Considerez l'Homard

Best Ad Placement Ever

2009-01-21T12:17:00.003-05:00

My First Inaugural

2009-01-19T05:42:00.002-05:00

I'm thinking about a career change; I'd like to be a speechwriter for Obama. My first attempt (courtesy of the Obama Inauguration Speech Generator):

My fellow Americans, today is a brave day. You have shown the world that "hope" is not just another word for "apple", and that "change" is not only something we can believe in again, but something we can actually running.

Today we celebrate, but let there be no mistake – America faces tremulous and jerky challenges like never before. Our economy is voluptuous. Americans can barely afford their mortgages, let alone have enough money left over for harlots. Our healthcare system is vibrant. If your knee is sick and you don't have insurance, you might as well call a hedge fund manager. And America's image overseas is tarnished like a telephone parachute. But praying together we can right this ship, and set a course for Omaha.

Finally, I must thank my yellow family, my tart campaign volunteers, but most of all, I want to thank National Rifle Association for making this historic occasion possible. Of course, I must also thank you, President Bush, for years of parking the American people. Without your furry efforts, none of this would have been possible.

Now That I Can Dance

2009-01-17T07:55:00.003-05:00

This is actually pretty amazing, and makes me smile like a loon every time I watch it.

It features a mass dance routine at Liverpool Station with 350 people seemingly randomly breaking into dance. Effing rad, yo.

Pot, Kettle

2008-09-25T04:44:00.005-05:00

This massive loaf of a woman was clutching a map and seeking directions as I rounded Stoney Street this morning on my way to Monmouth Coffee for a desperately needed pre-work latte.

She was in jeans that required more than her fair share of fabric (like, the amount you might need to equip a sailing vessel) and a twee little floral shirt that strained to contain her flour-sack bazongas.

She was prevailing upon one of the area's many pin-stripers to direct her towards the bus stop (which was visible from where she was standing).

As I walked past, she bleated, "Americans don't really walk anywhere, do they? They're so lazy!"

The pin-striper looked bemused, and stuttered, "I think it's just because it's so big, everything's too far away to walk."

I shot her a look of pure loathing as she waddled, thighs mercilessly creating tremendous friction, towards the bus stop three yards away.

Hmpf. Go to New York, you pudding, and maybe you'll drop the 80 or so pounds that have you firmly in Morbid Obesityville. Then we'll see who's lazy.

Limpy Walks Again

2008-09-18T13:42:00.007-05:00

After 3+ months on his crutches, Steve is finally gimping around the house like a wobbly deerling, and it's a wonderful sight to see. He won't exactly be competing in the London Marathon and Recreational Pole Vault Society anytime soon, but at least now he can make use of the overwhelmingly expensive bike he put the down payment on a week before he broke the leg.

As I type, he just offered to bring me my glass of wine. Strike that - he crowed "I can bring you your wine, honey!" with the glee of a child who just discovered farting, but it's the first time in a long time he can carry anything (garbage, groceries, my alcohol) and I daresay he's as delighted as I am that his hands are free to do other things rather than lug his body from point to point around on metal sticks.

We just got back from 10 days in the States, and while Steve was still officially Captain Limpy, we did have an amazing time. One of my two oldest childhood friends, Stacey, got married in California Spectacular style. This was the main event of a week spent in the company of my other oldest childhood friend, Allison.

The wedding was beautiful, in the back yard of family friends:

Stacey and I once trashed her parents' wet lawn running through the sprinklers in our finest 12 year-old couture, so seeing her in her wedding dress, looking absolutely gorgeous, totally made me all teary.

Fabulous.

Allie, Stacey and I have known each other for 25 years, which is pretty awesome when one considers we're all 30. These are the girls with whom I sang 'Never Smile at a Crocodile' at age 5 with while wearing blue pinstriped pinafores and bloomers, making crocodile jaw motions with our arms for the Montair Elementary Talent Show. The girls whose houses and families were as familiar as my own. The girls who've known me through every important life experience I've ever had, from the death of my father to junior high misery to high school's abject awkwardness to college flailing to post collegiate flailing, through a long series of dubious romantic partners to finally (hopefully) finding my feet and getting my shit together.

The thing I find most gratifying is that I think we've all landed rather gracefully. Stacey married a wonderful, caring, gentle man:

Allie, too, is in a long-term, caring committed relationship and is thriving professionally:

And, as for me, as David Sedaris said, "You meet a guy, relinquish a little bit of control, and the next thing you know, you're eating a different part of the pig."

Mmmmmmm . . . bacon.

Tube Manners

2008-07-30T09:39:00.000-05:00

There’s a few fashion choices London girls seem to make consistently that I’ve not entirely gotten my head around. I get that weather here is famously changeable, but in midsummer, are you aware of how bad your opaque black tights actually look as a style choice? It’s been at least 72 degrees (22 Celsius in my new parlance) for the last few weeks, but I’ve seen the most hideous parade of thick black tights under all manner of floaty summer dresses, uncomfortably short tunics, oddly cropped short shorts, and, once, with what I think was a slightly oversized tuxedo jacket.

Unless you’re Cate Blanchett, if you leave the house wearing only tights and a tux jacket, you’re pretty much guaranteed to look like a douche.

The other prevailing summer clothing trend this sweaty summer is a wide variety of empire-waist tops. For someone like myself, who has a bit of extra gut chunk, these can be enormously forgiving as they skim over the layer of flab I can’t be bothered to lose just yet.

But they also make everyone look pregnant, whether or not they are actually fetally-enhanced. Hence, it’s hard to tell who is actually incubating a child and who is merely trying to conceal a bit of a belly.

The tube here is devoid of many things, like a logical social order and air conditioning. It really does swelter in the subway, and for some reason, riders cluster desperately around the doors instead of moving into the middle of the car like they do in New York, to eke out a little more room for everyone.
So, you’re in a narrow, cramped, hot space, you manage to snag an (upholstered!) seat, and in front of you appears a woman in an empire-waist top.

Crap.

Is she baby-makin’ or just going for comfort? Do you spring out of your seat to offer the sperimnated one a place to rest, or do you risk offending a fatty? While the male riders do their best to studiously ignore her, I usually opt for the meaningful eye-contact/pointing-at-seat gesture when I’m at least 90% sure she’s with child and not with Cornish pasty. If she is preggers, she’ll gratefully accept the seat and hopefully hate us godless Americans a bit less.

But one of these days I’ll blow it, and thus will end pro trans-Atlantic relations as I really piss one of these slightly poochy British bitches off in one fantastic social gaffe.

The Great Leap Sideways

2008-05-20T07:34:00.002-05:00

After 6 months of planning, panic, and packing, I write this sitting on my couch in the fabulous cultural hot spot of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom. Wikipedia tells me, amongst other things, that High Wycombe is the only place in the world that weighs its mayors as part of a quaint old custom.

Also, there's a Starbucks, and we all know how I feel about Starbucks.

So, there's mayor-weighing and Starbucks. Is there no end to my suburban bliss?

But there's also Steve, and he's wonderful, and other members of the Johnston family, including new baby Max (who I want to gently nibble on) and the actual cultural hot spot of London a mere jaunt down the road, so I'm not exactly marooned here.

I thank the lord that Steve came into London with me yesterday for my job interview, for if he hadn't, I'd probably still be forlornly staring at the Tube map and trying to figure out what to do when the Jubilee line is out of service and where, exactly, the Thames is in relation to my tears.

I keep telling myself, "I mastered a city like New York; London should be a cinch," but that's total crap. New York, with the exception of the Village, is an extremely simple grid, and the most you'll go in the wrong direction is a block until you figure out the numbers are going the wrong way.

London, on the other hand, makes the maze at Knossos look like the board of Candyland. I am sure that I'll begin to learn London's geography, given time, but right now I'm like 'That's the building that looks like a pickle,' or 'I know I've been to Hyde Park before,' but getting to and from these places, in addition to navigating the Tube, fills me with the dread of the haplessly directionless.

Also, spelling words with unmotivated U's (i.e. colour, flavour, etc) and not even spelling my OWN name correctly (it's now ELL EYE ZED thankyouverymuch) all makes me think that, even though the language is the same, I am very, very different.

Lovely

2008-04-30T21:33:00.001-05:00

Know what? I do.

Current Events

2008-03-19T21:44:00.004-05:00

Meh.

A Shameless Plug

2008-03-05T21:16:00.003-05:00

I recently spoke on a panel about the SEO aspects and implications of search engine marketing for online publishers (good times!). If you are one of those people who goes "Liz Keller, we like you fine, but we have no idea what it is you actually do," then check this video out. I start my ~~obviously fascinating discourse on SEO~~ aimless ramblings around minute 8:24.

Special bonus: Mr. T is in my PowerPoint deck (seriously).

TMI

2008-02-27T17:53:00.002-05:00

Steve Skyped me a few minutes after we had signed off for the night so he could go to bed.

Steve: I have to go out and put a body in a bag, honey. They rang me just after I got off with you.

Steve is a CSI, for those who are wondering what the hell is going on here.

Me: Oh, OK. Is it a bad scene?

Steve: Well, there's blood everywhere, so it may be suspicious.

Me: May be?

Steve: Well, it's not on the walls or anything, just all around the body . . .

Me: Do you randomly bleed when you die?

Steve: Well, the body is kind of decomposed, and sometimes blood and other bodily fluids leak out and-

Me: Darling, a yes would have been fine.

Fin.

No Cats in the Bedroom

2008-02-12T09:36:00.001-05:00

Fine, Steve. You win. This is totally Bastet's M.O.

A Good Wednesday, Or, Why I Love Project Runway

2008-02-07T10:55:00.000-05:00

I have been a fan of Project Runway since its inception, in large part because of the ever-so-distinguished designers' mentor, Tim Gunn. There was one episode where I had a fit of pique directed at Mr. Gunn when he described one of the (size 6) models as 'zaftig,' but I'm willing to concede that in the world of fashion, if you're a size 6, you're pretty much this girl:

Over time, I've forgiven Tim because of the bon mots that continually fall out of his mouth. He is impeccable, a very, very dignified, stately speaker, and everything he says is imbued with incredible gravitas.

But, due to the nature of the show, last night he announced to the designers, whose task it was to design costumes for female pro wrestlers, "You have 30 minutes at the House of Spandex, and $100. Now, go."

Thank Jebus we live in a time and a place where one may visit the House of Spandex should the need arise. New York is indeed a special place.

A Little In My Mouth

2008-02-05T12:18:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, I was grooving in what psychologists call a 'flow state,' wherein (according to Wikipedia [and if you read it on Wikipedia you know it's true {brackets are fun}]) one is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.

My activity was checking page rank for keywords, and when you're a giant flaming SEO dork like me and your keyword set is doing well, it's the endorphin-spiking equivalent of finding $50 stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

So there I was, happily tapping away at the keyboard, when my phone rings. I scowled at the receiver before snatching the phone from its cradle.

"Ms. Keller, you have a delivery in the hallway."

'Oh my god,' I'm thinking, 'can't they just bring the damn thing in to me? I'm working here!'

I stalk out into the hallway, where a delivery man is clutching an absolutely massive bouquet of flowers - roses, lilies, snapdragons, sunflowers, and my favorite - gerbera daisies.

Cue the girlish giggling and immediate, high pitched "Ohmigod!"

My sweet, sweet wonderful Irish boy, having left NYC just the day before, still got around to sending me anniversary flowers and making me throw up a little in my mouth as a visceral reaction to how freakin' cute and thoughtful he is.

The fact we've made it to our first milestone despite the fact we're both in the wrong country makes me smile like an idiot.

Ladies, get thee an Irishman posthaste; they're grand!

(love you, darling! Sorry for calling you Irish boy -- but not really)

Some People I Know Must Drink A Lot of Ovaltine

2008-02-05T12:08:00.000-05:00

Give a Little Bit

2007-12-21T10:32:00.000-05:00

I discovered this site today. You get to improve your vocabulary and feed poor people. What's not to love?

For every word you match to its correct definition, the ad sponsors of the site donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. They add up in a short afternoon of procrastination. Good times!

Hint: habergeon = chain mail coat.

You're welcome

Time Lapse

2007-12-14T14:24:00.001-05:00

This is kind of amazing, aside from at the end, where he apparently turns into Jesus:
Living My Life Faster - 8 years of JK's Daily Photo Project from c71123 on Vimeo.

On the Avenue

2007-12-10T10:09:00.000-05:00

A note of thanks to the bus driver on 5th Avenue in Brooklyn late last night who saw me sprinting hopelessly towards the bus stop, having had a few too many mojitos, and with no chance of beating the bus to its stop, who actually stopped the bus in the middle of the avenue to let me catch up and hop on.

I panted my thanks, but I'm not sure you could understand me between gasps. I want you know how awesome you are. In 11 years of MTA interactions, that's literally the second nice thing anyone's ever done for me. (A retroactive shout-out to the Israeli guy in '97 who gave me his seat on the subway.)

Mr. Bus Driver, you are a beautiful man and I hope you people the earth with your descendants.

An aside to the makers of mojitos at Bogota: while your beverage tastes like the nectar of the gods, its boozy vengeance is not to be trifled with. My subway ride this morning was not pretty.

I Would Like to Thank

2007-12-06T11:16:00.000-05:00

•The owner of the car whose alarm went off this morning at 6:34, and who didn't see fit to crawl out of bed to turn it off until 7:14. May you hit an ice patch on the Verrazano and plummet to your death. You won't be missed.

•The girl at Atlantic Avenue going down the wrong side of the staircase who wouldn't get the hell out of my way. Yes, I did hit you with my bag on purpose, and no, you should not feel obliged to stand clear of the closing doors. I'm sure your big ass will hold them open long after you've left the train.

•My unsanitary co-workers. Wash your damn hands after you use the toilet. If you're out of the bathroom before the flushing is even done, you are unclean (though not in a Terrence Howard way). Don't be fooled, anyone, women are gross and leave all manner of unspeakable things behind when using public and or office bathrooms. Also, don't eat half a bag of chips, decide you don't like them, and leave the half-empty bag sitting next to, but not in, the garbage can. Seriously.

•Three-abreast tourist dawdlers. Yes, New York is a magnificent and exciting city, especially near the holidays. Yes, we're well pleased to take your money, even if you do snarkily refer to the dollar as the peso. Yes, I know exactly where the Chrysler Building is; you're standing directly in front of it, and I will give you accurate directions. No, I will not hesitate to push you into traffic if your sidewalk-blocking gawking impedes my progress in any way. That's just how I roll.

