Why all pilots make announcements with so many damn pauses:
Ah folks....currently we're at our cruising altitude of uh 38,000 feet....uh......the weather is uh.....45 and sunny in New York uh....should have you at the gate about uh......twenty-five past the hour
Why some pilots decide that the middle of the night/flight is the appropriate time to announce that over the left wing you can see the _____ (Fill in the blanks with something you are always totally uninterested in seeing when you had just been sleeping)
Why train conductors insist on acting as if we still live in a time when the words ALL ABOARD are exciting and still talk in the same voice that conductors used in the 1940s. Look, taking the train sucks and most likely I'm not excited about where I'm going for this NJ Transit train certainly isn't taking me anywhere exciting, like across the country to California, which even still isn't that exciting, but would be more exciting than where this train is taking me.
Why there's never enough room on the 4 or 5 train. Why the MTA won't run more trains. Why the east side only has one train line.
Why one or both of the only two escalators in all of Grand Central are always out of commission, and more so, why everyone acts so annoyed. Yes, this escalator has now become stairs...you now have to use your legs, sorry for the inconvenience.
Why people think that pushing you to get to said escalators turned stairs makes them get there faster.
Why instead of replacing the locks to the building, my landlord tries to put on a quick fix day after day and yet, it continues to break (how shocking) and locks us INSIDE our own building.
How the department of sanitation has nothing better to do with their time, like I don't know, clean up this filthy city and collect trash, rather than root through trash left on the curb and ticket offenders, when, said offenders have no where else to store their trash other than on the curb because that same landlord who can't fix the locks right the first time also doesn't provide us anywhere to store the trash besides...on the curb.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Union Square
Random girl behind me in the never-ending line: "That would be so awesome if Colbert actually got elected president, he is running."
Trendy girl in front of her: "Yeah, I mean you can't really know any less about politics than our current president."
Gay bookstore sales guy giggling and jumping up-and-down on his chair: "Oh my God that was so totally perfect, thank you!!!"
Trendy girl [in her head] I was serious, you can't!
Trendy girl in front of her: "Yeah, I mean you can't really know any less about politics than our current president."
Gay bookstore sales guy giggling and jumping up-and-down on his chair: "Oh my God that was so totally perfect, thank you!!!"
Trendy girl [in her head] I was serious, you can't!
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Rainy day pick-me-ups
• Colbert reading from his new book at B&N
• Lars and the Real Girl, Angelika, select theaters only
• M&Ms that melt in your hand
• laughing so hard my mascara runs
• knee high boots, leggings, cotton-knit dresses from American Apparel
• discounts and perks from my new job, holiday half days, planning every single day of every single possible vacation day next year (costa rica, paris for my bestest, turkey/prague and toronto)
• 120# velum
• the return of my most favorite TV show this Thursday night
• cupcakes in festive autumn colors
• mansions on the costa rica coast
• seeing my bestest in two weeks, the post-race celebration, the day-after girls day out/no work/no responsibilities
• having the entire month of November free to do whatever I want
• sleeping in, turning off the 6:16 running alarm, rolling over and not caring, napping for the sake of wasting time, movies on demand
• Lars and the Real Girl, Angelika, select theaters only
• M&Ms that melt in your hand
• laughing so hard my mascara runs
• knee high boots, leggings, cotton-knit dresses from American Apparel
• discounts and perks from my new job, holiday half days, planning every single day of every single possible vacation day next year (costa rica, paris for my bestest, turkey/prague and toronto)
• 120# velum
• the return of my most favorite TV show this Thursday night
• cupcakes in festive autumn colors
• mansions on the costa rica coast
• seeing my bestest in two weeks, the post-race celebration, the day-after girls day out/no work/no responsibilities
• having the entire month of November free to do whatever I want
• sleeping in, turning off the 6:16 running alarm, rolling over and not caring, napping for the sake of wasting time, movies on demand
Monday, October 22, 2007
On Blogging
People who blog for a living impress me, really they do. At first I thought blogging for a living was a sorry excuse for a career, almost like a get rich fast scheme, but that was before I really started blogging. This actually isn't my first attempt at a blog, I'll have you know. When I first moved to New York I was inundated with so many things at one time (living on my own and living alone until the boyfriend moved in a few months later, then trying to learn to live with said boyfriend, living in this great, big, giant, scary, dark city, starting grad school, adjusting to constant criticism, poverty etc etc) I started blogging as a way to clear my head and as a way to get my thoughts down on "paper." There would be times that I was riding the subway and get this really big "ah ha" idea about life that I just had to expand upon somewhere. A blog seemed like the best place to do that...at the time. Needless to say, that blog didn't last very long and has since been permanently deleted. This blog, the one you are reading now started from a much more simple idea and for a very very different reason, but that reason is mine and mine alone to know. Ask me again when I'm being paid to blog.
