stultifying leaps & hounds

2011-12-20T13:12:00.003-05:00

This brief feline interlude has been brought to you by a very stressful little thing called Moving in December. 'Tis the season for overcommitment! I know it doesn't rhyme, but I don't have time to agonize over syntax right now (or to wonder if I used the word syntax correctly).

As you can see from the way she's clutching the drawer, Fatty could care less that there are moving boxes in one corner of the apartment and piles of clothes heading to Beacon's all over the bed. Petey, on the other hand, has been even more fidgety than usual and will occasionally let out a harrowing wail as he paces from one end of the apartment to the other. He's taken to laying all over the boxes in a very obvious display of denial.

Long story short, our landlord is coming home to her apartment in January, and our sublet in the stodgy but oh so well located co-op is over. Our next step? Moving down the hall. Seriously. There's an empty apartment that is available for sublet and after much stalling and nail biting, we should receive the keys sometime* today. I'm leery of telling the whole story here on the interwebs, otherwise known as naked land where everything is permanent and accessible to prying eyes. Basically, it did not need to be this drawn out and ridiculously close to not happening in time for both christmas and the end of our lease. Certain parties involved wanted certain things that they should not have been entitled too, but they negotiated their way into what they wanted at the expense of my sanity. Yes, we could have tried harder to find another rental that wouldn't have involved such waiting and lack of control, but who wouldn't want to move down the hall? to a brighter apartment? and pay the same rent? and live in exactly the same location that you were depressed about leaving? So I suppose it was worth it.

*I say sometime because, in keeping with all other communication with these people, we have not been told when the owner is planning to stop by today.

Portland Marathon: the slog

2011-11-27T19:23:00.001-05:00

The first seven miles of the Portland Marathon went by pretty quickly. We got caught up in the atmosphere (complete with musical groups around almost every corner) despite the unwelcome chainsaw in charrow's stomach. But eventually Charrow got pastier and had to walk more often than planned. I tried to get her to eat something a few times, but she took a microscopic bites and immediately handed the snacks back to me. Around mile ten, she finally made the decision to stop.

The next 16 miles were long and lonely. I felt mixed about leaving Charrow in the hands of volunteers, but I knew as soon as she said she was quitting that I really wanted to finish the race. She dropped out a little ways before the half marathoners split off towards their finish, so I had about a mile with a moderate crowd, but at the split things thinned out considerably. Part of what makes a marathon manageable is distraction, be it through a running partner, music (live or otherwise), podcasts, whatever. When you're running alone, you have everyone around you to act a surrogate partner, but when the field consists of a speed-walker and a distant trickle of other runners, you get bored quickly. Boredom equals time to focus on other things, like how much you hurt. Thankfully it took a long time for that feeling to settle in (mile 22 to be exact), but I was definitely sad to be out there doing this huge thing on my own (oh, co-dependency, how you thwart me). Granted, I was not nearly as sad as Charrow, but hey, this is my blog so I can cry if I want to.

Miles 13-18 were pretty dismal in terms of scenery. The musicians scattered along this part of the route were obviously getting bored and the roadside attractions included cement mixing factories and storage facilities. The weather was holding steady at a 100% chance of gray and a 20% chance of drizzle. I plugged along, care of my 8 song playlist that I whipped up just in case I decided not to listen to podcasts. That's right, 8 songs, over and over and over. Hey, when they're all your favorites, it's okay to hear them 20 times while you wonder what in the world you got yourself into.

As required by all sadistic marathon course planners, mile 18 marked the beginning of a very long, very steep hill heading up to the St. Johns Bridge. I do love me some bridges, but after 18 miles, I would have been happy to stick with something a little less dramatic (I know, I just complained about being bored, but bridges don't slake boredom when they come with hills). I suppose it was worth the effort because this was the view from the top.

After crossing the bridge, it was literally all down hill from there, which was good and bad. The purple spot on my big toe nail says it was bad. The rest of my legs were happy for the break. The neighborhood on the other side of the water was quirky and way more interesting than pretty much the rest of the course. Sad, but true. A smattering of fans were sticking it out to cheer us on, and by "us" I mean me and the walkers and the old guy about 100 yards ahead of me that I pegged as my running beacon. People were handing out homemade baked goods (thank you for the banana bread, it was just what I needed) and holding signs that said "dear complete stranger, you're doing great." Everyone cheered me on using my full name because that what was listed on my racing bib, so I pretended that everyone was my mother because she's one of the few people that still uses my given name. It was actually pretty comforting. Every so often my run/walk ratio had me approaching a group of spectators at the walk phase. It always seemed to coincide with the cheerleaders (as in uniform wearing, pom-pom toting) and not the silver-haired smilers. I couldn't bear to stroll by gaggles of teenagers so I would start my run right before I got to them and then resume walking after I covered a respectable distance (i.e. 30 feet past the echoes of my name)

Somewhere around mile 22 the pain kicked in. My knees started to feel like they were being squeezed by rose stems and my feet were under the impression that I had filled my socks with Nerds. But I followed my old guy and put "Dog Days Are Over" on repeat to keep me going. It's a fantastically motivational song, but if you listen too closely to the words when you're feeling swamped by exhaustion, it may cause you to cry, which I almost did like 5 times between mile 22 and the finish.

Eventually I passed my beacon, which was both triumphant and kind of sad because he was really keeping me good company. I picked another secret friend and followed her to the end because that's what you do -- you just keep going. It didn't really occur to me stop. I managed a feeble kick as I rounded the last corner and made it across the finish line without falling on my face.

Stay tuned for the Aftermath.

Fair warning to other runners planning to do Portland:

- If you run slowly, you will miss most of the music acts in the second half of the course. Race planners should consider hiring 2 sets of music acts so that the people at the back of the "pack" have some entertainment. Bring a friend, your nerves of steel, or an ipod to keep you company!

- The Portland course was significantly drearier than the Philadelphia course, regardless of the weather. It was very friendly in terms of walkers and slower runners (hugs!), but don't do it for the scenery unless industrial is the cream in your wheat.

- There are some amazing post-race snacks. All I have to say is white pizza.

- There are tons of water stations and a decent number of bathroom stops. I brought water with me, but I barely made a dent in it.

- There may be awesome older men playing accordions under the tents that probably housed other musicians at the beginning of the race. Smile at them and they will nod their head while they get their groove on.

- Same goes for the bluegrass band that was still going full steam when I passed them around mile 21. Those guys were awesome, and it took some willpower to run away from them.

*all pictures from the race were taken with a plastic fisheye camera (thanks steve & liala). I should have considered my destination a little more carefully because I used 100 speed film for a city that is notoriously gray. oh well.

you have now entered Crazytown. Population: 1

2011-11-22T21:14:00.001-05:00

I think marathons may cause brain damage. That's the only logical explanation for running two of them in a span of 6 weeks. The first one must have knocked some important decision making cells ajar. Perhaps the jostling screwed up their inhibitory and excitatory reactions so that instead of saying, "maybe running another marathon so soon isn't the smartest idea," my brain said "do it! run another one! you're made of cogs and wheels, and it won't hurt."

Let's step back for a second and paint a clearer picture of the crazy. It's been awhile since I've written anything so maybe you're confused. Or maybe you're new to this little splotch of awkward in the internet abyss.

On October 9th, Charrow and I were slated to run the Portland Marathon together. The day before the race, Charrow wasn't feeling great, but it didn't seem worthy of too much concern. We figured an early bedtime and lots of water should do the trick. Sometime in the middle of the night, she morphed into a squirming, stomach-burning, vomiting, explosive mess. When I woke up at 5:30 to get ready for the insanity, she was doubled over on the bed and couldn't stand straight. After two panicked phone calls (one to each of our respective mothers) and a botched attempt to eat, we decided that she would just give it a shot. If she had to drop out, at least she would know that she tried. And she gave it a valiant effort. She went from walking with a noticeable lurch to running 10 miles before she called it quits. Her inability to eat and drink water are what finally made it unsafe. If you can't eat, you can't run. Too much water on an empty stomach while incinerating calories equals major disaster. So we stopped at an aid station that had medical staff and explained the problem. I asked her about 17 times if it was okay for me to leave her there and she said yes every time, so I took her at face value and walked away. It felt incredibly wrong, and I'm still torn about whether it was the right decision.

The rest of the run deserves its own post, but long story short, I finished the marathon at glacial speed without causing bodily harm to myself or anyone else. Considering my inability to walk straight after it was over, the second half of that sentence counts as a feat.

Charrow was absolutely miserable when I got back to the hotel (for multiple reasons, some of which will be explained in the "how I survived my first marathon" post). At some point during the day, she heard from her sister that the Philadelphia Marathon was still open. Charrow was determined to have her mulligan, and the minute she said she was running Phillie, I firmly said "Well you're running it alone because I can't do that again."

Apparently the neurological injuries don't present until several weeks after the incident.

About a week before Charrow's race (November 20th) we were out for a routine run in Prospect Park, when I felt this surge of optimism (first sign of serious injury). I said to Charrow, "what if instead of running a section of the race with you, I just run the whole thing??" She didn't talk me out of it. And she repeatedly said that I wasn't going to steal her thunder if I ran with her, so when we got home from our run I did a little craigslist search and found someone to buy a race bib from. We agreed to keep it under wraps so everyone would be excited for Charrow and not get distracted by my decision to be psychotically supportive and somewhat selfish (because I partially just wanted to see if I could do it).

And that is how I ended up next to the Schuykill River this past Sunday with Charrow and about 25,000 other people who decided to traipse through Philadelphia for several hours. Pictures and details to follow after a short and sweet Thanksgiving visit with the Charrow clan.

one popsicle at a time

2011-07-24T09:38:00.010-04:00

If you're not one of those people who can scamper out of the house and go for a 20 mile jaunt because it's just the natural distance your body wants to go (yes, these people do exist), you should consider NOT doing any of the following before you plan on running 17 miles for the first time ever:

1. hiking 5.5 miles on a 100 degree day with less than adequate amounts of water & food

2. spend 4 hours floating down a scenic river on another 100 degree day with less than adequate amounts of food & water

3. plan to return home around 9pm the night before your run and then have to make all of your neurotic running preparations at a time when you should be banking extra sleep

I survived the 17 mile plod yesterday, but it was quite possibly one of the hardest runs I've ever experienced. Harder than that one time I ran 12 miles down a country road and completely ran out of water and had to ask an old man mowing his lawn if I could trouble him for something to drink. Not quite as hard as that one time I ran 10 miles in rolling West Virginia hills and then proceeded to spend the next 3 hours in and out of the bathroom with horrible stomach cramps.

Here's what I saw at the start of the run in central park:

Needless to say, I should have started earlier. Please see the aforementioned list for reasons that made waking up before 6 am seem like more than I could handle. Things went okay for the first 10 miles. And by okay, I mean I didn't feel like I would keel over, but I also noticed that the heat was making life much harder than it needed to be.

Around mile 6, I stopped for an overpriced popsicle and spent a luxurious 5 minutes walking while I ate it. But before the stick ever hit the side of the trash can, I felt like I'd never even heard of popsicles. Do you remember that feeling of infinite running misery that I mentioned? It descended not long after I finished the popsicle and continued to ride on my shoulders for the remainder of the run. At any given point after mile 7, I could not imagine ever being done. I tried to busy myself with podcasts, but I was so distractible that I can barely remember what I heard. I do know that Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me has the perfect hodgepodge of information and fast-paced antics to keep me interested for more than 2 minutes at a time. This American Life: forget it. I love you Ira Glass, but you were not meant for torturous situations.

My intended route for the last 6 miles was to circle the reservoir for 3 laps then return to the main park drive for another mile and a half back to Columbus Circle. I couldn't face the rolling hills on the drive, so before I even got to mile 11 (right before hitting the reservoir for the 2nd set of laps around the shell track) I decided to just hunker down for an extra lap and forget about attempting anything than even closely resembled an ascent. Things that made this a wise decision: extremely flat surface, guaranteed bathroom (that I didn't end up needing), 2 water fountains, 80% shade, and a nice breeze coming off the water.

But even a view like that can feel like purgatory when it seems like you're running on a combination of hot coals and crushed glass. Okay, that's slightly dramatic, but my feet were really unhappy by mile 13, and I slowed from my respectable crawl to a miserable shuffle for the last 4 miles. I maintained my 4 minutes of running, but the walk breaks* went from 1:45 minutes to 2 and sometimes 3 minutes.

As I hobbled through the last 20 yards, I passed tourists eating ice cream sandwiches on a bench, and it was all I could do not to rip the ice cream out of their hands and smear it all over my face. The thought of eating anything made me sick to my stomach (which was actually a problem for the last hour because I had a hard time forcing down any food; can we say heat exhaustion?), but I could have really gone for a frozen facial. Instead, I huffed my way over to a vendor and squeaked out my order of a vitamin water and a popsicle. I paced** and forced down my snack and tried to keep myself from laying flat on my face in the grass.

The only down side to running in central park is that when it's all over, you have to get on a train with other people (unless you happen to have an endless supply of taxi funds). All you want to do is sit down, but so does everyone else, so you end up sitting next to people. I can only imagine how lovely an experience that was for everyone around me. I was covered in black dust from the shins down, there was a peanut butter explosion on my water pack that I hadn't had the energy to clean up, and I'm sure I smelled like roses soaked in hobo juice. But I consider the ride a success because I got a seat for every leg of the trip, no one actively moved away from me, AND I didn't puke or explode in any other way. Small victories, my friends. Teeny, tiny, graceless victories. That's how you train for a marathon.

*long story short, we're doing a run/walk program of 4 min running with roughly 1:30 min walking.

**I saw a t-shirt that said "marathons only hurt when you stop." Gospel, I tell you.

the promised land awaits

2011-06-21T11:17:00.004-04:00

At the end of last weekend's long run, we were faced with not one, but two of the best food trucks camped out right next to each other. I'd tucked a $20 bill in the pocket of my running shorts for just such an encounter with the promised land. I was actually so blinded by the Yogo truck that I didn't notice the dumpling truck until we were standing in line for frozen yogurt. Charrow and I gave each other a conspiratorial look and decided that we should probably split an order of savory dumplings to go with our sweet treat. It's all about balance, right?

The combination actually made me feel a little sick when it was all said and done, but I would totally do it again. I would just wait about 30 minutes before eating any of said treats.

Also seen on our run: boat loads of balloons, most of which were pink.

frozen yogurt mirage

2011-06-18T13:33:00.007-04:00

There's comes a point in every long run when I can't imagine ever being done. All I can think about is how many more times I have to put one foot in front of the other and how many more beads of sweat there are left to sweat. For last weekend's 11 mile run, that point came as I crested the hill near the Grand Army entrance of Prospect Park for the second time. Rounding off the 7th mile meant that I only had 4 more to go, but that kind of math doesn't really comfort the soles of my feet.

The course I mapped took me past the botanic gardens and the Brooklyn Museum where I took a pit stop to snap some photos of the fountain. I don't know if it was the extended break or the mesmerizing cascades of water, but when I started the next stint* of running, I felt less overwhelmed. I sank into a comfortable plodding rhythm and even managed to laugh out loud at Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

But somewhere around mile 10 I was faced with two long, gradual hills before the last quarter mile descent (I knew about one hill, the other one was a nasty little surprise), and the feeling of eternal running doom returned. The thing about running in Brooklyn versus training in Atlanta is that there are public transportation options everywhere along the route. This is both comforting and horribly tempting. Thankfully, there were no viable options for the last 15 minutes of the run. I don't know what it would take for me to stop running (besides the obvious answer of injury), but sometimes it's best to not even have the option of quitting.

After 2 full episodes of Peter Sagal** and company, I decided to cap off the end of the run with an episode of the Moth aptly entitled "Sloth." Sadly there was no frozen yogurt truck camped out along Prospect Park West. I was really hoping to drown myself in granola and natural tart, but alas, all I had to look forward to was a smooze in the freezer at home and a bagel concoction that looked something like this (peanut butter & jelly on one side. butter on the other. because I'm indecisive):

*we're doing the Jeff Galloway run/walk program. more on this in a separate post.

** Peter Sagal is a frequent Runner's World contributor so it felt appropriate to listen to him for almost the entire run. Plus, he's hilarious.

the slog

2011-06-11T19:33:00.006-04:00

So we're doing it. We're running a marathon. Specifically, the Portland Marathon. We decided to do the Portland race because there are volunteers that hug you at every mile marker, they give you free sparrow tattoos at the water stations AND, wait for it... there are rivers of coffee that run through the city.

Okay, so maybe there are no coffee rivers, but I bet there are hugs!

I don't know exactly how Charrow contracted the marathon itch, but when the runner's world issue with the top 10 marathons came out, she asked me if I wanted to run Portland because it was touted as a good beginner marathon and neither of us have ever been to visit. Blinded by the promise of donuts, specialty coffee, and the potential for visiting a good friend that I haven't seen in years, I agreed.

And that's why I have to run (and by run, I mean shuffle) 11 miles tomorrow. Who's excited?

To be fair, I, too, have the marathon itch (although I do not have the Boston hives), but ever since our half marathon experience that resulted in a foot injury, I figured marathons were just not on my dance card. But we're giving it a go and so far things are fine. My feet are sore from working at the Very Successful Coffee Shop (henceforth known as "the shop" because that's a long nickname), so I'm doing my best to run on days that I don't work, and I'm icing the crap out of my feet whenever I can. In fact, I'm sitting in an ice bath right now.

Okay, I'm not, but I will be tomorrow after the slog.

*today's picture is an example of how I plan to look after we finish the insanity and have gorged ourselves on donuts and greasy food.

obey the stripes

2011-06-09T09:59:00.007-04:00

Does anyone ever take their own advice?

This week I have given 2 people advice to revive forgotten blogs and yet here mine sits, unattended and vying for attention like a certain orange cat that I know. It's amazing how much mental space something can take up. I think about the blog often. I think about how I don't know what to write, and then I think about how I don't have anything to say (unless a cat juices on my face, and then I'm here to shout from the top of Google mountain), but when does anyone have anything to say*, so why don't I just go ahead and say nothing already?

So here I am. Ready to talk about soup, or not talk about soup, all day. Or at least part of several days a week. Prepare yourself for snippets and tidbits of a not so salacious existence in the big city.

I know what you're thinking. This all sounds so familiar. You read 4 other blogs today that said "I'm going to post more often! I've been so busy!" Well, add another one to the list, but keep checking back because I might just surprise both of us.

*gross generalization intended to sooth insecurity. disregard.

lickety split

2011-03-15T09:34:00.004-04:00

This past Sunday I had to work at the Very Successful Coffeeshop. On my break, I ate my apple and peanut butter snack, and after I finished the apple, I started eating a fig, but I couldn't figure out where to put the fig while I checked my phone for new text messages, so I stacked it on top of the apple core. Look at that! A snack stack! With knee-jerk swiftness, I snapped a picture on my new pocket internet machine and uploaded the silliness to Facebook. It wasn't until the train ride home that I realized I had broken a cardinal screen free sunday rule: no Facebook allowed.

And that in a nutshell is how my screen free sundays have been going. It is incredible how much conscious effort it takes to stay away from the internet. I fared better that afternoon: we went for a run, and I kept my computer usage* to financial information only (I'm obsessed with Mint and keeping track of my bank account), but I did catch myself staring absentmindedly at Charrow's computer as she sat next to me scrolling through the cavernous time suck that is the Face. Does that count as cheating? It felt pretty wrong as my eyes continuously wandered back over to her screen.

This coming Sunday I don't have to work and I can't paint because the client will be home, so my willpower is definitely going to be put to the test. How will I resist the siren call of My So Called Life on netflix instant play?? I may have to lock myself in the bathroom with a toothbrush and some baking soda paste (it's magical for cleaning tile grout, fyi). Or I could do the sane thing and leave the apartment.

