Notes from Above Ground

2005-05-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

This blog continued long after it became outdated, i.e., my fleeting window of
unemployement finally closed. Still, the blog went on. Unemployment was a lot of fun until the money ran out, and then it was no fun. Work is not fun either, but it allows one to have money for important things such as food, makeup and pink metallic shoes that go with absolutely nothing.

My new blog is www.premaritalblogging.blogspot.com

2005-05-08T14:46:00.000-07:00

franny & seymour

2005-03-09T21:17:00.000-08:00

Gentle Reader,

I would like request the honour of your company at my new blog:

www.premaritalblogging.blogspot.com

Okay, so this morning it occured to me that I'm, like, about to get married. In exactly one month. I haven't said much about the wedding/marriage, etc. so far, because until earlier today it all seemed rather abstract. Like something from a Jane Austen novel or something - "taking a husband. " Don't worry - I still think it's a very good thing. The marriage part, at least. (You know you've had enough of wedding planning when the idea of getting married in Vegas by a female Asian Elvis impersonator on rollerskates starts to make a beautiful amount of sense.)

I'm just breathing into this paper bag for fun. Really.

2005-03-06T11:39:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am still alive. Fortunately neuroses are typically not fatal, or else I might not be.

Not looking forward to going to work tomorrow. My job, which was orignially quite tolerable, albeit not my dream job, has become increasingly non-tolerable.

On Friday, we had one of our annual fundraising galas, this one hosted by the Junior Board of the organization. This group primarily consists of young New York zillionaires who are "socially concious," by which I mean they are very concious of their social lives. There's a breed of young executive/ young heir/ess types who seem to do nothing but go to fundraising events. I guess it makes it easier to justify excess if it's for the sake of the greater good. It's important to have that fifth martini for the sake of the poor little kids in East Harlem, or to cure foot in mouth disease, or for feline literacy, or whatever. Cheers.

On the upside, it does raise a lot of money for good causes, even if the motives of the partygoers might have more to do with social climbing than social responsibility. At the gala, I was eavesdropping on two 20 or 30-something women, who looked like most of the other 20 or 30-something women, in painfully expensive, painfully uninteresting black dresses. both someone asking what is this party for, anyway? To which the person beside her replied, very assuredly, the East Hampton Tutorial Program.

East Harlem ... I interjected. Both of the women seemed disappointed - understandably. It's high time someone had a program for those kids in East Hampton - maybe to tutor them in how to sail a catamaran? Or to help them really understand the difference between a Chateau Lafite and a Mouton Rothschild? Somebody has to do it, and their parents are probably too busy attending charity fundraisers.

2005-02-22T10:17:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a mental health day. I have this unfortunate tendancy to feel horribly guilty about taking a day off work, even if I'm genuinely sick. Last night I started to have that "not so sane feeling," which is hard to explain to your boss, but I think it's a good excuse for a day off. I call it the flu, but I worry that I might actually have Chevy Chase syndrome.

Chevy Chase syndrome is an often-misdiagnosed condition in which one wakes up one morning to discover that he/she no longer has a working sense of humor. It's over, gone, done for (in the medical literature they site "Fletch 2" as an example). Your funny bone done been broken.

I don't know of any studies that confirm it, but I hypothosize that prolonged exposure to government grants can have this effect. Most grants, particularly DYCD OST RFP contract proposals, are written by and for entirely humorless individuals.

Maybe I could write a grant for Federal funding to do the research on this rare, yet tragic condition?

2005-02-16T22:01:00.000-08:00

I've been a bit remiss with writing/reading blogs. See, it's currently 3:22 AM (as in, in the morning/night)and I am STILL AT WORK, where I have been since precicely 8:30 AM, bypassing PM altogether.

We have a huge DYCD proposal due tomorrow. Actually, it's the DYCD OST RFP for EHTP. (No joke.) A city government contract. I've been working 10-12 hours a day for weeks, as have the other two people in the department. Just the guidelines for the proposal were 174 pages (again, no joke). We found out we were doing this on January 19, and we're doing 3 of them. One went out today - it was 3 inches thick.

3:26 am. Can't see straight anymore.

2005-02-02T15:36:00.000-08:00

It occurs to me as I sit here at work at 6:39 PM, after hardly so much as getting up to go to the bathroom all day, that the whole "notes from the underemployed" tagline of this blog is a wee bit out of date.

Sigh.

So, if anyone's still tuning in, it's time for my first-ever Blog-Naming Contest!!! I'm working too much and feeling too braindead right now to try and think up a new name/ schtick, etc. The winner will receive a brand new pair of asparagus tongs (no joke).

The name has to actually be available, but other than that, this contest has no actual guidelines. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited.

2005-01-27T16:39:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to see a great show called Top Ten People of the Millenium Sing Their Favorite Schubert Lieder ( http://www.toptenpeople.com/ ). You should check it out, if you live in the New York area. Or even if not.

It was recently reviewed favorably in the NY Times. As if that couldn't be topped, we at Notes From Above Ground give it "two thumbs up." Not that there are two of us, but fortunately I happen to have two thumbs. Which you can't see right now, but just trust that they're up. Except when I'm typing, but only because I have to use my thumbs to press the space bar.

There just aren't enough shows these days that feature: 1) shirtless men singing in German 2) on-stage wine drinking 3) people obliquely trying to unravel the meaning of existance (a.k.a. trying to get laid) and 4) live goldfish.

Last time I was in a room where all of these elements were so effectively combined, I was in a gay bar in Heidelberg (really).

A notable performance by all the actors, but the one who's been tragically overlooked is the one who played "the goldfish." He (she?) was doing this method-acting thing that was a bit much, but overall, very poignant.

2005-01-27T15:12:00.000-08:00

I haven't been in the mood to write much lately, because I've been suffering from PWS. It's very much like PMS (just turn over the "M"). The symptoms are strikingly similar, only, instead of a few days, it takes place for a few months directly before a wedding.

As I learned the other day, I'm about to crash a Martian space craft. My high-strung, yet very well-intentioned father sent me an email with a full range of bold, italicised, underlined warnings, infused with exclamatory punctuation!!!!

An actual excerpt:

"... always remember the billion dollars that was wasted on the spacecraft to Mars that crashed into the planet instead of going into orbit because somebody didn't check to see exactly what system of measurement was to be used in the programming. As it turned out one group of programmers used English linear calculations to position the spacecraft on the approach to Mars, and another group of programmers used metric calculations to tell it how to go into orbit. Unfortunately, the guidance system only understood the English system, and it took the kilometer instructions it received from the metric programming and translated the Kilometers into the same number of miles. As a result, the spacecraft dug a big hole in Mars instead of going into low orbit."

This was inspired by the fact that, among other things, I have not yet secured a ring bearer pillow. Or a cake cutter. Or an inter-plantetary GPS device, calibrated to the metric system.

2005-01-21T15:58:00.000-08:00

I don't have much time for bloggage today, or should I say this evening? Weeks are going by very quickly. Unfortunately, I've been busy doing actual work at my place of employment. By which I mean I've been planning my wedding.

Before I get into that, let me just say how much I love Canadians. They are so cool. I am officially a Canadophile. Which sounds like I've been touching Canadians inappropriately, even though that is not the case.

However, Canadians clearly don't love Freedom as much as we do. By Freedom of course I mean "Wal-Mart."

"By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well, a fire in the minds of men."

- George W. Bush (as quoted by P, who actually reads the news) in the Inaugural Address to the Residents of Happy Candy World, where he apparently resides.

We have lit a fire, in many cases actual fires. Not only the minds of men, but also in the more combustible homes and oil pipelines and shoe repair shops of men.

It reminds me of the quote, "Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a night. Light him on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life." - (can't remember who.)

"My dream is to someday see something written down, followed by a little dash with my name after it, meaning that I was being quoted." - Marguerite

If not for the cold weather, I would declare asylum in Canada. But unfortunately, I am far too fond of warm weather. Of course, as I say this, it is 9 degrees (yes, that's farenheit) in New York City, which makes that argument kind of irrelevant.

I think the cold weather might make people more sane. As a Southerner, I feel pretty sure this is true. If only the South weren't so crazy, it really has lovely weather.

Speaking of the South and craziness, my own native city, Jacksonville, is getting ready for the Most Important Event in the Entire History of Mankind. Yes, the Superbowl. They've been talking about it for about 10 years now, and it's nigh upon us. At the airport, there's a digital sign counting down the days and hours until this sacred event. Even if Jesus, in all His glory, were to return and take only the people of The Bold New City of the South (that's our motto - not kidding), as most residents of Jacksonville believe will be the case, it could not be more exciting. Unless, of course, He knew how to punt.

2005-01-14T09:20:00.000-08:00

I have a lot to do at work today, so naturally it seems like a good time to make a blog entry.

Tomorrow, I'm moving into my new apartment. This is very exciting, because, for the first time in 10 full years, I will have a working oven! In my most recent apartment, the kitchen sink was directly in front of the oven, hence making it impossible to open the oven door more than 1.5 inches. When I asked the landlord about this, he gave me an utterly perplexed look that seemed to say, what, don't you know how to order take out?

Friends who live in places that are not NYC have gently reminded me that working ovens tend to be standard in most parts of the world, even parts of the world where other luxuries, like toilets, are not necessarily a part of every home. In New York, ovens are more of a quaint novelty, like a bidet or an electric asparagus crisper.

Speaking of unnecessary household items, the fiance and I finally registered for wedding gifts (Crate and Barrel; Bed Bath and Beyond - please feel free to send asparagus tongs). We went to the new Bed Bath and Beyond across the street from Lincoln Center. They give you a little scanning gun, and you zap everything you think you might want.

Think big, said Linda, our "bridal consultant." If you even think you might want it, she said, in a soft hypnotic voice, just go ahead and scan it. She smiles. Now, you'll want to sign up for lots and lots of stuff.

Right off the bat, we were not-so-gently directed to the "keepsakes" section. You'll need to get a ring stand, and toasting goblets and .... I was struck by the irony of using the word "need" in direct proximty to a Waterford toothpick holder, but this was utterly lost on the Team Members at Bed Bath and Beyond. Fortunately, I already have all that crap anyway.

As we left the desk with the gun, Paul and I scoffed. We weren't buying into The Man's ideas about capitalistic excess! We're just going to pick out a few things and go home. Linda seemed to have mistaken us for rabid, greedy consumeristic people who measure their human worth against the combined weight of their household appliances. In other words, she assumed that we were Americans.

Paul, like most guys, took a seek-and-destroy approach to the whole shopping extravaganza, working as if there were a digital clock ticking onscreen, a la "Supermarket Sweep." First off, flatware! Paul picked up the first fork he came to, examined it, and decided that it was definitely a fork. A winner! Zap. We scanned it. Onward, ho!

We looked at some glasses. Those'll do! Paul says. I tried to gently remind him that we should probably think carefully about these things. It's important to get stuff you're still going to like in 10 years, when you're throwing it at each other's heads.

Next came the cappucino makers. Paul's eyes started to glaze over, the as the scent of second-hand capitalism started to make the things around us look a little bit strange .... more - necessary. (Much like the effects of reading bridal magazines. Or smoking crack.)

I've always wanted an cappucino maker, Paul sighed.

Don't go towards the light! Stay with me! I wanted to shout. I happen to know for a fact that nobody, in the entire history of humanity, has ever used a home cappucino maker more than once. After the first use, one finds that in the time it takes to make a cappucino at home and then clean the machine, one could go down to the corner coffee shop, get a cappucino, drink it, go shopping, do their taxes, and come home. AND YET ... I'm pretty sure there is a law in certain states that a couple is not legally married if they do not register for a cappucino maker.

I call them one-hit wonder appliances. Things that, theoretically, seem like a really good idea, but in practice loose their novelty after about one use.

Examples include:

bread maker
juicer
ice cream maker
fondue set
fruit dehydrator
food processor
any exercise-related contraption
Anything endorsed by someone who used to be on "Knot's Landing"

The list goes on ...

Anyway, several hours later, we'd zapped tons of crap. Things we don't need, or want, or even have anywhere to put in our new apartment, which has only 3 closets that the real estate agent aptly described as "decorative."

Like a Waterford toothpick holder. Or an oven in New York.

2005-01-11T14:02:00.000-08:00

What's up with blogger putting in ridiculous advertizing links to random words, like moving and health insurance? That's really annoying.

2005-01-11T13:53:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it's been a while. I think blogging might have exceeded my attention span, which is roughly that of an autistic gerbil. Unfortunately, I haven't really been taking my ADD medicine lately, because my health insurance didn't kick in until January 1, and hence couldn't afford the zillion dollars it would cost to get prescription amphetamines out-of-pocket. So pardon me if I have a short attention sp

and in other news, I've been meaning to start a new blog, since the unemployment shtick is way out of date, and I'd kind of like to have a cool-looking blog. But alas, I haven't gotten around to it. My favorite excuses include: working; looking for apartments; moving; and planning wedding. Not that, realistically, I've spent that much time doing any of the above. But I HAVE spent a whole lot of time worrying about all of the above. And besides ...

... we actually found an apartment! It's on the (in muffled voice) uppereastside ... For those of you who aren't from New York, the Upper East Side of Manhattan is considered a bit snooty and uptight. But this is just an unfortunate misconception that people have, based on the fact that it is true. However, the place is suitably bizarre and magical (read: no closets). It's half a block from the park, on 92nd between Madison and 5th. Being near the park is great for running and walking dogs. Not that I actually run or have a dog, but you get the picture.

On the downside, we'll be surrounded by some "undesirable elements" (billionaires), but I'm working on building my tolerance. The thing is: we got a good deal. By NYC standards, the place isn't that expensive. Part of me is actually wondering if there's a catch - if the place is haunted, or the upstairs neighbors are involved in an all-tuba punk rock band (wait - that'd be cool), or if there's an infestation of radioactive "super rats" that are actually much smarter than humans, and hence can never be caught, so they live in a command station inside our walls where they are sending encrypted messages to Karl Rove, and other creatures from whatever planet is about to take over Earth.

