SarahvNYC

I'm 'bout to be FAMOUS.

2012-02-09T12:28:00.001-05:00

Super Bowl XLVI Social Media Infographic, or

Whose Team Can Most Brutally Insult Their Rivals, Including Those Non-PC Swear Words We Can't Publish But We Can Include in Our Data Aggregation.

Click to view full post and larger size.
By yours truly (@sarahvyc) and my ultra-slick colleague @sammirbb.

Are real New Yorkers Jets fans or Giants fans? Either way, I'm on my way.

Hating on the Opposing Team - Super Bowl Social Media Infographic

2012-02-07T16:18:00.000-05:00

Social media statistics are where my hatred of math and my love of solid proof come together.

This is the result of 6 days spent drowning in nasty football fan tweets, comments, and updates. My very first infographic, with design by the g-est of g's @sammirbb.

Saks Fifth Ave Christmas Light Show

2011-12-09T22:49:00.001-05:00

Recreating first date with that guy I made out with for a while. Aww.

Not nearly as good as the first time I saw it, which was apparently was the last year the classic show happened (2009).

Seriously, Get With the Times. (I'm a Social Business. Are You?)

2011-11-11T12:06:00.001-05:00

via @BrianSolis

Does it Have to Do with Bacon?

2011-02-09T20:16:00.000-05:00

Today I spent my morning fraternizing with my neighborhood. I've actually spent a good deal of time bopping in and about the area recently, which is mostly due to a preponderance of Groupons I've been accumulating. And I can't go out and play these days without noticing just how Williamsburg-y Williamsburg is.I sat down to try and figure out what defines this place (aside from the obvious but cryptic blanket term, "hipstery").

What's really difficult is trying to understand why I love living here, yet simultaneously can't imagine having a real conversation with most of the people I see walking small dogs on the streets, balancing glasses of whiskey or bourbon in the bars, sipping espressos at the local coffee shop, or eating bacon-flavored cupcakes at restaurants. It's like feeling genuine kinship to an alien species.Well actually, I probably feel that way because I love people that drink cocktails other than vodka sodas, people who know enough not to order absurdities like caramel macchiatos, and anybody with the skill to make something like bacon into a dessert.

I think it's as simple as putting thought into what they care about and consume: they love hamburgers and fried chicken, but they get them with free range meats and wasabi mayo. They like being close to Manhattan, but not actually within its familiar confines. They'll buy records as supplements to their iPods, and talk about the differences in "sound experience." They cherish The Beard, but they also get haircuts...most of the time. It's the sort of mentality that embraces the standard, and then invents upon it. Even if sometimes that inventing is only combining past with present.

I think the problem that most people have with the Williamsburg peeps and hipsters the world over can be distilled into this: all the thought put into how things can be "improved upon" or "re-imagined" eventually culminates in characters that are condescending, conceited, and insolent. When you spend all that time trying to be better, and you think you succeeded, then it's impossible not to think you're better than pretty much everyone else. And usually it's only youngish twenty-somethings ("Millennials") that are naive enough to think they've figured out where the rest of the world has gone wrong. Also, for some reason we all seem to end up looking and acting the same in our pursuit of what's 'edgy.'

Unsurprisingly, Williamsburg ends up being a small village of young people who think they do it better than everyone else. And it may be true, at least on the food/bar scene; they come pretty close. But they end up coming off as kindof hateful kids.I still love it here because A) I'm a Millennial, so I too think I can come up with solutions to all life's problems, B) I like being around people that are always doing different things, and C) I like a good bacon marmalade.

Everyone here is young, everyone here thinks about the future, and everyone here lives out the hypocrisy of liking nice things while trying not to be a Rich Dude. It's absolutely true that it's obnoxious. That's why I don't talk to anyone but my roommates. But nevertheless, I'd rather be around obnoxious people who are trying to do it better than people who are passively agreeable.That's why I moved to New York, after all.

Facebook Infographic (yeah, this is my job)

2011-01-14T15:09:00.002-05:00

I spend all my time on Mashable and TIME Healthland now instead of blogging. Sorry guys. I thought I'd make it up to you by sharing some of that time spent with a nice visual found during a day spent internet-ing.

Via: Online Schools

Dream Like a New Yorker - You'll Live Longer.

2010-12-06T11:57:00.009-05:00

New York is the way it is because of the people that live here. The people are the ones who give the city its personality and its energy. They create the standards that all newcomers eventually end up adhering to, once they’ve been here a week or two. And they’re the ones that help teach those incoming New Yorkers how to be New Yorkers.

One of the things I love about New Yorkers is that they’re so optimistic. That’s a sortof counterintuitive observation if you watch a lot of Law & Order, but it’s true.

When times are tough, New Yorkers will take jobs waiting tables or working retail to make ends meet. But they’ll never stop believing that it’s “only temporary.” Everything they do, whether it’s working late nights at an especially crappy bar or cleaning apartments, they always know that it’s only until the right opportunity comes along. Everyone here has a dream – that’s why they moved here. There’s a universal understanding that Right Now is only temporary, until One Day comes along.

One Day, I’ll have HBO.

One Day, I’ll have my own apartment.

One Day, I’ll be able to take my girlfriend out for a nice dinner.

One Day, I’ll be doing what I love.

Everyone I know seems to be having an incredibly difficult year. But a common strain in our conversations is that “once January and the new year come along, things will be better.”

Of course, this sort of mentality can be just as annoying to endure as it is endearing – god knows I’ve met enough actors just “waiting to be discovered” to last a lifetime. But in times like these, it’s a quality that’s both necessary and wonderful. It makes being unemployed easier. It makes working at Best Buy tolerable. And it makes packing into studio apartments like sardines in bunk beds almost romantic.

The dreams that all New Yorkers hold are what set them apart from the rest of the world. New York is the city of ambition. Even in our deepest recession since the Great Depression, our TGI Friday’s servers are working happily for all those holiday season tips, so they can buy a new camera to film that new piece that will truly make their filming career. And I love that that optimism is always present here in New York, even when things are at their most difficult.

Thanks to sagriffin305 for the photo.

For @jleeinnyc

How To Date Someone And Live Out of Your Purse

2010-11-18T20:55:00.001-05:00

Dating someone in New York can be difficult. Take, for instance, a friend of mine who is soon to enter the film production industry: her requirements for any sort of future boyfriend are first and foremost, that he be understanding of the kind of schedule her job demands -- i.e. 15 hour days and the necessity to pass out from exhaustion as soon as she gets home at night. Consequently, her ideal romantic interest would be someone who is also in film production and/or okay with rarely ever seeing her.

Most people have things they're here to Accomplish. Even if they have a day job that they're not inclined to spend long nights at "for the love of it," they're usually working on a side project that's the real reason they're here in New York...and not some suburb of Sacramento, or something. Or if it is the day job they love, like my friend, then they're there for 15 hours a day because THAT is what they're in New York to do. Or maybe they're here just because they love the lifestyle, a.k.a. being out all night, every night, getting wasted and meeting pretty people.

The point is, with all this Accomplishing happening all the time it's hard to make time for relationships. Most people generally want them, and like them while they're happening, because it gives you a partner to take on the city with. Friends are often busy with work or dates or their other group of friends. And they're not getting sex out of you, so you can't really rely on them. So you end up hanging out pretty much exclusively with your significant other when you're not at work.But the thing is, if you're squeezing in time with your lover from the hours of 8-10pm most nights and weekends, then you're pretty booked up. And let's face it, you're not making any friend time or spa-time...or blog-writing time. Take that into consideration, and all you'll have left is a Sunday night dinner date.

And so, balancing time becomes crucial for New Yorkers in a serious relationship. You have to choose what nights you're seeing each other based on where, geographically, your day will end in the city and thus which apartment it's more convenient to stay at. ("I'm in Midtown because I ended up lost in a middle eastern grocery store. I guess let's stay in Queens?" "Well, I'm down in the East Village, so maybe we should just go to your place in Brooklyn...") And, you have to know in advance these things so that your purse holds an extra pair of underwear, a clean shirt, your phone charger, and perhaps an umbrella. And you have to factor in MTA travel time for everything. Then you have to plan when you're seeing your friends, so that those relationships don't die. And finally, you have to make sure you have some private time every week so that you can pluck your eyebrows and wax your bikini line in glorious solitude.

Advice for those aspiring to boyfriend-dom or girlfriend-dom: buy two of every shirt and tell your significant other to get over the fact that your shit will be living there when you're not. They're New Yorkers -- they should be able to deal with claustrophobia. Also: your eyebrows might end up getting a little wild.

Thanks to chadmagiera for his picture of that useful-seeming underwear/cigarette store.

Enabling an Idiocracy (Or, Why Chicken Tenders are Ruining Society)

2010-11-08T22:31:00.001-05:00

Because I stay at my new real-person job until 7pm half the time, I don't have the time to write as much as I'd like. Also, I try not to play on my blog at at work because they frown upon that.As a result, I took what was going to be an angry Facebook Note by a friend and redirected his energies to what I like to call "guest-blogging." Having a guest-blog means I don't have to write myself. (And also, who really reads Facebook Notes? He should thank me for saving his thoughts from oblivion.)And finally, he happens to share some ideas about humanity that I myself have harbored at times. Working in the service industry is enlightening, and teaches you a lot about how disappointing your fellow human beings can be. I like the title, Why Chicken Fingers Are Destroying Our Society and Our Economy. He has a different one.

Enabling the Idiocracy

The fact that businesses can net MILLIONS a year with horrible service, despicable management, and an appalling lack of cleanliness is the direct result of abundant tourism and a complete lack of responsibility on the part of consumers. Mega-chains in midtown Manhattan have learned that accountability doesn't exist when you have no expectation of even one repeat customer. Work just hard enough to keep the health inspectors away, and the mindless masses will pour their money into you because they can’t think outside the box, and you're familiar.

"Enabling the Idiocracy" should be the title of a very long book directly aimed at the drones that wander in off the street to drop $75 on burgers for two, only to leave NYC thinking "wow these people are filthy assholes". When will people learn that customer choice might be what drives a democratic economy and the “American Way”, but it is also a responsibility that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

So many times we hear people exclaim, “This restaurant is filthy and over-priced, someone should complain to the manager!” while sitting over their fried chicken tenders in a mid-town Manhattan mega-chain.

So many times we hear people exclaim, “Those paparazzi are horrible people! They need to learn to respect people’s privacy!” while standing in line at the grocery store reading an USWeekly they’re about to purchase along with some frozen fried chicken tenders.

I’ve made the unfortunate decision to become underemployed, and am now dealing with horrible managers, a filthy, unsafe work environment, and unruly co-worker conduct, but I don’t blame the establishment. I blame every single customer that decides to walk through the door. It is the consumer that enables this idiocracy.

So for the sake of all that is good and right in the world: Stop spending money on filth. Stop eating at mega-chains. Start realizing that the bathroom is filthy because of you, the service is horrible because of you, and chicken tenders have come to represent all that is wrong with the American Diet because of you.

Become a more responsible consumer.

Maybe if that happens, I can go back to blaming “the man” again for all that is wrong in America. I love chicken tenders.You can follow @jleeinnyc on Twitter for more of these lessons, and links to entertaining stories & shows about working in the service industry.Thanks to IndyDina with Mr. Wonderful for the picture of chicken.

For the Love of Star Trek and Universal Equality

2010-11-05T17:49:00.000-04:00

George Takei is my hero. Who else could call Clint McCance a douchebag as part of the Trevor Project's "It Gets Better" Campaign?

Also, today I learned how to embed a video, so I'm going crazy with it in a Star Trek theme.

For the Love of Will Shatner

2010-11-05T11:22:00.002-04:00

And because I love pretty much everything he does.

