Monday Nopropos

As we prepare for our slightly spontaneous must-use-vacation-days-before-September-1 vacation to the Great Smoky Mountains, I wanted to dispense with several items.

1. I'm not feeling a lot of love and support vis a vis this trip. To a person, everyone I have told about it, including my beloved sibling, has looked at me incredulously. "What are you going to do?" "Are you, um, outdoorsy?" "Why are you going there?" When I respond with the hiking/rafting/boating/riding we hope to accomplish, the stares become even more incredulous. Listen, I know that I take pride in my Gucci hiking slingbacks and in things like hot water and television, but I would like to remind ye of little faith and great mirth that devoted partner and I, despite our girth, are some pretty outdoorsy types. Offending one and all, devoted partner has been known to call me Action Jew (apologies to Eddie Izzard from whom we shamelessly stole), or if we are being athletic in France, Juif d'Action. In fact, if we can jump on a horse, get in a kayak, or get to the top of something really high, chances are we will. Now it's true, we will not be camping, and that was my decision, but it was prompted way more by the inconvenience of hauling camping crap on a plane than it was any abhorrence of outdoor sleeping. To say nothing of the fact that we have abandoned the sloth of the shore for the wet, oxygen toxicity of beneath the waves. In the future, perhaps a smidgen more benefit of the doubt would not be unwarranted.

2. While I still believe the best future for the MTA lies in Mayor Bloomberg buying it outright and running it like a business instead of a slush fund, I would like to commend the current thieves and criminals for installing, in some stations, the board that updates passengers on when the next train will arrive. Yes, other cities have had these for ages, but I say better late than never.

3. Devoted partner is a far better interweb miner than I, coming up with tons of funnies which he shares with me. I now share some with you and also a serious one courtesy of Antonio:
* Not about OJ Simpson, surprisingly
* Not statistically sound, but tee-hee
* Roger Ebert and I are mind-melding

Happy Monday!

Commuting Nopropos

Merely since yesterday I have encountered a startling number of commuting-related consternations, yet none of them really warrants a dedicated post. Therefore, please enjoy these four:

1. If your teenaged son has a learning disability/drug problem/run-of-the-mill teenaged angst issue, perhaps the best place to discuss with your older daughter how much you can't wait for him to get out of the house, how you're putting him on Adderall and how if he doesn't get into any college he'll have to go into the military and you don't want him fighting, is NOT the train. Kudos to your daughter for explaining that perhaps, prior to drugging your kid up, you might consider sending him to therapy - at least you didn't mess up both your kids. Also, if you're the guidance counselor at GHS where I now know this boy goes to school, please find him and give him some guidance.

2. If you absolutely must give someone instructions, over the phone, as to the precise precise location of the spare key he can find to gain entry to your house, you might consider giving such instructions sotto voce. See, the thing of it is, now that I, and everyone around you, know where your spare key is, you run a greater risk of someone other than the person you're speaking with finding the key and robbing you blind. It wouldn't really be all that difficult to sneak a peak at your license when you hand the conductor your ticket, nor for that matter would it be all that difficult to pickpocket you - especially were the robber a professional. Show a little discretion and you might get to keep all of your nice stuff.

3. It is politically incorrect to make fun of the sounds of foreign tongues - that's akin to making fun of the culture itself. However, if you are speaking English very loudly and it sounds like this or this, then I'm sorry, politically correct or not, I will not be able to stop myself from giggling.

4. If so few people ever help you get your stroller down the stairs that you looked at me with tears in your eyes as you said, "god bless you," there is something seriously wrong with everyone who isn't me. People, help women or men, frankly, get their strollers down the stairs. It literally took me 30 seconds and this poor woman reacted as if I had saved her kid from a burning building. Don't those subway ads say something about courtesy being contagious? Unless you are actually en route to save babies from burning buildings, you have the 30 seconds.

I Have Literally Nothing

You've all been really understanding about what I will term my summer malaise. It's simply too hot or beautiful or muggy to think much less think interesting things. My thoughts proceed as follows: I like the beach; I like ice cream; I like central air conditioning; why can't I have a puppy?; devoted partner looks nice; I want to make ice cream and I have all the ingredients but I just can't seem to make it happen; oooh, look at my tomatoes.

With this in mind, and with apologies, I give to you this. The single awesomest video to ever grace youtube and which made me whimper with delight. Totally safe for work!

Wednesday Nopropos

Yeah, I'm in a crap mood because I just spent 90 minutes at the dentist. I am now ready to assert that dental hygienists are bigger sadists than aestheticians who specialize in waxing. Therefore I am only in the mood for crying and ice cream and not so much for being entertaining.

That being said.

Having admitted my addiction to the wily yarn, I went to a weekly stich n bitch last night. And I might be hooked. First of all, grouping with women I don't know is an outside my comfort zone activity and, as such, a good thing. Secondly, these women were my age and certainly personable. Thirdly, I successfully managed to order nothing at Panera Bread save an iced tea which I sweetened with (gasp) splenda.

This weekend is the annual North Shore Animal League Adoptathon. We went last year, I got my picture taken with Cesar Milan, I played with puppies. We're going again this year. Some might say this is tempting fate, but unless I can line up some babysitters (puppysitters) for the third week in May and the second full week in June, I think we'll be coming home empty handed. I'm just hoping the people who work there don't recognize us from last year and accuse us of coming with no intent to rescue a puppy (last year we just didn't meet our dog - we met lots of cute dogs, but none of them was a love at first sight).

I am still flummoxed by people who hear that the conductor is coming to check tickets and still wait until he asks them personally before they go rifling through their bags to search for their tickets. This isn't rocket science, people, have your ticket out. The conductor has a whole bunch of other tickets to check so help him out by not sucking.

I am not green. Not by a long shot. My next car is going to be a clean diesel. Since my driving mainly consists in 3rd gear shuffles to and from the train station, I am getting abysmal mileage out of my fillups. I sort of fist pump when I make it past 20mpg.

My teeth hurt, they're making me go back in two weeks, I want a puppy, and a suntan, and a banana split. So excuse me while I go whine less publicly.

Wednesday Nopropos

Yeah, you got me. I have the spring fever and my brain can only contemplate warm things. Ergo, I shaft you, my readers with short snippets of things running through my brain. Now with links!