For affordable rent in New York City, people are willing to put up with a lot. After 7 years in New York, I am pretty much un-scareable. Insane crack-addict neighbors/landlords, French transvestite roommates, basement apartments where "drain the sludge" is part of your lease agreement (true story for another time), no heat, no air conditioning, fire, pestilence, floods - at this point, it takes a lot to phase me. More, I like to think, than the Upper East Side can dish out. But that sounds dangerously like a challenge.

2004-12-15T13:16:00.000-08:00

Ooops, I did it again. I lost my comments and counter when I changed my blog template. I thought I re-inserted all the extraneous information such as counters and comment, but apparently I not ... hmmm...

Dag nabbit. I really should learn HTML. It's like Spanish - it would just come in so handy.

I haven't felt to inspired to blog lately because most of my farting-around-on-the-Internet time has been devoted to looking for an apartment. As Paul recently pointed out, looking for an apartment is strangely life-affirming. This is true. Of course, people have said the same thing about surviving plane crashes in the Andes where they have nothing to eat but their own eyeballs, but nonetheless ...

Like so many things in life, apartment hunting in Manhattan is about the triumph of hope over experience ... the idea that somewhere out there is a no-fee floor-through brownstone with a working fireplace and a terrace and hardwood floors and gargoyles (NF FRX WFP HWF with GYLES!!!!).

Looking for an apartment is kind of like dating. Now that I won't be doing much more of that, I suppose I get to funnel my sense of hope into real estate. They say that married people eventually reach the point where real estate actally starts to replace sex. My fantasy life, at the moment, still centers around sex ... on the floor ... on the refinished, yet original oak beam floor of a 1000 square foot apartment (in New York, folks, 1000 square feet is in the realm of pure fantasy) ... doing it in front of the working fireplace, or maybe in public .... say, on the terrace? Or, better yet, doing it in the kitchen? Oh, yes. That's it. The kitchen.

Kitchens trigger automatic orgasms in the minds of most New Yorkers. Not even doing anything erotic in the kitchen. Just the idea of an apartment where a kitchen exists is enough to get most of us off.

I'm yet to have a kitchen in New York. And of all the apartments I've looked at in this round of apartment-hunting, I'm yet to even see an actual kitchen.

Ads reading "HUMONGOUS RE-FURBISHED KITCHEN!" = toaster oven in the living room closet, next to a brand new paper towel holder.

Last night, just for the heck of it, I went to see a place on 68th and CPW. It was about 350 square feet, or, what I think the broker are calling "Hobbit Fabulous!!!!!" Brokers seem to love exclaimation points!!! The place did have a "HUGE outdoor space!!!!" (small terrace) and a "full bath!!!" But the "bathtub," like everything else in the place, was for some very short person (possibly a recent immigrant from Middle Earth?), as it was only about 3 ft. x 3 ft. Like a bird bath, only for people. And it was on the fourth floor of a walk-up building. Of course, all this was not surprising as it was only $2025 a month. In Manhattan, by the park, this is waaaaaaay cheap, folks.

Apparently, the brokers and apartment owners of New York didn't get the memo about the recession, and the fact that people aren't still flocking to Manhattan like it's 1999. Last night, I saw another place that was 700 sq. ft. (if you live in NYC, you think this is huge - otherwise you think we're crazy), and only $2250, but it didn't have any character. Another place was the same price, and full of character (working fireplace!!!) but only 550 square feet - including the "massive closets!" It featured a loft bed, in which full-grown adults sleep on what amounts to a bunk bed, without the lower bunk.

I want something magical. Something weird and gothic (in the old New York sense, not the Sisters of Mercy sense), yet functional. And not too expensive (which is still ridiculosuly expensive except in the hermetic logic of New York, but nevermind). And I want a turret. Hmmm.

2004-12-13T14:56:00.000-08:00

To all ya'll who read this blog (yes, both of you), sorry I've been a bit remiss lately. I've been looking for an apartment.

Yep, it's that time of year again.

Actually, I've been at my current apartment for longer than average. Longer, in fact, than I've lived anywhere since I graduated from college - nearly 16 months.

The shortest time I ever lived in a place (not couch surfing, but actually lived) was 2 months. It was the apartment in Hell's Kitchen - West 40s in Manhattan, for all y'all who don't live here. Ironically enough, it caught on fire. I had to leave the previous place, a basement apartment in Brooklyn, when two feet of water flooded in. And my first NYC apartment I left, in part, because of the rats. We're not talking cute little mice, folks. I mean RATS. Put a little sweater on these fcukers and Paris Hilton would be carrying it around in her purse.

So far: fire, flooding, pestilence ...

All very biblical. I'm still waiting to be driven out of an apartment by a plague of frogs. Or boils.

Speaking of Paris Hilton, let's congratulate Paris on becoming one of "the Most Fascinating People of 2004." I think Paris was even #2 on the list, right behind library paste.

But I digress.

2004-12-01T09:48:00.000-08:00

Christmastime in New York is magical.

The lights, the festive decorations, the police in full riot gear ...

Last night, I was thrust into an open-air mosh pit. I mean, the crowd of nice people making their way toward Rockefeller Plaza (or is it "Freedom Plaza"? ) for the annual "lighting of the Christmas tree."

See, I had to drop off a grant proposal at a foundation that happens to be located in a building adjacent to the Tree. The propsal was due yesterday and I always wait until the last minute to finish these things, due to an innate inability to learn from past experience.

The plaza was filled with about 3 million crazed individuals who, apparently, had never seen electricity before. Or possibly trees?

Due to the crowds, it took about half an hour to progress one block, and then there were police barricades around the building. But finally, I slipped past one of the barricades (read: shamelessly begged a cop until he let me past) and got into the building.

The annual lighting of the Christmas Tree is one of the great mysteries of New York. Why do several hundred thousand people feel the need to fight (often literally) several hundred thousand other people to see a tree that will be there for a friggin month?

It's not like it's a one-shot deal. It's not like they're actually lighting the tree on fire to watch it burn to the ground as naked nymphs dance around the flames and then roll around in the ashes. Although, if they have a "suggestion box" ...

They flip a switch. Some lights come on. Little lights!!! On a tree!!! Can you b'lieve that, Maw?

Don't try this at home, folks.

2004-11-29T10:10:00.000-08:00

Ahhhhhhhh. I'm still basking in the brief window of sanity that lingers in the first 48-or-so hours of coming back to the City after a vacation.

I spent all weekend in New Hampshire, on the set of a cooking show from the Food network. Well, except for the cameras and being on T.V. and stuff. Morgan's mom, Abby, is an amazing cook. And she has one of those big kitchens where you can sit and watch how everything's being assembled, and she patiently provides step-by-step instrutions for us New York types who think that "serious cooking" involves adding the dressing to the pre-made salad from Zabar's. It was quite a learning experience for those of us who have an oven that is blocked by our sink (true story, kids - the genius who installed my "kitchen" put the sink directly in front of the oven door, so it can never, ever open. Not that it would work if it did).

All weekend, we pretty much did nothing. It was great. In our hectic society, doing nothing is really a lost art. But I'm a natural. Like, a Zen master of laziness.

Meanwhile, the invitations for the wedding arrived from Bombay. My parents' friends Vasant and Carol were nice enough to schelp them all the way from India. Carol and Vasant's daughter got married last year, and I loved her invitations, and so she kindly offered to get her printer in India to make them. Vasant, who's an architecht, designed the invitation. It was so nice of them to do this.

I'm only slightly starting to freak out about the whole wedding thing. Everything seems to be going according to plan. Even the cliche stress dreams - right on schedule!

I'm yet to have the one where you go down the aisle naked, but the other night I did dream that it was five minutes before the wedding, and I was wearing a particularly hideous pair of plaid wool slacks, and a dirty sweatshirt. I'd forgotten my dress. And apparently I'd also forgotten how to use deodorant, or even comb my hair. I was desperately trying to borrow a white t-shirt (to be more bride-like) from my friend April.

So it begins ...

2004-11-23T13:02:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I haven't posted in about a million years. Or a week and a half, depending on how you look at it.

I've been super busy this week at work, which explains my absence from the Wonderful World of Blogs (WWB). This is pretty much the busy season in nonprofit fundraising. I was at work until 10 several nights last week, writing letters that recall the teary tone of a Sally Struthers commercial. The goal is to capitalize on the guilt of extremely wealthy liberals, god love 'em.

Give because the children of East Harlem need you. And because you'll feel way less guilty about the bundles of dough you made when your Halliburton stock went through the friggin' roof after the election.

Sigh.

I'm very much looking forward to going to New Hampshire for Thanksgiving. We're going with Morgan and Sherri to visit Morgan's folks who apparently live in a big Norman Rockwell-esque farm house, where they cook lots of amazingly delicious food and copious adult beverages.
The way Paul describes it, if he is very, very good in this lifetime, he'll end up there for all eternity.

I can't wait to get out of the City. It's really not inteneded for long-term exposure.

2004-11-12T13:06:00.000-08:00

Oh - the "comments" function is finally fixed! All previous comments were wiped out as a result, tho.

Comment! I live for my comments. How sad is that?

Not nearly as sad as someone going to Tower Records every day for the past week to see if they finally have Season 7 of "Buffy" on DVD. Not that I would ever do anything like that ...

2004-11-12T09:34:00.000-08:00

I think I need some crazy pills. Or maybe it's just that I've been in New York for over one month, consecutively, without even a day-trip out of town. Any time that happens, I start to go a bit nutters. They should put some giant disclaimer on this city - Not Intended for Prolonged Use.

In a previous blog entry, I pledged to stop whining for once and for all. Which kind of defeats the purpose of a blog, but nevermind.

This morning, I missed my bus, the M106, by about 30 seconds, and had what is known, in psychiatric parlance, as a "conniption fit."

I missed the bus because I rather stupidly chose to stop into my favorite Greek diner on 96th Street and get a coffee and muffin. Just as I was coming out of the diner the bus was pulling away. It only comes once every half hour. It was raining - cold rain. I ran after the bus all the way from Broadway to the park - running in the rain, no umbrella. Like the dorky-but-loveable teenage male hero of a John Hughes movie.

I had almost caught up to the bus when the paper bag from the diner, soaking wet at this point, finally dissolved. The coffee and muffin hit the ground rolling, like convicts jumping off a train. (Pardon the profusion of similies this morning ...) I actually screamed. Louder than I intended. A rather blood-curtling scream. Fortunately, being in NYC, a blood-curtling scream will hardly ruffle one's fellow passer-bys.

Anyway, the whole thing caused me to become rather dis-proportionately upset. This is not only because the bus only comes once every half hour. But because missing the bus felt like a metaphor. And because it was cold and raining. And because of my suicidal muffin. And because I ruined my Shearling jacket which got drenched in the rain. And I lost my scarf.

But mostly because of the metaphor.

And this has been yet another episode of, Marguerite's Problems Aren't That Big! Tune in next time, when I break a fingernail, and get home too late to watch America's Next Top Model.

2004-11-08T19:18:00.000-08:00

This past week, I haven't had much chance to "blog" (don't you love how a neologism can morph into a transitive verb?), because I'm busy filling out my immigration papers to become a citizen of Greenland. It's -40 degrees most of the time and night for half the year, and I don't even like seal blubber, although I hear it tastes like chicken when it's deep fried.

Here in New York, everyone's been all doom and gloom about the recent election. It's getting annoying, folks. I mean, come on - it's not that bad.

I got to thinking about it, and I came up with 9.5 reasons to be glad Bush won:

9. Ken Lay, former CEO of Enron, will finally get what he deserves – a harsh $50 fine.

8. Dick Cheney will go back to his underground bunker, where he will plot the destruction of evildoers such as Kim Jong-Il, Public Television, and Green Lantern.

7. High schools that lack funding for biology classes will find it much cheaper to offer A.P. Creationisim.

6. The official spelling of “nuclear” is now “nuculur.”

5. Those howling wolves from the Bush campaign commercials will not eat your babies.

5.5. John Kerry would have eaten your babies himself.

4. We will boldly address the growing threat of nuculur proliferation in North Korea ... by invading the Bahamas.

3. The President may have lied about the reasons for invading Iraq, and the deficit might be skyrocketing, and the economy might be going down the tubes, and the administration might have failed to catch the single greatest enemy our country has ever had. But at least Bush never did anything really bad, like, getting a blow job.

2. Who doesn’t love those Bush twins?

1. The FOX Network is developing a new sitcom about the wacky antics in the Vice Presidential Bunker, tentatively called “Everybody Loves Dick.” Mary Cheney and her partner won’t be mentioned on the show.

2004-11-02T13:36:00.000-08:00

To the thousands of people who read this blog - why are you reading this blog? Why are you not, instead, waiting on a long, former-Soviet style line to go vote?

"Oh, well, I live in New York, so it doesn't matter anyway ... "

Shut up. Go vote. Yes, you. Now. Away from the computer. It's not too late. Harness the power of the "Internets" (it's not just for blogging any more...) to find your polling place.

I have a cautionary tale to share with you. This time four years ago, I did not get around to voting. Every day of the past four years, I've had to live with the fact that I did not vote (and in Florida, no less). Don't let this happen to you. Yes, I know you want to watch "Oprah" after work. And it's a re-run of Seinfeld that you've only seen 3 times!

I'll tape it for you. Go vote.

Believe.

2004-10-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

Sex. Pregnancy. Chicken.

I once heard that these are the three most common searches at iVillage. If I were the kind of person who cared about the fact that only about 5 people a day read my blog, I would use tactics like strategically working these words into a post to try to get unsuspecting chicken-fetishists to stumble across my blog.

But that would be, like, totally pathetic. So I would never do that.