Except for $#*! My Dad Says. That show is just awful.

I'm Killing the Internet

2010-11-04T22:33:00.001-04:00

Last month, perfect timing meant that I came back from a two-week California vacay and started a job 4 days later. But my new job is killing The Internet for me.

As a direct result of the summer's near-death experience, consequent lack of funds, and a general sense of done-ness with my bohemian lifestyle, I finally decided to get a job. I told some people that I'd gone to UC Berkeley and used my ensuing genius to make Facebook/Twitter pages for my coffeeshop, and poof! they hired me. So now I'm a Specialist in Search Engine Optimization and Social Media, which means that they pay me to play on Twitter all day in the sacred name of "brand engagement."

Though I enjoy making double the money and getting to sleep in until EIGHT AM every day, the casualty of all this is that I'm losing faith in the internet. I'm learning just how contrived everything we look for on the internet is, because that's what I do every day. My job is to send out content that is designed for you to find, which will then direct you back to my client's website...and then the idea is you'll give them business, or something.

Which is all well and good, because I really don't mind that part. I enjoy writing How-To's about dental hygiene and closet organization even though I'm an expert in neither, because hey, I could stand to use some organization tips. Plus I like writing, so it's a good way to spend the day. And the other part of my job is interesting too, because in searching what keywords to pepper my articles with I gain a sort of insight into the human cognitive process. You could learn a lot by studying the words different people use to search the internet galaxy for inane little things...

What bugs me is that now I can't ever search the internet for the same inane little things, and I won't believe what comes up as an "answer" to my question. The first page of results -- aka the page everyone pays to get on -- is oftentimes just full of companies that hired SEO specialists to get them on the first page of results. The only plus to this dismal reality is that if you're specific in your search terms, you'll get specific answers. But don't type "body lotion" and think you're getting unbiased results.

And now Google is pulling in reviews with any Place results, so reviews from Yelp or Google or whatever will start being even more relevant to getting somebody "found." Which means, of course, that people will be faking reviews even more. For someone [like me] who thinks of Yelp as a restaurant Bible, that's a pretty earth-shattering and soul-tearing realization.

So this job, while providing me with a flashy set of the most relevant/slash/rockstar marketing skills of this age, has ruined the internet for me. I no longer believe in its unassailable natural intelligence.

I do, however, believe in my own ability to navigate through the bullshit more effectively now.

Thanks for the highly appropriate picture, JasonWatson.

Here, I Know Where Everything Is.

2010-10-12T05:41:00.001-04:00

Coming back to California is hard sometimes.Sometimes it's hard because spending a week marooned in the mountain home of your childhood is hard to do without picking a few fights with your mother. And sometimes it's hard because you feel like you're missing everything important going on [in New York]. But this time it's hard because now, I have to leave.I go through identity crises whenever I stay here too long. I visit with friends, drive back and forth across the state, catch up with family members, and generally revel in the sheer familiarity of it all. Things just don't seem hard here.Which isn't to say that things outside of NYC are easy. I could imagine that hefty gas bills, insurance, mortgages, restaurants that close at 9pm, and commutes-you-can't-while-away-with-a-magazine are difficult in their own rights, and in that sense yes -- New York is an easier town to live in. But staying in California doesn't feel like the eternal struggle it feels like in New York. My brother lives walking distance from an IHOP, for god's sake.

So sometimes when I come back here, I wonder if I shouldn't just give in and find a cute San Francisco apartment to curl up in. I currently live 3 time zones away from an extended family who, for the most part, doesn't live 3 hours from each other. And here in California, I know where things are and how to get there. All the material possessions of my childhood that I couldn't fit in my two suitcases when I left are still here (which is to say, most of them). They're all resting comfortably in a pile in my mom's basement, waiting for the day when I have a life that has room for them.And that's why I'm still in New York. I haven't yet developed a life that has space for my cookie sheets, my stereo, my books, or my high school homecoming dress. My life is still metaphorically in its college dorm phase -- economical and compact, no room for convenience gadgets or superfluous add-ons. That sort of stuff is for people that are in the process of settling down, who are content and who want to decorate their comfortable life. So instead it all stays here, and waits for me to get it together.People ask me all the time why I'm living in New York. Until recently, I've had a hard time putting it into words: I'm living there because New York City is where people go when they're searching for something. It's where they go to find out. And now I've lived there long enough to understand that, and to know that I won't be happy doing my shopping online and fighting over suburban DD duty on Friday nights unless I have a level of real contentment. I'm looking for the kind of contentment that comes with time, confidence, capability, and probably even a little true love. And New York is where you go for a cram session that includes it all. So check back with me in a year.

Why TV as We Know It is Useless

2010-10-09T06:35:00.005-04:00

I have not owned a TV since I moved to New York. I had one in college, originally appropriated after my dad discarded for a newer, thinner model of some sort. It was easy to drive back to my apartment in Berkeley, and I even broke down and paid for some (though not many) cable channels my senior year. Plus, DVR service. I was big pimpin'.

But you can't ship a TV out to New York. It's completely not worth the cost. And when I first moved here neither my roommate nor I had a job, so a TV sortof had to come lower on the priority list. Maybe after, for instance, some extra silverware.

I really haven't had a chance to get a TV since then. But I'm perfectly happy. How, do you ask, is that possible? Doesn't it tear at your hear to miss Thursday's Must-See TV night on NBC? How can you bear to wait a whole week before Hulu posts Fox Network's newest House episode, 7 days after it airs?

And as I've described in previous posts, I have my ways. This post, however, is not about how to watch TV when you don't have a TV. Instead, it's a declaration to all network executives out there; it's a manifesto for the modern programming consumer.

If I had my way, I'd watch TV according to my mood. That's why I find Netflix only marginally impressive -- I can't line up a queue of 47 movies one day when I'm bored and trust to fate that the next one on my queue every week will correctly align to my mood on the night I sit down to watch it. I always create a queue of mixed drama/comedy/sci-fi movies, but on any given night I might only be in the mood for ONE of those genres. And then I'm SOL when The Machinist arrives...because really, you're only in the mood for that kind of movie once every 6 months.

The point is, even though I love NBC's Community, I may not always be in the exact, most receptive, most accurately appreciative mood for it at 8pm on Thursday nights. Or perhaps I forget it's on and find myself stuck in a bar, unable to partake (heaven forbid). Or, horror of horrors, maybe it conflicts with CBS' The Big Bang Theory on Thursday nights. (>FAIL) I'm visiting my mom's house in California this week, and she doesn't have a DVR. So I have to make a choice. And I have to stay glued to that TV screen for 2 whole hours. (Or perhaps slightly less, if you've given up on Outsourced already -- as I have.)

I'm coming out as a dedicated advocate of TV when you want it. I despise being tied to the TV for certain hours of the week, and I can't help but feel like it's a little archaic. Like we're all expected to huddle around the television at the advertised time, to watch what the networks are willing to dole out. Remind you of those days where we all crowded around the kitchen radio, anyone? I thought we were past that.

I understand the distributors' need to make money. I really do. So I don't mind watching Hulu commercials, even though they're getting more and more intrusive. I would still watch my favorite shows on Hulu, and sit through the commercials, over any bootleg version I can find on the internet. What I'm asking for is that all those shows TV networks hide away (like NBC's Law & Order!) would be made available for those of us unwilling or unable to stick to your rigid schedule. We'll watch the same commercials as everyone else. And we'll even watch them at a desk chair instead of on a couch. We just need a little more flexibility. After all, won't you ultimately guarantee more viewers that way?

Photos by Flickr users schmilblick and stars alive, used under the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license

Tips Much Appreciated! (Even If You Don't Enjoy this Post)

2010-09-25T20:39:00.001-04:00

------- UPDATE --------
Mint.com's blog recently posted this extremely enlightening and thorough tip-tutorial, "Beyond the Table: Tipping Properly in Every Food Scenario" via DivineCaroline.com. I heartily endorse all recommendations made here.
----------------------

Photo by resiak

In New York City, if you consume food you haven't cooked yourself, you tip your server 20%. Those are the rules of New York City tipping, and they are unflinchingly rigid.

Not only do you tip anyone whose face shows up at the same time as your food (baristas, deliverymen, servers, bartenders, etc.) it's also much more commonplace to tip anyone who offers a service or does something for you. Even if they're already getting paid to do it.When you check your coat, you tip the coatgirl. If you go in for an ostensibly "free" bang trim, you tip your stylist. If someone bags your groceries at the store, he'll have a tip jar out. If you want good seats at a show, a good tip will ensure that your hostess takes care of you. And if you want your cappuccino run out to the curb while you bring your Hummer around, you definitely tip whatever employee volunteers to do that. Special service ain't free from the goodness of their hearts, people. That behavior only happens in Canada. Or Omaha.

But tipping in New York isn't just for exceptional behavior. In New York, it's a free-for all. Tipping is such an engrained part of the New York City culture that everyone takes advantage of it with a tip jar. Grocery baggers, farmer's market stalls, palm readers, doormen, taxi drivers, tour guides, deli counters, moving men. If you put out a tip jar, people will put stuff in it. Maybe out of guilt, or maybe out of genuine appreciation for going the extra mile. Either way, it's a good business plan.

This evident culture has caused me a great deal of stress. Because people live off of tips here (a lot of times that's their only income - they'll volunteer to do deliveries, for instance, for free on the hope that they'll get tipped by the customer), I feel obligated to make sure I tip who I'm expected to tip. And many service workers openly question or attack you if you don't tip them, or if you don't tip them enough. So make sure you don't let the friends visiting from out of town be in charge of the bill. It might lead to a nasty exit situation.

I haven't yet learned when it's expected to tip. Even if I suspect an opportunity, the angst I build up at the crucial moment completely obscures my ability to think logically and hand people unsolicited cash. Also: I don't know how to be sleek about it. I can't press a fiver into someone's hand for trimming my bangs and say a sincere, heartfelt "thank you" while looking deep into their eyes. When I tip people I avoid eye contact, stutter, and skitter away when the deed is done. I always feel like I'm taking part in a drug deal. (Note to readers: don't involve me in your drug deals. I'll be painfully awkward.)

Technically, tipping is a reward for exceptional service. Let's just say that living among, interacting with, speaking with, and then serving the general public when you work in New York is itself going above and beyond. Maybe service is worth just a little bit more here than elsewhere.Full disclosure: a quarter of my own NYC barista income comes from tips. I like them. I try to karmically reciprocate in the hopes that tips will one day become a third of my income. And in the hopes that I can continue to buy beer sometimes, which on my salary alone would be unthinkable.

Interviewing Tactics & Judgementalism

2010-09-15T20:43:00.000-04:00

When I call my mom after a job interview - for the post-interview pep-talk, naturally - she always asks me what I wore. When I tell her I wore the usual blouse/skirt/heels combo, she tells me I need to have a suit for interviews. She assumes I won't get the job if I didn't wear a suit; I won't come off serious or professional enough. Today after I sent her an exuberantly optimistic post-interview email, she came back curtly with:

"Wow, that's better than I ever managed. Do you have a jacket for these interviews?"

No, I do not. I have one of those hip blazers with sleeves you're supposed to roll up to achieve that sort of masculine NYC glam look, but I'm pretty sure that's not interview material. It's obviously a Uniqlo purchase. I still have yet to invest in a "proper interview suit," and I'll tell you why:

The purpose of a suit is to make one seem trustworthy and professional, by erasing any tendencies towards rogue individual style. That is to say, to make one seem safe. Predictable. Unlikely to lose your money in some obnoxiously creative gamble. "Empirical," rather than "subjective." Were I an aspiring lawyer or investment banker, especially in New York, I'd have bought a suit a long time ago. Those guys live in suits because they're the ones that hold your life savings in their hands.