The point of all this rambling, I swear there is a point, is to say that I didn't understand blogging until I really started doing it, but it hit me just today, just right now as I was coming back from lunch thinking about what I was going to write that this blogging thing can sometimes actually be really...hard. It can be, and often is, an investment of both your time AND your emotions. I haven't written in a week, but I meant to do that. I couldn't feasibly come away from that post and write something the very next day, or even later in the week. Last week's post was probably the hardest post I've written to date. It literally took me several hours throughout the course of the day to complete, and several drafts at that. Being as that I don't do this for a living, and let's be serious, don't have that many readers, taking a week off in between posts seemed like the right thing to do, for me. I needed some time to let that post settle but more importantly, I needed to make sure I was going to be all right; the jury is still out on that one.
The point of all this rambling, I swear there is a point, is to say that I didn't understand blogging until I really started doing it, but it hit me just today, just right now as I was coming back from lunch thinking about what I was going to write that this blogging thing can sometimes actually be really...hard. It can be, and often is, an investment of both your time AND your emotions. I haven't written in a week, but I meant to do that. I couldn't feasibly come away from that post and write something the very next day, or even later in the week. Last week's post was probably the hardest post I've written to date. It literally took me several hours throughout the course of the day to complete, and several drafts at that. Being as that I don't do this for a living, and let's be serious, don't have that many readers, taking a week off in between posts seemed like the right thing to do, for me. I needed some time to let that post settle but more importantly, I needed to make sure I was going to be all right; the jury is still out on that one.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Worth It
Soldiers have their alive day.
Countries have their independence day.
Me, I have today.
---
September was sleepy, blurred together by early nights and often painful morning runs or equally painful weekend long runs, too much pasta and not enough beer, too many band aids, too many braces and ice packs, too many miles and too many playlists. And finally at the end of the month, a departure from my normal routine and here I awoke, in the midst of something quiet and unexpected. It's taken me more time than I would have figured to get to this point, more time than seemingly necessary to evolve and come out of this dark and endless tunnel, not only alive....but better, stronger (in every sense of the word), faster, newer...happier. If someone were to tell me that this is how it would pan out, I wouldn't have believed them. I couldn't have believed them. The way it was should have been the way it would always be. And for that moment, in that time, that was acceptable; that was what I knew; what I wanted, even. But at the end of the day, when the laces come untied and the blistered bleeding feet emerge, it is, in fact, exactly how it panned out. And while it may have taken me a hell of a lot longer than I ever could have imagined, it's not about my finishing time, I've said that before...it's about how I got to that finish line that matters most. No one thing or one person can tarnish or change that, for the journey on the way here, while lonely, dark and full of hills, I have to say, was worth enduring. I get to live the first day of the rest of my life however I so choose. And that in itself makes the long journey totally worth it.
Countries have their independence day.
Me, I have today.
---
September was sleepy, blurred together by early nights and often painful morning runs or equally painful weekend long runs, too much pasta and not enough beer, too many band aids, too many braces and ice packs, too many miles and too many playlists. And finally at the end of the month, a departure from my normal routine and here I awoke, in the midst of something quiet and unexpected. It's taken me more time than I would have figured to get to this point, more time than seemingly necessary to evolve and come out of this dark and endless tunnel, not only alive....but better, stronger (in every sense of the word), faster, newer...happier. If someone were to tell me that this is how it would pan out, I wouldn't have believed them. I couldn't have believed them. The way it was should have been the way it would always be. And for that moment, in that time, that was acceptable; that was what I knew; what I wanted, even. But at the end of the day, when the laces come untied and the blistered bleeding feet emerge, it is, in fact, exactly how it panned out. And while it may have taken me a hell of a lot longer than I ever could have imagined, it's not about my finishing time, I've said that before...it's about how I got to that finish line that matters most. No one thing or one person can tarnish or change that, for the journey on the way here, while lonely, dark and full of hills, I have to say, was worth enduring. I get to live the first day of the rest of my life however I so choose. And that in itself makes the long journey totally worth it.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Apples to Oranges
What I [want]
shoeless days, jeans everyday, not a care in the world, my old computer, new software, a bigger department, bring your dog to work day, never to see another powerpoint again in my life, a logo, a letterhead a "here design this" where and when they actually mean design, an iPod dock, people my age with purple hair and tattoos
What I [have]
Crystal light on the go in 4 flavors, filtered tap water, organic fair trade coffee, bootleg software, skim milk for coffee, foam soap, a folder with 1,000 fonts, a picture of my dog, black pants, black shoes, tasteful jewelry, no logo, no love
shoeless days, jeans everyday, not a care in the world, my old computer, new software, a bigger department, bring your dog to work day, never to see another powerpoint again in my life, a logo, a letterhead a "here design this" where and when they actually mean design, an iPod dock, people my age with purple hair and tattoos
What I [have]
Crystal light on the go in 4 flavors, filtered tap water, organic fair trade coffee, bootleg software, skim milk for coffee, foam soap, a folder with 1,000 fonts, a picture of my dog, black pants, black shoes, tasteful jewelry, no logo, no love
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Not Unlike Costanza
I felt guilty blogging during my first week of work so I barely did it at all. Now, in my second week I've progressed to taking long(ish) lunches, coming in late, chatting on Meebo all day (since the real IM is blocked) and closing my office door to talk on the phone. I also listen to music sans headphones all day long (sometimes NPR) and rely the ol' standby apple H when my boss walks into my office because, even though I actually have work to do at this job, I never seem to be actually doing that work when he walks in. I usually seem to be reading Gothamist or Reddit or worse, shopping for new rain boots to replace the ones I have that leak. I've also already gotten in "trouble" for wearing jeans even though the other designers in the department wear them (they don't interact with the corporate honchos upstairs) like I sometimes do, and probably will have to when I'm ill-prepared wearing skinny jeans, ballet flats and a puffy blouse that needs ironing. I was also wearing gold hoop earings the size of tennis balls.
