTunes charge (yeah, it's a dollar but it's still fraud I guess) and I'm getting a new card with a new number. Which is funny because this was a new card.

My instinct tells me that something went very fishy at that Dunkin' Donuts and someone tried to get one up on some unsuspecting customer. My boss said something interesting: it must be someone young to buy iTunes and then go for an electronic on some website. I agree. I'm also really curious what song I bought on iTunes today. I'd like to think it was something my stolen dollar could be proud of. But this is no joking matter.

I'm a victim.

Thanks Homegirl!

2010-02-01T20:49:00.002-05:00

So this morning I woke up feeling semi-cheery. I don't know how or why I just did. It's really kind of a miracle. So I enjoyed my morning, packed my bags, layered on the outerwear and headed to work.

Upon arriving at work I realized that I had left the electric blanket on. That hangs over my birds. On High. There goes my good mood. All I can see is my birds being incinerated, only after being terrified, and all because of me. I can't get over it. Especially because it was on High. I once left it on Low on purpose because it was crazy cold in the apartment and that bothered me all day and I swore I'd never do it again. Then I go and do this.

Do I hang on until my puny, sad, pathetic 30 minute lunch break, hop in a cab, run up 5 flights of stairs, run back down, hop in waiting cab, and return to work? All to turn off a blanket? Ugh. That would only make me feel so much better because I'd still have to wait until noon.

So I'm in my FREAKOUT! mode and I'm standing in the classroom and I look at Gina. Pretty, quiet Gina. She watches the early drop-off kids. Basically I see her for about 5 hours a week, maybe. I've never had a conversation with her. But she's a nice dresser, soft spoken, good with the kids, pretty much seems all together a nice girl. I turn to her and ask her what she's doing after her stint there. She seems confused. School and babysitting.
'If I pay you twenty bucks (all I had on me) will you go to my house and turn off the electric blanket?'
She looks at me like I have three heads. I wish I did, maybe I'd remember to turn the fucking blanket off.
She asks me where I live, apparently around the corner from her. She doesn't seem like she's going to do it and I'm trying not to beg. But as she's walking out the door she goes 'Ok, where do I go, what's your cell number?' etc.

So if your question is "Jamie, did you give a total stranger your house keys and ask her to go into your house, alone, to turn of a blanket?"

You're damn right I did.
And she didn't take the money.

I want to thank her and my instinct goes to baking something. But this girl doesn't look like she gives into tempting food, she's tiny. So I'll have to work it out. Perhaps she's just a nice person who did a good deed but I can't not thank her in some silly way.

As for my good mood, it came back....a lot of my jerky students were absent!

Gonna Try Harder

2010-01-31T11:08:00.003-05:00

I really want to try and stay an active blogger this year. I think of all these things to write about (none serious of course, all silly) but then I just never share it.

For example: my sister bought the Theatre Trio (mom, sis, me) tickets to the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center to see Turandot. I'll get into that more but that's something I should share, no? Or the fact that as I was leaving the Ghetto Castle (my apt. building for you who never picked up on that) some guy was snorting coke off his fingertips right in my hallway. It was great! I felt so safe! And cozy! And so sure that the money I spend on rent is worth it!

I'm obsessively pouring over apartment ads but I don't want to put any money on an apartment until at least Mid-March. We still have to pay April rent here in hell so I don't want too much of a dent to our savings.
A few people say why not just find a place and skip out? Intriguing yes, but I really don't want that to come back and haunt us later.
We had trouble getting another apartment because of some shit my dad had do with his own landlord (problems with sharing a name and f'd up SSN issues) I don't want anymore crap following me around. I'm hoping that leaving this crap-hole with a clean record will help make the mark on my records disappear, even though it's not really my mark. Does that make sense?

So yeah, the Opera was fucking amazing. The building itself, the chandeliers, the sheer size of it. The amount of people on stage, the sets, the sets, the sets. It was pretty cool. Or more, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman comes to mind. Without the rich lover, the diamond necklace, the amazing seats, the limo....you get the idea. Wait...was it a limo? It was a motorcycle wasn't it?

Past Reads: 2009

2010-01-31T11:00:00.000-05:00

My reading list for the year gone past.

The Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum
Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay
The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller
Riding Lessons by Sara Gruen
The Ruins of California by Martha Sherrill
Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner
Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros
Testimony by Anita Shreve
How Perfect is That by Sarah Bird
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling
Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo
The Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubus III
The Condition by Jennifer Haigh
The Circus in Winter by Cathy Day
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan
While I Was Gone by Sue Miller
Songs for the Missing by Stewart O'Nan
The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
Atonement by Ian McEwan

A Quickie From Work

2010-01-27T12:15:00.002-05:00

Um, yeah. So that January! Good stuff. Anyway nothing up with me that I haven't whined about before. Mark and I are not resigning our lease. HOORAY to the end of the ghetto castle. One winter without heat and one year bobbing and weaving through the ample array of drug dealers was enough for us. Even if our savings dwindles in our attempt at bettering our living situation we've decided enough is enough. We're not rich but we ain't destitute either.

No, I don't have a wedding date yet.
No, I haven't finished that Amy Tan yet. And I started a new book. But I'll update later.

I made my first quiche the other day. With a homemade crust. Thank-you-very-much.
Still fighting for space at Planet Fitness but always feeling good after my workout.
My hair is at this horrendous phase that causes me to wear a hat ALL DAY. In a very overheated classroom.

My parrot Vinnie is crushing on me bad. I love that he loves me.

Peace out homies.

Happy New Year

2009-12-31T11:42:00.001-05:00

And Then It Was Over

2009-12-24T11:18:00.002-05:00

I finished the Twilight Series. It was exhausting, emotionally draining, and very obsession-creating. I loved it. I loathed it.

I want to be a vampire.
Or marry a wolf.
I can't decide. Team Edward? Team Jacob? I can't pick! All I know is it makes total sense why girls get sucked in. It's all so intriguing, sensual, exciting, romantic. And it's all make-believe. Boooo.

On the reader side of it though it's sad. You dedicate all this time to reading these books, and wondering what's going to happen, and staying up late, and talking about at work when you're supposed to be working.
And then one day your done.
There is no more.

You have to go to the library and pick something else to read.

Happy Hanukie

2009-12-18T19:39:00.002-05:00

Anyway today is the last night of Hanukkah and was also the day I just didn't care about crap at work. We had our Hanukkah show (which becomes the "Winter Show" because most of the students aren't actually Jewish) and the kids knew something was up because they were all fucking ape-shit wild all day.
Since we're so close to vacation and I'm usually dead-as-a-mofo-tired by Friday I usually just let them run amok and interject my adultness sparingly. If I try too hard on Fridays I might end up doing something naughty and being hauled off to jail.

So "rest" time: which for 3 year-olds and for well-behaved kids means that you sit on a dirty, flimsy plastic mat and nod to sleep for an hour but for my kids it means progressively get louder and do more and more illicit 4 year-old activities until the teacher loses her shit and yells to be quiet and sit down.
Normally I do stress out because it's a half hour for me where you can't distract them with activities because you're not supposed to have activities but they're just not going to sit and chill in their own private worlds so I'm basically freaking out the whole time and hating my life and even them (occasionally...well no, not occasionally, mostly always). But today was one big 'FUCK IT'.

At one point in this little alcove 6 of my little delinquents had gathered and created "weapons" out of toys. They were beating the crap out of each other with fists and feet. Making punching noises with their mouths. It was kinda funny but because I have 15 boys in my class the play-fighting progressed to actual fighting many months ago. There are just too many of them to stay innocent. So anyway, here they are REALLY hitting and kicking and I literally was just sitting there, in a tiny chair, eating my yogurt and making bets with myself about who would start crying first. They were all holding their own pretty well and you could tell they were loving this mini brawl. At one point the head teacher zipped in because she forgot something (we each take a half-hour break during "rest" time) and she saw me watching them brawl and she busted out laughing. She later told me that she announced to our friend in the front office that "Jamie must be done because she's just sitting there watching them kick each other's asses."

Let me tell you: If you are not a teacher and you ever nag a teacher about having lots of vacation you best shut your trap. This crap is exhausting and we need and deserve every day we get. I don't even have to plan lessons and grade papers. You're in a room with 20 behavioral experiments. 20 children who exhibit all the mistakes their parents are making.

This job is fucking nuts.

This Thing Called Pain

2009-12-15T14:11:00.002-05:00

I called out from work today. Let me tell you, there is nothing more horrible than going to bed early to be well rested but waking up at 5 in the morning with a raging, stabbing, migraine. It just ruins any hope of having a normal day. I've been getting more migraines lately and because of the nature of where I work and what I do (nursery school, not-so-understanding employer) I've been ingesting all sorts of over-the-counter pills, going into work, and being miserable all morning until my brain starts functioning a little more normally by the afternoon. But this morning it was early and I knew it was only going to get worse so I called out.

It's now 2pm and even though it's a little better I'm still uncomfortable. It pretty much wipes you out. It's like I've been in a battle all day. So here I am, in slight pain, worried about the crap vibe I might get at work tomorrow, and I can't even watch tv or read a book because it's too stimulating. Even creating this post is pushing it but I needed something to do to crawl out of bed for a bit. So off I go back to sulk on the couch. I don't get to work-out today even though I hate skipping. I don't get to read. I just have to wait for it to go away.

I've Been Bitten. aka Not An Original Blog Post Title

2009-11-27T14:42:00.002-05:00

So there I was washing paint brushes at work so happy to be close to the end of the day when my head teacher, a gal my age who is someone I'm glad I'm getting to know, says "What are you doing after work?" Since we don't socialize I didn't really know where the question was going. "Nothing" I say, which anyone who spends time with me should already know that is what I'm going to say because saying "Walking my dog, going to the gym, then making dinner and watching Jeopardy" is to embarrassing to admit.

"We're going to go see New Moon after work if you would like to come." I felt slightly deflated. I was happy to have been invited but was not interested in watching New Moon in any way. I wasn't up on that whole vampire series. Part of it was my own fault, I'd been curious about it and of course thought that I would have to read the books first before I delved into the movies, but I kept putting it off. And now here I was invited to a social outing to watch not only a movie but the second movie. My OCD was raging: I won't know the back story! I won't know what happened last time there was a movie. How does a teen girl end up dating a vampire? Why is he so hot? Why are people so obsessed?

So at first, I declined, she asked again, and in an effort to act more like a 28 year old than a 48 year old I said sure. Sure, I have to be at work tomorrow but I won't run home right away. I'll go socialize. Gasp.

While waiting to go into the theatre I asked basic questions that I would want to have known about the plot. I went in. The movie started. It's cheesy, campy. The lines are delivered with not-so-wonderful acting. There is ridiculousness abound. "OH, your head is bleeding. Let me remove my entire t-shirt to blot your wound. Don't mind my six pack hovering in your face".
Stuff like that that I always try to avoid.

But I couldn't help it. I was sucked in. I wanted to know more. I wanted to root for Edward. I wanted to root for Jacob. I wanted to know why Kristen Stewart couldn't try to act a little better. A little more damsel a little less dead-pan, bored, and unemotional. It was also fun to just hear the ladies I was with react with glee to things that should be fun. I should enjoy the silly kisses. I should enjoy the romance. Isn't that why they make these movies? So you can imagine yourself in these ridiculous moments that just don't exist in real life?

So of course, there being a third and fourth installment to these stories the movie leaves you knowing so much more is coming and in my situation leaves me to realize that I've got some learning to do. Being a big fan of reading I thought that Thanksgiving weekend would be perfect to dive in. So on our way to dinner we stopped at Wal-Mart, land of the depressed, poorly treated worker, and I got me the first two installments for dirt cheap. I woke up this morning and, except to write this post to "shout it from the rooftops", I haven't put the book down. Even though I really do want to go out if only to go to the gym, I can't stop. I'm obsessed.

Man, that Edward is sexy.

I'm Accepting It and Moving On

2009-11-21T16:30:00.003-05:00

It's been something that has been on my mind for awhile. Tossing around, fermenting, and then today I finally came to the realization that I just have to accept it and move on even if it bums me out:

If I was a mutant I'd probably be a member of Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants even though obviously any smart, well-intended mutant would want to be a part of Professor X's X-Men.

