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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.

 

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

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?

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?

Honey Bears

31 Jan

I’m pretty sure my coworker just witnessed me in the office kitchen saying “Hello, honey bears!” to the cute, plastic, honey-filled faces that looked up at me from the Fresh Direct delivery box. I was just welcoming them into the kitchen supply cabinet… and then realized there was a decidedly human presence behind me as my coworker (How long was he there? Why didn’t I hear him walk in? Is he a ninja? Did it have to be the hot coworker?) filled up his water bottle at the Poland Spring dispenser. I continued to put groceries away. He got his water and left. And I will always wonder if he heard me welcoming our new, sweet friends.

Honey bears deserve polite greetings, too.

Part Three: The Rest of What I’ve Learned

30 Jan
I puke in electronics.
  • Believe someone when they show you who they are.
  • Again: BELIEVE SOMEONE WHEN THEY SHOW YOU WHO YOU ARE.
  • Say your prayers.
  • No one is paying as much attention to you as you are, so give  yourself a break.
  • Your first day of work is just another day to everybody else there.
  • Your cat will always puke in the worst possible place. Like your printer.
  • If you talk badly about someone, they’ll show up behind you. However if you talk nicely about someone (say, Leonardo DiCaprio), they most likely will not show up behind you. Ever. Or in front of you or under you or on top of you. Unfortunately.
  • Keep date books and look at them regularly to see what you were doing this date a year or two or ten ago. Actual, leather-bound, write in pen on that thing called paper, date books.
  • When all else fails, force yourself to smile. It will create endorphins that will actually make you feel happier. If it doesn’t work, at least people on the subway will wonder what the hell you’re so happy about.

Part 2: Still learning…

30 Jan
  • Pick crazy paint colors. They’re just walls, and they’ll make you happy. This goes especially for those who live alone, because when else in your life can you have neon green “Envy’s Eyes” on one wall and “Magenta Jewel” on another? Never, unless you live alone for the rest of your life, because believe me, other people don’t let you paint their walls like that.
  • Be a big tipper. This includes food delivery people and taxi drivers, even when you don’t have a lot of money. It’ll come back to you.
  • Speaking of taxi drivers, show some respect. You’ll find most of them are highly educated and have to endure a lot of undeserved bullshit from passengers.
  • Call your mother if you’re lucky enough to have one. Why? Because you are lucky enough to have one.
  • What will you remember more, a night of wine and talking with friends, or getting a good night’s sleep? Wine and friends. You might feel like hell the next day, but that just means you had that much fun. Or made a fool of yourself. Or both.
  • You’ll almost always regret a drunk text to an ex. It’s the “almost” part that keeps us doing it though. Foiled again.

(image borrowed from printmyown.com)

Part 1: What I’ve Learned Thus Far (in no particular order)

30 Jan
  • Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Judging from my dating life and my career course, I am obviously completely insane.
  • If you find a cat at 3:00 in the morning, keep it. Get it washed and stuff, but keep it. This goes for dogs as well. This does not go for men.
  • When you stop complaining, things actually get better. But it’s not nearly as much fun.
  • Nothing makes you feel better than a fat baby in a bikini.
  • When you move to a building overlooking a construction site, don’t be surprised when you get woken up by jack hammers and multiple day laborers a foot outside your third floor window.
  • Look at the subway seat before you sit down. You’re welcome.
  • Enjoy thunderstorms, even if it means you get drenched. Especially if it means you get drenched.
  • Find beauty in small things, like rainbows in oil puddles, and glitter. And tiny little grains of salt that are perfectly square. I could go on and on.
  • beauty is in the details