December 2005 Archives
January: Started the year off with a massive hangover and lunch at Panera with Erin Mulcahy and Cara Shannon. Went back to Ohio for my final semester of college...
February: Went to NYC with Gilmore.
March: Ashlee Simpson Concert, where we were the only people over 15 who weren’t there with children. Took my final Spring Break...a wild road trip with my mother from Los Angeles to Minneapolis. And by wild I mean I saw the Grand Canyon. Oh, and I dyed my hair black. Not hot.
April: Began panicking over impending graduation. Sent my crappy resume to probably 1000 businesses, none of whom ever got back to me. Jerks.
May: Graduated Magna Cum Laude from Xavier University. I say Magna Cum Laude because for all that work, I hardly get to say it enough. So, Magna Cum Laude. Who's gonna put that on a sweatshirt for me? Wrapped up the school year by peacing out of Cincinnati the day after graduation and driving in a tear-filled haze from Ohio to Minneapolis, followed by a trip to Hawaii with the boyfriend. There, I went scuba diving and ate SPAM for the first time. Both experiences were terrifying.
June: Left for Italy.
July: Still in Italy.
August: Still in Italy, eating pasta by the handful and olive oil by the litre. And I do mean litre, and not liter.
September: Back from Italy. I spent one week in Minneapolis before packing up my pink luggage and arriving, like so many before me, penniless in New York City. Get my first real job and start living in sin. See and kill my first cockroach.
October: Began THIS BLOG, thanks to my fantastic brother in law, Jeremy.
November: Hosted my first Thanksgiving Extravaganza in our tiny apartment. Success!
December: Transit Strike Madness! Spent five hard-earned vacation days in Minneapolis with my nutso, crazy, dysfunctional, amazing family. Highlights: My dad singing the praises of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force, my mom "accidentally" taking my underpants, and my father accusing my brother's friends of stealing his disposable camera. Not to be outdone: watching my little brother get inked. Again.
Oh, what a crazy year it's been! Here's to more madness in 2006!
Today I'm 23. I woke up in my childhood bed to pancakes and coffee made by my parents, and now I'm off to spend the first day of my 23rd year in the airports on my way back "home" to NYC.
Smell ya later.
Yesterday I made it to work. I got up early, got my butt out on the street corner and hustled myself a ride. I ended up getting into a van with a strange man who had a mustache. We picked up two other strangers in order to meet the 4-passenger requirement for cars entering Manhattan below 96th Street, and I paid $10 to be dropped off at 59th and Lexington. The 17-block walk to work was dwarfed by the 60 block hike I took home with Reena in Spanish Harlem, a neighborhood that is everything that the name implies. Our sleepover fun was cut short by her neighbors, who decided that their party (which was loud enough to begin with) wasn't complete without some domestic violence. After a long and sleepless night, we bundled up and headed out into the morning, scoring a 20-block ride from another stranger and grabbing breakfast before making it to the office a little bit early. Now the strike is over. The Transit Workers don't have a new contract, but we'll have full service by tomorrow morning, when I'll already be basking in the icy goodness of the Midwest. Farewell, Transit Strike, I barely knew ye. But you were a bitch, anyhow.
Today the subway drivers and the bus drivers went on strike. For some people, this meant walking miles in freezing weather over the Brooklyn bridge. For others, this mean strapping on the rollerblades and hustling down Madison Ave. For some, it meant battling for a cab in order to get to the office. For me, it meant waking up, doing my laundry, mailing a letter, depositing a check, and making a donation to the Salvation Army. "Did you not have to go to work today?" asked a friend. I honestly don't know, I just wasn't there. In my defense, I'm new to New York, and I don't have the resources (aka balls) to get my ass somewhere when the going gets tough. When the going gets tough, I stop going. There are other barriers in place, also. For one, I live in Queens, and bridges are for cars. Also, this morning was cold. Besides, I answered my emails at least.
After actually reading the lyrics to 50 Cent's tacky, and dare I say bitchy, "Window Shopper." I know this song has been out for a while, but since most of his songs sound exactly alike and are all moronic, I had a hard time picking up on this one. I was only depriving myself of his lyrical genius, a mistake I won't make again. Employing an insult usually used amongst the Ladies Who Lunch, 50 coos:
You's a window shopper/ Mad at me, I think I know why/ You's a window shopper/ In the jewelery store, looking at shit you can't buy/ You's a window shopper/ In the dealership, trying to get a test drive/ You's a window shopper/ Mad as fuck when you see me ride by
The king of controversy strikes again! You hear that? You're a window-shopper! A window-shopper! And now everyone knows it!
There he is. The real shopper. Close down the mall, ladies. He came to do some business.
As it stands, her opinions are too little, too late. The thing is, Heidi can't vote for anything in this country other than the winner of Project Runway. Why? Because she's not an American. And she talks funny. And she's too pretty and her boobs are too big.
Maybe it's those years of volleyball and basketball catching up with me. Hell, maybe it's those years of awkwardly turning my ankles while minding my own business. Maybe it's just that I need a good pair of sensible shoes. Whatever the cause, the facts are clear: I have a freaking CANKLE!
Kill me now. After you hand me an ice pack.
Every once in a while, I need some inspiring. When I need my ass verbally kicked, I call my father for a good old-fashioned "what the hell is wrong with you?" kind of chat. When I need to be nurtured, I call my mother for a little bit of baby-talking. And when I need some serious help, I cross my fingers and hope that I'll get a letter from my "favorite uncle**." On one particularly gloomy and grinding New York day, I opened my crappy little mailbox for one such letter. It's hard to get the full effect without seeing his swooping penmanship (and penmanship, not handwriting, is the only way to describe my uncle) but here is a glimpse of what makes him and his epistles so wonderful:
...I thought I had better write this is longhand, for fear that you think that I have completely capitulated to modernity and thereby abandoned all of my principles...