I'm judging based solely on my information from the movies and I'm not taking into account any long and confusing back stories or details that only comic book freaks would think about. I get that both groups are victims of horrible bigotry and mutants in general are feared in society because they are misunderstood and ostracized. But what it comes down to is X-Men are good and life-saving and want to make the world accept mutants and the Brotherhood is mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore.

So often when I'm walking down the street and someone really pisses me off I always think of some vengeful move that I would do if I had 'powers'. All this vengeance which sadly is never mine makes me realize that most of my 'powers' would be used in anger therefore I'd be a Brotherhood member just dishing out a cold fate to people who pressed the wrong buttons.

For example the most common thing that seriously makes me a wild woman is a driver who is a ginormous asshole and cuts me off when I have the right of way when walking. When that douche-bag taxi driver almost runs over my feet because god-forbid he have to use his brake pedal for 5 fucking seconds I ALWAYS want to be able to just like, graze my finger on his trunk as he speeds by me while standing in the freaking crosswalk and have something happen that just ruins his day. Most of the time I'd like one of his tires to instantly blow out or maybe like his battery to just magically die and his car go to poop. Or like his windshield shatter. That's a good one.

Either way though I wouldn't want anyone to even notice that I inflicted the damage. It would just be the slight touch on the vehicle. Or perhaps some crazy powerful energy expelled from me thinking of the action. But always something really low key so I can just stand on the corner looking surprised like everyone else as I watch the chaos that ensues.

It's not always just about me though. Whenever I see a jerk driver do dangerous stuff to like a lady with a stroller or an old person walking slowly I always wish I could do it too as justice for them. That's when I'm like: It's for someone else, that's good right, that makes me an X-man! No. I'm sure it doesn't.

But maybe I could be a member of the X-Men and I could just be the member who has anger-management issues. And when that kinda stuff happens I get demerits or maybe Professor-X doesn't let me leave the school grounds for awhile, like I'm grounded. But I'm still a good girl. Maybe Wolverine and I could have a beer and discuss how exhausting it is not to want to punch everyone in the face.

Either way. I wish I just school some people. Because let's face it. Assholes rule the world. There is no justice. They'll never learn and it makes me really angry.

Sigh.

Halloween: A Tale of Survival

2009-10-31T10:41:00.005-04:00

So, I don't know if this wasn't crystal clear before but I'm not a big fan of where I live. Meaning, more precisely, the building I live in. I've got loudness coming from alleys, cigarette smoke liberally wafting in from the bitch downstairs who smokes in the hallway, drug dealers who give you shady looks as you walk through their deals to get to your home, and teenagers with nothing else to do but be thugs-in-training who block the entry steps.
Add that to occasionally no water in the shower (always best when you're already covered in soap), and no heat- ever, and wow...I love it!

My only sense of hope is that Mark and I follow the same pattern as we did in Tahoe: our first apartment upon first glance was cute and cozy and then became a house of horror. Our second apartment was Tahoe-fantastic (for us anyway). I'd like to think that our second go at apartments in NYC will be a vast improvement but since I don't see our money situation really increasing and rents definitely increasing that hope is pretty grainy. It's a hard feeling to cope with- when your home is not always the sanctuary you need.

So here comes Halloween and I'm terrified. Not only is it Halloween but it's a Saturday. The vibe outside should be pretty horrible tonight. Yesterday when I arrived home there were already eggs strewn on the courtyard floor. At 4 in the morning I heard a whole lot of males hollering and making a ruckus of some sort that sounded like mounting violence. Car alarms started to go off and eventually I heard police sirens boop-booping and a voice over loudspeaker telling them to break it up. So hopefully not too much damage or carnage ensued but I'm not planning to be anywhere after dark falls. I hate walking into my courtyard in daytime I'm not risking it tonight.

Only 8 months left on the lease!

¿Qué es eso?

2009-10-26T20:32:00.003-04:00

So let's see. My neighborhood. I grew up here and I don't mean to sound like people should be in awe of me but I do think it's funny that I've gone and seen things that some in the neighborhood don't even know exist. How do I mean this? I mean, forget the Inwood of now. The Inwood with its one-bedroom Co-ops selling for over $400,000. Forget the Inwood of the Indian Road Cafe, of yoga in the park, of yoga period.

Remember when Inwood was sketch? Remember when the 207^th Street A train subway stop was one long, dark, dank hallway that you had to walk all the way down to get to the turnstile? Basically, the Inwood before money started moving in (or when the money was just on Park Terrace)?

Anyway, that's just a long intro into something funny I witnessed walking to work the other day. It was garbage day on my street and as I walked to work in my usual depressed state I saw a snowboard tossed on top of a pile of garbage. My immediate reaction was 'Holy Cow, a snowboard! In Inwood? On Vermilyea?'.

Now don't get me wrong, from the little bit I know of snow gear I don't think it was a very high quality snowboard, but a snowboard it was. So here I am, staring and I notice the old lady who sweeps the sidewalk staring at the snowboard too. Her friend starts to walk towards her and (everything she says in Spanish) she tells her friend 'Hey look at that'. Then the super of the building, the guy who would've put the snowboard out there, comes out of the building and she goes 'Hey old man, what is that thing?'

It gave me a good laugh. Part of me wanted to turn around and explain it to her in horrible español but I just kept walking. I really wish I could've heard his answer. But this is my point. Here I am, from this neighborhood, where most people don't even know what a snowboard is.

Meanwhile, I lived in Tahoe for almost 3 years. Worked in a ski shop for a winter (wha?) I've even skied (three goes on an easy slope where I cheated death). I've lived where every other person had a snowboard constantly strapped to the top of their Subaru. And I'm not from an adventurous clan. So sometimes when I see people here in awe of something so many people outside of this city find totally normal it kinda makes me giggle.

Another Domino's Post!

2009-10-04T19:35:00.004-04:00

So whenever Mark and I do laundry I always bring a book to read. The problem is I never get any reading done because the laundromat is, like, sensory overload central. There are bright lights, buzzing machines, lots of weird neighborhood people (a sad-looking man doing laundry alone, or someone with massive tons of laundry: where do they keep all those dirty clothes at home?, people doing laundry in their very obvious 'house-clothes' even though you have to actually go out in public to do the laundry, do they fold out of the dryer or just dump in a bag, etc.), and the place is right on Broadway so there are tons of passersbys.

So anyway, we were doing laundry at our preferred laundromat on Broadway and Academy, and as the clothes were washing and drying we sat out on the lawn chairs that had been set out on the sidewalk, because I wanted to get my outdoor-people-watching groove on. After about 50 minutes I recall a white sedan, parked, just off to the right in my viewpoint because I was looking left. I remember hearing a loud thud, or thump. A strange noise. The sound of impact but not a bang.

So many things happened simultaneously because of how quick it all occurred:
I turned my head and saw the white sedan rocking and a bicycle helmet flying to the ground.
I think that the sedan got hit from behind because of the way it's rocking.
I realize the car behind the sedan is parked and has a good amount of space between the bumpers.
The driver of the sedan is half-out of his car and there is a very dazed Domino's guy standing very close next to him.
The girlfriend of the sedan driver is waving napkins to him through the window.

It suddenly becomes very clear that the sedan driver opened his car door at the exact minute the delivery biker was zipping past him and the dreaded car door/biker crash occurred. The sedan driver is walking around to the passenger side of the car asking his girlfriend (in Spanish) for the towel. I need the towel. Right behind him is the biker and his fist is gushing blood. I'm actually shocked by how much it was dripping.

The killer irony of all this is that the delivery guy was just a half-block away from being back at Domino's. I actually walk up to the biker to see if he wants me to go down to Domino's to tell them that he's been hurt and he says no. I see all the blood on the asphalt and, again, I'm shocked at how much blood there is from a probably shattered fist. And the biker looks pretty damned shocked too.

Eventually the cops show up, a big unattractive chick and a very red-skinned, Irish-looking dude who lights up a cigarette as he listens to everyone's story. Super professional, that NYPD.

Apparently there is another car that the biker must've fell into who was standing at the red light. His rear passenger door has been all scratched and dented from the bike and he's sticking around probably to get his fair share of insurance help. Plus Latin people love their cars way too much. He's not going to shrug off a scratch. He's gonna stick around and bitch about it.
As a matter of fact as the biker sits in the recently arrived ambulance and the cops are talking to him the sedan driver and the scratched door driver start to get into it and get yelled at by Smoker Cop. Sadly, they only spoke Spanish and since we all know my parents let me down by not raising a bilingual Jamie, I have no idea if there was blame being laid down or what...sigh.

Anyway, I felt really bad for the biker. I mean, you deliver pizzas by bike in an aggressive-driver city. You probably get paid shit and who knows how many of these ass-wipes who order the pizza are tipping you? One wonders if you have medical insurance, if you can afford any rehab your hand might need and if you'll get your job back once you've healed. Also, since it was only around 1pm he couldn't have been on shift that long so he probably didn't make any money that day.

The only plus to this situation is I now have a new NYC: I Once Saw This Happen story. My dad has a lot of those.

The Last Domino Falls

2009-09-29T20:15:00.003-04:00

Oh...God...
Even though I went to PathMark by myself on Sunday and hauled 50 dollars worth of groceries home on my own Mark and I still opted to order "oven-baked" sandwiches from Dominos tonight. We just didn't want to have leftover spaghetti for a third time in a row and I wasn't going to cook anything else. Now I feel sick because, let's face it, that shit is greasy and evil.
What does this teach me? Well, I'm probably going to swear off Dominos. I can't remember the last time I ordered it and didn't regret it. Also, I really need to get a storage canister for uncooked pasta. I always cook the whole box because I don't want to store any unsealed food in my apartment. But then we end up with a pound of cooked spaghetti and we have to force ourselves to eat it as we really hate to throw away food (though it does happen, we're not perfect).

Luckily I'm still working out at PF. While I'm not ever going to be a supermodel I think my heart is glad to get a workout. I've been having shin issues and maybe a little boredom so I almost didn't go today but I forced myself over there. I try and burn about 250 calories on the more "intense" machines which makes me feel really happy. But this past three-day weekend probably made me feel more lethargic today instead of rejuvenated (even though I worked out 2 of the 3 days) and so I just strolled on the treadmill. I think I need some new workout music. That might help the motivation.

So this past weekend my parents met Mark's parents for the first time. It was strange for me because my parents had never met a partner's parents before. Of course I've never been engaged before either but that didn't make the nerves any less annoying. But I think it went quite well. They're not exactly going to be texting each other or calling each other to ask how the day went but I think if they're ever in the same room again (other than our currently non-existent wedding) that everything will be okie dokie.

So there.

Instead of Sweeping

2009-09-22T19:47:00.002-04:00

Not much going on here. Mark's parents are coming this weekend and for some reason this has sent me into a spiral of panic. Probably because I usually keep an extremely neat apartment but this weekend I was hit with a pretty bad cold and a massive affliction of EVIL HORRIBLE NEIGHBOR and so I got very little rest and recovery time. Therefore my apartment is currently a mess. MESS.

We were at IKEA adding to our bookshelf collection when I felt the sore throat hit and I knew I was a goner. That night the aches and runny nose started just in time for the building next door to throw a massive and horribly noisy party in the alley behind my building which also happens to be where my bedroom window faces. The party was so bad that we called the cops three times. Two times through 311 and one time directly. By then it was 4 in the morning and someone from another building was flinging glass beer bottles down on the crowd. I hope they hit someone. You can live in the ghetto but even ghetto people will only put up with abusive noise for so long.

So I really shouldn't write too much because I feel the need to tidy up something. I just wanted to pop in and say hello. I hope the rest of the week goes well for everyone. I'm excited for the fall season of TV to premiere (I'll admit it. I'm not ashamed to watch TV only because I know I still read a lot). However I don't know when I'll actually be able to watch anything because Mark can't get any work done when the TV is on. And since I'm apparently the second-class citizen here, I turn it off.

