jan 06

1/31/06
I’m afraid Jan. is finishing off with a whimper rather than a bang. I’ve been neglectful because I’ve been researching/writing a Valentine’s article for the NY Post that I think is due today, but isn’t quite done because whenever I get tiny bits of free time I squander it on things like watching 24, eating banh mi from the new kind of lame in the scheme of things, but good for what it is Vietnamese sandwich/bubble tea shop that just set up in Cobble Hill (but what would you expect of “ethnic” food in a area like this), accompanying James to the nether reaches of NJ, near Delaware and Pennsylvania to track down one of the only (relatively) nearby in-stock Panasonic TH-42PX50Us at a random Circuit City in Deptford, a weirdo town with lots of pickup trucks (you never see them in NYC), liquor stores, abandoned movie theaters and malls that still have ‘70s fonts like how the Gap logo used to be. I would be perfectly happy with my old 13” I had shipped from Portland over seven years ago and basic channels, but I don’t mind reaping the benefits of another’s giant plasma high definition television mania either. I’m thinking there will be an impromptu Super Bowl party this Sunday, not that I follow football, but TV needs to make itself useful. I hope to be a posting powerhouse in Feb. but until then, read about the horrible lunch scene in my new job neighborhood and an Indonesian restaurant in Elmhurst.
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1/25/06
Oh, more irresistible Braunstein details. I did enjoy the fact that when he was apprehended he had a Hello Kitty purse on him, and that he hid out in college libraries and stole backpacks, but my most favorite tidbit is how he didn’t care for his wanted poster image, claiming “it looks like a crazed Mexican.” And sometimes in photos I look like an insane Jew, so it all balances out. There’s always at least a week lag between when I do something that I feel the urge to write about (that doesn’t precisely fit here, meaning food, restaurants or shopping, though those are all Project Me topics, too) and when I actually manage to post anything. So, why not view some fun, now old times at Target, Mall at Short Hills and Chevys from two Sundays ago?
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1/23/06
Since I can’t talk about my job, which isn’t much to speak of anyway, I will relay another’s workplace anecdote. I guess a friend, sort of a friend of a friend of mine in Portland has a set up at work where anyone with iTunes can view everyone else’s iTunes accounts over the company network (I’m so jealous, I’m trying to figure out how to plug in a stupid pair of headphones. There aren’t any speakers, I guess I have to use the back of the computer but the distance is too great. I need to drown out all verbal inanity so I won’t be tempted to repeat any of it here. Well, this was cyber, not oral, but I was recently put off by a company-wide email that had some line like “survey responses will be unanimous” We’ll all agree upon them? I was almost tempted to anonymously send back a definition.) and some coworker they call RWFA (right-wing fat-ass) has his iTunes filled with a Christian parody band called ApologetiX. They’re totally the Weird Al’s of the holy set. I’m bummed that I haven’t been able to listen to any mp3s yet, but the lyrics really say it all. They take creative license with even the most mundane tunes. It’s not like they’re cleaning up dirty songs or fixing expletives, they’re simply mangling top 40 hits for the love of god. Totally true examples: Bethlehemian Rhapsody for “Bohemian Rhapsody,” JC’s Mom instead of “Stacy’s Mom” and Enter Samson riffing off Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” Hilarious. In a twisted way, I’m kind of sad that no one in my office would dare play AplogetiX. It’s just not that kind of crowd. You just don’t get a lot of pudgy jesus freaks working in NYC PR and advertising, and that’s a shame. Sometimes I miss having oblivious weirdoes around just to shake things up a bit.
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1/21/06
I’ve never had an opinion of Jared Leto one way or the other. I guess he’s kind of hot in that lean, muscular, low-rise-jeans-for-men kind of way that I don’t fully understand. He’s no Renee Zellweger, but now I think I love him after seeing his misguided attempt at gaining gravitas by gaining, I don’t know, 30-40 pounds to play Mark David Chapman in the upcoming Chapter 27 with total Oscar gold, Lindsay Lohan. He’s the anti-Christian Bale. Which reminds me (Christian Bale being in American Psycho, another Bret Easton Ellis book), I finally finished Lunar Park last week (one of my Christmas break reading choices that I now owe overdue fines on). I’m still not sure what I think of it, it starts off conventionally and I had a hard time getting into it, but then it shifts into a near horror story that actually kind of unnerved me a bit. But I’ve noticed the older I get the more easily spooked I am. I’m not even sure that I would consider it a great book, it has been growing on me, it did make a few prestigious best of 2005 lists. But I must admit enjoying it much more than Indecision (also a 2005 fave that I read in the past month) which annoyed the hell out of me. Was all the white upper class Manhattan slacker finding purpose supposed to be a parody or heart-felt? The author does publish that literary whatever-you-want-to-call-it n+1, which seems pretty earnest. I guess I’m just not intellectual or irony-free enough to appreciate this genre.
