Hey remember that time I found a human tooth down on Delancey?

Excuse me, since when does Pandora have commercials that you need to watch in order to start playing your channels? Am I really this out of touch with the goings on of the internet? Just a few short months ago I was spending my days at coffee shops or in our living room and Pandora was the only reason I got through my GRE studying each day. 

Wait. I moved to Portland last August. And it only took this entire year for me to get my life together and feel like more than an old-timey tramp with an old-timey hobo-stick over my shoulder. And here I am, sitting in the living room in my new apartment. Natural light pouring in through our huge windows, a nice morning outside that is undoubtedly already disgustingly humid. I feel like a king in this apartment, with its spacious room and full kitchen. You hear that, New York? A full kitchen, with a FULL-SIZED stove and a dishwasher. And a garbage disposal! 

And a room of my own. At the back of the apartment, perfect for when I need to hole up for a few hours and be alone. Which needs to happen more frequently than I would like to admit. In a city of so many people it is just necessary to be alone when I can. Although, it's amazing when you can be in a crowded subway car for thirty minutes, invading the personal space of no less than 5 different people, and still feel completely isolated. I think that everyone in this city has developed the ability to completely avoid eye contact and just pretend that they don't notice each other. It's the only way to survive the commute. Still, it feels pretty lonely. 

I was back in the Midwest last weekend, for an unpredicted funeral. Are any funerals really predicted? I watched my two cousins, both in their 30s, straight-face their way through the weekend, accepting condolences and breaking down quietly during the memorial. They both lived within thirty minutes of their parents and saw them frequently. So I made my way through the United check-in area after saying goodbye to my mom and brother and thought I was a fool for wandering so far from home. I must have looked like a silly girl, wiping tears and trying to hide my face while pulling my carry-on through the crowded security line. Any time you have to come to terms with the mortality of the people you love and mourn a loss in such a public place, it's not going to be pretty. 

But I'm here now, and I feel happy. At least this morning, I do. It's hard not to when I have a full, busy day ahead of me. Running errands and finding ways to make my home actually feel like home (on the cheap, of course). That's the key - staying busy. Because in my idle moments I still think too much about what I'm doing here and what ever will become of me. So I rush around the city, spend my own money, follow my to-do list like it's a heavenly decree. Just keep moving. 

But ain't NYC the greatest? I can't really imagine living anywhere else right now. So I guess that means something, right? Something must be right about what I'm doing if it feels like I've settled in to the just right spot. 

48 hours or so until I'm on a plane and hurtling towards dear old Manhattan. For now, I'm watching Full House (yes!), drinking coffee, doing laundry, and trying desperately to ignore the crescendo of fear and anxiety that is beginning its slow swell. I'm used to being in this particular frame of mind, hovering on the edge of monumental life change. And this time, miraculously, I actually have a plan! I'm not taking a blind leap of faith and moving to a new city with no job prospects. I actually HAVE a job and I plan to stay for the foreseeable future. So how do you like them apples?

I'm trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I will be settling in to a new life. I'm trying to tie up some loose ends- concrete ends, like dentist appointments... but also the more abstract ones. Clearing my mind to make way for new neural connections to be formed and such. Tying off old relationships. Coming to terms. You know, another day in the life. I never have been one for moving on, but I do believe that the time has come to just start over in every possible way.

Half of my mouth is currently numb after having a cavity filled this morning. I have a tiny crush on my dentist... he's young and blond and sort of adorable while hovering over my face with a very long needle filled with local anesthesia. What does this misguided crush say about my taste in men? The fact that a young man whose job description includes inflicting pain on me gets me all riled up while he's poking around my mouth at 9:30 in the morning just speaks volumes. I'm hopeless.

I love the mid-afternoon episode of Jeopardy - particularly when it's the teen tournament. Makes me feel brilliant.

I just discovered bookswim.com - which is Netflix for books. Words cannot express how excited I am to enroll. How exciting!!!

Crickets, you're on in 5

From The Ephemerist, who lifted it from the Powell's blog:

From the blog at Powell’s Books — it’s the winning word in their OED contest — comes crytoscopophilia: the urge to look through people’s windows as you pass by their houses

Probably one the things I miss the most about New York right now. Walking home from my subway stop at 86th and Lex, then walking the 4 blocks south and 3 or so blocks east to get back to my apartment. Walking the streets of the Upper East Side at dusk, before the rich people in their townhouses have drawn their curtains for the night.

