Cheese!

As I was getting out of the subway at Astor Place earlier tonight, I noticed a young guy sprinting to board the same N that I'd just exited. Unfortunately, he was about two seconds too late and shouted, "F--K!" just as the doors closed in his face.

I then caught his eye, pointed both index fingers to my cheeks, and mouthed, "SMILE!" I have absolutely NO IDEA what compelled me to make that split-second decision, and I suppose my own amusement at acting so uncharacteristically made me inwardly giggle, which resulted in the most ridiculously goofy expression on my face as I urged a complete stranger to smile at something that ranks as one of the top vein-throbbing frustrations of urban living.

I think I realized in that exact moment the foolishness of my actions because I nearly got whiplash by getting the hell out of that station before that guy could come find me and give me a beating that any eyewitnesses would undoubtedly insist was not only warranted but surely invited and deserved.

Hola, 2009

Holy expletive, I have not updated this in a long time. Boo, me. Are my three readers even out there? Probably not. I haven't been writing or reading anyone else's blogs (I hate that word) either.

It's 2009. I'm excited. I'm going to have a great effing year. So far, it's been pretty good.

Enlightening conversation with my friend in Australia about New Year's Eve:

Alicia: hey anny
me: ali! merry belated christmas
Alicia: you too mate. and early happy ny!
me: you too! big plans?
Alicia: um... not really. going down the peninsula for a night. it's like 2 hrs away, near the coast
me: excellent... is that like camping?
Alicia: kinda, anyway how about you?
me: i normally wind up going to my cousin's house and eating cheese and watching the ball drop on tv
Alicia: ball drop?
me: haha yeah, in times square in new york, there is a ball that drops
and people watch it on tv :)
Alicia: what happens?
me: um... nothing
it drops and there is a glowing sign that says "2009" and people say happy new year
Alicia: is it a big ball?
me: i guess so but it's pretty high
somewhere on top of a billboard in times square
Alicia: does it bounce?
me: no...

Happy new year. :-)

My fake-sounding (but true) Olympic gold medalist* sighting

My co-worker and I have been discussing various food carts around Midtown, and yesterday we decided to commence our let's-eat-at-every-food-cart-in-Midtown thing (ugh, my brain is fried, I can't think of the proper word)... sort of like when guys (and girls) decide to drive around the U.S. going to every ballpark (like that cool MasterCard commercial that I like so much).

We started off ambitious: we decided to go to the famous halal food cart at 53rd and 6th (FIVE BUCKS for a great [and huge] meal!) and then head down to 51st and 7th to this highly-rated Jamaican Dutchy food cart. The Midtown Lunch blog said something like, "When Usain Bolt is in town this week, he should really stop by!" so my co-worker and I did.

When we get there, the cart is covered with clippings of Usain Bolt and even has a TV connected there with looping footage of him winning one of his many races. While perusing the many delicious-looking** items on the menu, we look up and realize that a Puma-clad*** Usain Bolt has arrived at the cart with some handlers and some gawking New Yorkers.

The funny thing is that Usain actually had an appearance at the show (and wore a Puma jacket). But when I put it in my away message, four people messaged me to ask whether it was true that I saw him at a Jamaican food cart. I mean, it does sound kind of fake, right? It's sort of like claiming you saw Jackie Chan in Chinatown or something. (Although Jackie Chan is from Hong Kong, which brings up all sorts of complications, so maybe my analogy wasn't that great [in fact a little {or very} culturally and politically insensitive] but it was the best sort of analogy that I could think up right now.)

Yummy food cart suggestions welcome.

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* I first put "celebrity" but figured that, as talented as he is, Usain Bolt probably wouldn't be considered one (at least not yet in New York).

** Yeah, we bought Jamaican food right after we bought halal food. So what?

*** His sponsors must LOVE him. Puma and McNuggets!

Embarrassment > frugality

My therapist takes the month of August off. It's a glorious month. I get to sleep in late (since my crazy hours at work require me to meet her in the morning), I don't have to rack my brain thinking of something to discuss at our next session, but most importantly, I save myself several hundred bucks that would undoubtedly equal the monthly rent of a luxury studio in any city but New York.