Am I cranky? Hell yes. Two weeks 'til Belize.

Like a Rat

2007-11-13T11:29:00.000-05:00

The MTA can suck it for having some situation or another arise as my 5 train sat in the Union Square Station for 20 minutes this morning without opening the doors to let us off.

The conductor can bite me for mumbling garbled apologies periodically, yet giving us no information other than letting us know he was 'sorry for the inconvemuidhaio,' 'the train has had an emergency fqhqaffljwe,' and to 'please be patient with the aisuhrqnddke.'

Awesome.

The first few minutes were just odd, as the train started to pull out of the station normally, and then screeched to an abrupt halt.

5 minutes later, the still closed doors made their 'bee-boo' sound, and we started moving forward, only to halt sharply again in a few feet.

We then sat, trapped like rats, with the doors shut, as 6 trains pulled in and out across the tracks.

Passengers started pounding on the windows to be let out after 10 minutes, as orange-vested MTA-types shook their heads at us and kept stalking up and down the platform.

Finally, as tempers started to rise, they finally herded us into the one car on the entire train where 1 door was half open, and let us squeeze out and dash to grab the next 6 train.

No calamity here, per se, but not exactly the confidence-boosting experience one has to be reassured that in a real emergency, we wouldn't all be left to die in blind panic.

Bite me, MTA.

The Grinch is Early

2007-11-07T09:46:00.001-05:00

That's one of my all time favorite Calvin and Hobbes strips, but the older I get, the more the grim underlying humor gets to me.

Steve and I were talking yesterday, and I was complaining about how Christmas advertising seems to start earlier and earlier every year. Back in the day, I seem to feel it really ramped up after Thanksgiving, and the month of constant bombardment to BUY! things to show everyone how much you LOVE! them was at least reasonably tolerable.

But now, as I said to Steve, Christmas does literally start the day after Halloween, and it's a non-stop hellfest of Santa this and elves that and cheesy families chucking snowballs at each other in the season of merriment and joy (all for only $99.99 + shipping and handling).

Not that this is revelatory, but as I kid, I used to love Christmas. Getting the tree, decorating it (especially with my favorite ornament, shaped like a tiny old-fashioned gum ball machine), watching the cat bat low hanging ornaments all over the house, eagerly counting my stockpile of gifts, knowing the shape and size of the box for Cornsilk Kids Cabbage Patch Doll and realizing I was getting one. Or the matching Barbie horses, one palomino and one black.

But, as an adult, there's the pressure of finding just the perfect gift and the financial sucker punch one reels from in January. I begrudge no one on my Christmas list, and I get tremendous pleasure out of happening upon a present someone I love truly enjoys.

It's really just the ceaseless, endless, shameless marketing and sheer commercialization of the season that gets me down. Two months of any one commercial is already too much, and when every commercial is practically identical, and they're all urging me to buy for the sake of buying, I feel myself thinking, "Goddammit, it's Chrismahanukwanzakah again."

Manamana

2007-10-28T18:23:00.001-05:00

it's good for you

Waxworks

2007-10-05T14:53:00.000-05:00

From Pink Is the New Blog, and hi-larious:

(clickety-pop for embiggenation)

Fidelity

2007-10-02T20:01:00.000-05:00

I think Regina Spektor is a genius, and "Fidelity" is one of her songs which I think is truly exceptional.

I also love every sentiment expressed in this video:

The New Math

2007-10-02T10:18:00.000-05:00

I think I just found my first gray hair. Either that, or I'm going spontaneously blonde.

I was futzing in my office bathroom, and had pulled my hair back before going into a meeting. Then, there it was, glinting like an evil beacon. Wiry and weird and as silver as friggin' Dumbledore's beard.

Steve never tires of reminding me that soon I'll be closer to 40 than I am to 20. Aging doesn't really freak me out that much; I don't think my 30th will be marked with inconsolable sobbing. But I am more aware of the fact that my spring chicken days are rapidly departing -

My new math:

More than three glasses of red wine + 1 liquor-based beverage = hangover x three hours of puking - dignity

High stress levels + less than 5 hours of sleep = inappropriate comments in random situations

Unfamiliar athletic activity + more than 1 hour = inability to ascend or descend stairs without limping

I'd ask you to solve for x, but I see I've forgotten to include it in any of the above equations. Algebra was the one kind of math I used to be good at, but that was 11 years ago at this point, and there ain't no hope for me now.

I need to schedule an appointment with my hairdresser now. This is what you get when you decide to grow out your old color. A wiry memento mori.

New Favorite

2007-09-25T13:01:00.000-05:00

While trolling Gawker today, I came across their coverage of this article recounting Bill O'Reilly's visit to Harlem and his subsequent surprise that, while dining at Sylvia's with Al Sharpton,

"There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, "M-Fer, I want more iced tea."

You know, I mean, everybody was -- it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all."

The Gawker article was accompanied by a picture of O'Reilly standing next to Ann Coulter. I won't post it because the less I see of them in the total hours of my life, the happier I'll be when I die.

Jesus lord I hate Bill O'Reilly. Holy Moses Ann Coulter's soul is rotting from within.

The good news: A commenter named Tammyfey left these bon mots:

"I wish some local--a well-groomed and articulate one, of course--would have slapped the bitch.

Seriously, though, do these two carbuncles pictured exist solely to cheapen humanity in general? Can't we as a society manage to throw them into a dank pit somewhere to be hatefucked by rabid slugs?"

Pretty much my feelings exactly, and also introduces my new favorite verb (past tense): hatefucked. Only funny when used to describe vicious acts performed on despicable people, and way funny, then.

Thanks, TammyFey! I don't know you, but I love you.

She'll Take You Out

2007-09-13T16:57:00.000-05:00

Meet my friend Cristi. She's auditioning for a reality show called 'Tontine,' which I gather is a combination of 'The Amazing Race,' 'Survivor,' and masochism.

Below is her audition video for the show. If it doesn't inspire you to get off your Chee-to guzzling ass and do some push-ups on your knuckles, I don't know what will.

Behold:

Still, Now

2007-09-11T04:43:00.000-05:00

Night flight to San Francisco; chase the moon across America.

God, it’s been years since I was on a plane.

When we hit 35,000 feet we’ll have reached the tropopause, the great belt of calm air, as close as I’ll ever get to the ozone.

I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening.

But I saw something that only I could see because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning.

And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them and was repaired.

Nothing’s lost forever. In this world, there’s a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we’ve left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least I think that’s so.

-Angels in America: Perestroika, by Tony Kushner (1992)

JudgmentPants

2007-08-30T11:43:00.000-05:00

::Actual email transcript::

Liz: Was it you that was going on and on about Spiegeltent? I'm going to see 'la vie' on weds. Do I need to wear my JudgmentPants?

Adam: Perhaps only your Judgment 3/4-length shorts. The space itself is wicked cool. Don't drink their homemade beer though. It's nasty, tastes like seawater!

::end transcript::

If you live in New York, you have a pulse, and want to see something a bit out of the ordinary, you, too, should don your Capris of Judgment and get over to Pier 17 to check out this show, or the other one, 'Absinthe.'

It's a little Cirque du Soleil in concept, but kicks the crap out of what Cirque du Soleil has become (too slick, tidy, and glossy for my taste). 'La Vie' is raunchy, raw, and exquisitely beautiful. But yeah, the Belgian beer does taste a teeny bit like seawater.

Implications

2007-08-29T12:30:00.000-05:00

“I’d like the mini-pizza with pepperoni and onions, please.”

What? So I’m a little hungry today. And, I did order the mini pizza. I was really in the mood for pizza for lunch, and though I’ve just discovered there’s a Two Boots in Grand Central, the thought of actually dealing with Grand Central during the lunch rush was unspeakably off-putting. Hence I took a stroll down the block to do some take-out menu collecting and sample the wares of the pizza place I pass every time I give up and just go to the Amish Market.

For some reason, in my head, mini-pizza equals the garbage we used to get in the high school cafeteria that I think was made by Pizza Hut, had a seriously greasy case of Nasty Crust, and was probably 7” in diameter. Each slice was like three bites, and, while eating it was tantamount to cutting a deal with the devil of arterial sclerosis, it was cheap and filled you up.

Cut to this afternoon, when I order my mini-pizza, go to the cooler to grab a can of soda, and turn back to the counter to see the pizza dude stretching out the dough, adding the toppings, and sliding the thing into the oven. I grab a seat, thinking ‘this is going to take a while,’ and spend 10 pleasant minutes people-watching while my pizza cooks.

I’m not really paying attention as it comes out of the oven and is boxed, but the pizza dude starts making the ‘it’s ready’ face, so I sidle over to the counter to pick up my food.

“Thanks,” I say, turning towards the door.

“Oh, wait!” pizza dude yells. “Here.”

He places 4 paper plates and 20 napkins on top of the box, and off I go.

I get back to my desk, open the pizza box, and discover this thing is the size of a tractor wheel. So I eat it. All of it. Even picked the onions off the waxed paper. Because I will never be a size 2, have never cared to be, and love to freakin’ eat.

What I resent is pizza dude’s assumption that I was going to share. Why else would he have given me enough plates and napkins for a small platoon of eaters? Granted, I had grossly underestimated what the word mini means to some people, but in my book mini = personal = all mine.

Because I am a shameless glutton, this happens all the time. When I order sushi, there’s 3 or 4 pairs of chopsticks crammed in the bag. Implication: I’ve ordered enough raw fish to feed 3 or 4 normal people. Indian food? You know there’s an extra naan in there. Ditto for tortillas and Mexican. Crumbled peanuts and Thai. I am an enthusiast of all the cuisines of the world available to me in New York, and all the delivery people seem to think I'm ordering meals for 4.

Is this a subtle commentary from America’s take out industry that I eat too much? I know children somewhere are starving and that makes me sad on the inside. But I can’t talk about it, because my mouth is too full.

Los Banditos

2007-08-23T15:10:00.000-05:00

Remember Prell?

I didn’t, until it hit me in the face in the elevator last month.

I’ve long thought, why get to know people, delve into their psyches, and really understand the cast of thousands who make up this ever rotating kaleidoscope of humanity we call New York City, when, instead, you can eye the dude who’s down the subway platform most mornings at 8:22, note his consistently shorter than average trousers, and then, for the next 2 years of mornings, think of him in your head as ‘Captain Short Pants’?

My insight is like a scythe slicing through the wheat of irony.

The really skinny, pretty crazy homeless guy with the cane who is usually on Lexington across the street from Grand Central who it’s hard to tell if he’s panhandling or just holding a cup of coffee, so you probably shouldn’t drop money into his cup? He always wears the same pair of jeans, which are normal denim colored at the top, but are faded acid washed denim from his shins downward, making it look like he’s kind of standing on stilts. He’s Mr. Stilts.

Every day is like a haiku in my brain.

I’ve named these two gentlemen with visual references in mind, but an olfactory reference point introduced me to a brand new dramatis personae: The Prell Bandit.

I feel like I used Prell in junior high, when my awkwardness was spiraling towards its spectacular peak (nadir?) circa the 1991-1992 school year. I had a horsey overbite, wore men’s extra-large waffle-knit henley shirts from Eddie Bauer (I had three in constant rotation), and apparently washed my hair with Prell.

I had forgotten completely about Prell until I had one of those Proust’s madeleine moments in the elevator, when I got on, and the whole damn car was stinking of shampoo. My brain wheeled, whirled, and gave me a single, glistening word, trembling like a drop of moisture on a turtle’s dewlap.

Prell.

Basically, no shampoo reeks as much as Prell, and even though the elevator was completely empty, it smelled like my shower the year I started plucking my eyebrows into something resembling two separate entities.

Who was this Prell Bandit? Did they know they were using a shampoo that might make them vulnerable to bear attacks? Is it legal to use a shampoo that lingers around like Elijah on a slow seder night?

Because of my searing intellect, I forget 98% of everything almost immediately, and I forgot about the Prell Bandit promptly. Until I got on the elevator a week later, and it was like the elevator had been doused in blood like in that scene from “The Shining” only the blood was invisible Prell odor.

I wish I could give you an accurate description of Prell’s cloying, highly perfumed chemical bouquet, but I lack the verbal ability. It’s got Lysol top notes with a base of alcohol and pairs well with Ivory soap.

Someone, somewhere, is using too much Prell. Do I leave a note? Do I walk from floor to floor sniffing, like a bipedal bloodhound? Or do I sit, endure, and wait for the elevator to start smelling like Timotei?

Bears!

2007-08-10T09:55:00.001-05:00

I'm going on a little camping trip this weekend with Reba and Anne and Ruth and Johnny. It's absolutely pissing down rain right now, and even though we're camping in Pennsylvania, I fear the ground might be soggy and muddy at best.

I haven't been camping in years, and my idea of roughing it is staying at a KOA, the Kampgrounds [sic] of America, where you get a kampsite, and not from the site, there's hot showers and clean bathrooms and maybe even a pool. You get the rustic perks of sleeping in a tent, and the hygienic perks of cleaning camp grit off of your body in the morning. Added plus - not having to pee behind a tree. (It's hard when you're a girl!) My high opinion of KOA comes from a trip I took years ago with my mom, called Dino Trek. It was arranged by the Lawrence Hall of Science, one of my favorite places in the world when I was a little girl.

On Dino Trek, 13 people went out in a 16 passenger van to see all the important dinosaur fossil sites in California, Arizona, Utah, Montana, and Nevada, over the course of two weeks. We spoke with paleontologists, and looked at loads of fossils. A plaster cast I made of a stegosaurus' tail spike still resides in the Lawrence Hall of Science, if I'm not mistaken.

Whilst on Dino Trek, we stayed exclusively in KOAs, hence my long and abiding love affair with camping that's not really camping, but you still get that good rustic feeling of sleeping on the ground and waking up to find your sleeping bag wet with dew.

Anne came over last night after she picked up the tent we're borrowing to sleep in for the weekend. I was asking her about the campground we're staying in, trying to gauge how close it would be to my precious KOAs. My subtext here was 'sure, but does it have showers?'

By the miracle of modern science and the birth control pill, I will have my period this weekend. So, apparently, will Anne. And so will Ruth. Not sure about Reba, but well all know that when a bunch of menstruating women get together . . .

So I was asking Anne about the showers because, well, when Aunt Flo comes to visit, you basically want to make sure a shower is in your daily schedule, for obvious reasons.

"They have showers? Hot showers?" I asked Anne. "Because I'll totally be riding the red pony."

"Sure," she said.

"That's good, because . . ."