Farewell for now.

Thursday Nights

2009-09-10T20:08:00.002-04:00

So today was the first full day that my 4yr olds stayed all day. They usually have 2 half days to get used to going to school and then BAM! they get smacked in the face with the reality that they have to stay all day at school. The day was going "smoothly" (in nursery school that term used loosely) and then lunchtime hit and a couple of kids realized they weren't going home anytime soon. Meltdown Mayhem. There was lots of crying, some heavy sobbing, red faces, gasping for air, cries for mommy, denial of hunger. Wow.
Some of my kids are really adorable. Some of my kids would probably be really adorable (to me) if they listened to direction a little better. But hey, it's Day One. If they've never been in school before they just don't get it. I know you don't want to sit on that rug over there, but, see 19 of your friends sitting on it? That's because you have to sit on that rug over there. NOW GO!

I tried a new machine at Planet Fitness the other day. I'll have to find out which one it is precisely and link you to info about it. This thing is intense! It's kinda elliptical machine kinda stair machine, total kick in the ass. I love it. It doesn't love me. But I'm not giving up. There are rivers of sweat pouring through my hair and down my face when I'm on this machine and I'm going fairly easy. It's an awesome cardio workout and I'm hoping it does magic to my upper thighs. While the UTs don't see much sunlight in general, I'd like them to be much nicer. So yeah!

But...
Mark has class Thursday evenings and so today while he's out probably exhausted and miserable I've decided to bake chocolate chip cookies to entertain myself. I can't watch TV because all I have is Project Runway and Top Chef and Mark wants to watch those too. I can't watch a movie because I don't have the attention span, and I can't really go work out because I needed the day off from crazy elliptical machine because my right leg was not doing so good after yesterday's big push.
They're double chocolate chip (white and bittersweet) and I got the recipe from a book I got free years ago called Pig Out. The recipes are always a tad off and I accidentally set the oven 50 degrees cooler than it should of been so we'll see how these things turn out. But if it's got chocolate, butter, and sugar there's probably no chance these things will just sit around the kitchen.

To Upper Thighs!

Panic Ensues

2009-09-06T11:24:00.002-04:00

So even though this is my second year at the nursery school I was extremely nervous going in the first day back. I will be in a new classroom. With a new set of kids. With a new head teacher. Too many new things. I have 20 kids in my class and 15 of them are boys. Obviously the director hates us. To say I'm excited might be pushing it but I'm curious to see if I'm any less miserable this year because I now know what to expect when working in a nursery class.

Mark was offered a teaching job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I'm freaked out for him. He's working in the Tremont section of the Bronx. He's been assigned a self-contained special education class for 5th graders. During the interview they told him that these are literally THE WORST kids in the school. They then brought in the teacher who had them last year and had her tell Mark all the horrors that are to be his future students. He then took the job on the spot and he literally has two days to prepare for them. He knows nothing of the school's policies, what the first day will look like, the expected curriculum, what textbooks they're using, etc. And they wonder why kids suffer in the public school system. Because they just throw an adult in there and hope for the best.
Luckily, Mark is a much harder and more dedicated worker than I am and those kids are lucky that their future teacher's response to this cluster fuck is "This is why I became a fellow. This is what these kid's need." Sadly, they will never know, understand, or appreciate that.
I love him.

Yesterday I went with a friend to help her pick out her wedding dress. Well...she already knew which one she wanted I was just there to ooohhh and aaahhh for her. But I was glad I forced my presence on her because what made me nervous about one day having to go through the process myself was that I didn't know what to expect. I like to test the waters before diving in. So now I know what happens behind those rows of ivory and white dresses in plastic bags and I'm ready for my turn. I now have wedding dress fever even though I have to do like a billion other things before I get to trying on dresses.

One of those things is to firm up! I don't expect me to lose tons of weight. As I pretty much eluded to earlier, I lean towards lazy. I'm not going to change my eating habits. I snack too much. But I have to say that I've been pretty good about hitting up Planet Fitness. You would be proud! I don't get there every single day but I've been there at least five days a week. I get in my 30 minutes. So basically I'm certain that I will look exactly the same as I do now when it comes time for me to walk down the aisle (i.e. soft and doughy) but I'd like to think that if I stick to some sort of regular exercise maybe I'll lose an inch or two....we'll see.

Planet Couch

2009-08-29T09:45:00.004-04:00

So because Mark doesn't want a fat wife he's forced me to join Planet Fitness. They just opened a shiny, sterile location two blocks from my ghetto castle and so I could go there on my walk back from work everyday. Or I can walk the opposite direction to go walk my dog at my parent's house and somehow manage to never make it.
Not that I don't want to work out. It's more I just don't know where I'm going to put it in my schedule yet. I'm not a fan of waking up at 5am to work out before work and if I work out before walking the dog he'll have an accident. But if I work out after I walk the dog I'll probably be too hungry. So it's all up in the air but I've been a member for 4 days so far and I've managed to go a total of zero days. So that's that.

Yesterday was my mom's birthday. She turned [edited for author's safety]. In a truly clever moment my sister's boyfriend asked her "What's it like to turn 16?". I thought it was funny.
It was a slightly sad birthday for her because our precious old dog, Sabastian, was in the animal hospital. He's been sick for awhile and had a scary spell the night before so they rushed him over. There had been talk that he had a brain tumor but the scans turned out negative.
So technically that's great but it's very frustrating because they still have no idea what's wrong with him. I think he might be having seizures but I only hear about his spells. I'm never there when they happen. So we're hoping he comes home soon because I'm sure he's pretty miserable over there and we're miserable and worried over here.

In general though it was a rough night for pets in my family. Hours before my dog was rushed to the animal hospital my parakeet, Claudia, became impaled on a paper clip. Please don't ask how the paper clip came to be in her cage. All I can say is it had been there for 3 months without incident and then suddenly there is a parakeet skewered onto it.
Mark had to slide her off of it as it was through her throat and out of her mouth. It was pretty upsetting to watch her bleed all over the place. You realize how tiny they are and how there is so little you can do for them. Luckily she's got moxie and she seems to be doing okay. We prayed hard that she'd still be alive the next morning and she was. We drenched her in hydrogen peroxide and water and she's eating, climbing around, pecking at Vinnie, and in general seems to be in good spirits.

Oh, did I mention that for my mom's birthday I decided to make a Mississippi Mud Pie for her. It was quite a success because apparently my mom loves mud pie. She gasped in delight and I felt very proud. It was all hand made, including the crust and it was so decadent I'm pretty sure we all had mini heart attacks last night. But as I ate my chocolately, creamy slice I thought to myself 'it's okay, I have a gym membership.'

Canta y no Llores

2009-08-21T19:53:00.004-04:00

So I can't get this song OUT OF MI CABEZA!

Go to this page on another tab and you can not only sing along but you can get the translation too! The other day I was riding along on my usual A train, which by the way is a famous song of its own and those little Mexican guys, you know which I'm talking about, came on and starting singing and the song just stuck in my head. Now I'm reading Caramelo by Cisneros and it's about a Mexican family and that song has appeared. It's stalking me.

So, I went to my second (and last) day of baking class at ICE. I was a little less nervous and was stressed about how day two with Jersey Housewife would be. She walked into class chattering away with some ladies from from another work table. Totally ignored me. But my friend from day one, we'll call her English, still wasn't there and I was nervous I'd be stuck with Jersey all on my own.

Well, class started, English appeared, and when we all went back to our work-benches Jersey peaced out and went to work (or boss around) her new friends. English and I looked at each other, rolled our eyes, and I said "Well, apparently our feelings were mutual." Good riddance! English and I had a great afternoon baking, figuring out how the hell to start the food processor and mixer, and chillin'. We got to split amazing baked goods between just two of us and in the end we exchanged numbers to maybe, one day, call each other and take a class together. We'll see! But it was a nice gesture.

What have I learned: Chocolate is god. No wonder the natives of Central America used to sacrifice humans. If they were doing to it please their gods and the gods gave them chocolate, I too would be frightened that they'd take it away.

This is not a picture of the tart that I personally made but I swear to you, this is EXACTLY what it looked like. Yeah...a deadly thing to have in your fridge.

Crumb Buns and Wide Hips

2009-08-20T19:10:00.004-04:00

I just saw a commercial for Nutella. Nutella is making its debut to the wide American public! Here's what I have to say to you America: I suggest enjoying Nutella with a good-quality crunchy peanut butter. But...watch the hips. They spread.

You know what I love about the NYC Subway. I love being in a moving train inside the tunnel and passing by another moving train. Often times you're going slow enough that you can see into the other train's windows. What I think is cool is that the windows appear to be quick snapshots into the train. Everyone is frozen in this one position and the dirt on the windows and the darkness of the tunnel gives everything a strange 'sepia' light to it. Ride the train, keep your eyes out, see what I mean.

Today I took a class at the Institute of Culinary Education. We made focaccia, bakery crumb buns, fougasse, rosemary olive bread knots, pecan sticky buns. Tomorrow we'll make sweet and savory tarts. Is it really a big surprise that I'm super excited for the bitter chocolate tart?

We worked in teams of 3. Luckily there was one lady I got along with very nicely. She was soft-spoken and seemed to be quite a rookie like me. It was great because we ended up working with this other lady who doesn't seem to quite get the 'team work' thing. We're supposed to all read the recipe together, work together. She starts up the mixer and just goes. She's a Jersey Housewife type. Lots of makeup, little summer dress, enormous diamond ring, funny accent. She's taken classes there before and just dived in with no interest in including us.
Because I was so out of my element I kinda just stepped back at first but then my pal was like "No way! We all paid our $220 for this class! You go. It's your turn" So we gently let her know that we weren't going to be invisible and so we started to step up and take turns.
Part of the reason I tried to stay under the radar was because the chef was classic "chef" in that he yelled, embarrassed, made people feel uncomfortable. He definitely had his funny lines here and there but it was ideal to stay out of his way.

So now I've got just a few treats in my kitchen after saving them from my father's hands. I plan on having some yummy bakery crumb buns with my coffee tomorrow! I'll definitely be making those again, they're delish!

A Moment for Books

2009-08-13T10:06:00.004-04:00

So I just finished reading Anita Shreve's Testimony. This woman is amazing. I devoured it. I love everything she creates. The first of her books I read was Sea Glass. I can't remember exactly what made me pick it up. Was it free? Or the cover intrigued me? It was an unusual read for me. I remember being caught off-guard by the way she writes. Is it that she doesn't depend on dialogue in any way? I don't think I immediately loved Sea Glass but then I read another of her books...which I can't remember, but I think I was hooked.
Since then I've tried to read almost all of her novels. Whenever I see them for sale at a thrift store I jump at the chance to own them. I can't say I identify with any of her characters in the usual way - they all tend to be extremely WASPish, wealthy or well-off, formal. But at the same time they're all so tortured and eloquent, they're all in such pain! The tension, the suffering: you don't have to be a WASP to identify with that! I don't know, I just really love her tempo, her style.

The Time Traveler's Wife is coming out as a movie in just a few days. As much as I love Rachel McAdams, I'm not interested in viewing this movie anytime soon.* Usually when a book turns into a movie I can potentially get excited for it, especially if while reading the book I picture it cinematically. And vice versa, if a really good movie turns out to be based on a book I'll run to read the book before I watch the movie just so I can compare them.
But I remember reading The Time Traveler's Wife and it was a pretty complex, imaginative book. I can't imagine how much will be lost in the film. I mean the time travelling and the following Henry around when he's with himself, and keeping track of which age Clare is and where they are in their relationship. I mean, I'm rambling but that just goes to show you how confusing yet awesome this book was and how a movie just won't work. I recommend the read however. I loved it.

*Due to boredom I viewed the movie trailer online. Okay fine, it does look entertaining enough...

Love and Pastries

2009-08-11T10:43:00.005-04:00

It's really hot. But you already knew that.