It was kind of amazing (and on certain days, a little soul-crushing) to live in that part of New York and still be so irrevocably removed from it. I will never have money like that. I will be paying off my student loans until I am middle-aged. I say 'paying off' as if I'm currently contributing to that pile of debt. I'm in the middle of a deferment... reason? Income: zero. Awesome.

The snow keeps falling. When I was in Portland in the fall, tempertatures were high and it hardly rained at all. Everyone kept saying what a phenomenon it was that the weather was so nice even in to November. I experienced a damn near 70 degree day in New York, and here I am in Michigan, in what has to be record snow fall. All extremes, all the time.

Things I did yesterday:
*Ventured to Target and bought a pair of stretchy black pants. Because I've been wearing the same ratty pair of sweatpants since I came home for Christmas (yes, I've washed them - but they still make me feel gross). You know, the pair I brought because I would only need one pair, because I was only coming home for six days.

*Attempted to make rice pudding from scratch. In a slow cooker. Slow cookers are supposed to be fool proof! This according to Judy Finlayson, author of a book slow cooker recipes that I found laying around the house. Listen, Judy, don't tell me to put the slow cooker on high and leave it for 4 hours when that is going to turn my delicious rice pudding in to a glob of dessicated rice and crusty cinnamon. This is what a rice pudding fail looks like.

*Further slashed my cooking confidence by making falafel out of a box. It was gross. Out of a box! I should have known.

*Took the online Jeopardy contestant test. For the second time in my life. It was much harder than last time. Little known fact about me: One of my ultimate life goals is to be on a game show. Specifically, a trivia-related game show. But I don't think I'll be hearing from the Jeopardy producers anytime soon.

*Watched the movie "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints" because it was free through On Demand. It was really good, I would definitely recommend it. Shia Lebouf is in it, which almost made me not watch it. He bugs me, something about the shape of his head. But he did a really good job.

I need a good book to read. I started reading Pillars of the Earth a couple of days ago, simply because it's very lengthy and I knew it would take time to read. But I just cannot get in to that sort of historical fiction. Plus, the author is primarily a mystery writer, and it shows in his lame descriptions of characters. "She had long brown hair and piercing golden eyes that seemed to see in to your soul." Setences of that nature. No thanks.

I just finished a memoir by Joan Didion. I'm kind of feeling that genre right now. Suggestions welcome. (Hey, crickets -- that's your cue to start chirping to demonstrate that no one reads this.)

Yenta hour!

Watching the Yenta Hour (aka the really awful extra hour of The Today Show aired during the mid-afternoon).

Two young women promoting their book entitled How to Love Like a Hot Girl. One of their claimed objectives is to redefine what a sexy woman is. As they sit with their cleavage pooping out of their low-cut tops, their skirts riding up to expose bare thighs and knee high boots. With too much bronzer and lip gloss, looking totally artificial.

If that isn't redefinition, I just don't know what is. Not.

Two more young woman exploiting the Sex-And-The-City-One-Night-Stands-Are-Empowering meme that is ubiquitous. Can we actually redefine sexy someday? To place more importance on things that matter and that are not fleeting and superficial? Brains over beauty? It's not going to happen, so I'll stop hoping that it ever will. Not in my lifetime, at least.

Luckily these two had Rabbi Shumley sitting next to them to balance them out. Not THAT is a man who knows whats up.

I am going to continue to be annoying by those ladies all day.

Quote of the Day/Beard Lust

From Wikiquote:

"One can acquire everything in solitude - except character." -Stendhal

Well, great. I've been spending nearly all of my time in solitude for the past 4 months - going on 5. Even when I was in NYC I was alone most of the time. And there's not really an end to this solitude in sight. So, I suppose I'm shaping up to be a character-less little lady who is desirable in every other way? I might take that.

I have an assignment tomorrow! Some purpose! I spent an afternoon grading some French exams for a friend of my mom. $50 bucks for grading tests for a few hours? Yes, please. Side note: our educational system is in dire straits. Or maybe my mom's friend just is not a very good French teacher. But after a semester of French II, some of these students could not correctly identify what sort of tourist attractive Notre Dame is. Some of them actually thought that it was a popular shopping mall. Oy. Well I'm 'doing some filing' for this French teacher - a task that sounds suspisciously vague to me. In my experience, work like this is either extremely simply or unduly complicated.