"Why, are you worried about . . . ." she waved her hand, trying to figure out a way to complete the sentence delicately.

"Attracting bears?"

Yes. Yes I am afraid of attracting bears. Because then, this will happen:

Big ups to Stacey and Brandon, who composed and performed the music in this lovely video.

Pride (In the Name of Love)

2007-07-02T13:07:00.000-05:00

Like all SEOs, and most bloggers, I check stats on my blog to see how many hits I get a day, and how people are finding me.

It's usually pretty standard stuff; my name, my blog's name, my name + SEO, my name + Brooklyn or New York. Generally, nothing comes as much of a surprise.

Until today.

Thanks to this post I now come up #1 on Google searches for 'conch penis.'

Fantastic.

Tango Palace

2007-06-29T09:11:00.000-05:00

A million years ago, Adam and I were in a show called 'Tango Palace.' In a surreal Purgatorial environment, my evil-clown character sexually and emotionally tormented his innocent naive character for the better part of an hour. Minimal tango was involved.

Two weeks ago, at Alyson's wedding, the kick-ass band played one tango. Adam and I gave it a whirl (we were the only ones on the floor):

Neither of us can tango worth a damn, but I thought it was a cool picture.

Here's one of Alyson and me dancing. We couldn't decide who should lead, but since she was the bride, she got to pick.

As floofy, 13-pound wedding dresses go, hers in pretty bitchin', no? And I'm not exaggerating; the dress really did weigh 13 pounds. Day-um. She pulled it off with loads of grace for 7 hours, and then, when the time came, literally pulled it off, pleading with her aunt, Tracy, and me to "get it off! Just get it off!" No joke, that thing is friggin' heavy.

And, for the fans, here's one of me and my man (he's only stepping on my foot just the wee tiniest bit).

Don't know where the hell the Tina Turner crazy bicep came from, but I'm totally running with it!

Decline of an Empire

2007-06-27T10:01:00.000-05:00

In college, I lived in the West Village for 3 years, way over on Greenwich Street. NYU’s campus, if you can call it a campus, is primarily based around Washington Square, so it was always a bit of a hike to get to class and rehearsal, though there was something wonderful to be said about leaving Tisch late at night and grabbing a delectable ice cream at Cones on Bleecker to inhale on those last blocks home.

I loved living in the West Village, and my walk to and from home usually took me down Christopher Street, which is so steeped in gay identity, it makes the Castro look like the Vatican. Rainbow flags everywhere, the Stonewall Bar, S&M shops cheek by jowl with boutiques selling Liza Minelli tribute dolls. Oh, and drag queens who are far more lovely than I’ll ever be – better posture, more expertly applied makeup, better legs, and bigger tits.

Back in the day, Christopher Street was definitely exciting, and indisputably a little seedy. There was Two Potato, where I stopped in on one of my first days living out there, thinking about dinner, only to discover it was pretty much the place for hulking black gay male prostitutes to ply their trade. There was Henrietta Hudson, where the awning proclaimed ‘Bar and Girl.’ There were the tranny prostitutes who parked themselves outside of the PATH station, probably waiting for closeted NJ family men who wanted a quick spin before they went home to the wife and kids in Metuchen.

Amongst all of this urban splendor was also my very favorite bar of all time, the Blind Tiger. It had been a speakeasy during Prohibition, and had somehow survived the intervening years marvelously intact. Old dark wood bar, wide wooden planks on the floor, rough-hewn benches and tables. Bartenders who pulled pints and seemed to actually like doing it, an amazing pumpkin pie ale around Halloween, Sunday brunch with free bagels and fixings. It was a great small neighborhood bar with a mix of all types of people; NYU kids, hippies, yuppies, gays, straights, old regulars. The kind of bar you could go to by yourself and not feel out of place, or go with a group of friends and have a rowdy good time.

Kelda was in town, so yesterday we all met up at Cowgirl on Hudson for dinner and drinks. It’d been a long time since I had been in my old stomping grounds. I got off the 9 train and took a minute to get my bearings. I didn’t recognize a single store, and I wasn’t even sure I was walking in the right direction. Then I passed the church and the Lortel Theater, and at least I knew I was walking west.

A lot of the seedy sex shops were still there, still flaunting their remarkably bulging mannequins in rainbow-striped Speedos, but there were more cutesy teeny boutiques than I thought the street ever could have accommodated – jewelry, shoes, clothes, coffees and teas, perfumes – it’s like an extremely overpriced Turkish bazaar, but for really rich people.

“Well,” I thought, “it’s New York. Nothing stays the same for long.” Then I turned off Christopher and onto Hudson, and I saw it – the Blind Tiger, my beloved Blind Tiger, had been turned into a Starbucks.

A fucking Starbucks.

Anyone who knows me knows I loathe Starbucks. Actively hate it. Hate coffee that costs $5. Hate people who order shit like “non-fat double frap cappadinkydoo vente grande filter with skim.” Seriously, I hate you people. I hate that you can stand by the cube at Astor Place and count not one, not two, but 5 Starbucks without any effort (I’m counting the one in the Barnes and Noble).

I really started to hate Starbucks when they turned a lovely little café, Pasqua, into a big fucking Starbucks, and that was 9 years ago. Relations haven’t improved. They’re like a cancer in this city, and I don’t care about how awesome their special bottled Ethos water is supposed to make me feel, or how awesome their super special Starbucks-only CD is, or how awesome their wi-fi Mac using freakbag clientele thinks they are – Starbucks is the Walmart of coffee, and they can bite me.

All of this rage was present before I saw the Blind Tiger yesterday; I have now gone from rageful to incensed. It’s just one more reason I feel like I’m over New York, and ready for the next big thing. I’ll miss Brooklyn like the dickens, but there’s only one Starbucks in Park Slope.

For now . . .

Come Together

2007-05-30T13:17:00.000-05:00

This morning, I was on the second half of my commute. I take the 4,5 train now, and after a few weeks of testing transfer points and departure times, I’ve settled into a nice little groove. If I leave my house around 8:15, I can usually get to work around 9:05 or 9:10. I’m very routine-driven about some things, so I was pleased to finally adjust to a new commute schedule, hit my stride with the subway transfers, and figure out where I need to be on each train to maximize proximity to stairways. I find finding the best route to a new job is one of the things that makes me feel settled in, and this is really the first week I’ve been confident in where I need to be at what point in my commute.

The ride seemed pretty uneventful. I snagged a seat on the second stop, and settled in to my reading (St. Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised by Wolves – great title, decent read). I tend to be oblivious to the rest of the train car when I’m reading, especially if I have a seat. I’m pretty much immune to the shufflings and goings on of the other passengers, unless someone’s particularly loud or smelly (this means you, stank armpit guy from yesterday!).

We were somewhere between Chambers and 14th Street when all of a sudden, there was a commotion, and a tall man with long dreadlocks was shaking on the floor. His seizure couldn’t have lasted more than 15 or 30 seconds, but it was terrifying. As he was shaking, people were clearing away to make room for him. I put my handbag under his head to stop it banging on the floor, and passengers gathered around to see what they could do, how they could help.

The man stopped shaking, and came to groggily. “What happened?” he blinked. A small Asian woman was crouched by his side. “You had a seizure,” she told him. People started chorusing in, “Are you OK?” “Can we do anything?” A little fat lady halfway down the car called, “I have some water,” and hands reached out to pass the bottle to the stricken man. He took it, and more hands reached out to help him up and into a seat.

The small Asian woman clearly had some kind of medical training, as she started asking him about his medical history, if he’d had seizures before, if he’d eaten anything yet, where he was going when he got off the train. He said he was headed to the VA Hospital, which was at the 14th Street stop anyway.

A group of 4 or 5 people surrounded the man and helped him make his way off the train, and as we pulled out of the station, the small Asian lady was supporting the small of his back up the stairs. I would bet she went with him all the way to the hospital.

There were no life-saving heroics on my train this morning, just people acting decently towards someone in trouble. It was nice to see, and a pleasant reminder that I wish had stuck when, walking out of my office for lunch, I got stuck behind a slow-moving bleached blond in a teeny mini skirt and 5 inch heels and crankily thought, “whore."

So much for my touchy-feelies.

Canary in the Coalmine

2007-05-09T09:51:00.000-05:00

Google has decided to de-index me under searches for ‘Liz Keller’ for some reason, and I’d be a bad SEO if I didn’t try to figure out why, so do forgive the following exercise, wherein I’ve done a global search and replaced several mentions of ‘I’ with ‘Liz Keller.’ It’s like sending the algorithmic canary into the coalmine to see if it dies. See what you’ve driven me to, Google? DO YOU SEE??? But at least you get to read about the rest of my trip in Ireland, Steve’s general awesomeness, and my dislike of my new commute. And I promise not to do it again, unless I re-de-index.

Anyhoo . . .

In the old days, every time Liz Keller was gone from New York for more than 4 days, Liz Keller found myself getting terribly homesick for it. The crowds, the streets, the people, the general buzzing high you get from proximity to the city. But, as Liz Keller’s gotten older, Liz Keller has realized it’s similar to the buzz you get from stimulant drugs – exciting for a while, but you feel dirty and shameful as soon as you come down.

Liz Keller was gone for about a month, and Liz Keller didn’t miss New York for one single, solitary second. Liz Keller missed my friends, of course, and Liz Keller missed being able to find ricotta cheese and sushi (more on that to follow), but Liz Keller had no pangs for Manhattan, no desire to cram my face into someone’s armpit on the subway, no longing for streets smelling of urine and despair. I think Liz Keller may just be over Manhattan.

I still love Brooklyn, with beautiful Prospect Park, and the quieter streets and wonderful shops and restaurants. In fact, I wish Liz Keller didn’t have to ever leave Brooklyn. It’s still ultra-urban, but it is a lovely downshift from the frenetic hellishness that is the city. There are trees (yes, they do grow there) and families and hipsters and hippies and suits and everything in between and I know my local shopkeepers, and the bike shop gives me freebies, and I generally love a place I’m totally comfortable getting around on my bike. Manhattan is not such a place, and I can’t say I feel like I can tolerate it much longer. 5 years ago, Liz Keller would be sneering at myself in contempt, but now I just feel crispy-fried.

Ireland, on the other hand, is the anti-Manhattan, and thank god for that! Liz Keller had unbelievably good weather (3 days of rain out of 29), and the temperature was in the mid-60s (18 for my UK readers) the vast majority of the time. The country is beautiful, the people are lovely, and Steve is just about the best man I’ve ever known.

Liz Keller spent time being very domestic – lots of cooking - which I love but never have time to do, Liz Keller gardened, we puttered around town, there was more fishing (on one excursion, Steve caught Monster Trout –4.5 pounds of fishy fun), we went to see his parents (fantastic people, and incredibly nice, even if they did keep introducing me as ‘Ruth’s friend from New York,’ as Steve and Liz Keller stood holding hands in the background), and we just got to spend some wonderful time together and really try on our relationship for size in real time and space. Steve is good for me, and, if Liz Keller can swing it, living in Ireland might turn out to be good for me too. Or getting Steve to New York. We’re working on it.

My one true culture shock was with the food. These are people who think powdered meats such as smoky bacon and chicken belong on their potato chips. I argue that meat should not come in powdered form, and I’d also like to give a shout out to the fine people at the TayTo Crisp Company for their kick-ass pickled onion and cheddar crisps. Primo!

Crisps aside, this is also an area where Italian cookery is covered in cheddar, and where the guy at the cheese shop asked us if ricotta was a brand. Liz Keller was determined to make lasagna, but we could only locate one small tub of ricotta at ASDA (owned by Wal-Mart, the bastards), and ended up getting another tub at the Tesco in Belfast. Liz Keller was also in severe sushi withdrawal (hey, pizza only came to Enniskillen 20 years ago, and that was considered a novelty, so I’m not holding out for sushi there any time soon . . . ) so we went to a nice little Japanese restaurant in Belfast, where the sushi wasn’t half bad, but they had never heard of shumai. Sigh. If I move there, Liz Keller might have to adjust my culinary standards a bit. Maybe things are a bit more diverse in Dublin, but we didn’t make it down there this trip.

Other than the food conflicts, the trip could not have possibly gone any better, and now I’m just counting down the days until Steve gets here for Alyson’s wedding (25). If I’m going to give up my country for anyone, it sure as hell better be him.

Liz Keller started my new job on Monday, and after a month of not working, Liz Keller was about as enthusiastic about going back to work as I would be about elective oral surgery. It’s still that ‘new kid in school’ feeling, and while I have my own office and feel very grown up, so far it’s been a little lonesome and the commute is a bitch bastard. It’s close to an hour, and while that doesn’t seem like much, an hour on NYC subways is like 20 years in purgatory. I haven’t yet worked out the best way to get here, and working on the East Side truly limits one’s options. I have always been spoiled with relatively easy commutes, and I guess it’s high time I had a craptacular one, but any way I slice it, I wish Liz Keller could be at a little office in Brooklyn, which Liz Keller could ride my bike to, and not get squished by a semi or get all sweaty crossing the damn bridge.

Or, Liz Keller could just go back to Ireland. Now.

Liz Keller.

My Big Irish Update

2007-04-18T10:03:00.000-05:00

So far, so good, people. This place is greener, the Guinness fresher, and Steve more nauseatingly perfect for me than I could possibly have hoped for.

For the first ten days of my trip, Steve took off work, so we puttered around together and had the first trial of our previously Skype-based relationship: could we stand each other 24-7 or would I be paying an unscheduled visit to my London friends to get the hell out of here? I am delighted to report we’ve been getting along famously. For some reason, it feel like we’ve been together for a very long time, and we are so easy and comfortable with each other. I could bust out my New York hard-core makeup and clothes, but he seems to like me just fine with splotchy skin, old jeans, and curly air-dried hair.

Steve lives not far from Lough Erne, which is this giant massive lake with a crap ton of fish in it. Steve, his friend John, and John’s son James have taken me fishing twice, and both times I’ve caught brown trout!

Let me be the first to tell you, the actual catching of the fish requires no skill at all. The tying of the hooks on the rods, and driving the boat around to where the fish are, and sitting on a wooden seat in chilly misty rain for hours on end is where the skill set comes in. The hauling in of a hapless fish is this crazy adrenaline rush. The second time we were out, this 1.5 pound monster managed to hook itself on my line, and reeling it in was like hauling in a bloody bus. One dispatches the fish by thwacking its head on the side of the boat’s seats, and so far, I have left this delicate duty to Steve. I can catch the things, sure, but clubbing them to their death is something else entirely. The first fish I caught was a Terminator Fish, and refused to die. When it finally did, after repeated beatings by Steve and young James (who got his chocolate Easter egg snack covered in droplets of fish blood in the process) I had to grip its sad little corpse in my hands while Steve took a picture of it (note James’s ‘hark at the stupid American’ smirk in the background.) Fishing is not for the squeamish.