These lovely people got married. (College Sweethearts!)
It was a really pretty event and I was glad to have been invited. The groom, because of Title IX, was my softball teammate on the Women's team for a while at Purchase College before the baseball team came to fruition.
The bride is from a French background and many guests had made the trip over the Atlantic to take in the nuptials. It was really fun to hear all the pretty French words being thrown around. It really seems to be an impossible language to understand.
The French relatives and friends were quite the bons vivants you might say. The Frenchies made the event very high energy which was great because after viewing it all, my wedding will probably be quite boring. Mark and I will have to rethink inviting a lot of heavy drinking friends just to up the festive appeal.
Also, we've suddenly realized that we both have completely different ideas of what our wedding should be like. Which kinda freaked me out! I thought we'd both be 'let's go casual'. Reasons being we're not really fancy-pants people and the fact that the more casual wedding means, at least to me, more budget conscious. But apparently Mark is into the highly structured, fairly formal wedding. WHA?!
Are you as surprised as me?

After one and a half months of deliberation and unnecessary anxiety I've finally decided to register for a recreational, 2-day baking class at the Institute of Culinary Education. As soon as camp is over I'll spend two days baking sweet and savory breads, tarts, and pastries. In my dreams I discover I'm a natural in a kitchen baking bready treats straight from heaven and decide that culinary school is my future. But I'll probably just spend hundreds of dollars taking classes and loving it (I hope) but still spend my days flailing around pretending to be interested in early childhood education.

So Best Wishes to Samantha and Congratulations to Mario. At the wedding I said Congratulations to Sam knowing there is some archaic rule about what you're suppose to say to each member of the married couple and knowing that solely because I hadn't looked it up, I was fairly sure I was saying the wrong thing. I know in the end it's only total asses who really care about that stuff but still...tradition must live on!

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

2009-08-04T18:07:00.003-04:00

It's hot as balls today. We're already prepping ourselves for the inaugural use of the $$Air Conditioner$$. It's very fitting since we got our ConEd bill today and it progressively goes higher and higher. It could be because our fans have been running non-stop but it's still frustrating because we don't turn on any lights until it's so dark in the apartment that the birds stop eating out of their dishes because they think they've been put to bed.
Our bills are estimated because they "never gain access" to our meter that hangs inside my cabinets but I can assure you they never knock on the door either. Next month I'll just submit my meter reading and hope that I've been overpaying long enough that my bill is smaller. But I doubt it. I can still hope.
It's not so much that I'm cheap it's more that we don't have very many paychecks coming our way for awhile and those that are coming are more like...small reminders of what money is but not enough to really do any comforting.

Hold on! I hear a breeze.

Today we decided to go wild and finally use our Zip Car membership. We zipped up to Tallman State Park where my parents use to take my sis and I for a dip in a state pool, some trees, and ample bugs. Mark and I used my parent's never-been-used already-needs-tightening tennis rackets for about an hour.
It was interesting because Mark took lessons when he was still a growing boy and never liked it and I've never played. I've swung a racket. Once. With Brad Cohen behind the Purchase Gym. It swung straight into my kneecap and I limped for days.
So today Mark ran after balls I attempted to hit while standing on a decrepit court in my bra and a pair of shorts. It was actually quite fun. We hit up the pool for a quick cool down, drove over to Palisades Mall for some impulse buys at Bed, Bath, and Beyond (all items have since been deemed 'to be returned') and then zipped on back home.
It was fun being able to ride around in a car. When you're all comfy in a clean and speedy vehicle you can almost understand why so many people continue to drive instead of shoving their bodies into the filthy, slow, steel earthworms we call the NYC Subway.

Thanks for Checking In!

2009-08-03T21:33:00.002-04:00

I emerge from the depths of blogger death. I'm walking away from one light and stepping towards another. The light of a laptop screen. I had nothing going on. I wasn't working at the nursery school. I wasn't cleaning poop in Super Hero pants. I wasn't sobbing myself to sleep because of my lack of direction (I hate you PMS. I love you hormone therapy).

I still have no direction. My arms are still flailing wildly in the sea of career and fulfillment. My summer has been filled with the life of Nature Counselor tid-bits. Everyone asks me what kind of bug is this? The answer is I don't know.I've smelled like campfire for 2 weeks. My legs, my only attractive feature, are scarred with bug bites. I'm broke.

My apartment is coming along nicely except for the pests that are ruling my kitchen. No matter how much I scrub, wash, dry, put away. It's embarrassing. Disgusting. I want nothing but evil, skin destroying chemicals. I want to blow the fuckers away. Mark insists on natural things that involve flour and brown sugar and borax. Brown sugar sprinkled all over my kitchen. Yeah...brown sugar...that will make the nasty pests go away. I haven't bought the terrible chemicals only because I live on the top of a walk-up and whenever I remember my murderous tirade I'm not in the mood to walk up and down an assload of steps.

Anyway, here I am again. I hope you'll come by and read me.

My First Post From My Own Place!

2009-06-13T12:14:00.002-04:00

Here I am in my new living room. It's starting to become home. I have my issues with it, don't get me wrong, but I'm starting to be comfy. My biggest issue with the apartment is the shower. As it sometimes just doesn't really exist. There I am covered in shampoo and soap enjoying a sunny morning with Mark and BAM the water disappears. I panic, I hyperventilate, I cry, I scream, I moan I knew I didn't want to live here. Eventually Mark goes downstairs to tell the super and in so many words we were told to deal with it. It's just like that here.

So every time I take a shower I pray. A lot. I enjoy the feeling of the water dripping soooo gently that it sometimes feels like someone is peeing on me. Goodbye lovely hair, goodbye volume, goodbye ever using conditioner again for fear that it won't ever rinse out.

Otherwise we've got all the modern luxuries (minus an elevator). Vinnie is here tormenting us with his high-pitched screams. He's so co-dependant that we're tempted to get a parakeet to keep him company. Should we name him Claude for Monet or Pablo for Picasso as Vinnie is for Van Gogh? I think we should wait until we're at the bird store and see if a Claude or a Pablo just make themselves available.

However I'm on limited speaking terms with Mr. Vinnie right now. For the past 6 months this bird has been madly obsessed with me. He went from never addressing my existence ever to coming out to my finger, sitting on my knee, trying to feed my finger by birdie regurgitation, and standing on my shoulder so much that it became scabbed and tender. But Mark ends his time at Trader Joe's, spends four full days home and suddenly it's Jamie Who? He won't come out to me, he attacks my finger, he's mean to me. I'm heartbroken. I feel like a mom the first time she hears her own child tell her that he hates her. It might be said out of anger and immaturity but it still hurts so bad.

But anyway, now I have all this stuff I need to do: unpack clothing into my newly attained clothes bureaus, reorganize the front closet that became a 'stuff everything in there' closet, get back into the swing of cooking because we can't eat out with our limited summer paychecks. When I was living with my parent's I had nothing to do, ever, that I sat and my waistband grew. Now I just want some time to dive into a project and I have tons to do: go to work events, go to summer job trainings, babysit, set up other summer job opportunities.

At the one job event I went to I was eating a small hamburger (no cheese, unkosher!) and I feel a hand grab me. The hand of Dr. Ruth, sex and relationship expert. There she was in the flesh and with her accent making a joke of her picture in the paper and how the blouse she was wearing then was the same blouse. She was holding onto me, as if it was just us two. Fun!

The last task I fear is learning how to grocery shop in a New York City supermarket. Sure, I grew up here, but I was never on grocery shopping duty here. The aisles are small, the store overcrowded, the products limited. I miss the Raley's of my California living. I miss the massive artisan bread section, the fancy cheeses, the hummus selection of more than just two flavors, the ginormously wide aisles, the free cooking magazine released each season, the overly friendly cashiers. I'm tearing up. I'm crying.

Anyway, if you're around: you're so invited. Come over!

Bringing the Bird

2009-05-17T21:01:00.003-04:00

Hip Hip Hooray! I was given permission today to have Vinnie live with us in our new apartment.

Basically I told my realtor that I needed a place that allowed pets and he kind of shrugged it off and said there was a law that states once you have the pet in the apartment they can't make you get rid of it. Since I could tell this guy was a total crackpot I didn't trust him one bit. I ended up reading the rule that states that if your lease doesn't mention pets at all then you have a right to obtain a pet but if it states that you can't, then you can't.
So here I am, signing the lease and there is a section that reads No Pets and this massive clause that comes after it that hints to the fact that you have to have written permission but if it's discovered that you are harboring animals (especially dogs, this lease doesn't like dogs) they have permission to cancel your lease. So of course, I start to panic.

I casually ask about the clause and the leasing agent (who was very nice) says that people in the building do have pets, the clause really exists because they want to keep people from bringing in highly aggressive dogs such as pit bulls and rottweilers. I understand that a pit bull can be a perfectly normal dog, if raised appropriately, but my neighborhood had (still has?) a bad pit bull/dog fighting reputation. So they created the approval clause because they want little old lady dogs in, scary gangsta dogs out.

So I start to really get nervous as moving day approaches because my first experience with the property manager wasn't a very positive one and I'm thinking I'm going to ask him to have a bird and he's going to say no. Just because he can. So we wait and wait and then finally I can't take it anymore and I email him asking if we can have a small, caged bird. Six minutes later he emails me: Yeah, small bird okay. Your welcome. (grammatical error his, not mine)

So, I'm thrilled. Vinnie isn't a barking dog but he's not a mute either. I'd be panicked about a nosy neighbor or a visiting super discovering him and caring enough to report his presence. But, alas, everything is slowly falling into place.

Now all I need is a bed...and a sofa...and a table with chairs...and a bureau. Or two.

It's Mating Season, No?

2009-05-16T22:36:00.001-04:00

Goodbye Benjamins

2009-05-16T20:40:00.003-04:00

Wow, it's been a whole month since I last wrote. Which means the few of you who actually stopped by to read have probably given up on checking in and I'm writing to myself.
Well, I don't know where to start. Mark and I finally rented an apartment. I finally got my nice sized kitchen and a view that doesn't consist of a brick wall two inches away from the window. The drawback is I'm on the fifth floor of a walk up and I'm on a not-so-charming street in my 'hood. But apparently I'm supposed to compromise so that's that.

Mark had a grump moment last week when we dropped $217 on a second lock on the door. He was reliving those charming moments in California where you rent an apartment for the rent stated, they give you your keys, and that's that. In NYC it's not like that. Apparently I forgot to mention that to him. Here in NYC you have to drop your deposit and first month like anywhere else but then there is all the spending that is really "New Yorkie".

There's the whole we want to pretend our building is secure so we put a mid-line quality lock in it and now we charge you $40 bucks just to get the key even though when you pay rent that technically means you're paying to get into the building so the key should be included.

But then it's NYC and you don't trust anyone so even though your apartment comes with a lock you need to go put another lock in your door and avoid giving a copy of the key to your super even though your lease states that you have to.

So that's another couple of hundred because I live on a not-so-charming street so I feel the need to get the higher-end key cylinder. But that's not really fair to my new street either because my parents live on one of the "nicer" streets in my 'hood and not only were we robbed once but people have been mugged in our building's vestibule a number of times during our residency here, the last one being only 2 months ago. So take that fancy streets!

But wait...more spending! You've got to buy a ghetto gate to put on your window that has your fire escape. I've noticed a lot of apartments in my current building don't have these gates on their window. It's my non-professional opinion that these are people new to the area, new to city living in general. They don't get why you would put a gate on your window. I agree, it's not aesthetically pleasing. But it's the secure thing to do, regardless of what street you live on. These fire escapes are welcome mats for the sketchy to come and see what you have to offer in your home. For my new apartment I felt it necessary to have a gate because my new home faces the back, therefore not so many eyes watching who's going in and what's coming out.

I did find a whole selection of gates that would be more appealing since they have more of a "decor" thing going but they are crazy-more expensive because they are custom made. I'm a renter, I don't need custom made. I don't want to invest in a gate that's not going to fit my next apartment. So I end up with your run-of-the-mill accordion gate but I'm thinking I'll paint it white and eventually I won't even notice it. I'll be to busy working my ass off trying to make money to pay for everything.

And what's the real kicker about all this spending to move? We signed the lease a week ago and haven't moved a single thing. Ridiculous.