2004-10-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

I've decided to take part in Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) this year. You're supposed to write a novel (55,000 words) from scratch in exactly 30 days. It's all about quantity over quality (isn't that our national motto?). Of course, I don't think you could write a passable novel in a month, but you could probably hammer out a first draft? Or maybe, if you set your sights low enough (our other national motto), it could even be worth publishing.

From what I hear, it's best if you approach these things with as many limitations as possible. Ah, the harsh luxury of limitations. So the novel should be, specifically, a science fiction novel, or "historical romance", or maybe both. Or a book about a cat that solves mysteries. If Sneaky Pie Brown - who is, in fact, a cat - can co-author novels, I figure I can do it, too.

Maybe a novel about a sneaky Yorkshire terrier who solves mysteries about aliens that go back in time to the 18th century and rip the bodices of Scottish wenches? I'm very open to suggestions.

Anyone?

2004-10-25T08:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, if anyone's still reading this, here's a promise: no more whining. No more feeling sorry for myself. Not in this blog, or anywhere else.

I had a revelation this weekend -whining is just not a good look for me any more. For that matter, it doesn't look good on anyone. Kind of like parachute pants, or a Bush/Cheney t-shirt.

I think this blog is reaching completion. After all, I'm not underemployed any more. In fact, the arguement could be made that I'm overly employed. I'm ready to stop bitching about my life and start doing stuff.

Last night, I went to Barnes & Noble and got another self-help book, but at least it didn't cost anything because I traded in the "Anxiety for Dummies" that Paul gave me for my birthday as a "gag gift." I'm not sure there's any such thing as a "gag gift." It's what everyone claims to be looking for when they go to an "adult novelty store." No, no, no, it's not for me. See, it's a gag gift.

Wouldn't it be funny if someone bought an actual gag, and gave it as a gift? But, as a joke?joking? A meta-gag gift, as it were.

2004-10-22T14:09:00.000-07:00

I think there should be a warning label on blogs, saying not to operate them while under the influence of PMS.

I'm back to thinking I'm a complete failure in life again (except for the fact that I have a wonderful fiance who inexplicably takes such statements personally). I actually like what I do for a living (at least, I don't mind it) and I'm reasonably good at it (writing grants= not that hard) and I'm proud of the organization I work for (an educational program in East Harlem). But at the end of the day, or even at the beginning, for that matter, I'm not an educator, and I'm not even a save-the-world nonprofity type. Hell, I don't even own a pair of clogs. Owning clogs seems to be a prerequisite for wanting to save the world.

I generally feel like a complete imposter. I wish my brain worked properly. I'm surrounded by people who are so much more successful than I am in their chosen professions. And now I'm sniveling. And I hate sniveling. At some point you have to face up to the fact that -

I'm just going to shut up.

Of course, these feelings of massive self-disgust tend to come every 28 days. Hmmmm. Deep down, I think we all suspect that conciousness is largely chemical, which is simeltaneously comforting and horrifying beyond all words.

On an unrelated note -

Mrs. Farnsworth. Last weekend, Paul and I went to see this play at the Flea Theater, starring Sigourney Weaver. Absolutely brilliant. I laughed, I cried. It was much better than "Cats". I will see it again and again.

Also, I went to see the movie "Eulogy" last weekend. I laughed, I cried. It was much better than "Cats". I will see it again and again.

This concludes the "Manic Depressive Theater & Movie Review Corner." Tune in next time, when I whine about my absurdly minor problems, followed by a review of "Seed of Chucky."

I, for one, can't wait!

2004-10-21T15:32:00.000-07:00

This is the kind of day when I should probably NOT write a post. Am in an unbelievably foul mood. Believe it or not, this has nothing to do with our recently-started Apartment Search. That's another story, altogether.

No, my bad mood is mostly "cyclical". Fortunately for you, it goes against my WASP upbringing to go into any more detail than that. Perhaps it's not hormonal? Maybe it's just a remarkable coincidence that I'm pretty sure my life has no meaning and everybody hates me and eating an entire block of raw Valrhona chocolate sounds like a smashing idea?

My restaurant fast is still going pretty well. I finally bought plastic baggies to put sandwiches in. I haven't bought plastic baggies since ... ever. It's one of those things I'm chronically too cheap to purchase. It's not even that expensive. I really can't explain why it seems better to wrap sandwiches in an old Duane Reade bag than spend 2 bucks on plastic baggies. The irony is that this expenditure bothers me, but spending $100 on a plastic see-through skirt I'll probably never wear - now, that's pure fiscal responsibility, in my book.

2004-10-20T14:02:00.000-07:00

There seem to be some technical difficulties occuring with the "comments" section. Comments on one posting are showing up on all of them. Anyone know how to fix this?

In other news, I copped out of the daily blog yesterday. If I do two today, would that count? Again, I'm not even sure why I decided to try to make a blog entry every day. It's not like the world is waiting on tinterhooks, the way I wait for Dan Savage's column every week.

Although I did not write in my blog, I DID manage to break my "taxi fast." No, I don't mean Tarzan's observation about the velocity of cabs, but my vow to not take a taxi for a week. Today alone, I took three. Sigh. All of the drivers were francophone, from Guinea, Morocco and Senegal. I learned about the unfortunate dicator in Guinea, and the archaeological origins of Fez, and how they're crazy about le foot (a.k.a. soccer) in Dakar.

And I saw an expensive apartment for rent on the Upper West Side, near Central Park.

At least I'm doing pretty well with my "restaurant fast." And I don't mean that I'm only eating at McDonald's. (If you haven't seen "Supersize Me," by the way, check it out. About the guy who only at McDonald's for a month. Believe it or not, he gained wait and developped alarming disease-like conditions. And here I thought eating fast food 3 meals a day was a great idea?) But I've decided not to eat at restaurants, except on social occasions, for a month.

If you live in New York, some ridiculous amount of your money goes to eating out. Of course, we do have the best quality for the price in the U.S. as far as restaurants are concerned. And mostly you can get extremely healthy foods, and a ridiculously wide variety of them. But still, it adds up. So I'm trying to see how much I can save by cooking at home.

Of course, the cooking at home thing is slightly hindered by the fact that my kitchen and bathroom are more or less the same thing (and I don't live in a low-rent district, kids). And don't even get me started on the mice and the ... nevermind. When I finally leave this apartment, I'll be much more inclined to seeing the humor in roaches and poor plumbing. I'll look back on the New York apartment and tell stories at comfortable dinner parties in suburbs, saying, Yes, I would like more wine. What a lovely vintage! And did I tell you, Appleton (believe it or not, I am related to people with names like "Appleton" who live in Southern suburbs, in houses with wide porches and large dogs with pink collars with little green whales on them), about how the mice once pushed a loaf of bread off the top of the refridgerator in the middle of the night, and when I woke up, all that was left was the empty bread bag on the floor ...

I do declare!

But I'm not at that point, just yet.

2004-10-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

I'm having one of those days when I can't quite remember the point of blogging, but nonetheless I'll keep my determination to do it every day (every weekday, that is). There are very few things I manage to do every day, except:

a) worry needlessly about things like flaming meteors crashing into the earth the day after I finally find a rent stabilized apartment in NYC, hence skewing property values to hell & back
b) stare into space for about 5 straight hours, sometimes while operating heavy machinery
c) make an elaborate list of all the people I need to call or email
d) fail to call or email any people on above list
e) worry about ending up alone and friendless as a result of c) and d),
f) wonder, where did I go wrong in this life?
g) realize that f) is pointless and not mentally healthy. Better to focus on blaming others for my actions.

Harumph.

In other news, I decided to re-join Equinox, as I live near the "flagship" at Columbus Circle. Equinox is a ridiculously expensive, delightfully luxurious gym that is not really in my nonprofit-salary budget, but oh well. I'll just have to eat cat food when I retire. They have steam rooms and saunas, and - here's the clincher - they give you disposable razors. And fluffy warm towels. They do everything except work out for you. When I was a member at the one on 76th Street, I went all the time and was very healthy, because I felt the need to go very regularly to get my money's worth.

Lately, I'm finding that my parents'/grandparents' need to "get your money's worth" is finally creeping out. Maybe it's from all those Scots in the family tree?

My dad has made a whole religion out of getting his money's worth. I remember one of the summers when I was travelling through Europe with my parents with the "unlimited" Eurail pass. At one point, we'd gone several days without using the trains, because we were staying in Paris for a while. But Dad could think of nothing but the Eurail pass, which, in his elaborate mental calculations, got something like 47 cents cheaper for every mile we rode the train. It bothered my dad to the point that, one day, he went by himself and took a random train to some industrial wasteland in the middle of France (or possibly Germany) - one of those towns where they make pickles (or possibly stoves, or turbine engines), and where everyone is very decidedly un-quaint, and xenophobic, especially to tall, legally-deaf Americans with large cameras, who do not speak their language.

At the end of a fairly miserable day, Dad got back on the train and came back to Paris. "At least I got my money's worth!" he said, brandishing Eurail pass with its brand new stamp.

2004-10-15T07:45:00.000-07:00

Darn! I changed the template on my blog, and lost my "comments" function, as well as all my links to other people's blogs. AND I lost my counter. I love looking at the blog counter, not because hundreds of people (or even tens of people) read this, but for some bizarre reason it's one of my workday diversions. And I'm okay with admitting that. As I've said before, I've devoted this past year to embracing my inner dork. I've been attempting to keep my dorkitude in the closet, although I've been about as successful as David Gest on the whole closet matter.

That's the question they should have asked at the debates the other night. "Do you think people are born dorks, or do they turn that way because they attend Stanton College Preparatory School, or because they have access to the SciFi channel, and hence watch too many reruns of Star Trek - The Next Enterprizing Voyager to Deep Space 9? (God, I'm a dork. But I'm not ashamed.) But should dorks marry?

The Dork issue would have been a less ridiculous debate question than the whole "do you think people are born gay, or do they just "turn into" lesbians because they attend one of the Seven Sisters? Or do they "turn gay" because they watch TeleTubbies? Especially that purple one, which is clearly a gay icon, even if gay people do not realize it?

Oy gay.

Anyway, belated birthday wishes to Sheri, whose birthday was yesterday. People with October birthdays are very cool. Sheri and her husband, Morgan, both conveniently have birthdays in the first half of October, and celebrated last weekend with a big blow-out in their backyard. Yep - I said back yard. All of you reading this from New York will gasp, amazed that anyone in NYC (even in Brooklyn) could possibly have such a rare commodity. If you're anywhere else in the U.S. (or anywhere else) you'll probably be confused as to why this is so darn impressive. So you'll just have to trust me. It is.

2004-10-14T08:56:00.000-07:00

I woke up late this morning and callled the office to say I'd be in late. I didn't tell them the reason I was late. This is because "Tony Danza" is generally not a good excuse. See, I somehow got sucked into morning talk shows this morning. Because I couldn't seem to wake up, I got idea to try and annoy myself out of bed. I turned on Regis and What's-her-name, hoping that would do the trick. It only partially worked - I didn't wake up, but I did have very annoying dreams.

Then, the new Tony Danza show came on. I had no idea. What's the deal with Tony Danza? Why won't he ever go away? He's like those birthday candles that you blow out and blow out and blow out, but they just keep lighting up. Someone should get a glass of water and put Tony Danza in it. And has anyone noticed that the guy doesn't seem to age? I'm thinking, somewhere, there's an oil painting of Tony that shows a man who's old and bald and has extremely bad dental work, possibly wearing a "Members Only" jacket. The moral of the story: God loves Tony Danza. Or is it Satan? Other-worldly intervention is the only explanation I can think of. For the past 30 years, he's pretty much played exactly the same character, on sitcoms, B-movies, as a talk show host. It's kind of remarkable.

I somehow got sucked into watching the debates last night. It's like watching a WWF match. The whole thing strikes me as massively contrived. However, at the same time I was filling out my Florida Absentee Voter ballot, which was extremely exciting. (I do maintain a legitimate second residence in my home state of Florida, Katherine Harris, in case you're listening in.) I'm very excited, because as of today, I can finally put an end to four years of feeling guilty for not having voted in the last election (don't let this happen to you!). Of course, if I had voted, I would have probably voted for Nader, as did most of my hippie-intellectual friends in Florida. So we can all thank people like my very dear friend April, who is otherwise the world's hippest C.P.A. I still think a third party is a good idea, but I've learned that it's sometimes important to settle.

You know what I think would be great? If the candidates had to do the debates while wearing costumes. Like, dressed as a pirate. With an eye patch and one of those fake parrots on their shoulder. And he has to do the whole thing in character. So when his opponent says something he disagrees with, he has to say, "Yaaarr!" Or maybe Bush could dress up as a stem cell? It would make the debates much more interesting.

Or maybe they should just fight? The winner gets on of those giant belts, and wins the election. That'd be rad.

2004-10-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

As the weather cools off, we're quickly entering the part of year when my apartment isn't fit for human habitation. I mean, the other part of the year when my apartment isn't fit for human habitation. During the summer, it's about 900 degrees chez moi, becuase I don't have air conditioning. This is not because I don't want to buy an air conditioner, but because the electricity in my building implodes if I'm using my toaster and someone else in the building happens to be watching T.V. On several occasions, my electricity went out for precisely this reason. My landlord rolled his eyes at my dangerous conduct, as if he'd found me grilling a steer over an open hibachi grill in the middle of the living room.

During the winter, my place gets terribly cold, but my landlord thinks its wasteful to turn the heat on for more than 45 minutes a day. I know, I know - call "311" (for you non-New Yorkers: this is essentially a chat line where you can call to talk to lonley, but no doubt very sexy NY City government employees, who will direct your call to at least 5 different people before you finally get cut off). To their credit, City inspectors have actually come out to my building, and were suitably alarmed by the multiple fire hazards and the general lack of structural integrity, and the unattractive shade of blue paint in the lobby (technically that part's not illegal, but it should be). The Dept. of Buildings even sent me a copy of several elaborate, albeit grammatically challenged, reports they made on the subject. Meanwhile, not much has changed.