Steve lives in Ballinamallard, which is right on the border of Northern Ireland and the South. As soon as you cross over, all the signs are in Gaelic, and the currency switches from the pound to the Euro. My wallet is now filled with equally pointless money, and I’ve handed shopkeepers the wrong weird coin too many times to count. They just kind of roll their eyes, acknowledge my accent, and move on.

We drove down to the South near Kilkenny for a few days to visit Steve’s uncle Robin and his girlfriend Avril who are fixing up a house to be a B & B. Avril and her kids are horsey people, so Avril arranged for us to go on a ride. Steve is decidedly not a horsey person, and I haven’t ridden in years, but I got to do some jumping, and Steve gained about a million points in my book for being a great sport about the whole thing.

Things I have driven, the speed at which they were driven, and why it matters: A horse, at a canter, because I love horses and riding and it was a special treat. Steve’s speedboat, at 40 miles per hour, because I was scared shitless of driving into a rock or something but it was really fun, and because the boy has way more faith in me than he should. Steve’s car, at 15 miles per hour in a parking lot, because driving a diesel stick shift is totally different than driving an unleaded one, and because having the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car is a lovely spatial challenge for a girl who nearly failed Geometry.

Wrong side of the road driving and roundabouts are certainly something to think about. A friend of Steve’s has lent me her bike, so I’ve been venturing out on little excursions. I need to keep telling myself which side of the road I need to be on, and when I hit a roundabout, to take deep breaths, not panic, and hope to god no one hits me as I noodle my way through it.

Enniskillen, the largest nearby town, is about 7 miles away. I was a little freaked out when we first hit Ballinamallard, Steve’s town, since it’s one main street with a post office, a grocery, two bars, and mostly just farmland after that. But Enniskillen is pretty cosmopolitan, with good shopping, cute little shops and boutiques, and apparent stuff to do. It’s not exactly Times Square on a Friday night, but I’m not in Summerteethville either.

So, that’s it from here, for now. I have to go make sure Terminator Fish has defrosted, as I’m making him for dinner.

Une Petite Freakout

2007-04-03T09:30:00.000-05:00

One of these days I’ll grow up to be a rational, logical, cool-headed decision-maker. This is not that day.

I am, for better or worse, in the habit of making big impulsive choices and then sitting back in a cloud of nuclear fall-out waiting for my third eye to sprout.

My schedule for what remains for the week:
Wednesday: Leave job
Thursday: Leave country

I love, love, love my job, but as they’ve decided to move my office to New Jersey, I’ve decided I really don’t need to do that commute. I commuted from Princeton to Wall Street every day for two years, and it literally made me a crazy woman. And that was with the availability of public transit. With our new NJ office, we are totally reliant on van service to get there, as even public transit seems to realize no one actually wants to be in Englewood Cliffs and would never voluntarily go there. The move is now rumored to be happening in December or later, but I found what I hope is a fantastic job at a new place, where I can have a lot of impact doing what I do best, where the pay is a lot better, and which is blessedly in New York, with little chance of a bull-shitty office move to an inhospitable environment. So I took that job, and I start in a month.

In the mean time, I’ll be in Ireland with Mr. One Night Stand Who Actually Turned Out to Be Totally Awesome. He wasn’t what I was expecting, and I certainly wasn’t planning to float off to the Emerald Isle for a month, but I’m so damn sick of New York right now I could scream, and I want to see if Mr. ONSWATOTBTA and I are as compatible as we seem to think we are. So off I go on what could either be an amazing, life-changing, heart-expanding trip, or a total miscalculation, in which case . . .meh. I figure you only go ‘round once, so you should try to squeeze as many experiences out of life while you can.

Now I’m just in the ‘change is scary!’ phase, where I have slight cold feet and am second guessing everything from ‘did I really need the other, more massive suitcase?’ to ‘why can’t I lick my own elbow? It totally seems like it should be physiologically possible.’

It’s just a little mini freak-out, and I trust it will pass, but in the mean time, if I’m hyperventilating in the corner, just tell me it’s charming and keep moving.

Over-Literal Mime-Dancing

2007-03-27T11:58:00.000-05:00

Adam and I went to see Edward Scissorhands at BAM on Friday, and I had one of those theatrical experiences where I was left thinking “did I miss something?”

This production was directed, conceived, choreographed, and for all I know, lit and designed by Matthew Bourne. He’s allegedly one of those polymath types, who’s hailed as a genius in his native England for his bold steps in moving modern dance in a brave new direction. He’s done shocking – shocking! – productions of Swan Lake where all the swans, and the corps de ballet are – gasp!- men! He’s responsible for a ‘re-imagining’ of “Carmen” entitled – wait for it . . . – “Car Man.”

Adam saw “Car Man” when he was in London and was distinctly unimpressed with his introduction to over-literal mime-dancing. As per Adam:

-dancer indicating ‘it’s so hot’ - wipes brow torturously –

-dancer indicating ‘but I must work on this car, man.’ – makes levering motion with arm -

And so on . . .

So when we went to see Edward Scissorhands at BAM, my expectations were already low. Over-literal mime-dancing just doesn’t really appeal to me. And over-literal mime-dancing is what Mr. Bourne does best – no, it is just what Mr. Bourne does.

Adam’s take on the show is far more insightful than mine, so I’ll limit myself to general bitchery. If I hadn’t seen the movie umpteen times in my youth, I would have had no idea what was going on, despite the O-L M-D. Maybe it’s just that this plot doesn’t lend itself easily to ballet, but that’s bullshit, because I’ve seen plenty of ballets in my day that have had complicated plots that were crystal-clear, despite their lack of scooters, slutty neighbors, and barbeque grills on-stage.

There’s the dream ballet towards the end of the first act, where Edward and Kim dance with the topiary-come-to-life, where the topiary dancers are wearing leafy cubes on their heads. If some costume designer came up to me holding a leafy tutu and a cube and told me that was my costume for the anemic attempt at an homage to Jerome Robbins scene, I would have jete’d my ass out of there, pronto. I know Jerome Robbins, sir, and you are no Jerome Robbins!

At one point during the dream ballet, Adam turned to me, forlorn, and mumbled, “Where are his scissor-hands?” They were just not on, but it wasn’t like they were dramatically removed to indicate Edward’s opposable-thumbed dreamscape, it was just like the dresser had forgotten to put them on for the scene.

I am a big believer in theatre etiquette, and that means dressing up for the theatre, sitting back in my seat instead of leaning forward, not making out with my companion for the evening, if my companion is someone with whom I make out (ahem, people sitting in front of us!). As such, 99.99% of the time I stay for the duration of the show, out of respect for the performers. I left at intermission at The Cape Man, but that was just so inexcusably bad I felt I had no choice.

When Adam murmured to me “It’s OK if you want to leave at intermission,” I heaved a sigh of relief, and felt oh so much better when we made our way down Lafayette and had drinks to restore us. Not sure how the second act went, and really can’t say that I give a damn.

My Elevator Speech

2007-03-13T13:13:00.000-05:00

I have one of those jobs which is kind of hard to sum up quickly in a sentence, like, “I’m a lawyer,” or “I sell counterfeit jewelry.” I’ve never been able to refine my spiel into the ‘elevator speech’ you’re supposed to have ready and waiting as a professional. Instead, I have to take the, “Well, it’s like this. . .” route, and tailor my account of what I do based on how much the person to whom I’m talking knows about digital media.

I am an SEO. I do search engine optimization for websites.

Here is the part where most people get the glazed, blank look where I know they have no idea what the hell I’m talking about. Let me explain: I make your website findable when people look for your stuff on Google or Yahoo! or whatever. It’s kind of the perfect job for me; a balance of creativity and technical proficiency that makes me decidedly dorky but highly evangelical about what I do. I could seriously talk about SEO all day, in a way that, as my audience is committing seppuku and leaping from windows, I’d still be happily rattling on, oblivious to the mayhem and carnage before me.

Today a colleague mentioned that my name had come up in an industry-related podcast. Now, the SEO world is pretty small, but still, I had no idea I was on such a short list. The podcaster was actually quoting this article about some of the 60 top in-house SEO’s in America. I was included on the list, and now I feel like a total bad-ass. A flattered bad-ass, but a bad-ass nonetheless. It’s nice to be recognized for what one does (and loves).

I’m leaving my current job, which I adore, in early April, as our offices are relocating far, far away, and commuting is totally not my thing. Without doing a lick of legwork, I was able to secure a new job at an awesome place, where I feel resources and support will be no problem. I’m a little heartbroken to be leaving my current job, but it was incredibly reassuring to walk into interviews knowing I DO know my stuff, and I AM an expert in my weird niche. I shall now go celebrate myself by buying shoes.

Bahamavention

2007-03-07T11:41:00.000-05:00

According to our cab driver, the original name for Paradise Island in the Bahamas is Boar Island . It was renamed when it was developed as a tourist destination, but in my opinion, it is still chock-full of boars. Only the spelling has changed; it’s now full of boors, and/or bores.

Homonyms aside, fat American tourists on vacation are depressing. I can’t imagine why you’d go to the trouble of traveling to another country to do all the things you could do at home. In the case of my hefty countrymen, that thing is apparently eating.

A lot.

All the time.

With the eating comes the waddling, and the misappropriation of Spandex garments, and more of the eating. These people represent the worst of our culture. They have no curiosity about the country they’re visiting, the people who actually live there, the food they eat, their music, any of it.

No, they seem to want a tropical America with all-you-can-eat buffet, Starbucks, and McDonald’s in a one block radius so as to minimize any unwelcome walking from cruise ship or mega resort to bland and familiar dining establishment. They were all over the monstrosity of a hotel we stayed in, and all over Paradise Island in general, and all over only the main drag in Nassau. Presumably the rest of Nassau had a bit too much ‘native culture’ to make my fellow Americans comfortable.

Fortunately, I was with Reba and Anne, both of whom are great to travel with and go to new places to experience them, not to sit poolside and feed.

We left the morning after my birthday. I had gone out to celebrate, and didn’t get home ‘til about 12:30 AM. I dutifully set my alarm for 5:07, but apparently forgot to actually turn it on, so when Reba called at 5:20 to make sure I was up and moving, I was neither up nor moving.

We dragged in to the airport for our 8 AM flight to Charlotte, where we connected to our Bahamas flight. When we finally got to Nassau, we were delighted to discover a Bacardi stand handing out free Bahama Mamas. We were less delighted to discover the luggage for 50% of the people on our plane had gone missing, including all of our bags.

The Bahamian lifestyle seems to exclude both expeditious thought or action, so we fretted around for over an hour until the palette containing our luggage was finally located and leisurely unloaded on the floor of baggage claim.

The trend continued at the hotel, where we arrived to discover our reservation in no way meant we actually had a room waiting for us. 45 more minutes of us and our American getitdonerightnowforchrist’ssake vs. the Bahamian it’ll get done when it gets done at some point probably today.

A room was finally located for us, and we wearily dropped our bags and flopped down on the rather creepy private beach for a few drinks. By 9:30, we were all dead asleep.

The next day was significantly better. We were up early, grabbed breakfast, then headed out on rented bikes to explore the east side of the island, where we were told there would be fewer tourists. We’d only gone a few miles when we heard loud music coming from a park, so we turned in to investigate. We discovered an amazing local festival/regatta, and we appeared to be the only non-locals there.
Anne spotted some jet-skis, and after some haggling with the owner, the three of us were tearing around on the bay, whooping and hollering and jumping each others’ wakes. For once in my life, I was like, “Hell yes, fossil fuel!”

While we waited for the alleged regatta to start (we were there 4 hours and never saw one damn boat), we met Donnie, a guy selling conch salad that he made with live conch that squirmed as he cut it. To make conch salad, you take one conch, dice it, add onions and tomatoes, two kinds of Bahamian peppers (finger and goat), and lemon, lime and orange juice. It’s like the best ceviche in the universe. Totally fresh, totally healthy, and insanely delicious. Reba bought a big plate of meat from some people who were grilling nearby, which we shared with Donnie and his crowd, including a guy who had pot leaf bling, a pot leaf t-shirt. and jeans with little embroidered pot leaves all over them, which I found hilarious in its total lack of subtlety.

Washed down with a few cans of Kalik, the ubiquitous Bahamian beer, while sitting in bright sun, and smoking a Cuban cigar of dubious provenance, I can safely say that is an ideal way to spend an afternoon.

Cultural reference point: in Bahamian culture, the conch’s ‘jelly tube,’ or penis, is supposed to impart strength and virility to one who ingests it. After the urging of our new friends, I went and ate conch penis. This is the face you make immediately after eating conch penis:

We gave up on the bikes, which had three gears and coaster breaks, after my bike decided it didn’t feel like staying in gear, which means the brakes failed totally. Stopping a moving bike wearing flip flops sucks, in case you had any questions about that. The skin on your toes does serve a purpose, and you miss it when it's gone.

We went out snorkeling on a windy day, so the ocean was wave-tossed and silty. Outbound, I was fine. The divemasters invited Reba, Anne and me to sit up with them in the wheel house, which was fantastic. Once we were at anchor, though, I started to regret eating, anything, ever. I know I get seasick, and had even taken preventative Dramamine, but that was no match for the escape route my breakfast wanted to take. I was sick in the water, sick in the scary marine toilet, sick off the side of the boat, sick in my hand, sick in my hair. I spent the last part of the trip clutching the side of the boat, gazing at the horizon, hoping for death, and cursing the people still in the water for not getting back on the bloody boat so we could go back to shore.

Lots of Bahamian food is fried, which I can’t say I love, but those people know their seafood, and we had a great deal of it. My favorite was still Donnie’s conch salad, but Reba had some damn fine grouper, I had the kick-ass smudder fish, and we all ate really well at Traveller’s Rest, a fantastic restaurant Reba had found and added to her incredibly thorough and well-organized Bahamas travel folder. If I ever have to plan the invasion of a country, I want Reba with me.

All in all, I don’t think I’m a tropical island kind of girl, but it was great to get out of Dodge for a while, and better yet to escape my hideous countrymen. I’m also pretty fired up to have tan lines in March, and even though they’re fading fast, my memories of conch penis and projectile vomit are mine forever.