But anyway...I'm watching You've Got Mail on cable. I love this movie. It's also fun just to see how dated it is. The beginning when you watch the two main characters waiting for their AOL to sign on. The sounds of the dial-up, the you've got mail voice, the shop girl who is thinking about having to move because she might lose her job. She's devastated she might have to move to Brooklyn. But nowadays in NYC people like her are clammering to move to Brooklyn...or Astoria.
I wonder what would've had to happen in my life to have moved me to a hip neighborhood in the outerboroughs. I wonder if meeting new friends or getting a good job in the city after college instead of heading out to AmeriCorps would have somehow led me to leave the tip of the A train line. Who am I kidding?! A good job! Apparently those aren't destined for my lifetime. HA!

In Summation

2009-04-18T14:35:00.002-04:00

Our trip to San Diego was a nice week away. It's so freaking beautiful in the part we visit that upon immediate arrival you shake your head and wonder why you are living anywhere else. "Let's just quit our jobs and move back here." Inevitably one of us will utter those words.

But after awhile you get sick of it. You get tired of the SoCal guys with their strategically distressed jeans, their gelled hair, their girly flip-flops, their oversized pick-up trucks that never touch dirt.

You get sick of all the girls who look like sorority girls. The sweat shorts paired with Uggs, the cell phone blabbering, the fancy bags.

You laugh at all the tools who live in Pacific Beach and apparently think it's necessary to be covered in tattoos that have no sense, especially the words San Diego in script across the sides of their neck. Is that how you prove your residency to obtain a library card?

You realize if you're going to get into a fight with a mean old man at a coffee shop you might as well be back in NYC where everyone else would think he too was out of line. They would applaud the way you handled the situation. Especially in New York where I feel many people might've told him to go fuck himself, no matter how old he was, and I didn't utter those words but I was damn close to doing it. THANK-YOU-VERY-MUCH.

But yes, it was beautiful there as the Pacific Ocean and the stunning coast line to stroll along have nothing to do with people.
It was nice how the Family is happy to see us.
It's nice when you ask a complete stranger just enjoying the sunset to take your picture and not only does he do it but he does it twice because he doesn't think the first one came out so well.
It's nice when the girls at the Starbucks are friendly and efficient and when your masseuse at the low-key place on Garnet in PB is amazing friendly and really good at making you comfortable.

So thanks San Diego...stay classy.

FYI

2009-04-14T20:52:00.000-04:00

We're in San Diego! More to come when I arrive back home.

A Pretty Day

2009-04-05T15:04:00.002-04:00

It's really nice out today. I actually went for a walk outside despite my social anxiety and Vinnie keeping me hostage by refusing to leave my shoulder and knee for almost two hours. I discovered how truly amazing the weather was when I had to take the dog out for his poop.
Nothing like bagging up dog poop to think "Man, it's really nice. I should come back out and go for a walk."
I'd love to take the dog, that would be a natural choice of course, but he's 12 and doesn't like to leave the front of the building. And I won't force him because he's not a friendly dog and I'd rather not be the girl in a crowded neighborhood park with the psychotic barking dog.

All of Inwood was out. The little boys playing baseball dreaming of being SupaStars. The older men playing baseball...dreaming of being SupaStars. Lots of couples, which makes me a little sad because Mark and I never get to stroll on a nice Sunday. Or any Sunday.

And what's this on the 'soccer field'? Is this an Ultimate Frisbee League? Ladies and Gentleman when you stand on a field in Inwood and you've lived in the area your whole life, and you come across an Ultimate league, you are watching the gentrification in motion. It was freaky. I almost wanted to take a poll: "How many of you are actually from around here. Like since you were in diapers? How many? How many of you are from out West? Rural? Suburbia?"

I'm not saying it's a bad thing it's just kinda a trip to see the new face of your old 'hood. It's also weird for me because it's like my old experiences catching up with me.
After college I wanted to see what the rest of the States were like so I signed up for AmeriCorps and shipped out west. Here I am in Denver, CO and everyone wants to play Ultimate and I was like "Wha?"
So I decided it was a new experience. Something that living in Inwood never taught me. That people like to play this game. LOVE to play this game. It's what they do out here. And now they're doing it around here. It's just funny. The world gets smaller and smaller.

Heath Ledger You Are Not, So Start Reading Labels

2009-03-25T13:23:00.004-04:00

I made a horrible mistake last night, one that I won't repeat again. I've been fighting a cold (again) and last night I started my coughing phase. Dry, hacking, painful. I decided it was time to break out that prescription cough syrup that cost me $50. Yes, that's the copay. I was in shock when they told me the price but ended up getting it anyway.

So here I am. I take 2 tablespoons. I meant to take like 1 and a half but the syrup is thick and goopy, unlike any syrup I've ever taken and I can't get most of it back in the bottle so I take 2 tablespoons.

I spend the whole night in some weird trance. My mind won't stop racing. I can't stop the feeling that I'm half awake, half asleep. I've never done acid but if I had to guess what a trip (not a good one) feels like then maybe this would be it. Basically my cough is halted but I spend the night feeling like I'm on my way to meet my Maker from cough syrup poisoning. Is there such a thing?

I keep thinking that maybe by the time I have to wake up for work it will have worn off. So eventually my alarm goes off, my head is throbbing and floating at the same time, my neck and shoulders are killing me. I stumble to the bathroom where I can barely stand up straight. I play with my eyes and realize that my pupils aren't reacting to the light at all. I'm a total drugged mess and I'm not loving the feeling. Maybe a shower will do the trick. I get in the water and the next thing I know I'm sliding down the tiled wall and balling into myself on the tub floor. I feel like I'm seconds away from hurling.

I can barely stand enough to turn the water off and step out soaking wet. I only make it back to my bed by dragging my body along the long hall wall to my room. I crawl into bed, still dripping, breathing heavy and FREAKED. Eventually I muster enough sanity to call my boss and tell her I won't be making it in. There's just no way.

Mark swears that when I fall back asleep I stopped breathing for a second and he shakes me awake. Upon review of the bottle the amount to be taken is 1 teaspoon, every 12 hours. So 2 tablespoons at one time...not wise. I don't know what was happening when I did it but I clearly wasn't paying attention.

It's now 1:30 in the afternoon and I'm still in a pretty good haze. That was horrible.

This Weekend

2009-03-01T20:54:00.002-05:00

In my attempt to get out of the house I went out with my parents. They were making a trek to a Wal-Mart in New Jersey where my dad can get cheaper prescriptions. With the cost of gas and tolls over the George Washington Bridge I'm not sure getting his meds in Jersey is really the smart economical choice but my parents use the opportunity to do something other than sit on the couch, buy cheap stuff, and of course eat at some restaurant they enjoy but can only get on the other side of the Hudson.

So here we are, sister in tow, eating at Fuddruckers. A family tradition though I've moved from burgers to chicken in a lame attempt to make "the smart choice". We eat, we schmooze, we all climb into the car to head to Wal-Mart. Somewhere on Route 17 South a massive bang occurs and the very noisy Geo Prism turns into the insanely loud Geo Prism that is dragging something. We pull into a Holiday Inn parking lot. Now everyone goes quiet because this of course is not what we want to occur and I'm thinking: Great. My dad is an awesome help when you need him but he's really not good in pressure situations. He gets too hot-headed and can't think and yells and screams at everyone.

My dad and I (because my mom and sister are princesses) get out of the car and onto our knees and some cylindrical part with a pipe leading all the way to the muffler is hanging onto the ground. I'm all about going to find some duct tape and wiggling under the car and taping that sucker up and just heading home. But it's not to occur. The car is insanely low to the ground and even if I could drop the 8 pounds that I'd love to be rid of I still wouldn't fit under this thing.

We call AAA. Of course they are "sooooo helpful". First they can't help us because we're in New Jersey and we can't tell them what county we're in to get transferred to a New Jersey operator. Then we find out what county we're in (I guessed correctly but we double check with a guy in the parking lot) and they can't help us yet because our membership is expired. Then we begin to renew it and the cell phone blanks out and my dad gets all pissed and curses and swears his phone just died.

Then we call back and go through the whole county transferring thing again and we're about to renew and the phone blanks out and my dad curses and screams and throws his phone onto the floor, all the while the call is still going on and the woman is like "Uh...Hello...are you there?"
So my dad gets fired from talking on the phone and my mom takes over.
You get the drift.

After three cell phones, a credit card charge, a call to the Aunt who lives in Jersey, a discussion with the friendly (no sarcasm, they were very nice) Holiday Inn front desk, a crack-head, insanely unhelpful tow truck driver, a lot of petty bickering between me and my mom, a couple of "oh my God he's so freaking cute" about my cousin Tony's adorable 2 year-old, we finally end up in front of our apartment building.

Big thanks to my cousin Tony, his adorable wife Yvette, and their son who really is the cutest thing ever. He didn't do any of the driving but he did provide some cute little 2 year-old babble.

Sunday morning I spent with my dad on the couch waiting for my mom's macaroni and cheese to finish baking. We ended up watching a Millionaire Matchmaker marathon on Bravo which was fun because my dad totally got into it. (He was a HUGE fan of that old show on UPN back in the day, Blind Date. A couple would go on a ridiculous date and bubbles of trivial information about them would pop up on the screen. Very VH1 pop-up video-esque.)

After stuffing my face I had to get out of the house but didn't want to set foot on the A train so I walked over to the Boogie-Down Bronx and hit up Marshall's. I bought jeans I'll probably return, an ankle-length dress only appropriate for the hot summer days but I also bought this AMAZING cocktail dress. It fit me perfectly (which just doesn't happen to me and my hips and tummy) and two people were like "Oh I love that dress! and it was the only one so I had to get it. Sadly, I have abso-freaking-lutely nothing to wear it too. At all. So sad.

I'm Not That Into It

2009-02-22T14:58:00.002-05:00

I'm really not interested in seeing this movie. I may be female but I'm not easily convinced to see a chick-flick. And I draw the line on how much chick-lit I read. But another blog I read sent me to this video. I have to say while sometimes it may be a little too long it definitely made me smile. It also awakens the senses to how chick flicks really are that predictable.

The End of a Week

2009-02-22T14:28:00.004-05:00

Well, it's a Sunday. And I'm suffering from a serious case of cabin fever. It's totally self-imposed as I lack any motivation to get dressed and do something with myself. Which is quite sad because I've been lucky enough to have the whole past week off. I did manage to go socialize with some friendly MoMA peeps last Monday and then spent lots o' time with Mark on his days off. That was nice. But otherwise I find myself scared to go out. Because when I do I am tempted to spend lots of money. Even though my idea of lots of money isn't probably as large as others. And I don't have to pay rent or anything. But I've already went there.

I did manage to finish reading the behemoth book The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (see Past Reads: 2009 list). It was my major goal for my week off. It was really good. Surprisingly it had a 'mystical' aspect to it. And it was way sadder than I thought it would be. Though I must admit it did start with a melancholy feel to it. I totally recommend it to you out there who enjoy curling up with books.

I thought about applying to other jobs out there but I feel the strong need to wait until after my San Diego trip in April. I mean what if BY SOME FREAKING MIRACLE a job called me in for an interview? I don't want to get so close only to be denied because I'm taking a week away in California. That would suck. But at the same time I'm fully aware that the chances of me being called in for an interview are minute. Tiny. Teeny. But I can dream about getting a new job, right? And then cry. It makes me sad because I know it will never happen. (Monkey? Heist? Anyone?)

Thanks Mr. Letterman!

2009-02-14T13:54:00.002-05:00

I know we've moved on to what we hope is bigger and better things but isn't it fun to look back?

Guess Where I Live

2009-02-07T15:53:00.008-05:00

Yeah...I've been meaning to talk about that.

After scrambling and dreaming and organizing and filling out forms we were totally rejected. And it hurt. But let me go back a few months when this nightmare started to peek out and tease me and I thought that I had whipped it into its place.
A number of months ago I started to get harassed by Mark to check my credit and get a credit card. If we were going to dip into the world of real estate, whether it be as renters or owners we knew that I was going to have to start working at building credit as I had never had a credit card.
So I went to get my free credit reports and was denied. But I had always been denied. For some reason they could never bring up a report on me and while this should have been a warning sign and something to worry about I just decided that I would continue to live without credit.

