ONCE AGAIN, I have been severely delinquent on my blogging. In the almost two weeks since my last post, a lot has changed, and my time has been monopolized with composing the new life on which I'm about to embark.
Previously I lamented the fact that my employer was going to cut back my hours to part-time, and since I could not survive working part-time, I had to find a new job. I was scared, folks, and worried out of my fucking skull. Given today's job market, and the fact that thousands in the NYC metro area are getting laid off (or about to be laid off), it seemed that finding other means of employment would be nil for a girl with less than two years of professional experience under her belt. And without a trust fund to fall back on, a month of no work would prove to be disastrous.
But I found a job, and though it's a corporate gig (therefore Satan incarnate, or so I've been told), it pays way better than my previous employer ever could have, plus I get health benefits, and the option to partake in the company's profit-sharing. How I found the job and procured it is amazing, because it really does have a lot to do with time and place and circumstance (and NOTHING to do with who I knew). In his essay Here is New York, E.B White confides to the reader that New York can be a dubious place to live and that "no one should come to New York to live unless they are willing to be lucky." That line resonates much more now after analyzing the way in which I found my new employer.
That's not to say that it was all dependent on luck; I had to go on three separate interviews for this gig! It is was gut-wrenching waiting to hear back from them, and every day without an answer was making me sick.
But now that weight is off - whew!
When I wasn't tearing my hair out and puking from anxiety, I was in the midst of moving into a new apartment! The bf and I found a great space with a backyard and jacuzzi bathtub, and it's actually cheaper than the apartment that I just moved out of. I'm not completely moved in yet, but it's getting there. Can I get the readers' opinions on this wallpaper sample - it might be a little too retro for the funk I'm going for in the living room (it'll go on just one wall, mind you!)
SO that is the life update - I now promise to get back to blogging about weird, over-sharey and inappropriate things on a regular basis.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Mrs. P, stop keeping me awake at night!
I have a fairly reliable long-term memory. In fact, one of my earliest memories is from when I was in diapers (and no, I'm not talking about that crazy time with the football team, the goat, and the box of Depends). It is brief, but I can conjure an image of myself in our living room with big white furniture, donning red footie pajamas and a fresh set of Huggies.
My excellent long-term memory is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, when a debate arises about something that happened years ago, I deftly settle the score and get the record straight by recalling the incident with detailed accuracy. This pisses my mother off on a regular basis. She will bring up a story from my childhood, and even though I love her, she has no right to retell certain events so that she comes out of it looking like the paradigm of superb child-raising - so I call her out. One day a year or so ago, she was telling a friend how understanding and open she was when it came to my sister and I going to college. "I always told them, no they didn't have to go to college for all four years, but they had to give it at least one year to see if it was meant for them. They had to at least give it a chance."
When I overheard my mother say this, I interrupted, as rude as it might have been. "No you didn't!" I cried. "You never gave us that choice - we were going to graduate from college, and that was final in your book."
"Oh no, I distinctly told you and your sister that you only had to go for one year -"
"Na-uhhhhh!" And this is where I broke into a tiresome diatribe concerning all the minute aspects of every conversation she'd ever had with me about college.
Aside from the inane minutia about the past I like to throw up in people's faces, there are other negative symptoms incurred by my elephantitus brain. The injustices suffered at the hands of my ego-maniacal elementary school teachers constantly haunt me, ghosts from the past that probably most people forget, but I replay in my mind when it has nothing to do but think. So I am starting a recurring column where I expound a crime committed against me by one of my teachers. This, I think, will serve as a bit of therapy for me (though the readers might find it hard to relate to...oh well, one of the perks of writing a blog is that you can be as self-indulgent and boring as you want!) Conversely, feel free to use to comment section to bitch about
that waddle-necked bitch you had in primary school who always found a way to make your life miserable.
The Perp: Mrs. P, my second-grade teacher
The Crime: Being a screechy bitch-vulture who taught bad penmanship
My second-grade classmates and I were learning cursive, and the letter of the day was T. As customary for primary school, we were working on wide-ruled, triple-lined paper, where the middle line bifurcates the space between the top and bottom lines with a level dash. This effectively makes the writing area vertically symmetrical.
As we all know, lower-case cursive t's are not only shorter than their upper-case counterparts, but the two lines that make-up the character are perpendicular like a cross, not a plus sign. Because Mrs. P was a bizzaro penmanship nazi, she insisted that we write our lower-case cursive t's so that they touched the top line, AND she wanted the middle line of the t to meet the middle dashed line (are you people following this? Even I'm starting to get cross-eyed from this description). Essentially, she demanded that we make them look like the retarded bastard cousin of what a real lower-case cursive t should look like.