Issue #1: Listen to this. yes, I know it is a video, but it's the music that is important. I would like to find about 100 other songs like it. It is happy-making music. Also, I like sampling and the 80s.

Issue #2: Watch this. In the words of Liz Lemon, "I want to go to there." But seriously, how can you not want to hang out here? Something you might not know about us, but we name our rays. It all started in the Bahamas when we went fishing with a local who then cooks what you caught. He throws the inedible bits into the water and stingrays come to eat it, and then you can play with the stingrays. We decided they needed names: Ray Charles, Billy Ray Cyrus, Man Ray, Stevie Ray Vaughn. Etc.

Issue #3: Can I recomplain about Cablevision? It keeps shows that are no longer on the air on my DVR recording schedule, but fails to record shows that I have asked it to that are actually on. I'm sure this has something to do with the inexplicable rule that should you not want to record one episode of a series you have set to record, Cablevision decides you will never again record any episodes of that series. Honestly, monkeys on tricycles could make a better DVR system. You people suck. Hard.

Issue #4: Bearing in mind that I am not a fan of sushi, where should we take the Frenchies' parents for dinner while they're here? We've thus far posited: Tabla (a non-French food fave of ours), Hill Country (they do not have brisket in France), and Grimaldi's (yes I know it's not the best pizza, but it's a good take out-of-towners place). I'm also thinking maybe a good burger. Or Ippudo for ramen. Think on that, and while you're at it, will there be any nice upscale bar that would have seats on a Saturday night for after dinner drinkies? You know we never go out, we're practically useless.

The weather forecast says it will get cooler tomorrow, and perhaps my brain will start working again. Please accept my warm-weather apologies in the meantime.

Thursday Nopropos

The miracle of power has distracted me from most things. It was simply Promethean in its significance. I could see while I peed. Truly amazing stuff. It just makes me wonder how people in olden times even survived.

I don't, as a rule, hand out money to people on the subway, pretty much regardless of their pitch. However, I'll admit that the school kids selling candy DURING SCHOOL HOURS kinda pisses me off. The level of math they will use to make change from a five strikes me as less apt to help them advance in life than the math they would use if they were in school. Which makes me want to make my donation predicated on their ability to demonstrate that it's ok that they're cutting school to sell candy. Like, if they could tell me the chemical symbol for salt; or tell me the formula for the area of a circle; or who the 3rd US president was. And I think I chose easy ones (originally I was going to ask for the quadratic equation before realizing that I never remember it either and that it most likely isn't even taught in NY public schools).

I am seriously considering a mildly radical hair change (is that an oxymoron?). I need to solicit more opinions . Now I realize this girl is blond and skinny, has unbelievably huge eyes, and is probably Danish - so we're not sharing a lot of background similarities, but I've been wanting long, face-softening bangs for quite some time and I'm at a point in my life where my philosophy is firmly in the, "hey, it's not like the hair won't grow back," position. Devoted partner, with the caveat that under no circumstances should the brown hair be blondified, voiced no initial objections. Also her hair looks super awesome when she puts it up (yes, I also realize that this girl's job is to be beautiful and that someone spent quite a bit of time on her hair).

I bought Ad Hoc at Home after seeing pretty much every food blogger I read cook something from it and rave. I finished paging through it yesterday while sitting outside my house (where there was light) and I think I might be firmly committed to making everything in the book. It all looked good and it all looked devoted partner-approved. I'm even going to make the stuff I think I won't like because I should try more things (I'm looking at you poached salmon). I can be like all the other bloggers and obsessively document it because...

Devoted partner took first prize in the anniversary pool by procuring from me the drool-worthy camera I had been talking about for months; in fact, he did one better, he procured the newer, just released model of the drool-worthy camera. The Canon Rebel T2i should arrive today or tomorrow (backordered as it was due to its supernewness). This is super exciting! Devoted partner is really rather nice to me. I should poison his food less.

And finally, also courtesy of devoted partner, this.

Wednesday Nopropos (Political)

Perhaps it's that I went to bed at 9:15 last night, but I'm a little scattered today.

While watching Monday night's Daily Show wherein Jon Stewart lambastes the democrats for, well, being totally ineffectual, I confess I gave a bit more serious thought to challenging Joe Lieberman for his senate seat. Yes, let's all overlook the obvious for a second (I have barely managed to hold any job for more than a year, and not one of them has even been tangentially related to representing a state's concerns in congress to start), and talk about putting together my exploratory committee. I think one of the main problems with politics is the idea that our elected officials spend most of their time trying to remain our elected officials. A senate term is six years and my guess is, short of doing something actually illegal, they can't throw you out. I could campaign on giving free cookies to every Connecticut resident and then get into office and propose a bill banning cookies, and there's nothing anyone could do. I think the reason we don't see people taking chances or, frankly, calling out their colleagues for being spineless wimps who are afraid to take a hard position, is that they are all worried about getting reelected.

I wouldn't be like that.

Six years would far outstrip the time I spent at any other job and I am willing to be that I'd be bored by the end of it (or burnt out), so six years would be enough time for me to be a senator. This would give me the freedom to talk out of turn a little - like a Ron Paul with way better legs. I'd consider running as an independent so I could take both sides to task without worrying that Chuck Schumer wouldn't sit with me at lunch. Now, I realize that any rational person reading this (especially any rational person who may or may not have ever seen me act in a way that is not strictly "within the law") is worrying if I'm off my meds. After all, senatorial campaigns (hell the campaign for alderman) are incredibly expensive and I'm still paying off student loans. But isn't there still the useful fiction that in America one can lead a grassroots movement? I could be that grassroots movement! So, what I'm saying is, start seriously considering donating to my campaign.

One thing that might ruin my credibility with the left is a little disturbing tidbit passed to me by darling Antonio. He sent me a link to a brief segment on the O'Reilly Factor wherein (did I just use 'wherein' twice in one posting? It is a useful word when you think about it) it could be noted that Bill and I are in a kind of creepy agreement vis a vis Haiti. Now Antonio, who is hoping beyond hope that my senatorial campaign is more about shooting wolves from helicopters and less about, say, helping people, thought this would be an excellent springboard to convince me that Bill O'Reilly and I are more aligned ideologically than is actually true. One of the things I can't stand about modern politics, modern news, modern punditry, is the idea that all blanks think blank. Contrary by nature, this is grossly offensive to me. While chuckle-inducing in the short-term, I'm not super surprised that there is an issue, nay probably issues, where Bill O'Reilly and I can find common ground (I mean I would be willing to bet that both Sarah Palin and I think that intentionally poisoning retarded people is wrong - see we agree).