Between the heat of the summer and wearing hats indoors during the winter, there's this nice window of time when it's really very temperate and mild. It usually lasts for at least 6 hours. At the moment, my bedroom is horribly cold, because it's lacking one of its windows. It fell out (heck, as windows are want to do!) during a windstorm in the spring. My landlord proceeded to accuse me of causing the window to become suicidal, blaming me for the fact that it became dislodged. I've been avoiding calling my landlord, Frank, to insist that he put in a new window, because dealings with him tend to be most unpleasant.

"This is getting really old," Frank said last year when I complained for the umpteenth time about the lack of heat. He gave me that look someone must give Mariah Carey on a near-daily basis, when she insists on having a flock of chocolate butterflies to follow her around, dangling from invisible strings. Let's face it - I'm total diva. Would you believe I also insist on having hot water at least every other day?

2004-10-12T13:47:00.000-07:00

I have about a million things to do right now, so it naturally it struck me as a perfect time to make a blog entry. I've decided to make a blog entry every day for the next week, just to prove that I can do something every day without not-doing it. It was a choice between updating the blog or going to the gym, and because I cannot go to the gym from my desk at work, blogging wins.

It's getting terribly cold. Today was the un-official (or possibly official?) beginning of Coat Season here in New York City, where we spend well over half the year looking like extremely drab marshmellows. Last year, I finally gave in and bought a giant down coat. I loathe to pull it out of the closet. This thing is about as flattering as ... a giant down coat.

The worst thing about winter, though, is all the accoutrements. Hats, scarves, vests, ear muffs, extra sweaters, and - worst of all - gloves. Things like gloves are particularly dangerous for those of us with forgetful tendancies that are sometimes pathologized with clever acronyms like "ADD"(or just "NUTS"). Each and every year, I go through at least 25 pairs of gloves. It's not a random number. I buy about 10 of those cheap-ass stretchy gloves in October, and they're always gone by new year. I usually get them in a variety of colors, and by Thanksgiving I have about 7 gloves left. All different colors. People think I'm making a Punky Brewster-esqe fashion statement, when in fact I just can't keep up with winter accessories. Perhaps its a passive-agressive act against winter? If I could magically retrieve even half of the gloves/scarves/hats, etc. I've left in taxis/restaurants/petting zoos, etc. I could open a friggin glove shop.

It's a beautiful day, though. The leaves are starting to turn in Central Park. On the bus this morning, I started humming the old Frank Sinatra standard, "Do you recall/ Central Park in Fall?" The guy behind me hummed the next few lines. Sometimes you think you're humming to yourself, but really, you're not.

2004-10-11T07:44:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid of my cell phone.

Really. Terrified. Whenever I don't check my voice mail for a few days, I develop this weird paranoia that I've missed terribly important message, and someone will be mad at me for not returning their call in a timely fashion. Hence, I wait even longer to check my voice mail, letting the messages mount & become even more frightening.

However, this is rather absurd on a number of levels. First, I rarely receive terribly important messages, by which I mean I rarely recieve messages, possibly because I've alienated so many people by not calling them back. Second, it is rather insane to be afraid of small appliances. Maybe this fear comes from watching interviews with Jack Welsh, former C.E.O. of GE (see below). Thirdly, there is no need for a third reason why this is insane. Fourthly, it's bad form to say "thirdly" and "fourthly," but that is beside the point.

I was going to write about other stuff this morning, but I'm suddenly feeling the need to do some actual work, to make sure I don't get fired. I've decided to make more frequent blog entries now that I'm back to being the only person in NYC who doesn't have a shrink. As my insurance through the new job hasn't kicked in yet, I can't quite afford $120 an hour to discuss my tumultuous relationship with my cell phone.

2004-10-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning. Watching Jack Welsh, former C.E.O. of G.E. and all around loveable guy, talk with Maria Bartolomo on NBC, about the virtues of George W. Bush. This has really changed my opinion on the whole election. Jack Welsh definitely wants what's best for you. Let's face it - old, white male billionaires always want what's best for you. If you're one of those crazy "conspiracy theory" people, you might say that Jack Welsh has an agenda to get George Bush re-elected, just because he said he has an agenda to get George Bush re-elected. Or you might point out that G.E. owns NBC, and Welsh still has controlling interests in G.E., and so he indirectly signs the paychecks of the NBC talk show people, so maybe Maria (smart woman that she is) won't object very vigorously to his opinions. But if you think that, you're obviously one of those conspiracy-theory wackos, so f- you.

2004-10-08T13:23:00.000-07:00

Do you ever have those days where you just get absolutely nothing done at work? I'm having one now. I say this as if it were an uncommon thing, but unfortunately it's not.

Sing, o muse, of troubling statistics and demonstrable needs!

And yet, the Muses of grant writing are not singing. Perhaps they are attending a Muse conference? People in the nonprofit world attend a lot of conferences. Most of these have no defined purpose, other than free donuts. Which is something.

I'm not even hung over, which is a welcome change from this time last year. My last birthday ended with me sitting on a stoop somewhere in NoHo at 2 a.m., drinking Moet straight out of the bottle with these two guys named Shiva and Kumar. We were like extremely high-end bums.

Last night, I learned that you don't have to drink champagne on a stoop with strangers to have a good time. Thanks to everyone who came out! I was genuinely thrilled to see you all, and very touched that you would schlep all the way to the UWS. It's amazing I have any friends at all, because I'm so bad about calling/emailing, etc. And I don't even know how to send a text message, which is what all the kids these days are into. You know you're old when you just don't see the point of text messaging.

My resolution for the new year is to be a better corresponder. It's not that I don't want to call people. I spend half my life thinking about calling people, and then I fret because I don't and worry that they're mad at me for not calling/writing them back, so I put it off even longer, and alienating people more & more, and it becomes this ridiculous feedback loop.

Fictional pretnetious band name for the day: This Ridiculous Feedback Loop.

If you're reading this and you didn't get an invitation to birthday festivities, don't be offended. I'ts probably because Paul doesn't have your 411, and he was planning the whole quasi-"surpise." It might have been more of a surprise if he hadn't asked for Amy's number, "to plan a surprise party for you." Paul is not subtle, which can be a good thing. I think if he were ever having an affair and trying to hide it, he would say, I'm going out tonight, and I would say where, but, see, I'm trying to hide the fact that I'm having an affair. Subtlety is overrated in a mate. Paul also got me a very pretty ring that I'd seen in a jewelry store a few weeks ago. When I tried it on, he said, I'll get it for you for your birthday. That way, it'll be a surprise.

2004-10-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday. I've spent most of the day at work writing a very heartfelt ode to our new heating and air conditioning system, for the benefit of the foundation that donated the money for it. An actual excerpt:

"Imagine for a moment, if you will, how difficult it might be for a teenager – already tired from a long day at school – to attempt to study in a room that is hot, stuffy, and poorly ventilated..."

It goes on, but I won't. I've been experimenting with maudlin grant writing. That and not using any puctuation. It helps pass the time.

I can't believe I'm 29! Wow. And to think, in only one more year I'll be 28.

2004-10-06T07:55:00.000-07:00

We got back from California late Monday night. Whenever I leave the city, I tend to get this strange, unfamiliar feeling. I think it's what they call "sanity." However, the deathcab ride on the way home from JFK cured me of this affliction. We were going about 95 mph down the BQE. I had visions of the car becoming airborne, Dukes of Hazard style. I I love it when taxi drivers turn around to chat with you while driving 95 miles per hour. In recent years, I've gotten over my fear of flying. But the fear of New York airport taxis is much harder to shake.

Northern California = very cool. Both literally and figuratively (it was actually chillier than New York). I met some of Paul's extended family - all very nice folks. And I got to meet several of Paul's friends from college, such as Ann and Dave. They were super nice - I had a lot of fun hanging out. I won't hold it against Ann that her kitchen is significantly larger than my whole apartment, because she introduced me to my new favorite drink - pink lemonade and Sky Melon. Mmmmmm.

Northern California is so darn cinematic. You imagine slow mystery-jazz is always playing in the background. Even when punk rock music is actually playing in the background.

The redwoods are amazing. I "heart" the redwoods. And the picturesque cliffs with the mist and ocean and all that car-commercial scenery. That part of the world is just so different from my flat, wet, swampy, heat-addled homeland. Not really better or worse, just different.

The town of Arcata has some ordinance against corporate-owned businesses. This is SO cool. It's got to be the only college town in America without a Starbucks or Appleby's. Go Arcata.

2004-09-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

It's occured to me that the URL of this blog - "Notes from the Underemployed," is no longer accurate, now that I'm back to working full-time. As a matter of fact, that's what I'm doing right now. It's also come to my attention that being a professional grant writer is taking a seriously unfortunate toll on my ability to string words together without inserting a footnote. I'm starting to put all my emails in proper MLA style.

Furthermore, longitudinal studies have demonstrated a significant need for an increase in the amount of time spent outside the boundaries of the "professional employment environment," or PEE (Kennedy, 2004). For this reason, I will be traveling outside the PEE from 10/1 to 10/4, to participate in recreational and cultural activities which will enhance my food and beverage consumtion skills, in addition to promoting a sense of social unity within the extended family unit.

Yep, I'm going to the west coast for a wedding. Paul's step-cousin is getting married in Northern California. We're flying into San Francisco and then drivign up to Arcata. It's a nice drive, because you get to see all the redwoods, and the David Lynch-type diners with midgets who talk backwards and such. I think very clearly while in cars and planes, so I'm looking forwad. Something about velocity that helps one focus. The best are trains - in Europe, I used to sometimes just go on a train ride somewhere a few hours away, and then come back.

My birthday is in a week. I can't believe I'll be 29! Again. It gets easier every time.

2004-09-15T13:47:00.000-07:00

A bit of a plug ...

Tonight, one of my favorite bands, "Live Girls!!!" is playing at Rothko tonight. Live Girls!!! is an all-girl band, except that half of them are guys, one of whom I'm engaged to.

For those of you who are in New York, or close enough to catch a flight, you should come out! It's at 116 Suffolk (near Rivington) on the Lower East Side. www.rothkonyc.com

If you really want to fit in on the L.E.S., you might want to:

a) spend at least $500 on a t-shirt that looks like you stole it from a crack whore in 1983;
b) spend at least two hours in a salon to get that "mid-80s crack addict" glow;
c) remember that heavy eye liner is out this season. This applies to men as well as women.

2004-09-14T11:17:00.000-07:00

It's getting cold. Native New Yorkers might not think so, but I do. It's that day - there's one each year - when you need a sweater for the first time. Still, Autumn in New York is so unbelievably lovely. Like late spring, it's the other Amnesia Season (see post of the same name, from about 3 months ago). It's the Woody Allen season, when everything seems to be filmed in in black & white, but simeltaneously in color, with a Frank Sinatra song playing in the background.

Spring and summer always seem slightly out of context in New York; the sun and the heat seem as out of place as the Empire State Building on a deserted tropical island. During the hot months, New Yorkers act confused, wearing ill-fitting shorts and sitting nervously in the sun, like awkward tourists from the country of Winter.

But every fall, the city comes back into its own, slowly retreating indoors. People seem relieved to no longer be saddled with the burden of having to go out and enjoy the warm weather. New York is the homeland of people who live in their own heads - specifically, intellectuals and psychotics (usually, these are one and the same). I have a theory that such individuals find temperate weather deeply unfulfilling, because it's too easy; it's harder to cultivate the kind of misery or paranoia that gives substance to our most abstract longings.

2004-09-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated the ol' blog in a while. To be honest, I've been in a foul mood. I hate politics. There is a certain smell given off by people who are utterly and immovably convinced they're right, and it's a pretty foul stench. Of course, this is equally true if you're a Democrat, Republican or a member of the Whig party. I generally don't support the Democratic party, because they're almost as full of crap as the Republicans. But the RNC was just too much, especially here in New York. I wanted to barf. And not just because of the matching red white & blue track suits (with "9/11!" encrusted in rhinestones) worn by the Midwestern Republican couples.

I think we should just skip the whole election annoyance and just declare Dubya King George the Second, already. They can make it illegal for a female to inherit the throne, so it will skip the twins and go straight to Jeb, which would probably happen anyway.

I did a lot of voyeuristic walking around the city a good bit last week - Times Square and Union Square, in particular. Although the protesters were remarkably peaceful, there were about five police officers in full riot gear for each protester. You didn't see it in the papers, or on the news. And when you did see protesters in the media, it was just the 18-year-old kids with pierced eyelids and such, whereas the majority of the protesters were rather normal-looking people, at least a quarter of whom seemed to be well over 40. I wasn't even protesting, but only barely escaped the indiscriminate round-ups on a few occasions. At one point they were actually throwing drag nets over crowds of people and arresting them all. Up until now, I thought "drag nets" were just a kind of stockings worn by transvestites ...

I suppose I'm feeling guilty because I didn't vote in the last election. And - worse yet - because I vote in Florida (where I maintain a legitimate second residence, Katherine Harris, in case you're listening in). This was because I thought Gore was, like Kerry, nothing more than Bush Lite. Which is true, but hey - less filling, tastes great.

2004-08-26T09:20:00.000-07:00

Please disregard the previous post. I was just having one of those days, brought on by the fact that I now have to work in an office full-time again. But Paul, my fiance, interpreted this as my way of telling him that I was somehow unhappy with him and the fact that we're getting married. Of course, this could not be further from the truth. I'm not even sure HOW he got this out of the text, which (I thought) was career-specific self-indulgent whining. (Ironically, by bitching about my lack of success as a writer I utterly failed to convey my point. Maybe it's time to pursue that exciting career in the Heating & Air-Conditioning industry. )

So, my deepest apologies to Paul, who is the best fiance I've ever had. And one of only 3 people who even reads this blog, so maybe that's why he thought I was talking about him. He's kind of like my mother in that respect. Any time anything even remotely bad happens to me she concludes that it is entirely her fault ("If only I'd been a better mother, that airline would never have lost your luggage.")

