photographs and random miscellaney from my brain
…Anthony Michael Hall, futzing with his iPhone at the corner of 68th and Columbus, yesterday afternoon.
I’ve also seen both A-Rod and Jon Bon Jovi at the gym recently, which is admittedly much more impressive, but I forgot to post about it at the time. Of course, I saw A-Rod right before the Yankees went to Cleveland to get their asses handed to them, so maybe I temporarily blocked it out of my mind.
I know this .gif file has gone around the internet about a gazillion times since the first time I saw it, but it never, ever, ever ceases to be funny. Even now, I have to force myself not to giggle.
It’s too damn hot outside. It finally seemed to cool off a bit last night after a freak thunderstorm that came through the region (on the radio at about 4:30 yesterday afternoon, we had a "wind and hail" warning. Hail! in July!), and went down to the 70s. But today, it was in the 90s again. Which is nothing compared, to say, the southwest right now, but it still makes it really difficult to get anything done.
I’ve finished my first week of Italian classes, and I’m certainly starting to get the hang of it. I certainly won’t be fluent by the end, but I think that after four more weeks, I’ll definitely be functional. Now I just need to square away the rest of the aspects of this trip (there’s nothing quite like the bureaucratic black hole that is non-attorney staff at a law firm). I still don’t have a departure date, a visa, a place to live…you know, the essentials. But I can’t stress about it, because it’s not like I can go apartment hunting in Milan.
I should, however, start making a list of all of the stuff that I’m going to need to bring, arrange, etc. I’ll definitely need to forward my mail, stop my paper, turn off the cable, and do a whole bunch of other stuff that I haven’t even thought of yet. Oh, and clearly I need to go shopping (not that I ever need an excuse for that!).
I think my anxiety about this trip is manifesting itself in other ways though. For instance, today, I rearranged my hall closet so that it was roomier and more organized. Last weekend I replaced the toilet seat and handle on my toilet (they had previously been completely functional but boring white plastic), with a retro black seat to match the bathroom and a shiny chrome handle that (sort of) matches the rest of my bathroom fixtures. Oh, and I also spend last Saturday trying to figure out a better spot for my bicycle. After I took it out for a ride, I realized that the spot that I had it in made it really inconvenient to use frequently. Particularly since the prior setup required taking the front tire off so that it didn’t block a doorway. It’s basically in the same spot, but turned around and it seems to work. This was after significant trial and error, and the realization that the only way the bike was ever going to fit in the foyer would be if I mounted it on the ceiling. Damn you, doors that allow me to move from room to room.
Oh, and I finally called the reupholster to come and pick up my ottoman and chair. I only bought the fabric about 8 months ago!! It had become so bad that every time I saw my dad and stepmom, they’d harangue me incessantly about it. My dad would call me randomly just to ask if I had called the guy. I should point out that the ottoman was stained and the cushion had actually split on the chair, so this wasn’t just a cosmetic, oh, I’ll get to it sometime thing. It’s been needing to get done pretty much since I moved in. My apartment does feel mighty empty though.
I’m off to go do some italian homework. while sitting directly in front of my air conditioner.
Ciao!!
Everything’s up and running…
This seriously felt like the longest week ever.
Work was crazy, to the point where I was having crazy stress dreams that woke me up hours before I needed to be awake (my favorite? the one on Tuesday, where my dream that my blackberry was going off actually woke me up because I thought I needed to check the damn thing). All leading up to last night, when I was at work past midnight.
But now? Now I’m officially on vacation. One would think that this would indicate to my subconscious that I could sleep in (my plane leaves overnight tonight). One would be wrong. I fell asleep at about 2 in the morning, and woke up at…six. No alarm clock, no pressing need to do work. Just me and my lovely new insomnia. So now it seven, and I’m doing laundry so that I can at least pretend to be productive.
Anyway, all of these crazy long days made this week seem like it took just forever to get done. I’m sure part of it is the fact that there was a big shiny prize at the end of the week being, you know, not have to go to work for two weeks.
Just to give you an idea of how nuts I was this week, here’s an approximation of the conversation that I had with a friend at work yesterday:
ME: I’m going crazy! I’ve got too much to do before I leave! I’m going to be here all night!
FRIEND: [says something about wanting to go to the 32nd floor]
ME: why? what’s on the 32nd floor?
FRIEND: you didn’t see the e-mail?
ME: what e-mail?