However, in the same clip, O'Reilly goes on to say something to the effect of, "see here's where the liberals blah blah blah." Wait a tic. I'm nominally liberal and we were right there together, Bill, why do you want to then make the discussion about how liberals as an undifferentiated group do/say/think/are anything? I know it makes for good television, I just wish our politics weren't so constantly televised that it became good politics as well.

So, creative types out there, start trying our slogans (it has been pointed out to me that, "Hey, I couldn't possible suck more than Joe" is not all that catchy). Together we can a) gainfully employ me for six years and b) change the face of American politics.

Monday Nopropos

I had some capital-letter-type entries brewing in my mind, but when reviewing them, they sounded really high falutin' and have been abandoned to the trash heap of my brain. I give you instead some easily digestible bites.

Happy birthday Antonio. You are good friend, a loyal reader, and deliverer of much unsolicited advice. May your less-geographically-impaired-than-we-are friends fete you in a manner becoming a man of your stature.

In the absence of HGTV, I have needed a new brainless channel. Thank you G4 for stepping up to the plate. And knowing thyself. While boycotting the cold, I was able to watch their aptly named Junk Food TV which included such hits as Ninja Warrior (which I would argue is not junk food television at all, but you could respond that the Women of Ninja Warrior shows hosted by a Playboy playmate were not amply nutritious - and you'd be right), Cops, and like Cops but different: Campus PD. Devoted partner feels bad for the cops on Campus PD because they try to arrest mouthy undergrads who have a vague understanding of their rights as opposed to the cops on Cops who arrest crystal meth addicts who have a vague understanding of nothing.

Much like the scene in The World is Not Enough where the guy from Trainspotting knows Pierce Brosnan's shoulder hurts because the French girl from Braveheart told him and so the Trainspotting guy exerts pressure on Pierce's bad shoulder, I think EA Active knows that my knees wobble and make funny sounds on the best of days and has therefore made me do a truly unnecessary number of lunge-type activities so that I will make little bitch noises all day when going up and down stairs. Way to be sadistic, Wii.

And, in a truly lame segue, I draw your attention to a posting on a favorite blog (that you should not go to if you are at work) that compares house hunting to consumption of pornography. I would go on to add that as a former watcher of HGTV, it should be noted that when prepping houses for sale, all of the professionals transform people's normal homes into creepy carbon copies of one another by means of PotteryBarnification - so it's not your imagination.

Finally, I have decided that, as part of my Road to DSLR, I will remember how lenses work by taking my old-school SLR out for a spin. Now I just have to figure out if places (not B&H) even sell film anymore.

Sorry for the assortment-type post. I will endeavor to find common threads tomorrow.

Water Politics

Ah, summer camp, my first encounter with the others - people mostly like me who grew up in a strange netherworld known as suburbia. You were a fascinating bunch, most especially because you found me such an anomaly: when not asking if I was your counselor (I wasn't) you were inquiring after my safety in the dangerous streets of New York. And yes, while the Koch/Dinkins years did have their share of, well, crack, I found your wide-eyed disbelief that I had never been a victim of a violent crime charming. I thought you all were so sheltered...

Now devoted partner, a suburban boy himself, has a theory about New Yorkers which I have heard so many times (and find so boring and "look at me, I watch science documentaries") that I cannot believe I am about to repeat it, but here goes: New Yorkers are like deep-sea creatures; perfectly at home in an environment that would kill normal underwater creatures and unable to survive anywhere else. Blah blah blah. Ten years that boy spent in Manhattan and still asked me questions about which subway line to take (whereas I have perfectly adapted to my new environment if you don't count asking him to check my tire pressure, go into the attic because it's gross up there, and being indignant that the people who pick up our trash want to be PAID for the service - that's what municipal coffers are for).

But I am learning that my sophisticated urban upbringing sheltered me from what I fondly refer to as reality. I know my suburban friends will bear with me as I share a fascinating thing with my city friends: hot water runs out!

I'm not talking about when your landlord posts a notice in the elevator telling you that they are working on the boiler and there will be no hot water from 10:00am-4:00pm; nor am I talking about some bizarre confluence of events where, if you flush the toilet while the kitchen sink is on, the hot water will temporarily disappear (or appear with vengeance). No, I'm talking about taking a shower and suddenly noticing the water is getting colder; adjusting the temperature and realizing that you have a finite amount of hot water, and it has run out.

And I'm not taking what I would consider superlong showers. After all, I have to wash my hair with shampoo twice, condition, wash the rest of me, wash out the unmentionables, finger comb my hair, and then rinse everything. Also, there's that 2 minutes at the beginning of the shower when you are adjusting in the temperature and reveling in the warmth. I reckon I have about 8 minutes with which to do this. It's not a lot of time. I remember growing up, my mother would always complain about how long I spent in the shower, but those were the "learning about your body" years and she should have damn well understood. This is not about that.

This is about, occasionally, wanting a leisurely shower, perhaps with devoted partner, who mumbles something about the temperature of the boiler, but I'm really not listening because HOT WATER SHOULD NOT RUN OUT! God help me the times I have forgotten this and gotten in the shower while either the dishwasher or washing machine was running.

Now, to pull this back around, I am reminded of summer camp, where, from time to time, there was no hot water in the showers. I don't remember why this was, but my guesses range from we were in the middle of nowhere and I'm surprised we had clean running water to begin with to it was an intentional deprivation by the rulers of Zionist summer camp to remind us that our ancestors spent 40 years wandering the dessert where, presumably, a shower was an undreamed of luxury. What I do remember was putting on my bathing suit, packing up my toiletries, and heading to the cold water pump where I, and several friends, would tip our heads upside down and wet our hair under the freezing cold water in order that we could wash it. That sort of shenanigans is fine for 14-year olds at sleepaway camp, but not at all fine for 32-year olds who (again, apartment dwellers, don't flip out) have to PAY for water (like garbage, apparently it is not free).