*yes, I'm still turning my computer on, so technically I'm not completely "free" of the screen. maybe at some point down the line I will wean myself off of even the non-media related screen gazing, but I wanted to be realistic about this and avoid bingeing, so I'm allowing myself to check things like bank accounts and to watch one tv show for dinner. judge me if you dare (or even care).

a bumpy start

2011-02-28T10:48:00.002-05:00

My first attempt at screen free sundays was a resounding failure. The morning started off well. I chipped away at the epic scientology article from last week's new yorker while I ate breakfast and drank my third attempt at making a hario pour over* without a gram scale. Then I cooked several things for this week's homemade eating crusade, but somewhere in the midst of chopping onions and grinding almonds, charrow suggested we go see black swan before the oscar award ceremony, and it all went downhill from there. I had to fire up the computer to check movie times. Then we sat for 2 hours in front of a screen larger than all the screens in my life combined while natalie portman's skin flashed with the nubbles of her avian transformation.

After we were sufficiently depressed and discombobulated by both the movie and the off-kilter people at the theater, we rode home and gathered our things for a bike ride** to williamsburg for a red-carpet-oscar-viewing-shrimp & grits-cream-puff-extravaganza. What can I say? I'm weak and the oscars don't come around every sunday, so I made plans to watch it with friends. A social fall from grace is better than sitting at home in my house pants overdosing on the A-list.

Measure of success: I didn't check facebook or any other blog or social media type mental gadget the entire day.

Measure of failure: I spent a combined total of 5.5 hours watching television.

*analogous task for those of you that are unfamiliar with a pour over, which is a relatively precise coffee brewing method: trying to thread a needle using your phone as a flashlight on a bumpy bus ride in the dark. It can be done, but it's not pretty

**three cheers for tolerable biking conditions!

collectively amazing

2011-02-24T16:02:00.004-05:00

Ways I would not like to spend my evenings: smoking lucky strikes, eating a banana and drinking corner store coffee (or who knows what) out of a styrofoam cup.

The morning of our first full day in Copenhagen, we were met with this sight as we left the hostel to go on a coffee expedition. It was simultaneously nauseating* and captivating (hence the need to record it).

We left this lovely scene and went to the Coffee Collective, which is an incredible shop in the Norrebro neighborhood that just happened to be within walking distance of our hostel. The baristas were friendly and made great coffee (I think we had at least 3 drinks a piece every time we went there). We lurked for so long that I'm sure we overstayed our welcome (sorry Annastina! and also sorry if I spelled/got your name wrong). It was hard to force ourselves to visit other shops in the city because we knew just how good the coffee would be at the Coffee Collective.

Eventually I will blather about non-coffee related vacation activities. I promise.

*sorry, smoker friends. I can't and don't usually hide it. I hate cigarette smoke, but I have reasons.

the land before the new york times

2011-02-22T11:17:00.003-05:00

The other night at a dinner party, a friend asked me if I wanted to borrow a book, and instead of reflexively saying yes! which I am wont to do whenever this friend recommends a book, I respectfully declined because I actually have too many other things to read right now. When I revealed that those other things included 2 weeks worth of old newspapers, someone else scoffed and said "why? they're irrelevant!" (here's a tip: if you want to make people feel good about themselves and enjoy spending time with you, don't tell them their goals are irrelevant)

You know what? I don't read the news every day. I don't even read the news every other day. Those 2 weeks of newspapers are actually really informative for me, and I have no intention of pitching them into the recycling bin unread. I understand if all of you horrified news hounds decide to leave this blog in the dust and move on to more informed pastures.

All of this is to say that I am instituting Screen Free Sundays in an effort to avoid piles of blue plastic bags filled with prehistoric information. No blog reading. No blog posting. No email checking. No work hub checking. No picture posting. Nothing. Nada. Analog only, with the exception of using my phone, which now has a pretty sizable screen because I finally upgraded to a smartphone, and my ipod because life with a soundtrack is just more enjoyable sometimes.

third time's the charm

2011-02-16T20:35:00.003-05:00

I have yet to discuss any of our trip to Europe last fall. I took copious notes in a little black book provided by the wonderful Ester, and I took tons of pictures, but I never figured out a good (and not overwhelming) way to share the experience beyond posting pictures to flickr. I still don't have a concrete idea of what I want to do, so I'm just going to periodically post a picture and a short description because something is better than nothing.

Today's picture was taken at Cafe CK in Berlin. It was a beautiful morning and we rode across the city* to the coffee shop to have breakfast and amazing coffee before heading off to do yet another Fat Tire Bike Tour. We went to Cafe CK 3 mornings in a row because the baristas and the owner were so nice and the coffee was some of the best we had during that leg of the trip.

Two other great shops to try if you ever find yourself in Berlin: The Barn (tasty food, exceptional coffee and Ralf, the owner, is beyond friendly) and Bonanza Coffee Heroes (I'm guessing they just go by Bonanza).

*note to self: do not stay in West Berlin when most of your planned activities are in East Berlin. It's a sprawling city (especially compared to New York) and while public transportation is great, we were attempting to rely on bikes with tires the width of a basset hound, which was not a pleasant experience. We finally gave up and turned our bikes in for the comfort of the train.

growing stains

2011-02-16T10:32:00.003-05:00

I find cryptic "exciting or strange things are afoot, but I can't reveal them right now!" updates to be exasperating, so I'm just going to lay it all out there with some points of necessary obscurity.

Large Event Number One: I am now employed by a Very Successful Coffee shop that also employs Charrow*. The job is fast-paced (although I'm told it's usually even faster-paced), engaging, educational, and menial all in one brown-stained package. It feels good to be out in the world, interacting with people and getting my hands dirty (but washing them before helping another customer, of course).

Large Event Number Two: I'm painting for one of the owners of said coffee establishment. It's a huge job that involves kitchen cabinets, high ceilings, and more trim that I can fit into a week's worth of nightmares, but it will look good in the end. If I ever get to the end of it.

Large Event Number Three: is waiting in the wings for now. I've put my website development and dog training business on temporary hiatus. Events number one and two are consuming most of my physical energy, leaving me with fumes to scrape together a functional household, a regular exercise routine, and maybe, just maybe enough mental energy to revive this here blog. I know there is no perfect time to start a business (or have a baby, so I'm told) but I need to get into a working routine and finish the painting job before I jump headfirst into the world of dogs and self-promotion. There may be some behind the scenes brainstorming when the brain has enough juice to storm, but the major creative activities will happen down the road a bit.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go find a way to get this primer off of my elbows before I head to the coffee slinging.

*yes, we work in the same shop, and no it's not weird or causing any problems. It's actually pretty fun. I get to hang out with someone I really like while giving people coffee that they really like and there are jars filled with money at the end of the day!

frozen apple pie

2011-01-25T10:42:00.004-05:00

It's snowing. AGAIN.

In an effort to self delude, I'm posting a picture from last summer's apple picking expedition. We spent the morning sweating and eating our way across the picking area and then we took a fortuitous trip down Skunk Lane where we found this beachside park on Little Peconic Bay.

Today's mantra: it's summer somewhere, damn it.

wintry mistress

2011-01-18T14:34:00.003-05:00

Is it possible to fall in love with chicago in the dead of winter? Maybe it was all of the legal stimulants I consumed. Maybe it was the good company. Or maybe it's just an awesome city with an unfortunate climate.

haphazard mouseketeers

2010-12-19T19:57:00.008-05:00

As I was eating breakfast today, I noticed that the cats were nowhere to be seen. Usually after her morning eat-a-thon, Fatty sprawls out on the carpet and stares at me while I try to read the newspaper (at least a week old because I'm perpetually bad at reading it the day we receive it). I asked Charrow if she had seen the cats and she said, "yeah, they're both laying in the bathroom."

You might think, "oh how cute. They're having a slumber party." Do you know what I think? VERMIN. As in, a 4 to possibly 8-legged intruder has crossed the threshold, and they are hunkered down in a stakeout with an intent to maim, kill, and eat whatever they find.

I went into the bathroom and found Fatty in a crouch, staring at the cabinet that houses the 19 tubes of toothpaste I bought on amazon subscribe & save. I aimed the flashlight at the baseboard behind the cabinet and sure enough, I saw the distinct curve of a mouse tail.

My bright idea was to catch him. Charrow thought it was futile. We armed ourselves with square tupperware, barricaded the crack under the door with a towel (how awful would it be if we tried to save the mouse from imminent slaughter and then accidentally shuttled him out of the bathroom and into the cats' death pen?), and blocked the closet door.

Charrow moved the cabinet and the mouse moved with it. I saw the flash of a tail, but the mouse remained hidden in Fort Toothpaste. There was just too much surface area for him to stay under while the cabinet moved, so we didn't have any hope of catching him that way. Charrow was ready to give up the hunt, but I refused to leave it up to the cats, so I suggested we squirt him with water to flush him out. She humored me and squirted in the mouse's direction a few times, but instead of seeing a flash of gray streak across the floor, all we heard was a disgruntled squeak.

The next strategy was to lift one end of the cabinet, but then charrow would be rendered useless, and I would be responsible for catching the mouse. Neither of us thought that was a good idea, so instead, she started dramatically shifting the cabinet around. The mouse ran past her feet, around the litter box blocking the closet door, and disappeared. We thought he had somehow managed to squeeze into the miniscule crack beneath the closet door, but that seemed impossible, so charrow poked at the towel covering the escape route under bathroom door. Sure enough, the mouse was tucked into a fold of the towel. Charrow tried to get her tupperware around him, but the wily little guy managed to zip right out from under her and back to Dry Goods Manor. In a moment of weakness, I said "what did you do?!" which could have turned the expedition into a sour finger-pointing game, but Charrow took it in stride, and I realized it was ridiculous to think that I could have done a better job.

At that point, we both surveyed the futility of the situation. Large bumbling humans. Tiny, lightning fast rodent. But I couldn't bring myself to let the animal kingdom decide the winner of the game, so we kept at it. A few more nudges of the cabinet, and the mouse was back out in the open. I screamed involuntarily because this time he ran towards my side of the bathroom in an attempt to get out the door, but he got caught between the towel barricade* and an industrial sized bag of baking soda (for the litter box).

I don't know HOW she did it, but when the mouse found a way out of his corner and was headed back to the safe house, Charrow threw her tupperware over him and viola! the hunt was over. The mouse ran in frantic squares under the plastic cage, and then just sat there while Charrow slid a magazine under the tupperware to seal him in for the release portion of the expedition. We took him up the street a couple of blocks to the wooded area that divides the neighborhood road from the main Grand Army Plaza thoroughfare. Thankfully, the city that never sleeps isn't early to rise on Sundays. We didn't pass a soul in the elevator or on the street. When we got back to the apartment, Fatty was basking in the glory of the living room rug like nothing had ever happened.

*This would have been a very different story without that towel. It's a small apartment, but can you imagine trying to find a mouse the size of a lemon before two bloodthirsty hunting machines?

say cheese

2010-12-15T11:18:00.006-05:00

I've been scanning photos from old family albums that my grandmother let me borrow. It's interesting to see relatives that I only knew in their winter years depicted as laughing teenagers or young mothers. What I find almost as intriguing as the images themselves is the matter of who took the photos. I don't profess to know much about the technicalities of photography, but from my perspective, some of these pictures are really compelling. Maybe I'm just blinded by the grainy film and the antiquated scenery.

At any rate, today's diptych consists of two pictures that I found hilarious. I don't know who the man is taking the portrait or who took the picture of him taking the portrait (things I will find out at Christmas), but I love the story that they tell.

don't fret my pet

2010-12-14T11:21:00.006-05:00

There's a lot of hoopla out there about staying present and experiencing the moment and blah blah blah, but sometimes it's essential to look ahead.

When you're riding a motorcycle (or a bicycle for that matter) and you need to make a tight turn, it helps to look at where you want to go and almost like magic, the bike will follow your gaze. There's this awful exercise that they make everyone do in the motorcycle safety course that consists of making a figure eight in a very small box outlined on the pavement. The only way to execute the move is to turn your head in the direction that you need to go. If you look directly at the course the bike is taking instead of where the bike needs to go, you'll never be able to make the tight turn required to stay in the box.

The same thing goes for reading music. To stay with the tempo, you have to be able to play one note while looking at the next set of notes to see where the melody is headed. If you look at each note as you play it, you will always be behind the beat, and if you're sight reading (i.e. playing a piece of music for the first time, possibly for an audition or for your monthly hootenanny), forget it. You'll stumble all over yourself and wish you had taken up latch hooking instead of music.

It also comes in handy for instruments that have a large geography to cover. If I'm playing the guitar, and I need to get from the 3rd fret to the 7th fret, the best way for me to hit the right position is to play the 3rd fret chord while looking at the 7th fret so my hand knows where it's going (assuming you have to look when you play, which I do because I'm just not there yet). If I wait until the last second to mentally and physically transition to the next chord, it's sloppy every time.

What's my point? Well I thought I was going to be able to wrap this up neatly into a lesson-shaped package, but I'm having trouble keeping it cohesive today. So, instead of hitting "save now" and attempting to perfect this message, which we all know I will avoid like the dentist, I'm going to publish as is because it's been far too long since I've contributed to the cloud. Sometimes you have to vomit before you can get to the good stuff.

contingency plan

2010-11-03T09:45:00.007-04:00

When I was about 10 years old, I had a Bart Simpson* skateboard, care of the JCPenney wish book catalogue. It had gritty blacktop where your feet were supposed to go and a technicolor Bart head on both sides of the board. I used to lay on my stomach and ride down the hill that started at the sidewalk in front of our duplex (there's a scar on my left wrist from a botched attempt). I also spent hours in the driveway trying my best to perform the elusive ollie. My inability to perform this trick solidified my standing in the world of skateboarders: expert stomach rider/extreme novice on 2 feet.

This weekend I resurrected my Marty McFly costume for a Halloween party at my brother's house. Costumes are all about iconic props, so I borrowed a skateboard from one of charrow's co-workers. The day after the party, I noodled around on the skateboard on my mom's deserted suburban street. It started innocently enough. I rode down the sloped driveway and made wide, misshapen circles across the width of the street. But then, as I made a loop near the crest of a hill, I decided that it would be fun to coast down that hill. It didn't look that steep, and it ended at the grassy bank of an empty lot. About 15 seconds later, I seriously regretted my decision. The pavement got bumpier. The scattered gravel from the neighboring construction sites became thicker. And my speed suddenly surpassed my rudimentary stopping capabilities.

Faced with the prospect of hitting a chunk of gravel that would probably bring the board to a dead stop (and send me flying), I decided to take control of my battered fate and jump off the board. You know those moving walkways in airports? You know how even that moderate amount of extra speed makes it hard to transition onto stationary ground? Right. So I made it about 4 clamoring steps before my feet went out of from under me, and I did a belly flop/home run slide into the cul-de-sac.

End result: a torn running shirt, scuffed hands, a bloody patchwork on my left elbow, potentially bruised ribs, a bit of road rash on my left hip, and an anxious mother.

Lessons learned: elbows and ribs should not be used as brakes, and more importantly, do not ride down a hill without first having a Contingency Plan.

I am officially retired from all non-stomach riding skateboard activities. Cowabunga dudes.

*the irony of owning a Bart Simpson skateboard: I never, ever get Simpson quotes when they come up in conversation.

immaculate intelligence

2010-10-20T17:56:00.005-04:00

Every now and then I take a trip into crazy land and read Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist blog. It's like a jar of pickled okra for your brain. Healthy, but soaked in brine. Her latest article on perfectionism contains the following statement: "The other huge problem with perfectionism is that people stop learning when they're constantly afraid of being wrong."

Hogwash.

Oh wait. She may have a point.

But you see, I have this strategy for learning that involves checking out as many library books as I can cram onto the bookshelf (a hodgepodge of fiction, non-fiction and what can only be categorized as self-help), and then I renew them as many times as I can until another patron puts them on hold. But I don't usually read them. I like to call it immaculate intelligence.

Okay, I admit it. I've stopped learning because I'm constantly afraid of being wrong or of being held accountable for information (equally as scary). One of Penelope's strategies is to allow yourself to be wrong in front of others, but I'm so petrified of looking like an imbecile that I rarely even start to formulate an opinion or a stance to throw out into the ether because I'm so entrenched in survival mode. When people ask me what I think about something, I freeze. Must.not.stand.out. Must.sound.intelligent. Must.make.it.look.like.I.know.what's.going.on. These are the things that go through my head on a regular basis.

The other problem with that stack of library books, or newspapers, or cursed New Yorker magazines is that I see them as a threat to the zero-sum game of maximizing time. If I sit down and read the newspaper, I am informing myself (with the exception of the highly political articles that I often skip or skim halfheartedly. sorry, friends). If I read a book about dogs, I'm giving myself a stronger knowledge base for my business. If I read a New Yorker, I'm giving myself an opportunity to actually join in on conversations that start with "hey did you read that article about X in last week's new yorker..." (this happens on a weekly basis, and I feel like a dunce every time because there are gobs of New Yorkers sitting around the apartment).

The point, in case I haven't beaten it to a pulp yet, is that these are all useful activities. Yet when I'm sitting at home deciding how to spend my time, I feel guilty about reading because it feels like a less than optimal pursuit. Do you know what I do instead? I dither around on the internet. And the whole time I think "I could be researching this book or writing that web content for my business site, but then I won't have any time to do those other 7 things I should be doing."

Oh the irony of maximizing. Because I'm so concerned about spending time on the best (i.e. most useful) activity, I avoid all activities and waste my life sitting on the couch covered in drooling cats and staring at this idiot box. Combine maximizing with a compulsive fear of failure and what do you get? A rambling blog post and a hefty late fee at the library.

self-monitoring specialist

2010-10-19T19:57:00.006-04:00

"Ordinarily I don't like to be around interesting people because it means I have to be interesting" -- from LA Story (great steve martin movie)

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would clock in somewhere around a 15 for self-monitoring (it is what it sounds like). Do you know how hard is it to be interesting when you're checking constantly to see if you're being interesting?

I would say more on the subject, but I'm too worried about boring you.

damn the twitter

2010-10-17T10:34:00.005-04:00

Something terrible happened last night: I used twitter. There were extenuating circumstances, and I'm ashamed to say that I have formed a begrudging respect for the twits who tweet.

Around 3am, Charrow woke me up and said "it smells like burning. what is that smell?? is there a fire?" I have always harbored a secret fear of middle of the night fires (sometimes I lay in bed trying to go to sleep and imagine how I would react to said disaster so that I have a basic formula for how to get out of the house), so we got out of bed to investigate. We both poked our noses out the window to catalogue the smell. Not cigarette smoke. No visible flames or plumes. Excessive chemical/plastic tinge. Very mysterious and noxious.

Charrow was satisfied with closing the window and trying to call 911 (busy), but I stood at the window to see if I could witness anyone else reacting to the weird odor. Not long into my observation campaign, a man popped out of his front door wearing only sweatpants and looked up and down the street conducting his own surveillance. He looked perplexed, but satisfied that he had investigated the situation and went back inside. Having had confirmation from the outside world that strange things were afoot, we decided to go have a look for ourselves. This was mostly my fault, because all I could think of was that some old lady in our building had fallen asleep with a candle burning and maybe there was a polyester blend afghan ablaze 2 floors above us.

The smell outside was, according to charrow, akin to a mouse caught in a toaster. Smokey, but not altogether natural. As we stood on the street gawking at the lack of evidence, a couple walked toward their car with their noses buried in their coats. We asked them if there was a fire somewhere and they told us that it was supposedly a tire factory in New Jersey. We went back inside and turned on the tv to confirm the rumor, but there was no breaking news to be found. After a minute of listening to NY1's squawking correspondent, I realized that we needed the instant reaction of the masses on twitter. So we did a search for #smell (a coarse method that produced surprisingly accurate results) and saw the twitter feed of dozens of people horrified by the smell that had been confirmed by several police precincts: Tire fire. New Jersey. Smoke made its way to brooklyn. Of course it's New Jersey's fault. etc., etc.

