It's one of those conundrums -- like the "Is the purple I see the same as the purple you see?" dilemma -- that I'm never sure how other people feel about the holidays.

Pre-Christmas (like immediately pre-, like Christmas eve, pre-), I get really anxious about no one liking my gifts and not having any money and wondering if I should have gotten that other thing I almost got and didn't get for no good reason even though I sort of had a good feeling about it. Then on the night of Christmas, after presents and early dinner because my grandparents don't like to drive in the dark, I always feel a little bit like maybe Christmas was a little anti-climactic, but because I always always feel like this and yet still recall previous Christmases fondly and, from the basis of Christmases past, anticipate each upcoming Christmas will be splendiferous, I'm pretty sure this reaction is biochemical and/or totally erroneous. Like maybe after I eat a lot and open gifts I inevitably feel something that I interpret as disappointment but is actually either exhaustion or the onset of a diabetic coma.

The reason this is a problem, though, is that people so rarely speak candidly about the more complex holiday-inspired feelings. Lots of people "LOVE" holidays, some people "hate" them, but no one ever responds to a Christmas wish with the sort of ambiguities I tend to feel (or at least they don't express it verbally, because it would be kind of awkward if they did). Probably this is a) because they (/I) feel kind of guilty about these ambiguities and b) the very source of the guilt, since if everyone just spoke out about their inner torment we could all acknowledge that it's ok to feel this way. Or something. I'm looking forward to a break from work. Unambiguously.

Last night I -- sort of on a whim, sort of under peer pressure -- went to the Oasis concert at Madison Square Garden. It was fun, because I was living what would have been a dream for my middle or high school self, and weird, because clearly many of the other people there were living a dream for their current selves, which makes them approximately 10 years behind, in terms of contemporary dreaming. This, coupled with my total sobriety (I left work at 9:10pm to go straight to the concert with people from work who had done the same, and we walked in a song or two into the set), created a few notable discomforts, prime among them the "Do I Sing When They Play 'What's the Story Morning Glory?'" dilemma (WtSMG was the first oldy-but-goody they played, but you can more or less fill in any other song that came out before 2000... or 1997... or 1995...). This is a problem because if you sing along with this song (in this case, an album track, not a single, but also the title track of their best selling album to date) and you haven't been singing along with any of the newer stuff, you identify yourself as the kind of fan who cares enough about Oasis to come to the show, but not enough to listen to any of their newer releases. But if you decide not to sing, you identify yourself as a) a non-singer (or at least too sober to let yourself sing, even though you'd normally be belting them out like there's no tomorrow -- this is probably the best outcome, socially) or b) the kind of fan that doesn't actually know any of the songs, or even really like Oasis, but who got dragged along by a friend, co-worker, or significant other because you didn't have anything else going on (this is, rather obviously, the worst outcome).

I settled on mumble-humming.

Also, at some point Liam Gallagher (in stupid John Lennon-esque sunglasses), made some mention of his kids, and I thought, "If Liam Gallagher is your father, you totally don't have to take him seriously when he tells you to stop fighting with your brother." Also, he had four monitors and kept leaving the stage during songs when Noel sang lead and is otherwise conspicuously something of a prima donna.

There are some times I think I could pick up and leave New York, maybe for Portland or Austin or some much-touted but slightly out of the way haven of liberalism.

And then there are days when I haven't finished shopping for my bosses and their last day in the office before the holiday is tomorrow but my train doesn't get into Grand Central until after 10pm but I need wrapping paper and bags and bottles of Patron by 9am the next morning. Then I can rest assured that there must (by the laws of the universe) be a 24 hour Duane Reade near Grand Central and they must have wrapping paper and gift bags, and there's probably also a liquor store near either home or my office that opens before 10am.

And this is how my faith in the laws of the universe was confirmed, thanks to the fine establishment of Columbus Circle Wine and Spirits, which opens at 8am.

The thing about the death of newspapers is...

As a "journalist" (in quotes, to signify that I once fancied myself a college journalist and a soon-to-be-professional journalist, but presently find myself a sporadic freelancer, at best), I watch Daily Intel's Media Death Watch with a certain morbid curiosity. Potentially because it's a chronicle of all the places I'm glad I didn't waste my time applying to, an excuse for why they didn't hire me if I did apply, and an introduction to hundreds of nameless, faceless people who now find themselves in a position similar to mine: committed to (or seeking) jobs that increasingly diverge from our intended careers.

But as a consumer of media, the results are decidedly more... "meh." None of the publications I read religiously have been wiped out. None of the blogs I read have been truly stricken (ok, maybe Gawker, but I was getting kind of burnt out on them anyway). Not even the magazine I write for is suffering palpably (then again, they never paid their writers to begin with, so it's hard to say how much worse it could get).

All it really comes down to is a bunch of us worrying and fumbling with the hems of our sweaters while drinking cheap wine and occasionally being interrupted by retirees who suggest going into "internet journalism" with the enthusiastic confidence of someone who believes their suggesting something to you for the first time EVER.

One of the things I can say with some certainty is that for my entire life -- except maybe a few precious seconds at the beginning -- I've had an unusual name. Granted, it's not funny like Dick Butkiss or painfully multi-syllabic, but it's somehow just different enough to be mispronounced or otherwise confused on a near daily basis. In sixth grade, probably the second day of what was inevitably going to be an awkward and unpleasant middle school experience, I was wrongly assigned to the boys' gym class. Tonight as we were leaving dinner, my step-brother's uncle (my step uncle in law?) called me "Donyelle" and then straight up "Danielle." Last year, when someone else was named the most beautiful girl with two men's names, I couldn't help but take it personally (after all, I was the only competition!).