I don't know what power source creates the hot water, but environment be damned, I am considering amping that shit up. I have been very content to live as old-timey folks do, you know, in a house and not a sturdier structure like a building, but I shall not take to boiling water in all available pans merely so there is enough for the washin'. There. I have said my piece.

Nopropos: I have always been a fan, but sheesh, Bob Barker is AWESOME! Suck it, Japan!

Does Any Of Us Have A Job Anymore?

I must update this blog and then read the updates of the blogs I have linked to.

I must, when the urge strikes, tweet my thoughts, and read the tweets of others (and can I just say that I understand none of the other tweets - this is probably my age but between the @s and the #s and the bit.lys, it's not even remotely language anymore - one in a tweet is ok, but when you @ a # with a .ly, my mind just cannot keep up anymore and, more to the point, I cease to find you informative and just find you annoying).

I upload photos to flickr and then take the time to look at the uploads of my friends (and I don't even have that many, thank god).

But then I read an article which tells me to check out a site, and I read a post that references another site, and all of a sudden what was once a manageable amount of time wasting has become a vocation (and kudos to the lucky few who have monetized this sort of thing).

I would like to read all of these things and look at the pretty pictures and comment on things, but I just don't seem to have the time to do that and also cook meals, WiiWorkout, speak 10-20 words to devoted partner and listen to 10-20 words in response, etc. etc.

In the end, I skim. And I HATE skimming. Skimming is only effective for horrible drivel assigned to you in poetry class, you know the stuff written by some stuffy be-courderoyed idiot who thinks he has the intel on Yeats. Pick up the main points, regurgitate them in a paper, and be done with it. But I WANT to concentrate on the media I favor. And I like discovering new media to be digested. But everyone seems to update all the time and I barely have enough time to update myself.

I guess I could buy a netbook and then, in the evenings, devoted partner and I could sit on the couch together with the television on in the background, each with a computer in front of us, perusing websites, but I kind of don't like the way that looks.

So I ask for help, since a lot of you seem to make time for this site, it makes me assume you make time for others. From whence that time? And are you concerned about getting fired?

Nopropos: I tried wearing blush yesterday, but I felt like an idiot. I am going to pretend my tan is still dark enough that I can get away with bare skin. I am however two days and counting on mascara.

Edited to add: crap, and that doesn't even count learning how to tag things - a concept which I have attempted to embrace, but obviously suck at.

The Worst of Both Worlds

I'm trying out something new. When people ask me where I live, I am going to stop qualifying my response with, "but we live three doors away from Port Chester" and instead just say "Greenwich." If someone chooses to imagine me in a 5000 square foot mcmansion with stable, so be it. In fact, people might be nicer to me if they thought I had an obscene amount of money, and I think one of those self-help fads suggests that you act as you would like to become and given I would like to become a person with obscene wealth, perhaps this is the first step.

However, admitting to others that I live in Greenwich catapults me to a demographic to which I never thought I would gain entry: B&T. I am now a member of the Bridge and Tunnel class. I must take a bridge to reach Manhattan. This was clear to me on Saturday night when devoted partner, Amy, and I finished dinner at Melon's and we walked to our parked car to return home. Not because we had to drive home - when we lived in Manhattan we would frequently take the car to Brooklyn - but because of the manner in which we hailed the cab for Amy. Back when I lived here, I was very conscientious about cab priority. I tried to never intentionally poach another person's cab because of the batshit crazy it made me when someone poached mine. And who were the frequent poachers? Bridge and Tunnel people, smacking their gum and teasing their hair while they wedged their spandexed behinds into my cab. There was a fine cold mist that had developed between downpours and the cabs were hard to come by. We staked out a corner so that we could find a cab going in either or two directions, and we waited. When a cab saw us, we heard the people across the street to our south yelling for it, and ignored them. When the cab pulled up, we ushered Amy into it.

This might seem normal to you. However, in my old life, I would have known whether or not the people to my south had been there before me and if they had, I would have given them my cab - call it my nod to karma. But now I just didn't care. I needed to get Amy into the cab so we could get into our car and get home. I couldn't tell you if we legitimately hailed that cab, or if we were cab poachers, but I do know that Manhattanite Yelena would have know the difference.

As I stomped around the neighborhood of my youth on Saturday, I realized that I did so with a sense of ownership coupled with the sense of disregard so often displayed by the visitor. I was the worst of both worlds. Unconsciously I was behaving with aloof entitlement (not to be confused with behaving as one or the other, which I am guilty of frequently), and this made me realize that transplants could be the most dangerous demographic of them all.

Imagine someone who knows where she's going and what to expect when she gets there AND doesn't care about making local enemies in the process because she doesn't live there? It's really a fearsome thing. I always attributed the rudeness of the out-of-towners to their indifference of how they were perceived BECAUSE they only came in once a week and the people they were rude to one night would never be people they saw again, whereas we who lived here ran a greater risk of running into our victims daily. But I don't live here anymore. I don't have to worry about running into people at the dry cleaners. I'm not sure this is a power I'm ready for.

Nopropos: first morning of singing civil disobedience was super satisfying, triggered by the third loud phone call in my train car.

Idle Hands, Idle Minds

[note: I don't have a USB cable with me so the photo(s) that accompany this will have to wait]

I should come clean and admit something: I have RBS. Restless Brain Syndrome. It is true that Pfizer has yet to address my needs with pharmaceuticals, but I fervently believe it's only a matter of time. I like doing more than one thing at a time. Jamie used to joke that I didn't watch TV, I listened to it. My fear of idleness is such that, if I have 100 pages or less to go in the book I am reading, I pack a second book. You never know when the subway you are on will go out of service between stations for an hour and you'll finish your book and have nothing else to do. I don't understand people who commute without something to occupy them.

So when I get on the train in the mornings I am wary of those people who have neither book nor newspaper nor Kindle. I myself have been knitting on the train because I'm having that experience where I'm nearing the end of a good book and I don't want it to end so I'm prolonging the experience. The people who are just staring blankly ahead, but not sleeping with their eyes open? Those people unnerve me. What could they possibly be doing or thinking? Are the thinking? Or are they just zoning out, slackening their jaw muscles, and waiting for the next stop. It should be noted that people who examine their cellphones as if the phones have changed since last they were held are truly no better than the mouth-breathers.

