What Annie said

Is totally and completely correct. Mah boy's wicked smaht. But seriously, like I said a couple of posts ago, it's impossible to get experience without actually having experience first. The workforce neither wants us nor needs us, no matter how great our resumes are. BTW, Annie did get a job, she was hired yesterday. Congrats boo!

New York minutes: after work adventures

I just started temping to make a little moo-la to pay for my habits (such as, but not limited to: grocery shopping, bar hopping, online shopping, bookstore browsing...and buying..) at a company with a swanky 5th avenue address. I mean, seriously, on my lunch break I window shop Harry Winston and dream of someday. Ha.

Anywhoo, while doing some worky at work, I thought about what I was going to do this weekend. And what I was going to do when I got home. And what I was going to eat next. As you all know, I'm in the middle of reading American Psycho, and it's getting a little, er...intense, shall we say. Like, I'm pretty much afraid of every handsome Wall-Streeter I see. So I was in the mood for something a bit fluffier, no matter how bad the writing, something a la Something Borrowed. Enter my quest to read The Devil Wears Prada.

Now, after a quick little search for the New York Public Library (I was taking my poor little bank account into consideration), I found that the flagship NY Public Library was a mere 8 blocks away! The Yorkville library is only a few blocks from my apartment, but it closes at 5, but the one on 5th is open until 11PM. Yahoo! I arrived, a bit in awe at the size of the building (and I thought Dinand library was big), wearing my work suit and pumps. They checked my bag for contraband (none...just my copy of American Psycho..hehe) and I proceeded to wander...and wander...for 20 minutes. No map, no indication of where ANYTHING in the library was. Finally, I swallowed my pride and approached a security guard.

"Um, excuse me. This is going to sound really dumb, but are there, like, books here? Novels?" I could feel my face reddening. Luckily, he was very understanding.
"Well, there are branches all over the city. This one is really only for reference books, and nothing can be taken out. Across the street and down a block, there's the Midtown Manhattan branch, where you can take out books."

I thanked the kindly security guard and got on my way. I arrived at the Midtown branch at the same time as about three homeless people, including a lady with a bright purple wig. No sweat, I can see the books. Bad free literature, here I come! But, like everything else in my life, this was a no-go. I couldn't find Devil in the literature stacks, and so I ran over to a trusty computer. There were two copies of the novel in circulation in the New York Public Library system: one in the Bronx, and one in reference at the 42nd street main reading room. Where I had just been. WTF.

So now I was cranky. I walked back 10 blocks to my bus stop, and huffily got on the bus when, of course, my metro card ran out of money. The bus driver took pity on me, probably because I looked like I was about to cry, and let me get on anyway. And up we sped to 79th and Madison, where I hopped off to catch the crosstown bus to the far east side (I'm talking past York Ave, down by the river). But this driver was not so benevolent. I had some money ready to go, but apparently in NYC you can't use dollar bills to get on the bus. Only quarters (that's what they mean when they say exact change...womp womp) or metro cards. Now, at this point, I had walked about 20 blocks round trip after a full day in 4 inch heels and I hadn't eaten since noon. I was hungry and tired and hated all the honking and the noise and just wanted to be back at my little house on the Vineyard doing crossword puzzles in my skivvies on my bed.

"So I'll just walk then," I said to the bus driver (who, rightfully so, didn't give a shit) as I rapidly disintegrated to same ability to control my emotions as a 12-year old and stomped off the bus. I seriously wanted to cry, or call my mom, but that would make me want to cry even more, and I didn't want to be an emotional wreck on the street.

Thankfully, I had simply been in my head too much during the day (quiet office=LOTS of time to think), and I felt much perkier once I'd changed into some yoga pants and had a few crackers with peanut butter and strawberry jelly. Roomie came home and we decided to order Chinese and watch bad TV. Someday I'll get the libraries down pat, though I think I'll stick to the one in my  neighborhood from now on.

New York minutes: things i have learned.