My Public Face

2007-03-05T20:37:00.000-05:00

I left work a litte early today; I had to make a very important phone call. I was walking down 37th, thinking about my day, about my evening -- nothing especially salient.

I was passing the church when I felt myself getting the full-body eye grope, the kind where you feel just a little dirty for being in someone's creepy sight line. He was a large man wearing a velour jumpsuit standing in front of a Catholic church. He had a moustache. Yeah, that guy.

"Whatchu lookin' so depressed fow-uh? Its sucha gawjus day!"

I flashed him a quick, tight smile and hastened on my way. In my wake, I heard, "Ey! That's bettuh."

Do I look so miserable walking down the street that complete strangers feel the need to comment on it? It happened when I was in college, too, as I walked across Washington Square.

I feel like I have a neutral public face, but apparently the look is funereal. Screw it -- for all people know, I was at a funeral.

I've been back from the Bahamas less than a week, and already this city is getting under my skin again. Maybe it's time for a change of scene.

For Cynics

2007-02-13T22:10:00.000-05:00

A saccharine thought from a non-saccharine person. When things are good, take the time to enjoy them.

I spend far too much time feeling snarky. It is important to remind myself I should hold on to good memories as tightly as I clutch the bad ones.

Even though a friend told me I looked like I got dressed in the dark this morning.

A Good Bang

2007-02-06T19:17:00.000-05:00

What do you do when you click with your Irish friend's brother when he's in for a visit for the week? Take him home and have your way with him, of course!

Out of character? Definitely.

Any regrets? None whatsoever.

Pity there's an ocean in the way.

A Bad Bang

2007-01-31T10:29:00.000-05:00

Work has been beyond insane lately. I mean, what kind of bullshit week leaves me no time to read Gawker, or Go Fug Yourself, or even the frikkin’ Times?

Answer: this week.

And yet vanity still wins out. On Monday, I caught a glimpse of my pallid white face burning under the vicious glow of my office’s fluorescents, and realized the most unflattering part of this picture was my hair, blown into a stringy, straw-textured mass, with the ill-conceived highlights I had put in in the fall showing their march towards split-ended death.

I looked away from my monitor for the first time in 7 hours to call my local salon and see if there was any way I could pop in for a cut. I thought, if there was enough time, I’d get a quick color in to minimize my wilting highlights.

I got a 7:00 slot with a stylist I used to see years ago. She had left my salon, but had recently returned. I have gotten some good cuts with her, so I felt confident to let her shear me.

I flatter myself to say it, but I think I look a little bit like Tina Fey, especially when I used to rock cat’s-eye glasses. For some reason, I feel like my hair and Tina Fey’s hair are texturally similar, and I did a GIS to see if I couldn’t go to the salon with some examples.

I liked this:

And this:

Sleek, cute, modern. Looks like they require a little work, but not like an army of highly paid stylists must appear every morning to do battle with nature.

I especially like her swoopy bangs. My hair has been so lank and lackluster lately, I thought bangs might be a nice touch, especially since my Photoshopped appearance (thanks, JFED) in Judas Priest has gotten people telling me I look good with bangs.

It’s a little mullet-tastic for my taste, but it did get me thinking . . .

I went through the trouble of printing out the pictures, and then managed to leave them sitting on my desk as I sprinted out of work to get back to Brooklyn on time

So I went to the salon pictureless. We got the color out of the way, and then the cutting began. She did the back first, and I wasn’t thrilled to see the razor-comb come out. Wispy isn’t really what I was shooting for, but she’s the expert.

Then she went for the bangs. I haven’t had bangs since 5th grade, when I had hideous ones that started somewhere near the back of my head and were worn like a comb over. Snip, and they were dangling halfway down my face.

“Oh, no, no. Let’s make them shorter.” Ah, the fatal words. Snip. Snip. Snipsnipsnipsnipsnip.

It’s never a good feeling when you look at your hairdresser, and the expression on her face is clearly saying “Oh, shit.”

She kept cutting, and the bangs kept getting shorter and more uneven. They refused to swoop, but instead stuck out like the tendrils of a sick plant. The stylist pulled out the pomade and tried to lacquer them into place, which just made matters worse, as the ragged pieces clumped together over my forehead. She sighed, pulled out a bobby pin, and said, “You’ll probably want to leave that on overnight.”

I haven’t had such a sinking feeling in a salon for years, since the time I decided I wanted to cut my hair short, and came out looking like a militant lesbian.

I slept badly, and woke Tuesday dreading having to style this mess myself. As it turns out, the hair isn’t that bad, but it’s more of a Rachel, circa 1992, than what I was going for.

Next time, I bring the bloody pictures in with me.

Get the Led Out

2007-01-25T13:22:00.000-05:00

I’ve spent the last few months at work coaxing a high-level project into fruition. It’s my brainchild, my baby, my precioussss. If all goes according to plan, it will improve my site’s performance on the search engines, and could potentially be used as one model for our digital environment moving forward.

It might not be the prettiest project out there, but it was perfect in its utilitarian functionality. There’s plenty of pretty Flash-driven, Java-laden content on the web, but as a user, and as someone who works in technology, at the end of the day, I could give a damn how pretty a page is if it doesn’t tell me what I want to know. If I’m looking for something, I want to find it, not spend 45 seconds waiting for your elaborate Flash animation to load and wow me with its blazing glory. Content is only useful to me if it’s clear, easy to navigate, and free from unnecessary bells and whistles.

My Project had nary a bell or a whistle. It’s what I think of as Good Internet: it fulfills a need, it’s optimized to come up in search, and its navigation could not be simpler.

But, because it’s being built for my Big Media Company, it had to be, in corporate-speak, monetized. We had to place ads on it, and allow the pages to be sponsored to generate revenue.

My baby is now shilling for The Man. What was once pure and unadulterated HTML, virginal hyperlinks, and optimized copy now has “This page brought to you by . . .” plopped on the top. There’s a massive sponsor ad right in the middle (above the fold, thank you!), and Yahoo! urges you to buy, buy, buy across the bottom.

I was bitching to Jenny about the Frankenstein-esque transformation my project has undergone, from noble link list to monster of capitalism. Jenny thought for a moment, then said, “It’s like the first time you see the commercial for Cadillac with the Led Zeppelin music.”

It is exactly like that, to me. The almighty dollar has to be the bottom line for any successful business, but that doesn’t make it any less depressing.

Pita

2007-01-23T22:15:00.000-05:00

There’s a little falafel/schawarma joint on 38th called Pick-a-Pita which Josh introduced me to. Jenny had a run-in with some questionable chicken there, but I’ve had some seriously tasty lunches in pita format.

The caveat for dining at Pick-a-Pita is the fact that, to get to it, you have to walk through a creepy, nondescript, industrial hallway. It’s the kind of hallway where they shoot the gritty rape scene in the tough crime drama - all poor lighting and concrete floors and windowless swinging doors. For this reason, we call Pick-a-Pita, Rapey Pita.

At the end of today, I was talking with Preeta, Madlena, and George, discussing my gimpy track record and the perils of going for drinks with an unknown guy on Thursday. I was joking, in the way that’s probably asking for trouble, that he’s probably a serial killer and I’ll end up with my obituary on Page 6.

Me: Yeah, It’ll be like Rapey Pita.

Madlena: Without the pita . . .

Sonic Youth

2007-01-22T11:43:00.000-05:00

In high school, I had a progressive Honors and AP English teacher, who taught us how to write, and think, like adults, and also the proper way to eat salad. Mrs. Condon was not universally beloved, but those who did love her loved her with the passion of religious converts; her words were doctrine, and to this day I find myself quoting her or self-editing my work with her hawk-eyed, zero-bullshit-tolerance approach.

As she was a progressive teacher, we never had to suffer the indignity of by-the-numbers, question-response regurgitative assignments. Oh, no. Mrs. Condon wanted our malleable little minds to think for ourselves, to take in information and synthesize it in such a way as we’d be served by it long after our standardized testing days were in the murky past.

To this end, our assignments were always unique. She had a very strict system for writing papers; there were several formats which needed to be followed. Deviation from the correct format resulted in a failing grade, regardless of the quality of the writing. I deviated once, I got a D, and I learned my lesson. The lesson was discipline, and it stuck. I loathed her for the first semester I had her, in my sophomore year. Finally what she was trying to do sunk in, and by my senior year, we’d often have lunch together, where I’d sit by her desk and try and absorb her fierce sense of reason, logic, and authority.

Our untraditional assignments frequently included analyses of art and music in conjunction with whatever text we were working on at the time. On in-class writing days, we’d bring in our walkmans, pop in our choice of music, and start writing. The classroom was silent, save for the scurry of pen on paper.

On one such day, a classmate leaned over to me, headphones in, and yelped, “Liz! Do you have an extra pen?” in what she clearly thought was a normal volume, but was actually incredibly loud. Everyone jumped, then started laughing. I learned that day that what sounds normal to you, when you’re wearing headphones, is probably closer to a shriek.

Cut to my subway ride home on Friday. The past week had been outrageously stressful, and I just wanted a seat, some peace and quiet, and a filthy dirty Stoli martini (not necessarily in that order.) I snagged a seat at 34th, by the sweet grace of Jebus, even though it was next to a leaning sleeper and a man of larger than average girth. Beggars can’t be choosers, so I inserted myself into the middle, opened up my New Yorker, and settled in for the ride home.

The leaning sleeper leaned and slept, and the man of larger than average girth rustled around in his bag for his iPod headphones. I tucked my elbows in and picked up the opening brass strains of “Can’t Take That Away From Me” leaking from the big guy’s headphones.

All right, whatever – it’s a little loud, but I’m really into the fiction piece. Then it starts up: Dude, oblivious to where he is, starts yowling along to his music. Pitch? Not so much. Volume? Check! He is loud, he is proud, he’s not so solid on all the lyrics. But, bless him, that big band is blasting in his ears, and he’s probably sure he’s humming just under his breath, not belting it out louder that Old Blue Eyes. People’s heads are swiveling to take him in, and his eyes are closed, so he’s clueless that not everyone is thrilled about this spontaneous concert.

We went through most of the damn album – “Luck Be a Lady,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” “A Very Good Year,” and homeslice howled through them all.

The learning and takeaway: your headphones do not give you sonic immunity. Tone it down, and save it for the shower, not my Friday subway ride home.

When in Charleston . . .

2007-01-18T09:56:00.000-05:00

Do not actually do the Charleston. I was tempted to on several occasions, but realized it’d just be gay.

Actually, Charleston is an awesome old town, and best seen in the company of some of your closest friends from college. Last weekend, Adam and I flew down to visit Alyson and check out her new digs. We were saddened only by the fact that Kelda, the fourth corner of our troublesome foursome, had told us she would not be coming.

Adam and I had a hellish airport experience thanks to the ~~fine~~ bastard people at Delta, where our first flight was delayed, our second flight was canceled (but the cancellation was not announced) and the third flight finally limped into South Carolina (by way of unmotivated Atlanta) 6 hours late. Grrrrr.

But Alyson came swinging around to collect us in her elderly Mercedes, and then, who comes rising up like a phoenix from the passenger seat but Kelda, having hatched a diabolical plan to surprise us!

So began our semi-regular reunion.

When not selling real estate, Alyson flies C-17s for a living. These are, by any standard, some big-ass mofo planes. Like ‘holy crap that bitch is not getting off the ground’ big ass. Really. Look –

See my weeny friends? See the plane? That’s a big ass mofo!

I got to pretend to be a love pilot.

There’s something truly empowering sitting behind the controls of a $300,000,000 aircraft and then looking out the window and seeing a whole bunch more of them. Like, “America, fuck yeah!”

Alyson is totally blasé about the whole flight line experience, but Adam, Kelda and I were goggling around wide-eyed, while Alyson barked at us to stay with her. We were, after all, in a place where deadly-force is A-OK.

In Charleston, the food is awesome, and cheap! I had some of the best carrot cake ever at a sweet little French cafeteria-like joint that also had sick Croques Monsieurs.

Mmmmm…cake.

We had a fancy dining night, where I was the designated driver (yeah, I know, I couldn’t believe it either). I totally ran out of steam early, but the gang wanted to keep going, so I trailed along. The last stop of the night was the Pantheon, an ‘alternative establishment.’ ‘Alternative establishment’ = gay club = hilarious. In New York, all you need is a rainbow flag and people pretty much know what’s going on in there. In Charleston, apparently, you need a sign on the door explaining this club is not like all other clubs. Kelda worked her wiles to try to get us in, but despite her radiant hotness, the doorman wouldn’t let us in for free, so that was the end of that.

We spent a lot of time strolling along Charleston’s main drag, King Street, and were spiritually cleansed when Adam and I joined Kelda for a Unitarian church service on Sunday morning.

My favorite day was when we went to the beach. We had a kite that attacked Kevin, Alyson's fiance, but would not fly,

and there was lots of jumping involved.

Love my lovely friends, love Charleston, and look forward to our next grand adventure together. Madison ’08, bitches?

I Just Memed a Little in My Mouth

2007-01-09T09:50:00.000-05:00

Adam just tagged me for a meme-off, with the meme being 5 things about yourself your readership doesn’t know about you.

Here goes:

I am pathologically, screamingly, irrationally afraid of anything with an exoskeleton. I especially can not handle roaches, not even to kill them. If it crunches when I squish it, I can’t squish it. If it’s already dead, I am still unable to deal with it. If there is no one else available to deal with it, I can’t just pick its crunchy corpse up with a tissue; I have to use a long-handled broom and dustpan so I come nowhere near to touching it. Once it’s in the garbage, I have to double bag and double knot it and avert my face in case it somehow magically comes back to life and tries to attack me. Despite this, I am very fond of rodents and snakes, and just happen to be really girly about bugs.

Every time I get a bad sunburn, I’m secretly delighted, as I love it when my skin peels and I can pull off little sheets of it and pretend it’s papyrus.

I am ambidextrous. The only things I do consistently with my left hand are writing, using chopsticks, and throwing a Frisbee. Almost everything else is right handed. I always hold the phone to my left ear and chew on the left side, but kick with my right foot. When riding my bike, I always push down on the pedal with my left foot. I used to write equally well with both hands, but I was forced to pick one in third grade. I used to cry when I had to use right-handed scissors, but my brain has since compensated and rewired itself.

If I don’t have my morning coffee and my subsequent morning poop, I am very cranky.

Every time I get on a plane, I have to touch the outside of it as I walk through the door, or else the plane will crash. I try to be subtle about it and kind of lean on/grab the metal as I’m going in like I momentarily lost my balance, but really I’m ensuring that the plane stays airborne like it’s supposed to.