All this having been said, one would think I'm pretty used to these confusions and slights by now. Somehow, though, whether it's because I started a job that involves constantly spelling my name to the people at Empire car service, or frequenting a Starbucks that's populous enough to require giving a name (my last: more masculine, but easier to spell), somehow things seem to have gotten worse in the past six months. The only perk, at least that I can see, is I can exploit my "large scary man" imaginary identity when I send people scathing emails about incorrect invoices.

As of two minutes ago, I am seriously concerned that I am getting dumber. This concern stems from, most recently, the fact that I misspelled the name of the person whose signature I was forging on a child's birthday card immediately after having it spelled to me, then spelled "dumber" "dummer" when trying to recount this same incident via gchat. Which I guess reflects a problem not so much of intelligence lost (though I imagine I've also lost some of my critical reasoning skills, those get tested less frequently at the office) but mental acuity, sharpness.

Basically, I think I'm losing my edge. And maybe reaction time.

The only solution I can conceive of, at the moment, would be to administer a series of timed exams to myself (I used to be great at timed exams!) or maybe try to teach myself new Photoshop tricks and then apply them under deadline. Either of these would be kind of weird and probably not very useful, but as I spend more time stumbling through the day, I'm starting to feel like my connection to reality is slipping. Like I have trouble remembering conversations I had while sober. But I'm having really vivid dreams. Which is no good.

Undeniably, Barack Obama's win on Tuesday evening represented what may be a major, game changing shift in American politics. I cried during McCain's speech, I cried during Obama's speech (a lot, especially when he talked about buying his daughters a dog). I almost just cried a little when I heard the Eastern European cleaning lady in my office say something that sounded like "Obama," but could have been nearly anything else because I wasn't really listening.

So I pondered whether Wednesday would feel like the first day of the rest of forever. And for a while it sort of did. I smiled at people on the subway with Obama stickers/t-shirts/hats/pins, and I never smile at people on the subway (a co-worker joined me on the A this morning and after waving I ignored him for the rest trip because the subway is special alone iPod time). The NYTimes was extraordinarily hard to get (I had to settle for the Philadelphia Inquirer, which is still better than the Bellingham Herald), and the newspaper business is otherwise basically ceasing to exist, so that has to be a big deal.

But then some things were the same, like all the people who are sometimes mean to me at work were mean all together and I was really tired because I've been having Restless Leg Syndrome (seriously? seriously.) and it makes it hard to sleep and then I had a headache for no reason at all.

All in all, what it probably means is that Barack Obama does not cure Restless Leg Syndrome.

Yesterday evening, while walking home from my volunteer job (Who me? Volunteer? Actually, yes. With children! Sort of.) and expending all my attention and energy into crafting a flawlessly clever text to a friend who had suffered a moderate-but-not-legitimately-tragic misfortune, a man made eye contact (as best he could, given that I was glued to my phone's 1" by 2.5" screen) and said "Excuse me." Then he said it again, so I looked up because obviously he was talking to me. Obviously, because my neighborhood is pretty much a ghost town after dark (but in the safe-feeling way, like my childhood cul-de-sac was empty after dinner time), and also obviously because strangers love to stop me on the street and ask bizarrely specific directions to places they aren't even close to. I have no idea why I am the target for this phenomenon.

So I look up and smile, because he's an older man who obviously needs my direction-giving services. And then he says, again, "Excuse me," and then "I was wondering if there's any place around here that sells pussy?"

Which, among other things, indicated that he really was lost because (especially given the recent reduction in corporate expense accounts and the number of folks who have them), my neighborhood doesn't even have a place that sells pizza after 10:30pm.

Also:
Has McCain totally given up on getting any votes in New York? Sure, it's traditionally full of super-liberal commie-pinko pro-gay-marriage nutjobs, but between the Palin "pro-America" thing and the "elites live in D.C. and New York" thing, it still seems a bit much. No?

Today I experienced a rare but delightful commuter joy. While riding the A to work this morning (late, because I'm increasingly unmotivated to get out of bed, or rather increasingly inclined to grant myself a reprieve from going to the gym in honor of CMJ...) I heard what sounded like Le Tigre "Deceptacon," but a tinny version, like it was coming through my headphones and my iPod had secretly turned itself on* while jostling around my purse with notepads and nail files and cell phones and my Kindle, which it likes to do sometimes, resulting in things like a dead battery at the gym the next morning (which, of course, was not a problem this morning because of CMJ, even though I stayed home and watched "The Office" last night instead of going out and so had no excuse to sleep in). So I fished around in my purse, only to find that my iPod was not, in fact, on and playing "Deceptacon." But it was still playing, and it was definitely Le Tigre. So I looked around, and determined that the music was actually coming from the headphones of a boy across the aisle who was pretty well obstructed by the other subway passengers, but who seemed to be pretending to sleep (pretending, because if his music was loud enough for me to hear it and identify the song, there's no way he was asleep -- that said, normally people whose music you overhear on the subway are listening to something really terrible that you'd rather not hear and/or are singing along absentmindedly, so I'm willing to forgive this small transgression because he avoided so many other, larger ones).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU1CDSP7FRk

*Confession: For a long time, when my iPod would turn itself on it would play "Girlfriend" by N'Sync and Nelly, because I had N'Sync in my iPod as *NSync, and the asterisk apparently appears before all the letters in the alphabet. Eventually, I changed the punctuation so that A.C. Newman "Miracle Drug" now plays when it's turned itself on.