I was seated in the dining car again this morning, feeling jolly and retro. A man, I believe he works for the MTA, who usually gets on at Port Chester, got on today at Rye. He put his bags down and went to the bathroom. The well put together but obviously not on her way to gainful employment woman seated diagonally from me suddenly looked up and at his bags. She asked the gentlemen seated next to the bags if they were his, and receiving a negative response, became flustered. I told her they belonged to the man in the bathroom. She said that she was concerned because one of his bags looked a certain way. A certain way was that it held his walkie-talkie and the antenna was sticking out. I told her that if it made her feel any better I was pretty sure he worked for the MTA and took this train every morning. She breathed a sigh of relief. I resisted the urge to tell her that, statistically speaking, there was little for the terrorists to gain by blowing up the train that would take her to her personal shopping day at Bendel's.

But it reminded me that people really are narcissistic enough to believe they are personally being targeted. For the record, at least she wasn't a racist. Though I'm not sure she saw him before he went to the bathroom, the potential terrorist in question was a 50-year old, clinically obese, white guy who looked like he worked on the railroad all the livelong day. In her defense, he did have a beard. I listen to the same news the rest of the populace does, more or less, and callous though I may be, I just don't worry that when the news says my train might blow up that actually means there's a greater chance my train will be blown up. There was ALWAYS a good chance my train was going to be blown up, the question of who does the blowing up seems far less important in my mind than the fact I would be dead. I also don't feel like maximum collateral effect would be achieved by blowing up an off-peak New Haven line. The terrorists know it's a half-empty train of rich man's effluvia.

I resisted the urge to tell the woman this mainly because I am trying to fool the people around me into thinking I am normal, and laying into this woman for being stupid would be a clear indication of my lack of normal. But for the doubters still out there, I have a pretty strong feeling that you will not be a victim of terrorist attack on any of the following: the JetBlue flight from JFK to Burlington; the 10:30am Katonah to Grand Central; the M86 crosstown bus - also the M79, M72, and M66; the Hampton Jitney. See where I'm going with this? So everyone can exhale again and resume texting the decorator about wall treatments.

We're all going to be OK.

Nopropos: I was mean to the String store earlier this week and I wanted to taketh with one hand and giveth with another. I went into the Manhattan branch on Tuesday to ask a favor the salespeople were under no obligation to grant. The salesgirl (granted she was under 40 and didn't smell of cat) graciously helped me out. So maybe the Greenwich branch just needs a little more employee training.

If You Have A Y-Chromosome You Should Stop Reading Now

I do not consider myself a follower of trends. My wardrobe primarily consists of whatever was on sale at The Gap, augmented in the past several years by disposable H&M clothing. The closest I think I've come to trendy was purchasing a pair of those slip-on Converses. As a lass, money was tight and clothing tended towards functional, reliable and versatile, rather than a la mode. This is not to say we dressed in ugly crap, rather that I dressed in a lot of classic solids. And, in retrospect, I did not have the figure to pull off the black Betsey Johnson dress with the many rainbow bows that several of the girls had in junior high.

One thing my dad did frequently repurchase for me as I outgrew the old one was a denim jacket. My dad loves his denim jackets and thought I should have one too. When last denim jacket was banished from my closet in high school, I remembered thinking, at the time, that I was through. Denim jackets (and likewise denim skirts) were fashionable for exactly 5 months every 8 years and I was tired at looking at the damned thing(s) in the interim. My father, to my occasional horror, trots his out year after year regardless of the current fashion (of course he has also been sporting some very very light jeans this year so perhaps not so much of a casualwear role model). Sure, on the latest cute starlet, both items might seem kicky, but on me, they were just silly, never fit properly, and kept getting more expensive.

Well this morning as I through on an on-sale dress from last year's Old Navy offering and went searching for an ill-matching shawl in case the train was cold, I realized that a denim jacket would have been perfect with what I was wearing and, I daresay, a little cute. The dress is one of those jersey numbers that can be either dressed up or down, in a flattering shade of burgundy, and a darkish washed denim jacket would have covered my shoulders, matched nicely in the color department, and would have seemed kicky whether I was wearing the Gucci alligator peep toes or the CVS flip flops.

I am, however, resisting the urge to regress. Banishing the denim jacket was the right move at 16, and keeping it in exile is the right move now. I'm sure in the right circumstances, Lucite heels and leopard print blouses make sense too, but I'm not going to be picking those up any time soon.

Nopropos: So I watched two episodes of Glee last night to see if it was going to make the DVR schedule (it just might), but I can't really give it my full-throated (no pun intended) support because the actors are not the people singing. Which makes me wonder why bother? Was it really so difficult to find actors who could sing? When the kids open their mouths and someone entirely different sounding comes out, I find it jarring. Sigh.

Project Charlie: The Legacy

See, some of you are laughing and smiling knowingly and others of you not so much. Project Charlie was the "kids should not do drugs" class we all took in school. Spearheaded by Katie, my best friend's mom (a best friend who isn't bestest enough to read this daily - I hate you Ed, see you at dinner tonight), Project Charlie attempted to convince us that drugs are bad mmmkay. I don't know how successful that part of the class was, but the part I'm pretty sure hit it out of the park was Project Charlie on drunk driving.

Yeah, we were a bunch of city kids for whom the idea of getting behind the wheel of an actual automobile was likely only if our dads lost sight of reality long enough to let us take their 911s out for a spin in East Hampton. It wasn't like any of us had access to a car that in a few short years we would need to drive regularly, but the lesson was imparted nonetheless. Don't Drive Drunk. Ever.

Driving drunk, in my memory, was akin to clubbing seals. It was something good people never ever did, but something we would encounter time and again. When senior year rolled around, the only reason I signed up for driver's ed was that I knew I'd be going off to college where everyone else was going to be driving drunk so I figured I should know how to drive myself home if I was the only sober person in a sea of drunks.

So I had a license long before I had a car, or even access to a car. Coincidentally, the weekend after my 21st birthday when a rental company would deign to rent me one of their fleet, I took the opportunity to drive to best friend Ed's house in Massachusetts for the weekend. I can't be positive, but it might be truth that until we moved to Greenwich, I had never had so much as a single drink in my system prior to getting behind the wheel.