We knew she was wrong. We ignorant second-graders knew this woman was giving into the demands of our wide-ruled baby paper, and we weren't having it. Several of us approached her desk. "But that's not what it looks like," we told her. "Look at what it looks like in our primer books." (Of course we didn't say "primer books," we were seven for chrissakes, but bear with me here)
"No!" she squawked. "Your writing has to match the paper! Do it the way I say!" (What gets me the most, with every complaint I have about my elementary school teachers, is that they felt totally entitled to scream, yell, bark, snarl and gnash at us kids, even when we approached them with subdued temperament. And yes, THAT is how it always went down - the calm children-Davids against the crazy frothing teacher-Goliaths. Remember, my long-term memory is magical and all-knowing, so OF COURSE these stories are being described to you with unfailing accuracy)
Despite the massive evidence we had against her theory - didn't she realize it was just lines on paper, not to mention a format of writing paper that we would never use again after the second grade? - we complied with her batshit penmanship demands. To this day, I lie awake at night wishing I'd known just the right words to say to lay the smack down on Mrs. P for this indiscretion. Though I eventually learned how to write a cursive t properly, I'll always feel the pain from the injustice I and my classmates were dealt that fateful day in second grade.
My excellent long-term memory is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, when a debate arises about something that happened years ago, I deftly settle the score and get the record straight by recalling the incident with detailed accuracy. This pisses my mother off on a regular basis. She will bring up a story from my childhood, and even though I love her, she has no right to retell certain events so that she comes out of it looking like the paradigm of superb child-raising - so I call her out. One day a year or so ago, she was telling a friend how understanding and open she was when it came to my sister and I going to college. "I always told them, no they didn't have to go to college for all four years, but they had to give it at least one year to see if it was meant for them. They had to at least give it a chance."
When I overheard my mother say this, I interrupted, as rude as it might have been. "No you didn't!" I cried. "You never gave us that choice - we were going to graduate from college, and that was final in your book."
"Oh no, I distinctly told you and your sister that you only had to go for one year -"
"Na-uhhhhh!" And this is where I broke into a tiresome diatribe concerning all the minute aspects of every conversation she'd ever had with me about college.
Aside from the inane minutia about the past I like to throw up in people's faces, there are other negative symptoms incurred by my elephantitus brain. The injustices suffered at the hands of my ego-maniacal elementary school teachers constantly haunt me, ghosts from the past that probably most people forget, but I replay in my mind when it has nothing to do but think. So I am starting a recurring column where I expound a crime committed against me by one of my teachers. This, I think, will serve as a bit of therapy for me (though the readers might find it hard to relate to...oh well, one of the perks of writing a blog is that you can be as self-indulgent and boring as you want!) Conversely, feel free to use to comment section to bitch about
that waddle-necked bitch you had in primary school who always found a way to make your life miserable.The Perp: Mrs. P, my second-grade teacher
The Crime: Being a screechy bitch-vulture who taught bad penmanship
My second-grade classmates and I were learning cursive, and the letter of the day was T. As customary for primary school, we were working on wide-ruled, triple-lined paper, where the middle line bifurcates the space between the top and bottom lines with a level dash. This effectively makes the writing area vertically symmetrical.
As we all know, lower-case cursive t's are not only shorter than their upper-case counterparts, but the two lines that make-up the character are perpendicular like a cross, not a plus sign. Because Mrs. P was a bizzaro penmanship nazi, she insisted that we write our lower-case cursive t's so that they touched the top line, AND she wanted the middle line of the t to meet the middle dashed line (are you people following this? Even I'm starting to get cross-eyed from this description). Essentially, she demanded that we make them look like the retarded bastard cousin of what a real lower-case cursive t should look like.
We knew she was wrong. We ignorant second-graders knew this woman was giving into the demands of our wide-ruled baby paper, and we weren't having it. Several of us approached her desk. "But that's not what it looks like," we told her. "Look at what it looks like in our primer books." (Of course we didn't say "primer books," we were seven for chrissakes, but bear with me here)
"No!" she squawked. "Your writing has to match the paper! Do it the way I say!" (What gets me the most, with every complaint I have about my elementary school teachers, is that they felt totally entitled to scream, yell, bark, snarl and gnash at us kids, even when we approached them with subdued temperament. And yes, THAT is how it always went down - the calm children-Davids against the crazy frothing teacher-Goliaths. Remember, my long-term memory is magical and all-knowing, so OF COURSE these stories are being described to you with unfailing accuracy)
Despite the massive evidence we had against her theory - didn't she realize it was just lines on paper, not to mention a format of writing paper that we would never use again after the second grade? - we complied with her batshit penmanship demands. To this day, I lie awake at night wishing I'd known just the right words to say to lay the smack down on Mrs. P for this indiscretion. Though I eventually learned how to write a cursive t properly, I'll always feel the pain from the injustice I and my classmates were dealt that fateful day in second grade.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Why I've been MIA
In case you were all too busy mourning at the feet of the Pieta in light of the massive downturn our economy has taken, let me inform you that I haven't blogged for a week. A week!!!! That's kind of unlike me. Oddly, I feel some sense of duty to the handful of friends, acquaintances and strangers who read this blog, and a week of absence is like a tender promise being broken. I have failed you sorely.