I've been feeling a lot like my old self lately (i.e., cheap and lazy). The idea of paying a three-digit sum to have someone listen to me talk for 45 minutes (yes, you read that right... our sessions don't even last an hour!) after rousing my amorphous blob of a body out of my ridiculously comfortable bed on a weekly basis (particularly in this time of extreme financial crisis) just seems really absurd. In fact, when my therapist forgot our about session in the first week of this month, I was actually pretty thrilled that I got to "save" some extra cash and practically skipped to my office.

I mean... does she not realize that there are some uncomfortably long silences in our sessions because I have nothing more to say?

Anyway, since I am a coward, I really wasn't looking forward to suggesting that we start meeting every other week. I mean, I still like her a lot, and I think it's helpful to talk to a "neutral" party. Plus I figure that our sessions would probably have more depth since I would have more to discuss if I had two weeks' worth of self-pity to complain about. (Not to mention that my monthly bill would be cut in half.)

When I mentioned this at the end of our last session, she asked, "Why?" I feebly muttered something about the difficulty of getting up in the morning (which, believe me, is not something to be taken lightly, as any one of my former roommates could attest) although honestly I'd rather just save a few bucks. My therapist then said something about therapy being a continuous process and how it wouldn't be a good idea to break up sessions. (Well, of course she thinks that. She just sits and gets paid a ton of money!) I was too embarrassed to just admit that I didn't want to pay extra money, so I just agreed.

I suck.

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Note: I did think briefly of switching to another therapist who would be okay with biweekly sessions. But then I realized that it would probably take like at least three sessions to repeat my life story. And because we were meeting biweekly, it would probably take like an extra month or two for my life story to stick. And that alone would be pretty costly.

Fact: I do have insurance. But the good therapists don't take it.

Conclusion: I should've become a therapist. You get so much money for doing what girls with insecure and whiny friends do all the time for free!

I am so mysterious

Today, my coworkers and I accused each other (well, mostly, they accused me) of being secret aspiring stand-up comics because one of us had found a piece of paper with two "yes" and "no" columns of apparent jokes. In the end, we realized that one of the interns had typed it up for somebody else at work; however, I later found out that they all thought I'd written it because I supposedly started playing with my hair and shifting around my weight during my part of the interrogation.

Frankly, I was offended because there were some heinous grammatical errors on that page. But when I realized to what degree that my coworkers thought I was lying (albeit about something pretty dumb), I was kind of pleased. Because it means that they can't read me! Haha!

Hm... maybe this is not a normal reaction. I should probably be upset that they questioned my honor, but... shrug. I am very amused.

:-)

PS - I don't lie. (Except when being polite.)

How ridicurous!

I was talking to the people in my department, and I mentioned how something was "ridicurous" at work. They sort of laughed, but they said that I was wrong and shouldn't say stuff like that.

That is probably true. Baaa!

How to feel stupid 101

1. Assure your two new roommates that you never use the top padlock of the door to the apartment and that there is no need to have that key.

2. Not realize that your overnight guest has locked that padlock. Fall asleep.

3. Sleep through multiple missed calls (the first of which began at 2:30 am) from (the nicer) Roommate #1.

4. Sleep through a second round of missed calls from an energized Roommate #1, which begins at 4 am with the arrival of (the less forgiving) Roommate #2 (whose cell phone battery had just died) despite the fact that both Roommate #1 and Roommate #2 can hear the obnoxiously unmistakable cell phone ring tone of Rip Van Roommate through the painfully thin walls.

5. Finally wake up at 8 am and use the bathroom, only to be distracted by urgent knocking at the door. Open door and realize that your two new roommates have each slept for the past three hours in the hallway on half a cardboard box. Offer the feeblest of apologies. Barely survive the Death Glares of Roommates #1 and #2 before they make their way to their respective beds to pass out because sleeping on a cardboard box in a hallway is physically uncomfortable and psychologically unpleasant.

Grrr.