Of course, this is, apparently, an untenable position to hold while living extra-urbanly. My mother-in-law and I once got into a multi-hour fight about our competing positions (I'm right by the way, just because calling a cab if you want to down two bottles of wine with dinner is inconvenient, it's still the right thing to do). So it was with trepidation, dear Jeff, that I asked you last night if you wanted another round. You had debonairly offered to pick up the first round and I didn't want you to think I was the kind of girl who tapes up your mild groin injury in 1994 and then expects free drinks for life, it was that we had enjoyed a beer with dinner, and I was certainly enjoying the bourbon I had just finished and... well, and in less than 90 minutes, I was going to be at the parking lot in Port Chester getting my car.

I don't know what it feels like to drive while mildly intoxicated. Based on what I had drank and how long it would be before I needed to drive I was fairly certain I would be on the right side of the law, but is DUI something I want to play the de jure de facto game with? I fervently believe in zero tolerance for DUI, and by zero tolerance I mean like zero for reals for serious. My intransigence probably contributes to mother-in-law fights as well as devoted partner fights, but considering that DUI kills completely innocent people, I don't mind being Giuliani-esque on the enforcement end of things. So this is an issue where I don't want to slide by on a technicality.

Whilst in the burbs, it's easier: 1 drink. 1 drink because when the drink is finished, I have to get in my car and drive home. I guess if I wanted to be a pill about it, I could make sure that I had 1 drink per hour and left more than an hour after the last drink, etc. etc., but we're getting back to letter and spirit of the law with that nonsense. 1 drink is easier. But if I'm having dinner or drinks in Manhattan, it becomes a little different. The hour on the end is built in - it's the time it takes for me to get home. I allowed myself a second drink based on that. And, truth be told, I felt 100% normal when I got into my car with or without the knowledge that home was fewer than 2 miles away.

But it made me consider, with anger in my heart, the following: upon entering the track at Grand Central I saw the beverage cart: the cart that sells beer to commuters for their train ride. WHY IS THIS NOT ILLEGAL? You are selling beer to people to drink while they wait to drive from the station to their homes. But Yelena, you say, drinking and driving is against the law, why would it be permissible to sell these drivers booze? I cannot answer that question, dear friends, because frankly I feel like the only passenger on the Logic Boat here. Putting aside my utter and complete disdain for the jackholes who can't wait until they get home to have a frosty Bud Light (someone help me out here - is it "cool" to drink while Metro Northing? do these guys, and they're always guys, have serious drinking problems? what on earth is the deal with needing, or frankly wanting, a watered down beer while you shuffle homewards?), don't these beer stands downplay the severity of drinking while under the influence? I mean, hey, if you're going to sell me a beer before I get in my car, that's tacit approval right there. I know some of you are more inured to this than I, but last night, as I wrestled with the issue of how much is too much, seeing people buy beer to keep them company during their harrowing 45 minute train ride, chafed me real good. Thank god one of them wasn't sitting next to me or the train ride might well have turned harrowing.

Nonpropos: I'm about to channel my father when I say I can't believe I paid $70 for a pair of jeans. I realize that every woman reading this now thinks I'm insane because the jeans they buy all cost at least double that, but I find jeans, like t-shirts, to be a utilitarian item of clothing and not a fashion statement; ergo, $8 t-shirts and jeans from The Gap. But it seems that jeans from The Gap are now $70. In point of fact I'm not complaining because I'm so flipping happy The Gap has decided to stock jeans again - it's been about 18 months of jeans that are only available in size Ethiopia and size Jerry Springer guest. I was so excited, the thought never crossed my mind to wait for them to go on sale. The jeans I currently wear have gotten so bad that devoted partner, a man who has commented negatively on my clothing maybe three times in twelve years, came out and told me my jeans were unflattering over the weekend - something I couldn't even begin to get bent out of shape about because he is absolutely right. I am wearing stretched out jeans a size too big ultimately becoming the poster girl for saggy baggy elephant ass; but as I mentioned, The Gap has not been selling jeans recently. So thank you, The Gap, I may have felt like an idiot buying something called Curvy Low Rise Boot Cut Stretch jeans while being simultaneously flabbergasted by your new sizes where you list a waist measurement (note to The Gap: your jeans come nowhere near my natural waist - the area they do fall near has not been 31 inches since elementary school so this number is, essentially meaningless; nowhere on these pants is there a diameter of 31 inches), but at least I am now wearing jeans that fit, that do not have holes in the buttocks, and that are destined to ruin an entire load of laundry when I forget to wash them separately.

Ah Desks

I'm not that picky when it comes to furniture, honestly I'm not. I've never given much thought to furniture, so I'm not wedded to a specific style or color. What I would like is something I'm not embarrassed by. I don't want to go to IKEA, and I don't want the 50 dollar desk from Staples. I'd like something that looks, sort of, nice. Sadly, even if I wanted to go to Crate and Barrel/Pottery Barn/Restoration Hardware/West Elm, I'd end up with something that, to my untrained eye, looks like the IKEA desk but is more expensive. So I've embarked, yet again, on a magical mystery tour of craigslist only to discover that lots of people are getting rid of their used IKEA desks for the bargain price of 70% of retail. Because I'm sure the desk you've been using for two years has only lost 30% of its value, considering the high quality of the merchandise in the first place. Perhaps I'm biased, but if you're selling your IKEA furniture and it's in mint condition, you can have the gall to ask for 40% of retail, but everyone else should be satisfied if he can get $5. This is IKEA furniture people. It's like trying to sell your used clothing that you bought at Target for 70% of retail. Anyone in his right mind would simply GO TO TARGET AND BUY IT NEW!!!!!

But craigslist has, true to its nature, turned up a number of puzzling listings, many of which have made me consult a dictionary for the definition of antique, and others making me scratch my head wondering if the person who penned the ad is altogether sane.



Not bad, right? It's not what I'm looking for, but it seems to be a desk. It's being sold for $325. That's right. Someone's old desk from West Elm is being sold for $325. It was a limited edition color, though, that should mean something; similarly the poster assures me it's easy to 'essemble.' I'll try to over look the fact that it is a slab of metal on legs, and a used slab of metal on legs that someone wants $325 for. Is it me?!?