I think in most other professions, a suit will label you as an In-the-Box thinker. Someone who follows guidelines, expectations, and social norms rather than innovating and creating. My current career path being marketing/advertising, I think wearing a suit to an interview could often count against me. I was once told by an advertising account exec that MBA's are undesirable hires for advertising agencies. And MBA = Suit.

My solution for interviews is to 1) go jacket-less (sorry, Mom). And 2) I try to go one level higher than I think the general office dresses. Many creative offices collectively wear jeans, so that's not a lot to live up to.

I showed up to an interview last week in a button-down, slacks, and heels, and felt like an idiot being interviewed by a pretty girl in a floral blouse and jeans. So today I did a button-down, slacks, and Birkenstocks. I figured an organic food company's marketing team would be sympathetic. If I get the job, I'm writing a book.

New York's "Pleasant" Weather Bubble

2010-09-07T17:33:00.000-04:00

"Summer is the season of rage. Summer in New York City, particularly, is a disaster; it's in summer when the whole project of New York starts to seem untenable, when the flaws in the design become apparent." - It's Fight Time by Sady Doyle, May 25, 2010 on The Awl

I read this article earlier this year. You should probably read it before you read any further.

Written words that make me laugh out loud are rare, and so when summer in NYC effectively ended this week I remembered it again. It's mostly about reasons why people in New York fight. The author suggests that it's because it's so fucking hot out.

More specifically, I think it's the frustration manifested when the positive, optimistic energy of summer (FREEEEEEE!!!) collides with the sheer number of smelly, sweaty, questionably sane people in the way of your optimism (or, your ability to find odor-free subway cars with properly functioning air conditioning). People tend to get "murdery" when that happens. It's science.

Coming from California, the Humidity Experience on the East coast took me by complete surprise. I remember the first month after I moved here (August in Washington Heights!) I was so disgusted with my inability to ever fully dry off after a shower that I just never really left the house. At night I turned on all the fans my sub-letter had left in the bedroom and slept naked. I didn't even bother buying a blanket to sleep under for 2 months after I moved to New York.

Feeling eternally dirty and unattractive and like your clothes are wet-strangling you can make some people snappish. I conveniently threw myself off a building right as summer was getting going this year - July 4th - and as a result have had to spend an unforeseen amount of what may have previously been an awesome BBQ-filled season instead cooped up instead in tiny spaces at stunning temperatures with the rest of the Medicaid-qualifying persons of New York City. Public hospitals, subway systems, clinics, hospital pharmacies, DMV's, government offices...and a couple times, Far Rockaway Beach.

Photo by Sister72

And while in normal temperatures you're less prone to invent grudges against people, when it's hot and you're sweaty and jonesing for your prescription and shunted into unrelenting lines with ALL THESE PEOPLE, you start resenting them for bringing their kids everywhere. Or for not speaking your particular language. Or for perspiring, when it's 95 degrees and your pits are (also) stained. And really just for existing. That's when you start cursing at people for walking too slow.

Which brings me to my point: the month of September in New York is one of the two months of the year where New York isn't awful at all. Last year I left, and spent New York's one beautiful fall month in Europe instead. (I don't regret it.) But this year, I plan on using September to reignite enough passion for this city to last me through the impending 9 months of icy winter.

ProBlogging. I'm It.

2010-09-05T17:02:00.001-04:00

In an attempt to make the whole, writing shit, thing a lot easier I've downloaded a "Blog Editing" tool. I didn't know such things existed until today, when I thought about how much easier life would be if I didn't have to use Blogger's awkward blog posting tools to upload my posts. Also if I could actually change the size of an image I use. And the best part is, now I don't have to be connected to the internet to be productive. THAT will make me less distracted...?

This also allows me to upload to Twitter in the same application. And probably Facebook, too. Now I have the ultimate social networking deck from which to work from.

If you're impressed enough to want a Blog Editor of your own and use a Windows OS, my research indicates that you need Windows Live Writer. It's universally acknowledged to be a blogger's dream.

But if you're like me and finally switched to a Mac, Blogo is a comparable replacement. I downloaded it here. It's obnoxiously Mac-like in its interface.

And here ends my test post using Blogo.

If You are Poor and Uninsured

2010-08-30T22:03:00.004-04:00

Make sure you stay that way. Get fired from one of your jobs, if possible. In fact, try and get fired from the job that pays you more. Who needs to work that much, anyways.

Then, when you drink wine on the roof during the 4th of July and inevitably fall off the side of the building, you might possibly qualify for Medicaid!

In which case, the government pays for the deluxe package. Multiple surgeries: included. Obscene amounts of redundant bloodwork: included. Scans of the nebulous "abdomen" to see how it's doing: included. Large amounts of narcotics with minimal questions: of course. Weekly pregnancy tests for 2 months: complimentary!

And that's how I was able to get $18,000 worth of medical care in New York City for free. And, in case you were wondering...I'm not pregnant. Thanks Obama!

Now It's Permanent. I Belong Here?

2010-08-30T19:09:00.010-04:00

For my first return to the blogosphere after what, months? of inaction, let's talk about New York City and how shitty it is to have to get stuff done here.

I've had some down time this summer due to a dramatic and unsuccessful attempt at flying I tried a couple months ago. Consequently, I decided to take care of some business that I'd been too lazy/disorganized to, well, take care of. Such business included acquiring my Social Security card, renewing my driver's license, locating my birth certificate, and otherwise collecting redundant paperwork in order to prove to the government at any moment! my real and unfaked identity. This is a direct result of 1) quickly mounting hospital bills that I'm hoping to avoid, and 2) an imminently expiring driver's license.

While I've been TCoB, my time could be broken down as follows (probably by lawyerish types):

Talking to family members who don't know where my pertinent documents are: 10 min
Making copies of such important identity-proving documents as are in my possession: 15 min
Talking to government/public employees with little actual power: 25 min
Arguing with government/public employees with little actual power: 5 min
Waiting in waiting rooms/standing in line/staring at other people staring at me: 5 hours

It's the aimless waiting time that really detracts from my ability to feel good about myself for TCoB.

And in a city of 9 million people or so, all that standing around in cramped public spaces really starts to inspire distaste and disappointment in one's fellow man. Yes, your number was called. Yes, you didn't see it because you weren't paying attention. Yes, you now have to get a new number. Yes. You're ruining all of our days. Move out of the way.

After putting in extensive time at Brooklyn Social Security office (aka Brooklyn State Penitentiary aka John F Kennedy Airport on Terrorist Lockdown - no food or liquids allowed, they'll scan your bags) and the NYS DMV, I can proudly say that I've declared myself an official citizen of New York. I've renounced my California residence for good - they wouldn't even allow me to keep my old license for memories' sake.

Of course, I doubt I would have deigned to give up my shiny California ID for a NY one under normal circumstances. But, since my license was expiring and my alternative was to renew by declaring I still lived at my MOTHER's house in California...I made the tough choice. And now I'm actually a New Yorker. (At least on paper.) Now I have to care about stuff going on in Buffalo instead of San Francisco, and the Prop 8 debate will have to go on without any mailed-in ballot input from me.

RT: Lane for New York tourists will solve everything, ever.

2010-05-20T19:22:00.002-04:00

A friend sent me a link to this post via ThisIsFYF.

Perfect compliment to one of my first commentaries on New York's high-octane pedestrian traffic.

Got Money? Start Hiring. Then Probably Firing.

2010-05-14T16:16:00.006-04:00

This week several of my favorite people were laid off at one of my jobs. It was a surprise, it was a shaky business decision, and it was heartbreaking -- not only because I care about these people, but because the inadequacies of those in charge led to the misfortunes of the ones who trusted them. It was basically a micro-cosmic version of last fall's epic financial meltdown, only instead of blaming Wall Street for screwing over Main Street I'm blaming the Boss for screwing over his Employees.

I've noticed a trend in New York City. Rich people often mistake "money" for "business savvy." Once they have so much money that massages, vacations and Sweet Sixteens for their daughters aren't enough anymore, they decide to open a business...because it's their "dream." And because they have so much money, they think throwing it around will guarantee them a successful business. And oftentimes, it kinda works. Except for the fact that even though these businesses end up making some money (usually not a lot), it's only because the employees make up for the owner's ineptitudes. They endure the built-in inefficiencies and roadblocks and system confusion carelessly overlooked by the Guy With the Money, and they make it work anyways. And by 'they' I mean me. And all my friends who got laid off, despite their best efforts at keeping the business alive through it all.

When I moved to New York I imagined it to be a city of superheros. It takes so much character and tenacity just to make it, that I assumed everyone who had been here a few years was elite; smart, sophisticated, and unstoppable. I thought I would have examples to look up to everywhere I looked. Me, Student. New York, Teacher.

I'm finding after all that that's not the case. In fact, I've encountered so many examples of mediocrity that my image of this city's population is becoming tarnished. Yeah, a lot of them are unstoppable. But not in a good way. Maybe someone should have seen something and said something, you know.

New York-iversaries

2010-05-06T14:47:00.009-04:00

I moved to New York in August 2008. That's about 21 months ago, or almost 2 years. My first New York-iversary was in August 2009, and went mostly unacknowledged beyond a few brief mentions. Which is really too bad, because the 1-yr mark is generally accepted as one of the most important landmarks in a young New Yorker's experience. (See examples One, Two, and Three.) They say it takes a year to love this place. After one year, most people who moved here on a whim have been put through the agonizing culling experience that is New York City, and anyone who makes it beyond year 1 has a much higher chance of staying - and actually loving New York.

And then there's those who love New York immediately on arrival, and love it until the day they die.

I know one person from my town who moved to New York City about a year before I did, when she graduated from college. She devoted herself to acting, and according to Facebook seems to have done a good job starting herself off. I think there were 1 or two people from my high school that came to New York around the same time I did for grad school. One I know has moved home after giving it a solid 4-month try, as many are only too happy to do. (What is life like after New York?) And now, Facebook tells me the newest hometown wave of n00bs are celebrating their 6-month New York-iversaries.

New York is the only place where people mark their anniversaries with the city itself. It's because we really form a relationship with this place, through early (and continuing) trials and hardship. It's frightening to commit oneself in the beginning -- and when you do, there are always days where you hate it (Times Square bomb scares, smelly summer trash heaps, getting your phone stolen while you're mid-conversation). But there are also wonderful, amazing things about this place (constant live music and free events, bars open till 4am, meeting people on the subway from Tibet) that constantly reignite your passion for the city of New York. And it's the kind of love that only grows stronger with time.

Soon, I'll have to renew my driver's license...and I'll have to do it in New York. And when I replace my CA ID with a New York ID sometime in August, you can bet I'll be celebrating my 2-year New York-iversary by waving that ID at every bar I can in the Lower East Side.

My roommates have been here slightly longer than I have. I recently went to someone's 5-yr New York-iversary. I've met people that have been here 11 years. And I've met people that have lived here for 20. We wear our New York citizen record like a badge; "How long have you lived in New York?" is one of those first questions we ask each when we're getting to know someone new, along with "Where do you live?" and "Where are you from?" and "What do you do?" Together, those questions paint a picture of your current character development path.

Me: Sarah. Living: Williamsburg, Brooklyn NY. From: Placerville, CA. Job: Barista/hostess.

Lived in New York City: 1 year, 9 months.

153 Days

2010-05-06T13:51:00.006-04:00

How long does it take you to go from hanging out, to dating, to boyfriending someone?