Damn you twitter for actually serving a purpose.

butt juice

2010-09-21T14:49:00.003-04:00

Warning: bodily fluid is involved in what I am about to tell you.

So I was sitting at the desk trying to catch up on the latest Dooce-capades and daydreaming about apple picking when the orange cat hops up and decides it is his life's dream to be petted while drooling all over my keyboard. After a few minutes of neck careening and placating pats, I finally gave him a friendly nudge on his back legs as a way of saying "dear god, please get out of the way you attention whore of a cat." He flinched, and I felt a spritz of liquid hit my forehead.

Anyone want to guess what that liquid was?

Yes, that's right, it was butt juice (technically referred to as "anal gland expression"). I have officially been butt-juiced in the face by my cat. How fitting that it happened while reading Dooce, the queen of bodily fluid stories.

the wrong button

2010-08-27T11:33:00.003-04:00

An indication that you need more sleep and/or you are horribly distracted: you repeatedly get on an elevator and push the button of the floor you're standing on instead of the floor you need to get to.

I did that 4 times the other day.

symmetry

2010-08-26T10:54:00.005-04:00

I am 30 years old today. As of 10:03 am (or possibly 10:33am; my mom can't remember which time is mine and which time is my brother's, but she claims I'm the early one). I could regale you with the ways in which I feel less than prepared for this age, but instead, I'm going to provide you with a list. There is no point to this list except that it has 30 items and they are mostly about me. It is not random (oh how I hate the overuse of the word random), but it might be amusing.

1. I hate warm cookies.

2. I have tipped over while standing at a curb with my bicycle. There were children nearby, but they didn't laugh at me.

3. if you baked me an apple pie, I wouldn't eat it, but I would appreciate the gesture.

4. last night I had a bad dream about throwing up, and when I woke up I was afraid that I'd actually vomited.

5. I cry when I laugh really hard.

6. my brother, my dad, and I all have the birthdays that are different dates but end up being the same day of the week (i.e. all of our birthdays are on thursday this year)

7. I once made my brother wear a dress. there are pictures.

8. he once made me sit on a red ant hill. there are no pictures, but now I really hate ants.

9. I made a kite in summer school one year and now whenever I see wooden dowels at the hardware store all I can think about are kites.

10. when I was in 4th grade I used to stay after school and help out in the library because I thought it was fun.

11. I used to own a Bart Simpson skate board.

12. I'm beginning to get bored with my list. Are you?

13. My mom's favorite numbers are 7 and 13. When my brother and I were younger, she would ask us to pick a number between 1 & 20 when we wanted something. her number was always 7 or 13.

14. I could probably eat 14 oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in one sitting, but not if they're warm.

15. Maybe I shouldn't have picked 30 items. I'm only halfway there.

16. I used to eat butter. One time when I was around 4 years old my entire family was out washing the car, and I was in the kitchen stealing bites from a stick of butter.

17. I went to band camp.

18. And I played the flute.

19. But senior year of high school, I switched to a brass instrument.

20. Sometimes I like to play a game where you spell a word backwards and I tell you what word it is.

21. I'm terrible at crossword puzzles.

22. If I had to sound out the letters of my nickname in german it would be "yotta yotta"

23. I like to make to do lists with little checkboxes.

24. I drink out of the same coffee mug every day. I rinse it out when I'm done, but I only wash it about once a week. I just found out that my dad does the same thing.

25. I've thrown up on one of my friends before. Sorry about that.

26. I almost failed chemistry in college.

27. I used to request the following as my birthday dinner: barbecued chicken legs, mashed potatoes, and green peas. Then I would mix the peas and the mashed potatoes together. For dessert: yellow cake with chocolate frosting and ice cream on the side. always on the side. never ON the cake.

28. Have you ever tried to write a list of 30 things? I don't recommend it.

29. I hate the word "stinky"

30. The faint smell of dog treats is wafting up from my shorts pocket, and it's making me kind of nauseated.

Rest assured, I won't do that again. Nor will I turn 30 again. Ah, symmetry.

tinkle tinkle little star

2010-08-21T15:24:00.004-04:00

Awkward food co-op moment of the week:

As I picked my way through the bananas in search of the right green to yellow ratio, I saw an older woman struggling with the bathroom door. She had two large shopping bags that were sitting in the doorway, and she was muttering to herself about the door not closing. I thought she was fussing with the bags in an attempt to drag them into the bathroom with her, and I was about to help her when I heard the distinct sound of water hitting water. That's when I realized the woman was bent over in a pee hunch with the door open.

I was so startled that I just stood there looking around to see if anyone else was aware of the public urination. A woman working her shift walked past me, glanced back at the bathroom and stopped dead in her tracks. She made eye contact with me, and all I could say was, "yeah, i don't know." Before either of us could figure out what to do, the woman finished her business, collected her things and ambled toward the exit.

Who does that?

ears of steel

2010-08-17T10:54:00.004-04:00

New York is a loud place. Between the shouting people, the horn honking, the thundering trucks, and the construction work, there is virtually no peace unless you're out and about before 7:30am (and even then, there's no guarantee). The other day I walked past a jackhammer chipping away at a stretch of sidewalk on my way to the Q train. I plugged my ears as I approached the workers, but I watched other people pass by with their hands at their sides as if the clanging was as loud as a baby cooing.

Do these people have ears of steel? Is there some unwritten code that makes you more of a New Yorker if you can withstand ear shattering noises at close range? I find myself plugging my ears a lot (the union square 4/5/6 platform has especially horrendous brake squealing that feels like an irate crow squawking in your ear), and I am often the only person doing it. Am I announcing my status as a transplant? Probably, but I'm going to keep tucking a finger in my ear because I care more about my hearing than I do about looking like a hard-boiled native.

*today's picture is of a kid covering her ears during a very enthusiastic rendition of the star spangled banner at a cyclone's game.

frozen dagger

2010-08-16T17:30:00.005-04:00

Do you know that scene from A Christmas Story where the kid gets his tongue stuck to the flagpole? (to my small Jewish readership that may not have seen the iconic goyish film: check out this clip) Well I just had one of those moments with a frozen spoon.

You see, the other day I made frozen yogurt, and it was a colossal fail. I added bourbon, vanilla, and honey to plain homemade yogurt. The end result according to charrow: that tastes just like medicine! Not exactly what you're looking for when you want a frozen treat. So today I bought a few ingredients to attempt a redesign of the frozen medicine. As I marveled at the consistency (bourbon really does make it freeze like commercial grade frozen yogurt), I absentmindedly took a bite. When I tried to pull the spoon away from my mouth there was a sharp ripping sensation. It wasn't as dramatic as making out with a subzero flagpole, but I still don't recommend it.

wisdom from the bleating bandits

2010-08-14T09:15:00.004-04:00

Okay, here's what the goats had to say:

1. they said Write. something. anything. it doesn't matter. they said you like to read pointless shit, so the chances are, someone else will want to read your pointless shit. they said if you keep waiting for a band of people to emerge from the internet clouds and say Please, write more pointless shit! before you put together 6 words and add a period, then you will never write. And forget about writing past the pointless shit into anything worthwhile because you'll never get there if you don't start stomping around in the muck of shitty first drafts. this blog isn't about precision; it's about habit. considering this space the home of a polished polemic is handicapping, and in practice has turned it into an abandoned playground. i don't have platforms. i have pictures and observations and bad metaphors and run on sentences and questionable tense continuity.

2. they said stop making excuses and start training dogs and for god's sake, earn some money. they said there will always be someone who knows more about dogs than you so there's no point in waiting until you feel like you know enough to play with the big boys. you will always feel like you need to know more, and there will always be more to know, so stop waiting for the bear hug of proficiency because you can't get there without screwing up first.

3. they also said clean your damn apartment. to put it bluntly, they said hey idiot, stop reading books about being productive and simplifying your life and think about maybe putting some of that jargon into action.

4. they said if you're going to write a list of goals to accomplish before your next birthday, maybe consider looking at that list every month and picking one thing to focus on. they said there's no way you can accomplish things like learning basic german if you buy a workbook and then let it collect cat hair on the bookshelf for 8 months before you pick it up and say "wow that book is dusty" and then reshelve it for another 8 months.

5. they also said not to share any of their wisdom with the outside world. excuse me while I run from the bleating bandits that are ramming into the front door. good thing I locked it.

i've taken a trip

2010-08-04T17:33:00.004-04:00

Fear not. I went into the woods and was taken in by a trip of goats. They are teaching me the ways of eating everything, fainting at will, and bleating to my hearts content. Soon, I will return to the interwebs and pass on my goatly knowledge.

in the woods

2010-07-08T08:45:00.003-04:00

Today we're taking an Amtrak train up to Massachusetts to spend time with some close friends and a sturdy little cowdog named Earl. There will be woods; there will be books about being In the Woods (a different context, but it's still worth the pun); there will be dog slobber; there will be ticks; there will be laughing and leg slapping, and last, but not least, there will be coffee.

Hopefully our new cat sitter has a good weekend with the hairy tyrants. When I get back we'll talk about that whole 5 on 5 disappearance.

5 on 5 saturday edition

2010-06-26T12:51:00.007-04:00

How about 5 on 6 (pick up sticks) this week? I'm still doing a terrible job of keeping life from seeping into my commitments, but instead of waiting a week and getting it exactly right, I'm going to allow myself a little imperfection and do things* a day late.

#1 Farmers. I have a sensitive stomach. It actually seems to be getting worse, but one of the things I can do to combat the reign of pain that my intestines have undertaken is to eat fresh food. Without farmers (and a whole host of other people down the production line), I would have to suffer through the processed, pre-packaged misery that a lot of people in this country call dinner.

#2 Bees. This dovetails with number one because without bees around to pollinate what the farmers are growing, there would be far fewer options in my fruit and veggie arsenal. We went to the Bee-Day festival at the brooklyn botanic gardens last weekend, and it was both informative and depressing to learn about how insanely awesome bees are and how we're losing 30% of the bee population every year.

#3 Cows. Apparently it's mother nature week. I feel strange saying I'm grateful for cows because if I was truly grateful, wouldn't I stop eating them? I don't know. For what it's worth, I feel pretty indebted to these lumbering beasts for everything that they provide. I'm trying my best to only eat or drink products from happy cows, and when I do sit down to a dinner that involves beef, I take a moment to say thank you to the animal that lost it's life. Even writing that seems ridiculous (the cow doesn't want my thanks, it's want to stand in a field and eat grass), but that's where I'm at with my part-time vegetarianism.

#4 Detail oriented people. Last week I took several rolls of film to the developer. I set the rolls of film on the counter, and I said "these (clearly segregated rolls) need to be cross-processed and these (clearly segregated rolls) are regular/normal process." The woman working the desk picked up the film, set it on a different counter and said, "okay, I'll write this up and we'll have it by X day." In my haste to get back to Brooklyn and start painting, I didn't stick around while she wrote up the ticket. A few hours later, I got a phone call asking for verification on which rolls of film I wanted cross-processed. She had written up the order in the exact OPPOSITE way from what I requested. Thankfully someone in the darkroom noticed that the request to cross-process negative 35mm film seemed odd (you usually process slide film, not negative film). The mistake wasn't picked up soon enough to save one roll of film, but the rest of the order was salvaged. In an effort to sugar coat her mistake, the woman kept telling me that the cross-processed 35mm film would look "artsy and funky" when it was printed. Thanks but no thanks. If I wanted artsy and unpredictable, I would have asked for it. So to all the detail oriented people who are good at their jobs: thank you. (my apologies for basically double posting this story. clearly i'm still upset about it!)

#5 My mom's horse, Singer. My mom is a perfectionistic workaholic (sorry mom, it's true). Ever since she purchased Singer, she has been slowly but surely waking up to the fact there aren't an infinite number of tomorrows to save for when the work is done. In her line of business (as is true with just about anything), the work will never be done. There will always be one more graph line to plot, one more briefing to polish, and one more unbalanced supervisor expecting more, more, more. But Singer is forcing my mom to sever the corporate umbilical cord for at least a few hours every week. She goes to visit him after work; she volunteers with the therapy riding lessons that her horse participates in; she has her own lessons twice a week. It's pretty amazing how this animal is changing her routine, and I can't tell you how happy I am that my mom is finally doing something for herself.

*in case you're new to these here awkward lands, every Friday I post a list of 5 things that I'm grateful for (hence the "5 on 5" series title)

5 on 5

2010-06-11T20:51:00.007-04:00

Well, well, well, here we are again. Late. For a very important date. What excuse would you like this week? My cat ate the external hard drive? My girlfriend sat on my computer? My mom called and I had to clean my room? I decided to scrub the shower instead of look for inspiring pictures? Yeah, right. I hate cleaning the shower almost as much as I hate washing tupperware by hand. Here, by the power of invested in my ability to procrastinate, are this week's 5 things that I am grateful for:

#1 Old cars. I love taking pictures of them, and I love seeing them around town (as long as I ignore their most likely outdated exhaust systems). My stepfather let me drive his GTO several years ago, and it made me feel like a greaser. When I tried to round a corner without power steering it made me feel like I had muscles made of crisco. Let's just say I had a nice talk with the wrong side of the street until my stepfather grabbed the wheel. Anyway, if I had a dollar for every time I made someone wait while I stopped to ogle a vintage car, well, I'd have a lot more money to develop all the film I keep shooting. (so maybe I should say I'm grateful for the patience of others when I am in the presence of old cars)

#2 Film photography. While my budget is considerably worse for the wear, I'm getting really sucked into film photography. Plastic cameras are my current obsession because they're light and unpredictable, but I've got a hand-me-down Canon F-1 that's also stretching the limits of my ability to manually focus and adjust exposures fast enough to get a decent shot. There's something exciting about the delayed gratification of shooting with film and knowing that every shot counts makes me take stock of what I'm doing (most of the time).* Do I feel guilty about the chemicals used for processing? Yes. Are there piles of contact sheets littering the apartment? Yes. Am I going to stop carrying a camera everywhere I go? doubtful. Now all I need is enough space to set up a darkroom...

#3 Cheese. I am not grateful for all cheese (stinky cheese, be gone!), but I have to say it does play a pretty major role in my food joy experience. Cream cheese. Goat cheese. Cheddar cheese. Fried Cheese. Cheese on a stick. You get the point. I actually hate swiss cheese, but it was the best cheese picture I could find, so I guess swiss should get its moment in the spotlight.

#4 Fresh Fruit. I've been house painting the last few weeks, and every day, I eat an apple on my way to the train station. I have to walk up a pretty significant hill for this fair flat city, and that apple (honey crisp) makes me forget about my aching back and the spot on my knee that I keep banging into the ladder. It almost makes me forget about people who stop in front of me on the sidewalk. Almost.

#5 Accidents. Specifically scooter accidents that make everyone in the building put on their nosy cap and stand outside to survey the damage. Just such an incident led to the awkward start of a friendship with Laura, our neighbor from Atlanta and the aforementioned best cat sitter ever. It wasn't a swift courtship (I think it was 2 weeks before I mustered the courage to leave a note on her door), but it was well worth the sweaty palms. Prior to our formal introduction, we called her The Gay because she drove a car with abortion stickers and an equality symbol. She called us The Rat Tail Gays because of our long flowing lock. It was a match made in introverted heaven. Please note: those are not her glasses and she doesn't usually make that face.

*perhaps another example of my fetishizing of austerity. 12 shots on a roll = limitation on shooting willy-nilly the way you can with a digital camera.

the precipice of poo

2010-06-06T09:25:00.006-04:00

I'm having a crisis of pet ownership. If you're not in the mood for a long-winded story about cats and/or cat poo, this is not the post for you. But if you, too, have struggled to find a decent pet sitter or have worried about what to do with your furry friends when you leave for that vacation you've been aching to go on, stick around.

The woman who lives above us has two cats. When we first moved in we could hear the cats running from one end of the apartment to the other and occasionally sounding the war cry of feline engagement. At some point, I met the woman in the elevator and mentioned to her that we knew she had cats and would be happy to cat sit if she ever needed it. She told me thanks, but she already has a cat sitter. I considered my neighborly duty done and thanked her for reciprocating the gesture. I was hesitant to take her up on her offer to visit our cats, but I finally broke down and called her one weekend (that's right, I used the phone). As it happens, she wasn't available, but she recommended her own cat sitter, who for the purposes of this post we shall call Wanda.

I called Wanda, and immediately knew she was a little...different. She answered her phone while riding her bicycle and proceeded to have a conversation with me while talking to the cars driving around her. I used to talk (sometimes yell) to other cars while I was driving so I wrote it off as stream of consciousness. Wanda said she would be happy to come by and meet the kidz (as she later referred to them in our email exchanges). Great! A last minute arrangement that will keep Fatty from gorging herself in the first hour of our departure and thus starving the stressed out Petey while we go away for a weekend.

Wanda was opinionated, to say the least. She rides an aging bike that has a seat made of hot pink duct tape. She frowned upon our use of dry food. She was against calling our more rotund cat "Fatty." She had several welcome suggestions for vets. When she left I felt like I had been reprimanded by my mother, but I also felt relieved that someone who seemed knowledgeable and experienced was going to be visiting the hairballs in our absence.

Jump ahead 6 months. After several trial runs of different brands, we've switched the cats to wet food. Wanda now visits them twice a day instead of once a day while we're out of town - a concession that I made after a particularly heinous shit storm of a weekend where there were explosive butt problems and a snow storm that stranded us in MD, much to Wanda's amazement. Backstory: Wanda was convinced the cats were sick. I, after checking out the manufacturers website, was convinced that they (mostly Fatty) had eaten too much food at one time because they were only being fed once a day. Ironic that "organic" "healthy" food can make them crap all over the world if they eat too much of it. I appreciated Wanda's concern and explained the transportation situation (nope, our Amtrak train was cancelled. yes, there really aren't any flights. um, if Amtrak is cancelled, I'm not about to book a bus that's probably not running to drive up a snow blitzed I-95). She was appalled at my inability to return home and proceeded to make me feel terrible for not walking 300 miles to see about some explosive diarrhea.

We recovered from the shit storm and vowed to have Wanda come twice a day to space out the rich food. I asked her not to feed them treats. We came home to find a treat on the desk, evidence of either her spilling pockets or her completely ignoring my request (I'm going to vote for the latter given that her email response to my treat-free request was "HA!"). After our most recent trip of 4 days, there were shit smears on the carpet, litter blobs scattered across the apartment, a nice squishy surprise on the bathroom floor, and the rogue treat left on the desk. In an effort to find out just what happens when she's here -- so as to avoid accusing her of overfeeding the cats or not paying attention to whether fatty eats everything -- I sent Wanda an email asking her to describe how the visits play out. The response I got was less than informative. In fact, it was infuriatingly vague.

Is she overfeeding the cats? Hard to say. Does she give them treats? Probably. Would there be butt smears on the carpet anyway? Quite possible, considering there was one waiting for us when we got up this morning. Do I feel well informed and confident that Wanda will comply with my requests? Not in the slightest.

Needless to say, I would like to discontinue Wanda's services. I have snooped around the interweb looking for a replacement (currently waiting to hear back from ProspectBArk!), and just yesterday I asked another woman that lives in my building for recommendations. I ran into this woman picking out cat food at the local pet supply store, so I figured it was safe to ask for her advice. She rattled off Wanda's name and started fiddling with her fanny pack to see if she had Wanda's phone number with her.