It's hard to sit here, so far away from my boss knowing that unlike at my old job where my boss could lean back and see what I was doing on my precious 30" monitor (so could anyone from outer space for that matter) I can see him coming. I have a five second warning-time to close all windows and maximize the Illustrator document like, uh huh, I've been working on this project for three hours now, and by hours I mean minutes. It's hard to not play brickbreaker on my blackberry, which by the by, is the single most addicting game ever (I'm quickly learning why they call it a crackberry) or watch a movie or hell, even episodes of Scrubs on my iPod. Sometimes, I want to read a book or the NY Times but mostly I've been tempted almost everyday to curl up under my kidney bean-shaped desk and take a 20 minute napper and dream of a better place.
It's hard to sit here, so far away from my boss knowing that unlike at my old job where my boss could lean back and see what I was doing on my precious 30" monitor (so could anyone from outer space for that matter) I can see him coming. I have a five second warning-time to close all windows and maximize the Illustrator document like, uh huh, I've been working on this project for three hours now, and by hours I mean minutes. It's hard to not play brickbreaker on my blackberry, which by the by, is the single most addicting game ever (I'm quickly learning why they call it a crackberry) or watch a movie or hell, even episodes of Scrubs on my iPod. Sometimes, I want to read a book or the NY Times but mostly I've been tempted almost everyday to curl up under my kidney bean-shaped desk and take a 20 minute napper and dream of a better place.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
In the Year 2000
A Windows XP Dell (complete with a CRT monitor weighing roughly 300 pounds) for the sole purpose of checking work-related e-mails. CRT monitor? Really? What year is this, 1990?
Adobe CS...the original. That's like so 2000.
F12 does nothing for I'm still using OS X 10.3.9. The key here is sans widgets. I cannot live without widgets. I just can't do it.
A trackball mouse, which, to be honest, I didn't even know they made anymore. Oh giant mouse that in totality is bigger than my head, what purpose do you serve? I alone keep Wacom tablets in business for every time I've started a new job (all two times) that is among my first demands. That and a computer that is of this decade. I don't think that's asking too much of a multi-billion dollar company...
I'm not an administrator on my own computer. I need "IT" to come and enter the password every time I need to do something. Yesterday I wanted to repair my permissions. No, illegal. Access denied. I think I finally called them enough times that they realized this girl must know what she's doing if we don't even know what repairing permissions means....so they sequestered admin privileges; damn it feels good to be a computer nerd ahem savvy user.
I can't break through the Instant Messenger firewall, I guess I'll stick with gChat, which, after using Adium for the last two years is like pulling my toenails out one-by-one.
Adobe CS...the original. That's like so 2000.
F12 does nothing for I'm still using OS X 10.3.9. The key here is sans widgets. I cannot live without widgets. I just can't do it.
A trackball mouse, which, to be honest, I didn't even know they made anymore. Oh giant mouse that in totality is bigger than my head, what purpose do you serve? I alone keep Wacom tablets in business for every time I've started a new job (all two times) that is among my first demands. That and a computer that is of this decade. I don't think that's asking too much of a multi-billion dollar company...
I'm not an administrator on my own computer. I need "IT" to come and enter the password every time I need to do something. Yesterday I wanted to repair my permissions. No, illegal. Access denied. I think I finally called them enough times that they realized this girl must know what she's doing if we don't even know what repairing permissions means....so they sequestered admin privileges; damn it feels good to be a computer nerd ahem savvy user.
I can't break through the Instant Messenger firewall, I guess I'll stick with gChat, which, after using Adium for the last two years is like pulling my toenails out one-by-one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