-No one makes eye contact. Ever. Don't be the loser who makes eye contact.
-In accordance, don't smile either.
-In order to get experience, you somehow already need experience. It's catch 22.
-It can take you 45 minutes to go a mile. How does anyone ever commute to this city? It takes long enough when you're in it!
-Buy a good pair of shoes to walk in that don't make you look like the tool wearing Asics with your dress trousers (I never did this).
-Sex and the City made it look like there were guys on every corner just waiting for you to look up. In reality, women outnumber men 5:1, and the :1 is either married or gay. Just saying.
-For the love of God, wait for the light to change to 'walk' before attempting to jaywalk. Especially if crossing a two-way thoroughfare.

American Psycho--a portrait of how much we suck

I hope some of you have at least read something by author Bret Easton Ellis, even if it's not American Psycho. I'm reading this novel for the second time, and this time around I'm really giving attention to not so much the gory, sodomizing, keep-you-up-at-night incredibly graphic sex/murder scenes (yes, they are one and the same), but really Ellis's attention to detail, his gorgeous prose, and the sadness with which he depicts modern American life.

I find that Patrick Bateman's often exhausting attention to detail actually pertains much to our superficial, materialistic existences. With painful precision he describes his morning in the bathroom: "in the shower I use first a water-activated gel cleanser, then a honey-almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Vidal Sassoon shampoo is especially good at getting rid of the coating of dried perspiration, salts, oils, airborne pollutants and dirt that can weight down hair and flatten it to the scalp which can make you look older. The conditioner is also good--silicone technology permits conditioning benefits without weighing down the hair which can also make you look older. On weekends or before a date I prefer to use the Greune Natural Revitalizing Shampoo, the conditioner and the Nutrient Complex. These are formulas that contain D-panthenol, a vitamin B-complex factos; polysorbate 80, a cleansing agent for the scalp; and natural herbs."

and what he is changing into at the gym: "It was a cool morning but seems warmer after I leave the office and I'm wearing a six-button double-breasted chalk-striped suit by Ralph Lauren with a spread-collar pencil-striped Sea Island cotton shirt with French cuffs, also by Polo, and I remove the clothes, gratefully, in the air-conditioned locker room, then slip into a pair of crow-black cotton and lycra shorts with a white waistband and side stripes and a cotton lycra tank top, both by Wilkes....(it goes on)

and what other people are wearing: "He's wearing a linen suit by Canali Milano, a cotton shirt by Ike Behar, a silk tie by Bill Blass and cap-toed leather lace ups by Brooks Brothers. At Harry's we spot [Van Patten] who is wearing a double breasted wool and silk sport coat, button-fly wool and silk trousers with inverted pleats by Mario Valentino, a cotton shirt by Gitman Brothers, a polka-dot silk tie by Bill Blass and leather shoes from Brooks Brothers."

These passages go on and on about clothing, products, electronics, you name it. The point is that these people have everything money can buy them and yet they are all completely miserable human beings. I mean, Patrick Bateman is a serial killer, for God's sake! But I think the point Ellis is trying to make is that when we attach ourselves too much to the importance of material goods we become monster-like. Granted, Bateman's materialism is, in part, a manifestation of his obsessive nature: who can forge the memorable scene between Patrick and his brother Sean (of Rules of Attraction fame, also a great novel) where Sean, the younger of the two, seems infinitely cooler and makes Patrick seem nearly like a pariah. And there's also the scene where Bateman happens to see Tom Cruise in the elevator of his building and so wants to seem cool in front of him, but Tom Cruise has zero interest. What this points to is Bateman's lack of self esteem which leads to his obsessive materialism (to the point where it is all he thinks about) to his (perhaps fantasies of) brutal sodomizing and murdering of both men and women.

If you have the stomach and the patience to see beyond the horror, what you will find is a harrowing, depressing portrait of what may be a little Patrick Bateman in all of us. Without the killing, of course.

tumbling....DUH

So I caved. Like much of the bloggy world, I have started a tumblr account. Mostly it will just be all the random things I want to post, but are not long enough to dignify a blog post (read: stupid quotes, stupid pretty pictures, stupid recipes, stupid poems I may or may not like). I know, it's queer. So what? Who cares? Introducing:

the sometimes poet

brought to you by your one and only sjt 

(that's me!)

(don't make fun!)

(I can hear you laughing!)

(I'm just trying to get all my emo energy out!!) 