I will tag Amanda and Cristi to keep this meme rocking.

Mrs. Butterworth's Conspiracy

2007-01-08T10:48:00.000-05:00

This morning, when I got off the train at 34^th Street, the subway station was reeking of natural gas.

New Yorkers, as a rule, ignore everything, whether everything is a pan-handling woman wearing a potato sack, Crocs, and flaming-red dyed hair, or the smell of a gas leak in the morning. Even if they aren’t actively ignoring it, they’re not really commenting on it either; twitching a shoulder to let the pan-handler pass, and maybe sniffing the air curiously, but not sniffing deeply and then turning to fellow passers-by with widened eyes to confirm something smells ‘not quite right.’

So when I got off the train and caught my first whiff, I did what any New Yorker would; put my head down, my umbrella up, and trudged my way into the office, where I promptly forgot about it, assuming I was just smelling things, and no one else had noticed.

My co-workers started trickling in about 10, and Josh and Preeta started talking about it as they waited for their computers to fire up. This helpfully confirmed I’m not crazy and that my stress-addled brain is not manufacturing phantom trouble smells.

Josh checked the news wires, and yes, Con-Ed has indeed been fielding calls about a mysterious natural gas smell which has blanketed the entire city, but is particularly strong in mid town. No explanation as to what it is, at least not as of 10:30 this morning.

This unexplained smelly event reminded me of last year’s Maple Syrup Incident, wherein the city, its boroughs, and Jersey smelled exactly like someone had poured Mrs. Butterworth’s all over everything. The syruping of the city happened twice, and a Google search for ‘syrup smell NYC’ brings up plenty of articles about the incident itself, but nothing by way of explanation.

Josh has postulated it’s The Man, doing a clandestine test to see how chemical weapons might spread across the city. In the absence of any explanation, I’m a bit apt to agree with him. I don’t abide by most conspiracy theories, but I couldn’t find anything online to explain it. (As we all know, if you read it online, it’s true.)

This natural gas odor is far less pleasant than the maple syrup smell, but the syrup was far more creepy. What the hell makes an entire city smell like a diner, then goes away, and is never explained?

And today, is it possible that one gas leak could stink up the entire city? Or will this, too, fade into the annals of city lore?

“Remember that day when midtown smelled like gas?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“Whatever happened with that?”

“Dunno…”

Oooooh.

Last Gasp

2007-01-03T12:48:00.000-05:00

Since I was a little kid, I’ve been plagued with two minor, but annoying, medical problems. One is migraines and the other is a terrible allergy to mold.

The migraines are unpleasant, to say the least. I’m lucky, according to my doctor, because I get a distinct aura before a headache sets in, during which I lose my peripheral vision and see flashes of light across my remaining field of vision, pretty much rendering me blind. The good news here is that I can pop some kind of pill before the skull-crushing misery of a full-blown headache sets in.

The pills I used to take as a kid were something called Cafergot. They were composed of caffeine and ergotamine, and they were supposed to re-dilate the constricting blood vessels in my head that hindered my vision and brought on the headache.

The one catch with Cafergot was that every time I took it, it made me violently ill, and no one really wants to deal with the spectacularly-projectile-vomiting little kid, no matter how charming she might be.

In time, I learned that a handful of Advil is much more user-friendly than the encapsulated evil of Cafergot, and that taking vitamin B-12 (AKA riboflavin) daily brings my migraines down to maybe 1 a month.

I have yet to find the Achilles’ heel of my allergies, however, and they’ve been a bitch bastard for as long as I can remember. They pop up at all the usual times; spring and fall are consistent repeat offenders. But last night, as I was hanging out with Reba and Johnny, something in their house did not agree with something in my face, and the next thing I know my eyes were itching and burning, my nose was dripping like a cheap faucet, and I started getting all gaspy.

It’s always the gaspy part that gets me. Sure it sucks that my eyes itch and my nose drips and whatever, but I’m become very fond of breathing over the years, and when that’s restricted, I get a little panicky. Every time I have a bad allergy attack, my breathing goes to shit. It’s like I’m underwater and breathing through a swizzle stick. It really sucks, and when I was younger it’d scare me so much I’d start to hyperventilate, making the whole situation worse.

Thankfully, Rebs had some benadryl, which took a while to kick in, but left me feeling much better for a while.

Then, about 3 this morning, I woke up from a dream in which I was caught in mud on my back and drowning in murky water. Whatever is floating about in the air in this filthy city has most definitely infiltrated my system, because I’ve been gasping like a beached fish since I woke from my dream, and the kicker is there’s no magic bullet for these things. I can only take my allergy stuff at night since it renders me idiotic so fast I can’t work when I’m all hopped up.

Today, in my Very Important Meeting, I know I must have looked beyond bored with my ceaseless yawning. But I'm not tired, dammit; i just can't breathe!

So I heave and gasp like a fool and occasionally shake off the recurrent terror of my drowning dream. I’d sigh if I had the available air.

Our Nation’s Flaccid Penis

2006-12-29T10:36:00.000-05:00

AKA: Florida

I have long thought that Florida resembles nothing so much as a floppy, dangling wiener. Which, I guess, makes Louisiana the nation’s scrotal sac, but I digress. Having returned from visiting my mom in good ol’ FL, I’ve reconfirmed my vague enmity towards our country’s wang.

It’s such a weird place. Half of it is retired liberal Jews from the Northeast driving 50 foot long towncars, and the other half is gator-wrasslin’ rednecks driving pickups with gun racks. They live uneasily side by side, but they really don’t mix that much.

It’s a state of odd contrasts. My mom lives in West Palm Beach (elderly Jew central) which is not to be confused with Palm Beach, where the rich WASPs live. On Christmas Eve, we went to a fancy-schmancy restaurant to dine amongst the WASPs, and on Christmas day we went to my mom’s weird neighbors’ house to eat ham and yell at the TV during football. Christmas Eve - $90 bottle of wine. Christmas Day – Wine in a Box With Spigot. Eve – wore my silk Pucci shoes. Rest of the week – green rubber flip flops.

Getting off the plane, you know you’re in Florida. It’s nothing but families with little kids flying down to see Num Num and Poppy or whomever, dragging massive suitcases and strollers and car seats and all the other crap families with little kids have to carry. One of the little kids is inevitably in little kid melt down mode, which starts with some whimpering and whining and swiftly crescendos to “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!!!” The harassed-looking parents can barely keep themselves and their massive brood of spawn together, so they do nothing to stem the kid’s freak out, and either he has fortitude and can keep it up for the duration of the flight, or he’s a pussy and peters out only after irritating everyone in earshot.

The families are met by hoards of the wrinkled, shuffling grandparents who think it is their God-given right to operate motor vehicles to the day they die, crap reaction time and vision be damned. They’ve been driving since 1924, dammit, and nothing’s gonna stop them now!

Near to the grandparents are the slutty redneck girls picking up their scary redneck boyfriends; girls who feel a handkerchief provides adequate chest coverage and that a skirt needn’t do much more than cover the top portion of the buttocks. The boyfriends are heavily tattooed, surly, and missing teeth. Cliché, really, but there it is.

Brochures of Florida make it look like a sunny, warm paradise. It is in fact, a humid, fetid, purgatory. I always go down to see my mom with a swimsuit and the determination to get a tan, and time after time I come back with the swimsuit still folded in my suitcase and my skin as pale as a three-days-dead fish. It always rains, sometimes a little, this time a lot. My mom helpfully added, “Before you got here, it hadn’t rained it three weeks.” Thanks, mom. No tennis, no lounging on the beach or by the pool, barely any leaving the house, and a general longing for a clear sky above.

All of which, despite the craziness of it, makes me appreciate my surly, dirty, and beautiful paradise of New York.

Now scroll up and take another look at the map. It really does look like a penis, doesn't it? You're welcome.

Subway Sentiments

2006-12-20T12:13:00.000-05:00

I know I’ve been harping on my subway experiences a lot lately. Perhaps overmuch. I don’t know if it’s the season, the tourists, my general bad attitude, or the fact that Sartre was right, but I have very much wanted to kill my commuting companions of late.

There are tacit rules of etiquette that one must subscribe to in order to make the subway experience a bit more tolerable for everyone involved. When these rules are ignored, I feel justified in my desire to make you not live.

The pole is for holding, not leaning on. New York subway cars have poles every 10 feet or so, around which passengers should arrange themselves like spokes on a wheel, or petals on a big stinking flower of humanity. Your hand is your point of contact with this pole, and that should be it. If you’re leaning your entire body against the pole like Rick against the bar at the Café American, and I accidentally-on-purpose grab your hair or shove you while trying to gain a handhold, too friggin’ bad for you.

Crossing your legs is only OK sometimes. On a nice empty car, it’s fine to cross your legs; I do it all the time. But the keywords here are ‘nice’ and ‘empty.’ If it’s rush hour, and you’ve gotten lucky enough to snag a seat, bully for you. Now be grateful for your good fortune and tuck your shit in so the 51,000 people forced to stand and fight the pole-leaners for hand-space have a little room to navigate. Both Monday and Tuesday this week I had to spelunk my way past idiots whose crossed legs protruded far past where they should have, well into the realm of getting-by space. I have no regrets whatsoever about waking the sleeping leg-crossed girl up at 34th Street as I jostled her and stepped on her feet for good measure. I didn’t want to spend any time at all in her lap, but because she had arranged herself like she was sunning in Bali, I had nowhere else to fall but onto her as I tripped over her stupid feet as I tried to get out the doors.
Siddown until it’s time to get up. This is mostly a complaint against tourists, but regular riders can be just as guilty. I guess people get nervous that they won’t be able to get to the doors when their stop comes, so they get up from their seats way early and try to nudge themselves nearer the exit. During rush hour, this is both pointless and outrageously irritating. There is precious little room to maneuver as it is, and when you get up from your seat around 16th Street, knowing you want to get off at Penn, you upset the delicate seated/standing balance and throw the whole train into chaos. People holding poles and bars have to let go and balance themselves unsupported as you try to squeeze by. Placid riders become voracious vultures eyeing each other for your vacated seat. Just sit down, chill out, and wait for the train to stop before you begin your desperate dash for the door; everything will be OK. I’ve been riding the train for 10 years now, and I have never, ever not been able to disembark when my stop comes up. You’ll get there, and getting there early just pisses everyone off.

Your screaming children are not charming. There are two commercials running right now that make me want to tear my hair out. One, a radio spot (I think for Volvo) has two off-key kids yowling away to a massacred version of “Jingle Bells.” You’re supposed to be moved by the preciousness of their tunelessness and bungled lyrics, and then go buy a Volvo to protect your precious angels. The other, a TV ad for BMW(?) has two little kids unwrapping a Christmas package and having a nuclear melt-down of excitement. The older child, a boy, keeps screaming “Yes! Yes!!!” with such a blood-curdling shriek I turn the TV off now when the commercial comes on. It upsets my cats. You are supposed to, presumably, feel this level of excitement when you buy a BMW. I wish to god I could mute all shrieking children on the subway in the same way I turn off my TV. Growing up near San Francisco, I rode BART with my parents from a very young age, and I know for a fact ‘inside voices’ were not a suggestion, they were the law, and that once you sit down, you stay sitting down, you don’t run pell-mell up and down the length of the car or jump up and down on your seat. I can’t tell you how many parents I’ve seen letting their little demon-spawn have full fledged freak-outs on the train while they just sit and smile indulgently. You, and your children, should have the pleasure of each other’s company for all eternity. In hell.

That is all. Happy Holidays.

A Field Guide to Crazy

2006-12-15T14:21:00.000-05:00

I had lunch with a great friend from work today, and we got to talking about the different types of crazy. I have come to think there are three major species within the crazy taxonomy, with endless variation when it comes to phylum, class, order, and genus.

The first of the species is the Outright Nutbag (psycholus batshiatus.) The Outright Nutbag’s natural environment is subway cars, street corners, and public parks. They may be found addressing street signs, traffic lights, and other inanimate objects (“No, you’re the asshole!), bathing in copious amounts of baby powder for no discernable reason, and have rough, matted coats and a peculiar odor. They keep their crazy right out there in the open. It’s obvious they’re (literally) insane, and they make no effort to hide it.

The next species in the category is the Common Nutbag (psycholus obviola). The Common Nutbag is highly adaptable and adept at camouflage; sometimes one might be standing right next to you and you’d never know it. The Common Nutbag can be found in offices, homes, stores and other areas of commerce. Common Nutbags blend very well with the population; their colorful displays of plumage shedding and high-pitched shrieking are usually only motivated by high stress or distasteful stimuli. They’re right out there with their inner crazy, but are known as ‘quirky,’ or ‘creative types.’ [Full disclosure: I am a Common Nutbag.]

The most dangerous of the species is the Closet Nutbag (psycholus BretEastonEllis). The Closet Nutbag is remarkable for how normal it appears. Closet Nutbags wear bespoke garments, have really good apartments and haircuts, hold high-paying jobs, and dismember prostitutes for giggles. Closet Nutbags harbor terrible drinking habits or drug addictions, are often homosexual, and can never, ever admit these things to anyone, even when drunk, drug-addled, or engaging on homosexual acts.

A hypothesis may now be made: The more polished, together, and collected a specimen appears, the more likely they’re a Closet Nutbag. You may safely trust the Outright Nutbag and the Common Nutbag to be weird to varying degrees, but these Nutbags know they’re Nutbags; it’s all out there. The one you have to watch out for is the Closet Nutbag, especially in regions where nail guns and plastic sheeting are readily available.

Traffic Jam

2006-12-11T10:41:00.000-05:00

This morning was one of the distressingly frequent mornings where I want to kill everyone on the train.

That means you, chattering Hispanic lady yip-yapping about “I wanna see my abs again, yo. I quit smoking, yo, and now I can’t see my abs no more, you know. You can be like 140 pounds, yo, and not look overweight, yo, but for me, yo, I wanna see my abs. Yo.”

Yes. I feel you. I smell what you’re cooking. I’m picking up what you’re putting down. I am aware of your desire to see your abs again, as are the rest of the people in the car. Maybe, though, if smoking keeps you quieter, you might consider readopting the habit as a public service.

I also want to kill you, shockingly foul-mouthed day laborer type. I am by no means a profanity-free woman, but after a few minutes, your determination to say ‘fuck’ no less than three times a sentence in a gravelly, high volume whine began to stick even in my filthy ears.