I almost let the woman give me Wanda's info without telling her that I would prefer to never call Wanda again, but I decided to be honest. I told the woman that I actually use Wanda now, but I'm not very happy with her. The woman nodded in agreement and we proceeded to have a conversation about how she doesn't have very much confidence in Wanda either, but she's been using Wanda for so long that she couldn't think about finding someone else. The woman has an older cat that needs to be medicated and instead of asking Wanda to do it, the woman has arranged for her sister to come down from Massachusetts to take care of her cats.

Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture? Why in the world is this woman loyal to a service provider that is not providing good service?? She said outright that Wanda is not good with her female cat. She agreed that Wanda does not have good communication skills. But "she's reliable and I've used her for so long"...

If Wanda is reliably bad, who cares if she shows up when you need her? If your car mechanic continued to do a mediocre repair job, would you say "yeah, he doesn't really fix my car, but at least he works on it every time I bring it to him?"

Yes, it's uncomfortable to sever a long standing business relationship. I've only been using Wanda for about 10 months, and I feel weird about having to see her everywhere (she cat sits for like half of our building and walks/shuffles with 2 jack russell terriers that live on the corner of our street). But we're talking about the welfare of your pets here. I'm willing to put up with the awkwardness of seeing someone I've essentially broken up with in order to feel good about the kind of care my cats are receiving while I'm gone.

Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe I'm on the precipice of dealing with an older cat that is just going to poo on things when I'm out of town (or when I'm in town and sitting on the couch). I can't say for sure until I try out another cat sitter and see what happens. What I can say for sure is that I don't have a good feeling about Wanda, and sometimes that's enough to say "No, thanks."

*Today's picture is of Fatty and Laura, the best neighbor/friend/cat sitter in the world. Sadly, she lives in Atlanta and we live in Brooklyn.

5 on 5 donut edition

2010-06-04T20:22:00.004-04:00

Did you know it's National Doughnut Day? I know, it's a little late to share the news, but now you know for next year. In honor of today's innertubular celebration, and in light of my zombie state, I am dedicating 4 of today's 5 on 5 items to doughnuts. Specifically, the 4 types of donuts that make up today's headline image: sunflower seed, carrot cake, blackout, and dulche de leche.

And #5 for this week: motorcycles with sidecars. Doesn't this motorcycle scream for goggles and a leather cap with ear flaps? Perhaps with a passenger wearing matching goggles and eating a donut?

5 on 5 the late edition

2010-05-28T19:46:00.004-04:00

Okay, so last week I failed. Instead of posting for the 5 on 5 series, I stood on a ladder for hours painting Sprig of Ivy in my mom's new master bedroom. I would have prepared the post ahead of time, but pre-execution* is not my strong suit, and I was up to my eyeballs in Paris Romance (powder pink, in case you're curious). The thing is, I could miss this post every week and have plenty of reasons for not getting the work done. Given the chance, I can make an excuse for just about anything and when I hear myself doing it, I think "wow, I wonder if this sounds as pathetic as it feels."

Example question: "Hey, have you finished your hours for dog school?"

Example response: "Oh no, I was sick this one week, then this other week they didn't go because there weren't enough dogs, and then I went away to help my mom paint, and then I couldn't go because they wanted to leave early, and then I fell into a black hole and my cat puked on my favorite shoes so I couldn't leave the house."

Okay, she didn't puke on my shoes, but she did leave huge butt streaks on the carpet. Anyway, I don't know what my point is, besides self-deprecation and the need for some accountability, so here are this week's 5 things that I'm grateful for:

#1 Horses. I'm not particularly fond of riding horses, but I like being around them, and I love taking pictures of them, especially when they do silly things with their mouth.

#2 Getting enough sleep. Right now I make my own hours, so I have a decent amount of control over my sleep. When I don't get enough of it, I can tell immediately that the world is not my friend. Everything gets harder, including things like being human and avoiding donuts.

#3 Having access to clean water. This one almost deserves its own post, but for now, I'll just say that I realize how incredibly lucky I am to be able to walk 8 steps into my kitchen and fill up my nalgene bottle with drinkable water as many times as I want.

#4 Having an air conditioner that works. The only reason we would see a thermostat reading like this in our current apartment is if we chose to torture ourselves by not turning on the A/C unit.

#5 The patience of other people. Let's face it, I'm a perfectionist. Working with other people in a situation that I feel reflects my ability turns me into less than a joy to be around. This past weekend, I was a horrible backseat painter and no one got angry with me (outwardly anyway). If someone had said the same things to me, I can't say that I would have reacted as calmly and constructively as my family did.

*I almost wrote forethought, but that's not right. I have great forethought, terrible fore-action.

attack of the puddle

2010-05-18T17:27:00.005-04:00

One major difference between stepping into a 4 ft wide*, ankle deep puddle on a 50 degree day in Brooklyn and willfully jumping into a fountain fully clothed on my college campus is that I expected to get soaking wet when I jumped into fountains. I was not, however, expecting to have sponges for shoes when I crossed a street this afternoon. Damn expectations. They get you every time.

Note to self: don't eat apples while walking in the rain. You will lose focus and forget about the dreaded curb sinkholes that develop when it rains.

*It's important to note how wide the puddle was because when I stepped into it with my right foot, there was no way for me to scamper out of it because it was too wide. In my effort to hop out of the ankle sucking puddle, I splashed myself even more! Too bad I didn't splash the teenagers behind me laughing at my mishap.

tap on the shoulder of somewhere else

2010-05-17T09:25:00.006-04:00

Leaving NYC for a weekend makes me a realize a few things that I love and hate about this city.

Love:

1. The tap water. Dear god, the tap water in other cities is gross compared to NYC.

2. The diversity. The first several hours in Boston, all I could think was "this place is crawling with late 20's/30-something white men who all look like they fell out of a bank and are on the way to meet their aging greek brothers in a pub to watch the Sox game." I'm sure NYC is also teeming with sports teamsters, but the apparent population gets watered down by the sheer quantity of other types of people walking around.

3. The public transportation. We were in Boston for the weekend, and things went perfectly fine with their trains and buses, but the stations feel like they're few and far between compared to NYC's ''walk 4 blocks in any direction and get on the train" setup. (I know this isn't as true for the outskirts of the subway lines, but we're fortunate enough to live in the subway glut of brooklyn.)

Hate:

1. Having to jockey for position almost every minute of your day, whether it's on the clogged sidewalks, in the train, on stairwells, in stores. There are people everywhere and it always seems like the world is so busy with their cellphone or their conversations to notice that someone else is trying to navigate this life. The sidewalks of Boston felt deserted compared to the whirlpool of NYC walkways.

2. Along the same vein, the intense feeling of over population that I get when we're on the highway heading back into the city. It feels like every square inch is spoken for, even the designated "wide open spaces" of parks.

3. The go-go-GO pace. This is a source of pride and angst because I feel like I've adapted quickly to the breakneck speed of walking, thinking, and navigating, but I also relish the slowing down that occurs in other places. Granted, the suburban pace is glacial and exasperating, but I could handle the pace of a city like Boston. Too bad it is an actual glacier about 4 months out of the year.

It's clear to me that I am not a New York City (or Brooklyn) lifer. The itch for space and solitude is just too strong. But the balance of my list (it's unintentionally 3 x 3) is a good indicator that we'll stick around for awhile longer.

5 on 5 the hungry edition

2010-05-14T17:58:00.006-04:00

The only problem with having a Friday deadline is having a Friday deadline. We keep going away for all or parts of the weekend and there are always 27 things that need to be done before we leave. This weekend it's Boston to visit the droid (Charrow's sister). Now that the excuses are over, here are this week's 5 things:

#1 Cheeseburger & Fries from Shake Shack. One of my last holdovers from eating dead things is a good cheeseburger. The post consumption guilt never manages to trump the pre-consumption salivation. So when I eat a burger, it needs to be worth it and shake shack fits the bill. The fries are also some of the best I've ever had. If I could afford it (physically and fiscally) and it wasn't morally questionable, I would eat this for lunch every day for the rest of my life.

#2 Having an artistic girlfriend who does strange freelance work. Through a connection with her design school, Charrow scored a gig painting mannequins for the 2008 Atlanta Pride. The mannequins sat around the living room for a weekend and scared the crap out of us every time we walked in the room. It was creepy and pretty damn funny. Considering how much I need the laugh at the time, I'm happy she had such a strange assignment.

#3 That we don't have bed bugs. Ah, the creepy crawlies. It's something we all fear isn't it? Being infested? I've lived with fleas before (thanks to a few infestations on our family dog) and I think the only thing that makes me more hostile than being bitten by fleas is being bitten by mosquitoes. I imagine bed bugs make fleas and mosquitoes seem like a summer treat. No popsicle for me, thanks, I'll just sit outside with the mosquitoes for awhile!

#4 That this wasn't my ice cream cone. Yes, I'm losing steam and I'm hungry.

#5 That Charrow is willing to put up with and assimilate to my incessant need to reorganize. When I was a kid I used to organize my baseball cards by putting them into teams and then putting the teams into alphabetical order in the binders. I don't think I went so far as to alphabetize the individual players, but I wouldn't put it past me. The tendency to organize has morphed into an obsession with purging objects. I'm only sort of successful with the process because I get really stuck on the best way to get rid of things. Will this flimaflang actually sell at the Salvation Army or should I throw it away? I don't want to think about it rotting (or not rotting) in a landfill so I'll just put it back in the drawer. And repeat. This picture was taken when Charrow reached a breaking point between our storage capabilities and her amazing ability to produce art. LOTS of art.

5 on 5

2010-05-07T15:36:00.004-04:00

Another week, another round of gratitude. I'm not going to get too serious with this little experiment because let's face it, I like to hide behind humor (it's like a warm bubble bath after shoveling snow). Without further ado, here are 5 things* I'm grateful for this week:

#1 No longer having a sausage arm. September 30th of 2009 I had my arm chopped in pieces and reattached with a metal plate. Radical surgery for a radically painful wrist. So far I'm pretty happy with the results, and I am extremely happy that I no longer have to get help from Charrow to put in my contacts or try to open a bottle of pain pills with my feet (it's pretty doable, by the way).

#2 Watermelon that's so juicy you have to hold it away from you when you take a bite. This one kind of speaks for itself.

#3 Good Coffee. I've been fortunate to have access to high quality coffee that comes from distributors and roasters who care about the process all the way down to the farmers growing the beans. I say this less as a scoff to the other guys and more as a thank you to the people who have taken it to another level.

#4 People who are willing to make a funny face. One of my favorite things to do is ask people to make to a funny face so I can take their picture. I've had less receptive subjects and then I've had people like Peter (first pic). Guess which one is more fun to photograph. I have my dad to thank for this obsession (second pic; unprovoked).

#5 Friends who allow me to document the silly things they do (sometimes at my request). My philosophy is to stay on this side of the camera, which puts my friends in the sometimes awkward position of being documented, for better or for worse. I like to request silly things from them so they can at least have a good reason for looking like this:

*there will be 5 concepts/things, but there may be more than 5 pictures required to fully illustrate the point. this disclaimer is in response to a certain someone squawking "that's more than 5 things!" when previewing the post.

chapter 1: moving on

2010-05-04T20:43:00.005-04:00

This picture was taken down the street from my apartment. I walk past that building multiple times a day. Every time I see it, I think to myself "Chapter 1," and I feel the potential of something. I love that blue type because it represents a beginning of sorts (and because it matches a crisp blue sky perfectly).

But I'm horrible with beginnings. It took me over 2 weeks to get Friday's "5 on 5" post up because I was so worried about picking the right pictures and because I let life get in the way of dedicating the time to pull it together. Sure, I enjoyed watching the Wire instead of writing about ice cream. Sure, it seemed like there were more important things to do than kill an hour on a blog that has no monetary benefit and no real life repercussions if I ignore it. But I felt like I let myself down when another Friday passed with no update.

I'm also horrible with endings. It's taken me over 1.5 years to get rid of a motorcycle that doesn't work. I've pushed that motorcycle across the street for alternate side parking approximately 136 times (give or take 10 for holidays, snow days, and times when Charrow took care of the chore for me). Every time I sling my leg over the seat, I feel guilty: because I haven't taken the time or the money to fix the bike; because I'm too afraid to ride it in the city; because I'm depriving the bike of its joy in life (anthropomorphizing does not help with guilt, let me tell you).

Clearly I have a problem with guilt. I can name at least 5 other major situations where it has crippled me from taking any action. And where does it get me? Absolutely fucking nowhere except from one side of the same damn street to the other.

Tomorrow a charity is coming to pick up my motorcycle. In 2 weeks, I will be done with my dog hours. It might be time to put this picture on my desktop and get started on something new.

5 on 5

2010-04-30T09:56:00.005-04:00

Today marks the beginning of the first (and only) feature on this blog: 5 on 5. In other words, on the 5th day of the week, I will post 5 things* I'm grateful for. The purpose of this feature is 2 fold:

Fold 1: expressing gratefulness is supposably** linked to an increase in happiness and well, it's probably a good idea for me to stack the deck in this department because I have a tendency to droop like a thirsty shamrock.

Fold 2: it will give me the opportunity to take stock of my photos and share a variety of images with you that you might not otherwise see. Browsing flickr seems to have become too much for our stimulation-addled brains, and I refuse to post every picture I take on Facebook.

Now that I've insulted everyone and indirectly expressed my hatred for Facebook's world domination, let's get started.

#1 Ice Cream. Specifically, a large cone chocolate, from Carl's Ice Cream in Fredericksburg, VA. When you order a cone at Carl's, it doesn't matter how you say it, the person taking the order will yell out to the people manning the huge vats of fresh ice cream, "large cone chocolate!"

#2 A Good Sandwich. (Maybe I shouldn't write this when I'm hungry because all I can think about right now is food). A well crafted sandwich gives me goosebumps. One of the better deli sandwiches I've had was a basic roast beef from the Candler Market (in Atlanta). The day I ate it, I was extremely hung over, and it was just the right combination of salty flavors to keep my stomach from churning (the chips played a key role in this experience).

#3 Picnic Tables in Quiet Places. It's hard to find a quiet place in NYC. One of the things that I found overwhelming when we first moved here was the fact that there are people everywhere at just about any time of day. Yes, you can learn to tune out the rest of the world and sometimes it's possible to feel like you're in a remote place, but it's just not the same. This picnic table is in a park by the Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg. Basically, I want to climb inside the picture and finish reading my library book.

#4 People who say Yes when I ask to take their pictures. I don't generally ask to take pictures. Instead, I attempt to be covert and usually end up with a crappy picture OR I start to take the shot, get spied by my subject and swing the camera in some other random direction, pretending to take a picture of something else. This woman was in a record store in LA and she was very agreeable when I asked to take her picture because of her awesome outfit (sadly, the focus is weird and I didn't stand far enough away to get her whole outfit, but you get the gist).

#5 Being able to run again. I've finally settled into a run/walk routine that seems to be agreeable to my temperamental feet. It's no half marathon training, but it has made a huge difference in my day to day sanity management. (corollary to #5: I'm grateful we're no longer running in the snow)

*things = I'm not sure how this is going to work so we're talking people, places, fuzzy concepts, gastronomic obsessions, etc.

**intentional misspelling

second breakfast

2010-04-16T08:34:00.008-04:00

Food that pleases me when I've been awake* since 3:30am due to a severe case of insomnia: plain yogurt with sauteed banana and sunflower seeds (this is of course in addition to my required cliff bar/coffee breakfast). It's 8:36am. It feels like lunchtime and I'm out of my regular yogurt, so I had to improvise a second breakfast.

It's not exactly a donut**, but it was still pretty damn good.

* if you haven't already heard it, check out the This American Story about NUMMI. It was great when I listened to it on my commute from queens yesterday AND a second time at 4:45 this morning.

**I plan to tag as many posts as possible with the word "donuts" so that it takes over my tag cloud like a good donut should.

pass over the fish product

2010-03-28T07:48:00.005-04:00

We're off to the see the wonderful wizard of gefilte fish. It's time for the annual trek to Bethesda for Passover. Our transportation will be Jewish (Vamoose!). The food will be Jewish (mmm...fish product). Even I will be Jewish. Wait, that's not right. Hopefully they won't make me go out onto the porch to eat my contraband breakfast. At least there will be a cute ewok to fawn over as she squeaks and leaks (her goopy eye) all over us.

on the road to donutville

2010-03-19T08:06:00.005-04:00

Today we travel. And travel. And travel. First there will be a bus, where I will have to figure out how to manage 3 jugs of beer, a flat donut box, and a bag full of cameras. Then, there will be a car with one happy dog, 2 great friends, and many snacks. We might stop here, where I may delay everyone by obsessively taking pictures with my new toy. And then we will fight the rest of the free world trying to get south in this fine weather.

All for the sake of Priority 1: housewarming party (where I get to meet another happy dog) and Priority 2: my grandmother's birthday, conveniently located 45 minutes from each other.

See you Monday after I break the bank in film usage.

pinch the floor

2010-03-17T15:48:00.017-04:00

Here is my contribution to the sloshing, joshing holiday that is St. Patrick's Day: a shamrock-esque bathroom floor*, which is something many people will be using as a woobie when they pass out tonight. My chiropractor asked if I was going out for the occasion, and I said, "no it's not really my thing." There was a time when it might have been my thing. Back when I challenged boys to keg stands and made a habit out of waking up covered in my own vomit. Pretty picture, isn't it? Sadly, it happened more than once. And sometimes it wasn't just my own shirt that got soiled.

They (oh naming powers that be) should dub tomorrow Stale Beer Smell Day. Example: when Charrow and I took a weekend trip to Savannah, GA we made the mistake of going the day after St. Patrick's Day. Maybe you're thinking oh, Savannah, what a sleepy little southern town filled with weeping willows and beautiful town squares where people eat ice cream cones and chat about the health of the GA bulldog. Oh, no. Splashes of dried puke dotted the sidewalks down by the waterfront and groups of hungover college kids wandered the streets in search of greasy food salvation. The alleyways smelled like the inside of a frat house toilet and the restaurant we went to after our 12 mile run was brimming with sodden rugby players that consumed all of the hamburgers (sorry, rugby loving friends).

These days I'd rather indulge in too many donuts and have a hangover that drives me to fresh fruit.

* from the bathroom of El Beit in Williamsburg

Bagel with extra bagel on the side

2010-03-14T13:31:00.005-04:00

I love bagels. I would eat one every day of the week, but I don't because eating copious amounts of bread makes me want to take a scouring pad to my insides. Sorry, that's not the picture I'm trying to paint. What I mean to say is, bagels are amazing, and today, I present to you my ode to the Everything Bagel.

welcome to the cloud

2010-03-13T15:33:00.007-05:00

Welcome to my new stretch limo. I've been envious of other blogs that have large pictures on them, but I need to stay away from the timesuck of starting a new blog on wordpress (oh thesis, how I long to implement thee), so I picked a stretched version of my current "au naturale" blogger theme. Fascinating, I know. I've also added a label cloud that is paltry at the moment, but I've finally decided to join the taxonomic (?) movement, so you can expect a bigger and better jumble of words as the banalities pile up.

Today is a movie watching, popcorn eating, internet futzing, sloth of a day. Now if only I could get rid of that warty "you should be productive" feeling.

zzzzap

2010-03-10T21:06:00.005-05:00

This is how my brain has been behaving lately: read more, more, more of other people's writing! produce nothing, nothing, nothing of my own!

oops in a can

2010-02-21T13:20:00.008-05:00

When bad things happen to good soda. Poor charrow has no idea where to start with the cleanup. The thing to do for now is just close the door and go enjoy the sunshine. Here's the scene of the explosion with a close up for dramatic flair:

no ordinary bulb

2010-01-20T19:50:00.005-05:00

Monday morning, as I ate my cliff bar and trolled the interweb, the kitchen light (the only light on at the time) finally gave out. It's been getting weaker and weaker in the last couple of months, and in the wee hours of the morning it went kaput. Charrow managed to squeeze in a trip to the hardware store to get a replacement light (it's no ordinary bulb), but the kitchen remains dark. According to the Super, the problem isn't the bulb, it's the [insert very important word that he couldn't remember HERE]. We have to go buy said important piece and have him install it if we can't figure it out ourselves.

