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.