...It sound as if you are settling in fine, although I must confess I worry about you're being in that huge hectic seedbed of rampant wickedness called NYC...
...Let me reiterate my opposition (doubtless fed by deep-set prejudice) to the law school idea. Really, Nora, what this country very much does not need is more lawyers. Poets, yes. Lawyers, no...
These are just a few gems from a letter punctuated with well wishes and sound advice. Lately, like many of my friends, I've been "adrift in a sea of uncertainty" to quote Ryan Williamson. As kids, we're all told that we'll be shining stars, but somewhere along the line we lose that "I can do anything I want to do" mentality and figure out that there isn't room in the world for yet another Indiana Jones, or another Louisa May Alcott, and we're going to have to figure something else out. What exactly will that something be? Who knows.
Worrying is in my nature. As a small child, I once told my mother to "worry about the important stuff, like life and what to eat." Well I'm plenty fat with the foods I've decided upon, so that just leaves the small matter of life to worry about.
While my good friend Gene "Mr. Diarrhea" Weaver will maintain that the Internet is only "for geeks and pedophiles," some of my favorite things are on the Internet. Among them are my mom, my sister, my brother-in-law, Dave, Ryan, and Josh. I could extoll the virtues of all of my favorite Internet reads, but today I will simply announce a new favorite: stupid query letters.
"So, what celebrity do you think I look like with this goatee? Colin Farrell?"
"I think the combination of this leather jacket and my goatee are kind of giving me more of a bad-boy image."
The MTA just released a new set of rules for riding the subway. I'm all about rules so I say the more the merrier. Still, the subway system is far from perfect. On Monday the R train was so backed up that tensions rose to the point where a tranny and a hoodrat chick got into a fight on the platform. And then there was this:
I realize that this sign may be a little hard to read, but it says, "YOU ARE RIDING IN ONE OF OUR HIGH-TECH CARS. IF NOT, WE'LL TALK TO THE PERSON WHO PUT THIS SIGN HERE."
A high-tech car? Really? I'd HATE to see the old-fangled ones. The seats don't even have individualized butt grooves, which makes for a lot of awkward sliding around.
Weekends are a time to kick back, relax, and in David's case pick a scab so that it bleeds for 6 hours straight. After David's hemophilia subsided, we had a long weekend of walking in the freezing rain, doing some Holiday shopping, and trying to figure out why our refrigerator smells like a butt.
We did a lot of New York-y things this weekend, and I will never do any of them again. First, we went to Wollman Rink in Central Park for a little ice skating. The rink is owned by Donald Trump, who clearly made his money by cutting corners. To call it skating is being generous. It was more like tripping over crappy ice and crappy people while wearing BLUE PLASTIC rental skates. I guess I was unaware that we would be treated to a show of, "Homeboys on Ice." There were just too many people chillin and too few people actually skating. Trump, I want my $20 back.
The display windows in New York are gorgeous. And filled with things that cost more than my yearly income. Sigh.
Rockefeller Center. It's a big tree. Neat.
We walked no fewer than 50 blocks in search of Buffalo wings. We ended up with these giant wings, straight off the bird. Looking at them makes me want to barf.
Well, they're sort of celebrities. They've been famous. They've even been on TV. Anyway, let's get started. On my way home on Wednesday, I saw a girl in the subway station who looked familiar. Since I hardly know anyone in this city it meant only one thing: she must be famous. A quick flip through my mental rolodex and I was able to determine she had been on Road Rules. Or was it Real World. It ended up that the girl I saw was Sophia, from Road Rules Season 10.
I know, I know. A Road Rule-r from Season 10? Not exactly thrilling. But it gets better. Sort of. Thursday morning I walk into my building ready for work. I hear an incredibly loud and obnoxious voice and an abnormally large group of people outside of the coffee stand in the lobby. Oh, it's Tom Arnold. The first thing that crossed my mind was how funny it was when Chris Farley played him on SNL. The second thing that crossed my mind was that homeboy was looking kind of good. I know, gross.
Seriously, though. Not so fugly in person.
So, I get on the elevator as Tom is still shouting in the lobby. The elevators in the building are programmed never to shut their doors until they are SURE you are ready to have a mental breakdown. So I'm standing there in the elevator when a woman steps in front of the doors, not trying to get on the elevator, just trying to stand in front of it. "Hi, Paula Abdul," I say. I then somehow lose control of my mind and body and start singing, "Straight up now tell me are you really gonna love me forever..." as the doors shut. I hate myself.
Paula is not as cracked out in person as she appears on TV. She is, however, the size of a small child.
Friday morning. Same lobby. I'm running for the elevator when who do I see stepping off of it? Adam Goldberg. Who is Adam Goldberg?
This guy. You've seen him and loved him in Saving Private Ryan, A Beautiful Mind, and yes, How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days. Anyway, he's skinny and semi-bearded and I was a little offended that he didn't immediately find me hilarious and fall in love with me, but oh well.
What more surprises can this city hold for me?
Britney has had one crazy year...two weddings, a few extra pounds, and a baby. But you know what? She still rocks my world. I've been a fan since I heard those first few notes of "Hit Me Baby One More Time," and to this day nothing gets me as excited as a good Britney song. So bare your belly button rings, light up your cigarettes, and shake your booty--here's to another year of BS...