You swore so much, Mr. Day Laborer, I turned it into a magical thinking game: ‘if he gets in 11 ‘fucks’ and 7 ‘motherfuckers’ before West 4th, I’ll have a date for New Year’s Eve.’

Or, ‘If he responds to his mumbly, mostly inaudible companion with six or more ‘fucks’ in one sentence, I’ll have pretty hair at the Christmas party tomorrow.’

Wheeeee!

And you over there, Thug Life. Sure, you look hard with your bling and cornrows and scowl, but I can hear Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” loud and clear through your iPod’s headphones, so you might need to reconsider your morning commuting music if intimidation is your intended effect.

In New York, the thronging masses are pretty much unavoidable. People are just everywhere, and some days it just sucks to have to deal with complete strangers wedged into your personal space in order to get to work.

It makes me think, more and more lately, about getting the hell out of Dodge for a while (was California only two weeks ago?), just to decompress and be in a healthier head-space.

The stress of day-to-day city life gets me in hermit mode sometimes, where I go home, pull on my pajamas, and flop in front of the TV.

Lately, one of my televised pleasures has been Everest: Beyond the Limit, on the Discovery Channel. This is, hands down, some of the most compelling TV I’ve ever seen. It chronicles two teams of climbers whose goal is to summit on Everest. The footage of these guys is heart-stopping, terrifying, and sometimes triumphant, shot by intrepid climbing camera men and with Sherpa-cams.

Last week, only one of the climbers on the first team made the summit, but it took him a hell of a lot longer than it should have.

Why?

There was a traffic jam. On the summit. Of Mount Everest. No shit.

Apparently, a group of amateur climbers, oddly without Sherpas or any support staff, were dawdling their way towards the summit, and the climbers on the documentary team got stuck behind them for several hours in ‘the Death Zone,’ where the air is so thin your body can only survive for so long before you get altitude sickness and your body starts to consume itself for energy.

The lesson here is: Even on the peak of the highest point on earth, you’ll find no shortage of slow moving, incompetent people, there just to poop all over your day.

Maybe New York’s not so bad after all . . .

Filial Responsibility

2006-12-05T15:36:00.000-05:00

My mom visited over the weekend, ostensibly to see the condo I ended up not buying, but also to sprinkle a little pre-holiday mom-guilt in my direction.

When it comes to visits with my mom, there are two types: the ‘very good’ and the ‘damn, that was painful.’

‘Very good’ visits include our trips to Key West for scuba diving and Costa Rica for cycling, hiking, and rafting.

‘Damn, that was painful’ visits include last weekend. Granted, it was cold (40’s), but my mom seemed to resist leaving the house. This is the woman who pops out of bed at 4 AM to drive a bus, then plays tennis during her afternoon hours 4 times a week.

But then she hits Brooklyn, where she’s from and which she hates, and wants to sit in my tiny apartment and watch hours of TV.

Even the dreaded trip to Rockefeller Center would have been a welcome relief from gazing slack-jawed at the tube all day.

To get out of the house, I took her to see ‘Borat,’ as I thought she would maybe get a laugh out of it, but she was just in some kind of stank mood, and wasn’t amused.

That night I shelled out for fancy-pantsy dinner at applewood, which is a truly amazing restaurant in Park Slope, with seriously awesome food and wine.

And at fancy-pantsy dinner, ladies and gentlemen, I got my mom drunk.

But at least it was on really good wine.

I was berating her for being a sucker (yet again) and lending a considerable amount of money to some people whom she and I both know will never pay her back, and I figured it’d be best to cork it (literally), and give the $55 bottle the waiter was pushing a shot.

The wine was lovely and memorable, but my mom, who’s 5’1” and weighs about 100 pounds, is a true lightweight, and her second glass pushed her right over the edge from Tipsytown to Drunkville.

Why, oh why, then, as dinner ground on to dessert, did I spy Remy on the after dinner drinks menu? And then ask my mom, “Do you care for Remy?”

“Oh, I love it!” This, despite the fact I’m pretty sure she’d never had it before. I think she took it just to prove to me, well . . . something. I don’t really know what, but maybe that she was cool, and could hack it.

So I ordered it for the both of us. She took a few sips from her glass, then pushed it towards me to finish. Which I did. Gladly.

So I’m the girl who peer pressured her mom into getting trashed at dinner.

We got home, and my poor mom was plenty sick an hour into watching “Waiting for Guffman.” I only wish I could count the number of times I’ve gotten sick from drinking too much, but this was terra incognita for my mom (who I think has only been drunk maybe two or three times prior), so all I could do was give her lots of water and tell her she’d feel better soon. She woke up the next morning a little bleary, but I woke up knowing I’m the girl who peer pressured her mom into getting trashed at dinner.

Sigh.

'Tis the Season

2006-12-01T12:08:00.000-05:00

To kill, kill, kill.

I originally intended to write a biting and incisive epistle about the Macy’s Christmas windows and how they piss me off in several undefinable ways, but Adam beat me to it, and his description of the windows and their requisite gawkers is way funny.

He did leave out mention of one window that is lined with suspiciously hallucinogenic-looking mushrooms. I can only hope Bob and Sue from Omaha have no problem explaining to little Janey and Timmy that the sweating and the shakes will pass, and they should hasten to drink up their orange juice.

Christmas is in full bloom in New York, despite the fact today’s high temp is a freakish 72 degrees. God knows this is not a new insight, but this season is so commercialized, especially in this Capital of Commerce, that I just can’t bring myself to give a damn.

When my landlords brought my mail to me after I got back from San Francisco, I had a stack of catalogues collectively as large as War and Peace, all exhorting me to buy useless crap for everyone I know as a mute yet lasting expression of my love. My friendship with those I hold near and dear can clearly best be encapsulated by wiener-dog shaped corn-cob holders. Now that we all know that, I feel better.

My mom, who hates both crowds and the cold, is coming up for the weekend. She has made a baffling request to go to Rockefeller Center to see the tree. Now, although it’s 70 degrees out now, the temperature is supposed to plummet tonight into the high 30s, and the weekend is looking to be ass cold. Additionally, every single tourist in New York has an atavistic desire to immediately go to Rockefeller Center and mill around like pre-leap lemmings, slack-jawed and gaping, while I try to elbow my way through their Midwestern Diabetes II goodness.

I am considering getting a mom-leash, as my mom is 5’1” on a good day, and if I lose her in that crowd, it’s all over.

Now that I work for the Man, and the Man owns 30 Rock, my mom is determined to go to the Top of the Rock just so we can use my discount card, which magically turns a $17 elevator ride to a scary high place into a $15 elevator ride to a scary high place. It’s a Christmas Miracle, Charlie Brown. Only one that activates my vertigo and makes me want a martini 78 stories up.

Reunited

2006-11-29T10:02:00.000-05:00

And it feels so . . . meh. I had my ten year high school reunion in San Francisco this weekend, which culminated my Big California Week.

I got to SF on a Sunday evening and proceeded to the Hertz rental car area. The woman behind the counter seemed baffled by the fact that I was a woman, alone, renting a car, not for business, not for my boyfriend, but for me and only me to drive.

“You here on business?”

“No, vacation.”

“You have boyfriend? Husband?”

“Nope.”

“You drive for you to go to work?”

“No, like I said, I’m on vacation.”

“So you have husband?”

“No, just me.”

“You by yourself? No husband?”

At this point, the screaming and throwing things option was increasingly appealing, but I took a deep breath, reassured her as to my marital status again, and was finally handed the keys to my bombastic Toyota Matrix.

It’s a car that looks rather unfortunately like a baby with a load in its diapers, but I was delighted to be behind the wheel of anything after almost a year without driving, and, tooling around the steep hills of Oakland and Montclair, I was pleased with the thing overall. I was half consumed by terror and convinced I’d at some point total el Matrix only because it was a rental, but aside from the woman who backed in to me in Berkeley (“Oh, I didn’t see you!” – which is odd, as my car is directly behind yours and its Invisibility Booster is on the fritz), the garbage cans I forcefully repositioned, and the parking sign I gently tapped while making a three point turn, my week of driving was mercifully incident free, the car was returned intact, and I discovered that parallel parking is a muscle memory thing – after the first awkward sweaty session of backing and filling, it all comes back to you.

Allison and her lovely new boyfriend Josh put me up and entertained me for my first few days, and then I went to sponge off the largesse of Stacey’s brother’s family.

Randy, the brother, his wife Andrea, and their two unreasonably perfect kids, Jackson and Annabelle, were delightful. Jackson, at age 2 1/2, is awesomely verbal and took an immediate shine to me. I’m about as maternal as a cactus, so I’m always thrown off when a little kid really digs me. It filled my heart with a contemptible gooiness when, at 7:30 in the morning, I heard Jackson grilling his mom to find out, “Where’s Liz?”

I had no choice but to acquiesce to the gooiness, and I was firmly a member of the mutual admiration society. Jackson made me realize that maybe, just maybe, if I had a kid I wouldn’t treat it like a houseplant.

I had Thanksgiving dinner/Jane’s 60th Birthday bash with Stacey’s family and Stacey’s mom’s best friend’s family and friends and assorted and sundry others.

The coup de grace of the trip was the San Ramon Valley High School Class of 1996 10 year reunion. It was held at Sinbad’s, a slightly seedy restaurant in the Embarcadero thats main feature is an eerie pirate mannequin complete with realistic looking chest hair, who lives in a glass case up front.

For $84, I discovered that ‘no-host bar’ translates into, ‘pay for your drinks made with bottom shelf liquor,’ and that fried food does not improve its flavor or quality the longer it's left over a Sterno.

As for the people, it was great to see a select few, but I realized about 2 hours in to it there’s a reason I left my hometown, and a reason I didn’t make a tremendous effort to keep in touch with a lot of my classmates. They’re all fine, pleasant people, but let’s just say the lifestyle choices I’ve made since 1996 made me feel like a slightly dangerous and exotic animal in the midst of placid and content cattle.

On balance, I realize how snobby and horrible that sounds, and I don’t mean to imply I have any sense of superiority over these people (oh, what the hell, yes I do). Everyone is just, well, nice and anodyne.

I’m glad I went, and it was good to see people, and ultimately, it reinforced to me that I don’t regret any of the decisions I’ve made that took me from there to here, even the iffy ones.

There were a few people I desperately wanted to see, but I had some communications problems with my POS cellphone and lack of an Internet connection, so Claudine and Joe especially, if you’re reading this, I fully acknowledge I suck!

To sum up:

In Which I Growl

2006-11-15T17:01:00.000-05:00

So, Liz’s adventures in real estate turned out to be a bust. I am, in fact, closer to being almost a homo than I am a homeowner. And I’m really not much of a homo. I’m about as gay as I am Jewish, come to think of it . . . and everyone knows I’m the World’s Worst Jew.

The much vaunted roof deck of the building did not actually exist. I mean, yes, the building has a roof, but as for being defined as a ‘roof deck’ and ‘common space’ in the offering plan the ass-magnet sponsor and realtors submitted to the city, we have a no go, a blatant lie, and a big pile of false advertising, as it was sitting right there in the Times: "Its common roof deck offers you refuge from the hustle and bustle of city life . . . "

I went to my attorney yesterday to sign the papers that would have put me in contract. She was reviewing the specs of the building, and mentioned something about ‘no roof access.’

Me: Wait, What?

She: Yeah, no roof access. It looks like the only people who have any kind of outdoor space are the people on the 4th floor with the duplexes.

Me: Oh my god. No roof access is a total deal breaker.

She: Well, let’s call the sponsor’s lawyer and see what she says.

Me: Oh, fuck.

A call was placed to the sponsor’s lawyer, who knew nothing about the alleged deck. A call was placed to the realtor, who said, “Of course there’s a deck; I’ve walked around on it.”

Physical presence of deck or no, the thing wasn’t in the offering plan, and to make it legal, the offering plan would have to be resubmitted with the city,and re-approved, which takes several months, according to my lawyer. And, the people who would end up paying to have this deck built are, yes, you guessed it, the condo owners in the building, not the sponsor. So basically, if I wanted a roof deck, all the other people in the building would also have to want it, and then be willing to invest the money to build and approve the damn thing.

The thing that makes me seethe is the fact that I had to pay my lawyer $500 to discover the sponsor and the realtors had lied about a major feature of the building, and the one that made it so appealing to me. My lawyer totally deserved what I paid her; the stack of documents she had to go through is worse that War and Peace.

But the fact the she is the one who had to inform the realtors they’d been lying the whole time, and that it cost me $500, gave me a mild Tourettic attack as I stormed down the hallway at work dropping f bombs like they were hot.

I hate confrontation, but I was so furious I called the realtor and told her, look, either lower my bid by $50,000 and make sure it’s accepted, or you reimburse me for my legal fees. She stammered, “Oh, I’m going to have to get back to you tomorrow on that!”

She calls me this morning and says, “Well, you’ll need to make a more reasonable bid and we can talk, but we’re not paying for your legal fees.”

I said, “Well, that means I can sue you for false advertising.”

Long pause. Then, “Oh, let me call you back.”

Five minutes later, I get a call from her boss saying, “The sponsor has agreed to reimburse you.”

Fuckin’-A right he did!

They have, overnight, changed the Times ad to read, "there is potential (italics added) for a fabulous common roof deck with stunning harbor, Statue of Liberty and skyline views."

Fuck you, buddy.

The moral of the story is: buying real estate is treacherous and Brown Harris Stevens can kiss my sweet white ass. At least no one died, and nothing terrible happened in the long view, but this whole process has done nothing to improve my stank attitude.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The Wave

2006-11-14T20:57:00.000-05:00

Today was much different than I anticipated.

Well, I can’t say I had anything to anticipate, having tucked all the swirling ramifications of spending a large portion of one’s savings deep into some cranial recess. A nice happy place of daisies and sunshine where the Home Equity Fairy flits from condo to condo, depositing goodwill and ownership where e’er she roams.

Instead, the Home Equity Fairy pulls last minute failure-to-disclose bullshit, and then you yearn to find her and squish her.

So, I will discuss something I feel is the wave of the future, instead.

I noticed tonight that the New York Times was displaying tag clouds in a blog ‘article’ alternating with a blog roll. First time I’ve noticed that in the Times.

This is huge, people. This is one of the top websites in the world endorsing what was, up ‘til now, still pretty on-the-edge technology.

All of this so-called Web 2.0 stuff (lawdy, how I hate that term) is the wave of the future, bitches. Ride it.

Search and Destroy

2006-11-13T11:05:00.000-05:00

I went to see Imogen Heap at Webster Hall last night. You might not recognize her name, but she’s responsible for the ubiquitous “Let Go” that was on the Garden State soundtrack, and she is a tremendous musician, both vocally and technically.