I think it says a lot about the venue/guitar pedal manufacturer Death by Audio that the first time I went there I didn't know where I was (both geographically and in name) and the second time I went there I didn't know where I was going (only geographically this time) or that I'd been there before. Walking east on South 2nd, my companion and I decided it must be coming up in the next block because we were rapidly approaching the water. Then we happened upon a youngster in a red lumberjack jacket smoking a cigarette outside a lit doorway. Peeking through the door, there was a paint splattered wall which we assumed must signify our destination. Inside, I was surprised to find familiar the loft/quasi-warehouse/office space with it's enormous hanging ventilation ducts. What really clinched it, though, were the temporary walls that separate the bathroom from the back room, as if, were it not for this semi-organized assemblage of unemployed hipsters who smoke inside because this isn't a real venue, the toilet would just be in the corner of the room for people to use without concealment.

Also, yesterday my friend got laid off. We all agreed, to varying levels, that it was probably lucky because he hated his job (a lot) and had stayed there long enough for it to look good on his resume, without the blemish of quitting (which he was constantly considering). It's hard to say how this makes me feel about the economy: On one hand, someone I know has lost his job! On the other hand, it was the best possible way he could get out of that job! He may even make unemployment for a few months! Mostly I think it makes me feel better about my job (which I don't hate, even if it's not everything I could hope for) and worse about jobs in general.

It seems to me that my perception of "major news" is slightly (and perhaps more-than-slightly) skewed by the fact that I ride the subway towards the end of rush hour every morning, and as such see the cover of AM New York and Metro several hundred times, whereas I rarely if ever see a hard copy of the New York Times or the Wall Street journal* (presumably because their readership gets to work earlier or takes cabs or doesn't take the A or doesn't sit near me or something). Which is, presumably, why I'm aware that there is an outcry among some number of musicians (quite possibly just the five or six actually pictured on the AM New York cover) asking the presidential candidates to stop using their songs without permission.

Which made me think that it's a sad (or just new! and different!) state of intellectual property rights when even candidates for the presidency can't be bothered to ask permission. I think a couple of years ago there was a rumbling going around that people who played at open mic nights should have to pay for the rights to perform a song and this, while obviously different (though it might be fun to hear "Times They are a Changin'" from one of the candidates -- either, really), is also obviously farther down the fair use road. It doesn't necessarily mean that Barack Obama or John McCain think people should be able to download songs for free, but it feels a little inconsistent nonetheless.

* Then again, if everyone's reading AM New York and absolutely no one's reading NYTimes, maybe this just is the state of news for the average consumer.

I'm beginning to feel as if there are certain unquantifiable (or at least unforeseeable) perks about an apartment that make a significant difference in your quality of life. The most significant one for me, this week, is that my bathroom seems to get dirty really quickly. There's probably some aspect of this that can be blamed on my roommates, on the fact that there's three of us using this bathroom in comparison to two last year, and on my cat. But more problematic, I think, is that my current bathroom has no window or ventilation (which would be illegal in PA and promotes mildew growth) and also that we have white tile and also also that there are four normal size light bulb sockets over the vanity which previously had large low wattage bulbs that I've replaced with normal high wattage bulbs revealing secret dirt that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Other similar anomalies:
1- My old apartment had super slanty floors, which was funny but more or less fine. The floors in my current apartment are wavy and it feels weird when you're walking around barefoot, which you would never ever due while apartment shopping.
2- There were crotchless panties (blessedly still in their package) under my oven, which my mom found because she is a saint and cleaned under my oven.
3- The outside door to our apartment is set back about 2 feet from the street. The other buildings on my block are commercial and don't seem to offer similar coverage. So people who have to pee on my block inevitably pee in my doorway.

This has been a rather bathroom-centric post.

The problem with having a blog and working all the time (or, alternately, the problem that having this blog has revealed to me about working all the time) is that pretty much the only things that happen to me happen at work (with the rare exception, like being almost killed by a bicyclist on my way to a work event). And, given that my contract with the temp agency specifically precludes "running a website" during work hours, probably I should avoid blogging about work (though I'll occasionally indulge in transgressions of the "here is what having my job is like" sort which is different then the "here's what my office is like" sort, which ends up as an expose and a pink slip, except that because I'm a temp there probably wouldn't be much paperwork involved in firing me).

Of course, this dilemma permeates other aspects of life as well. A lot of the time I feel like I have to talk about is work, and I have to go through and describe everyone and explain the subtle dynamics and then on the rare occasion work life collides with the outside world and your roommate asks you "Who was that?" it seems like it should be obvious who it is because you talk about them all the time because you spend all your time with them, but of course it's not. And furthermore, this whole problem is self-perpetuating because only the people at work know the people at your work so if you want someone to understand the subtle dynamics the only people you can discuss them with are other people from work and so you further insulate yourself in the work world, and so on and so forth.

It's a daunting prospect.

Today, I woke up at 7:25, then 7:34, then 7:43 then 8:15 then 9:15 (because after I got up and got ready I was still too early to go to work since everyone else in the office was almost certainly going to be as hungover as I was, if not more so, since I wasn't very [ah the beauty of fancy drinks at a fancy bar that is totally out of your price range but paid for by bosses]). Then I came to the office -- still too early -- ordered a breakfast burrito, and was joined by my boss approximately two hours later. Then I wallowed, and waited, and answered about three phone calls (and a surprising number of hangups) and then it was lunch time. And then the finance guy who normally yells at everyone came up and sat on our couch reading Rolling Stone and some people watched an episode of Friends that had been cut into three pieces and posted on YouTube.