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1/18/06
Urgh, I’m really hating my lack of goof off time. How am I supposed to watch Lost and write this here crap simultaneously? I’m no media multitasker. This is old news from last Wed. and I did mention it on my Goodies First deal (didn’t say blog) but that’s practically a separate entity (I realize it’s weird, not to mention cumbersome, to put different subjects on totally different pages rather than just making a giant hodgepodge blog with categories, but that’s just not going to happen because my brain doesn’t work that way), so allow me to mention my NY Post article that was supposed to run like two months ago. The delay totally wasn’t my fault and is only serving to force me to investigate new writing venues, which I have a hard time motivating myself to do. I’m not an idiot, I just don’t have connections and am allergic to schmoozing and networking (in person and in cyberspace—I thought people were supposed to be bolder behind the relative anonymity of the web). I was going to write about my weekend adventure at the Short Hills Mall in New Jersey, and how I think something must be wrong with my hormones because in the past few days I’ve found myself attracted to absolutely random guys on the subway (yesterday I became fixated on this mediocre, shorter, younger version of Bradley Cooper from that not-very-funny Kitchen Confidential, and Alias, I guess, though I’ve never watched that show), but that will have to wait.
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1/17/06
Ok, I’ve stood by as the kids play their Pointer Sisters and Thriller-era Michael Jackson at bars and parties, as they do that Suzanne Sommers tight jeans tucked into tall boots thing, and I’ve even abided asymmetrical haircuts and side ponytails, but “footless tights” cannot, will not be tolerated or accepted. I am not fooled by marketers refraining from calling the stretchy leggings leggings. When stirrup pants start appearing (if they aren’t already in the stores) will they be rebranded as demi-tights, strappy tights, or another vague euphemism? Never mind, I’m blind, they’re also being sold by Urban Outfitters as xtra long stirrup with this adorable ad copy, “The '80s weren't all that long ago, so you should recognize these, or at least have heard tales of their greatness.” I have nothing to add, that pretty much sums it up. Maybe I should just embrace the greatness. I can’t fight the greatness anymore, it’s tiring.
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1/13/06
Have I mentioned that I’m doing this no snacking, lower calorie, smaller portion thing and it’s totally killing me. It’s not like I’m starving myself, it’s only common sense like don’t eat fried greasy things, or eat between meals or have seconds. (Which reminds me, have you seen this shit? I thought the French women don’t get fat mania was as lame as it got, but now Japanese women are not only thin, but immortal. I love all this secrets of my (grand)mother’s kitchen crap. I’m totally going to pen a memoir that will enlighten the world via my upbringing and the women who imparted their culinary knowledge to me. I will cover the finer points of Pizza Hut, bargain bags of puffed wheat cereal, fried eggs and bacon for dinner [I swear I ate this weekly as a kid, though if my mom is reading this I’m sure she’d argue otherwise] and frozen vegetables. I’m waiting for the diet book about black and Hispanic women getting fat and dying prematurely, which is pretty much the theme of this week’s uplifting New York Times series on diabetes.) But I can’t stand it and I’m feeling overly emotional and both spacey and snippy. I haven’t eaten any sweets or drank any alcohol either, and there’s no way that’s going to last, especially since I’m going to a party tonight and water is not an option. I’m not trying to detox, just not become cancerous and diabetic before I’m forty (after that, lord only knows). So far, this Friday the 13th has been downright dull, but there’s still time for plenty of unpleasant surprises. I hate being cryptic, but I must be, and I’m afraid that I’m having a case of buyer’s remorse in an aspect of my life. Normally, this would be a depressing situation, to be stuck with a possibly bad decision. But I’m