So then I just skipped the whole credit report thing and just applied for credit cards marketed towards people with little to no credit history. And I was denied! Then I started to get panicky.
By some miracle out of the three credit bureaus I was able to get one random report. And while you could see all the credit cards that I had applied to on that single report you could also see my name with my father's credit history. My name with my father's birthday. My name kinda like my name but spelled slightly wrong. A mix of my name and my father's. OH JOY!

For those of you who are unaware, I'm Jamie S. M_____. My father is Jaime M_____. I always use my middle name or initial because this name confusion has always been a problem. Especially since there is more than one way to spell Jamie and people almost always spell my name like my father's. He gets mail to Jaime S. M_____. He always gives it to me which annoys my because I don't get junk mail from AARP.

So here it is: My credit history is terribly mixed up with my dad's. I'd like to think that it dates back to my freshman year of college when my father took out a small loan to cover some of my tuition. And then in AmeriCorps I filed for a deferment of payment while in service. Then I came back and I paid it. And the name game probably was created. So anyway, I filed all the paperwork for it to be cleared up, fixed. I updated my birthday, had them correct name spellings. But I only did this through one credit bureau.

Then we applied for the apartment. I remember the night after we turned in the paperwork. Mark and I snuggled up in bed. I whispered "I'm scared we won't get it." He replied "There's no reason we would not get it." Deep sigh.

So anyway as you read in my last post they have tons of personal information and we get denied because when they check out my information they see that someone with the name Jaime M_____ has been in Housing Court. Which means something was up some time ago and this tenant and that landlord had a falling out. What pisses me off about this is that when I was filling out the application I was nervous to put my current address down because I knew that my dad's record with his landlord was not spotless. But I was told by the realtor "Don't worry. Just say it's your parent's residence." Well it didn't matter. They saw a similar name with the same address and they said no thanks. Even though we had my father's landlord write a letter that it wasn't me. That I hadn't been involved in any way.

At first the frustrating part was that I was told this information came up when they typed up my social security number. Great! Even more SSN drama that had tons of nightmarish loopholes to discover. But when I recently met with the realtor to get our application deposit back he told me that he thinks it comes up with my address search. Which means I'm getting mixed information.

However I was lucky enough to get a print out of the damning report and on that report the name on the court record is clearly not mine. Which leads me to believe it is the address that brings up that information and not my SSN. I hope. The problem is we will never know because when we decide to dip into the world of renting again I don't think we're even going to bother with putting my name on the lease. Because what if it is my SSN that brings it up? We could put my name and just list us at a different address but that doesn't guarantee this court thing won't show up, if in fact it's my SSN and not the address that causes the problem. Ya follow?

So yeah, major sucks balls.
I still have dreams of having my own place. I still walk the streets looking at windows that seem empty and available. I avoid walking down a whole street in my 'hood because I don't want to walk by the apartment that should be my new home. Bitter? Totally. Absolutely.

For Our Own Little Place

2009-01-17T15:31:00.002-05:00

I'm tired. Yay three-day weekend!
Last week I began to search for apartments. It happened really fast that I haven't had much time to process everything. I had found a nice looking place on the Citi-Habitats website and contacted the agent listed with it. He emailed me back right away and said "Let's meet up Saturday" and I got excited. Nice price. Right down the street from where I am now. Lots of sunlight. He never called me again. I had Mark call him. No dice. Eventually, when the guy just disappeared and the apartment was rented away, Mark decided to write a letter of complaint to the agency and an agent called us to apologize and told us 'not to give up on Citi-Habitats'.

Then I registered online with a really small and local agency here in Inwood. Immediately she called me and next thing I know I was looking at 5 apartments one evening after work with my dad. My head was spinning. I liked the last apartment we had looked at. It was right next door to the 'lost Citi' apartment. It had an elevator. But a tiny kitchen. It was in great shape so the rent was higher than I had set out for. I went home, my head spinning with ideas of living in that apartment. But I had to calm down. It was the first time I looked at anything. And all I could think was 'if I'm going to pay higher on my bracket of ideal rent, I might as well have a bigger kitchen'. So I got over it.

One night before going to bed I was obsessively looking at more listings when I decided to visit the Citi-Habitats site again. I came across an apartment that had a different agent, same neighborhood, rent still reasonable, and in the pics it looked nice and spacious. I emailed and he emailed back.

The next day!! There I was being shown around my hometown 'hood. I looked at 4 places with dad again. (Mark's schedule and then Lasik eye surgery make him unable to traipse around with me). The last apartment I was shown was the one I inquired about. It faced the front of the building, the kitchen was nice, the bathroom nice, the rooms spacious. It's only real drawbacks? Small closets (can you say armoire?) and it's the top level of a 6-story walk up (can you say no armoire?). Mark squeezed in a viewing with the broker and he gave the place a thumbs up.

Well, we tried to get the rent lowered and we were probably laughed at behind our backs but Mark and I decided that the rent was still reasonable and overall the place had most of the things we were looking for. For days and hours I've been printing and collating and filling out paperwork. We've been running to eye doctors, post offices, and banks in order to get everything done before they close for the weekend and a federal holiday.

In NYC they demand so much personal information to rent an apartment it's just overwhelming but I'm not surprised. Here people rent and rent for decades. It's not so transient. My dad pointed out that in NYC the tenant has so many rights and it's hard to have them removed for any sort of infringement that landlords just want to make sure you're practically a perfect citizen before they let you move in.

Well now it's finally done. We wait to meet up with the broker this afternoon to hand over the stuff. Money orders filled out. Fees, Fees, Fees. But here I sit, next to a manila envelope with tons of financial and employer information. I wonder if I should throw in a urine sample for safe measure. But they might not like that.

Well...wish us luck. Oh, is anyone available to move boxes up six flights of stairs? Around February 1st? Dinner is on me!

Let Me Count the Ways

2009-01-11T12:29:00.014-05:00

Sometimes Mark wants to be all philosophical and meaningful about the truth about love and why there is love and why we love each other. I think that's great and all. A rare thing to find in a man. Heck (yes, heck) it's a reason I love him! But as I was cleaning the disaster my mother left in the kitchen (the apartment search is ON!) I was just thinking that the real basic 'Man Things' that he does are so important to me too. They make me happy. They make me feel cared for in the very basic day-to-day ways. I felt the need to list them:

Mark cleans up dead mice. This has such an amazingly high importance I can't even explain it to you (but I'm going to). For those of you who know Mark because of his Tahoe Life you will not be surprised. Mark was the man who had to clean up vomit and poop on a daily basis. It was his job. And he could be passionate about it.
I especially appreciate his talent at cleaning up dead mice whenever I come across that particular Sex and the City episode (com'on Blair!) when Charlotte is dating the Gay-Straight Man and a mouse gets stuck on the glue trap. For a hilarious moment Charlotte and her GSM are kicking the mouse back and forth to each other, squealing like girls, and begging each other to 'get rid of it'. That will never happen with Mark. If I come across a crime scene I simply have to remove myself and my gentleman will take care of it. There is no "you just left it there all day?" or "I did the last one it's your turn". Dead Mice = Mark's job.

Mark cares about my music collection. In the summer of 2005 my father suggested that for my birthday I get an iPod. He accompanied me to the Apple Store in Soho and there I realized he wasn't offering to get me an iPod for my birthday he just thought I should buy myself one and justify the purchase because it was around my birthday. I was pretty annoyed because I'm pretty sure I was perfectly happy traipsing around with CDs and probably would still carry around a Discman if it wasn't for that purchase. Either way that was my big step into the mp3 world and it has pretty much been my only. When it comes to items over $100 I absolutely stick to the school of thought "Don't replace it until it's very broken". Therefore even though my iPod is pretty much insanely outdated I don't give a (dead) mouse's tushy. I'm not buying another one. I don't need it. But that doesn't erase the fact that one day I'm going to go play some music and my iPod will not work. And all my music gathered from my own collection and from communal computers across Stanford Sierra Camp property will be gone! Gone and missed! I get sad just thinking about it.
But Mark to the rescue. A number of months ago Mark put all of my music on his hard drive. He sacrificed precious gigabytes for my music protection. Not only was that nice but it was necessary. Do you think I was going to dedicate hours of my time finding the right program, figuring out how to use it, loading, moving, arranging, filing. Whatever it all is? No. He did. Because he cares.

Mark does Man-nagging. He bothers me. About the important life things that I just can't get to in time. While a woman will nag about the pair of socks on the floor or the dish in the sink, this man nags about bigger things. My problem is credit. I have none. My credit is so non-existent that I was denied a credit card designed specifically for young people who have little-to-no credit. Huh? I was perfectly happy to shrug my shoulders and continue to live life with debit card transactions. But Mark said 'Nay'. He researched how to investigate credit issues. He scoured FAQ pages. He created a desktop folder with all the information I would need. And then he nagged me until I filled it all out and mailed it. And I only did that because there were like 3 lines to fill out. He had done everything else.
Our wedding. Ugh. I can't even think about it. In fact, I often don't. I don't like to plan. I'm not good at it. I get all worked up and can't breathe. Mark sat at his computer and created spreadsheets. Worksheets. Plan-o-grams. He completed his guest list. He saved it all on a desktop folder that is easy for Jamie to find. Everyday he asks me if I completed my guest list. What do you think the answer is?

Mark eats anything. I was raised in a house that has this man. We'll call him the Dad. And Dad likes three things. Rice, beans, plain meat. That's it. 3 things. That's boring. And if you try to 'mix it up' the Dad complains. He moans, he bitches, he whines. If, by some miracle, he actually likes whatever 'new thing' you've done, he's surprised. Wow! That was good! I don't really like that but it was good! He says it in a way that makes you wonder if he thinks that 'it' being tasty was an accident. That it was supposed to taste like crap because it isn't rice, beans, meat but by mistake you put something in it and it tasted good. This time at least. Anyway, my point is he's not very adventurous and gets upset when you mess his dinner time up with 'something different'. (Though will he cook? No. He's The Dad.)
However, Mark will eat anything. Learning to be domestic and cook dinner was fun for me when we had our own place in Tahoe. I could cook anything! Mark would eat it! And almost all the time he liked it. Even when I didn't. It was exciting to cook because he was excited to eat. I could complain that he doesn't exactly volunteer to cook. That the ratio of Mark cooking meals to the ratio of Jamie cooking meals isn't exactly equal but why bother? I have years of marriage ahead of me to do that. Also, Mark only cooks one thing. And he didn't know how to boil water until he took a cooking class. WHA? Hello! Is that warning enough that I don't necessarily want to be begging for the culinary creations of Mark? I mean, boiling water? In the words of Geico, It's so easy a Caveman could do it. And Mark couldn't... apparently. But I digress. This is about how I love Mark.

Mark has become an indentured servant for my happiness. TJs is his master. With TJs Mark will supply us with a nice-ish, Extreme Uptown Manhattan apartment (instead of middle-of-nowhere Brooklyn), food (for me to cook), privacy, cleanliness. Mark moved to NYC to make me happy. And how did I repay him? By finding a job fair for TJs where he went, wowed them, and was hired. Now he works 50 hours (or more) a week, spends the rest of his waking hours on the NYC Subway, is chronically exhausted, Vitamin D deficient, and chronically unhappy. It's all my fault.

Which is why when we have a space of our own where I am The Boss of the House (that's right Mark, me) I will do my absolute best to make sure it's a space where he can be happy for the 20 minutes he is awake eating food and the 4 hours he gets to sleep. And all the little snippets in between.

Past Reads 2008

2009-01-04T10:48:00.002-05:00

With a new year I decided to "file away" my Past Reads list for 2008 and start anew for 2009. This isn't everything I read since I don't think I thought of making this list until about April or May of '08 but I still think it was a nice list.

Happy New Year.