Although I do prefer the Jewish holidays (when our predominantly Jewish department more or less empties out) to days when things are crazy and the office is packed and everyone's having meetings and conference calls and so forth, I'm not so good at sitting in place for 10 hours doing practically nothing. But the ultimate good of this is that at least I HAVE a job or every day would be like a Jewish holiday and I'd sit in front of my computer for 14 hours a day and have even less human interaction and my laptop is older and slower than my work computer anyway. So at least there's that.

Update: I just introduced my boss to icanhascheezburger.com

This has been a weekend of transit snafus:
1. On Thursday, en route from work to a showcase by State of Shock at the Mercury Lounge, I was almost hit by a bicyclist while getting out of a cab, and she maybe got hurt a little because she had to break so fast and the bike kind of tipped over and he hoe fell off so I felt bad and apologized but what I mostly felt bad for (she was, after all, being something of a moron trying to bike through a red light and squeeze between a cab and the curb) was that she looked at me like I was the source of all global pollution because I was taking a cab and not biking myself, and this is something you'd feel bad about if you were reading Thomas Friedman's new book, which I am (see below).
2. Going to Penn State is a source of enormous anxiety because there's only one bus on Friday night and none on Saturday so if you miss it (or so you'll think when it's running late and you begin to wonder if you've missed it by waiting in the same spot since no one seems to know where you ought to be waiting or have heard of the bus company in question) you'll have to either pay another $50+ to take an Amtrak train the next morning or give up the whole trip as a loss, since even arriving at 1am Friday night I felt like I spent nearly as much time in transit as I did conscious in State College, Pa.
3. Not so much a snafu, but I'm currently on the 4+ hour Fullington trailways bus back from State College and I got pretty sick of trying to read Thomas Friedman's new "Hot, Flat and Crowded" (bored precisely because I agree with his general views and several of his specific ones and so read his editorials twice a week when I'm boed at work and, as such, am already more or less familiar with the whole thesis of his book [the main excitement thusfar being the I-guess-predictable but nonetheless surprising quote from an exes' father on biodiversity loss]) so I turned on the wireless on my Kindle only to find that I had downloaded an e-book (or e-article? e-version-of-the-original-uncut-article?) by David Forste Wallace about following John McCain as a journalist on the campaign trail. The book/article/whatever is of course characteristically delightful and insightful and timely to boot since McCain is once again on the campaign trail, and as such more-than-characteristically devastating because Wallace killed himself so it's maybe more or less the last new thing of his I'll get to read.
4. So in my delight, I decide to pretend to be a campaign journalist myself and edit my most recent article for Performer on the bus and instantly encounter what Wallace describes as the scourge of laptop journalists -- natural light glare from the windows -- and I only even think to pull down the shade, which kind of doesn't help, because I'm reading the article in the first place.

Yesterday, two monumental technology-related things happened to me in rapid succession.

1) I realized that my Yale email had been officially shut off. As anticipated, I realized this because I didn't get the NYTimes headlines or Word of the Day in the morning like I'm accustomed to. Not that it mattered so much, I guess, because I was so busy at work that I didn't even have time to read the four or five articles I'd opened tabs for in Firefox. Also, I was sort of a little lucky, as I know at least one person had their account shut off the day before mine was, so another day with Yale mail (which, among other things, initiated my departure from AOL email) was weaseled out of The Man, though I'm not quite sure why (maybe it's hard to shut off everybody's final tangible connection to the University all at once).

2) I received, under somewhat dubious circumstances, a wireless headset. The person who gave it to me claimed it had been a fluke, so I thought maybe strings were pulled, then they were maybe going to have to take it away and then they let me keep it! Hooray. I feel like I work in a call center now, but whatever. Also, I kind of do. Especially on days I'm booking travel.

Today is Rosh Hashanah. Everyone in my office is coincidentally Jewish. So no one is here (currently missing: both Presidents, SVP of my department, one of my bosses, an assistant, a manager in another department, two of the VPs in my department, the head of another department, innumerable other people that work in other places around the country and who I never see anyway). We don't even have enough people to get two signatures on an invoice because only certain people are able to sign invoices (this is usually not a problem). My boss who's here suggested that a co-worker who checked in was several bong hits deep. Religious observance indeed.

One of the other assistants and I have puzzled over whether we are lucky to be areligious, because we get to get paid even though our work load is greatly reduced, or unlucky because we have to come in at all. She is getting constant phone calls, so I'd say she's unlucky, but she gets called by her boss on the weekends anyway, whereas I don't. I'm probably more on the lucky end, however, as the only annoyance I've suffered was waiting for two hours for my boss to email me back with the name of his childhood pet so I could access his credit card info. Fortunately he brought his Blackberry into the synagogue and was able to respond as soon as services let out. Miracle of the modern world.