 ...........plzreedkaythnxbai

ponderings

Things I love about New York (so far...)
1. all the things there are to EAT
2. putting on cute outfits and walking around
3. admiring cute shoes in shops from the safety of the sidewalk
4. making eyes at suits on the subway
5. making eyes at suits on the street
6. being able to decipher streets in scenes from shows like sex and the city and how to lose a guy in 10 days (one of the BEST chick flicks out there...)
7. seeing cute puppies all over the place
8. seeing cute suits all over the place.....did I say something to that effect already?
9. wearing my Red Sox hat out in public and feeling way too proud (that must be a Massachusetts thing)
10. knowing that the best is so yet to come...and I can't wait.

new york minutes: the plunger

I have arrived. Wahoo! Mom and Dad and I left my hometown in southeastern Massachusetts at 7am Saturday, October 9. Four hours later, I was on East 79th street. Home for the next year. I know I've said this before, but lets just say it again. WOAH. WOW. GOLLY GEE. I'm a New Yorker now!

Of course, with my life being my life, things don't always go completely smoothly. While roomie was out running some errands, I remembered that I had to pee. That's a thing about people that are in service industries (waitresses, bartenders, hairdressers, taxi drivers): they always have to go to the bathroom, but they're in such a habit of holding it (because their jobs demand that they only pee once every 7 hours), that it can be easy to forget that your bladder is extremely full. Anyway, I overloaded my new, sensitive NYC toilet with too much TP. Dang. So I trekked up the street, having lived there for approximately three hours, to find somewhere I could buy a plunger. Lucky me, there's a D'Agostino's and a Duane Reade right on York ave.

At this point I looked a hot mess. I was wearing some old running shorts and a hoodie and flip flops, and I had just moved my entire life up 5 flights of stairs (ok. so some movers did the bulk of the work. sue me), so I looked a little greasy. On top of that, despite being alone, I was embarrassed over my clogged toilet. No plunger to be found at D'Ags. I was a little discouraged after this. All I wanted to do is take a shower and finish setting up my room and I was a little culture shocked and I didn't really know my way around, and if the drugstore didn't have a plunger I didn't know what I'd do because I didn't know where the hardware store was (still don't). Thank the stars, Duane Reade had 1 plunger left.

Now, there is no dignified way to buy a plunger. It's like buying condoms or Immodium A.D. (which helps with incontinence). Even if the checkout people don't give it away, you know what they're thinking. So I headed up to the counter with my plunger fit for a plumber (I mean seriously, this thing was industrial), but as soon as I swiped my debit card, the system went down. There I am, with a growing line behind me, my first four hours in NYC with a plunger in hand and no way to pay for it. The checkout girl shrugs, "System's down. Sorry." My face burned red. Stupid plunger, sitting up there jauntily on the counter. Everyone knows I clogged my toilet. Now I have to go back to my apartment and get my cash and then do the unthinkable: come back to the drugstore and try to buy the plunger again.

So back down the block I went, sweating in the late afternoon humidity, up 5 flights of stairs, back down 5 flights of stairs, and back up the block to buy my stupid plunger to fix my stupid, pansy NYC toilet. Then, to put a cherry on top of the perfect adventure, I had to ask the clerk if I could buy the plunger because, you see, I left the damn thing on the counter as I slunk away the first time, and there was only one left in the entire store. I reiterate: there is no dignified way to do this.
Me: "I was in here before...."
Checkout girl: (stares blankly)
Me: (softly) "I have to buy the plunger..."
Checkout girl: "Huh?"
Me: (louder now) "I have to BUY THE PLUNGER."
Checkout girl: "Do you want a bag?"

I decided against it. I walked back to my apartment with the plunger slung over my shoulder, my dignity ruined.

things i need

1. a job. For the love of pete, someone hire me. I look real nice in a blouse sitting behind a desk, and I have a super sexy phone voice.
2. some snugs partners besides blanks, lemon, and tucker (only one of those things is something that's alive)
3. a supercute new boyfriend. any takers? I look real nice in a blouse sitting behind a desk, and I have a super sexy phone voice (wait did I already say that for something?)
4. one of those hour glass things Hermione Granger uses (did I just mention Harry Potter twice in one week?) to turn back time (whaddup Cher), because if I could rewind my life to April and live the last six months over I would in a second, without changing a thing.