But, doesn't anyone else EVER have moments where they feel like they haven't accomplished everything they'd imagined by this point? And don't you feel sorry for yourself for just a few minutes, every now and then? Especially at certain moments in the Lunar Calendar (as half the population will understand)? Oh, come on. Maybe I'm just the very last person on the entire planet who isn't on Prozac. I'm certainly the last in my extended family. And believe me, I'm not knocking it. And not just because it's a federal crime to suggest that anti-depressants are over-used in our society.

One of the problems with our culture is that we lack a vocabulary for the subtleties emotion. We live in an increasingly binary world. You're either a Republican or a Democrat (if you're anything else, you'd might as well be a donut, as Kurt Vonnegut recently observed); you're "happy" or you're "depressed." And "happiness" is the emotional state that is most difficult to talk about, in the way that a good person is the hardest kind to write about. You're supposed to be happy and cheerful all the goddam time, or else you'll have some sort of a prescription shoved down your throat, for the lack of words to discuss it.

America has no language for emotion, and that, in my view, is the single biggest cause of our collective depression. Our poetry is the poetry of the T.V. commerical. Storytelling is central to the human soul, and our stories are killing us. We're starving for narratives - for meaning - but all we have are junk-food stories. The artificially flavored kind. The stories we consume come primarily from T.V. and Hollywood movies, all of which have an intensely limited, famously formulaic range of emotions. I'm not knocking T.V. or movies - I'm a fan. It's just that all the stories stay on the surface of things and dance around the essence of things, which is lost - utterly. And so we're lost. We anaesthitize ourselves and buy more crap at Wal-Mart or Bergdorf's (if we're lucky) because we feel dissociated and seperate.

We get these ideas of how we're "supposed to be". How life is "supposed to be." But then you're never, EVER supposed to be unhappy without an obvious and compelling reason. I think part of the problem is that we don't recognize the spirit - the soul, if you want to get all 18th-century about it, and that the body is an energy system that is not just "connected to" conciousness, it is conciousness.

Now I'm even more depressed. Maybe I should try cutting out dairy?

2004-08-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

Do you ever get that “not-so-sane” feeling?

It seems like they aught to have some sort of douche for the brain. I’m pretty sure Pfizer makes one or two, at least. This past week, I came pretty darn close to having a nervous breakdown. I think my brain is defective or something. If only I’d remembered to save the receipt.

Making the transition to working full-time again has been slightly painful (I know … it’s heartbreaking). It’s actually a good job, and, as jobs go, fairly interesting, a good cause, yadda yadda yadda. Still, it’s hard to shake the feeling of being a failure in all the ways that matter. By which I mean, all the ways that don’t matter. It’s funny – you never hear people say, ohmigod, I’m a failure! Why haven’t I managed to align myself with the forces of authentic peace and love?! Or, Why don’t I have more compassion for my fellow human beings? What's wrong with me? Instead, it’s more like, ohmigod, I’m a failure! I haven’t published an article in a pedantic literary magazine that nobody even reads! And I don’t even own a pair of Jimmy Choos!

I like to think I’m a "late bloomer." That’s a nice way of putting it. But it’s hard to be a late bloomer in the Kingdom of the Wunderkind (a.k.a., the greater New York area). At a certain point, most people have to come face to face with the reality that, despite their best efforts, they’re probably going to have a thoroughly average life. Of course, there’s no such thing as average! the adventure of the ordinary! Blah blah blah. You realize that if your life were a movie … no, wait - it wouldn’t be a movie. Ever. Not even a European art-house movie where nothing ever happens, because that would require a little more self-conscious malaise than any American can muster. And it would require perfect boobs.

This concludes another episode of Marguerite's Problems Aren't That Big! Tune in next time, when I opine about the lack of spacious and affordable rental properties on the Upper West Side.

2004-08-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

I’m recovering from a nasty case of food poisoning. Without quotation marks. I suppose it’s karmic retribution for the times I’ve called in sick with, ah, “food poisoning.” Although usually this claim had at least some basis in fact (vodka is a food, right?).

Anyway, the moral of the story is: never order the Pasta Pescatore at an Italian restaurant in Greenpoint that’s probably just a front for the mafia. Eeeeeeggghhh.

2004-08-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

We spent the weekend in Maine. It was a really great trip, only far too short. They say New York is the best city to leave, and the best city to come back to. As soon as you get out of the city, you notice that “not so sane feeling” leaving your body, and an unfamiliar sensation (peace? sanity? ) settling in. But then, on your way back – when you see the city from a distance, and then dive down into it - it’s satisfying like taking a long, deep drag off a cigarette is to a smoker who hasn’t smoked in a week.

The day before I left, I got a new credit card in the mail, with a $10,000 limit. I can only assume there was some sort of snafu down at C. Bank, because one of the credit cards I never paid back was actually one of THEIRS. Maybe they heard that I was unemployed for the past 9 months, and that makes me a better credit risk? Regardless, I set out with great alacrity to buy tons of crap I can’t afford, and don’t even remotely need. God bless America.

There were plenty of opportunities to spend money heedlessly in Kennebunkport, where there are approximately 35 quaint gift shops for every man, woman and moose. It’s a good idea to have a shot of insulin on hand when you go into these stores, which all have names that are painfully cute double entendres - things like “The Mew England Cat Shoppe” (a gift shop that sells only cat-themed paperweights) or “Maine-ly Crustaceans!” which might specialize in plush lobster key rings. Or, you can go to Ye Olde Radio Shack and get a hand-held version of “Mortal Combat.” Just like the pilgrims used to play.

We were staying at a cute B&B called the Waldo Emerson Inn. Allegedly, it was built by the eponymous Waldo, uncle of Ralph. We got a comprehensive tour of the place when we came in, which I’m guessing was about 8% of what they said (“this house is not edible,” for instance) was based on actual facts. That’s where Ralph sat and wrote poetry; this is where he contemplated nature; there’s Ralph’s very first stereo system (an 8-track - wasn't everybody's?).

2004-08-12T20:26:00.000-07:00

I just tried Skittles gum. It looks just like a Skittle, and when you chew it, it starts to dissolve like one. But then, a few seconds later - through some chemical process I don't even want to know about - it re-solidifies and becomes gum.

That's why I like candy and chocolate from other countries. They're less likely to morph halfway through into something else entirely. Or be mistaken for a dog toy. While European candy, for instance, is more likely to be kumquat-flavored, at least it rarely glows in the dark. Call me a traditionalist, but I think food products should start out one thing and remain that thing until swallowed. I also think you should have to turn on a light to find them in the middle of the night.

"It starts out as a piece of gum, but then it turns into an action figure! Mmmm! "

Does anyone else remember Lik-M-Aid? It came with three packets of colored and flavored sugar (cherry, orange, and lime), and a sugar stick that you were supposed to lick, dip in the sugar concoction, and then lick some more, until you were rocking in a corner, grinding your teeth and talking 90 miles per hour. Like the candy cigarettes they used to have, this stuff was basically candy crystal meth (which was possibly one of the ingredients). I'm surprized it didn't come with a little mirror and a straw.

2004-08-09T19:27:00.000-07:00

I’m cat-sitting, which gets me to thinking about feudal Russia and Homeland Security.

See, my friend Saad (whose cat I’m sitting near, but not on) has about 5,000 channels of cable T.V. At home, I’m pretty much limited to PBS and the UPN network – a bitter choice between “too smart” and “too stupid.” I love PBS, theoretically anyway, but like most Americans I’m averse to the idea of “learning from” T.V. It just seems wrong. Like “learning from” your toaster oven.

Access to the Wonder T.V. reminds me why I should never, ever get cable – that sweet, electronic nectar of the gods. It really is hypnotic. I flipped on the T.V. earlier and got sucked into one of those political talk shows, in which a well-dressed, middle-aged, moderately (un)attractive yet ridiculously pompous white dude was talking to several other guys who fit roughly (okay, exactly) the same description. The topic was whether or not it’s a good idea to have a new “Information Czar” who’ll oversee the various branches of “intelligence” ( … nah, it’s too easy – I won’t bother).

The men in suits interrupted each other every two or three words for about an hour. The one thing nobody seemed to bring up is … CZAR? Hello?! Why not create the office of “Intelligence Fuhrer”? Or maybe the Kingpin of Homeland Security? Then maybe they can get a Fiefdom of Education, and crown Jeb Bush Grand Archduke of Florida (assuming he's not already ...).

The history of the czars is appropriately bleak. The term "czar” derived from “Ceasar,” another monarchy known for what might be described as "humanitarian issues." The lineage of Russian czars began in the 16th century with Ivan IV, who ruled with a deep-seated paranoia and ruthlessness, and left Moscow in a state of ruin. Ivan’s feeble-minded son, Fyodor, then inherited the crown and appointed Tom Ridgevonovetch as Feudal Baron of Homeland Security.

Fast forward to the 19th century, and Czar Alexander III had increased the repressive powers of the police and tightened censorship (sound a little “Patriot Act”?). The whole thing (the Czar thing, that is) finally ended with Nicholas III, a delusional and superstitious man who brought in Rasputin - the only person on earth crazier than he was - to run the country. Like most Russian stories, that of the Czar did not end well. Rather, it ended in bloodshed, mayhem and (ultimately) the rise of Stalin, arguably the most deadly dictator in recorded history.

But this czar of intelligence will finally suppress those rowdy feudal uprisings at the C.I.A., I’m all for it.

2004-08-08T21:12:00.000-07:00

It was an ominously beautiful day. Unseasonably cool, it was in the low 70s here in New York - sunny without being hot, crisp but not chilly - with big blimp-like clouds that seem to be a floating advertizement for infinite optimism. September 11th weather, in other words.

I spent much of the day in the park. Now that I'm more or less employed, it occures to me that I should have spent a lot more time in the park while I wasn't working. It's just so picturesque, it kind of hurts. All the lovers in rowboats and great expanse of green lawn in the middle of the city, framed by the old skyscrapers, blah blah blah. You feel such a need to take it all in, to process whatever it is about Central Park on a Sunday afternoon in the summer when the light is moving across the landscape, the way it does in the late afternoon ... Beautiful to the point of being annoying.

That's why I go to the gym. It's easier to process. You don't have to be distracted by the fact that you could never quite put it into words.

It hasn't reached 90 once all year in NYC, which is some sort of a record. I'm not complaining - for those of us without air conditioning, this is a good thing. Apparently, it's been unseasonably cool in Florida as well. Maybe a new ice age is coming? That would suck. Especially if it happens right after I finally buy an air conditioner.

2004-08-06T08:32:00.000-07:00

This time of year I always get a sense of how time is going by very quickly. Last night, I was cleaning out some ancient files on my computer, and came across something I wrote back in August 2000. I was also quasi-employed, as I'd just gotten back from Berlin, and clearly had WAY to much time on my hands. It was kind of like a blog entry, but I didn't have a blog (did blogs exist way back then?) I just wrote things and emailed them to my poor, unsuspecting friends (yes, that IS pathetic). I guess it was a proto-blog. Anyway, I thought I'd share (just be glad this isn't coming to your inbox, folks ...) NOTE: m-ploy.com ("Marguerite's ploy for getting jobs you're not qualified for") was apparently a web site I considered making. Yes, kids - too much time is a dangerous thing ...

How to Write an Effective Cover Letter

A cover letter is a future employer’s first introduction to who you are as an individual. As such, it is important to spare no expense in purchasing mass-produced cover letter writing software.

The technical geniuses behind M-ploy.com have been working around the clock to bring you an affordable and reliable software for generating cover letters, based on the premise behind “Mad Libs.” Simply fill in key nouns, verbs and acronyms, and we do the rest for you!!!
For instance: A position called “Desktop Coordinator” is currently listed on the web site of a major media powerhouse, recently merged with AOL and the Roman Catholic Church(.com) to become one of the biggest information conglomerates in the universe.

Now, I don’t know what a Desktop Coordinator is, but the thing is - I’m sure nobody else knows, either. What you have to do is build on your strengths, however weak they may be. What follows is the cover letter generated by M-ploysoft™ for this position:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am very interested in the position of “Desktop Coordinator,” which was advertised in the New York Times. With more than 18 years of experience at utilizing desks, I feel uniquely qualified for this opening.

You are looking for someone dynamic and motivated, with a strong sense of coordination. In this vein, please consider the following:

· I am well-versed in the art of feng shui, which can be easily applied to desk tops. As we all
know, a pencil sharpener in the “Prosperity” bagua can lead to multi-million-dollar mistakes.
· Trilingual: I speak three languages. Four, if you count Klingon. Five, if you count German.
· N.Y. State licensed aromatherapist.
· Excellent written and verbal hygiene.

It is my belief that my professional background corresponds perfectly with duties involved in the desktop coordinating position which Your Company is seeking to fill. I am very motivated to find a challenging and dynamic opportunity which will allow me to make use of my well-developed linguistic, telepathic, technical, aromatheraputic and interpersonal skills.

I look forward to hearing from you, hopefully within the hour. I’ll take the liberty of sitting outside your office for the next few days if I don’t hear back from you. If I don’t hear back from you, I might kill myself, so please call soon.

With most sincere regards,
Marguerite E. Kennedy

2004-08-06T08:04:00.000-07:00

So, I was running late to work today, so I took a cab. When I got out, I realized I'd left my purse on the seat. I ran after the cab for several blocks, flailing my arms and shouting (it works in the movies ...). In my purse was my passport, my keys, and ALL THE MONEY I currently have in the world - about $42 bucks. And my ATM/debit card, but if anyone tries to use it, there's only $13.53 in the account, so the joke's pretty much on them.

I want to cry.