You know that movie (which movie... I think it's "Me and You and Everyone We Know," which I accidentally stole from Blockbuster and they believe I returned but also believe I failed to return "Sex Lies and Videotape," which I rented the same weekend. I have no idea how this was resolved, though, because I rented them on my stepdad's Blockbuster card. My best guess is that he claimed to never have rented "Sex Lies and Videotape" since it came out in the late 80s and then asked my brother if he had rented it, and my brother said no but he's a bad liar so everyone probably assumed he did, but since Blockbuster is essentially lenient on non-returns and explicitly lenient on late-returns, probably they ate the cost and I have everything for the DVD except the case, which I suppose I returned empty and/or containing "Sex Lies and Videotape." But I digress.) where the girl is building a trousseau of linens or plates or something? I feel like I'm doing that with furniture, except that rather than giving it to my husband on my wedding, I'm going to give it to my new, big apartment when I get a huge raise and can afford a place that actually has room for it all. In the mean time, it's all kind of squeezed in to my too-small apartment.

Also I really want this but it's too big to fit on our only open wall.

It is raining today. Not necessarily hurricane rains (or maybe even by-product-of-a-Gulf-hurricane rains) but enough to turn the subway station floor at the bottom of the stairs into a murky black pool, and also enough to make most subway passengers stop at the top of the stairs to open their umbrellas and, as such, trap the people waiting at the bottom of the stairs stuck in the aforementioned black pool. Which we will all pretend is just black with... soot. Or "dirt." And not any of the other potentially terrifying things it's probably chock full of.

I'm familiar with this phenomenon because pretty much every weekend when it's been inconvenient -- when I've had plans to go to an outdoor show or to drive for an hour or two through central Connecticut -- it's rained. On the day of Vampire Weekend at Rumsey Playfield (when we were about four thousand people back and wouldn't have gotten in anyway), on the day of MGMT at McCarren Park Pool (when we would have been about two thousand people back but managed to jump the line magically because my friend shook hands with the bouncer), even at TV on the Radio at McCarren Park last summer (when we managed to get in no problem and there wasn't a line even though there was for crappier shows this year). So basically, it only rains when I have a poorly planned music-related endeavour on tap.

Also, because my boss only went across the street for his lunch so I've had a salad from the same place like 3 times this week. Fortunately, it's a salad, so I doubt malnutrition will set in so quickly.

Things I have learned to take too seriously since I started work:
1) Water -- I prefer Poland Spring, but most people order Fiji because it's more expensive and, as such, fancier. Fortunately one of my bosses prefers Poland Spring, so I just have to remember to steal it from his cases before they're delivered to his desk.
2) Pens -- When I settled into my job, I was saddled with the pens of my predecessor, "Precise v7 Roller Ball" pens that I do not like and which are super inky and make my handwriting illegible when I write really small. I've learned to deal with them, but it will be a significant change in quality of life when I'm able to pick out my own pens. Bic, of course. (Side Note: El Presidente uses these really crappy pens, like stolen-from-the-hotel-room pens, which I think is kind of adorable).
3) Chairs -- I'm convinced I have the crappiest chair of anyone in the office, bar none. All of the execs have those springy, mesh-backed chairs that are better for your back, but I also inherited my predecessor's chair, which -- as he was quite a bit larger than I am -- is too wide sort of crushed and padding-less. So about two months ago, I traded my chair for my intern's. Which is sad, since everyone else's chairs cost $1000 and I had to steal mine from our indentured servants.
4) Headset vs. Handset -- First, all of the employees had Bluetooth wireless headsets for their phone and all the temps (myself included) had to use the handset. Then all the other temps got headsets, and just when the temp who started just before me got hers and I was warming up to the idea of asking for one, the head of finance sent around an email saying no more headsets were being approved for anyone ever again. Now my neck hurts.

A not-inconsiderable amount has been said about the disadvantages of an Ivy League education--or, by extension, any kind of training that is widely considered to be the very best (a friend expressed a similar feeling after completing military special forces training and being consigned to Hum-V cleaning after the surge). With regard to the public and generalizable discourse, I have comparatively little to add. Obviously some people think it's the best thing, and some thing that, if not the worst, it's at least not all it's cracked up to be. I think probably it's something like both, and hampered and propped up by the preconceptions both schools of thought engender.

But, on a personal note, I find it's transformed a certain innate restlessness from a fact to an ideal. Despite enjoying trashy TV and glossy magazines and sleeping late, I generally feel better (saner, happier, healthier) with slightly too much on my plate. In high school, I could justify this because I wanted to get into a "good school." In college, I justified it because I was at a "good school" and wanted a "good job." But now, with a diploma and something resembling decent employment more or less in hand, the inevitability of this feeling is rearing its ugly head. I work plenty, and when I let myself I enjoy my job, but as often as not I feel like what I'm doing isn't weighty enough. And I'm getting up early to go to the gym before work, but I feel like 30 minutes of cardio four days a week isn't enough (and, of course, the personal trainer who did my fitness evaluation agrees) and that my desk job is going to ruin my body (as much in its utility as anything else). And I'm volunteering and freelancing on the side, but I feel like I'm not writing enough or making enough of a difference and also that both my spelling and my vocabulary are deteriorating rapidly.

But my sense -- and I suppose you can correct me if I'm wrong and I really am just a lazy piece of shit -- is that probably I won't feel like anything is ever enough and at some point I'm going to have to find a way to settle down. Although, of course, settling is figured as the kiss of death in some circles. But I'd like paid vacation days and sick days and health insurance for starters.

This morning on the A-train (which I took begrudgingly when I really wanted a C because I was late for work but really wanted Jamba Juice, then I discovered there was a Jamba Juice in Columbus Circle but couldn't find it despite even entering the Whole Foods where it is because I am dumb before 11am, even on a good day) a quasi-emaciated 40-something-ish woman in too much makeup and 80s poofy hair spent the entire ride between Fulton Street (my stop) and Columbus Circle (my work) evangelizing about how "even if you help an elderly person across the street every day of life" you cannot be acceptable to God unless you appeal to Jesus. Fair enough. Awkward, but fair enough. It is, after all, her right.