Last night, I cooked a dish of cumin black beans by the light of my camping headlamp (who needs candles when you've got pinpointed LED at your disposal?) The night before that, I made a stir fry with cilantro peanut sauce by headlamp. And in a few minutes, I will go wash the dishes, yes, by head lamp (running water under LED looks very futuristic/CGI-ish).

Whenever you lose a convenience that is so completely ingrained in your routine*, it takes awhile for the reflexes to stop firing. Several times now I've approached the dark kitchen and flicked the switch only to be mildly outraged at the stubborn darkness. But I'm getting the hang of it faster than I did when the radio in my car wouldn't work. For about 6 months, the radio in my Honda was hibernating (not dead, so much as just not on) because I couldn't find the security code** that would unlock the sleeping music box. Out of sheer laziness, I took to using my ipod while driving instead of going to the Honda dealer to get the code. The habit of turning on the radio was not an easy one to phase out of my physical lexicon. Even towards the end of my radio free period, whenever I found myself ipod-less and stuck in traffic, I would take a jab at the radio button to make the traffic go away. No dice.

Now I'm thinking, maybe this whole kitchen light thing isn't a problem. Maybe what we should do instead of fixing it, is order charrow a headlamp so that we can both function in our makeshift wilderness while we cook meals that will keep us in tupperware during this ridiculously busy time.

*this post was originally supposed to about the pitfalls of autopilot and how we should try to be more conscious of our actions, but I got sidetracked by the novelty of my headlamp.

** Honda's have a security feature that requires you to enter a code whenever the power source for the radio is turned off. This is supposed to make the radio inoperable in the event of theft. It also makes the radio inoperable in the event of routine maintenance work that requires disconnecting the battery.

it's a dog eat dog treat kind of world

2010-01-17T19:04:00.005-05:00

The world has gone to the dogs. I'm not talking financial crisis or unemployment or telling bankers to avoid congregating in groups of more than 12 people. I'm talking four legged, butt licking, drool slinging, frisbee chasing canines. Two close friends have gotten a dog in the last month. There was a Sunday profile of an animal planet dog trainer in the NY times today. Charrow* and I swoon at the sight of a dog, even the drop-kick variety (a term Charrow has dubbed for what I refer to as ankle-biting yappy dogs).

And last, but not least, I have enrolled in dog training school. I could blame it for my blog inactivity, but we all know that I don't actually require a good reason to go into hiding from my own words. Tomorrow is the start of week 3 at Anthony Jerone's School of Dog Training, located very, very far away from my apartment. 2 trains, a bus, and a 7 minute walk. Only for dogs would I ever bother with a commute this long. In fact, I was thinking about it the other day, and there's absolutely no way that I would drive for an hour and 40 minutes, one way, for a regular job (the return trip is 15 minutes shorter thanks to the fast, but pricey express bus). But sitting on a train with the rest of the Monday through Friday world, I can read (assuming I can stay awake) or geek out to NPR podcasts, and the commute is over before I know it. Just think how many self-help books I can get through in 8 weeks! Kidding. Well, sort of.

The first day of my commute, I was standing on a crowded B train reading Pamela Slim's Escape From Cubicle Nation when I noticed the person sitting next me was reading a business book called "Leading Change." I'm not sure the juxtaposition could have been more poetic (and amusing) because Slim's book** is a down to earth exploration of entrepreneurship (try typing that 5 times fast) and from what I could tell, my fellow train rider's book was rooted in big business management and change implementation strategery. If that isn't clear enough for you, this should help: the subtitle for Slim's book is "From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur."

Coma inducing logistics aside, I'm pretty excited about the training course. It's not the most engaging instructional style (think poorly produced videos from 1978-1989), but there is a ton of hands on work required for certification, and that is something you can't get from an online course, especially when you live in a co-op that doesn't allow dogs. I'll try not to regale you with too many dog stories, but I can't make any promises. I'm going to be operating on sluggish mode until this thing is over with so I may not have the faculty for much more than a rundown of how I taught a dog to heel after 27 tries.

*Blogger's spellcheck really doesn't like Charrow's name. The first suggestion for the correct word is chariot. Maybe I should start calling her that.

**Highly recommend to anyone, cubicle bound or fancy free.

*** Today's picture is of Dixie, the dog we used to walk in Atlanta. To see more of her cheekiness, visit her blog.

Poo on your christmas wreath

2009-12-22T07:14:00.005-05:00

Today begins the great christmas migration. You know what I have to say about christmas? I say phooey. Bah humbug. Shark farts. Blerg. Pick your outburst. That's how I feel about christmas.

Now it's time to go run the last 9 errands I need to get done before we board the bus for the first leg of our centipedinal* trip.

*yes, I just made an adjective out of a disgusting many legged pest. google said it was okay.

Today's picture is of Beaky, the famous prospect park goose that is missing the top half of his beak. He was being fed by a friendly lady that comes to the park almost every day in the winter. When he ate, his tongue mushed around like a baby gumming a bagel. See a larger version here.

fumbling in the snow

2009-12-21T14:53:00.004-05:00

Last night when I closed my eyes to go to sleep, all I could see was the mottled surface of snow. I spent a few hours walking through prospect park with my camera(s) yesterday morning, and it seemed like nearly every square inch of snow was disturbed by the feet of crying children and the parents trying to console them. It was almost comical how many kids were walking around bawling over how cold they were or whatever inane reason that shattered their world of the moment. I felt especially bad for one guy who had not one but three kids around the age of eight crying their eyes out as he ushered them to the grand army exit.

One of my favorite things about snow is the quietness of it. The other day someone told me that I fetishize austerity, which I of course denied, but the more I think about it, the more I agree. Less "morally strict" and more "markedly simple" (although if you ask charrow, I make everything a lot more complicated). Anyway, it's hard to find quiet in a city with about 35,000 people per square mile. But the sledders thinned out as I slogged my way further into the park, and I could finally hear the sound of my own footsteps. The only people willing to cut through the midsection of park were the cross country skiers, the occasional runner, and a friendly horseback rider. It was nice to feel like I was actually alone in the woods instead of like one more member of a congested snow globe.

Speaking of austerity, I brought 3 cameras to the park yesterday (there's a difference between fetish and execution): the holga, which I promptly dropped in the snow the moment I took it out of my bag, a canon F-1 SLR from the 70's and my regular digital SLR. I felt like a technowhore at one point because I had both SLRs slung over my shoulder for easy access. I haven't used a film camera since I was about 16, and it was a run of the mill automated squint and click camera. Using an SLR that required manual focusing and film advancing took some getting used to. Several times I had a shot lined up and pushed down on the shutter button only to find that I hadn't advanced the film since the last shot. It's kind of like driving a stick for the first time. You have about 5 different things to think about at any given moment and when you're first learning there's no fluidity to the process. Towards the end of my walk, I started to get the hang of it, but my digital reliance reared its head again when I tried to rewind the film. Having spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how to even open the film door (talk about IQ test flashbacks), I thought I knew how to rewind the film. But when I started cranking the rewind lever, I heard a few creaks and then the lever lost its tension, spinning around like a stripped screw.

In order to get the film out of the camera, I had to take it into the closet and figure out if it was jammed or if I could roll it up manually by turning the top of the film canister. As I fumbled around in the dark, I realized that the film had completely separated from the canister, so I had an empty canister on one side and a used roll of film on the other side. Not so useful. I called LTI, the photo lab I used to develop the Holga prints, and Justin walked me through the process of hand rolling the film so I could bring it in for development. This involved another trip to the closet and duct taping the cheap plastic film container because it wasn't the usual opaque version. Long story not so short, I am grateful that Justin was patient with my complete lack of knowledge once again, and hopefully my ridiculous efforts will be rewarded with a few decent photographs.

the minimalist grinch

2009-12-11T16:26:00.004-05:00

It's so cold outside that I could barely smell the clump of pine trees sitting outside of the market on the way home from the Q train. Back when I used to carry a wallet, I would stick a piece of christmas tree in one of the credit card slots so I could hold on to that tangy clean smell into the month of January. It lasts longer than you would expect.

My holiday smashup interlude: Deck the halls with boughs of credit cards. Tis the season to be whiney. Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to ride in a bumpy crowded bus. Hey!

I don't recommend reading The Road right before or after any major American holiday (especially 2 in a row that have morphed into times of rampant consumption/consumerism). It's strychnine for holiday cheer, not that I'm generally brimming with cheer this time of year. I finished The Road on a marathon bus ride home from Thanksgiving in MD. 4 hours turned into 6.5 thanks to a very clogged jersey turnpike. It was just long enough to make it through the book and then be thoroughly exhausted from the stress of worrying over the two main characters. Within the first 5 pages, I wanted to skip to the end just so I could have some peace of mind about where things were headed. I held off for maybe 30 more pages, but then I skimmed willy nilly at the beginning of each new situation because I just couldn't take the suspense (not that the knowledge made it any less stressful).

I'm not sure I should have read this book, given my tendency toward nihilism, but 2 people within 4 hours of each other basically threw it at me. I went to a friend's for dinner the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and she mentioned how great the book was. Then when charrow and I got back to her parents house, her sister told me (with no knowledge of the friend's recommendation) that she had just bought The Road at the airport because she needed something to read and I had to borrow it when she finished. Coincidence and masochism made it impossible to resist.

Among the many residual feelings I've had about the book is a hyperawareness of waste. Just last night, we made a squash vindaloo from a reliable cookbook that turned out to be almost inedible. The amount of clove the recipe called for was the culprit. There is absolutely no way to cover up too much clove. Blech. After eating our small portions (neither of us could force ourselves to eat very much of it), we decided, with much regret, that we would have to throw out the remainder of the disaster. Short of leaving it outside for a desperate passerby to take, there was nothing to be done. I guess we could have thrown out half of it and added more of the ingredients to even out the clove, but the nausea induced from eating it the first time made this a very unappealing option. We will not be cooking with clove for a very long time. Anyway, the point wasn't to berate clove, it was to say that throwing out perfectly good (but oh so bad) food was horrifying.

Do you know what else is horrifying? Christmas stores. The ones that only sell christmas decorations and wrapping paraphernalia. The frenzied consumerism of Christmas in general is pretty appalling. Now, I'm not saying that I'm immune to materialism. If you put a striped object of any kind in front of me, I would probably salivate and rip it from your hands. But this reflexive consumerism is definitely something I'd like to temper. Knowing that there are people out there that don't even consider the concept of moderation is seriously depressing. So many of us are governed by an overriding sense of entitlement coupled with a definition of success that hinges on the act of having. I can't handle an environment as stark (or as terrifying) as The Road, but I would definitely like to move in the direction of minimalism. I know there are a couple of you that just shook your heads in dismay. That's right, I said minimalism. How this can be accomplished living in a city as overwhelming as New York, I'm just not sure.

I'm also not sure where I'm going with this gripe session. I intended to write about The Road* and now I'm off in ascetic grinch land. This time of year always puts me in a wonky mood for so many more reasons than consumerism. Write this one off to an extremist frame of mind and an overwhelming sense of guilt after having tossed out enough food for 4 people.

*I know The Road has nothing to do with the minimalist lifestyle, but the whole time I was reading it, I couldn't stop thinking about the simplicity of having everything you own and need with you in a bag or a shopping cart.

back to pre-

2009-11-16T16:48:00.004-05:00

I took a walk through prospect park with a friend yesterday, and as we dodged baby strollers and bewitching dogs, I gave her a brief update on my physical health. At least it was intended to be brief because talking about it usually upsets me to the point of tears, but the laundry list of things holding me back keeps getting longer. It feels childish to be so dramatic about it because I haven't been diagnosed with some dreadful disease or syndrome or life threatening -itis. I'm not losing my hair or being pumped with death stalling toxins. I don't need machines to take a breath. Things could be much, much worse.

But it's hard to care about worse, when I am constantly reminded of how much better it could be. Literally everywhere I go, I see someone jogging. Or cycling. Or walking home sweaty from whatever their choice form of torture was for the day. I just finished reading Born Round (highly recommend it), and exercise is mentioned ad nauseum. If you google depression and exercise, the majority of the hits will detail all the ways in which exercise can create a bridge to cross the moat out of your Dark place. Or it can contribute to better sleeping patterns, which in turn can allow you to juggle your misery with care. Or it helps with weight loss, which might be the tug on your self-esteem that has you out of sorts.

Where is the literature on how to escape the depression that ensues when you can't put on your running shoes for more than a 30 min walk? Where can I find an essay telling me I should be grateful for the fact that I can swim at the pool if I don't kick? Can someone tell me how to appreciate the incredible bike that's been sitting against the wall for over a year (minus a few trial runs just to see what would happen)?

Part of me has to wonder if it's all just a total mindfuck. Do I have some unconscious need to be thwarted every step of the way? Is that laundry list of aches and pains actually one item long (me)? I'm doing what I can to figure out if there's a legitimate physical cause for the escalating breakdown of this clunker I'm walking around in, but my patience is wearing pretty thin. I can barely make it through the park without wanting to trip every chirping runner I see.

So here's where we're going to get crafty. Today's picture is me, at age 2.75. Pre-injuries. Pre-emotional breakdowns. Pre-creating barriers at every turn. I'm going to play a little game with myself where I think about this picture (and a few others) whenever I start to get really negative. I'm going to relax*. And I'm going to breathe. Think what you will, but self-delusion works. At least that's what I'm going to tell myself.

*Take a second and notice if you're tensing something in your body. I find something virtually every time I do this. Hello, my name is Clenched, how are you?

three cheers for freud

2009-11-03T16:20:00.005-05:00

So far, it hasn't been the best of weeks. After a particularly acerbic morning, I went to the food co-op to shop for marinara ingredients. My mom is coming to town tonight, and in preparation for dinner on Wednesday, I'm cooking the family tomato sauce recipe because "spaghetti with tomato sauce" is her all time favorite dish. The recipe is one that my parents perfected through years of eating spaghetti basically every Monday and Friday night. Monday nights, they ate sauce from a jar (it was also, without fail, my night to do the dishes). Friday nights, they went to the local greek italian restaurant in the strip mall across the street from my high school. Every week, the owner, "Papa George," greeted my parents with an exuberant hello and tilted his head back to peer at the whole family through his thick glasses. Eventually, my dad asked "Papa," as we called him at home, to divulge the secret to his tomato sauce. Papa was more than happy to go over the list ingredients, although I'm guessing he left out a thing here or there because it never quite tasted the same at home.

At any rate, I was standing in the co-op near the avocados, checking my list, when I heard a little boy say, "Mommy why are you so dramatic??"

His mom said, "Why am I so dramatic?" She paused. "Because grandma made me that way!"

It made me laugh out loud and was enough to carry me through the rest of my shop without getting sucked back into the mental bog that accompanied through the sliding glass doors.

regular anger

2009-11-02T16:54:00.005-05:00

I called the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) last week to make an appointment for an x-ray. The receptionist told me that she couldn't schedule an appointment until she had received a faxed copy of my x-ray script. I made a phone call to the administrative office of my chiropractor. They said, "Oh sure we'll fax that today and give you a call when it's done!"

I called HSS the next day and asked to schedule an appointment for an x-ray. "Have we received a copy of your script?" the receptionist asked. I said, with confidence that I had played the game correctly, "Yes you should have received that yesterday."

Silence.

"I'm sorry, we don't have a script for you," you said.

"Okay, well I spoke to my my doctor's office and they called to specifically tell me that the script had been faxed, but I'll ask them again," I said.

"Yeah, we can't even begin to schedule an appointment without a copy of your script," she reiterated with no hint of responsibility for the delay.

So I called my doctor's office again, 3 days later because the previously dictated conversation happened on a Thursday and I didn't have time to make the call on Friday. The office agreed to fax the script over ASAP.

"So if I call in about an hour, they should have it?" I asked.

"Oh yes, definitely," said the office manager.

:: 5 HOURS LATER ::

(after swimming at the Y and working a heinous co-op shift for my overbooked girlfriend)

I called HSS. "Hi I need to make an appointment for an X-ray."

"Do we have a copy of your script?"

"YES, you should have received that sometime this morning," I said firmly, knowing I had jumped through the shiny little hoop they threw at me last time.

"What's your first and last name?"

"XX Johnson"

"No, I'm sorry, we don't have a script here for you. You said XX Dunkin right?"

"NO XX JOHNSON" I said, losing my patience. I wondered if the last person I spoke to had overlooked my script because she too thought I was an heir to the donut chain.

"No ma'am, we don't have anything here for you. Is this for an MRI? or a cat scan?"

"No, this is for an x-ray," I said, wanting to scream at her that I had specifically said at the beginning of this asinine conversation that I needed to make an X-RAY appointment.

"Oh, you don't need an appointment for a regular x-ray" she said.

"WHAT??"

"If it's just a regular x-ray you don't need to make an appointment," she repeated.

"I called here last week to make an appointment and was told that I had to have my script faxed over before you could schedule anything and you're telling me that I don't even need an appointment? That would have been really great to know UP FRONT."

Silence. No apology. No empathy. No response whatsoever.

"What is the procedure you need done?" she asked, annoyed by my ignorance of what a regular x-ray means.

"It says lumbar spine, hip and pelvis. It's listed under general radiology. Is that regular?"

Sounds of page shuffling.

"I don't know ma'am, let me transfer you to that department."

If only I were a more explosive person. Instead, I got off the phone and literally couldn't move for about 10 minutes because I was so angry. I could have walked into this radiology clinic over A WEEK AGO and gotten the x-rays done. If my chiropractic office knew anything about the clinics that they recommended, they could have warned me that I don't need an appointment for a "regular" x-ray. If any one of the 3 people I spoke to at the radiology clinic had paid attention to the fact that I opened each conversation "I need to MAKE AN APPOINTMENT" they could have sent me on my appointment free way.

If I walk in there and someone tells me I need an appointment for my "regular" x-ray, I may have to be escorted off the premises by security.

payment not due upon receipt

2009-10-27T14:45:00.006-04:00

I'm not up to date on what's happening with the health care reform issue these days. I see the articles in the NY Times, I start to read the articles, and I promptly give up and move on to simpler pastures. As a frequent user of the health care system, it would behoove me to pay closer attention, but I've yet to find the patience to follow along.

Something else I don't have patience for is calling my insurance company to help me dissect the mound of medical bills on my coffee table (I leave them laying around so that eventually I'll get tired of envelopes spilling onto the floor and call the appropriate money sucking institution).

Today, I decided to tackle the pile. My usual strategy for the payment process is to scan the bill, attempt to decode the line items that indicate a payment responsibility and then write the check while cursing to an empty room (for the health of my relationship, it's best to do these things alone). The coward in me doesn't usually make a phone call to check on bills that are confusing or seem incorrect unless the balance is outrageous (e.g. the $990 bill that I received for 6 months and continued to receive after 3 phone calls to remedy the situation). I know, it's a horrible philosophy, and I'm sure I've padded more than my share of health care system's bottomless pockets. But today, when I started shuffling through the account statements, I got increasingly annoyed at just how much money I was expected to pay.

For example, I went to the ER at the beginning of the summer and paid a $150 co-pay for the visit. I received a bill from the hospital asking me to pay an additional $224. That would bring the grand total for my 4 hour visit in which I spent approximately 3 minutes talking to an ER doc to $374. Not even I, the supreme avoider of the phone, am willing to pay that much to circumvent having to explain the situation to my insurance company. One of the advantages to detesting the phone is that I have developed a very effective way of communicating the information that will get me off the phone the fastest. I can reduce a convoluted medical billing saga into about 3 sentences. Granted, it doesn't increase the likelihood that I will actually make the phone call, but when I finally do, the economy of words verges on graceful.

