Archive | February, 2012

Fake It Till You Make It, the Happiness Edition

28 Feb

I haven’t written much lately, basically because I’ve been in a fairly foul mood. I’ve been pretty damn sad about something specific for the last couple of months, and a lot of times feeling like that takes a paintbrush to the rest of your life and gives it a grey, cloudy wash. It’s like your life has suddenly been painted with the muddy brownish-grey water in the jar used to clean the brush, instead of with the vibrant indigo and turquoise and vermillion watercolors on the palette. And who wants to read someone else bemoaning their life, especially when we all have our own stuff to deal with, and there’s countless people in this world who would gladly trade lives with me in a heartbeat? So here is an attempt at cheering myself up, by cataloging things that have made me happy recently.

The more neon sneakers are, the faster they make you run. This is a fact.

My new sneakers. Because they are awesome. I’m not usually a pink girl but I can get behind most things fluorescent. Subtly is not my thing. These could only be hotter if there was glitter involved somehow.

If I could just get this burner lit…

Phe. Because she is awesome, and is apparently attempting to cook me dinner.

This picture of my mother in college. Because she looks so young and happy and mischievous.

Reece Witherspoon, because I have had an influx (five in one month!) of people (total strangers) telling me I look like her. She is not someone everyone thinks is pretty, but I always have and I’ll take it as the compliment I think it was intended to be.

Send me on my way.

My upcoming trip to Costa Rica to celebrate an old and dear friend’s wedding with my old and dear sister (kidding about the old part, Heidi! It just wrote itself.)

Muhahahaahaaa

And this koala. And if I need to explain why he makes me happy, we just do not have the same sense of humor.

So there’s that, my attempt at reminding me of some of the little, good things going on. Here’s to faking it till you make it, the happiness edition.

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Gravity is No Friend of Mine

28 Feb
Friends don’t let friends drop drinks on bridesmaid dresses.

Yes this is me. Me BEFORE my friend’s wedding. And yes, I was a bridesmaid. Those who know me know that gravity is not my friend and tends to rip things out of my hands on a regular basis, but this debacle was more ill-timed than most. Cheers to blow-dryers, flowy dresses that hide stains, and champagne. Because as soon as I dried the champagne off the dress, I was very happy to have a glass of it.

Happy Valentine’s/Crazy Cat Lady Day!

14 Feb

Valentine’s Day. It means so many different things to people. To some, it’s a day to celebrate their love for That Special Person. We hate those people.

For others, it’s that day where obnoxious couples flaunt their relationships in the faces of single people everywhere, filling up restaurants with their glittery-gaudy-cotton-candy-smelling-unicorn-frolicking-love, leaving poor single people eating spam and refried beans that they found in their kitchen cabinet under a layer of dust. Or something. Not that I speak from experience or anything. Really. No idea where that mental image came from. Anyway.

For me, Valentine’s Day has been all of the above at some point or other, but for the last decade and then some, it’s mainly been known to me as one thing: Ophelia’s Birthday Yes I Celebrate My Cat’s Birthday Shut The Fuck Up Day. YAY!

So, on this twelfth Ophelia’s Birthday Yes I Celebrate My Cat’s Birthday Shut The Fuck Up Day, I will be spending the evening with sweet Old Lady Phe.

Yes, I am 31 years old, newly single, and will be spending Valentine’s Day evening (hey, why isn’t it Valentine’s Night? That’s when all the action is. Petition!) on my couch, with my cat, celebrating her birthday. And that is one of the more pathetic sentences I’ve ever written about myself or anyone else. Seriously, what else could I say or do to come off as more pathetic? Nothing. There’s nothing else that could make me look more like a sad crazy cat lady. Unless… Phe Photo Shoot!

Valentine's baby
Valentine’s baby

Tramp Stamp Phe

Rabbi Phe Says "Shalom"

This post brought to you from my underwear basket, where Phe has taken up residence.

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Note from Landlord, Translated

13 Feb

Under my door tonight was the following note:

February 10, 2012

Dear Residents,

Please be advised that on Tuesday, February 14, there will be no hot water from 11am-1pm due to plumbing repairs.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your cooperation.