BUT at the beginning of this whole shenanigan there were two Muslim women wearing veils about 5 ft away from the would-be preacher, and between Fulton and Chambers Street she seemed to be particularly targeting them, "no matter what you wear... no matter how many times a day you pray... no matter in what direction" and so on. This was particularly distasteful and maybe qualified as hate speech. It really soured me against her, when typically I try to be at least more-than-averagely tolerant of people announcing their beliefs on the subway, because presumably they really believe what they're doing is right, and also presumably because they're a little nutty. So that was a frustrating ride, to say the least.

Unrelatedly, in a fit of only-plausible-four-seconds-after-waking-up excuse making, I skipped going to the gym this morning because I had several weird dreams (weirdly non-sexual intimacies with my boss and also realizing last minute I was getting married at a Jane temple despite the fact that, even in the dream, I'm not ready and also I don't even know anyone who is a Jane except maybe that girl in "American Pastoral" by Phillip Roth, who I certainly don't know in any practical sense) and woke up several times in the middle of the night with the comforter completely thrown from my bed (this makes for an excuse because I equated it to a bad night's sleep, which is one way of saying I didn't want to get out of bed at 7:30am or 7:40 or 7:50 even post snoozings).

I live in the Financial District.
Yay, Manhattan!
Yay, downtown!
Boo, no place to eat (or, God forbid, drink) at night.
Yay, cheap rent!

Recently, I was discussing with two friends the particular alchemy that seems to make a neighborhood "cool" or "bohemian." For instance, why has Williamsburg -- which up til 15 years ago was occupied largely by Orthodox Jews and Hispanic families -- become a destination, whereas the Financial District -- which probably has been occupied by super tall office buildings that become more or less vacant at night since forever -- has not. Both offer comparatively reasonable rent (most places I looked at in Williamsburg are actually more expensive than the Financial District, though slightly larger, likely dirtier, and probably even cheaper, larger, and dirtier 5 years ago, which maybe can't be said about the Financial District).

Said friend argued that it was because Williamsburg also offered "space" for things that cool people like (he said "arts and music," I think "kitschy vintage stores and organic groceries and numerous coffee shops"). I think it's probably more because it's hard to argue that you're a member of the counterculture when you live in the tourist-packed shadow of Goldman Sachs. But it would make for a really fascinating trend piece if there was a nefarious counter culture in the Financial District (FiDi, to some people, most of whom seem to exist only on Craigslist).

That having been said, I find it a little dismal to take the subway through the Lower East Side (another not-so-cheap, dirty-ish destination) to get to Williamsburg when my apartment is ostensibly "convenient" and "desirable" by virtue of it's Manhattan location. But that doesn't mean I don't do it.

Today, on the platform for the Brooklyn-bound A/C (which is, super confusingly, the same platform as the Bronx-bound A/C at the Fulton Street stop, resulting in one or two trains taken in the wrong direction, which is really a problem since the next stop after Fulton is actually in Brooklyn, not just a few blocks further south), I heard a man blaring reggae. I assumed, quite reasonably, that he was blaring it from a boom box, a device more or less created for the sole purpose of forcing others in crowded metropolitan settings to listen to your music. But instead, when I looked in his direction, he was holding a Dell laptop, mostly closed, in one hand, like it were a particularly shiny hardcover book.

My thoughts were, in this order:
1) His laptop is totally going to break or get really dirty as a result of this
2) What has this world come to?
3) Wow, I wonder what model that is -- his speakers are way better than mine

I have a well-documented and probably over-blogged anxiety about going home. That everyone is secretly judging my progress and -- of course -- as is the way with such anxieties -- finding it tragically lacking.

That having been said, then, it ought to come as no surprise that, in the cab from the New Haven train station to my friend's apartment, where I was certain to walk straight into a dinner party of exes, former classmates, and the like, I was feeling equally self conscious (in particular, about the fact that I was wearing this pair of grey skinny jeans that always get awkwardly loose and unskinny when I haven't washed them in a while). Fortunately, there was only one major disaster during my stay, which obviously had nothing at all to do with my return to New Haven (though it made for a major buzz kill before everyone started playing shot-slap* on Saturday night).

What was startling, though, was to walk through a city in which everyone who lives in the shitty houses where I used to hang out has moved on to other shitty houses and other people have moved in (sometimes I know them, which is still weird but less sad). The strangest, though, was either walking by people I know and having them not respond at all (which happened once) and walking by BookTrader and not having hooked up with anyone inside (which is not to say that I hooked up with so many oodles of people, but rather that everyone I've hooked up with tends to take their faux study/social breaks at BookTrader because most of them live in a two block radius, and now no more).

Also, now David lives in a yucky frat house and everything is sticky all the time.

*A baffling game that made me feel like I was in a PSA or in a spoof of a PSA on Saturday Night Live, in which you, or rather my collegiate comrades, do a shot of the shittiest vodka around (Dubra) and then slap eachother in the face.

I Can Haz Lunchbreak?

A couple of months ago, I read some account somewhere (I was initially thinking New York Magazine, but in retrospect I think it was "And Then We Came to the End," by Joshua Ferris, which is fictional) of someone who decided to spend the entire work day without touching the keyboard or the mouse. It actually has to be Ferris, because how would someone blog about this without touching the keyboard, though in the story I remember the guy got the security guard to Photoshop something for him under the guise of teaching the guard how to Photoshop things, so getting someone else to blog about your non-blogging isn't entirely infeasible.