I got the strangest phone call this evening. It sounded like it could have either been a really good recording or a very lively young man. He assured me that it wasn't a sales call, and that it would only take thiry seconds of my time. He asked if I had gone to a movie theater in the past year, and I said I thought that I had. He asked if I had seen any movies of the "Enchanted", "Bolt", "Wall-E" ilk. I said that I had, not understanding where he was going with all of this. He then went on to say that a movie was coming out soon that didn't have much money to spend on advertising - but that the production company (or whoever) was so sure that me and my family would like it that they would pay me back if I didn't.

I promptly hung up. I have, in my life, adminitered about a bajillion prank calls. As a result, I don't believe a one word that anyone has to say when it is coming from an unknown/unrecognized phone number. Turns out it's a scam - I just googled it. There is no such Velveteen Rabitt movie coming out.

Do people actually fall for these scams? I probably will someday. When I'm all old and out of touch. But not today, John (if that is your real name!) or some phony marketing service! Take your silly, over-emotive voice elsewhere!

"Once" is on. I'm going watch it - in my solitude, thank you very much- and maybe fall asleep. I may not gain character, but I'll gain an earful of pretty love songs. And some quality Glen Hansard time. He's very attractive in a bug-eyed, super tall, bearded way. Which, conviently, is just my type.

But isn't it pretty to think so?

The snow storm outside is miserable. It's all wind and tiny snowflakes driving down - not even the huge, fluffy snowflakes that make snow storms pretty and tolerable. The temperatures are, supposedly, starting to rise a bit. I'm not buying it. I plan to drink coffee, do the crossword puzzle, and read. All day. Going outside just isn't an option at this point.

I've been home for 3 weeks now. Jesus. I didn't realize that it has already been that long! Luckily I remembered that all of my books are here at my mom's house and not in storage in her friend's basement like the rest of my stuff. I've been spending some quality time traversing the pages of The Journals of John Cheever, pretending that it's summer and that I'm drinking gin. I've emerged from the pit I was in when I first decided to stay in Michigan while I waited to hear back from my new job. I'm trying to take advantage of this time and enjoy my solitude and use my brain a bit.

I think that one of the only reasons I can stand being here at my mom's little house is that it is conveniently located about thirty minutes from the place where I grew up. I am not confronted with flashes of my entire life when I take a short drive. I do not see siblings and parents of old friends, and I am therefore not constantly faced with the fact that everything has changed and life has, in fact, continued on in my absence there. Continued on quite nicely, actually.

I say that because I went back to my high school for the first time since I graduated in 2003. It was a half day for the students, so the school itself was pretty empty. My best friend and I went to keep her mother company, who works in the attendance office now. Which, incidentally, would have saved me quite a bit of trouble if she had been there during my high school career. But, I digress. We played a game of Scrabble in the attendance office, and I excused myself to use the bathroom. I couldn't remember exactly where the nearest bathroom was, which was strange. But when I re-found it, I couldn't believe that it was exactly the same. There were new floors in the hallways (I think), some new lighting, beautifully remodled offices for the administration - but the bathrooms were exactly the same as they had been since probably the 1960s.

I walked past my old locker. I went in to the auditorium where I had spent so much time, now redone and looking absolutely beautiful. I felt at the same time much older but also that I was still the teenager that had spent so much time in that school. Do we ever grow up? Am I ever going to feel as old as my drivers license tells me I am? I think, actually, that I have gotten less mature with age. I have depreciated. I am fairly certain of that. What I wouldn't give for a shred of that innocence and openness that I had at 17. Maybe not.

My paper journal is rapidly filling with sentences and paragraphs I have written before - one of the dangers of coming home again, of being near old friends and old other kinds of people.

I'm freezing. There is snow actually blowing in through the cracks of the door near me. Time to retreat in to bed.

Finally!

An installment of Modern Love (from The New York Times) that doesn't read like an assignment from my Introduction to Essay Writing course in college in which the class members all competed to see who had the dirtiest secret. This one is cute and humorous and doesn't take itself too seriously. A nice break from form for Modern Love.

The snow is still falling, meaning my plans for the night are almost certainly ruined. Those plans did include trucking out to Royal Oak and drinking moderate to high quantities of beer in a very cold garage, so maybe it's for the best. Or is it?

I guess this is all going to come down to measuring my dedication to beer pong against the treacherous road conditions. Which will, in turn, speak volumes about my willingness to leave the undergraduate mentality behind. Which should have been left behind when I actually graduated in 2007.

I could use a little human interaction, though. Just for sanity's sake. We'll see.

The Miseducation of Dorothy Zbornak

A thought I had last night:

Have cell phones ruined the romantic gesture?