Assuming that one day, you meet. Then one day, you become interested (maybe the same day). Then the Pursuit happens. Then First Date happens. Then more dates happen. Then (or actually, maybe/probably before that) sex happens. Then comes the crucial point when you decide whether or not the sex was worth coming back for. And then you're dating. And then at some point after that you're together. And then blah blah comes apartment-combining and rice-throwing and birth-giving and grandkid-present-giving etc etc.

Usually First Date to Togetherness happens in not too long. Probably in a month or two, I'm guessing (I've never really dated someone as an adult). My record is I think something like 2 years, if you interpret "interest" loosely. I played a cat-and-mouse game with my college boyfriend from freshman all the way to junior year, until I finally got him to like me for more than my drunk makeout skills. But once there was mutual, real interest it only took something like 2 weeks to become an official couple.

As an adult in New York City, I have been experimenting with "dating." Here more than anywhere else you can bend the norms of dating. It becomes sortof like a World Fair of dating practices, with crazy new inventions for every obstacle or problem you can think of in the dating world. I think I've done a solidly representative run of dating trials in the past year of singleness: a One Night Stand (I feel like everyone needs one of those), a not-quite-it non-sexual monthlong thing (phew), a casual 4-date-r, and my latest: the recently unveiled Boyfriend. And this new Boyfriend has, according to exhaustive calculations, been 153 days in the making. That's about 6 months of regular dating to go from First Date, to Together.

That is a long time. Most would say discouragingly long. But as a consequence, now that I'm a Girlfriend again I feel much more confident about my situation. I didn't get whirl-winded into saying "I love you" because someone else said it, I didn't get immediately guilted into exclusivity after ending up in bed with someone, and I even tested myself a bit in the development to see if it was really what I wanted. I dated, I enjoyed, and I didn't rush it. And now, I'm a Girlfriend and I'm happy about it. It's even all Facebooked and stuff.

Entering the Deep South, Part 1

2010-05-05T18:18:00.003-04:00

"Don't let that one pinch me." Live crawfish.

Eating Canadian Treats.

2010-04-28T21:20:00.002-04:00

Love having a Canadian Roommate.

Passion Flakies YUM

Doing Your Own Laundry: Overrated?

2010-04-27T11:18:00.009-04:00

The thing about New York is, there’s someone willing to do whatever you’d like to pay them for. In that sense, this city is basically a city-sized representation of your high school economics class models. Supply follows Manhattan Demand. And it’s all service-based, because New Yorkers love other people to do things for them. There’s no time for mundane things like laundry and grocery shopping and dog walking when there are (INSERT STATISTIC HERE - oh wait, I can't find one. Um, probably 20) new bars opening every weekend in New York City, and a never-ending supply of incoming aspiring dancers/male models to hit on.

New Yorkers love to have their laundry ‘sent out,’ aka have someone else do it for them. They all own dogs, but since they can’t be home to walk them they love to send them to doggy day cares and leave them with dog walking services. They don’t even bother to go to the grocery store half the time, because FreshDirect exists.

What warps my mind (apart from how anyone can leave their laundry to be washed by someone else...I have separation anxiety and trust issues) is that the people paying other people to do their errands are often normal and minimal wage-earning. They’re not rockstars with butlers. They’re servers and bartenders and personal assistants making less than $30,000 a year, who by all rights shouldn't be able to afford luxuries like sending their laundry out. And yet I think most of the people I know are too impatient to do their own laundry.

New York City is also a concentrated microcosm of America, in that everyone here lives slightly beyond their means. It's hard not to, when there's so much to DO and SEE and DRINK. There's always a vague attempt to prioritize; for me, groceries and bar tabs come before cable TV readiness. For others, laundry service beats out the desire for dinner. And everything else just goes on the credit card.

Real conversation, today:

"Oh, no. I'm not getting home until late tomorrow night. If I go home from work early today to drop off my laundry, I won't be able to get it tomorrow."
"Well you could just go home early from work and DO your laundry tonight."
"I like how that didn't even occur to me as a possibility."

On Templates

2010-04-27T10:55:00.002-04:00

I decided I hated the different look, and I'm not skilled enough at manipulating HTML code to doctor it to my liking. So my brief foray into Shiny Sexy Template World has ended, and I'm back to using Blogger's most simple Minima layout. And let that be a lesson to you all: don't let glitz and glamour and empty promises lure you away from the person you truly are.

I'm keeping the new picture though.

Explaining Expletive Use

2010-04-24T17:25:00.001-04:00

I pick up phrases and words from the people I spend time with. My ex-boyfriend in college soon learned this, and every time I used an out-of-character new phrase ("that's rad") in my chatterings he'd immediately wonder who I'd been hanging out with so much.

My use of expletives has developed almost exclusively based on inspiration from others. I've never been one to attach myself to an expletive without having first been convinced of its fortitude as a mood expression. And when other people say, for instance, "FUCK!" and it sounds extra satisfying and fullfilling, then I decide maybe I want to try venting with that word now.

The word 'fuck' has had an exceptionally interesting development in my usage. I never felt I could pull it off as a young girl. It just didn't seem to go with the petite, obedient A-student image I had, and I imagined I sounded laughable. Until I got to college, where I met my dorm roommate Bridget. She was at first quiet and studious-seeming, but then I began talking with her more. She was a native of New Jersey (!), but not Jersey Shore/Jersey Couture species -- no, she was the New Jerseyian with a butch haircut who wore tshirts saying "New Jersey: Only the Strong Survive," and eventually you realized that the word 'fuck' constituted half her conversation. She said it so often and with such convincing visceral pleasure that I couldn't help but adopt it.

I went out on a limb sometime in the succeeding years, and when a good solid "fuck!" wasn't enough syllables to evoke my emotions, I added another classic as a suffix and started saying "fuckshit!" all the time. I'm not sure it sounds as awesome as Bridget's simple, elegant FUCKs but saying it sure makes me warm and happy inside when I wake up hungover and an hour late for work.

I've since been hearing the phrase "go fuck yourself" with more regularity since I've moved to New York, and I can see myself gravitating towards it as happily as I did with the original classic years ago. It feels like a logical extension of the strong simplicity that I love about FUCK, with an actual directive involved to enable the angry one to pass on his/her disappointment to others. Which New Yorkers love to do.

My Baggy Jeans and I Say: Die Hipsters, Die.

2010-04-10T19:05:00.006-04:00

AN INTRO: A surprising number of my posts are inspired by conversations had over Gmail chat with friends. Written online chats are convenient reference tools for witty (or thought-provoking) chats had in spare moments of the day with some of my more linguistically cavalier friends. Of course, some of my posts have also been inspired by real face-to-face conversations, but those are harder to recreate later in the same kind of glory. And it's kinda awkward to rush off to scribble in a Moleskine after a pithy exchange with a coworker..."ok, what did you say again? That was hiLARious! I gotta write that down."

With online chats, I can literally copy-paste and share a statement like "my baggy jeans and i say die hipsters die" into my Facebook and Gmail chat statuses within seconds. I can even credit my @friend on Facebook. (I didn't though. He's so modest he comments on my blog as Anonymous.) And from those virtual exchanges can be born a whole piece*.

MINIMAL SEGUE INTO THE MAIN SUBJECT: So my friends like to make fun of me for living in Brooklyn. With good reason, it's true; I live in pretty much the most cliched hipstery Brooklyn neighborhood you could imagine. And my early, obnoxious and effusive love for the neighborhood when I moved here a few months ago didn't help my friends to love it any more that I live here. (Especially since they don't get to live here with me.) Consequently, I get a lot of phrases like "my baggy jeans and i say die hipsters die" thrown at me whenever the conversation turns to a lament about how far Brooklyn is from Harlem, or Queens. (Or anywhere that's not Williamsburg, really. Because honestly, even Crown Heights and Park Slope are sorta hard to get to, too.) The point is, I get to be the brunt of all my friend's hipster-hating venom, because I've now provided a very accessible bridge. The Williamsburg Bridge, in fact.

This is a selection of what a search of the word "hipster" through my Gmail chats turns up.

B.M: you live in brooklyn now?

me: yeah williamsburg

B.M.: hahaha damnnn hipster girl ;)

me: i was supposed to go to a wsburg party off bedford

interested, or are you tired?

D: Ooh I have to make sure my hipster clothing is clean

B.A.: haha i'm already a little jealous that you're living in wllmsbrg, bklyn. you're a trendy hipster.

I am not, in fact, a trendy hipster. I refer to these published definitions of hipster to make my case: androgynous hair styles (Urban Dictionary), an image constructed to give off the vibe that they just don't care (Time Magazine), counterculture hipster becomes mainstream hipster (Time Out New York).

I'd like to take this opportunity to say that I think anyone who thinks of themselves as a hipster would be embarrassed to class me in their ranks. A few reasons follow:

1) I don't wear vintage clothing well.

2) I'm much too vain to attempt the ugly, ill-showered look ironically.

3) My music library, though largeish and inclusive of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Band of Horses, includes too much Hanson and Sheryl Crow to ever qualify as cool.

4) Quite honestly, I never discover obscure bands, bars, or patches of grass first.

5) I try to never wear my glasses in public.

This piece is a piece lamenting my unfair occasional classification as a hipster, based simply on where I live. I contend that I can live amongst hipsters and still not qualify as such, and in fact have not thought of myself as one at any point in my residence of Hipster-ville (hereafter known as Hipville, because its 4 letters and a punctuation shorter, and sounds cooler).

IN CONCLUSION: Yes, perhaps I've developed some sympathies. I wish I had the confident cool that comes along with being a hipster -- I've never had that. And I wish I could find shoes I was happy with that were from a $2 bin at Buffalo Exchange -- but sadly, they always gross me out so I need the $60 new versions. But no, I don't think I'm a hipster. Maybe I've just learned how to make my jeans fit better.

*I like to call my blog posts pieces. I think it makes them seem more meaningful. Don't you?

I Killed This Dinner for You.

2010-04-01T16:35:00.005-04:00

If and when I ever move back to a place that has dirt, trees, and large unwieldy animals with horns that eat gardens, I'd like to have a garden. And probably a pile of rocks, to throw at the large horned animals, so I can keep them out of my garden.

And I'd like to work it so that one day, I can cook a meal that is entirely home-grown. Wheat for bread, tomatoes from the garden, chickens that I fatten by feeding them pound cake...and I will call my dinner party, I Killed This Dinner For You.

Except dinner parties don't happen in the same places where you grow wheat. And they definitely don't happen anywhere near chicken coops. Successful dinner parties happen in places like New York City, where we get farm-raised chicken killed, de-gutted, plucked, and delivered to our apartment doors in attractive plastic packaging.

That's because nobody lives near you when you have wheat acreage. You can't get people to drive for 45 min to come eat dinner with you in the sticks. Especially if they know they can't get properly drunk, because they'll have to drive back. (Once I went to a party with some high school friends when I was visiting home. I actually realized that I wouldn't be able to get drunk if I had to drive back home, so I had a DD follow me home so I could drop off my car. Then I got back in his car and went back to the party to commit to getting wasted. That's how little I like the responsibility of a car when I am getting drunk.)

You know where you CAN have raucous dinner parties where everyone is drunk?! New York City. (Thank you, MTA.) They just won't have bread that I baked from my own wheat, or chickens I plucked with my own hands. Consequently, I don't foresee any Killed By Sarah dinner parties in my near future...

I've Become Lazy Re: My Sandwich Shopping

2010-03-26T23:52:00.004-04:00

New Yorkers, I've learned, are an industrious people. No one has cars, so they walk everywhere. Many of them attribute their relative fitness to that fact. (That, and the smoking, and the neuroses, and the stress of the Manhattan lifestyle. You know.) They work long days, and they spend hours navigating the MTA's public transportation options. They search out all the free booze events, however obscure, and they are always there before you when a good craigslist job posting goes up.