FRIEND: the one labeled "Film Production"
ME: No – It was clearly not related to the crazy work I’ve been doing, so I ignored it.
FRIEND: [shows me the email]
Contents of said e-mail? A notification that sections of our offices will be unavailable for the next week and a half, while [extremely attractive, academy award-winning, awesomely liberal actor/writer/director (but not a blogger!)] will be filming a movie!
There goes my fantasy that the only thing keeping us apart was that I had no chance of meeting him, ever. No. Apparently it’s my inability to read a friggin’ e-mail.
…or maybe it was that last margarita…
I’ve slept for a ridiculous amount of hours since I got home Tuesday night. I basically drifted in and out of consciousness all day yesterday, periodically taking breaks to do things like run to the dry cleaners (20 feet from my front door) in between naps. I went back to work today, where people pretty much treated me with kid gloves. I was actually excited to get back to working for my normal clients/bosses/etc., because that’s practically a vacation compared to the work I’ve been doing overseas.
And then tonight I went and got some mexican food with my dad. and had a really big margarita. And now I’m rambling on the internet, and it’s 9:30 pm and I’m ready to go to sleep. I’m so pathetic.
The funniest part of the evening? My dad remarking that I looked really good. You see, working around the clock fucked with not only my sleep patterns, but my appetite, so I dropped a bunch of weight while I was overseas. So he thinks I look great, and I have to point out that exhaustion-related appetite suppression isn’t exactly a healthy diet plan.
But even with the sleep, I’m only eating about half of what I used to, so maybe I can maintain this in a healthier way.
I also find it funny that everyone seems to think that switching from diet coke to espresso is somehow a better lifestyle choice. Yes, I get that diet coke has all sorts of chemicals in it, but espresso has about 10 times as much caffeine, which probably isn’t a brilliant idea either.
And now I’m really rambling.
I promise that one of these days I’ll actually catch up with the news and start posting intelligent (or semi-coherent) thoughts again. For now, you’re stuck with my margarita-laced sleep deprived thoughts…
I’ve certainly engaged in my share of passive-aggressive (or just plain aggressive-aggressive) behavior when it comes to things like annoying telemarketers or incompetent customer service representatives, but the New York Times seems to have upped the ante with this article about how people deal (or in some cases, don’t deal) with the annoyances. They got so many responses that they did a follow up article. And Brian Lehrer did a call-in segment on Friday (click here for the audio link) about it.
All this, of course, makes me want to relate my favorite personal anecdote, which is a few years old (and probably won’t translate quite so well in writing, but oh well).
Back in my second year of law school, I had a phone number that I discovered, after receiving numerous wrong calls, was one digit off from the phone number of the Philadelphia Parking Authority. And it was a tough one – both numbers consisted only of 2s and 7s. My number was something like 277-7727, and the parking authority was 277-7227. You can see how people can misdial that one pretty easily. So most of the time, I was actually pretty helpful – I’d give people the right number and they’d apologize profusely, and all was well, until one morning…
The morning of Yom Kippur, when I was attempting to fast. Part of my fasting technique involves sleeping fairly late (if I go to services, it’s usually for Kol Nidre, at sundown the night before), so that I have less hours during the day that I have to focus on not eating or drinking anything. Except my phone rings at 6:30 in the morning. As I groggily answer the phone with the sleepiest, most pissed off yawning hello you could ever imagine, the voice on the other end of the phone just launches into "can I park on the street for free today?"
My response? "Yes. of course you can." And she hung up the phone. I really hope she got a ticket.
I mean, didn’t she think it was odd that there was someone answering the phone, at a municipal office, at 6:30 in the morning? Or that they didn’t answer it with something identifiable, like "hello, parking authority, how can I help you?"
Anyway, I’m generally not like that, except with obviously stupid people. Here in NYC, I inherited the number of what was some sort of candle wholesaler that went out of business. You would not believe the number of people who want to buy candles in bulk (I guess restaurants and such, but still). The calls died down after a year or two, but once in a blue moon, I’ll still get one. After six years, my response now involves telling the caller that they need to invest in a new (free) telephone book. Because, really. Or I’ll get someone who calls my office, where I answer the phone always "Hello, [my name]", and they ask for someone else. Um, I’m sorry, you’ve dialed my direct line at a law firm with over a thousand employees, do they work at [major international law firm]? Them: "I don’t know, shouldn’t you know this person?" By this point I’ve found the correct person in our online directory, and I transfer them, but still. Plenty of people realize their mistake and are appropriately apologetic or whatever, but it’s the ones who just keep going, like I’m the receptionist, that drive me nuts.