Five minutes after picking up the phone, I have explained the situation to Blue Cross, they've called the ignoramus hospital billing office, and the financial burden is no longer mine. You see, there's this little thing called a prefix in my insurance ID, and oh, by the way, it's kind of important. If you don't use it when filing a claim, the bill just sits in the local Blue Cross circuit taking little bites out of my credit score.

I remember from one of the few articles I've read on the subject that an overwhelming percentage of medical bills contain errors. I can attest to this fact because approximately half of the bills I've received in the last 3 months have been inaccurate in some fashion. If I'd gone about paying them with the usual haste, I would have shelled out upwards of $500 in erroneous charges.

Who knew channeling your Jewish girlfriend could be so lucrative?

not an idiot free zone

2009-10-26T18:11:00.010-04:00

I observed a meeting today in which I heard the phrase "data free zone." It was mentioned in the context of basically flying blind and having no baseline data with which to formulate an evaluation of department functionality and employee productivity. (how's that for vague industrial organizational speak? it was more interesting than that, but this is the obscure, safe-for-the-internet version)

Lately it feels like I've been making decisions from a data free zone. This might sound counterintuitive to anyone who has witnessed the tower of index cards I've been studying for the last month. But memorizing the levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs has done little in the way of illuminating my own needs. Do I need a career path (read: letters after my name and a 10 year plan) or do I just need a job? Do I need to go back to a head shrinker or do I just need to find a way to hang out with a dog (or 4) every now and then? Do I need to read the blogs in my Monday/Wednesday folder or do I need to start putting a little more time and attention into my own creativity? (finally, a simple question)

Do I need to look up grad school application deadlines or can I just make them up and check on them after I take the subject test GRE? A crucial question that I failed to answer correctly. Apparently the ballpark January dates that I had floating around in my head were a little off. Far enough off that I have run for the hills of pusillanimity. (okay, I had to look that one up to make sure I used it correctly, but it has a nice ring to it doesn't it?) You may be thinking, December? That's 4 weeks from now. You can do so much in 4 weeks! And I'm thinking, wow that scorched smell must be coming from my new Nikes. Better go jump in a lake.

Or as my new spanish idiom book from the library says: mandó al diablo*

*the idioms don't account for the idiots trying to apply them to different verb tenses, so I know there's something wrong with the verb. i may have just told all of you to go jump in a lake. sorry.

may the schwartz be good enough

2009-09-01T14:36:00.004-04:00

Lately, I've been practicing my satisficing skills. What's that you say? Have I read yet another self-help book? Well, I don't know if it really falls under the umbrella of self-help ("science, society, and technology" according to the library), but I did just finish The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz (the urge to quote Spaceballs will eventually subside). It wasn't eye opening so much as eye bulging. Protuberating, if you will.

A little background information from the book: satisficers are people who have a set of criteria for a decision and once they have found something that meets those criteria, something "good enough," they stop looking, i.e. they don't worry about the possibility of something better. Maximizers (oh, the irony in this term), will continue information gathering until they've researched enough options to consider making the "best" choice.

Ding ding ding! Hello, and welcome to the first annual meeting of the maximizers. Who here spent over a month selecting their hotel accommodations? How long did it take you to get dressed this morning? And the mother of all questions, where in the world are you going to eat after the conference??

Now, I'm aware of my penchant for deliberation, but I was not cognizant of the cascade of negative emotions that accompany my prized thoroughness. Apparently, it's not productive to scour customer reviews for hours before buying the same ice cream maker that good friends of mine own and use constantly. Apparently, unearthing more choices is a recipe for experiencing loss, regret, and depression.

As Charrow can attest, I am a maximizer to the nth degree. She has had to watch me agonize over the trivialities of our everyday life for over 3 years now. I'm amazed she has the patience to weigh in anymore considering my neverending supply of rebuttals. We're talking life altering things like "where should I study this morning?" and "what should I have for a snack?" I've put off shopping for shoes that would help me get over the eternal foot plague because I knew that there were just too many options to choose from, and the moment I bought one of them, I would see something I'd rather have.* You can only imagine how well I deal with more important decisions.

This search for the best choice (there's that word again) is crippling and apparently far from advantageous. So I am practicing the real way to maximize choice: accepting that something is good enough and moving on to the next decision. For example, when I opened this blogger window, I had a minor palpitation at the prospect of deciding what to write about. Instead of stewing over what would be the most meaningful, or the most interesting, or fodder for the best picture (yet another decision that usually takes longer than necessary), I decided to discuss the book sitting right in front of me. And then, instead of staring off into space trying to conjure up a compelling hook, I took a stab at a shitty first draft.

And now, instead of rereading each paragraph and wondering if I could weave more anecdotes or one liners into this post, I'm going to consider it done.

*I finally bought non-converse shoes and my bobo foot is very grateful. The new shoes are causing a bit of an identity crisis considering how long I've worn chucks (pre-hipster, thank you very much), but I have to listen to the foot if I ever want to run again.

nervous nelly

2009-08-12T06:38:00.007-04:00

The other day as I was walking to the train after another sluggish swim at the Y, I noticed a dog with a serious case of the jitters. This dog was not of the usual ankle height, teeth baring breed. If I had to guess, I would say it was a sheep dog or collie mix -- something with potentially manic herding tendencies, but generally not the kind of dog you see cowering in the street.

This poor dog could barely walk a straight line because every second it was craning its neck to keep a 360 degree vigil on the world. Literally, every second. Meanwhile, the man holding the leash casually strolled along with his female companion, apparently unfazed by his dog's incessant full body twitch.

Now there's no telling where this dog's nervous energy came from. Maybe I mistook fear for an instinct to surveil his owner's path. Maybe the dog was a rescue and hadn't fully adjusted to the hectic sidewalks of New York. The dog's stride was so agitated that its body was cockeyed, and its turnover was nearly double his owner's, yet it remained a step or two behind.

Whatever the background story, it was an upsetting sight and it made me think about how much effort it takes to be frightened. There's no telling what I could do if I repurposed even half of the energy I spend on fear induced, though often high level, procrastination.

*today's picture is Simon the slimer. do not let his pathetic expression fool you.

hello my name is thorn

2009-08-08T09:52:00.015-04:00

There's a passage in William Zinsser's book On Writing Well that encourages the writer to abandon the idea of being the best. I would directly quote the paragraph, but I had to give the book back to the library before incurring large fines. I'm trying something new where I actually adhere to due dates instead of assuming some far-off date and then being unable to put books on hold because I owe the library a small fortune.

Basically, Zinsser emphasizes the reality that there will always be someone out there who is better than you, so you can't get stuck on the idea of being best or you will never start whatever it is you want to be supreme ruler of. (look at that preposition left to fend for itself) I have a severe case of bestitis with a long list of comorbid conditions, such as negativitis, procrastinationitis, insecuritis, aloofitis. I'm here to tell you the combination is truly paralyzing. As many of you have noticed, my blog posting has slowed to a trickle. We're talking desert cactus proportions here. And do you know why? No, it's not because I've devoted my spare time to feeding the elderly or revitalizing parks. I'm stewing in a decoction of neuroses, turning up the burner by reading other blogs (or magazines or books or newspaper articles) that I deem far superior to anything I could ever produce.

Even as I type this, I'm thinking, "okay, how can I make this the best pathetic post ever."

Pursuing the best is making me a very stagnant person. I can't make decisions because I want to make the best one. I can't write posts because I know they won't be the best in the cloud. I can't post pictures to flickr because they're not in the best (i.e. retouched) condition yet. I can't decide on the best career path. I can't I can't I can't.

Enough with the bullshit. Or rather, the best shit. I don't let bestness get in the way of certain things, like swimming or running or cooking. Just the other day I had a horrible workout at the YMCA. It felt like I was trying to swim through molasses with limbs made of terry cloth. But I slogged from one end of my lane to the other, intent on reaching a goal of 25 minutes, and I left knowing that I would look forward to the next time. What's the difference between swimming and writing? Why can't I write a mediocre post, click publish and try again next time? There is no good reason to put writing (among other things) on the once-chance-to-get-this-right pedestal.

So, welcome to the recreational lane of blogging, where I attempt to doggy paddle and flutter kick my way from one end of the screen to the other. Goggles not required.

*the sand castle picture is from a contest that I stumbled upon last weekend at Rehobeth Beach

i've been pollinated

2009-07-23T06:44:00.009-04:00

Last Saturday, Charrow and I were lounging in prospect park when a butterfly skimmed over my hair and settled onto my stomach. For the purposes of not repeating the word butterfly (because it's such a floofy word and it makes me feel like I should be writing a discourse on woodland creatures), let's call my new friend Horace.

Horace stuck around for a good 2 or 3 minutes, resting on my light blue t-shirt and periodically sticking out his proboscis (or tongue, as I called it at the time). It was a remarkable sight. The slightest breeze jostled his wings and made the thousands of hairy projectiles covering his midsection ripple in the wind.

I have no idea what was so appealing about my outstretched stomach, but the visit was a welcome distraction from the self-pity I felt as I watched the pockets of sporting activities around me. My foot is nowhere near 100% (at least not when it comes to exercise), so going to the park to get some fresh air results in a mixture of severe jealousy and relaxation. I'm still swimming at the YMCA, but the summer camps have made it more complicated than I care for. Around 9am every day, the meager selection of lanes gets compacted even further to accommodate the 20 rambunctious campers that have apparently been waiting all their life to hear their voices echo off the walls in the pool area. Being a mediocre swimmer means I stick to the 2 slowest lanes depending on just how slow the "extra slow" lane is running. When the lanes are combined, all the people in the fast lanes get integrated with the slow swimmers. I have a hard enough time breathing without the stress of trying to stay out of Joe Speedo's way so I usually relinquish my spot and walk back to the Naked Place grumbling about those damn kids. It makes me feel geriatric in more ways than one.

Just when I was getting used to my winged visitor, he flitted off into the breeze and that was that. Until yesterday. I was sitting in prospect park, wearing the same light blue t-shirt, taking my shoes off, and as I shifted my socks from one hand to the other, a butterfly plopped down on my right hand. I have a feeling it was Horace, though I can't say for sure. But how many human hopping butterflies could there be in the exact same patch of grass that I had frequented less than a week before?

Horace came back twice in the time that I was sitting there reading and lusting after other people's dogs. On his first return trip, he landed on my left shin, tickling the hairs on my leg, which I have to tell you was too similar to how I imagine a spider would feel if one were to live long enough to crawl onto my person. But I kept my eye on Horace, willing my brain to think "butterfly" not "spider." His final visit was a brief perch on my blanket that I ruined by reaching for my camera. Every week my photography teacher at SVA says, in an attempt to keep us from taking pointless pictures, "remember, no butterfly collecting!" so I couldn't resist trying to get a shot of Horace. Alas, he wasn't game for my portrait taking.

**the picture for today looks washed out compared to the flickr version. anybody know why?

cloudy with a chance of rain

2009-06-21T23:42:00.004-04:00

This weekend felt like one long, restless nap. The weather was shifty. My mood was shifty. The cats were not shifty. Basically, I'm glad it's over, and I hope the sky decides to stop exploding.

it might just move you

2009-06-18T13:06:00.006-04:00

If you have a taste for self-improvement shows, then I urge you to go to you tube and search for "You Are What You Eat BBC." Be warned, this show will go against your American sensibilities of social propriety and decency towards other human beings. Within minutes you will hear the word "poo" more times than you've ever heard it on any of our major TV networks. And you will like it. At least I do.

It's basically a weight loss show that is nutrition and exercise based (shocking, I know). There is a finite time period (8 weeks), but there are no Biggest Loser boot camp style implausibilities when it comes to exercise and weight loss expectations. The subject (or subjects) of every show are significantly overweight and, more importantly, engaging in self destructive life style habits. At the end of the 8 weeks, you won't see a sunken faced marathon runner. Instead, the participants are still well away from their healthiest weight*, but they are more aware, more informed, and armed with a battery of constructive new habits.

Can you tell I'm trying to make it palatable to the skeptics?

Yes, the host is a heinous bitch sometimes, and she says things that are horrific even after you've gotten used to her no-nonsense delivery. Yes, the show appeals to the sensationalism of just how much these people overeat and how inactive they are. Yes, the narration is ridiculous and heavy handed with the puns. But you know what? It's effective. Even if you consider yourself to be self-aware and health conscious, you will learn things from this show. If nothing else, it will give you good ideas for recipes. Just the other day we experimented by making a lentil pie with squash/chickpea crust because it was mentioned in the meal plan for one of the participants. And it was damn good.

So please, give this poo smelling, rude awakening, accent laden** show a chance.

*the show discusses weight in units of "stones" -- 1 stone = 14 pounds (in case you, too, are a sucker for calculations)

** sometimes the cockney is so thick that we have to rewind it to figure out what the heck they're going on about.

Drano required

2009-06-11T20:50:00.006-04:00

I started the draft of this post with the words "blog: fail" which segued into one of those apologetic posts that I abhor where the author says their sorry for letting you live your life with one less web page clogging up your frontal lobe.

Let's move on to a different kind of clog shall we.

Namely my ears. They are clogged with the chlorine saturated water of the Court St YMCA. I was under the impression that YMCA stood for Young Men's Christian Association. Oh no. I think it really stands for You May Catch sight of Ass (and I'm sure Ester will be back me up on this). There is a constant stream of naked women ambling (and I mean ambling) through that locker room. I know this makes me sound prudish and seems counterintuitive considering my experience with organized sports, but I find it jarring to open the door from the humid stairwell, tired and dazed from my swim, only to come face to cheek with a variety of wrinkles, tan lines, and states of verticality. Didn't anyone's mother teach them not to bend over in front of people they're not biblically acquainted with? (I know, I'm stretching it a little too far because anyone who knows me would scoff at my bad attempt at biblical humor.)

The good news is that the only discomfort I've experienced thus far at the Y has been in the sea of nipples and discarded towels. My foot is holding up extremely well. No more clunky walking boot! I've moved on to the custom orthotics recommended by my GQ podiatrist. My walking speed still leaves something to be desired (especially when I'm trying to navigate the Naked Room). If I were living in some other half awake city this would be no problem, but around here the pace of pedestrians is so breakneck that I feel like I have to constantly peer around to make sure I'm not clogging up the sidewalk. (I'm rusty. Let me have my words.) I wish there was a way to let people know that while I have no visually evident impairment sans boot, I'm still not physically capable of sprinting through the subway stations. Maybe if I walked around naked people would give me a wider berth.

fast track to nowhere

2009-05-21T18:27:00.008-04:00

We've been making small changes to the apartment (small compared to the painting ordeal), one of which is the addition of shamrocks. Charrow bought 2 shamrock plants, one very hearty looking specimen and one very spastic, but cheerful little guy.

That is, it was cheerful. Direct quote as she lamented the loss of flowers: "I was so busy worrying about it that I forgot to water it!" Oops.

The cherry tomato plant that we bought at the co-op is faring much better. It's burst out of the mesh cat-proofing device and is growing at a rate of 1-2 inches a day. Who knows if it will produce any tomatoes, but it smells good and it makes our window look like a miniature veggie patch.

In other news, it seems that my swine flu mockery has finally come back to haunt me. I've been feeling like someone shoved my head under a garbage truck for the past couple of days. Hopefully the sickness reached its pinnacle with my yak attack this morning. I was so worried (as I am wont to do when it comes to disease) that I went to the ER.

Boy was that a mistake. I could have spent the day resting and couch surfing with the animals. Instead, I shifted around in an uncomfortable waiting room chair listening to women shout out answers to "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" and give their two cents about the soap opera actors. When I finally made it back to the treatment area, it was only to be shunted from one area to the next. I started out in the Fast Track area, which let me tell you was anything but fast, and then some nurse decided that I should be moved to the Urgent Care area, which again, did not live up to its name. 4 hours later, I walked back to the train with a ditto of how to treat a Viral Syndrome (if you experience convulsions, come back to the emergency room!) and a co-pay that was way more than the $5.29 bottle of Ibuprofen that I should have bought in the first place.

It does not pay to be a hypochondriac.

hazmat suit required

2009-04-28T08:29:00.007-04:00

Our apartment has become an unofficial Hot Zone. No, I don't mean we're baking because of the spike in temperature (yay for sprummer! or springer? or maybe springummer? sprimmer?) I'm talking about a virus shedding, wheezing, squeaking hot bed of sickness. Poor Charrow has been coughing and miserable for 5 days straight. She sounds like a combination of a plastic t-bone with an overextended squeaker and a Disney cartoon truck sputtering its last gasp of exhaust before collapsing in a heap. It's not pretty. Although it is comical when she manages to eek out a mangled version of her voice that sounds more like Sloth than Charrow. I mock her because I have yet to come down with the whatever variety of flu she's hosting. Let's hope it's not as swinelike in nature as some of her vein popping coughs.

Now would be a good time to own an ice cream machine.

won't you be my umbrella?

2009-04-22T14:09:00.007-04:00

It's another soggy day in the neighborhood. The fledgling leaves on the currently unidentified tree outside the window are a vibrant green against the muddled brownstones. The workmen across the street have moved on from swiping at the remnants of an old piano (producing a dissonant sound that made me feel like I was in a Hitchcock movie) to making an incessant racket with some sort of jackhammer/stone grinding tool. The noise is reminiscent of the cacophonous MRI experience last week. I had no idea MRI machines were so loud. It was like being stuck in a washing machine strapped to the hood of an 18-wheeler while someone took a jackhammer to the toploading door during the spin cycle.

At any rate, it's raining again, which is doing absolutely nothing for my already tenuous mood. My foot is a light shade of purple, and my brain is in serious need of a kick-start. I don't know if it was the hours I lost to this blog* (rabbit hole induced dysphoria?) or the time spent painting in the confines of the bathroom at the 13th street Joe the Art of Coffee (toxin induced depression?), but for the past 48 hours I've been hazy at best and as soggy as the weather at worst.

I'm guessing the root of my problem is three fold:

1. I have yet to join the Y, which means I have't exercised in over 4 weeks, unless you count crouching with a paintbrush in a bathroom or using power tools in the kitchen. This is akin to leaving my hippocampus in the sun to shrivel up like a raisin. I hate raisins.

2. I am having serious Path oriented anxiety and indecision.

3. Upon further reflection, there is no third fold. All other issues stem from the first two folds in one way or another.

So, where to go from here? Nowhere for the moment. My bulbous foot needs a break from all the non-exercise activity I've been putting it through. But I can't stay in this dank brain space for much longer or you will be subjected to more blathering posts, and I will continue to inflict misery upon myself and the closest victim (i.e. the needy one and poor, overworked Charrow).

The Wise and All Knowing InterWeb says that it takes 21 days to create or break a habit. I don't feel like searching for the best link to convey this wisdom, so google it for yourself and see how many different Paths to Freedom you can find under the 21 day umbrella. I mock only the worst of examples because, ultimately, I believe there's some credence to the idea.

So for the next 21 days I'm going to make it a point to do at least one thing each day to combat this habit of self pity and avoidance that I've been nurturing lately. I won't bore you with a daily edition of my woo woo endeavors, but I will let you know if something interesting comes out of the woodwork during my attempt to identify what's Next.

* highly recommend this blog, but beware if you're weak in the ways of moderation and/or need to be productive

warming the bench

2009-04-17T16:31:00.004-04:00

The diagnosis from my GQ podiatrist (relationship status: unknown), is that I do not have any sign of a fracture, old or new (old or new!), non-union, or otherwise. I do, however, have two torn ligaments in my sesamoid complex (i.e. the ligaments that make up the joint of your first toe), and a hearty case of sesamoiditis.