But one thing I have learned that New Yorkers won't do, is go out of their way for errands or food. Yeah, they need to do their dry cleaning. And yeah, that dry cleaners on 17th and 8th Ave is much cleaner-looking than this one on 14th. But see, if work is on 14th St., and so is the subway, there's no fucking way you'll see a New Yorker go 3 blocks out of their way to make it up to the nicer one.

Same goes for sandwiches at the local delis. I had this conversation late one night:

"I'm hungry. Can we get a sandwich? Where is open?" "Well, they make really good sandwiches at this deli on the corner near my house. They're my favorite. But it's sorta inconvenient. It's like a couple blocks opposite from the subway, so when I'm coming home from work I always go to this one." "Is this one any good?" "It's...okay."

That, I realized, is why there are so many delis in New York City. There are almost always something like 3 on each block, simply because New Yorkers won't walk even 1 block out of their way (to wherever it is they're going) to get a sandwich if its inconvenient. Even for one that's significantly better than another option. But, if there is a deli in their commute path, they will stop. So deli owners compete over the most strategic placement of deli-ness.

And yeah, that's me too. I love the sandwiches at this one place, but if I take the wrong train and I end up at the Lorimer stop on the L instead of the Marcy stop on the JMZ, then nope. No sandwiches. Not worth the extra 3 block walk. Just gonna go home and eat...I dunno...carrots or something.

"Did Your Blog Die. ?"

2010-03-26T23:49:00.006-04:00

Ok. It sorta did.

The last couple months I've been pretty sparse with my lightly humorous New York social commentaries. It's probably because I've been spending all my free time making out with This One Guy's face, instead of being personally industrious.

In order to write I need a block of at least 4 hours, so that I can spend 3 of them Facebooking and Twittering and catching up on the latest episode of NBC's Community. Then once I'm media'd out, I can finally settle down and spend a good hour or so on a blog post. Nowadays though, 4 hours sounds like a nice block of time to spend...making out with someone's face.

This state affairs has actually been about 4 months in the making, even though its effect on my blogging habits didn't kick in until a little later. That puts the beginning of this involvement around November, which means that I was Single Sarah for a grand total of 6 weeks after my landmark Europe trip. So much for the freshly single and unattached Sarah 3.0, which I proclaimed into existence right around the time I started making out with This One Guy's face. Or maybe as a result of...?

I think I imagined Sarah 3.0 would mark a time of independence, the single-minded development of self (with some irresponsibly selfish fun thrown in too). At the time, I thought of boyfriends as emotional black holes. My soul had been sucked dry for years by insecurity, jealousy, extravagant expectations, and lots and lots of relationship maintenance. So naturally I thought it was time for some good old-fashioned college-type partying. Like, oh, sophomore year. Oh, sophomore year...

Enter This One Guy, who was at first one of my "what the hell. I'm single now!" irresponsibly selfish experiences. Turns out, I liked being single with This One Guy who was also single, so we were single together on a fairly regular basis for a couple months. And eventually, whenever the time came to be single, go out, get drunk, and be irresponsible, I liked being single, going out, getting drunk, and being irresponsible with him.

4 months later it occurred to me that I was dating someone on a regular basis. I basically have a boyfriend* again.

But this is not the black hole I've been led to believe. Sarah 3.0 set out to learn about herself, and free herself from the chains that men have had on her thus far. And I seem to have entered a relationship with This One Guy, only WITHOUT the painful, high-maintenance lifestyle and necessary constant validation. It's like we're normal people who like hanging out (...and doing other stuff), and who make each other feel deeply good. Uh...how did that happen?

And so I'm still learning. And I still feel free. Better yet, I feel like I've grown as a person more in the last 4 months than I ever would have if I was fucking around in bars and on Facebook and on Hulu or even (sigh) writing blog entries.

Is this what relationships are supposed to be like? Maybe they're not so bad.

Except I plan to start writing more.

*Boyfriend is a term I've become un-enchanted with, as I partly blame its overeager use for a lot of my past relationship issues. It conjures up images of metaphysical handcuffs, and not the fuzzy bedroom ones -- the scary steel ones that really immobilize you. I plan in the future to resist its use with men I'm dating, at least until the term "dating" becomes grossly inadequate.

10 Reasons Why Everyone Else Should Move to the Bay Area

2010-03-11T13:46:00.003-05:00

I finally couldn't take the endless double-shifts and 7 daysaweek work schedule in NYC anymore. I gave into a fit of nostalgia and came back to the Bay Area for a visit with old friends (and favorite restaurants).

Wandering around in Oakland on a sunny day is an intensely surreal experience, after emerging from a New York City winter. It wasn't actually that much warmer (a modest 55 degrees F), but it felt distinctly alien after so long cocooned in concrete. But it occurred to me in a fit of self-awareness that I probably couldn't move back here quite yet, despite how enchanted I still am. For a girl looking to prove herself, setting up shop in the most beautiful area in the US and having the ability to procure unlimited obscure Thai cooking ingredients seems too easy...right?

10 Reasons Why Everyone Else Should Move to the Bay Area:

1) It smells different here in the Bay Area. The air smells like it just came off the ocean, without the blatant salt taste of a beach. Instead, there's a more subtle clean, fresh, dynamic sense to the wind as it crosses the Bay. You can literally feel it lifting you up and tossing you organic, sustainable, liberal possibilities. When you're taking deep breaths, you can't imagine life without positivity, sunniness, and optimism. And the free feeling that comes with knowing you're living on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

2) There is sky here. Tall buildings exist, in downtown Oakland and in San Francisco, but they don't hog skyspace like the buildings of Manhattan. Each individual skyscraper in SF towers proudly, secure in the knowledge that it won't be challenged by more than the 8 other tall buildings of SF anytime soon. And sunlight filters through them all, lending the corporate towers a sort of beautiful natural elegance that could never happen in New York. Also: I saw stars tonight.

3) Grocery stores are large, spacious, and friendly experiences. And you can use full-size carts. Oh, the luxury.

4) I haven't seen this many quality bottles of California wine assembled together in one place, next to the cheese and the yogurt at Berkeley Bowl West, since perhaps 2 years ago...the last time I went to Berkeley Bowl [original]. It's like they're begging me to throw daily gourmet dinner parties.

5) I forgot how relaxed everyone looks here in their North Face fleeces and Doc Martin clogs. The only jewelry I see is bone. I could wear these stretchy pants from the airplane all week if I wanted, and nobody would bat an eye. I considered wearing some boots today, and discarded the idea in favor of Birkenstocks because I would have felt too conspicuous.

6) Every residential area in Oakland and Berkeley is a cosy collection of rundown miniature houses, all different looking but all lined up in a row for miles on surface streets near BART stations. It's incredibly endearing how unique each little home looks, despite its lack of paint and maintenance and industrious crowding by its neighbor. And all are stubbornly 0ne-storied.

7) Every office building looks like a large, airy converted warehouse, new and funky and full of chunky exciting furniture that invites you to sit on it and "ideate" with your coworkers. There's none of these ancient cubbyhole offices fancily hidden in ornate Midtown buildings with doormen and elevators.

8) Bars are filled with people just getting off work in jeans and collared shirts. The occasional suit makes the appearance, but is detached enough from the day's work to understand the necessity of completely removing his tie. Office people at the bar are joined by sweaty running clubs, intent on making up for calories lost running around Lake Merrit by drinking beer all night and talking about their favorite Thai curry recipes.

9) I don't remember the last time somebody suggested vegan food twice to me in one day. Unless it was when I was last in Berkeley.

10) Everyone here seems amped for major social change, whether it's in school lunch distribution or political campaigns or Oakland's troubled inner-city school system. Northern Californians seem to believe in the ability of all people to change for the good, if you can just offer them the right message to connect to. Consequently, a large number of my college friends who stuck around are involved in some sort of local social or policy work -- oftentimes something I would consider useless and a fruitless cause anywhere else. But in California, everyone's always looking out for some sort of disadvantaged group. Like it's their job.

They Say You Need to Make 3x Your Rent

2010-02-24T15:53:00.005-05:00

On Gmail Chat Today:

Friend: my rent is $650 / month and i spent like $400 on alcohol that i brought back here [from the Bay Area], and in exactly one month i feenished it all. i'm so proud?
me: hahahhahahahahaa. i love statesments that end in ?
Friend: indeeeed
me: way to consume alcohol equally as much as you consume space

I think if Manhattanites computed how much they spend monthly on alcohol as a percentage of their rent, most would come pretty close to 1.0

This guy lives in Central California, which is probably why his ratio is only 0.62

Why Superbowl Sunday is Better Than Valentine's Day

2010-02-23T00:24:00.004-05:00

There are some holidays I absolutely love. My favorites include

1. Thanksgiving

2. Superbowl Sunday

3. Fourth of July

and then there are others that I look forward to about as much as I would look forward to, say, moving to Afghanistan.

...

12. Valentines Day

13. Christmas

14. Easter*

This year Superbowl Sunday was followed almost immediately by Valentine's Day, offering me an invaluable opportunity to observe at close hand the stark differences in the types of values Americans choose to celebrate.

EXAMPLE 1: A Day Devoted to Sportsmanship

Superbowl Sunday has something for everyone. If you like sports, it's a no-brainer. If you like checking out attractive quarterbacks, it's also a fun time (quarterbacks get camera closeups at least twice per quarter). If you missed the last tour of Bono or Janet Jackson through your hometown, you'll be able to catch a concert in full theatrical mode during halftime. Maybe even see a boob. If you like cooking or eating, Superbowl Sunday is fast approaching Thanksgiving in "number of 'traditional' dishes expected by your guests." If you're feeling a need to revel in testosterone, watching large sweaty men ramming each other headfirst for 4 hours should do the trick. And finally, Superbowl Sunday is one of the greatest excuses to drink. ever.

In general, Superbowl Sunday is an event that rarely ever evokes resentment, except for maybe when all your peeps leave and your apartment is strewn with Miller High Life cans. Much like a college house party, really.

EXAMPLE 2: A Day Devoted Exclusively to Couples (So Get In One Like, Now)

Valentine's Day also offers a lot of seemingly delicious positives: chocolate, fancy dinners, flowers, and [hopefully] some special-occasion sex. But the problem with this holiday is that it's a day set aside for those in a couple. It's exclusive by definition. On Valentine's Day the world divides into two camps -- oddly not unlike Superbowl Sunday, just with more animosity. There are those in established couples, and then there are those who are "floating." If you're not in a couple you can find someone to go on a date with that evening (pressure, much?!), or you can gather your friends together for a platonic and pallid reflection of what the evening is meant to be for lovers.

And sure, as a single girl I can give a red velvet cupcake to my best friend...how sweet! But that cupcake can't help but say, "I love you, and I want you to know I care about you. Even though it's not at all the same thing as having a man to love you. But I don't have a man either. So let's eat cupcakes anyways in defiance of the exclusivity of Valentine's Day. Who needs a boyfriend for cupcakes?"

In general, Valentine's Day is not nearly so conducive to balls out partying and pure fun. It involves emotions, gifts, insecurity, jealousy, passion, butterflies, excitement, guilt, stress, hormones, pheromones, and trepidation. That's like, 14 more things than you need to have a good time.

*You may notice in my annotated list above that I rank my holidays in order of how food-centric they are. Chance of spectacle also plays a small part. Negative points accrue with the holiday's possibility of inducing guilt. Easter is my least favorite holiday, mostly because I dislike ham and because imagining Jesus rising from the dead makes me feel more guilty than forgetting my mother's birthday, ignoring Lent, and guessing wrong on the "are we getting presents for each other this Christmas?" game with a boyfriend - combined.

