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?)
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Thanks Mr. Letterman!
I know we've moved on to what we hope is bigger and better things but isn't it fun to look back?
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Guess Where I Live
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.
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.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
For Our Own Little Place
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!
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!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Let Me Count the Ways
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.
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.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Past Reads 2008
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
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
Monday, December 15, 2008
Applesauce!
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.
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.
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