Both GQ man and I were confused as to how I could have torn ligaments when such an injury is usually caused by on obvious precipitating event. Perhaps it was an overzealous game of Settlers? Maybe I got too excited jumping down from the ladder while I was painting? Could it have happened while ferrying my dead motorcycle back and forth across the street?

It remains a mystery. A very painful mystery.

My plan of action is to hobble over to the Court Street YMCA, sign up for a family membership and resign myself to another summer of swimming. Sound familiar? I'm more enthused about swimming this year, but I still secretly want to throttle all you cheerful people in your matching running gear.

attach item Q with fastener 3R

2009-04-16T16:46:00.012-04:00

What's the best thing you can do when you're stuck in your apartment with a busted foot and 2 exceptionally needy cats*? Go into home improvement overdrive! The exhaustion from working all day will prevent your throbbing foot from keeping you awake at night and the loud noises will force the cats to retreat, thus providing you with a safer pathway from project to project.

Okay, so I may be spending too much time on my foot, but I managed to take a break every hour or so to sit down and read my overdue library book. Today's accomplishments include finishing the kitchen walls (which included an undesirable foray into the roach corner), hanging many (many) Ikea organizing gizmos, and when I finish writing this post I'm going to make a stir fry.

Before

After

(The waffle iron looking contraption is a collapsible dish rack)

Has my domesticity put you to sleep yet? Too bad. My parents used to watch This Old House** every weekend, so I've been conditioned to get a kick out of drilling holes and leveling shelves. It was either listen to Bob Vila (or his successor Steve Thomas) talk about laying bathroom tile or watch Greg Norman agonize over a putt for nine and a half hours. I'll take grout work over the PGA any day. Hell, I'd watch Norm use a router before I'd watch golf.

*the squinting hairball pictured today is not one of the aforementioned co-dependent wretches

**currently working on a brownstone in Prospect Heights, which I found out from my grandmother who was very excited to tell me that the streets of Brooklyn have trees.

podiatrists are the new black

2009-04-10T19:51:00.011-04:00

Have you ever had a cortisone shot? As of today, I've had two, and I'd like to keep it that way for, oh, the rest of my days on this asphyxiating planet. If for some reason there are retirement communities on the moon by the time I reach the age of necessity, I don't want one there either.

I came back early from our Passover stay in Jewville (Chevy Chase, MD) to see a podiatrist on the upper west side. The first half of my day was spent mouth breathing on an 8am Vamoose bus and botching the subway trip from Penn station up to 86th St. Normally, I'm not pushy about squeezing into a seat on the subway, but for the past week I've been experiencing some serious foot pain. The walking boot that I've been wearing feels like a free pass to shimmy into what would be normal sized seats were it not for men sitting with their legs agape. The worst moment of my backtracking trip was when a 40-something couple dawdled their way in to the seats that had emptied out right in front of me. If you're going to steal seats from the temporarily handicapped, do it quickly.

I made it to the appointment with enough time to fill out the paperwork and absorb the wisdom of whatever Vanity Fair issue was at the top of the magazine stack. And then, for the first time that I can remember, the doctor walked into the waiting room reading the intake form. I was thankful that I hadn't followed through on my burning desire to write "pain in my ***" in the chief complaint section. When I imagined the scenario playing out, I figured the doc probably wouldn't bother giving it a glance. Good thing I'm a chicken.

Or rather, good thing I found a doctor who reads. He's also a compact GQ poster boy. I'm not sure what alternate universe I found on W. 85th Street, but the doctor was attentive, attractive (not that this has anything to do with effective medical treatment, but when you think podiatry, do the words metrosexual come to mind? didn't think so), empathetic, and prompt.

The short version of what he said is that I may have an old fracture (from last year) that didn't heal properly, and there's a chance that it's a "non-union", a word you don't want to hear in the same sentence as fracture. Or it's just a bad case of sesamoiditis. Or maybe there's a new stress fracture.

Whatever the case may be, GQ man wooed me into agreeing to a cortisone shot. After the chair grabbing, eye squeezing, ow-ow-ow-ing was over, he told me that when you insert a needle it either feels like it's going through butter or tinfoil. Guess which one my joint felt like? I thought the water balloon feeling* was going to be the worst part, but it was actually the sensation of being a human kebab for about 25 seconds.

Here's a wry twist of fate for you: GQ man's office is right across the street from Central Park, so I got to watch people running through the park as I squelched my way back to the train station.

Excuse me while I ice my reynolds wrap and curse the birds announcing Spring outside my window.

*balloon feeling = the cortisone fluid whoosing into your joint making it feel like a water filled sac, or balloon.

fool or ghoul?

2009-04-01T11:57:00.007-04:00

(glasses: charrow's. attempt at a funny face: my mom's.

for more of both: go here)

I've never constructed an elaborate April Fool's Day caper. I prefer to go for short-lived shockers, like scaring my mom by hiding in the laundry room wearing a ghoulish mask, or environmentally annoying pranks, such as filling a co-worker's office with balloons**.

This year I decided to prey on the reputation of my new city.

The text to charrow read "I went to move my moto and ITS GONE."

Her reply said "Oh no!"

Shocked at the brevity of her response and unsatisfied with the climax of my plan, I cut the joke short and wrote "that's all you have to say?? good thing it's april fool's day." Her subsequent texts revealed a lack of amusement ("I hate u. Good luck finding a new gf").

As I chopped basil for my omelet, I considered another victim. Someone who would be more apt to react with horror and dismay at the misfortune I'd experienced in this predatory city.

The text to my mother said "Give me a call when you have a chance. Someone stole my moto and I don't know what to do!"

I put my phone down feeling sure that she would see through my ruse. Or worse yet, she would leave an important meeting to call me immediately, thus securing both my success and remorse for having duped her.

Two minutes later, the phone rang as I was coaxing an egg yolk from one half-shell to the other trying to keep my fingers out of the runny stream of egg white. Potential lines raced through my head as I rinsed my hands and picked up the phone.

"Hi," I said, closing my throat so the words came out strained.

"I'm so sorry." I searched her voice for a stifled smile, still not convinced that she believed me.

"I went to outside to move the bike and it wasn't there."

"Did you call the police? Do you think it was towed?"

"I don't know. There aren't any signs with phone numbers for towing companies. I knocked on the super's door, but he didn't answer." [pause] "Mommy..."

I admit. The whining was a low point. I'm not proud of it, but for a minute I actually believed that my motorcycle was gone. As I was saying the words, I could picture myself knocking on Norman's door and being crestfallen at the lack of response.

"What am I supposed to do? It's not even registered in NYC."

"Well that's okay. You tell them that you just moved there," which is mom speak for you tell them that you're new to that godforsaken city and that someone stole her baby's property!

"But what about my insurance? I haven't switched it over to NYC yet."

"It doesn't matter, you're still covered. That's why you have insurance."

"And that's why it's April Fool's Day."

There was a sharp intake of breath and what followed was a string of profanity that included such choice phrases as "[insert full name], I can't believe you, you can just kiss my ass!" She repeated it over and over like a mantra for abused mothers everywhere. Never have I heard her utter those words with such contempt.

"But mom," I said, "wasn't that better than jumping out at you with a mask??"

She didn't agree with me, but at least she laughed in the middle of a work day.

** I'm especially proud of this prank because it involved stealing the master key from a secretary's desk and coming back to work after hours with garbage bags full of balloons to infiltrate my co-worker's perpetually locked office.

primed for disaster

2009-03-26T18:40:00.009-04:00

I enjoy painting about 10 times more than the next person, but I think I’ve had my fill. First there was the bedroom nook, which thus far has been the simplest part of the process. 2 coats, wham bam, lots of TED conferences watched, NPR coma attained, minimal furniture moved.

The remainder of the room has proved to be nothing short of a nightmare. We went for a bright yellow color to offset the warm blue/green of the nook (previously the bedroom color from Atlanta, which is double bonus points because we didn't have to buy the paint). Both the Sauce and I have an aversion to mild yellows. It’s too hard to find one that doesn't remind me of either cat barf or the pastel color of my grandmother's underwear. So we went with something that should have come with an exclamation point after the name(!) . Now, I should tell you that the existing wall color was an olive/pea soup green. Think dark and almost military. My painting nickname, if such a thing were cool and actually existed, would be "she who does not prime", or "screw priming" for short. I’ve never actually been burned by my resistance to priming, but I’ve paid for all of my priming arrogance.

Oh, how I’ve paid.

The first coat of yellow(!) covered about as well as trying to smear cold cream cheese on a warm bagel. I got through the second round of cut-in (also known as edging, or painting the corners, or brushwork, or anything that doesn't involve a roller), and was dismayed at the continued streakiness. Usually by that point I can tell that the second coat will do the trick, but that olive green continued to eyeball me from underneath 2 heavy coats of yellow(!). Sensing futility, I decided to roll a patch of wall to see just how well it would cover the spotty mess I’d made. 4 coats later (in that one patch), I could still see a shadow of green.

There are times in life when shortcuts can be rather useful, but painting is one of those things that doesn't lend itself well to trickery. Back to Lowes I went. A coat of "high cover" primer later, and I was back in business. Until I ran out of yellow(!) on the opposite wall. I’d wasted so much paint that 2 gallons weren't enough to cover 2 long walls of a studio apartment.

Wait, it gets worse. The longer I stared at the yellow(!), the more it made me want to hide in the closet with the cats. The walls were yelling at me (yellow? yelling? not a coincidence my friend) I tried to like it. I really did, but every time someone came over, I felt the need to say that it wasn't exactly my first choice, which is never a good sign. (sorry charrow, I know we decided "together" but I was trying to be compromising, and I figured I was judging too quickly)

So we picked a new color. I primed (take that, yellow(!)), I painted 2 coats, and now I’m sitting on the futon staring at the fruits of my many, many days of labor. The name is dull (veridian green), but the color is so relaxing that I can't actually think of something interesting to compare it to. I may have to stop writing this post to go take a nap.

My own personal groundhog day has ended, and I’m thankful that it involved cat puke* instead of Andy McDowell. Let's hope the kitchen goes more smoothly.

*I'm hoping the high volume of cat puke over the last week is a coincidence and I'm not inadvertently causing them brain damage with the paint fumes. Petey does not need any more reasons to act challenged.

sometimes opposites should attract

2009-03-08T11:21:00.003-04:00

There's a roach somewhere in the kitchen right now. It's taken almost 3 months for one of the not-so-little pests to appear, and I'm sad to see the honeymoon period end.

We generally try to wash the dishes throughout the day or right before going to bed because it's annoying to stumble into the kitchen with one thing in mind (coffee) and have to jockey for faucet access to get water into the electric kettle. So last night when we got home from a rousing game of Settlers of Catan (one in which I fortified my position as biggest loser), Charrow started on the task while I tended to the socially acceptable food grubbers. A minute later, there was a clatter of silverware and Charrow scrambled out of the kitchen with the water running full blast.

Not knowing exactly what the problem was, I stepped into the kitchen unarmed. This turned out to be a critical mistake because the first time I spotted the palm sized roach was the only time I had a clear shot at it. Granted, it would have been hard to take aim and scream at the same time, but I still wish I'd had the forethought to pick up a shoe. By the time I grabbed a Chaco from underneath my dresser and returned to the scene, the intruder was gone. I staked it out while Charrow finished the dishes, but it never came back into the smashing zone. It did reappear for a minute, but it deftly used the edge of the microwave as a shelter, and then it was gone.

The problem with roaches is that I hate them as much as Charrow does, but because she can't stand still long enough to kill them, the task has fallen under my jurisdiction. I feel obligated to assume the responsibility because she's willing to remove the dreaded arachnids for me, even if it requires getting dressed for a late night catch and release. But the truth is, I'm horrible at killing roaches. The bigger they are, the more I yelp and the less accurate I am with a shoe. All I can picture when I'm about to strike a blow is the fact that I'm going to miss and the damn thing will scurry towards me and gnaw my nose off (because apparently they DO bite).

THE LESSON: fall in love with someone who fears different multi-legged invaders than yourself or you'll both end up screaming from atop the highest point in your living room OR make sure you get cats that enjoy crunching on just about anything that wiggles.

Q is for questionable intellect

2009-01-18T22:18:00.006-05:00

Dear Q train,

I hate you a little bit right now.

My sincerest disregard,

the fool

blunder of the day

2009-01-17T12:20:00.004-05:00

It's been about 57 degrees below reasonable for the last few days. A little while ago, I ventured to the corner store to get a soda for my lunch. It was a desperate act that I should have foregone, but alas, I am weak. I left my glasses on for the errand (because I am also lazy), and the turtle fur wrapped over my mouth and nose made my lenses fog for most of the outing.

So I made my lunch (turkey bacon and mozzarella on an english muffin with kettle chips) and sat down on the futon with my recently purchased vice. About halfway through the sandwich, as I laughed along to Joey wearing a top hat (I,too, am wondering why there is a wikipedia entry for a Friends character), when I noticed that my glasses were fogging up again. I took another bite from my sandwich and sat there confused. Could it really be that cold in the apartment?

And then I realized that it wasn't fog. It was smoke. Coming from the kitchen. Apparently I was so distracted by the joy of having a cherry coke zero and a plateful of salty goodness that I forgot to turn off the burner. I ran into the kitchen (all 6 steps) and there was smoke streaming from the matte black surface of the pan (the lustre of oil having been seared off).

I flicked off the burner, ran the 8 steps over to my dresser and yanked the battery out of the smoke detector. I should stop here and tell you that the smoke detector was on my dresser because of an earlier incident in which the Sauce made squash fries that also caused a blanket of smoke to diffuse throughout the apartment.

It's been a half an hour now, and the air is almost clear. Let's not talk about the 10 minutes I spent madly flapping a dish towel about. I think Petey is still hiding under the bed from the terror and my toes are still numb from leaving the windows open.

horsin around with Ira Glass

2009-01-09T08:28:00.003-05:00

I'm headed to the horse country of Virginia to spend the weekend playing board games and listening to my friend's dad talk about obscure 1930's movies. There are 4 Vamoose coupons in my pocket (free ride!), a smelly turkey bacon/mozzarella sandwich in my bag (sorry seat neighbor), and this american life podcasts to drool over.

Have a good weekend!

double parked

2009-01-04T20:31:00.004-05:00

I've moved* 7 times in the last 6 years. 6.5 of those 7 moves can be credited to the brawn and generosity of my friends (and sometimes friends of friends).

The law of averages has been kind to me thus far in my apartment hopping lifestyle. I've never had to pack a truck in the rain, although I have had to drive a 14 foot truck towing a 4-wheel car dolly through the mountains of VA in a heavy downpour with 2 cats and an anxious girlfriend in the cab (mountains of VA = transfer truck central). I've never gotten into an accident while driving a moving truck. I've never had a flat tire or run out of gas or ended up on the side of a highway with a smoking engine. There are so many nightmares that I could be whining about right now, but I've never had to live them.

While my lucky streak held up for that other little .5 move, I can safely say that it was the most nerve wracking experience of my entire portability history. You would think that something so insignificant as a .5 move wouldn't be so scarring, but my pulse still quickens when I hear the belch of a large truck pass by.

I know many of the few of you who read this blog have driven a rental truck before, but trust me when I say this: until you've driven down the streets of brooklyn in a 16 foot truck, you haven't lived the fear I speak of. I don't mean to say that my fear is of a superior caliber than your fear; I just mean that our fears are simply not the same. Others of you may be thinking, "delivery trucks do it every day! how hard can it be?! some old lady driving a school bus has more balls than you!" And you'd be right on all accounts.

The one good thing that I can say about the combined 15 hour/2 day drive (besides the opportunity to listen to 8 hours of Ira Glass), is that it prepared me for what was to come. (Much the same way training wheels prepare you for riding a roller coaster). I made it through the tollbooths and the bridges without incident. My confidence rose with every last minute lane change and every blare of the horn (and there were many of both thanks to unforecasted lane closures). But as soon as I turned on to 4th Ave in Brooklyn, I was ready to call the moving guys and pay one of them whatever it would take to get them in the driver's seat. I was even prepared to pander to their masculinity.

After 20 minutes of bumper to bumper traffic and an infuriating pit stop for gas (would you just keep driving if you saw a moving truck trying to swing wide into your lane to avoid a parked car), we made the turn onto Sackett Ave. The sight of brownstones lulled me into a false sense of homestretch-ness.

I knew that parking was going to be an issue, but I wasn't really aware of the solution until Norman, the superintendent of the building, said in his Italian singsong, "yeah, you know, when a truck comes, you know, he can't get by, so you just move the truck and park again." It could have been worse. I could have had to move the truck 9 times instead of 3. I could have side swiped any number of cars, some of which were double parked and occupied by parents waiting to pick up their kids from school, but nothing horrible happened. The shear possibility for disaster was enough to stress me out (not to mention the look on Charrow's face whenever I re-parked the truck by trying to get as close to side as possible to circumvent another trip around the block). By the time we were unloaded, the throaty sound of an approaching truck was enough to make my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth.

Our original plan was to pay the "friends" who helped us move (the uninsured "friends" that we must never tell anyone from the management company about), and drop off the truck together. But there were boxes on the curb to be taken up and a Fed-ex truck that had been slowly making its way up the street for 25 minutes was fast approaching. So I double checked that I had all the maps, including my NFT book (care of Liz), and set off with a chorus of honking in my wake.

I got lost. Luckily traffic was so bad that I had time to readdress the map and get back on track. And then I got lost again. I finally had to pull over and call the drop-off place because I couldn't navigate the one-way streets well enough to get the one block that I needed, and I was off the NFT map. I asked the guy who took the truck how much I'd need for the bus ride back to Park Slope. "2 dollars," he said as I flipped through the cash in my pocket, "but you need quarters." When I asked if there was anywhere nearby for me to get change, he looked at me as if I was wearing a big slice of tenderloin around my neck and I had just asked where I could find the nearest underground dog fighting ring. I happened to have 6 quarters in my pocket and he rummaged up another 2 from somewhere behind the dingy counter.

1 bus transfer and 25 minutes later, I walked into the smallest apartment I've ever rented to start an existence in the biggest city I may ever call home.

*moved = relocation of all belongings from one dwelling to another. change in zip code not required.

hello nyc, goodbye national moron

2009-01-01T21:25:00.005-05:00

It's been a very tiring couple of weeks. I will give a more in-depth run down of the move (yes, we wooed the co-op board ---- all two members that we met with), but for now I just want to say happy new year!

(and what a year it will be without you know who making a big you know what out of the country)

Z is for zoloft

2008-12-13T08:04:00.011-05:00

I originally intended for today's lead picture to illustrate the fact that we have not stopped moving for the last 3 days, but when I look at it all I can see are the ZZZ's, and it makes me sleepy... so sleepy...

No matter what I try to do ahead of time, the last 2-3 days before moving are always a whirlwind of crap shoveling. Trash, recycling, goodwill, peddling wares to friends, it all takes a certain amount of scrambling and energy, but it's worth it to keep from being those people that leave mounds of perfectly good shit next to (but never in) the dumpster.

The cats are not very happy right now. We stayed up so late that they didn't even muster for their usual 4:30 am feed-me-now-or-i'll-scratch-this-mattress-until-my-claws-come-out ritual. Either that or I'm so tired that I slept through the whole thing.

So in about 5 hours we will having a loading party (which will involve neither poo nor hard drugs) and then we will go out for beer and pizza.

After which, the world will look like so:

cardboard Tetris

2008-12-11T22:08:00.005-05:00

I love boxes. I love them so much that I like to keep a few around every time I move to a new apartment. Sometimes I even leave them packed full of stuff. For months. With the exception of my baseball card collection, I emptied the contents of every last box I had when I moved to Atlanta. It's harder to avoid unpacking when you're living with someone, but there's no rule about getting rid of the boxes (see picture above for example of a first generation box*). Charrow put up some resistance to my acquisitional tendencies, so I finally gave in and toned down the prowling.