Anyway, I bring this up, because while I think it would totally 100% be possible for me to not do anything at work all day (especially if we defined work as 9am - 5pm so as not to include this one report I have to do everyday) I think I would literally die of boredom. It's bad enough on a slow day, when -- after asking everyone if they need any help, if I'm feeling generous -- I'm relegated to web surfing and making my way through the NYTimes, then Gawker, then NYMag (which I should really move before Gawker because I vastly prefer it), then MarriedtotheSea. But to truly do nothing I'd probably have to be asleep at my desk.

And I should have known today was going to be slow, because after printing out my bosses morning reports I looked at ICanHasCheezburger all morning.

Things I've learned at work

Unlike most people, whose jobs have made them more comfortable wearing suits or getting up early or talking about money in units of a billion, my job has only helped me devise increasingly casual outfits that nonetheless pass the dress code at fancy restaurants that I occasionally have the opportunity to go to when execs from my office are paying (ie: no flip flops).

Another thing I've noticed is that I'm completely immune to cursing. I don't notice when I do it, I don't notice when other people do it. I only notice even the littlest bit when I'm around adults, most recently my mom, and found myself saying "fuck" every fourth word. This phenomenon has been reported by my coworkers as well.

Also, it's made me more comfortable using the word "exec" on a daily basis, which gives me the creeps.

Average-looking Naked Neighbor

Having moved into a new apartment at the beginning of August, I am rapidly falling into a relationship of sorts with a naked man who I occasionally see while I'm in bed. Far from a torrid (<<<< Word of the Day!) affair, this is at worst a spat of voyeurism on my part and, perhaps at best, a little bit of neighborly checking in.
My bedroom is at the back of my apartment, carved from what was once a pretty spacious living room with the addition of a temporary wall, resulting in one smallish living room and one really small-ish bedroom. Because my bed is five feet wide and my room is only two feet broader, my bed is inevitably quite close to the window, even though it's pushed against the opposite wall. So, given this proximity, it's probably unsurprising that I noticed that the apartment across the hall is always glowing red because they leave a light on with a red lampshade (prostitutes? seems kind of unlikely...).
Then, one night, I was lying in bed and staring into the middle distance between me and the red light and a naked man appeared in what was obviously a living room type room! (Which actually makes it seem maybe more likely that there are prostitutes in that apartment). Then he went into the kitchen! Then he went back to the living room and disappeared!
While I'm not saying that I've never undressed stupidly close to my very-wide-open windows, if Average-Looking Naked Neighbor saw me naked it would be in the relative privacy of my own bedroom and I would likely be getting into or out of clothes. Whereas, when I see the Average-Looking Naked Neighbor, he is always naked, and always in a room where nudity is unusual.
Additionally, I have never, ever, even once seen a clothed person in the apartment across the air shaft, but the naked man is in his kitchen once or twice a week.
I feel like I'm on "Friends."
Do people across small open spaces in New York never wear clothes?

On lunch breaks...

For some reason (perhaps not so hard to divine), I get really irritated when people suggest that I do something on my lunch break. Largely this is because I do not get a lunch break -- though I often do get free lunch when one of my bosses braves the outside world and brings me a salad or sandwich that I eat huddled over my desk.

For instance, I couldn't go to the gym this morning because there's never a membership consultant in when I go before work, and I got home last night after the gym was closed, and because I left them my number so they could call me at work and set it up but they never called, so I'm not a member yet. Also, because I'm lazy. And it's Friday.

Other things I couldn't do on my non-lunch break: pick up a prescription, sign my lease, go to the gym (also, as per the above, because I'm not a member yet), take a nap, have a drink, get a mini face lift, or see the sun.

Also, really? Like if I did get a lunch break, I'd want to spend it doing anything besides eating lunch and taking a break?

(Also also, a certain crunk-obsessed rapper is in my office right now. And lots of people are missing it and/or late for their meetings with him because they are out to lunch.)

Abject blinking

It is one of the great, enduring annoyances of my life that I seem to be preternaturally good at remembering people (faces 100% of the time, names maybe 50%, and those I usually forget immediately or not at all). Meanwhile, my sense is that other people are about 50% face, 20% name at best. Or maybe that's just my repeatedly bruised ego talking.

Here's an example (from about three hours ago):
Me: Who are you looking for?
Two-guys-in-a-band-who-I've-met-twice-and-talked-to-at-some-length: Bathroom
... Fifty seconds of banter later...
Guy #1: I've met you before.
Me: Good job -- yeah, we had a drink after your show.
Guy #1: I'm [redacted]
Me: I'm Donnell
Guy #2: I'm [redacted]
... An hour later, after they've wandered around the office...
Co-worker: And here's Donnell
Me: I've met them before
Guy #2: Right, from the bathroom.
Guy #1: And from...
Me: We went out for drinks after your show
Guys #3 and 4: [Abject blinking]

Addictions Anonymous

I, somewhat inadvertently, quit drinking coffee while I was in China for the Olympics.

Ideologically, I was sort of thinking I should stop because I was getting these terrible headaches and feeling really disoriented in the mornings at work and having a horrible time getting out of bed and because this New York Magazine article made me feel like I might be slowly killing myself (even though that's not really the thesis of the article at all).