See, I caved last night. In my state of utter loneliness and boredom during this sabbatical in Michigan, I watched 'The Notebook'. (I did so under the condition that I would not [would NOT, damn it!] get all weepy and nostalgic, which I actually succeeded at.) I switched the channel when it got to the part when they are old at the end, duh, because that part is boring and doesn't have Ryan Gosling in it, and reflected on the movie.

If Allie and Noah had cell phones, the story would not have happened. I mean, I know it didn't actually 'happen' at all, but bear with me. The whole premise of the movie hangs on the plot point of Allie's mom intercepting all of the letters that Noah sent to her after their lovely summer together. They reunite, like, 7 years later, have mind-blowing sex, and then end up together.

Had this story taken place in 2009, Noah and Allie would have texted, facebook messaged, and contacted each other in countless other ways, thus negating their extended period of separation and, probably, their mind-blowing sex that resolved all of their pent up feelings for each other.

The same goes for so many other great love stories!

*Lloyd Dobler would never have held up that boombox. He would have im'ed Diane and sent her a compressed mp# of "In Your Eyes" or something like that.

*Ben Braddock wouldn't have spent so much time searching for Elaine on the campus of her school in "The Graduate" - he would have just called her cell and asked her where she was. (Yeah, "The Graduate" isn't really a great example of a love story, I know.)

I'm spent quite some time building up my tough girl image, sarcastic and unmoved by anything at all. But - here's a secret. I'm a sap. A huge sap. A serious closet romantic, to the nth degree. Where my friends gag and decry their disapproval for overtly romantic gestures and our young friends that are head-over-heels-talking-about-getting-married in love, I quietly melt.

But I've got an image to protect. I'm the tall, mostly awkward, slighty embittered one. Think Dorothy Zbornak (yes, of "The Golden Girls") at 23.

So, does our technology and our tendency to employ any number of communication veins in favor of actual, face to face connection mean that no one will ever hop on a plane to follow me, or play a song outside my window, or spend years wishing they could just talk to me?

Not that I, you know, would want any of those things. Because that would be silly and so, so lame.

PS - I hope I never get so bored/stir-crazy again that I spend time actually analyzing the meaning of "The Notebook." Oh, it's a new low.

Music Journalism Makes Me Happy.

This article just sort of took my breath away.

I heard "Amelia" by Joni Mitchell on the radio (on the radio!) today. Nothing quite like the Sunday morning acoustic/folk set on 94.7 to make a hungover drive home a little easier. Play me some Joni Mitchell on the radio (without it being a shitty, shitty Counting Crows cover of 'Big Yellow Taxi, please) and I am one happy gal.

Anyways. Beautiful song. Made my day. It's wrong for me to have a girl crush on Joni Mitchell, this much I know - but she's so damn cool, I can't help it.

Fear And Loathing in SE Michigan

I am decidedly unhappy about the fact that I am still in the midwest.

My job called on December 30th, to give me a wonderful end-of-the-year bit of news. They did not have their budget approved for 2009, making it impossible for me to actually start my job on January (my previously agreed upon first day). And I sure as poop cannot afford to be back in New York for 2-4 weeks without income. So I'm still here, being extremely lazy at my mom's house, just waiting to hear from them. Mid-to-late January was their estimated time frame.

So I'm sitting here on a Friday night, watching 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' and lamenting the fact that 'Revolutionary Road' isn't playing in any movie theater in the metro Detroit area. What gives?! And of course, I was reading an entry on the New York Times' book blog, and saw that a terribly interesting writer is giving a reading in NYC in a couple of days.

Sigh. I will have to content myself with my two stupid little dogs for a couple of weeks and just try not to go crazy here. Outlook: not so good.

The holidays came and went. These past few months have, quite frankly, been a blur - and the holidays were no exception. I drank too much with old friends, and then suddenly it was New Year's Day and I was nestled in to the best spooning situation of my life, between two large boys who I have I known forever and who I love dearly. And here I am now, sleeping 12+ hours a night and feeling very disappointed in the way that 2009 is starting. I should be in New York, about to start a job (finally) and about to have a life of my own (finally)!!! I feel so let down and nearly miserable. But I guess there's no point in that, because I'm stuck here until further notice. It's bad tv from here on out. I don't even have a car to use here! Oh, this is dismal. Even free meals lose their appeal under these conditions.

Ok. I will keep my self pity to myself from now on. Now, I'm going to watch this stupid movie on stupid ABC Family or whatever stupid cable network this is and pine after John Corbett, even though he's balding.

All aboard the misery train!