Seen and Heard

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Back When I Had Less Stress