Oh but then again, I found out last week that my hours are being cut back, and it sent me into a job-searching frenzy. So I guess I had the right to not give a shit about this blog OR the pseudo promise I was breaking. The readers are on the low end of the totem pole when it comes to my priorities (unless you can get me a job, and in that case, when can I start blowing you or painting your garage?)
With regards to the job front: It's not ALL that bad. Yet. My hours are only being cutback, so it's not like I'm going to be destitute. I've got a job interview on Tuesday, and I have a couple good leads, one of which I will be eating dinner with on Wednesday night. Also, there's the boyfriend, and the boyfriend knows I don't like to have sex when I'm hungry. So be assured that I'll stay well-fed.
But these are tough times, and it's an especially tough time to find a job in New York. Too easily this job hunt could turn into a futile, aggravating journey, a journey where the only thing I discover about myself is that I hate everyone and everything and have a penchant for drinking cheap whiskey from a brown paper bag while standing next to a burning oil drum.
Or maybe I'll find a SWEET job, one that pays better than my current employer ever did, and I'll make more money than I ever imagined, AND THEN this employer will open the door to the industry that I really want to work in, and because I didn't have any money in the stock market, I'll end up coming out better from this economic disaster than anyone else. Do you think? Could it be? Believe it and be it, believe it and be it! Ok, I believe; in order to prove to myself how much I believe, I'm going to rack up my credit card with a bunch of debt since surely I'll be a rich woman in 3 months time.
Sidenote: I realize that once before on this blog, I spelled Valium (as in the pills) like volume, as in how loud or soft you play your music. I just wanted to clarify that I am not a full-on idiot, I just have spurts of retardation where I misspell simple, everyday words. Don't even get me started on how often I misspell the word suttle.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
It's starting to look a lot like Christmas because retailers are trying to sell us shit
I am not a doll designer...nor would I want to insult anyone who put their heart and soul into sculpting this little baby's face...but this thing looks like it is in the middle of taking a huge baby dump into it's cloth baby diaper. Cute?
Too bad the scan didn't come out sharper, because it doesn't quite capture the exquisite pain etched into this doll's face. I scanned it from an insert that fell out of my neighbor's Fingerhut catalog. As I was rifling through the mail it dropped onto the floor at my feet. Like any apathetic New Yorker, I was going to leave it there for someone else to clean up (hey! It didn't fall out of my catalog), but something about the baby's face caught my eye...it looked way too much like Damien, in fact that little green cap is probably hiding a 666 emblem. Thus, I had to share it with my readers. Hope you don't get nightmares!
The Heavenly Handfuls web site offers 4 different babies to choose from, and get this - they're only six inches long! That must be good because the web site is so proud to tell us that fact - only six inches long! Only $29.99 for six inches of plastic!!!!! WHEEEEEEEE!
Maybe my sarcastic enthusiasm is a bit overkill, but let us all note what it says on the baby's cap: "I Melt for No One." Well fuck you too, tiny baby dressed in green. Let's both sit on a radiator and see who melts quicker.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
I = Sarah Palin? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Let's all get something straight: Tina Fey and Sarah Palin do not look a goddamn thing alike.
As soon as Palin's mug was broadcasted on tv screens across the nation, everyone just couldn't believe the uncanny resemblance Palin bore to Fey (or Fey to Palin? What's the chicken and egg in this instance? Oh god, nevermind, please don't waste brain cells considering that). "What a boon to Fey's SNL career!" everyone proclaimed. In fact, a Mr. Scott Sode of NYC took the time to write into TV Guide about the dopplegangers - he's quoted in the September 15 issue of the magazine, next to side-by-side photographs of the 4-eyed brunettes. "Separated at Birth?" TV Guide inquiries of the the ladies.