These Are the Problems of My Life Right Now.

2010-02-04T14:13:00.008-05:00

I have an extra $1200 dollars or so available to me, as cash in my bank account. I have generous family members, and over the past few holidays I've been hoarding. The biggest problem in my life right now is what to do with it. (<--- What a sweet life I must have.)

I also have $800 in credit card debt and I owe my mom $900 that I borrowed for a security deposit...to be repaid "someday."

But we're not going to worry about that.

My current options for what to do with all my cash are:

1) Buy a new Apple MacBook and be rid of my living-by-electric-lifeline monster of an IBM laptop. Pros: can fit in at my local cafe, will be able to move beyond my 5 ft wall socket tether, will have fully functional sexy white beast to sleep with instead of my current clumsy brick of a laptop. Cons: Will no longer be discernable within the hordes of Brooklyn.

2) Buy a plane ticket to Portugal, so I can spend several weeks in June lazing about at a friend's ex-boyfriend's friend's beach house, drinking wine and cooking all day long. Pros: how about I don't be redundant. Cons: Will be forced to live for the next 6 months without efficient or fulfilling personal projection into the internet cosmos.

I also have desperate need of furniture (Rubbermaid bins and cardboard boxes do not a bedroom set make), but I will live with the cardboard nightstand idea if it means I can have either option 1 or 2 above.

I know travelling probably sounds like an infinitely better option, which is why I've waited so long to do anything with the money. But for those of you who spend your life hooked up to your computer like me, try to imagine what it's like to use a heavy, cumbersome, stubborn Windows machine to finesse the social spheres of Facebook and Twitter, or to experience the world of media through Hulu and other less-legal websites. And then give me your opinion.

Charicature: The New York Man

2010-02-01T22:19:00.009-05:00

The men of New York for the most part have several characteristics in common. Want a slideshow?

- A generally sallow skin tone, as a result of several combining factors: New York's extended winters, the tendency of New York's skyscrapers to eclipse the sun, and an overdeveloped office work ethic...among other things.

- An single-minded obsession with whatever career or goal they're pursuing, the casualties being things like "family" and "romance." Even the aspiring hipster musicians in Bushwick live first and foremost for their band, man. (You have to look close for how they prioritize; it often seems as if the New York Man exists entirely to charm and whisk you off your feet, but in reality, you'll probably always come in second to their career. They're just filling their off hours with you, instead of Wii Tennis).

- A worrisome savvy regarding wardrobe and the use of hair products.

- They usually have a fascinating back story about their transplant to New York City, and sometimes come from exotic between-coast locales I've never seen like Minnesota, Chicago, or Mississippi. (Unless you meet the Other New York Man who grew up in New Jersey, Connecticut, or Long Island...in which case you can probably skip the back story without missing too much.)

- An easy, socially facile disposition. New York Men are almost universally smooth talkers. You can converse with them for hours...even if you don't really like them. They can always find something to talk about, and they excel at things like networking and sitting down for drinks. Awkward silences are death sentences in a city where you can get ahead with just the right lucky handshake.

- Most of them are also fairly fit. Attractive people are more likely to get jobs than unattractive ones, after all. Also they get laid more.

At first glance, this profile may make dating in New York sound like frolicking in a candy store. Ambitious? Fit? Can charm my friends? Can dress himself without help? When is the next flight out?! But in reality, I'm starting to feel that the New York Man is not for me. While I may think I want all these things, for me what they realistically end up translating into is Selfish, Vain, Terrible Listener, and Kindof A Girl.

I guess what I want is the man that, on paper, looks like every girl's nightmare. I like a man that can be quiet and mysterious, who is not overly concerned with the speed of his upward promotion, and who will still come to me once in a while wondering if a tan shirt and khakis "match". Because to me, that sounds like a man who will choose nights alone with me over soirées, who will look forward to coming home at night, and who has better, more manly things to build than the 'perfect outfit'.

I don't have enough experience to be able to say where men of this sort tend to live, but I can see how it wouldn't be New York City -- a city too fast and too furious to permit anything but 120% effort and level A+ expertise, 100% of the time.

My Hulu Nation

2010-01-29T21:06:00.006-05:00

Since I've moved to New York City, I've never had what you'd call a reliable income. I mean, I work in a coffee shop. I strengthened my financial position significantly once I was lucky enough to swoop in on a coat check position at a comedy club as well. So with 2 jobs, every month I can safely pay rent for an apartment in a decent area, I can afford a few nights out, and I can afford maybe one or two new articles of clothing. I think I even save a couple hundred dollars a month, if I spend that way.

But one thing I've never acquired is a TV. On my prioritized wishlist entitled "for when I have money," a TV and satellite subscription never made it very far up. It's still hovering somewhere above "ice cream maker" and below "new kitten." This, even though I've been lucky enough to find roommates who have a kitchen table (a first for me), bookcases, a coat rack, a steamer trunk, and a lead on a free couch. Even when I cross off "kitchen table" and "distinctive coffee table" from my list of Wants, there are still an infinite number of Wants left above TV.

This is not to say that I'm a purist of some sort, that I don't condescend to consume mainstream media. I love watching television. I religiously follow so many TV shows that it's a wonder I haven't started confusing storylines within the sitcoms and medical dramas yet.

No, instead I have become part of the blossoming Hulu generation. For us, Hulu isn't just a way to watch a show you missed during primetime. It's the single available source for popular TV shows, the only [legal...and quality] way that those of us bereft of living room appliances and monthly subscriptions can keep up with shows like House, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, or (my new favorite -- thanks Hulu for introducing me!) Community.

Watching Hulu, I get to miss out on a lot of normal airtime commercials. A glaring example of the hole in my pop culture life occurred this week when my friend began a story with, "You know how Domino's has changed their pizza? I just ordered some the other night." I had to stop him and ask, wait, since when has Domino's "changed" their pizza? That sounded promising.

Then I got a brief explanation about about Domino's' latest commercial campaign, hyping their 'new' pizza. I had to go on YouTube to find the commercial, so that I could appropriately experience the sales pitch, and I thought it was amusing that I had become someone who had to actively search out a commercial. Thanks, Hulu, for changing my life.

Whenever I do watch regular TV programming, I'm uber frustrated when a commercial set starts. I'm used to one 30-second (timed in the upper-right hand corner) commercial per ten minutes of programming. Enduring 4 minutes has come to seem torturous.

So among other things that I still don't have (a dresser, a couch, a desk, a food processor), not having a TV has become sortof a positive thing. I've discovered a new way of consuming programming. I've become part of Hulu Nation. Except, of course, for when I need my Law & Order fix; Hulu somehow still hasn't braved the territory of the TNT or USA networks, and so at times I do need to resort to...other...sources.

Living with Royalty with Royalties

2010-01-29T14:12:00.005-05:00

[One of] the weird things about New York City is that people live alongside each other, taking subways and walking sidewalks, without ever realizing how differently they all experience the city.

I walk around every day assuming that the people I pass talking on their iPhones and tensely smoking cigarettes are going to work -- just like me. I've learned over time that there are many definitions of "work," yes, but I do assume that everyone has to make a living in order to survive here. (Thesaurus results for "endure": "cling," "prevail," "never say die.")

But the truth is, there are an innumerable number of people in New York who are simply provided for. Somehow, a surprisingly substantial subset of the population can just...live here. You can pick from any number of possible money sources, ranging from the predictable to the mind-boggling: Daddy is the CEO of Applebee's, parents died and left the beautiful daughter their fortune, college freshman found a 45-yr-old sugar daddy who owns a music club (seen it!), young hipster kid sold his website and now is leisurely working on a new one within the comfort of his West Village townhouse...the possibilities are endless.

And I never really realize the distance between the hundreds of thousands of people like me, working some silly job to make my exorbitant rent, and people like the young girl I overheard yesterday at a coffee shop:

"Yeah, I never got a chance to live in France in college, so I think I'm just going to go stay there for a while." "Are you gonna get a job or something?" "No, I don't think so. I mean, I might pick up something part-time, but I think I'm just gonna go and just...live. You know, pick up the language, eat, etc. I'm thinking a year or so."

I'd been purposefully listening in on the conversation, waiting to hear the non-existent secret to being able to live in Europe as an American. (I don't know why, but I always think that there's some secret way I can land myself a European job without a European passport, all from the comfort of my American bedroom, so that I'm all comfortably set up by the time I land in Lisbon. That secret doesn't exist. What I need to do is go to Lisbon, be prepared to be poor, and beg bars to let me wipe counters for under-the-table Euros.) Of course, she had no secret. She just has some unknown source of money.

This came as a total surprise to me because she was a young woman, not a girl, and she wasn't extraordinarily beautiful. Which means, she's old enough to have been on her own for a few years, and not beautiful enough to have caught the fancy of a rich playboy. And yet somehow she was provided for. She has enough financial breathing space to realistically cook up schemes and trips and outings without worrying about what losing one shift might do to her paycheck.

Which just makes me frustrated, that so many people can just imagine a whimsical thought like, "I'd like to live in Marseille for a while," and then go. While I, who has repeatedly made vows to myself since I was thirteen years old that I would live in France one day, can't make it over there. And all that stands in my way is a few thousand dollars. Pennies, to many people in this city.

And in New York, we all live and breath right next to each other.

My Arcane Reservation System

2010-01-26T00:41:00.007-05:00

This is a photo of my calendar for the month of January:

Every day encircled by a box represents a day that I had a friend staying with me. You can therefore count a total of 7 days so far this month that I had my time to myself. This does not include days I spent with my ongoing date-ee (when will we think up a good word for still-casual relationships that's NOT the unavoidably heavy "boyfriend" or "girlfriend"?), which when factored in will approximate a calendar that looks like this:

And now, as you can see, I've had about 4 days available to me where I could stretch out starfish-style in my own bed. Every other day has been spent on the floor, on an air mattress, in various other people's beds, or sharing my bed with various other people. My apartment has been like a clown car of people -- another sleepy Californian emerging just when you think I couldn't fit any more. I feel sorry for my two other roommates.

I know, I know. I'm such a hot commodity.

Sarah's, Now Taking Reservations

2010-01-22T23:09:00.005-05:00

This month I played hotel. I don't have an air mattress, a futon, or even a couch, but somehow 6 people have been continuously cycling in and out of my apartment over the last 4 weeks. Sometimes only one at a time, sometimes up to 3 at a time. And I don't think I've slept in my own bed, alone, more than 4 times in the last month.

Some would say that sounds like a good social life, though.

I love the idea of being the New York crash pad for friends and old schoolmates. I'd like people to be able to visit the city and have a friend they can look up and stay with, even if we haven't talked in ages. I think I'm subconsciously trying to create a Couchsurfing community within the Union Mine High School/UC Berkeley populations, because having the ability to stay on someone's couch or futon opens up travel options so much. If you have someone to stay with, all you have to be able to afford is the plane ticket. That's much easier. And I want to support that kind of travel community.

I think I'm also just a little vain; I like being everyone's "friend in New York." I secretly want them to go back to their own friends and mention that "I stayed with my friend Sarah while I was in New York, I really had a good time. Did you know Brooklyn is awesome?" And I'm also theoretically building my social network, so when the time comes that I feel like going to Austin, Los Angeles, or Boston, I have someone there to stay with.

I really can't believe that all these people came to visit New York in January, though. Talk about worst months, weather-wise, to visit the Northeast. And cramming so many visitors into one month has been unbelievably exhausting for my soul. I sorta want to punch everyone in the face every morning when I wake and find them existing in my space.

Thusly, I declare next Monday afternoon, after I get home from work, to be the first day of the Week of Sarah. I will no longer neglect my bed, and I will revel in TV watching and extra hours of sleep.