About two months ago, I had a legitimate reason to hoard them once again. The keys to packing are box size and item nesting. Too big, and you'll never get your arms around it OR if you're a poor packer, you or the unfortunate victims you enlist to help you move will never be able to lift it. Too small, and you'll end up with 4 items per box, and a lot of wasted packing tape. The copy paper box is the obvious utilitarian receptacle, although it's a little small for kitchen stuff. My second favorite box is now the wine box. If you get them from the liquor store, they still have the cardboard separators. I had way too much fun packing glasses yesterday because of those little inserts. No more wrapping mugs in newsprint and getting ink all over my fingers. I don't know what what took me so long to realize their usefulness. Last in my packing arsenal is the tall kitchen bag. Towels, bedding, jackets, lumpy cats, blankets. They all take up way too much cubic space unless you shove them in a trash bag and throw them in the truck to fill in the cracks.

Charrow has been extremely patient with my "ways" as she likes to tell everyone. In other words, she stays in the other room and periodically asks me for assignments. I blame my systemic rigidity on too many moves as a military brat and too many games of Tetris. I was conditioned to be a packing machine.

On Sunday, the cardboard fruits of our labor will be loaded and ready to transport up to Chevy Chase, MD where they will sit in a moving truck until we get the nod from the co-op board. Our interview is (finally) scheduled for Tuesday (12/16). Instead of flying up to NY for the interview and returning to the waiting area known as our apartment, we are setting up camp at Charrow's parents. If all goes well and they agree to let us in to their elite fold, we hope to move in by the 19th. If they inform us that we are unworthy of caressing their belly button lint, much less taking up residence in their building, we will be forced to get a storage unit and start a second round of apartment hunting (i.e. Plan B).

I'll take bodily fuzz worship over Plan B any day.

first generation box = box that item was originally packaged in upon purchase or receipt

brown tuesday

2008-11-18T15:48:00.006-05:00

EXHIBIT A:

EXHIBIT B:

EXHIBIT C:

At approximately 8:15 this morning, Exhibit C sat down on the futon. Exhibit B was frightened by the sudden blockage of the space heater and proceeded to jump out from behind Exhibit C, thus knocking Exhibit A into my leg, causing a great slosh of coffee to land on my jeans and the arrow keys of my already pathetic keyboard. At first, I thought just the arrows keys were toast, but it has become apparent that the entire keyboard was compromised. For the better part of the day the Enter key, the space key, all of the arrow keys have been unresponsive. They are now working, but I fear that it is all a big lie.

In other electronic news, we purchased 2 additional space heaters today. 20 seconds after plugging in space heater number 2, the circuit breaker spazzed out. One trip down to the dusty basement and we were back in business for approximately 2 minutes. Yes, I tried it again, but with the space heater on low this time. My trickery was unsuccessful. Another trip to the under belly of our building and we now have one space heater plugged into the kitchen socket (different breaker) with one of those industrial orange extension cords and the other one plugged into the living room wall. I feel bad for the landlord every time he comes to show someone our apartment. Between all the boxes and the space heaters, I'm not sure how he's going to convince someone to move into this place in December.

I'm off to do a little creative cord taping so we don't break our necks walking back and forth to the kitchen for tea (or in my case, plain hot water).

OCD dream come true

2008-11-17T14:33:00.002-05:00

Rachel Getting Married has a dishwasher loading throwdown. Count me in, even if a wedding is one of the main plot lines.

mayday, mayday!

2008-11-17T08:35:00.006-05:00

Reason #327 to Get. Out. of. Georgia: the ignorant high school students, also known as the next generation of adults to vote and enter the work force.

oh how we wait

2008-11-13T17:10:00.008-05:00

Phil Collins song title for today: We Wait and We Wonder.

The apartment saga continues. Our original lease date was set for November 15th (i.e. three days from now). The owner of the apartment (or 'shareholder' if you want to be technical about it) has recognized the sloth like tendencies of her co-op board and moved our lease date to December 1st, regardless of whether we actually get to move in before that date. We have been informed that an in-person interview is most likely required (no skyping allowed), and that we both have to be present for said interview. The best part: we have no idea when it will take place because they haven't scheduled it yet.

If the owner of the apartment has met us and is planning to send us the keys to her beloved share in the co-op, why do we have to play this interview game? I know the board wants to make sure we won't be image tarnishing tenants, but can't they put some stock in the judgement of their members?

The trickledown effect of this stallout is that we have no way of planning for any aspect of the move or the Thanksgiving holiday. Can't book movers in NYC. Can't buy plane tickets. Can't recruit friends for manpower in GA. Can't book a rental truck. Can't tell our management company when we'll be out so they can rent our apartment. Can't tell my dogwalking client when she'll have to find a replacement. Can't decide whether to pack up everything or wait because it will be awhile. Can't focus on anything but the inability to plan everything.

You fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pantsers may not be sympathetic to my cause, but for the planners out there, you understand the Kryptonitic nature of the situation. My world revolves around spreadsheets and mental forecasting. I can make all the timetables I want, but they're about as useful as an umbrella at the bottom of the ocean.

The silver lining? More time for physical therapy!

instructions for the day

2008-11-04T11:26:00.002-05:00

This is a repeat image, but it's basically all I have to say right now. Vote for the man so we can stop hearing the words "my friends" every two seconds.

blue peaches for you

2008-10-29T21:41:00.007-04:00

Yesterday I cast my vote for the next Top Gun flight school candidate. I sure hope he's a maverick. (Wait, does that mean Sarah Palin is Goose? because she's about as intelligent as one. I wish she would go back to Alaska and sit on a rotten egg)

Just to be clear, I voted for Obama. How could I not pick the candidate whose name rhymes with llama?

We went to the government center downtown and stood in line for about 2 hours. Apparently, there are a lot of other Georgians trying to avoid election day lines. Judging from the gasps and horrified looks on people's faces when they passed through the security line, everyone thought they were being rather crafty. That is, until they looked up to see the line of voters snaking all the way around the gymnasium sized atrium.

Overall, it was a pretty innocuous process thanks to Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and my neck gator (it was drafty in there). They had volunteers passing out clipboards with early voter applications, and there were 4 different paperwork checks to make sure we weren't trying to vote in the wrong county. To top it off, there were electronic voting machines, which surprised me considering the archaic nature of most bureaucratic processes around here. But here's something to make you shiver: several of the sample application forms posted on pillars around the line were filled out incorrectly.

Now I'm not one to follow polls (unlike some people I know), partly because there is major potential for addiction (i.e. intravenous anxiety) and the situation will unfold with or without them, but I have to admit, I did try to take a visual poll while we stood in line. It was completely invalid and based purely on what I hope to be true (that metropolitan Georgia is lousy with Obama supporters). I have such a hard time imagining someone voluntarily choosing McCain that I could only pick out a few likely suspects.

I thought my dad would be among the riff-raff, but when I spoke to him the other day he informed me that he had not one but two Obama signs in his yard. Keep in mind this is coming from a Persian Gulf War veteran and two time Bush supporter. My confidence in the tractability of Republicans waned a bit last night when my grandmother said, "well I didn't vote for Obama!" She's a pretty good example of the small town southern voting pool that is afraid of Obama's inexperience and his talk of socialism, which my grandmother says she "just can't have."

Let's hope most of America (at least the fake part) doesn't mind Obama's crazy talk.

over the hill and under the platform

2008-10-23T21:36:00.012-04:00

Last Wednesday we set out on an 8 day, 7 night extended stay in NYC. Our trip was originally intended for two objectives: charrow's portfolio review and an apartment hunting marathon. Objective number two was abandoned because we have one foot in the door of a great sublet in Park Slope. We're just waiting for the co-op board to finish letting their dogs chew on our application and welcome us with their all-powerful arms so we can nail down at least one of the many unknowns in this move.

Here's a compilation of our activities in the land of diesel jeans traveling at breakneck speeds and labyrinthine train stations:

1 incredible brunch at the farm (chicken apple sausage, home fries, and greens)

2 missed train stops

12 overpriced diet cokes

1 chaperoned trip to the Park Slope Food Co-op

19 poll updates per hour, care of a very dedicated Barry supporter

1 early breakfast at egg (runny scrambled eggs, best toast I've ever had, and hash browns in the shape of an ice cream scoop that were crispy and peppery)

1 walk to Prospect Park

1 trip to the Guggenheim

1 disgruntled charrow after her 8 hour day of schmoozing and portfolio pony show

5 additional bank/credit card/stock statements sent to the co-op board to back up the notarized financial statement in our original submission

2 very patient hosts

1 compost barrel obtained by Ben (and several compost lessons)

3 tablespoons of fresh sage hand picked for Ester's tasty mushroom soup

1 borrowed vest, hat, and scarf that kept me from freezing in the "fall" weather

1 skillfully pulled espresso shot at Joe the Art of Coffee on WaverlyPlace

2 tarot card readings from Madame Bloom

1 hilarious improv show at the UBC

12 minutes whispering in the lobby of Trump tower

1 extremely attentive cat-sitter

2 hours gorging ourselves on spanish tapas and Estrella beer (wine & almond drinks for other parties)

1 trip to Beacon's closet

1 cappuccino from Gorilla Coffee and at least an hour of bench warming out front

1 creaky but surprisingly comfortable air mattress

1 harried scramble to the airport to catch an earlier flight because our original flight was cancelled

(Clearly we were there for too long because the list goes on)

While charrow didn't get hired on the spot and we came no closer to discovering the fate of our living situation, I'm going to label the trip a success. This is not to say there weren't bouts of anxiety. New York is a huge shock to the system after spending 2 sluggish years in the south, and I'm still floundering on the job front, but I'll save that discussion for another post. For now, I'll say I'm 85% excited, 13% fiscally anxious, and 2% in dire need of a shower.

going off the deep end (of the bed)

2008-10-08T18:00:00.006-04:00

Anyone who's ever claimed to want the life of a cat has never had to lay around for a week. I'm here to tell you, it's boring. No matter how many great books, magazines, blogs, twitters (I usually boycott twitter, but I've started reading ester's because it's hilarious) there are to read, and no matter how many NPR podcasts there are to listen to, it all gets old. "Boo hoo," you say? Sad for me to be so inundated with free time? Don't make me sideswipe you with my good arm.

Yesterday the caginess and discomfort reached disastrous proportions. After a few meltdowns (wasting precious NPR and New Yorker time), I sat down in my orange chair and stared out at the beautiful October weather like a sanatorium patient. My thoughts ranged from appreciation for the light breeze to an intense desire for a torrential downpour. I figured if it was stormy, I wouldn't feel like a complete waste of space.

Wrong. It's rained for most of the day, and I still came close to throwing myself down the stairs this morning. But the Sauce kept me company this afternoon and things are looking up. She made me the best omelet ever for lunch, we read a few debate commentaries, watched some Friends, and now we're about to make an Indian curry for dinner.

So, my friends, if you're ever laid up for more than a few days, you can expect to have at least one short-circuit and a very, very sore butt.

same day, different napping position

2008-10-06T17:28:00.007-04:00

You know those berries that splooge tarry skid marks all over the sidewalk when they start to decay and/or get stepped on? Prune juice tastes like that skid mark in liquid form, but I'll drink it every hour on the hour if it keeps this from happening again.

As I said in an email to a friend, "if I stand up for more than 15 or 20 minutes, my fingers turn into even bigger sausages and my arm feels like that crazy make-up lady from drew carey is sitting on it. " (is her name Mimi? sorry, I somehow missed the drew carey train) Sometimes I don't even have to get up to make my hand explode. Like right now; I can't tell what position my fingers are in unless I look over at the stubby impostors.

Not much changes when you spend all day on the bed with your arm above your heart (when will it stop being so swollen??). The cats sleep, Ira Glass lulls me to sleep, and I take pictures of the same 3 things (4 if you count meals).

a hairy introduction

2008-10-05T10:32:00.006-04:00

Jo and her new rescued cinnamon husky "Masa" came over last night for dinner and a movie. We watched "Shower," which is a great Chinese comedy if you're in the mood for subtitles. The cats were less than enthused.

Sorry, the pics are a little dark, but you get the idea. And yes, that is a shaved husky. The geniuses at Petco did it without asking because they were too lazy to spot-shave his mats.

taking matters into my own hands

2008-10-04T18:42:00.012-04:00

CONTENT WARNING: What you are about to read is embarrassing and contains graphic imagery pertaining to the subject of poo. You may not be able to look me in the eye when you're done reading this, but hey, if Oprah can have a show about it, I can write about it.

There's one important thing the battery of nurses failed to mention about general anasthesthia: it can cause constipation. Do you know what else makes you constipated? Codeine. It also makes you itchy, which is why I was reading the side effects pamphlet Thursday night, and when I came across the word constipation, I thought to myself, huh, I guess I haven't done that in awhile.

Friday (henceforth known as the longest day of my life), as I ate my breakfast, I felt the familiar churning of a movement, as I shall call it. I finished my cliff bar and went in to the bathroom. An hour later, I was sweating from the effort and saying things like "I don't know what to do; it just won't come out" as the Sauce periodically checked on me from the other side of the door. I finally came out of the bathroom drenched and trembling. Charrow called the orthopedic number and they took a message. We called my mom and she told me I was having a panic attack and that I just needed to relax (the first of many times I would hear that throughout the day). Pacified by her assessment, I went back to the bathroom while Charrow tried phoning my orthopedist again. They routed her to my doctor's assistant who said we should try getting laxatives.

So I sat in the bathroom until Charrow came back with 2 different kinds of laxatives. The dignity seal was tampered with when she had to open the door to hand me the goods. She instructed me to take the "stool softener" and wait. If that didn't work, I was supposed to drink half a bottle of lemon flavored magnesium citrate. An hour later, I'd finished the entire bottle and still, nothing.

Our next instruction was to get an enema. This is where it starts to get dicey. Remember what I said about the dignity seal? I'll spare you the details, but I will say that it will take us both awhile to get over that one.

Sadly our story doesn't end there. Next up: suppositories! The assistant said that the instructions on the box won't say to, but it's important to hold the suppository in place so that your muscles don't push it back out before it has time to dissolve. So I was instructed to lay on the floor, insert, and relax. I was only slightly consoled by my ability to field this one solo.

Three failed suppositories later (recommended daily dose =1), I really started to freak out. My next action can only be attributed to chemical imbalance, abdominal distress, 5 hours in the bathroom, and shear panic.

I don't know how to describe what I did (well I do, but I just can't bring myself to do it), but I can let you figure it out using the old adage, "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself."

I will be scarred for a very, very long time.

If for some reason you need surgery the requires not one but two contributors to constipation, I strongly recommend taking a proactive approach to your movements. Get some Metamucil and never give in if they tell you to try an enema.

a soggy day

2008-10-02T21:06:00.007-04:00

What's worse than soggy Life cereal? Bank managers that don't call you back.

Charrow and I have been trying to pull together the many forms and letters needed for the sublet application for our prospective apartment. Things were moving along nicely (glowing reference letters poured in) until Monday when we stalled out at Bank of America. The branch manager put in a request for my reference letter last Thursday. As of Monday, it still hadn't been processed. We left the bank Monday afternoon disgruntled and stressed out about our dwindling timeline.

Today I called the bank and the manager just happened to answer the regular customer service line (her direct office phone must be routed to some financial dungeon below the bank's safe). She told me she had to check the fax machine and that she would call me back. A word to the wise: never agree to a call back for a task that can be accomplished in 45 seconds.

About 30 minutes before the bank closed, I made Charrow take me there to wave my ace bandaged arm in someone's face until a reference letter materialized. The manager swooped over when we walked in and she said, "Oh I haven't forgotten about you! See, here's my note to call you right here! We don't have the letter, but we're going to call and check on it right now!"

Tell me, how was I supposed to know she hadn't forgotten about me when she never called me back?? I 'm horrible at following through on my bark, so there was no arm waving, but we did leave with a freshly faxed 4 sentence letter stating that I do indeed have 2 accounts with Bank of America. I hope the co-op board frames it when they're done reviewing our application.

Day 2 = Twice the pain

2008-10-01T14:21:00.007-04:00

Today started out with breakfast in bed. I tried to drink my usual cup of coffee, but nausea set in about halfway through the mug. Percoset and caffeine may not go so well together.

However, I think the big P will be well suited for any one of the 17 cookies that came in my cookie gift basket (care of my dad and his wife).

The only other excitement thus far today was the arrival of the Sauce's long coveted book about Swedish designer Olle Eksell.

that's dope yo

2008-09-30T14:51:00.004-04:00

This is how 2 percoset make me feel. Ive texted like 19 people, and I have an irresistible urge to buy DVDs from half.com.

Here's my wrist at 6:15am (after searching frantically for my license and credit cards that I eventually found in the garbage).

And here I am all chopped up with nothing to do but eat peanut butter crackers, drink water through a straw, and listen to old episodes of This American Life.

Pictures care of charrow

the duc procedure

2008-09-29T22:38:00.005-04:00

Today is the day a man named Duc will make an incision in my left arm and saw through my ulnar bone.

Was that dramatic enough?

After talking about this surgery with family members ad nauseam, I've developed a theory that makes it slightly more palatable: this situation is not really any different than having a compound fracture that requires surgery. My procedure ("ulnar shortening") is actually better than a compound fracture because there's no messy shattering or bone piercing my skin. At least that's what I'm telling myself (and my grandmother).

waving from the chopping block

2008-09-24T18:09:00.006-04:00

For those of you unfamiliar with motorcycle protocol, there's a wave system used to greet fellow riders. You may have witnessed this dropping of the left arm, palm faced forward with the thumb and first 2 fingers splayed out, and thought to yourself, "Is that biker dude stretching his arm? Wait, is that one stretching too?? Do all bikers stretch and count to three when they pass another motorcycle?" I used to think it was like the boat wave, where anybody zipping along the water would give a friendly flail of the hand, but I've since learned that there are degrees of motorcycle wave coolness.

Under no circumstances are you supposed to wave at scooters or mopeds. Please don't tell your biker friends that I returned the wave of a scooter yesterday. It could ruin my fledgling reputation. And by fledgling I mean zygotic.

I don't see why we're supposed to snub scooters and other lowly 2-stroke vehicles. Sure, their equipment is inferior (says the owner of a japanese bike), but they're putting their lives on the line just as much as I am. They're enjoying the breeze too, albeit to the soundtrack of a weedwacker, but still, they're out there. So I've decided that I won't give them an imposter harley wave, but I will probably still lift a finger or two as a show of covert camaraderie.

Thus far the gesture has not been returned (it doesn't appear that scooter riders have a wave protocol), and I'm afraid my attempt to bridge the waving gap is coming to a long pause. I finally received a diagnosis for the chronic wrist pain that I've been experiencing for many (many) months. The fancy name is ulnar impaction syndrome. In layman's terms, my ulnar bones (the ones that make up the knobby parts of your wrists) are too long, which is impinging on other parts of my wrist and hand (tendons, cartilage, nerves, all possible sources of pain, etc).

The solution? Make it shorter! In other words, cut out a portion of the bone, attach a plate with 6-7 screws and wait for it to fuse back together. After much hemming and hawing (mostly hawing like a recalcitrant mule), I've decided to get the first wrist done next week. That's right, I said "first wrist" because it turns out both of them are structural rejects. I won't get into the number of doctors that have missed this tidbit of information that's plainly obvious on a regular x-ray.

So, the only motorcycle wave I'll be doing for awhile will be from the discomfort of my apartment. Stay tuned for gory pictures and what I hope will be a continuous stream of short posts.

The motorcycle pictured today is most definitely not mine. I saw this beefy custom job off of Melrose Place in Los Angeles.