Sincerley,

Name of Management Company

Okay, you think. No problem. I shower at 7:45AM, and I’m not home again until 6:30PM or so, earliest. No big deal, right? Oh innocent one, let me teach you the ways of NYC apartment living if you aren’t already horribly familiar. To do that, I will translate the note for you:

February 10th, 2012 (See, we wrote the 10th even though it’s the evening of the 13th, because we totally have to tell you a few days early if we’re shutting off your water and we totally didn’t do that)

Dear I Can’t Take the Time To Write The Names of Each Resident Separately Even Though There’s Only Like Eight Apartments In This Building,

You totally better shower TONIGHT. And by shower tonight, I mean take a good, long shower. Shave your legs, and shave them again. Wash/rinse/repeat repeat repeat, beyotch, and kiss that shower goodbye. Oh, you drink water too? Better start filling up bottles. Or buckets. And the toilet… hmm. Do you have a boyfriend with whom you’re comfortable enough to do your “business” at his place? No? Gym membership? No?! You live in Manhattan, fatass, how do you not have a gym membership? Well, now I know why you don’t have a boyfriend. Anyway. This is probably going to fuck up your whole flushing-of-the-toilet situation. Sorry about that, that stinks. (Get it? STINKS? ROTFLMAO). So yeah. Tomorrow, Tuesday, from 11am – 1PM, your apartment is a water-free zone. And by 11am-1pm, I mean you’re gonna start looking like shit by Thursday unless you bribe a friend to shower at their place.

Sincerley (Really I don’t give a shit! Ha, another shit joke, get it?),

Your Landlord

Are you ready for some… ticker tape?

7 Feb

I might not be the biggest football fan out there, but I can sure get behind standing on the roof of my office building, throwing shredded documents and toilet paper into the breeze to celebrate our fair city’s Super Bowl victory. And to anyone who was twenty floors below us who may have gotten nailed in the head with a roll of toilet paper, don’t look at me. I’m strictly a paper-tossing kind of girl, I threw nothing of actual weight over the side of the building. Because, you know, I don’t like killing people.

 

View from the 20th floor roof deck
Looks like snow, but is really everyone on Wall Street’s shredded documents. Oh the stories they could tell…
Toilet paper. Because we are classy.

Sorry, sir. I definitely contributed to this.

 

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3 Feb

*Disclaimer: I smoke cigarettes. They are bad for you. I am aware of this.*

Dear East Village Neighbor,

I am so disappointed in you. I mean, seriously, are you kidding me? Asking, no telling me I can’t smoke cigarettes in my apartment? Because you can smell them in the hallway? Are you, as they say, fo’ realz? Do you realize where you live? This iconic street, half a block from Tompkins Square Park, famous for riots and druggies, homeless encampments, a street your preppy ballet flats wouldn’t have walked on ten years ago? Of course, you were probably eleven ten years ago, but that, East Village Neighbor, is not the point. Or maybe it is; maybe you don’t realize where you are, the history lost on you. Well, you’re half a block from the park where Daniel Rackowitz murdered that poor woman and served her in soup to the homeless. This is the East Village. And for all your gourmet cupcake shops and nail salons, and now, God forbid, a Ricky’s, it is still the East Village. Home of artists and dreamers and writers and vagabonds. Home of the homeless, summer home of the Travelers, with their hemp and dreads and pit bull bodyguards. You, East Village Neighbor, are lucky you aren’t walking over people in the hallway, passed out or dead with heroin needles still jammed in their veins. You’re lucky your apartment hasn’t been broken into three times, and that your hot water works more often than not. You know what, East Village Neighbor? You need to chill the hell out. Enjoy the ugly, rundown beauty of living in this insane, history-filled neighborhood. Take a drag of my offending cigarette and fucking relax. Or, you know, move.

XOXO,

Me

Photos of Tompkins Square borrowed from nycgovparks.org, keywordpicture.com, wikipedia.org

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My Boyfriend, Kindle Cover

1 Feb

My Kindle was an office holiday gift. What’s that you say? You got a $20 iTunes gift card? A cheap bottle of wine? Well, that’s not the way we roll, yo. Anyway. Once I got over my initial disdain for aforementioned Kindle, and decided that I lurrrrved it and wanted it to ask me to go steady, I figured that, since I got it for free, I’d buy Kindle a pretty case, one that zipped all the way closed and kept it protected from the God-only-knows-what-horrible-disgustingness that lives in my purses. Amazon.com, my online home away from home for all-things-purchasable presented me with a pretty turquoise zippy little number for a cool thirty dollars. I’m cheap, but when the Kindle’s for free…  so I bought it. And then it just. Didn’t. Arrive. So un-Amazon-like. So I wait patiently. And patiently. Then I totally forgot about it for a few days until one random Tuesday when I was sitting at my desk diligently working away (heh) and it hit me: “Where the f&%^$ is my Kindle cover?”