Some people believe that there is no such thing as an accident. Maybe I'm supposed to learn something cosmic from this, and make it into an touching, inspirational fable a la "Life of Pie". I can see the book jacket now: A handbag left in a taxi becomes a metaphor for the "handbag" left in the "taxicab" called ... life.

2004-08-05T15:10:00.000-07:00

I’ve decided to go to Canarsie. I just love the way the word sounds when native New Yorkers say it – “Cah-nawa-see.” It calls to mind a place where everyone is extremely matter-of-fact. People who refuse to pay too much for plumbing supplies, and who appreciate the aesthetic and practical aspects of aluminum siding.

Often, on the L-train to Brooklyn, speeding towards Canarsie, I consider not getting off in Williamsburg, but riding to the end of the line. In this daydream I live in Canarsie, and have a life that is delightfully free of poetic illusions. I raise small, yappy dogs and collect religious tschatchkies, and have finally abandoned the absurd habit of wearing makeup. When I go to a formal event, I wear my best pair of sneakers.

But when I get off the train, I leave behind the dream of the terriers and the hourly benediction from the neon Jesus-clock. But not without a distinct, inexplicable measure of sadness …

2004-08-04T20:48:00.000-07:00

To everyone who reads this (yes, both of you), I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while. I started a new consuting job this week, so I've been kind of busy. When I say I'm consulting, I don't mean "consulting," (ahem) which is what I've been doing for the past nine months.

I love the word consulting - with or without the quotation marks. It means absolutely nothing. Temping, essentially, is what it means. I'm working as a grant writer for a nonprofit in East Harlem. It's reasonably interesting, and is rewarding work, as they reward me with money in exchange for services.

One of the main reasons I enjoy the nonprofit field is that you never, ever have to wear panty hose. I hate panty hose. In a corporate environment, you usually can't escape having to buy one of those damned plastic eggs with a pair of hose in it. A plastic egg. Who thought that one up? As if it's not humiating enough that your legs are being digested by a pair of nylon boa constrictors the color of cat poop. They need to come in a plastic egg.

2004-07-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

Oh - a bit of a plug. Everyone reading this should go out and see one of my favorite punk rock boy bands, Xs for Eyes, in the final night of their residency at The Trash Bar in Williamsburg (www.thetrashbar.com). That's right - after tonight, they'll be Doctors of Punk. Hear some of their tunes at www.xs-for-eyes.com. Tonight they've promised to do a Celine Dion cover. I can't wait.

Of course, I think everyone who reads this blog is either in the band, married to a member of the band, or a senior citizen in Thailand, but still ...

2004-07-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

So begins the job search. Motivated by not having enough money to pay the rent, I'm now looking for a full-time job.

Looking for jobs reminds me of dating, only without alchohol and the possibility of ending up naked. Strangely, dating never reminded me of a job interview. For an interview, you have to dress up and pretend to be interested in every last word the other person says. As Jerry Seinfeld famously said of his 20-some odd years of dating, "that's a lot of acting fascinated."

Job interviews are like going on a date with someone who doesn't drink or have sex. Ever. The kind of date who would ask for the check if you use off-color language, or if you show too much skin. But, if the date goes well, they might give you a sizeable annual salary and health insurance.

2004-07-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

It has been suggested to me that blogging is a giant waste of time. This statement does have some basis in fact. In the grand scheme of things that are a waste of time, however, blogging has some stiff competition. The first thing that comes to my mind? Video games.

Paul, my fiancé, plays a lot of video games. I just don’t get it. For entertainment value, these things rank just above the Slinky, in my book. Remember those metal coils that, if placed at just the right angle at the top of the stairs, would simulate a metal coil falling down a stairwell?   They sold millions, maybe billions of them. The moral of the story: never underestimate the economic and social power of a thing that is a complete waste of time.

At one point, I even tried to like video games, just because I’m the kind of person you would expect to like them. I have any number of socially marginal pastimes, mostly based on an unfortunate fondness for science fiction. I have been known to begin sentences, Remember that Star Trek episode where … But video games are where I draw the line, in the way that casual drug users draw the line at, say, doing heroin. It seems like they must put something subliminal in the game programs to make them so addictive. Like in that Star Trek episode where … never mind.

Some of the smartest people I know live for their X-Box and/or PlayStation 12. They devote a sizeable chunk of their free time and disposable income to this mental illness - I mean, stimulating (to the economy, at least) form of entertainment. In college, I knew a guy who seriously considered getting Depends so he wouldn’t have to get up to pee when playing video games. True devotees don’t think this is taking it too far. These people can spend eleven hours at a time driving a simulated car around a badly simulated racetrack, to beat a nonexistent opponent. These are often the same people who insist they’re way too busy to put up a new shower curtain (or, for that matter, to shower). Personally, I can’t imagine spending that much time doing anything that won’t result in a paycheck, or at least firmer thighs.

In an effort to better understand the elusive thrill of video games, last night I played one called “Ratchet and Clank.” It goes something like this: Ratchet, a sort of alien bobcat wearing an Amelia Earhart hat, runs around a psychedelic planet with his robot friend, Clank, hitting crates with a giant wrench being while being chased by retarded frog-chipmunks with an apparent motor dysfunction, as they can’t hop in a straight line. (Maybe they’re supposed to be drunk? Or maybe I’m supposed to be drunk? The whole thing might make more sense …) What sounds like the soundtrack to a 70s porn flick plays in the background (an electronic waka waka bow-wow, ad infinitum). The graphics are pretty amazing, and it’s not easy, but still. Grown adult – alien bobcat whacking crates – you do the math.

Video games used to be just for kids, but the Atari kids of the 80s never outgrew their love of shooting commas at a spaceship made out of punctuation marks; it only evolved. Now they make games that are just for adults, although I’m told they don’t have any “adult” video games, the kind you might play on a XXX-Box (“joystick” related puns abounding). That, I could at least understand.

Are there any positive benefits to these electronic mazes? Advocates of video games – the kind of slightly-deranged-looking people who appear on T.V. with the words “Video Game Advocate” under their names - say the games “promote hand–eye coordination,” although they can’t point to any actual evidence to support this assertion. It’s kind of like the Smoking Advocates who insist that smoking prevents death by helping prevent malaria, because the smoke scares off Tsetse flies.   Even if you live in a country that has no Tsetse flies. Or malaria.

Recently, Paul asked me what kind of video game I would make if I could make my own. This is kind of like me asking him, Which color lipstick would go best with my top? Speaking for all men, he typically replies, It makes absolutely no difference.

But as for video games – there is one I would like to play. It’s called Time Killer!!! In it, you have a choice of several weapons, including a sledgehammer, guns, and various weapons of mass destruction. The object is to break into your fiance’s apartment and destroy all of his video games in an enjoyably violent manner. You can smash the individual games, such as Complete Waste of Time, and Complete Waste of Time 2, but the ultimate object is to get the machines out into the desert, and watch as a mushroom cloud rises up over them. Now, I think that’s a video game I could really get into.

2004-07-15T22:08:00.001-07:00

In Jacksonville. It's 1:33 a.m., but I can't sleep. Here in the suburbs, nighttime is all about darkness and silence. It's about ... sleeping. After seven years in New York, silence and darkness are about the only two things that prevent me from sleeping. I need to get one of those "white noise" machines that reproduce the sounds of the garbage trucks on West End Avenue. I'm pretty sure the garbage men (sanitation workers? trash musicians?) on my route are aspiring to be in "Stomp," they make such a production of throwing the trash cans around.

Based on what I hear every night, I imagine the scene to be as follows:

On a dark stage (W.E.A.), a spotlight rises on SANITATION WORKER, wearing an orange Lycra unitard and a maudlin expression, sitting backwards on a chair. SANITATION WORKER 2 rushes across the stage does a 3-turn pirouette, to arabesque. He finds a cane and top hat underneath some old Billy Joel 8-tracks in the trash. And the show begins ...

LIGHTS UP on PASSING MOTORIST FROM STATEN ISLAND.

PASSING MOTORIST: Fooooooock you!
TAXI DRIVER: (allegro) No, fuck you, myfriend. Youarea mudderfokker!
PASSING MOTORIST: (fortissimo) No, Fock yoooooooou!

PASSING MOTORIST and TAXI DRIVER get out of their cars. Although come from different worlds (signified by different colored unitards), they are united by their shared passions for Billy Joel, the choreography of Twyla Tharp, and hitting trash cans with a lead pipe.

For the next half hour, the trash cans will rattle and bang. Motorists and sanitation workers will exchange profanities. But in my mind, they're dancing, too.

2004-07-13T16:51:00.000-07:00

At a café in Greenpoint, Brooklyn - Greenpoint Coffee House. Noon on a Tuesday, and the place is packed with hipsters, their sock hats aglow in the light of Apple laptops.

“Does anybody in Greenpoint have a job?” the barista asks, to nobody in particular.

Looking around the place, I wonder where all these people live. You don’t see them around the neighborhood, which is largely populated by working-class Poles. I think there must be some sort of underground tunnel that takes the hipsters from their “artist” (quotations being key) lofts to this quasi-French cafe. Step outside, though, and you would think you were in Warsaw. (Although, from what I remember, Warsaw looks much less like a former-Communist wasteland than Greenpoint.) Greenpoint is not green; it’s mostly concrete-colored. The building style is similar to certain parts of the Eastern Bloc, but in Poland they were never blighted by the 70s-era aluminum siding craze. People always speak to me in Polish around here, and seem genuinely surprised that I don’t understand them. The idea is that if you’re not Latin, you must Polish (or one of a growing number of Pol-a-ricans, as it were).

Greenpoint is the new SoHo, according to the Transitive Property of Pretentiousness. See, once upon a time, the East Village was the new SoHo. Then Williamsburg was the new East Village, and now Greenpoint is the new Williamsburg. People come further and further out, and put up with more and more shit (quite literally, given the proximity to the waste recycling plant), in search of “affordable” housing (read: $1500 a month for a “loft”, a.k.a. “studio with no kitchen”). The cool places to live in Greenpoint are all former factories, many with actual bloodstains on the floor, which is odd, since the factories were usually making shirts. Poorly ventilated sweatshops have been turned into poorly ventilated apartments that are impossible to heat or cool. But then, there’s the consoling proximity to hipster coffee houses, which makes it all worthwhile. Or something.

Why do we put up with living in New York? Those of us who come from vast, comfortable suburbs always have this question in the back of our minds. At this point, my friends just roll their eyes when I insist that I’m leaving before winter sets in again. For the past seven years (especially in the winter) I’ve been threatening to leave – getting all Ralph Kramden about it. (So help me, New York …). At a certain point, maybe you get so used to it that you wouldn’t know what to do if you left, like old men who’ve been in prison for 30 years, and can’t adjust to life on the outside. For instance, it would be weird to have a car, and to not be able to walk down to the corner to get pretty much anything you want. New York is a monument to convenience. So is America, for that matter. People come from all over the world to this country where they can get a Slurpee at 3 in the morning. Not that they necessarily want to have a Slurpee, at 3 in the morning, or any other time. It’s about knowing that it’s there - glowing and churning, waiting for you to not want it, all night long.

2004-07-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

Boy, am I ever depressed. I have to leave for work in about an hour. It's a nine hour shift (with no break); the place is packed, but I'm barely making any money at all. I feel like I'm either lazy or weak or maybe both because none of the other girls seem to be phased by nine straight hours of running around. (I think I can say "girls" and still be P.C., because they're all about a decade younger than I am). Am also feeling very old and oh-my-god-what-have-I-done-with-my-life.

I have to get a better job. It’s not that I mind waitressing – actually, I rather like it – but café jobs are not very lucrative, because the tabs on cakes and coffee don’t add up to much, and we have a high percentage of customers who come from countries where tipping is a foreign concept. In Japan, for instance, tipping is considered insulting, and I guess it's hard for people to understand that here in America, we like to be insulted generously. Lots of 10% tips from Europeans, which is way more than they would tip in their countries, but still. I’m the oldest waitress at Café Lalo, and one of only two non-foreigners. It’s the kind of job you get when you’re 19 years old and don’t have the right to legally work in the country. (Been there, done that.)

When you’re a waitress, people are always asking what you “really” do. I hate this question. I would say I’m an aspiring writer, but that’s just too fucking humiliating, because the next question is always, “where might I have read something you wrote?” to which I have to reply, “well, uh, you might have stolen my laptop?” Of course, the great thing about writing is that nobody can stop you from doing it. If I wanted to be an actress or an astronaut, or breed miniature dachshunds, I would have a lot more to complain about. But when it comes to writing, the only one you can blame for not doing it is yourself. You don’t need a stage or a Space Shuttle or a fertile pair of weiner dogs, just a piece of notebook paper.

So, lately, I’ve been telling people I’m trying to break into being a chicken. You see, I’ve been thinking of selling my eggs. We have millions of them, so what’s a few less? The process of “harvesting” your eggs is supposedly rather painful, but compared to working in an office, I’m thinking, not so much. It’s definitely less fun than donating sperm. But still, it’s a lot less harsh than what a lot of the factory farms do to the hens to get them to lay more eggs. When I lived on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, there were a LOT of chicken farmers, and sometimes you would – no joke - hear insanely loud heavy metal music coming from the hen houses.

“So they lay more eggs,” a farmer’s kid explained. I was about eight years old, and didn’t know much about the chickens and the bees, or how loud AC/DC music figured into the whole reproductive dance (something I would wonder again, years later, at a bar in Daytona during “Bike Week”). But it’s more scientific than it seems – if you want an animal to have a shorter estrus cycle (i.e., lay more eggs), you want to frighten it - hence the insanely loud music. The chickens think the world is coming to an end, and thus churn out twice as many eggs. Like Chicken Little (only, in a little black “Megadeath” tour T-shirt).