New Hair

2010-01-15T17:29:00.004-05:00

Imagine it with a plaid shirt and some really skinny black pants. Oh, no.

The Center of the Universe

2010-01-14T15:01:00.008-05:00

One of my visitors this month was my good friend and former Harlem roommate Kim. In the beginning of her week-long visit, she asked me: "So, have you become one of those people who think New York is the best place in the world?" To which I confidently replied, "No. But I have become one of those people who thinks Brooklyn is the best place in the world."

Towards the end of her visit, after a week of my regular gleeful announcements and observations about Williamsburg, she advised me NOT to be that person. Apparently I'm on the verge of being obnoxious about my love for this village of brunches, bars, and vintage clothing.

I replayed the scene for a coworker of mine later.

"Apparently I'm being too effusive about how Brooklyn is the best place in the world."

"But Brooklyn is the best place in the world."

"I know. But I think I have to stop talking about it all the time, because it's annoying to other people."

"Yeah...I mean I guess..."

I get either: the rolled eyes, or: the bright face when I tell people I live in Williamsburg. Solidly unpretending Astoria and Harlem residents are the ones that roll their eyes. Upper West Siders and Lower East Siders tend to perk up with envy and interest, respectively. And though this place is ridiculously uniform in its predilection for the same little antique flat loafers and can't actually call itself Manhattan, I would still choose it over any other place in New York City to live.

This is where I've come to. I live in the grittier, colder, darker New York version of San Francisco's Mission district, and I'm getting big-headed about it. I suspect that I might hate me if I met me, these days. I'm so over the top about re-branding myself as a Brooklyn-er that I think even other people who have lived in this borough for a while and love it are like, whoa - take it down a notch. And anyone I talk to who's unfortunate enough to live in Queens hates me even more.

Resurfacing.

2010-01-14T14:21:00.004-05:00

After an incredibly overscheduled 3 weeks, I am back to my somewhat normal life. I have caught up on my Hulu queue and the only suitcases in my room are mine, and they're securely tucked away under my bed. My absence from posting is regrettable, as I know I'll have to work extra hard now to regain your attention again. Because no, I didn't abandon my postings. I will not become one of those people who posts every other month on a decrepit and lonely blog. This one is meant to be full of stuff. All the time. And though at times I will take breaks (holidays, trips to third world countries with no potable water AND and annoyingly slow internet connections, having friends visiting), I will always come back.

Because I've recently decided to attempt to build a writing portfolio, and I'm hoping this blog can be my "colloquial" entry.

Christmas at Sarah's

2009-12-25T23:30:00.005-05:00

This year marked my first year celebrating a holiday solo-style. Usually, I'm a big going-home-for-occasions person. I moved to New York City almost a year and a half ago, and since I've been here I've battled it home for almost every major holiday. That includes: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, mom's birthday, and Thanksgiving again. I've never thought about what it would be like to miss a holiday without distended feast-belly or familial angst.

That is, until this Christmas, when unfortunate circumstances and planning hangups ended up leaving me stranded on the East coast. Happily, I was able to amuse myself by embracing my position as the newly promoted East Coast Holiday Event Planner-in-Chief. What follows will no doubt become part of my future holiday hosting playbook, for when I'm middle-aged and have my own offspring to play Santa with.

In the House of Sarah, we eat holiday dinners at normal, civilized times. Just because it's a holiday doesn't mean that we must dine 6 hours before we usually do. My problems with an afternoon dinner are: A) a grandiose dinner at 2pm means getting up at 8am on a day off. WHY?! and B) what happens when everyone gets hungry again at 10pm? I will never understand people's desire to eat obscenely early as part of a day of celebration - as if they're trying to hurry up and get it out of the way, instead of enjoying it at a comfortable, leisurely pace. Me, I woke up and noon and didn't start marinating till 4.

In the House of Sarah, we take pleasure in cooking. We don't stress about "having to cook for 8 people" because that just means we can make a prime rib roast AND a roast chicken for dinner. We love the whole, not-having-to-choose thing. The more food we have excuse and ability to make, the happier we are. I tend to always cook enough food for an army of teenagers anyways, just because I'm terrible at predicting how much people will eat. (It's not my fault nobody seems to eat as much as I do in one sitting.)

In the House of Sarah, we clean as we go. We have none of this, get out a bowl for every sauce and serving -- we reuse bowls (because chicken grease really just makes those green beans taste better) and we wash dishes while the potatoes are roasting. This eliminates the guilt involved at the end of the night when straws are drawn for the daunting duty of dishwashing. Or, as with my family, when one dutiful aunt gets up to do the dishes and succeeds in inspiring massive guilt in the rest of us (or just me?) for the rest of the night.

In the House of Sarah, we drink while we cook. This part is the most important part. It really makes or breaks the evening, whether their is a solid supply of either 1) beer, 2) tequila, or 3) wine. Or all three. Drinking while cooking is one of the great joys of life, and generally makes any guests a lot happier about the wait. And since I tend to insist that guests be a part of the entire cooking process (read: sit on stools, drink, and talk to me while I cook...occasionally handing me plates, utensils or full wine glasses), guests end up waiting an average of 2 hours longer than in other households. Best holiday gift to bring to my place = tequila + limes.

Tonight I hosted a successful holiday dinner -- my first. My criteria by which I judge it Successful are as follows:
1) More than one person (i.e. me) ate what I cooked.
2) One of those people don't live in the same apartment (i.e., travelled to come here).
3) All the food I made tasted amazing.
4) I made at least one thing I hadn't ever made before (boo-ya, standing rib roast).
5) I got pretty happily buzzed.

Discovering Skype video-chat and having friends disillusioned enough by their family's Christmas Day trip to New Jersey to come to Brooklyn instead helped make my Christmas lovely, despite being marooned 3,000 miles away from my family. Also my little Christmas tree is awesome.

Cramming for the Holidays

2009-12-23T13:24:00.004-05:00

I finished college. This fact makes me especially happy around December, when the incessantly morose finals-related status updates of all my younger counterparts tend to dominate my Facebook news feed.

"Mary is so miserable...blah...2 horrible finals to go in 2 days..."
"Joanne is wondering who she killed in a previous life to deserve this...."
"Allyson why am i acting like i don't have a final tomorrow?!"

Sadly though, come December I still undergo the same cramming and battle the same procrastination that my poor tortured friends do. I approach Christmas gift shopping exactly the same way I approach studying for finals: watch TV or play on the internet until the day before, then take deep breaths while I work up the courage needed to finally let myself think about my predicament. If I don't crumble once the full weight of my responsibilities hits me, then I begin the cramming process and time my holiday shopping until the very. last. minute.

For instance: today I have one gift to buy. My deadline is tonight. I have 2 hours before I have to leave for work. And I'm writing a blog entry instead. I have a few ideas of what to get, but so far the last couple days of half-heartedly wandering through the Union Square Holiday Market and perusing the internet have been fruitless and I'm getting desperate. Strange how similar this feels to that night before my Economics 161 final...

Also I just spent fifteen minutes on the internet trying to figure out the name of that aforementioned class.

Just another reason I dislike the Christmas season...it feels uncannily like finals season, right down to the stress over grading ("Do you think he'll like it? Does it seem like a good gift for someone like him? I don't KNOW! Ack! I fail at this."), and the overeating. Will I ever learn to do things right? Habit suggests not. Ugh.

Single Behavior

2009-12-21T00:07:00.007-05:00

Though I've technically been unburdened by the proximity of a significant other for over a year now, it's only after my official upgrade to single status a few months ago that I've begun to realize how incredibly awesome being single is.

Tonight, I stopped at McDonald's and bought a Quarter-Pounder with Cheese plus french fries. Then, with my bag o' calories under my arm I stepped into a liquor store and bought an extremely cheap bottle of malbec. Then, I brought it all home, microwaved the fast food, and ate it with spicy mustard sauce. I didn't even use a nice wine glass for the wine.

There is a Sex and the City that describes "secret single behavior (SSB)," and I'm pretty sure that McDonald's+malbec meals* are one of mine. If I had a boyfriend, that meal would never have come together. I would have feared confessing my dinner choices if we talked, and if we had plans I couldn't have brought myself to bring the salty evidence into my house. And I would never, ever have done this if I lived with a boyfriend. The fear of judgment would be too much. I mean, I judge people with McDonald's. Especially if they're sober. And who drinks red wine with McDonald's french fries?! There are nights when I just don't want to explain my moronic meal choices when I walk in the door.

One other strange thing I'm appreciating about being single is that I can spend a lot more time wearing clothes. In a relationship, my body isn't nearly so much my own; it starts feeling like I'm sharing it with someone else. A boyfriend sees you naked all the time, and has the right to appreciate it. (He'll probably even ask that you remain naked for as much of the day as possible. That's what delivery is for.) He has the right, so to speak, to share your body with you. He's also going to be concerned with how much other people [men] can appreciate it, and he'll probably voice that concern with you. At the risk of sounding fem-hippy, the upshot is, your body isn't really quite as sacred anymore. Now that I'm single, I'm free to spend my weekends sleeping in bed with my clothes on, if I so choose. So there.

Also, I don't have to shave my legs as much. And we all know how I feel about that.

*The McDonald's+malbec isn't the most embarrassing part of my SSB evening; no, that would be the sausage and onion sandwich I made for myself as second dinner, thirty minutes later.

How to Get a Job in New York City

2009-12-17T23:16:00.004-05:00

Sure, you can do it the old-fashioned way: go to college, get that classy business undergrad degree, submit yourself to the back-breaking and torturous ordeal of recruitment, and shimmy yourself into a shiny new job with Goldman Sachs in New York.

"By the time you're a senior, expect to be placed in one of four categories: Banking, Consulting, Accounting, I'm fucking around--- OH and Google. The names that will make any Haashole cream their pants to be with you or die on the inside with jealousy are: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bain, McKinsey, Google, and Citi. And if you don't end up working in LA, SF, or NYC, good luck showing your face at graduation, you fail at life." -- Yelp review of Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley

Or, you could do like I did: get a classy business degree but rationalize it by being anti-social with the other Haasholes, shake my fist in the general direction of the Career Center, and plop myself in Harlem, NYC with no realistic purpose other than a desire to explore my artsy side.

Turns out, lots of people actually do what I did. They sustain their half-baked artistic ambitions by working in the service industry. Like I did.

It recently became clear to me that the restaurant and club scene is just as picky as those asshole recruiters are about who they hire. In New York, you can't get hired to wait tables unless you've had what they call "New York restaurant experience," which I take to mean that you've learned how to bully customers and you can move your ass. Another unwritten prerequisite is that you have to be awesome. Sorta like how in order to get into college you had to whip out a story that exhibited how extra-special your extra-curricular involvements were...only in New York, your reward isn't a $160,000 education, it's a $500-a-week hourly job where you come home smelling like beer and onion rings and your legs sprout varicose veins.

Last night I went to an LPR employee holiday party in the West Village at Le Poisson Rouge. I met a ton of people who worked at LPR (plus their dates), and it was imparted to me while I watched this chick dance inside a flaming hula-hoop

that apparently they'd all had to "try out" for their jobs. The audition sounded like it went something like this:

Hi. What's your name?
Great.
Could you please show us your talent. We'll be videotaping you. Please try and look hot and/or talented.
Thanks. We'll let you know.

These people all had highly successful side ventures, such as makeup artist-ing or dance performance. Or hula-hooping with fire.