not stuck, there’s potentially another option on the near horizon and that’s where the problem and stress lies. It would be like getting married and then running off with another guy in a month. But should you stay with something so-so to avoid incurring wrath (not to mention horrible karma) and eat the misery or be rash and selfish because after all, it is your life and I’m a big proponent of not doing things out of duty or obligation. Ok, here’s something far less serious, but still problematic, that I can speak freely about: my greasy patch of hair. I don’t know what the fuck happened, but something is severely wrong with my never-luxurious-in-the-first-place locks. There is this patch of hair on the right side of my head towards the back that for the past week or two has been perpetually wet and/or crispy looking like there’s product in it. I wash my hair every night and I usually let it air dry and end up going to bed with damp hair, and thought this might be the problem. But it’s not. I tried using a dandruff shampoo, thinking that it’d be harsher and get rid of weird build-up, I stopped using conditioner, thinking that maybe it wasn’t rinsing out properly. It doesn’t matter, I still have a wet-looking chunk. All I can attribute it to is that a few Sundays ago I colored my hair with semi-permanent, no ammonia dye (which is stupid because it doesn’t do shit to my gray hairs except turn them golden-brown and makes it look like I have light brown roots and that my real, dark brown color is the fake hue) and instead of leaving it on for 20 minutes like recommended, I kept it on for almost an hour because I got caught up in an episode of Small Space, Big Style that had a segment (I made a mental note to catch this, but now it’s been on like five times and I’m bored with it already, please get new episodes, HGTV) with the guy who runs Peek-A-Boo Records that I’ve had a blind crush on for no particular reason since I know next to nothing about him other than that he’s been in a few bands that I like and isn’t horrible looking. I thought he might be gay, but apparently has a wife that he lives with in a “small” 900 square-foot Austin condo. Oh my god, how do two people live in such tight quarters? (I know this is a national show, but come on. A 350 square-foot NYC apartment from the same episode is small, but most of these houses have kitchens that are triple mine, and are easily as large as many studios.) But in reality, I’ve never had any love for band guys and I was bothered that his wife said he never sets foot in the kitchen because I need a man who can cook. And more importantly, because of him my hair now has a permanently waxy texture which is becoming difficult to live with.
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1/9/06
Sap alert: there are commercials I hate because they’re really freaking horrible like the Chrysler Pacifica hot pregnant moms out on the town or the Crumbelievable Kraft cheese chunks with the bastardized EMF song, but then there are commercials I hate because they so transparently tug at your heart strings even though you know better. Those Zales (I mean, c’mon, Zales?) ads where the guy is getting up the nerve to propose (though they currently only seem to be showing the one where a guy gives a woman earrings) with David Bowie’s “Pressure” playing is one such nuisance. The current contender is that Cingular commercial (this is a longer version than what is running on TV) where the guy keeps checking his phone hoping that the girl/woman he just met is going to call him later like she said she would. As if this scenario has any basis in reality. I don’t know any guys (well, not guy guys) who get all moony and fixated like this. It’s an invention developed to target female customers (or are men meant to identify with this unsure protagonist?). I give this fictional twosome two months tops. I refuse to be tricked and wouldn’t buy a cell phone anyway, but whenever this ad comes on it hypnotizes me and induces senseless wistfulness. I don’t want to have feelings about fake scenarios on television. Enough sap. I feel much better about all the drunk babies in the news lately. Well, toddler and kindergartener, but close enough. You always remember your first Applebee’s Long Island ice tea.