Apparently, you get “up to” $7,000 for selling your eggs - more if you are over a certain height, have blue eyes, or went to an Ivy League school. These are like the eggs you get at the health food store, fortified with Omega-3 (or, Pi Beta Phi, I suppose, in the human version). As a short, brown-eyed public-school type, I guess my eggs are the kind you get in a styrofoam carton for 69 cents. If they start playing AC/DC, though, that’s where I draw the line.

2004-07-09T12:23:00.000-07:00

(I wrote this the other day, on the Fourth of July, but didn't get around to posting it, partly due to laziness and partly because I was afraid it sounds like I've finally read one too many self-help books, which is not entirely false ... )

Freedom. It’s the Fourth of July, which gets me to thinking about freedom. Of all the abstract concepts, it is the most slippery - the most easily corruptible and the hardest to define. For me, the word “freedom” conjures up images of George Washington crossing the Delaware on that impossibly cold winter, about to face the biggest army in the world. Like most Americans, freedom is also a term I associate with feminine hygiene products. I don’t know what freedom is, but it apparently has something to do with “dri-weave.” According to the maxi pad commercials, Freedom! is a woman in white pants and a jaunty hat of the sort you usually see on the head of some irrelevant member of the royal family.

No, but, like, seriously, dude - what does it mean to be free? According to George W. Bush, the terrorists hate us for our freedom (now, with Wings™!). So what does freedom mean?

I suppose I should know. When I was in high school I won an essay contest sponsored by the Freedoms Foundation (an actual organization). The subject of the essay was, “What Freedom Means to Me.” The winner was to receive a hundred bucks and a trip to Philadelphia. Even now, I feel kind of guilty, because I wrote the whole thing tongue-in-cheek, thinking of “What A Hundred Bucks Means to Me.” I rolled around laughing as I dashed off the essay, which strategically alluded to Lincoln and baseball and rolling waves of strip malls (or words to that effect). “Freedom is the taste of lime-green popsicles at a Little League baseball game, on a hot summer day,” I wrote (seriously – albeit not-seriously). The text suggested, however cautiously, that the Strategic Defense Initiative was justifiable because kids in the Soviet Union never got to eat artificially flavored, lime green frozen treats. It was my first attempt at satire, and nobody got it.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about freedom, because I feel strangely free for the first time in ages. I have remarkably (read: embarrassingly) little money, but I’ve never been happier (although I would not refuse donations, mind you). Money comes and goes in the course of a lifetime, and it doesn’t make you safe or free. It does, however, let you buy attractive clothing, which is one reason I would like to have more money.

I used to think of freedom as being able to do what you want to do all the time. But now that’s a ridiculously immature vision of freedom, appropriate for our ridiculously immature culture. Freedom doesn’t come from a lack of responsibility, but from doing the things that you know you have to do. And only you (not your parents, spouse, friends, boss, annoying co-worker) can know what those things are. Most people seem to think they can’t do whatever it is they most want to do, whatever terrifies them the most. We all have a long list of elaborate excuses as to why we can’t have or do the things we need to do. Freedom comes when you stop making excuses for yourself, even though this is not what anybody wants to hear (including myself). I’m talking about your purpose, and if you don’t know what that is, you should figure it out fast, as if your life depends on it (because, really, it does).

In our culture, we tend to mistake our purpose for our job. Sometimes the two overlap, usually they do, but not necessarily. Maybe your purpose is to be a good friend, or to rescue stray ferrets. Maybe nobody else will understand why you want to do what you have to do (especially if it turns out to be the ferret thing). You might make money at your purpose, you might not. But in doing it, you’ll find your own private definition of freedom. The bad news is that it won’t be easy, and it will require lots of work. Even more than you think. Way more. Which is why we tend to terminally distract ourselves - we create storms in teacups, fan the flames of the mini-dramas of our lives, all to keep from finding out what it is we have to do. Because from that point on, you have no choice but to start doing it or start dying. Sounds dramatic, but I think it really is that simple.

Of course, our culture tells us not to listen to ourselves, because if a person even has a vague inkling of his or her own power, they can’t be manipulated as easily. That person doesn’t feel inadequate (because she/he knows that there is no such thing) so she doesn’t have to fill the hole in her life with excessive consumerism. We live in a fear-based culture that would have you believe that your inner voice is hokey (okay, it sounds hokey, I’ll admit). So we don’t listen to ourselves, and by not listening, everything else gets so loud, and we have to drown it out - with psycho-pharmaceuticals, with alcohol, with buying crap from Wal-Mart, etc. The economy is vested in your misery. I remember in high school and college, I would read beauty magazines and then feel hideous, so I’d run out and charge makeup and clothes and other crap I’m still paying for. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

We live in a hierarchical world that tells us that there’s only so much of the good stuff to go around. We think happiness is like a currency, carefully limited, its flow controlled by some imaginary Fed run by mean-spirited angels. If there’s only so much happiness available on Earth, and you’ve got yours, then there’s less of it for me. It’s easy to resent people who are doing what they want to do, whether it’s running a dog grooming shop or writing successful novels (although I am allowed to hate people my age or younger who do that, right? ) On some absurd level, we see their success and think that it somehow takes away from ours. But in reality, it makes us stronger. If you are fulfilled, you’re doing your work, whatever it is, then I’m better off. We’re all better off. We’re more free.

People stay stuck in jobs/relationships/habits they hate because they think they have no choice. People will tell you can’t leave your miserable job, for instance, because you won’t be able to afford to keep your house/car/food/ferret, etc. And in the short run, they might even be right. But if you’re doing what you really should be doing, you won’t care, and, in most cases, you’ll end up making more money. Much like all great story arcs involve the central character taking a leap of faith, so does every life. I hope if you’re not doing what you need to be doing, you will be soon. When you are (whoever you are) I’ll be that much better off. So will everyone.

2004-06-29T12:54:00.000-07:00

So I got a job waiting tables. Yesterday afternoon, I happened to walk past Café Lalo, on the Upper West Side, on my way home from the gym. I noticed a “help wanted” sign, so I went in to inquire. I was hired on the spot, despite my gym attire, based on the fact that I could start that evening. The interview process took about three minutes. The owner/manager, a middle-aged Israeli man with a thick accent, interviewed me on a park bench outside the restaurant. The main point of the interview was apparently to make sure that I was a) female and b) alive. These seem to be the primary, possibly only, requirements for becoming a server at this establishment (bonus points if you’re an aspiring actress, model, or Ph.D. candidate in Comp. Lit.).

I haven’t been a waitress since I lived in Paris, but it’s amazing how all restaurants are the same, and yet utterly different. All restaurants are governed by a kind of hermetic logic that almost (but not quite) makes sense within the walls of the restaurant, but nowhere else in the world. For instance - all restaurants have table numbers that make absolutely no sense. Table 7 is always by table 25, which is right next to table 3. At one restaurant I worked at in Paris, the table order went from one to eight, and then jumped to 10 – there was no table 9. When I asked why discovered that “il y avait une table neuf” – there once was a table nine, explained Nadia, the restaurant owner, in a somber tone which implied that the table numbers had not been changed in memorandum. Table nine had been a large and beautiful round table; but it went to furniture heaven shortly after 16 (I guess she counted) inebriated Englishmen, members of some sports team, unwisely used it as an impromptu karaoke stage when a popular song by Oasis (French pronunciation: Waz-eez) came on the radio. This sort of thing was not an isolated occurrence at Restaurant L’Escapade, largely due to the gimmick of offering wine “a volonte” (which translates roughly to “all-u-can-drink,” or more precisely, “all-u-can-puke”) with every meal. Most Europeans, when knackered, can’t help but do two things: sing and pull down their pants. Americans just become violent and shoot people, which is so much more civilized.

Another thing about restaurants is how each one has a uniquely irrational language of abbreviations, slightly less difficult to master than some aboriginal click language where all the words begin with exclamation points. Restaurant abbreviations remind me of the secret language of codes used by real estate brokers and travel agents. (2 br w/EIK, conv. ERB, SHWF, IRX shared with FR. Near EWR, easy commute CDG.) Why, for instance, is the code for “Newark Liberty International” EWR? I’m sure there’s a reason. Maybe there was once another airport on that site, but it was broken by 16 drunken Englishmen.

2004-06-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

Happy Bloomsday!

Yep, a hundred years ago today, on June 16, 2004, Leopold Bloom “ate with relish the inner organs of beast and fowl.” Since that time, Ulysses has become one of the most beloved “Cliff’s Notes” in history. With more than a million copies in print, James Joyce's immortal novel has gone unread in more than 40 languages, and "Bloomsday" has become a sacred holiday for people who appreciate a literary excuse to drink lots of beer.

Below is my essay comparing and conrasting Leopold Bloom and the owl from the old "Tootsie Pop" commericals:

In James Joyce’s poignant novel, Ulysses, Bloom, Stephen Dedalus and Molly experience a full range of human punctuation, by which I mean the poignant lack thereof. This is very symbolic, by which I mean it is difficult to understand, which lends a certain poignancy to the text. See??? The entire novel takes place in the course of one day, although it takes much longer than one day to read, which further illustrates that it is very poignant. Throughout Ulysses, there are many multiple layers of symbolism, also known as “punctuation.” Joyce’s use of symbolism is significant because it is frequently symbolic of other symbols.

In reading Ulysses, the reader is reminded of, like, the owl in the old “Tootsie Pop” commercials. Like Leopold Bloom, the owl - which is symbolic of wisdom in addition to Tootsie Rolls - wonders things. Specifically, he wonders, “How many licks does it take to get to the delicious center of a Tootsie Pop?” Which is symbolic of, “How long would it actually take to read Ulysses?” Yet, after a few “licks,” which are symbolic of “paragraphs,” the reader gives in and downloads a Ulysses-related term paper off the Internet. While at first glance, this may appear to be “cheating,” it is in fact very poignant, because it is clearly symbolic. And, because it is not obvious what this is symbolic of, it is all the more poignant.

2004-06-10T17:16:00.000-07:00

They say April is the cruelest month, but in New York - it’s June.

This is what I call the Amnesia Season. Twice a year, our city has a window of time when the weather is so temperate and lovely that you can’t imagine why, just a month before, you had vowed to leave this $*%!# place and never look back.

The Amnesia Seasons occur in the late spring and early fall, when the City takes on the colors of our most cinematic fantasies. After spending all winter (or summer) researching the housing market in Bangladesh, your exorbitantly priced apartment suddenly seems like a bargain; your dead-end job is a reasonable means to the end of staying in the most wonderful city in the world.

During the spring Amnesia, New Yorkers are drunk on the miracle of leaving the house without looking like we should be standing behind a team of huskies. It’s the time of year when you look up in the sky and see this bright, flashy orb, and you wonder what it’s advertising, until you realize – it’s the sun. We take to the streets, like in some ridiculous musical, experiencing that feeling we cautiously refer to as … “happiness.” This is when we see nature (or at least, our version of it) continuing the cycle of life. Tube tops and sandals come out of the mini-storage units, like tulips from dormant bulbs. Cafés set up the first illegal sidewalk terraces of the season, cautiously, like baby birds getting ready to leave the nest. Baby birds start to leave their nests, so they can crap on the patrons of sidewalk cafes …

A few weeks after the Amnesia Season, it’ll be morbidly hot or ridiculously cold, as the case may be. But by then, you’ve already re-signed your lease, or taken a new job, and so you curse your fate and spend the winter or summer plotting your escape to a more hospitable climate. “This time, I won’t forget!” we say. “I won’t put up with it any more!”

Until the next time.

It’s like dating someone who treats you badly, but at strategic moments he/she sweeps you off to a romantic weekend in Paris, so you forget about what a big jerk that person is, and get sucked in even deeper. And then he gives you the cold shoulder for a while, so you decide to break it off, but then he writes a comedic love haiku on cocktail napkin, so you take him back with great (read: embarrassing) alacrity.

Now, sitting in an outdoor café, I’ve already forgotten about winter. I have only the vaguest memory of how, once upon a time last month, we all stay holed up in our tiny apartments, hovering under those anti-depression light bulbs (which are terribly depressing). I’ve forgotten how nobody ever wants to go out in winter, because leaving the house involves layering ourselves in pages 4-36 of the L.L. Bean Winter Catalog. And how everyone seems to be in a foul mood whenever they’re not asleep.

When New York is miserable, it’s miserable in ways that the combined imaginations of Kafka, Sartre, and Dante couldn’t have fathomed. But the City’s intermittent loveliness – Central Park in the fall; the view from a rooftop on a summer night; the Barney’s warehouse sale - is such that even the great poets can only hint at a notion of what it really is.

On days like today, I’ve forgotten my plans to pack it all in and move to the West Coast – deeply intricate plans that hatched on cold winter nights as I sat in front of the stove to keep warm, humming a refrain from La Boheme. My landlord just slipped a lease renewal under the door of my overpriced, rat-infested apartment with inadequate heat and no air conditioning. But right now, it’s neither too hot nor too cold. Why would anyone want to live anywhere else?

You’re setting us up, New York. I think this is a dysfunctional relationship. I know I’m going to have to break it off. But at the moment, I can’t remember why.

2004-06-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

Crazy in Alabama

After a weekend visiting relatives in Tuscaloosa, I came back humming “Sweet Home Alabama.” Like myself, the “Lynard Skynard” boys were not from Alabama, but hailed from Jacksonville, Florida, where they attended Robert E. Lee High School (where a certain Leonard Skinnard taught P.E.). I guess “Sweet Home Alabama” has a better ring to it than “Sweet Home Jacksonville.” (F.Y.I.: Other notable Jacksonville musicians include the maudlin composer Frederick Delius; the less-maudlin boys of “Limp Bizkit” fame; and the “Yo-Yo Moms,” my mother’s cello trio).