But I'm here to state - for the record - that Tina Fey and Sarah Palin look nothing alike! Sure, Fey is the most qualified to play Palin on SNL, but the mild likeness they share is not something people should be in awe over. Observe:
(Ok I know, Fey's is a recent pic while Palin's was taken when she was a baby fetus, but it was the only pic of Palin I could find where she wasn't wearing glasses and that is the crux of my argument)
Their jawlines are different. The shape of their eyes is different. The structure of their faces is really not all that similar, yet because they are attractive brunettes who happen to wear glasses, automatically they are twin sisters that has everyone wondering if they, too, have a mysterious lookalike hiding somewhere on the globe.
Put a pair of glasses of any of these lovely ladies, pile their hair on top of their heads, and bam - you've got Sarah Palin lookalikes.
Now why the reason for this petty bitching, you ask? (You are wondering that, right?) Because I have heard from three different people that, while wearing glasses with my hair pulled into a ratty bun, I look like Sarah Palin. And that's bullshit because I don't look like Sarah Palin, and furthermore, I don't wanna look like Sarah Palin!!!!!!!!!
I'm super self-conscious as of late to pull my hair up - which is my daily hairstyle - while brandishing my spectacles, which is currently a necessity because my contacts have been feeling like the devil's fiery tea saucers when sitting on my eyeballs. Palin is a household name now, so if three people think I resemble Palin, there's a good chance that every person I see, ever, is thinking the same thing. This is a heavy burden to endure, people! I don't want my looks to be synonymous with some babbling moose killer, an idiot who needs no mocking because her ridiculousness is so blatant. This is so goddamned unfair.
I'd love to wrap this post up with a cute little moral or expletive filled rant, but I need to find another day to day look that is nothing like Sarah Palin. What do you guys think - should I aim to look like Paris Hilton or Tila Tequila? I just need to look like less of an idiot than Sarah Palin, so either one of those ladies' styles should work.
UPDATE: An old college pal sent me this link after reading my blog - maybe I'm perceiving this likeness to Palin in the completely wrong way. I should be monopolizing on it, not hating it!
NEED SARAH PALIN LOOKALIKE ASAP (craigslist)
As soon as Palin's mug was broadcasted on tv screens across the nation, everyone just couldn't believe the uncanny resemblance Palin bore to Fey (or Fey to Palin? What's the chicken and egg in this instance? Oh god, nevermind, please don't waste brain cells considering that). "What a boon to Fey's SNL career!" everyone proclaimed. In fact, a Mr. Scott Sode of NYC took the time to write into TV Guide about the dopplegangers - he's quoted in the September 15 issue of the magazine, next to side-by-side photographs of the 4-eyed brunettes. "Separated at Birth?" TV Guide inquiries of the the ladies.
But I'm here to state - for the record - that Tina Fey and Sarah Palin look nothing alike! Sure, Fey is the most qualified to play Palin on SNL, but the mild likeness they share is not something people should be in awe over. Observe:
(Ok I know, Fey's is a recent pic while Palin's was taken when she was a baby fetus, but it was the only pic of Palin I could find where she wasn't wearing glasses and that is the crux of my argument)
Their jawlines are different. The shape of their eyes is different. The structure of their faces is really not all that similar, yet because they are attractive brunettes who happen to wear glasses, automatically they are twin sisters that has everyone wondering if they, too, have a mysterious lookalike hiding somewhere on the globe.
Put a pair of glasses of any of these lovely ladies, pile their hair on top of their heads, and bam - you've got Sarah Palin lookalikes.
Now why the reason for this petty bitching, you ask? (You are wondering that, right?) Because I have heard from three different people that, while wearing glasses with my hair pulled into a ratty bun, I look like Sarah Palin. And that's bullshit because I don't look like Sarah Palin, and furthermore, I don't wanna look like Sarah Palin!!!!!!!!!
I'm super self-conscious as of late to pull my hair up - which is my daily hairstyle - while brandishing my spectacles, which is currently a necessity because my contacts have been feeling like the devil's fiery tea saucers when sitting on my eyeballs. Palin is a household name now, so if three people think I resemble Palin, there's a good chance that every person I see, ever, is thinking the same thing. This is a heavy burden to endure, people! I don't want my looks to be synonymous with some babbling moose killer, an idiot who needs no mocking because her ridiculousness is so blatant. This is so goddamned unfair.
I'd love to wrap this post up with a cute little moral or expletive filled rant, but I need to find another day to day look that is nothing like Sarah Palin. What do you guys think - should I aim to look like Paris Hilton or Tila Tequila? I just need to look like less of an idiot than Sarah Palin, so either one of those ladies' styles should work.
UPDATE: An old college pal sent me this link after reading my blog - maybe I'm perceiving this likeness to Palin in the completely wrong way. I should be monopolizing on it, not hating it!
NEED SARAH PALIN LOOKALIKE ASAP (craigslist)
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