Oh, and my home fax number is one area code digit off from the fax number for the intellectual property department of a major midwestern pharmaceutical company. Getting faxes from China with clearly laid out patent applications that contained what were obviously trade secrets was somewhat interesting. I was good here (being a lawyer myself) – I eventually tracked down a paralegal at the pharma company (because I certainly wasn’t calling China), who now reiterates to her foreign legal offices and affiliates that they should definitely be dialing "262" instead of "212". Now I actually keep my fax machine unplugged, because the only time that I’m going to get a fax that’s actually intended for me is when I’m working from home and clearly expect one (since I don’t actually give out my fax number to anyone). And this way anyone who misdials would clearly keep trying until they got the number right, rather than thinking their urgent, deadline-related filing information actually got to where it needed to go. The most annoying aspect of the whole thing was that these foreign offices would send faxes during what was their business hours, which usually translated to something like 3 in the morning.
Heh. That one story certainly mutated in a matter of minutes.
President’s day edition.
Mon Feb 14 2005:
Tue Feb 15 2005:
Fri Feb 18 2005:
It was an unseasonably warm day today in the city, and I’m glad I made it out of my apartment to see it. It reached the mid-50s (which was a refreshing change from the sub-zero blizzard weather a few weeks ago). Tomorrow is also the final day of sales tax free week, which is the most awesomest week of the year around here (or two weeks – there’s usually another one around labor day). I hit the sporting goods store to pick up a few things I need to go skiing at the end of the month (visiting my brother in Vail for a few days) and between the sale and the no tax, I probably spent half what I would have on any other day. Love that!
Of course, my radiator-heated apartment (building controlled) doesn’t realize how warm it is, so I had to actually turn on my A/C to counteract the overwhelming heat in my apartment. Still can’t open the windows because of the neverending construction next door. Lately it seems to involve constant use of a blowtorch.
Apparently there’s a really big football game tomorrow, and despite my overwhelming indifference to the sport, I’ve managed to get invited to two parties. My best friend from high school is having folks up to her house in Westchester, and regardless of how nice it would be to see her family, I can’t see myself spending an hour on the train to watch commercials (because really, I’m not going up for the game). A friend from work who lives two blocks from the office is also having a party, and I may stop by there, if only because I have to go to work for at least a few hours tomorrow anyway – It’ll make the day go by much quicker if I know that free beer is waiting for me at the end of it.
It’s going to be just as nice out tomorrow, so I may even walk to the office…
So I’m reading through the NY Times RSS feed this morning, and I get to this op-ed, which, in all seriousness, proclaims "drunk dialing" as the newest problem of the information age, thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones.
Uh…OK.
Except it’s certainly not a "new phenomenon", and back in the technological dark ages of my college days, before anyone (let alone everyone) had a cellphone, drunk dialing was a pretty common occurrence. In fact, if they kept records on this sort of thing, I imagine that it’s a "phenomenon" that developed around the same time as the telephone.
Cellphones certainly make it easier to drunk dial with abandon, thanks to stored numbers and the availability of a phone at all times, but that’s certainly not the perspective taken by the op-ed in phrases like this intro:
To the list of the unforeseen hazards that seem to plague the information age, we can now add another: "drunk dialing."
This late-night cellular faux pas joins such exalted company as the "mistaken dial" (when your mobile phone, inadvertently prompted, dials a number in your address book by mistake) and the annoying ring tone that can interrupt big job interviews or Communion service.
But unlike its predecessors, drunk dialing usually limits itself to times long after the close of business and beyond the daily commute.
So, apparently something that existed for decades has been "preceded" by the type of incidents that can only exist in cellphones…It’s only been a week since Safire retired, and they’ve already forgotten how to use the english language.
Maybe I’m just being bitter because, back in those neanderthal college days, I actually almost missed a final exam thanks to the drunk dialing antics of my friend Dande. It was probably my mistake to keep the phone and the alarm clock next to each other, but when the phone rang at 3a.m., I first turned the alarm clock off before realizing that the phone was still ringing. Fell back into a deep sleep and woke up at 8:30 in the morning. The exam, which I ultimately arrived at still in my pajamas, had started at 8.