Something about Alabama does feel like home, even though I’ve never lived there. My dad grew up there, as did all of his folks as far back as anyone can remember (which ain’t so far). The records, or lack thereof, suggest that our ancestors just hatched out of the red clay hills of this state at some point in the 19th century. Like many Americans, the Alabama Kennedys have no actual record of where they came from. Ireland? Scotland? Outer Space? (the latter theory has considerable support). Wherever it was, by the time they got here, amnesia had already set in. History, of course, is a luxury item, reserved for people who aren’t preoccupied with survival. It is the fragile tchotchkie locked in the curio cabinet of human narratives.

Our family history starts in the middle of the story, as my great-granddaddy’s six uncles were about to go “fat for their rats” the “Waw” (of Northern Aggression, of course …). The story is short; they all died. None of them had ever even seen, much less owned, a slave. Of course, the Civil War was pretty much about slavery, but most of the Confederate soldiers didn’t realize it. Plantation owners (who owned over 80% of the slaves) represented only 2% of the Southern population in 1860. (The contemporary equivalent being our war fought for the sake of corporations representing the richest 2% of the population.) The main reason most of the Confederate soldiers signed on, in my opinion, was simply because they liked to fight. The South was (and is) full of cantankerous people who love nothing more than fighting, with the possible exception of drinking. Which brings me back to the family reunion …

The Kennedys still like to fight, although nowadays these energies are channeled into “friendly debates,” which have been known to end in bloodshed. Decade-long feuds have erupted over the conditional future perfect tense of the verb “to lie,” or over the name of ol’ Miz Mac’s second cousin (the one who “was never quite right” after the incident with the opossum in 1937). And for God’s sake, don’t get them started on prepositional phrases. Anything but prepositional phrases.

The problem is, everybody in my family is convinced that he or she is a bona fide expert on all subjects under the sun, a sentiment that’s coupled with the innate (perhaps genetic) inability to admit to being wrong. For instance, let’s say a Kennedy is driving down the street, and doesn’t know where to turn:

Kennedy #1: “Do we turn right to get to the mall?”
Kennedy #2: “No, turn left.”
Kennedy #1: “I knew that! I was just joking.”

My relatives are the kind of folks who will sit for hours and argue over, say, the number of radioactive isotopes in Boron. I’ve gotten sucked into these debates, even though I know nothing about Boron, and much less about Isotopes, except that I get a pair every Christmas but always loose one of them. But I jump into the debate because I know nobody else knows, either, or else it wouldn’t be a topic of conversation. It’s the survival of the most convincing; I learned early on that debate is a linguistic (and sometimes fat-burning) exercise in which the facts have little or no consequence. (Which speaks to the history of Southern politics.)

In New York, I feel like a displaced Southerner, but back in the South, I feel like a displaced Yankee. I don’t have the accent or the impeccably coordinated wardrobes of my Southern cousins, but I know how to make a mint julep and can repair a car body using a luggage strap. If asked who was the greatest football coach of all time, I know that the only correct answer is Bear Bryant.

But I don't smile at strangers anymore, and I know what a "knish" is (well, sort of). I know why the Upper West Side is better than the Upper East Side, and think it's rational to put clothes on a dog. I think the "C.S.A." is someone who does your taxes. So does What does that make me?

A Confederankee?

I left the South because I wanted to live somewhere where “things happen on a grand scale,” to paraphrase Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott (and, incidentally, a high school chum of my grandmama Kennedy’s). I suppose things do happen on a grand scale in New York; if I weren’t so busy picking up terrier poop to pay my exorbitant rent, I’m sure I’d notice.

2004-06-03T12:34:00.000-07:00

The Pickle Relish is in the Medicine Cabinet, or, The Mis-Adventures of A.D.D. Girl

I had something terribly important to do today. Really. If only I could remember what it was.

While performing my morning ritual of tearing the house apart in search of my keys, I decided to stop and make a list of all the things I needed to do today – otherwise, I’m sure to forget at least 90% of them. This is what it’s like to live with Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. (I’ve had ADD since I was a kid, although I wasn’t diagnosed as an “Adult” until recently.)

To make a list, you need a pen. Unfortunately, my pens have a way of getting misplaced, like my thoughts and keys and pet goldfish (a sad story for another time). The search for a pen takes me to the bathroom cabinet (of course) where, instead of a pen, I find – no joke – a jar of pickle relish. I have no idea how long it’s been there, or what my friends might have thought if they opened up that cabinet, only to be cruelly punished for their voyeuristic curiosity. I also came across a crusty old eyeliner, which isn’t a pen, but heck, it writes. Now all I need is a piece of paper. I rush over to my desk and -

That’s when I see her, flying past my window. A woman with long red hair, wearing a unitard and a cape. It's ADD Girl!! This would-be superhero flies around the country trying to rescue people, but half the time she can’t remember where she’s going, or what she’s supposed to do when she gets there. Her hair blows into her face as she flies, because she keeps loosing her ponytail-tie thingies. Our heroine flies through the air, but that’s not what gets her noticed - what folks notice are her shoes.

“Look, Mom!” Little Suzy exclaims. “That lady - in the sky! She’s wearing two different colored shoes!”

“That’s what happens when you don’t take your Ritalin, Suzy.”

ADD Girl looks down at her accidental trademark: one black pleather boot, one brown. Maybe I should get a shoe tree, she muses, as her supersonic hearing picks up on the frustrated cries of a woman in New York, clutching a blue eyeliner and searching for a scrap of paper. But she can’t remember what she was about to write down! Something about a list. Or was it Liszt? Or maybe Chopin? A Chopin Liszt?

“Arrrrrrrrrrgh!” Comes the voice in New York.

Our hero snaps to. ”Don’t worry! I’ll save the day!”

With great alacrity, ADD Girl soars toward the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But en route, her flighter-sense smells troubleat "The Book Nook" in West New York, New Jersey. Store owner Art McGarygle can’t remember where he stocked those copies of You CAN Become Perfectly Organized! His best customer is on the verge of heading to Barnes & Noble and never coming back. Smells like a job for ADD Girl! She swoops down into the parking lot, thinking how it’s funny they should call the town West New York, when, in fact, it is in East New Jersey.

Names are funny things, our heroine thinks, trying desperately to remember why she is hovering above a strip-mall parking lot in Jersey. Suddenly, she spies Nancy Feinblatt cranking up her minivan - but Nancy doesn’t realize that she left her “dog purse” (containing Kitty, her pet Yorkshire terrier) on the roof of the car!

“This disaster must be averted!!” Our flighty flyer says aloud, to nobody in particular.

As ADD Girl dives toward Nancy’s Aerostar, she notices that The Shoe Rack, the store adjacent to The Book Nook, is having a sale on pleather flip-flops. In a flash, ADD girl remembers - she’s desperately in need of a new pair of pleather flip-flops! It would be a good time-saving measure if she could just stop in and pick some up, on her way to – what was it?

ADD Girl swoops in to save the day (or at least, save 50% on impractical shoes). An hour later she remembers the woman in Manhattan, Art in the bookstore and – jumpin’ jehosaphat - the terrier!

“Crap,” she says to herself, out loud. A man wearing a spaghetti strainer on his head shoots her an odd look. He points at her mismatched boots, taking comfort in the fact that his shoes are both the same color.

ADD Girl sighs deeply as she heads back to the Fortress of Forgetfulness, accidentally leaving her new purple and chartreuse flip-flops on a park bench.

To make a short story longer than necessary, I don’t remember any of the things I was so desperate to put on my to-do list this morning. All of it slipped out of my head when the image of ADD Girl flew into the room. She must have intended to rescue me. Bless her heart, she just got sidetracked somewhere along the way.

2004-06-03T12:06:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't heard - I'm engaged!

Now, this is the part where you rush to your calendar, expecting to find that it's actually the Latvian Orthodox version of April Fool's day or something. But, as Dave Barry might say - I am not making this up.

And NO, I'm not pregnant. As to answer your next question - Paul? Great guy, really funny, punk rock musician who occasionally does something vague having to do with computers for a living? We've been dating for about six months, but we used to work together, and he's been one of my closest friends for the past two years. We met while working at that nonprofit, where we immediately bonded over our mutual apathy and a fondness for split pea soup.

No dates yet for an actual wedding, but we're thinking April. Because that's the best time for a clothing-optional wedding.

2004-06-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

I’ve been writing a lot of fiction, lately. By that I mean - I’ve been updating my resume. This is quite a challenge because I’m still not exactly sure what I did at my last job. I was never given an actual title or job description. All I know is that it had something to do with the Pygmy Squid.

“We’re making all this up as we go along, see?” said my former boss, Mary, making “wax-on, wax-off” circles in the air. This was during my interview, and I was trying to get to the bottom of what the job might actually entail. I’d come prepared for the interview, armed with salient responses for any possible interview question. Except for the one that mattered most:

“So. Marguerite. How do you feel about ambiguity?”

Okay. I’ve heard questions like this before; usually it means someone’s about to propose a ménage a trois.

“Uh…. Ummm…. I feel ambiguously about it?” I took a stab; Mary was not amused. “No, seriously - I thrive on ambiguity,” I said.

Really. The Crying Game is one of my favorite movies, I almost added, before my better judgment staged an intervention.

“The thing is, here at X, we’re on the cutting edge. So much so that we don’t even know what we’re on the cutting edge of. See?” If either of us had been stoned, this conversation would have made a lot more sense. I smiled, nodded and said nothing - my secret receipe for success.

Based on my combined aptitude for silence and ambiguity, I got the job, but even after the first day (week, year) I still wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing. That is, until I found out about the pygmy octopus.

I was in a meeting with Mary and several of my co-workers. We were in the process of drafting a very nebulous proposal for an even more nebulous project when, halfway through the meeting, Mary hit the table so hard I jumped.

“The pygmy octopus!” She exclaimed with such urgency that I looked out the window, half expecting to see giant tentacles rising up out of the Hudson and w –

“Who read the Science section of the Times yesterday?” Mary asked. “Anyone? Anyone?”

“Bueller?” I said, possibly out loud. The remark went unappreciated.

“The pygmy octopus?! (for God’s sake! her expression screamed). “No – wait a minute - it was a pygmy squid.”

"Well. Pygmy squid. Why didn’t you just say so?" I said, possibly out loud.

“They found these squid in England.” “They were sitting in this museum, in a jar, labeled - “Baby Squid.” Mary liked to emphasize nouns. She paused for a moment, to allow this information sink into our impossibly thick skulls.

“They sat on the shelf - in the jar - for a hundred years. But recently, they found out that they weren’t baby squid at all. Turns out - they're pygmy squid. See?” Mary would often end sentences, “see?”

So my co-workers and I sat there, struggling, squinting, like in front of one of those pictures with all the dots, where you’re supposed to see a 3-D dinasour. Or a pygmy squid.

Mary sighed and shook her head, as if she were talking to very small, very idiotic children.

“Which proves," she continued, "that sometimes you have a thing, and you don’t know what that thing is. (short pause, for effect) See?!”

None of us did, but we all pretended to. And then, I realized – I, too, had a thing, but I didn’t know what it was. It was called a job.

2004-06-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

I started this blog in February, but I haven't updated it since. Why? I realized that 99.9% of the stuff that I find interesting enough to write about is 99.9% uninteresting to all but 99.9% of humanity. I'm no statistician, but this made the whole blog thing seem downright - masturbatory . Or something. But then I remembered that "masturbatory" is 99.9% of what the Internet's all about.

Another reason for the delay is that I've been terribly busy lately. Turns out unemployment is more time consuming than I thought (what with the serial killer terroring Salem - but is it really Marlena?). Besides - blogging, like so many things, is only truly gratifying when done on the company dime.

On that note - I'm going to have to return to the workforce soon. Does anyone want to pay me to do anything legal? I can type fast, and I have a solid working knowledge of acrobatics.

2004-02-21T13:10:00.000-08:00

I’m being shaken down by my pimp.

On Wednesday, I got home from Florida to a slew of messages on my machine.

“I still haven’t received the check, okay?” says a voice in a thick Brooklyn accent. It's Peter L. “Last time, you only paid me 15%, but it should be 20%, okay?”

Peter ends most sentences with "okay?" He's one of those people who chronically sounds worried. He should have been a psychiatrist instead of a dog pimp, although psychiatry might have been less lucrative. Whenever I see one of the innumerable T.V. commercials for nervous bowel medications (which invariably come before & after the ad for "New! Ranch Bacon Chocolate Pockets!") I imagine Peter asking his doctor if it's right for him.

In recent months I’ve become a sort of governess for the pampered, well-bred dogs of Manhattan's Upper West Side. Like a Mary Poppins of the canine set.

Peter hooked me up with my current charge - a two-and-a-half pound Yorkie named Lilli (as in, "lilliputian"). It's reasonably lucrative work, even when you take out the 20% that goes to the dog pimp. Twice a day, I visit Lilli in a luxury building on Riverside Drive, while her owner, Bob, is at the office, working to maintain his wee terrier in the lifestyle to which she has grown accustomed. It’s not a hard job - she doesn’t even go outside (it’s too cold; she’s too small). I usually just sit there having high-pitched, one-sided conversations, mostly centered around a squeaking plastic hamburger. Bob suggested that I teach Lilli French, which was funny, until I realized he wasn’t joking.

Alors, ca se passe tres bien.

Unemployment is great, but it hasn’t been quite as productive as I’d hoped. When I stopped working back in November, I had a long list of things I hoped to accomplish during my first few months on the Dole. These included:

Read the complete works of Tolstoy (before moving on to other notable classics);
Write a poignant (or at least, highly marketable) novel;
Design and sew all my own clothes (including hats and socks);
Churn out a screenplay or two;
Become a black belt in some pseudo-martial art (tai chi, tae boe),
OR, better yet: Invent my own pseudo-martial art (Jazz Boxing? it has a ring to it. Get it? A ring? Okay, that was bad);
Volunteer for charity.

I’m not quite finished reading the compete works of Tolstoy, possibly because I haven’t started yet. But I have watched Season Four of “Sex and the City” in its entirety, so, same diff.