Books I read in 2008*:

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond
Eden Close by Anita Shreve
The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates
Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier
Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman
Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
The Guy Not Taken by Jennifer Weiner
Light On Snow by Anita Shreve
The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta
The Tattoo Artist by Jill Ciment
Sister Mine by Tawni O'Dell
The Flamenco Academy by Sara Bird
What Matters Most by Luanne Rice
Widow for a Year by John Irving
Music For Torching by A.M. Homes
Black Girl White Girl by Joyce Carol Oates
The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo
The Mistress's Daughter by A.M. Homes
The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant
Gardens of Water by Alan Drew
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights by John Steinbeck
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle

*April '08 - Dec '08

Applesauce!

2008-12-15T17:51:00.005-05:00

Last week I saw two pigeons sparring with beaks. It was pretty fun to watch and I wish I could've recorded it.

On Saturday I had my big exam for a job posting for the Unified Court System of New York State. Basically it was a test to see if I can type and if I can do clerical work. Considering there were a butt-load of women and a few men taking the same test I really don't see a job coming out of this but I'm happy to have it done with, as I had studied myself into a panic for the damn thing.

Unfortunately, I woke up that morning with a raging cold. I freaked out a bit because I couldn't believe that I would wake up sick on the morning of the test. But no worries, I ate my breakfast and took some cold medicine and off I went to waste hours on a test that will probably get me nowhere. Though, whaddya know, as soon as the test actually starts, after the herding around of large masses of people, after the reorganization of tainted scantron answer sheets, after the deep sighs of annoyance from state and future state employees, my cold medicine runs out and so does my breakfast.
In a tiny classroom on West 41st a whole lot of strangers got to listen to the INSANELY loud grumblings of my stomach which does not like to be kept off schedule. Add that to the incessant sneezing and sniffling (half my answer sheet was covered in snot tissue) and I definitely had to perform under pressure.

I thought it was a runny nose run amok so I headed downtown to meet up with Steve and Laurie to a "show". I didn't know that it was a kinda gallery showing in a pizza place. The artist (a Purchase Alumna) went to Amsterdam for her honeymoon and a year later ended up with these paintings inspired by the many cafés she and her new husband had visited. The story in its full version is really cool and as the artist, Michele, tells you how it all came to fruition she lets you flip through her sketchbook. Anyway, I bought a print of my favorite one because I cannot afford real art and you can go to her website if you're interested in seeing whatever cool graphic-type stuff she came up with.

The bad news is that my cold only got worse and I felt like death on Sunday. After a long and slightly traumatizing morning on Monday I now have three different prescriptions that will make me feel better.

And feeling better means going to work (which leads to feeling worse but I won't go there for now).

At work we've been preparing for the arrival of Hanukkah and I can't get this song out of my head. While this version is a little slower it is no less awesome. I beg you to go here and get a sampling of what is going through my head at a fairly constant rate.

Free Writing

2008-11-29T12:54:00.003-05:00

Hello friends. If you've been a dedicated checker-of-the-blog, I thank you. Obviously I haven't written in a very long time. I felt that I didn't have much going on and I had nothing much but whining to dish. While me whining is nothing new I try to keep it to a minimum in order to keep ya'll happy. Maybe I fail at that mission but maybe I don't!

So I decided to just drop in and say what's up with me.

Some of you know that the month began with me becoming engaged. In a way it's nice to see a relationship develop. It's totally like a promotion from Mark. 'Congrats on being a wonderful mate, you move up to the next phase!' Of course many people have wonderfully happy long-term relationships that never become 'engagements' so all this is my personal take on my relationship.
The proposal was a total surprise which I think is my favorite part of all this. No, I didn't see it coming. No, we didn't go on a vacation where all I could think is "This is it!" (not that I'm that kind of girl anyway). No, it wasn't a Christmas or Valentine's proposal (Thank God!). In a way the election of Barack Obama will always be the "when did he propose" reminder.

We quickly went to stores to get my finger sized because the size 5 ring was much to big. After learning I'm a size 4 we sent away the ring and we were told it would take about 8 weeks to get it resized. I said goodbye to my ring "see you in January!". True to their excellent customer service (and unbeknownst to me) Blue Nile, our jeweler, had my ring back in exactly one week. Which means Mark not only surprised me once with a ring but twice! That guy is good!

Other than that, November has been pretty standard. I'm not in love with my job but some days are okay. Some days I think that the kiddies are just the cutest things in the world. I'm more just nervous of where to go from here. I still don't know what I like, what someone would hire me for,what I can stick with.

I'm grumpy about the time change. It's already dark by the time I (and thousands) get off of work. Which means my after-work walks through the trees are cancelled until further notice.

Have you seen the new Go-Phone ad with Steve Buscemi as the voice of a gingerbread dad repairing his gingerbread house? Awesomely funny.

Thanksgiving Dinner at the Uncle and Aunt's house was tasty. My highlight? The latest addition to our family is now 2 years old and he's a cutie.

My introduction to the world of Yoga is going well. My Saturday class is pretty much done. It was really basic but it gave me something to do. The teacher told me she has another class on Tuesdays and Thursdays which I didn't know about, it was never advertised. I wonder if it's like an invite only type of thing since all the students know her well.
So I registered and attended, not wanting to lose my rhythm of having any physical activity. It's intense! Nothing like my Saturday class which is filled with some Senior-types. I loved it even though it leaves me with a rushed feeling all day, having to get home quickly to walk the dog, eat, and change before class. And then when I get back from class it's pretty much bed time!

While the positions are challenging I really like it. The "challenge" I don't love is my right wrist. It's so damaged from time at the computer and using a mouse that it's really weak and I have trouble supporting my weight doing some poses. A huge bummer since I'm only in my twenties!

I'm having trouble getting into any reading. I haven't finished a few books I started and nothing is really catching my interest. I'll have to do some big shopping at the library. I'll need a good read for my holiday break coming up. If you have any suggestions please let me know!

'Til Later.

14th Street

2008-11-09T19:28:00.002-05:00

I obviously love the city I grew up in. I made Mark move back here with me so there must be some affection, right? But at the same time when I walk through my neighborhood all I can think is "I hate it here." But maybe it's just my neighborhood. Today as I was walking west on 14th Street heading towards the A train I saw all this randomness that made me feel glee at being there.

First, I fucking love the architecture. I never knew I loved architecture but every time I learn anything about architecture and/or the history of a building and why it appears and was designed the way it was I soak up the information and feel pure happiness at learning it.
The way the sun set was glowing off the top of Empire State Building and the subtle artfulness of the details on the older buildings along the street made me so excited. And even though it can be heart wrenching when some ugly glass beast gets erected occasionally they are so stylish that the juxtaposition of the shiny structure next to a beautiful pre-war building can be quite charming in that Old World meets Modern City kind of way.

I especially love the new ways that awkward old buildings are being used. On the corner of 14th and Eighth Avenue there is a Balducci's, an upscale grocery store. It's housed in an old bank building. Awesome.

Then there was the energy of being in Union Square. The people who conglomerate there trying to make a buck. You've got tables of "pashminas" next to rows and rows of Obama buttons, stickers, T-shirts. You've got the table with African inspired earrings and bracelets, the guy selling all his old James Patterson novels, the smell of hand mixed frankincense being burned. Today my particular favorite was the older man with the snow-white hair in the style of Doc from Back to the Future. He was decked out in his plaid suit complete with vest, buckets of fresh vegetables lined up in front of him demonstrating these knives, maybe a vegetable peeler. A kitchen knife demonstration on the corner of 14th and University?

Sometimes I feel self conscious walking around that area. So close to the Village, NYU housing, Fifth Avenue. Everyone is so freaking trendy and stylish it makes me feel like a hobo. But then you pass Forever 21 and Strawberry and realize that you can appear trendy for not too much money it's just a matter of putting a lot of effort and a little less body fat into it. And who needs trendy anyway, right? If anything, I enjoy the fact that there are so many senses of identity, so many ideas of what style is. I can appear perfectly fine in my sneakers and SSC fleece, my knee length jacket. As long as I have headphones I appear to be like everyone else.

So that's when I like New York. When I'm in an area where there are so many great sensory things to take in. My neighborhood just doesn't have that glam. Never will.

Updates and Thoughts

2008-11-08T20:48:00.002-05:00

I love the fact that New York City parking tickets come in neon orange envelopes. There is something festive about the bright color. Like Halloween! But then again it might also be reminiscent of convicts coveralls. And that's not so festive.

It's like:
Dear NY City vehicle owner. Welcome back to your car! Here's a surprise for you!

On Thursday at 9am I will have ALL FOUR of my wisdom teeth removed. I'm terrified. The scheduling of the whole procedure was a real pain in the ass. As someone who works in a classroom taking time off during the school week can be a real issue with your employer for obvious reasons. I was hopeful that I could schedule my appointment for this coming Monday afternoon and then have Tuesday off for Veteran's Day. Problem solved!

But with this procedure I'm having general anesthesia so they expect you to come in early in the morning because you will have had the whole night with no food or water. So I have to go in early. Top that off with the fact that the oral surgeon I'm seeing only works on Thursdays. What a life! So now I have to go in on Thursday. The scary part: I'm expected at work bright and early on Friday. UGH. I really hope I'll be able to pull that off. It's just one day right? Yeah, right.

In other news Your's Truly is engaged. Freaky. It's so adult I don't even know how to process it. But I really like my ring! It's sparkly.

Take Heed Dear Friends

2008-10-14T18:04:00.002-04:00

FYI-

If you lose your immunization record, you're screwed.

Many moons ago when I first registered for college I had to show proof of my immunizations, like so many of us do. So my mom whipped out a little white card and entrusted my 18-yr-old self with keeping it safe. I promptly lost it. I never thought much of it, it's information not being asked for for many years.
Back in August when I was hired to be an Assistant Nursery School Teacher I had to get a physical and was nervous about that huge chart on the back that asked for my immunization history. I felt a sigh of relief when the assistant at the Doctor's office took a big black Sharpie to it pretty much telling the receiver of the document "F off". I was thrilled. Surely a doctor's office blacking out the section was official.
Recently we were visited by the Board of Health and wha'd'ya know? The inspector picks me from a pile of paperwork and demands that I show proof of my immunization history STAT. I guess that whole working with little kids makes them really cautious. And while not being able to go to work would be sorta awesome that whole not getting paid thing doesn't really work for me.

I was lucky enough to have a number of days off and so I went to task. I was told by my head teacher that there was a clinic her college sent people to who needed shots. A few clicks and I found an immunization clinic run by the City of New York.
But first I did try emailing my college who last had that information and I emailed AmeriCorps who last gave me a tetanus shot. I even called the Board of Health in Englewood, NJ where my very first pediatrician was located. The two big organizations didn't have even the decency to get back to me and the BoH, NJ was kind enough to call and wish me luck on my doomed search, for they were unable to help me.

So here I am, a little tipsy on wine (I'll explain), and I have a really sore left arm. While I'm pissed off at the Board of Health for demanding I show proof of my immunization history, I am thankful that they have that whole immunization clinic thing that hooked me up with some free shots. For that was the whole 'painful' thing about all this. I have to show I've been immunized by November 9th but my insurance doesn't kick in until the end of November. Paying for something I've already had was really pissing me off. So thanks taxpayers of NYC (myself included)!

Earlier today when Mark was heading off to work I gave him a big, sad hug and said "See you next weekend." This is what our life is like now. Between our schedules I never see him. If we're home at the same time he's asleep when I'm awake and vice versa. We usually see each other on Sunday only and Mark sleeps in until Noon because he's so exhausted, so I barely get to spend any time with him.
As I was hugging him I made the joke that it's like I'm dating an off-shore fisherman. I see him for 1 maybe 2ish days, then he packs up and leaves again. The next time I see him he's fully bearded and smelly. He pointed out the ironic fact that his employer has a nautical theme...sigh.

So it's Tuesday: The Mom is at her night class and The Pops is at work. This means I sit around and stare at my bird and dog. I get pretty lonely. So instead of sitting around and talking to animals that can't reply I went out, bought yet another sandwich for dinner, and a bottle of wine!
I was really excited to open the bottle because I've never opened a wine bottle myself. While it took me 6 minutes to open I must say I'm proud that I didn't get any cork in the wine.
So here I am. Listening to iPod shuffle, working on a blog post, and drunk.