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1/5/05
It’s so hard for me to not talk about people. It’s not like I would ever give away trade secrets or talk business, duh, I’m only concerned with inane human interactions. But innocent as that sounds, relaying conversations is exactly the kind of thing that could come back to haunt you. So, after today I vow not to talk about work at all in any context, but must mention a few overheards first. This wasn’t an overheard, but a told to, and it scared me because a women who has been here a long time was giving me the scoop on how it all went bad with my predecessor and her supervisor and how they either quit or were fired (quite some time ago and not at the same time) I didn’t quite understand the story but I liked the details of how the person who I think might be the former me “went down to a size 4 from the stress.” Wow, I hate stress and am now very nervous, but I’ve never been smaller than a size 12, so that’s very exciting news. I’m waiting for the dramatic weight loss to ensue. I have to remember that I don’t work with librarians anymore so nitpicking, precision and memory for detail aren’t common traits. Twice in two days, two separate individuals (not speaking to me) mangled movie titles, and that makes me nuts. One was going on about wanting to see Breakfast in Paradise (Breakfast on Pluto), the other hated The Stone Family (The Family Stone). My ears almost started bleeding. One of these same individuals was recommending books to her assistant whose son won’t read and suggested Roald Dahl (which the advice receiver had never heard of and that made my head hurt a little) but the bizarre part was how the woman was trying to trigger the other’s memory/recognition by tossing out random titles like The Witches and Holes (which wasn’t written by Roald Dahl). Uh, there’s this obscure book called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that the general public is probably pretty familiar with, if not only due to the recent Johnny Depp movie. Ok, no more. From here on out I’ll only complain about myself. And yes, as always, I’m troubling my own person. This morning I inexplicably woke up in what I guess they call a cold sweat. I was freezing and drenched, my pajamas (yes, I wear pajamas) were soaked through, my sheets were wet.. It was really kind of scary, and I recall this happening maybe once before in the past few years. I’ve also had a horrible overheated, sweaty sensation practically every morning for at least a couple years, but nothing like this. Now I’m totally convinced that I have cancer or AIDS. Or a severe anxiety disorder that affects me even as I sleep. I’m really getting annoyed with myself because I’ve managed to develop a new severe phobia since Tuesday when I started my new commute. I get off at Lexington and 53rd and it’s one of those really deep in the ground stations so it has a super long escalator (or a super long staircase, depending on your activity level) more like you’d see in London. I’ve never had any issues with these before, but the escalator is giving me wild panic attacks, primarily going up. It’s kind of outrageous because I know rationally that I’m not going to fall off it (I first noticed this phobia in S.E. Asia where they have really vertical malls and to get up to like the tenth floor you weave up and up on too-exposed-for-me escalators where you can see all the way to the bottom, totally inducing vertigo. I attributed this unbalanced, about to fall sensation to perhaps a use of shorter arm rails, like more of the body is over the top of the sides than in America, or maybe it was metrically built, also causing disorientation from subtle different-ness) but I start to sweat and feel like I’m going to throw up or faint and the only thing that makes sense would be to sit down (which worked when I had a freak out on Coney Island’s Wonder Wheel) so as not to see any movement. It’s so bad that I’m stressing about the impending escalator for most of my subway ride. It feels like the ascent goes on for eternity, so yesterday I tried walking up to speed things along (they really need to take a cue from Singapore whose subway escalators are oh so slightly faster than ours though even New York transplants don’t seem to notice this) and it only made it worse, I was convinced I was going to slip backwards. I guess the worst case scenario is that you do fall backwards. It’s sardine packed, so you’d definitely smack the person behind you, but it’s not like you’d end up at the bottom, I don’t even know if there’d be a domino effect. The person behind might push you and be pissed if they were strong or fall and cause more problems if they were lighter (more likely). Tomorrow I might try the stairs, but I know this won’t be a solution because it’s the steep angle and the length of the passage that makes my brain freak out, not the mode of transport. Ha, many hours after I wrote this, I went to dinner at Grand Sichuan on St. Mark’s and ended my meal with the following fortune “There will be someone sharing your warmth.” Does this mean I’ll be sweating for two this evening?
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1/3/06
Oh, I was/am starting to get scared that my previous entry might be it for the year. Between this new job (I fear that daytime web scribing might have to be a thing of the past since today I actually had, uh, work to do at work, the new job which I shouldn’t talk about as to not get into any unnecessary trouble. It’s PR and positive public image is utmost, I suppose. I was so busy that I didn’t even have time to read the 15 not exaggerating emails from HR about various forms, orientations and policies, one which was about blogging, ha) and all my TV shows (Surface, Invasion, Lost, 24, The Office, Battlestar Galactica, maybe Threshold, it’s supposed to be on Tuesdays at 10pm, which is right now and it’s not on and it’s making me angry) finally returning with fresh episodes, my days and nights are rapidly becoming occupied. It appears that I’m going to have to learn about priorities and multitasking if I want to live such a wonderful fulfilling life.