Practically, though, I stopped because coffee is harder to get in China and no one makes drip coffee (though the little espresso machines, where present, were delightful) except McDonald's and Starbucks and it's embarrassing to go to either place because you're in China for God's sake and even though they drink tea with every meal it's made with things like chrysanthemums which, while tasty, are not caffeinated, or at least not sufficiently so.

Now that I've safely returned stateside, I've tried to steer clear of coffee, at least in the habitual 10:30am time, and I've generally had super-positive results, including getting up half an hour early to go to the gym before work and fewer headaches. My only real concern is that, at the gym, I've been watching season one of Gossip Girl and that may prove to be an equally potent addiction (and even more nefarious, since I'm already a quarter of the way through Season One).

Top 4 Reasons Sarah Palin Makes Me Nervous:
1) She has a 3-month-old son. Even as someone who believes parenting and bread-winning responsibilities can and should be split between both parents, I would think that -- for the good of both her child and the country -- she shouldn't have to split her time between two fairly demanding and incredibly important roles.
2) Her 3-month-old son has Down's syndrome. See above. Multiplied by 100.
3) She supports drilling in wildlife refuges. More or less shoving cute baby polar bears aside in order to get more environment-ruining, progress-stifling fossil fuels.
4) She is pro-life even in cases of rape and incest. To whatever degree it would be a landmark victory for women if she was elected, it may also be a landmark defeat for women's rights.

One Sort Of Middling reason Sarah Palin Makes Me Nervous:
She looks like Tina Fey. Who I like and don't want sullied.

The existential dilemma

Anyone who knows me in real life probably knows that I have a job that I generally enjoy, that pays OK-not-stellar-no-benefits. Anyone who sees me on a daily basis (probably more or less limited to other people who share said job) probably knows that this job pays hourly.

In general, this system is actually good because I work a lot of overtime and time and half almost makes up for no benefits. (Almost. Monetarily if not psychologically. In that capacity it's still a little sad.) Sometimes it also has other perks, like I have unlimited unpaid vacation and could go to China because if I'm not here they just don't pay me and can put a temp in my place for the same net cost.

On days like today and tomorrow (Labor Day weekend, more or less), things get a little more uncertain. The head of our department gave us all license to leave a few hours ago. People are slowly filtering out and no one is coming in tomorrow, but if I make myself sit here for a little while longer, and get myself out of bed to log a few hours tomorrow, I'll be catapulted straight into super-lucrative overtime, rather than just the 40 hours that constitute full time (which I easily log in 4 days, but then no overtime so no extra dough). Probably I will leave, and then do something productive like go to the gym or clean my apartment or take a nap. Something productive like a nap.

p.s. If you google image search the word "recline," many of the results are NSFW

Infiltrating Reality Television

After returning from China on Saturday night, I've been fighting jetlag (and more or less winning) and trying to get settled into my new apartment (that, on the other hand, is more or less a draw -- I came home yesterday and a poster had fallen off the wall and was lying on my bed, and the six thumbtacks that had been holding it up were nowhere to be seen and presumably nestled somewhere into my pillow).

In the process of getting back into the daily grind, I've also recommenced my project to make plans after work so I don't become a friendless loser just because I spend 50+ hours a week at my desk. Last night, for instance, I had dinner with a friend who lives in the same building as Lauren Conrad and Audrina Whatsherface from the Hills. I suggested that, considering the dramatic content of this week's episode was a birthday party in which both Spencer/Heidi and Lauren/Lo (and apparently no one else) showed up (crisis!), if he were to gently tap their car with his, or break into their apartment and be sitting on their couch when they got home, this would be sufficient conflict to make him a guest star for an entire episode.

So that miniscule-but-tragic fender bender they get into next season? That was me.

A thousand tiny invasions...

There is no single activity that I engage in that provokes more commentary from coworkers and strangers than biting my nails. Regardless of whether or not the individual eventually confesses that he or she is also a nail biter, on the subject of nail biting I am a naughty child and they are the scolding parent/deity who is sending me to bed without dessert.

Home, where my music's playing

My brother's graduating from high school this weekend, so I took NJ transit home. On the plus side, they've got brand new trains with individual seats and two levels and cleanliness and prettiness (though perhaps not godliness). On the down side, something about the beauty of the new trains inspired one of my fellow passengers to listen to her iPod at maximum volume and -- BONUS! -- to sing along for more or less the entire train ride. Then, towards the end of the ride, perhaps 85 minutes in, a couple, in possession of their senses of humor despite the perpetual annoyance of our serenader, decided to join in. And by join in, I mean sing totally different songs (specifically, Coldplay), presumably in hopes of alerting the songstress how obtrusive her singing was.

By the time we got to Trenton, no one seemed to have learned anything about how annoying loud train singing was, and we were forced to walk forward several cars in order to depart because the new train was too long for the platform.

Things people tell you about relationships

(that I think it takes about a year to get past)

You should have your own life, outside of your relationship.
There should be no problem in finding time to spend together.

I suspect these are similar to the "don't compromise" adage that more or less makes it impossible to plan for any kind of shared future, barring the influence of guardian angels and fairy godmothers.

I have:
A job, plans for the next four days, a 10' U-Haul truck reserved for Saturday

I am in need of:
Wooden spoons, a microplane, rubber spatulas, peeler, blender, mixer, knives, cutting boards, measuring cups and spoons

I would like to get rid of:
Too sharp disposable razors, bruise on my left shin, cut on my right hand, caffeine withdrawal

Additionally, my step-sister is working for Cutco this summer, so my request for a knife set as a graduation gift seems suddenly reasonably reasonable.