Again, we have something that looks perfectly serviceable. Not my style, but it's someone's, and it looks to be in good condition. $600. Want to know why? Because the poster claims he/she spent $2000 on it when it was new. If this is the case, that person should be committed. $2000 for this? It's just some wood. It's decent looking wood, but wood nonetheless, and I'm pretty positive it doesn't bear the imprimateur of a famous designer. If you paid $600 for it when new, I would be more convinced. That you want me to give you $600 while simultaneously believing you once paid someone else $2000, well, I would like to introduce you to my handmade artisan 8th grade pottery; it can be yours for only $300 and will bring you years of delight!



No no no no no! I'm sorry. This is not a salable item. This is trash. If it isn't, you've done a piss poor job of photographing this item to its best advantage. Right now this looks like something destined for the curb. In hell. That you want $90 for this is a joke. If someone would give you $5 you should take it gladly. That someone will not be me, however.



As if to illustrate my point here comes this. $350. The poster states that when he bought it a "few years ago" he paid $500. So what the poster is telling me is that if I, too, want to spend another $150 I can have a brand new one of these that no one ever spilled diet coke on, a chair no one ever farted into. Or I could give him more than half the purchase price for his. I just bought a car. It had 8 miles on it when I took possession. By the time I had gotten it from Queens to Connecticut, it was already worth about $3000 less than its new value. But your table and chair has only depreciated $150 in the unspecified "few" years you've owned it? I must be missing something because these listings are not aberrations, they're everywhere. Please buy my used crap for nearly new prices. After all, I once paid for it, so you should too, but you won't get the new version, you'll get my old version. This is why when I buy used books from Amazon I only buy ones that are a dollar. You see if the new book costs 15 dollars and someone is selling a used copy for 11, I'D RATHER HAVE THE NEW ONE FOR 4 MORE DOLLARS. This should hold true across the board. New things are better than old things with a few notable exceptions, but those exceptions are generally for valuable things (amphorae and the like - no one wants to pay top dollar for a brand new amphora), not a couch you and your family have sweat on for five years.

Now, to be fair, there are a couple of desks that passed the Yelena test, things made out of non-IKEA wood for the friendly price of $100-$150, and I'll be following up on those, but the rest of the stuff just flummoxes me. I think we, as a society, should all get together and agree that IKEA furniture is disposable. You buy it and that's it, it doesn't get a second owner, it gets a one-way ticket to the dump. Selling cheap furniture, even for sub-$50 prices is embarrassing, because the furniture wasn't worth anything to begin with. I have owned and loved IKEA furniture, but I have never had the balls to try to sell my IKEA furniture to someone else. Because it's from IKEA. Used things should never be sold for more than half of new things because new things frequently go on sale for half the price of themselves. See how this all makes sense? Ok, I see my crazy is emerging and it should be returned to its cage.

Nopropos: I finished reading 2666: A Novel last week and while I can't tell you what it was about because I'm still trying to decide that, I can tell you it was the best book I've read in years. It is a book I think everyone I know should read (and likely people I don't know). Yeah, it's long. But it's broken up into 5 easily digestible pieces, made easier by the fact that it's now in paperback whereas I was toting the hardcover around with me. This book = good. Read this book.

Rewarding Ourselves

[Before I start, I have added a little something so that I don't have to join twitter. I am calling them nopropos so I don't have to write "apropos of nothing." If a posting is tagged with nopropos, it means I added a non sequitur that wasn't deserving of it's own separate post. I would like to have the tags visible at the top of the posting, but so far blogger is being wildly uncooperative vis a vis the amount of format editing I can do without actually digging into the code (which I don't want to do).]

Yes, we still live in the dark, but until you lamp designers out there provide us with something we like, the dark it shall be. Notwithstanding our cave-like existence, in the four weeks since moving in we have accomplished enough that we would not be embarrassed to have you over. We finally assembled the dining room table (having discovered the hardware for it at long last) and, as of yesterday, framed Ed's art, refinished 90% of the lawn furniture - I ran out of paint, - and put down the rug pad in the living room. So Friday, as crazy people do, devoted partner said, "let's drive to Maine," and in a move that I think highlights our suitability for one another, I said, "cool."

So at 8:30pm Friday night, I was asleep, and at 2:30am, I was awake; at 3:00am we were on the road. Nota bene: my engine break-in period is over, I will now be experimenting with revs. Devoted partner had not gone to bed at 8:30pm, though he did do a fair bit of packing, so I took the wheel. He took over at the first Maine rest stop at 6:45am - I made good time without being felonious (misdemeanorish, yes).

Why, one might reasonably ask, did we do this at all. After all, originally we had planned on spending the weekend at the beach. Yeah, but, see, Maine beckoned. It had a lot going for it. We spent four days there in July and had a really really good time. So we thought we might like to use the beautiful Saturday weather promised us on a boat on Sebago Lake. This was worth being kinda sleep deprived and kinda crazy. Furthermore, we got to have breakfast at Chute's.

I know people of the non-slender variety shouldn't spend a lot of time waxing rhapsodic about fattening food, but I can't help it from time to time. Devoted partner took me to Chute's for the first time in 1998. At that time Chute's was in a woman's house. She lived upstairs and served people food downstairs. Regulars had mugs inscribed with their names. There was a single item on the menu that drew us there: the Egg Nate. I will be honest, it is nothing more than an egg mcmuffin, but it's made with real ingredients and they make the english muffin. I only had two Egg Nates on that first trip to Maine, but they made an indelible impression on me - the kind of indelible impression that lasted the 11 years until my subsequent Egg Nate, in July of this year. Original Chute's was gone, burned down intentionally by a very very bad person for no apparent reason. In it's place is slightly less homey Chute's but with all the same Egg Nate. It was our first stop on this impromptu getaway and we were there by 8:00am. I am a Bacon Nate kinda girl, devoted partner inexplicably opts for the Ham Nate. We both enjoy the hot chocolate.

The next stop was the pontoon boat rental. Yes, I suppose people of the non-slender variety should probably not rent boats that accentuate the non-slender human's similarity to the walrus, but I like to think of the pontoon boat less like a boat and more like a floating tanning deck - the motor for me is purely optional. And so, by 9:00am, we were in Brandy Pond heading towards the Songo Locks. If you have never been in a large motor boat and herded into locks before, I highly recommend it. It's really funny and, in my experience, other boats frequently have dogs in them that you can play with while the water changes levels.