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1/2/06
So, apparently today is an official holiday. You know, subway holiday schedule (i.e. like two trains an hour), no mail, schools and banks closed, the Burger Heaven and Pret a Manger on my office's block are closed, even the corner coffee cart and produce stand guys stayed home today. And yet I’m at work. I think this is a horrible mistake and that the powers that be screwed up the schedule. I realize we got last week off, but there’s still something cruel about making us work this morning. I was at least looking forward to my Monday bagel, the only thing that motivates me at the beginning of the week, but the bagel guy must’ve stayed in bed. No free breakfasts in the new year. I could deal, really, but it’s particularly painful since it’s my last day at this job. (I am having minute mean spirited fun screening applicants for my position. There are three interviewees coming in today, and I’m pettily relishing one candidate because at least two years ago, before I even started library school, I joined the Pratt mailing list and there was a post about a really great sounding apt., strangely enough in the neighborhood I now dwell and get irritated by, so I inquired directly via email and the poster never responded. I have always remembered this email address because I’m elephantine and never forget a diss or wrong-doing, no matter how miniscule the infraction. This person ended up being in one of my classes, which I deduced from a sign up sheet using said email address, and she always ate fast food french fries in class and this grossed me out even though I love french fries. It’s true what they say about lasting impressions, first impressions, etc. because now I will be nixing this woman [not wholly because of her poor email and classroom dining etiquette—we’ve already identified a more qualified candidate], not that I have any power or final say, but my opinion does still count) All the big popular blogs have yet to update since Dec. 30 so I don’t even have anything mindless to read. I really wish there was some way I could’ve cut loose nice and tidy at the end of 2005 because this one final day in 2006 crap is messing up my desire for a fresh start. And Dec. 31 wasn’t so fresh. I don’t know what went wrong, but barely an hour past midnight I managed to throw up fuchsia chunks in someone’s stairwell. Not nice at all, for them or for me. I haven’t puked in public due to drunkenness (I did heave into my hat about two years ago, but that was food poisoning) since probably ’99 when my sister visited and I wasn’t even dating James yet and I went overboard at 7B and hurled all over the sidewalk somewhere in the east village and was surprised that he hugged me (as well as my sister) goodbye since I’m sure I was a mess. I didn’t even think that I’d drank that much, it was that I’ve never been smart about mixing, like I partook in white wine, red wine, whisky, cheap champagne and then, I think the clincher was Frangelico. Seriously, I had a few stupid sips at this random, claustrophobic fire hazard S. Williamsburg loft party where they were playing reprehensible, funky top 40 tunes from the ‘80s (last year Nu Shooz bent me out of shape—this year it was “Rock Steady” by The Whispers) and that’s when it all went bad. I think they advertised their bash on My Space, which is totally dangerous, people were being turned away because the apt. was to capacity, friends of ours who’d told me about the party in the first place couldn’t get in. It was a total Williamsburg freak show when we squeezed out onto S. 2nd St. Maybe my perception was skewed from drinking, but it felt like a zombie movie (not fast 28 Days Later style, but classic mindless, plodding, groaning types), the street was seething with hipsters, people were sprawled on the sidewalks, the middle of the road thick with youngsters. I think the sight did me in. I tried to capture the frightening scene digitally, but my camera never seems to convey proper depth of field. All my resulting snapshots just look like small clusters of people standing around when it felt like I was being swept up in a filthy mob (I might post some photos later, as I’m not in a position to upload at the moment). Like I said, my brain might have been off. It was the next party where I had out of the blue troubles. We didn’t stay that long, I didn’t even feel sick, but the second we opened the door to leave my stomach went crazy. I couldn’t believe my lack of control or the resulting colorful pool (the next morning I was shocked at the crud all over my boots that looked like hot pink cupcake frosting. I was also disturbed by something I can’t explain. You always hear horror stories about alcoholics blacking out, behaving horribly, doing dangerous things and forgetting it. I’m sure I was acting poorly, but that’s not my point. What I can’t figure out is that yesterday I woke up and one of the little plastic drawers where I keep my necklaces [the top drawer is for earrings, the middle for bracelets] was on the floor next to my bed [I hadn’t even worn a necklace that night so there was no reason for it to be out at all] and filled to the top with clear liquid. All my jewelry was submerged in a pool of who knows what. My first thought was cat [or god forbid, human] pee, but it didn’t smell of urine. It wasn’t alcohol. It was scentless like water, but why and how would water have gotten into my drawer? I don’t keep a water glass near my bed either. The whole thing is very illogical, though really only mildly worrisome in the scheme of things). But out with the old, in with the new, literally and metaphorically. 2005 has totally been purged from my system and now I’m ready to fill up on 2006.

Self-photography is not as easy as it looks
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