Now we'll see if those damn animals will talk back!

Two Complaints

2008-10-07T19:36:00.002-04:00

What? Did you think it was going to be all roses and daisies when I reappeared on my own blog?

1. I often get upset at myself because even though my few friends think of me as adventurous, I'm not. I'm a big scaredy cat. Mark would be happy to confirm. One of the hurdles I'm trying to jump is ordering the same food over and over at places I frequent.
There is a newer cafe in my neighborhood that I'm starting to visit more in order to avoid an old demon. I'm a huge fan of their variation of The Cuban Sandwich. A delicious concoction that I would happily suggest to my friends who are interested in such foods. But-I always order the Cuban sandwich.
Today, headed home to two animals and no humans I went in to order and forced myself to order The Thanksgiving. Turkey, cranberry mayo, stuffing. How can any lover of holiday meals not try this sandwich?

IT SUCKED.

Some old, shredded turkey sprinkled on top of a sad excuse of homemade stuffing. It was basically mushed bread served on a hero with some turkey shreds thrown on top. I would never go back there if the Cubans weren't so tasty and the coffee delicious. Sigh.

2. For some reason I have a need to trust commercials. I want to believe! I'm not talking about the late night basic cable commercials that are so ridiculous that anyone who orders that crap from some PO Box in New Jersey plus shipping and handling deserves whatever bull-crap product they get. I'm talking about commercials like the new Scotts Turf Builder commercial.
You know...the one where some good ol' average suburban white guys and one woman thrown in for good measure are talking about how they never thought about feeding their lawn in the fall, but hey! It turns out to be the greatest idea for your lawn EVER. Wow, Scotts, thank you.
I want to believe that the plaid t-shirt wearing men who love Sunday football, drive a Chevy Tahoe, and love to barbecue on their expansive, over watered emerald lawns really do spend their free time feeding their lawns in the fall. I'm totally ready to believe that these are real, happy customers.

BUT SUDDENLY the red-headed dude who plays the cable installation man in the Verizon FiOS commercials shows up and my bubble bursts. Dude! You messed it all up. Now I know it's all just a big corporate fib. I'm glad you are having a successful commercial acting career (I saw you trying to pay a restaurant tab with pennies too) but you're really starting to mess up the believable factor for me.

There...I'm done.

Oh...Hello!

2008-09-30T22:19:00.002-04:00

I was browsing some blogs of friends and acquaintances when suddenly I came across a nude, charcoal sketch of yours truly. Talk about a surprise! Apparently the artist I modeled for a handful of times back in Lake Tahoe exhibited the one large charcoal sketch she made of me.

I had been to a few of her shows and nothing with me ever appeared. I think I was okay with that so it's just funny to know that I made my naked and anonymous debut both on her site and at her gallery show and I wasn't even there to feel self-conscious.

Well...I guess that will end my Internet browsing for tonight. Farewell.

How I Celebrate Rosh Hashanah

2008-09-30T21:57:00.003-04:00

I would like to give a special thanks to four lovely MoMA ladies who met me at Whiskey Trader's on W55th St. on Monday night for Happy Hour. I showed up early and had a social anxiety moment when I thought no one was going to come and drink with me. But eventually they came, we drank, I had fun.

So even thought they might not necessarily read this post I want to throw out a cosmic "What Up!" to them and thank them for making my hangover on Tuesday a hangover filled with girl-bonding (aka gossip) memories.

A Day of Rain

2008-09-22T18:25:00.004-04:00

Back when Hurricane Hana was giving us some heavy rain I decided to really enjoy the simple pleasure: my dog looking sad even though he doesn't like going for long walks anyway, the sound of the wind, the dancing of the leaves, and the steady drumming of the rain.

How Cute Was He?

2008-09-22T18:12:00.003-04:00

I never had a chance to show this quick video of the baby river otter that I got to play with a few times when I occasionally volunteered at the Lake Tahoe Wildlife Center. He was insanely cute and very soft and extremely playful. I hope he is living a full and happy otter life somewhere in the wild.

Seen and Heard

2008-09-18T19:52:00.003-04:00

On the street:
Every work day when I reach the corner of Payson Avenue and Riverside Drive a young Asian girl, stylishly dressed and looking funky and cool is running in a very comical, gazelle-like way obviously in a rush to get to the train station for she appears to be running late. What I find especially funny about the whole situation is that I see her every day at the same exact time. Which means she's on schedule, she's just on the wrong schedule.

In the Diner:
"Did I tell you? I got a tourism brochure from Alaska yesterday in the mail and I threw it away. I looked at my husband and said 'I'm never going to Alaska. Never. Because she's from Alaska. She's the Governor!' It's a shame because I've always wanted to visit Alaska."

In the Diner II:
"And my girlfriend! She went out to dinner last night. To celebrate an anniversary and she really wanted to order the wild Alaskan salmon. And she didn't. She didn't want anything to do with Alaska."

During Morning Carpet Time:
-You look very nice today.
-I'm wearing a yellow blouse under my dress today. I'm wearing a blouse under my dress today so that you can't see my nipples.
-Oh! Did your mommy tell you that?
-No, my daddy.
-Hmm.

In Hopes of Making You Smile

2008-09-10T19:37:00.003-04:00

All I have to say is I do this now to Mark as a human when I'm hungry. I'd definitely do this as a cat and I dig this cat's style.

Hiding Out

2008-09-06T14:44:00.006-04:00

Well. Right now humidity is at, like, a billion percent and I'm hiding out in my bedroom with the fan going and the window closed surviving off the residual cold air from running my AC last night. It's lasted quite a while and if I must say so, I'm feeling very efficient. I've braved the humidity to walk Sebastian twice and to register for a Hatha Yoga class! I'm very excited.

I've always wanted to take yoga and it's always been too expensive. I received a brochure in the mail the other day that CUNY Hostos' satellite campus was having an open house and that one of the classes was yoga. I'll spend about 8 Saturday mornings getting my stretch on and hopefully learning something that I can continue to practice on my own while I wait for another bargain to come around. This could be used as a good intro to the basics and then I can find a more 'physical' form of yoga.
The great part is that the class is about 5 minutes from my house... in the very classrooms where I was emotionally scarred in the 7th and 8th grade. My former elementary school, with its declining enrollment, rented out some of its space to the college a few years ago and this is probably the reason why they haven't had to close their doors to generations of youth waiting to be harassed by their peers.

I'm also in hiding to recuperate from my very first week as an assistant teacher at a nursery school. I help in a class of eighteen 4-year-olds. I'm exhausted. I'm scared I've made a horrible mistake taking this job. I don't get dental coverage and for some reason that really depressed me. It's hard for me to enjoy the experience because the head teacher is new. This is her first class and I feel like it's total chaos (as in more chaos than would regularly be present in a class of eighteen 4-year-olds). I think she's too green, too relying on textbooks and theories. I feel like she doesn't have her shit together (even though she's really nice) and me, hating chaos and apparently in love with order and rules, can't handle it.

I have to make it to June.
I have to and I WILL.

Hopefully by then maybe I'll like my job more. Everyone I know who is a teacher says that the first year is the hardest, and I'm only the assistant! Maybe I will want to do something with this. (even though Grad school will be impossible if I have to take the GRE. there is NO WAY I can take that test and do even remotely decent) I really can't imagine looking for another job (again!) at the end of the school year and being successful. It takes forever to get a job (and will only get harder if Old Man McCain wins). And it's getting harder and harder to convince the interviewer that I'm not a total flake and that my five different career paths I've taken so far really do, ultimately, have something in common to make me an amazingly qualified candidate.

Anyway, that's really all for me. Hurricane Hana has officially started to pour down on Inwood and my old AC air is almost gone. Tomorrow I will see Mark for what seems like the first time in days. We've barely crossed paths since he started his exhausting job all the way out in Queens. The few times we have seen each other, one of us is sleeping. I can't wait to watch him sit at his laptop and ignore me, feed Vinnie snacks, listen to him complain about my mother's use of bleach, and watch the last Project Runway with him.

Thanks for reading! Tootles!

A Tiny Heartache

2008-08-25T19:54:00.002-04:00

A number of months ago Mark mentioned that he had lost some of the Colombia pictures permanently when a mistake was made while he was changing the operating system of his laptop. It wasn't until today, while trying to upload some pictures onto Facebook (new member!) that I realized some pictures I really like were some of the victims of his carelessness.

While he might become really pissed that I'm posting this I have to let it out. I'm like...really sad! I feel a little emptiness in my chest. There are some pictures that I really liked, that really sealed a memory in a little digital file. I don't know what else to say.

My only thought is that the phrase "Don't fix what's not broken" couldn't ring more true right now. Why change operating systems?! Why lose precious photos! My suffering in Colombia was wasted!

Sigh.

That "Healthy" Crap

2008-08-23T22:51:00.003-04:00

Okay, we all are now fully aware that fast food is bad for you. It's no secret anymore. As a matter of fact anything that is bought at a franchise should be considered suspicious. That's why people were shocked that they were getting chubby when all they did was drink large "fruit" smoothies from Jamba Juice or eating yogurt parfaits at McDonald's. Or how about all those news exposés about how the new salads at Wendy's are really packing 600 calories.

Now, at least in NYC, we get to stare at how many calories our favorite coffee drink has since the NYC Board of Health required chain restaurants to post calories on their menus. If you feel like treating yourself after dinner you discover that the tiny scoop of ice cream you want to pick is competing with your meal for 'most calories contained'.

I'll be honest, while it's not stopping me from buying treats it is at least changing what I ultimately end up ordering.

However one thing that annoys me, and it's not the loss of my 'ignorance is bliss' routine when it comes to food, are these ridiculous commercials that tell us that now your favorite franchise is offering a new healthy line of food. Yeah, right.

Take, for example, Dunkin' Donuts new campaign for DDSmart. It's food 'reconfigured' to be healthier. Clusters of fresh spinach and bright peppers float through the air in a tantalizing fashion. Am I really supposed to believe that while MTA workers and home health aides line up for their coffees in the morning that the Indian dude who runs the place is in the back chopping up some fresh veggies for our flat-bread sandwich?

I hate these commercials! Do not let them seduce you! You are smarter than that.

Job Announcement

2008-08-19T00:47:00.003-04:00

I have three more working days at MoMA and then I'm done. I'm experiencing a mix of happiness, excitement, nervousness, panic. You know...all the standard Jamie-traits.

MoMA was great because it came right when I needed a confidence booster to show that people do think I'm a qualified worker. It's interview process wasn't pretentious. I was called on a Sunday and offered the job. I got paid money that I desperately needed. I got to see a world-class museum and some of it's inner workings. I made some nice co-worker friends.

MoMA sucked because it is the most insanely busy place I've ever worked at. MoMA sucked because even people who think they are so cultured because they are spending the day at a museum can be the rudest, meanest, most impatient assholes IN THE WORLD. I'll miss the work friends I made. I don't think I'll miss MoMA.

Next Wednesday I will begin life as a teacher's assistant for a nursery school in my neighborhood. Nervous? Me? YES!

I'm going from a job where I get called an ass by a grown man to where I might be wiping asses. (Okay, probably will be wiping asses) I'm going from a job of telling adults who refuse to read signs where the bathrooms are, to taking little humans to the bathroom. I'll be going from Monet and Picasso to fingerpaint and apple juice.

I'll be making more money (not tons but more is nice), actually getting health coverage (union), I'll have weekends off, and I won't have to take the subway as it's a 10 minute walk from my house.

I mean the only downside I think is that the friends I made at MoMA will be really hard to keep. Let's face it, when you can't commiserate about the old lady who insults everyone at the information desk on a daily basis, what is there to talk about. They all gather to drown their MoMA sorrows right after work. What are they going to do? Call the nursery girl and ask how my day at the playground was? I'd like to think it'd work, but who knows? The concern grows as I'm pretty certain that all of my future coworkers aren't spring chickens. There goes my mini social life I was trying to create.

But here is to my new future, working with our future!