She does this thing I’ve never seen before, where she records a vocal sample on the spot, loops it, and stacks more on-the-spot samples on top of the original, until she’s created her own choir of sorts.

She also used a weird keyboard machine she wore around her neck, and as she sang the root note, this machine somehow processed her voice into intervals she could then manipulate using the keyboard. I have no idea how that thing works, I only know I desperately want one.

There was a giant Lucite piano. I couldn’t see the keyboard very clearly, but it looked like there was a whole bevy of mixing equipment up there with her. She was a total spaz while setting up for each song, having so many buttons to push and effects to activate, and each time she forgot to tweak something, she’d say “Oh, shit,” in the loveliest British accent. She had a few false starts when an effect didn’t work as planned, and spent a lot of time flouncing around the stage with a coxcomb of pink feathers pinned in her hair, making her seem dotty and altogether delightful.

The one negative of the night was the drunk jackass in the back of the room who felt the overwhelming need to scream “whooooooooooooo!” at every possible opportunity. This idiot was as loud, unmiked, as Imogen Heap was miked.

The first time, there was a lot of head turning, and some generalized audience laughter. Heap looked a little startled, but kept going.

The second time, there was less head turning, and a bit of audience grumbling.

I love seeing live music, especially when the musician, live, is even better than they are on an already impressive album, as was the case with Imogen Heap. But I did not pay $30 to have some drunk asshole howl like a wolf in a trap and fuck up my sonic experience. I’m totally down with enthusiastic yelling and applause in its time and place, but when it becomes clear you’re making a spectacle of yourself for the sake of letting the performer know you’re in the room, you need to be elsewhere.

The third time this human megaphone of irritation felt the need to contribute his yawp, it was at the beginning of “Hide and Seek,” a lovely, haunting, minimalist piece. The first 16 bars were almost totally drowned out by this moron’s vocalizations, and at that point I felt a deep urge to seek out, locate, and forcibly remove this person’s vocal chords. But then I would have missed the rest of my favorite song, so I had to content myself with sending the surliest of evil vibes his way, along with my 3,000 fellow concert-goers.

w00t!

2006-11-09T15:40:00.000-05:00

Democrats win the House.
Democrats win the Senate.
Rumsfeld resigns.

I'm so damn happy I peed a little.

Now we wait and see whether this will result in an ineffectual clusterfuck or if my like-minded political representatives will actually do something now that they've gotten some power back.

Regardless, Republicans, you were PWNED! You may now suck it.

Almost a Homo

2006-11-08T10:27:00.000-05:00

Ner. I’m almost a homeowner. Holy crap. I am swiftly entering the pantheon of yuppie hell, and I’m not so sure I feel good about it.

Two weeks ago, Adam and I went to check out an open house I spotted in the NY Times real estate section. A two bedroom condo for less than the price of a firstborn child. WHAT???

So Adam and I meandered a bit south of where I live now, to the soothingly named Greenwood Heights. Unscrupulous realtors might describe this area as ‘South Slope.’ I call it, ‘next to the giant cemetery.’

But, whatever you call it, I can afford it. Or at least I think I can afford it. Several large banks also think I can afford it, or are, alternately, assuming I can’t afford it, but are hesitant to tell me so, so I’ll default on my mortgage, fall into a debt death spiral, and have to get knocked up just to sell off that firstborn child.

I can see it all so clearly now! It’s a conspiracy involving Citibank, Ben Bernanke, and the Federal Treasury, cunningly designed solely to publicly bankrupt and humiliate me.

Clearly, I’m going through the Major Cold Feet phase of homebuying. And I’m not even officially in contract yet, though the realtor representing the condo’s sponsor assures me the papers will be sent to my attorney today. Once my signature and a few thousand dollars are removed from my account, I assume the panic will truly begin.

I’ve been saving for this since I was 16, though, and despite the fact I’ll have to severely curtail my bad habit of buying expensive shoes in bulk, I hope to Jebus that ultimately this will be better for me than flushing money down the rent toilet every month.

My head now spins with fixed-rates, and ARMs, and points, and all other manner of crap I’d much rather have someone else think about. Also, I must add, that scene in Sex and the City in which Miranda buys an apartment is completely accurate. Every mortgage company I’ve spoken with has asked, “It’s just you? No husband? No help from your parents?” And each time, with decreasing patience, I’ve answered, “Yep. It’s just me.” My subtext, for those of you who need to know such things, is, “bite me, asshole. This is 2006, and I am neither chattel or valued on a goat stock exchange. I am a working woman and I’m doing this for and by myself.”

Empowerment aside, I’m scared shitless, and must admit to worrying who’s going to help me drag heavy items around and drill holes in walls. Then again, I’m freaking out about everything related to this whole process, so let me not go borrowing trouble any sooner than I have to!

Awesome

2006-11-06T11:13:00.000-05:00

Awesome is running 26.2 miles dressed as a rhinoceros. Or running 26.2 miles at the age of 77. Or, come to think of it, running 26.2 miles at all.

I love watching the marathon just to see the variety of people who think a Sunday well spent involves getting up at 5 AM to force one’s body through all sorts of unnatural contortions for the sheer pleasure of running 26.2 miles.

Due to sheer sloth, I had a rough time dragging my sorry corpus out of bed by 10:32 on Sunday. I clicked on the TV so see what was what for the progress of the nutbags who were making their way up 4th Avenue in Brooklyn.

And there it was . . . LanceCam. Lance Armstrong, hero, yellow-bracelet wearer, one-testicled cyclist extraordinaire, was running his first marathon surrounded by a phalanx of past marathon stars, and preceded by two dudes on a motorcycle; one steering and one seated backwards to catch Lance’s every stride with his camera.

Lance was at 36th Street! Oh, Jesus! If I wanted to see Lance, public decency was going to have to wait. ‘Bra be damned,’ I thought, as I zipped up my hoodie over bare skin (shirt be damned. Too) and hoofed it out the door, hair uncombed, sleep still crusting my eyes, hoping to get a glimpse of the man as he went past my block.

Apparently, Lance, in mile 8 of the marathon, is significantly faster than me, boobs a-jiggle, trotting down the hill for an avenue and a half to try to make it to 4th Avenue and 15th before he flits past.

I traipsed back home to apply undergarments to myself and then hopped on my bike to head to Reba’s house to watch Johnny’s cousin Allie go by. Which she did, looking like she was out for a refreshing stroll in the country, instead of a third of the way a trip through hell. I think it was those endorphins – she was freakin’ high.

Reba, Keshia, and I stayed at 4th Ave and Butler to cheer on more runners. Apparently, the entire country of France was required to participate, but I can’t tell you how much pleasure I had screaming “Vive la France!” at the top of my lungs and having weary French types brighten up at my English pig-dog accent.

The Italians were also out in force, and while they represent a large portion of my ancestry, I was only marginally confident yelling out “Viva l’Italia!” That very well may be Spanish, for all I know.

I screamed until I was hoarse and clapped until my hands stung. Then, humbled by this awesome parade of running humanity, I had two beers and a glass of wine before noon, toasting my running brethren with each gulp.

Sammich

2006-11-02T16:18:00.000-05:00

Jen and I went shopping today. She needed fashion hosiery, I needed lipstick and boots. We work near enough to the Herald Square Macy’s to almost make it worth dealing with the 50,000 tourists per square foot to fight one’s way up to the Clinique counter only to be told one’s favorite lipstick color has been discontinued.

Jen secured her three pairs of bad ass patterned tights, I got the closest color I could find to my color of choice, and we popped into 5th floor fancy shoes so I could get a completely unnecessary pair of boots.

I’ve been on the Great Burgundy Boot Quest of 2006 from the time the daily temperature dropped out of the 80s. I ordered a lovely pair from Zappos, but the bastards were so slim in the calves that without the assistance of Fabio or similar, there was no way they were zipping all the way up my leg. Back they went.

At Macy's I found a pair, that, while not technically my dream pair, are totally serviceable: under $200, burgundy, pointy toed, 3 inch heeled, and happy-making.

Jen, tights in hand, and me, boots and lipstick in hand, left Macy’s to struggle upstream in the midtown throngs.

Macy’s is in the Garment District, and where there’s clothes, there’s models. It’s not uncommon to see underfed 14 year olds loping along 7th Avenue on their way to a fitting, or a nice vomit, or whatever else it is models do.

Today, though, we spotted not one, but two girls who looked like skeletons with a light dusting of skin. I turned to Jen and said, “That one needs a sammich, or a rice cake, or something.”

Jen, watching one walk over a subway grate, says “If she’s not careful, she’s gonna slip right in there.”

Then we laughed and spoke of burritos.

Lean Into It

2006-11-01T10:50:00.000-05:00

It takes me about 40 minutes to get to work on the subway in the morning.

The first leg of my journey is quick, and if the M and R are running smoothly, it takes about 5 minutes to get from point A (Prospect) to point B (Atlantic) with stops at 9th Street and Union in between.

Then I shuffle nudge squeeze my way across the platform and insert myself into an N train. Here is where the fun begins.

It is, more often than not, sardine-ville on the train, as everybody in Brooklyn really, really wants my face in their armpit, and will do everything they can to make sure I’m jostled into prime face-armpit position by the time the ‘bee-boo’ of the closing doors is heard.

Today, for some reason, the N was far less crowded than usual, so, while I still had to stand, I had plenty of room to enjoy my New Yorker without breathing in some dude’s musky Eau de SpeedStick.

The Grand Street exodus allowed me to snag a seat, and I plopped down with joy and settled in to read in peace.

Then, out of my peripheral vision, I felt it. The gentle, but steadily growing pressure of the woman on my right leaning in to me as she fell asleep.

Subway sleep is a funny thing, as are subway sleepers. It’s not a restful sleep, but instead is based on the dodge and weave model of boxing, where your exhaustion overtakes you and you slump, only to jerk yourself awake until the next bout drags you down again. This can happen several times in rapid succession, and there’s no fighting it.

Sleepy lady drooped ever closer to my shoulder, only to yank her head up like she’d been electrified every time the train shook.

Then, out of my peripheral vision, I felt it. The gentle, but steadily growing pressure of the woman on my left leaning in to me as she fell asleep.

I was sandwiched between two subways sleepers, both of whom seemed to be inexorably drawn towards the dubious pillows of my shoulders. Sleepy lady on the left was either more tired or more aggressive, as her head actually touched down a few times before she recoiled herself. Sleepy lady on the right was more delicate about it, and I only got most of her body weight, but not much of her head.

I was hesitant to wake my beautiful dreamers, but 34th Street was where my service as a nap-platform came to an unceremonious end, and I let myself get swept away in the rush of departing riders.

Chez Hell

2006-10-31T10:42:00.000-05:00

I went to a Hell House over the weekend to ~~recommit myself to Jesus~~ smirk along with all the other smirking hipsters.

A Hell House is a concept first popularized by Jerry Fallwell in the ‘70s. It’s based on the concept of a haunted house, only the horrors within are designed to scare the shit out of those wacky Christian teens with scenes including gay marriage, rape at the rave, and cheerleader abortion (cheerleader abortion comes complete with pom poms and bloody chicken parts, sure to wipe that lascivious look off of little Billy’s face).

For $300, you can buy your own Hell House kit, which I understand is comprised of a script, a DVD with staging suggestions and sound effects, and notes on what kind of meat is best used to represent an aborted fetus for maximum shock value.

The theatre company who staged the Hell House, Les Freres Courbusier, did the whole thing in deadly earnest. According to the literature, hundreds, if not thousands, of these things are staged every year throughout the, um, ‘middle’ parts of the country. Once the youths endure the horrors of the house, they are expected to recommit themselves to Jesus with newfound vigor at a lively Christian music hoedown and pin their sins on Jesus, who is present in the form of a cardboard poster. In my group, people wrote things like “I love Noam Chomsky, “ and “I took the morning-after pill waiting on line at CVS,” and then stuck them right on Jesus.

Les Freres stayed completely true to the evangelical script, which of course played out to raucous laughter with the crowd I run with, but I could see how, in the rest of the country, things like gay marriage probably really are the scariest thing young people might fear encountering. Of course those homos got married and immediately one died of AIDS, and this is the message that I fear kids in Kansas or wherever really believe and really take to heart.

All of my New York and California living has provided me with, I’m starting to realize, a limited perception on how must of this country really operates and thinks. I mean, to me and everyone else I know, evolution is a given. Yet, in Kansas, the intelligent design debate rages. Our president believes in intelligent design. (Well, then again, look at our president . . .)

I know it’s not as simple a matter as red state, blue state, but it really does freak me out that a great deal of this country truly believes fags go to hell, abortion is murder, and that reading Harry Potter is aligned with Satanism. To each his own, but sometimes one’s own is just fucked up.

Samsonite

2006-10-27T10:07:00.000-05:00

I work in an office that is, probably, 80% women. Our website is broken into seven different channels of interest, one of which is Entertainment. This means that, on occasion, famous people make their way into the office.

Yesterday was another harried day, with meetings stacked up, one after the other, all afternoon. I was trying to squeeze in a bit of writing work before I was due to attend my next meeting, when a magpie-like level of chatter filtered its way down the hall to my veal-farm cubicle.

I ignored it, as I had about 30 minutes to cram in two hours of work if I wanted to stay reasonably near deadline.

But the chatter cresecndoed by orders of magnitude, reaching a female-voiced shriek.

"What the hell is going on down there?" I groused to myself as I gathered up my papers and wireframes to head to my next meeting.

I emerged into the hallway to see a gaggle of my colleagues clustered about in a tittering, buzzing bunch, all facing the same direction and positively pulsing with glee.

And who were they clustered about?

Yep, that's Fabio, with my friend Jen. Frickin' Fabio!

The man is tanned like a Samsonite suitcase. I imagine he is totally waterproof and, if his after-death plans include burial, his corpse will probably escape putrifecation entirely due to the fact that hide like that is more than a match for worms and bacteria.

To his credit, he did seem really nice, and was totally good-natured about posing for umpteen photographs with my screaming co-workers. He did seem to want to pick everyone up like we were all auditioning for roles on the cover of the next hot Harlequin romance novel

(here he is hoisting my friend Madlena). I took a pass on getting a photo or getting picked up, because I didn't need the responsibility of potentially herniating a national icon.

To sum up: walking down the office hallway + seeing Fabio = totally surreal.

Pssst . . .

2006-10-26T19:58:00.000-05:00

Yeah, you're in the right place.

Woot.