I click on to Amazon, see that it says it was delivered two days ago. Oh no, Amazon. We are not going to start lying to each other, are we? Because no Kindle cover had arrived for me. I thought our relationship was built on trust, my buying things I don’t need, and you shipping them to me so quickly I am not able to think it over and decide to cancel my order. So I print out the delivery receipt so I can call and complain. And that’s when I see it: My old address. (At this point the best song ever, Barenaked Ladies’ ‘Old Apartment’ popped into my head and I had teary, slow motion water-color images of my past apartment floating dreamily in my head.) They have all of my old addresses saved, and either I didn’t click the right one or the system messed up, but either way, the address it had been delivered to was in the same city, but was three apartments ago.

So I call, and what do you know, Ms. Amazon Customer Service Woman could not have been nicer, explains to me that she can’t resend the item as it’s already been delivered, but she would put the money back into my account and I can then repurchase this now mythical cover. Thank you, Ms. Amazon Customer Service Woman, for being so nice. Of course then I get the money into my account and I’m all “Hello, precious. Hi thirty dollars! You are just so CUTE! I thought I had lost you! Welcome home! I’m sorry I spent you, I won’t do it again.” And I didn’t; I just let the Kindle swim in the filth of my bag. Until. Until drunken genius took over.

I found myself at a bar next to The Old Apartment. I had some wine. I had some more wine. And then. Innocent Couple walks down the street. Drunk Me sees this, runs out of bar, and mysteriously and secretly (read: obviously and reeking of wine) waits and watches to see where they are headed. And WIN! They walk up the steps to The Old Apartment! “Hey. HEY!” I smoothly (trashedly) say to (scream at) them. “I totally, like, um, used to live there. Could you like um, look and see if there’s a package for Drunk Me in your hallway?” Girl looked scared, Boy was all “Huh?” I re-explained, they went inside. I thought all was lost. And then. THEN! He comes back outside with my package! Fireworks went off, glitter rained down from the sky. And unicorns! There were UNICORNS. I thanked him profusely (drunkenly hugged him) and ran back into the bar. I opened my package and there, there he was. Kindle Cover, now known as Accidentally Stolen Kindle Cover because I already got the refund for it. And it was love at first sight.

And now all I am dealing with is my Irish Catholic mother telling me that I will have bad karma forever unless I call Amazon and tell them I now owe them thirty dollars.

'Aint he handsome?
Aint he handsome?

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F*ck You Kindle for Making Me Like You

1 Feb
Beautiful books
Beautiful classics

I did not want you, Kindle. No, I said, I like books, I said. I like the feel of them in my hand, I like the weight of them in my bag. I love how books smell, how it feels to run my finger over the words as if they were hieroglyphics carved into an ancient cave, slightly raised against the ridges of my fingerprints, telling me someone else’s story, reassuring me that someone else was here before me. No Kindle, I had no room for you in my inn. You would not call to me from my shelf, beckoning me to read you again, tempting me to take another journey where I notice things I missed on my first time through your pages.

You are thin and cold and light. I like fat and warm, heavy. You would die in my purse when I didn’t put the lid to my omnipresent water bottle on tight enough, whereas my friend, Book, just had to be dried off, his wet page corners deteriorating between my fingers when I couldn’t wait for him to dry fully before reading more. And when Book dried, and I picked him up months or years later, his little jagged-edged corners would remind me of where I was when that page was wet and tearing in my hands. No Kindle, you were not for me, something high-tech and out of place in the land of beautiful novels, with their hard covers and crackling spines.

So imagine my surprise, Kindle, when I was handed you, as unwanted of a gift as a backwards compliment, and I, begrudgingly, started to enjoy you. None of the beauty and grace of my lovely Books, but still providing me with the words, the stories. Interesting, I thought. Then I learned I could place my finger over a word, one whose meaning escaped me, and you, Kindle, like a prophet, would instantly bestow upon me the definition of said word. Not bad, Kindle, I thought. Not too shabby.

So Kindle, I admit. I judged you before meeting you. I will give you a chance, though you will always be number two in my world of reading. Besides, last night, when Cat stepped on you and you freaked out? When I could not get back to the page I was on no matter how hard I pleaded? Yeah, Book would never do that. However, you have gotten inside my head, Kindle, because I find myself touching words in books now, not to feel the raised ink, but expecting the definition to pop up out of vapor from the pages.

Why can't I hate you like I want to?
Oh why can’t I hate you?

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