Please note dog in the far boat. After this, my memory gets fuzzy. I recall it being a breathtakingly gorgeous day, and I recall napping in the sun. I also recall being blissfully blissfully content. Devoted partner shares similar memories. Sadly, the "tubing" section of the day, while photographed, has been censored by devoted partner - we have differing opinions on the laughter of others. I don't care if you laugh at me or with me, I think it's nice you're laughing. Devoted partner disagrees. Ergo, no photographs of tubing.

But the fun was just beginning. After checking into the very reasonable bed and breakfast I found at approximately 6:30pm Friday, we turned right back around, got some Dairy Bar (ok, I see what you're thinking about the non-slender people and perhaps some of the reasons behind their being non-slender, but it's vacation and if it cheers you up, I am eating grapes and bananas today) where I got an inspired banana ice cream with butterscotch syrup. You might notice there are no pictures of any of the food. There's a good reason for this: I always mean to photograph my food, but then forget and remember about two fork/spoonfuls before the food is gone (please see previous parenthetical remark).

And then it was off to the Bridgton Drive-In.



Maine has drive-ins and they rock! Other people at the drive-in were pros with station wagons and sleeping bags, whereas we had to content ourselves with the dizzying array of seat configurations offered by the nice volks at Volkswagen. It was a triple feature special for Labor Day Weekend, but we only intended to see the first two movies: Inglorious Basterds and District 9. I'd like to say we watched the films, and I'd like you to get your heads out of the collective gutters when you read that. I made it through most of the Basterds before falling asleep prior to finding out what happened in the end, and saw the closing credits of District 9, but what I did see made me happy - especially as I was seeing it from my car while listening to the sound through the radio. Drive-ins are awesome!

Sunday was bizarrely cold and slightly less fun because of it. We tried the beach but it was far more suited for walking than lying down. But while tootling along local roads we found ourselves witness to Lenny, the 1700 pound chocolate moose.



After that, and taking advantage of a brief window of warmth, it was off to Old Orchard Beach, the Coney Island of Maine, but less diverse (unless you consider Quebecois diverse), for a nap on the beach. Old Orchard Beach has a special distinction for me in that it is the only place in the world in which I have ever written my initials in a bathroom stall. And I have done that twice. Because when we were there in July, I discovered, with horror, that the doors in the ladies room were new and that my old signing was therefore lost to history. I resigned. In pink pen.

So the Maine season is probably over for 2009 (since it's about to get really really cold there), but it was a great sendoff for the summer and we got home at an eminently reasonable time on Sunday night leading to a most productive Monday (lawn chairs, framed art, rug pads, not to mention I made strawberry vanilla preserves). I am now actively in the mode whereby I determine how best to extend my tan throughout the winter - New Year's in Bonnaire is looking mighty good!

Nopropos: Now that summer is over, I need to re-learn how to drive in shoes. I have been driving barefoot for so long that I'm having serious difficulty in shoes of any kind (though less difficulty paradoxically in spiky heeled shoes). The cowboy boots I wore today in honor of the unofficial start of fall just weren't cutting it, but winter is hardly the time to drive barefoot. It's just that the shoes create an unbreachable barrier between me and the feel of the pedals. I can feel when the clutch engages barefoot; I can't when wearing shoes. Sigh.

The List

I am still typing this from a computer keyboard perched atop my dresser.

In the dark.

All the books have a home but cd spindles, pens, checkbooks, and documents do not.

We eat off tv trays.

In the dark.

And there's a really ratty piece of torn carpet that serves as a runner.

With so much work completed, it's hard to believe what remains. In my notebook I wrote down all the things we would need and how urgent those things were: the runner was a least important, a desk was the most important. Most of the things on those lists have been crossed off, I swear. But I still don't have a garbage can for the kitchen.

And as I've mentioned there's a little bit of a light issue all around. Lamps are definitely our nemeses.

Then there's the little matter of my desk. As those who know me well can attest, I have a little bit of an orange thing i.e. I love orange things. Six months or so ago CB2 had a bright orange desk. When I mention I don't have a desk yet, many well-meaning friends suggest this bright orange desk they remember seeing in the CB2 catalog. They don't have it any more. Now the options are chartreuse and black. And it's not so much a desk as it is a piece of metal on casters. Which may have been easy to overlook had the metal been orange, but without that sweetener, it's a $150 metal piece on wheels. The trouble is, I haven't seen a desk at any price that I like. It is true, I want a cheap desk, but at this point, the right desk would be worth some money. Considering, as I mentioned before, that my current desk is a dresser. I sit sideways on my chair because there's no room for my legs - there are drawers there. It is true, when we were at United Housewreckers, I gave some thought to the old-timey desk; something with a roll-top or a banker's feel, but those things are heavy and I have a feeling I would get tired of one sooner rather than later. On the other hand, the monstrosities that pass for modern efficiency desks are little more than tinker toys writ large. I'm considering saving the money on a desk and buying a laptop instead that I can rest on one of the tv trays (though I still have one monster of a printer that would need a home - it's one of the other things that hasn't been unpacked because there's nowhere for it to live). Also, while a laptop would solve the surface area problem of desks, it wouldn't solve the drawer problem: the drawers I intend to use for cd spindles, checkbooks, and pens.

I've tried to downplay the desk problem because it is so far less interesting than the prep kitchen table problem. After all, I can currently use my computer, and if I wanted to, I could simply unpack the pens and cd spindles into one of the dresser drawers; whereas I have no room anywhere to make ravioli or puff pastry. Still, as the days turn into weeks and the cooling weather reminds me of the passage of time, prosaically, I realize this desk thing too is a problem that needs attention. So if you see something that doesn't suck and doesn't cost more than a laptop, please send it my way. My thighs are cramping!


Apropos of nothing, I'm preserving for posterity examples of people on Metro North attempting to hog seats. This one was a special favorite though, in gross foot man's defense, when two legitimately elderly frail looking people got on the train he did let them have his seat - that smelled of feet. I wish I had a picture of the seat I took yesterday afternoon - I had it picked out as the train was still rolling into the station: a woman in a three-across seat sitting in the middle seat with her shit on either side of her. She was not pleased I thought to take one of the THREE seats she had selected for herself. Remember, fellow commuters, I am on the lookout for the most selfish among you to be my seatmate. Prepare to be maliciously inconvenienced and, I hope, chagrined by your own truly laudable spatial parsimony!