New York is the only place where there are so many people wanting jobs at bars that employers can discriminate between the just ok cool (yeah, I'd smoke a bowl with you but I wouldn't really get on the G train to go see you) and the fabulously cool (can you believe that guy with the guitar up there was the guy from that one commercial a few years ago?) Seriously, you only get jobs if you have a resume and an elevator speech that can really impress. Next time you're in New York at a fancy restaurant, ask your server for his/her story. I guarantee you it will be more impressive than yours.

RIP Dude Mansion

2009-12-17T22:34:00.006-05:00

After 3 months of bro-ing it up in the Dude Mansion, turns out I'm uprooting myself and carting my stuff over to yet another apartment. Check out these numbers: in the last 3 years, I'll have moved 6 times. My longest apartment commitments were exactly a year, one being a much-loved (though drafty) apartment in Berkeley above Tai San Chinese Restaurant, and the other being that one disaster in Harlem.

There are several reasons for this abrupt move, a drastic decision which happened in all of 2 days. The long story involves a questionable marriage, an unexpected third party breakup, and a toothpaste shortage. The short story is that I found a better room. And it's only 3 blocks away.

Unfortunately, this means that my experiment in the Dude Mansion has been terminated. I'll no longer be the one only one leaving hair in the sink, and there may be fights over who used whose tampons. However, I'm taking one of the Dudes with me as we join another lady, so I think I'll still get [some of] the testosterone exposure I was looking for. (Who am I kidding anyways, dudes can be just as high maintenance as chicks.) Plus, now I get to live with a tiny doggy that I will try very hard not to step on, because he's pretty cute.

I'm getting kindof expert at packing my stuff, and I've also managed to shed a lot of the bullshit I collect as part of my klepto/packrat tendencies. It's no joke that I definitely saved, put in storage, and a month later transported to my new place a bottle of shampoo that my roommate left behind in August. But while I may still collect orphaned bathroom products, I have gotten rid of most clothes that I never wear, nixed a lot of useless tupperware, and set up an efficient network of friend-storage space for emergencies. Pretty much all I take with me now when I move is a couple suitcases of clothes, my collection of tailored Sudafed remedies, and a treasured box of kitchen accessories. I'm a moving machine.

This time guys, I'm hoping it's for realsies. Sarah 3.0 made the commitment to living in New York for a while, and I've chosen Brooklyn as my station. So I'm going to go buy another round of eco-friendly low VOC paint, and try again. Let's hope this time I choose a better color than lime-sorbet-green, yeah?

Search for Drunkenness, Find Written Debauchery

2009-12-17T22:01:00.004-05:00

This is how my night went tonight.

I've heard that in New York City, even liquor stores deliver. Being that it's 22 degrees out, apparently "feels like" 9 degrees, and I only just got home from my one alotted nighttime foray, I felt I deserved some TLC and began a search for one of these fabled wine-delivery services in Williamsburg.

In my Google Maps search, I came across a lot of Billsburg-centric websites. (Kudos to me for living in an area of Brooklyn with it's own guide sites. Like this one too.) I clicked through and got distracted by something called the "Potty Girl Bathroom report" under this one bar The Abbey's listing. I add a full star to my review for every bar that has an impressive bathroom. (Check out PDT's shiny, sparkly bathroom and you'll know what I mean. As a girl, I love all things shiny.) Naturally I was curious.

The Bathroom Report turned out to be something entirely more exciting, and I managed to tots forget my wine quest. (Gah!?) Instead, I discovered someone who lives and writes/blogs about her oh-so-casually-high-speed lifestyle in and around Bklyn. Blog topics include weekly reviews on the best bathrooms to test drive that one night stand you were thinking about, and a moving lament to a dearly departed massager-cum-vibrator.

Yes, I'm pretty sure by now that all the people in Williamsburg do is drink and fuck. Thus, its excellent reputation as a bar scene. Plus, the people you're gonna end up taking home from one of our million bars are probably more likely to kink it out in the bedroom with corsets than someone you meet in say, midtown Manhattan.

Anyways, this girl is my new favorite writer of the week, and is making me re-evaluate my somewhat tame blogging style. After an hour culling through her posts, I'll leave you with this one as my favorite. Next on your list should probs be anything in the section titled "Probs Gay," especially the one about Kanye West. Also, have fun checking out an entirely serious photoshoot reenactment of an apparently well-known Lindsey Lohan event, done by a feminist website she (unsurprisingly) works for.

And now I wish my roommates had a bottle of wine I could siphon.

Some Stiletto Injunctions

2009-12-14T23:34:00.006-05:00

Women wear high heels because, let's face it, they make womenkind look damn sexy. They do wonderful things for ankles, legs and asses. They convey to men (and other women, too) a sense of graceful, feminine power and confidence.

That is, if you can wear them. It's our misfortune that too many girls are catwalking the streets of America looking like unsteady toddlers -- or worse, like some kind of menacing species of loping dinosaur. Though flaunting stilettos can be insanely hot, a girl that flaunts and fails looks massively idiotic.

I don't pretend to be an expert at walking in heels. In fact, since I've moved to New York I've become even more skeptical about them. There's just too much necessary trekking for me to keep pretending they're functional footwear. However, I wear them on occasion and I do believe with confidence that in a high heels walkoff within my recall-able female friend circle, I would likely place in the top 3. Consequently, I feel justified in offering a few important observations and recommendations to my fellow females who aspire to turn heads with 4-inch heels:

In order to look good, it is vitally important to look natural. You can't be wearing pumps like they're coffee-can stilts; they must be extensions of your legs and they must conform to your normal gait. Your statement of confidence must be enhanced, not weakened. No matter how distanced your heels become from the balls of your feet, it is imperative to walk heel-toe as if in your favorite pair of sneakers. Too many girls compensate for wearing skyscrapers by walking with a kind of apprehensive crooked-knee shuffle meant to minimize impact on the smallish and precarious surface area of the heel. It reminds one of the afore-mentioned dinosaur, and does nothing to boost sex appeal.

Additionally: walking confidently on stilettos in the heel-toe fashion requires an unwavering bravado. With every single step, a woman must commit her entire weight onto that tiny point of her shoe, trusting that as she propels her body weight forward and teeters for that heart-in-your-throat split-second on a perfect fulcrum, she won't fall to her death. A woman who can perform this mental feat with confidence will win the admiration of every passerby.

But bravado is nothing if a woman can't trust in the integrity of the shoes she punishes alongside her feet. Walking naturally in heels creates high shearing stress on the elegant little points, and in order to pull off the look a woman must be be able to trust that her heels won't break underneath her as she strides through the streets of her city. Quality shoes are key.

In conclusion, and to reiterate: Walk naturally. Walk confidently. Wear good shoes. Please, womankind. Let's stop trying to pretend to be what we can't. Wear those platforms if you have the skills, but if you don't -- practice first.

A Sarah's Lament

2009-12-04T21:18:00.004-05:00

I think I'm the only person in the United States who had never seen an episode of Entourage...until yesterday. And as of tonight, 24 hours later, I've almost finished the second season. I'm in love with the show, and high on the list of things I appreciate about it is the characters' affinity for cool-augmenting entourage nicknames. Uptight Irish boy Eric Murphy becomes "E," and then of course there's Turtle, and my favorite: Johnny Drama (he goes by Drama for short). Even starboy Vincent Chase gets to be "Vince," or the more affectionate "Vinnie."

There are 2 reasons I don't have a nickname.
1) My name is Sarah.
2) I'm a girl.

Sarah is not a name you can shorten or cute-sify. Nothing rhymes with it, and you can't attach any regular suffixes to it. The most I can get away with is Sar-bear.

And as a gender, girls seem less enchanted by the desire to personalize their own names. Names of course are already a pretty personalized feature we all possess. Nevertheless, many of the guys I know have invented special names for themselves and their posse -- the purpose being, I suppose, to connote fraternity, embrace lingual laziness, and to spread a feeling that Everyone Else doesn't get the inside joke. My brother for some reason went by "Hot Dog," once upon a time.

It is one of my life's greatest disappointments that I have never been able to have a nickname. Part of it is that the girlfriends I've had have never been the type to create them. (I imagine it only works for those with a certain kind of humor.) That doesn't stop us from calling Emily "Em" though, or Kim "Kimmy," or Renae "Nae." But the name Sarah just won't shorten, and I have yet to find an appropriately kickass handle.

I can't even adopt the simplest of nicknames, in which one with a full-length name aspires to be referred to by their initials. Like, "TJ." Or "JC." (Do I need a J in my name?) "S" doesn't fall off the tongue well. "SC" is even worse. "SD" doesn't really work either, and "SCD" is just plain awkward.

For now I'm just Sarah (or scdryden), but just you watch. One day, I'll have something incredible, and when my friends refer to me as "Checkers" you won't get it. But you'll be jealous.

The Dude Mansion, Chapter 2: Household Supplies

2009-12-03T17:19:00.005-05:00

Unhappy consequence of living with boys:
They're much more likely to want any beer I store in the fridge.

Perplexing consequences of living with boys:
Never having quite enough toilet paper.
A superfluity of candles.

Dubiously positive consequence of living with boys:
Hand soap hardly ever needs to be refilled.

Unequivocally positive consequences of living with boys, in order of importance:
3) (Almost) never being guilted into letting roommates borrow my clothes.
2) My shampoos and body washes are safe from mooching, as long as I'm buying things in pinks, purples, and pastels. To wit: instead of purchasing Neutrogena's regular Oil-Free Acne Wash -- a gender-neutral orange color -- I opt for the Pink Grapefruit version.
1) There's always beer in the fridge.

XXX Cali-Girl XXX

2009-11-28T17:13:00.011-05:00

Cali (disambiguation)
Cali may refer to:
- Slang or short (sometimes pejorative) for California, a western state in the United States.

In New York I'm sometimes referred to as a "Cali-girl." When asked what I was doing for Thanksgiving, I told people I was going back home, and the response was generally along the lines of, "oh, you're going back to Cali, huh?"

My good friend Renae started using that term a few years ago, when she went to college in faraway Pennsylvania and the rest of us settled down within the more familiar UC system. Messages we exchanged ran something like, "I'm coming back to Cali in December for Christmas, you going to be around?" I am beginning to learn that people from outside of California apparently find the state's name too long to pronounce, and the habit rubs off.

There are 2 things wrong with Renae's language, which are mistakes many East Coast residents tend to make.
1) Referring to a visit to "California" is unclear. California is not a monolith. Visiting San Diego is much different than visiting San Francisco, and makes a vast difference in your ability to visit any friends who may be scattered across the state.
2) Secondly, and more importantly, Cali is an unacceptable way of shortening the state's name. It's diminutive and kitschy, and most of all, it signifies your distance from the state both culturally and geographically. Californians almost never refer to their great state so casually. The pride with which we refer to California always necessitates the use of the full 5 syllables.

I have another friend that I met in the Bay Area who immigrated West from Connecticut. As part of his re-location, he tattooed the word "Cali" on his back. He has since realized the error of his ways, and doctored his tattoo to reflect its inaccuracy as a statement of California culture. It now has a large "X" through it.

The only acceptable nickname for the great state of California is "Cal," which appropriately reflects its power and majesty. (It's also the name of the state's best university.) I suspect the word Cali came from rappers who were looking for easy words to rhyme with.

Sadly, as an East Coast transplant like Renae, I've found myself sometimes referring to my home state as Cali. It's an unfortunate side effect of living outside of California. I'm trying desperately to quit, but I expect I will have the occasional slip-up while I'm spending most of my time outside my home state. Only while I'm in New York, though...I promise.

The Thanksgiving Pilgrimage

2009-11-28T16:07:00.006-05:00

Coming home for me has taken on a sort of spirit of pilgrimage. Not only do I enjoy seeing my family (the entirety of which resides exclusively in California, with the recent exception of my father -- who lives in Oregon, which is the same thing), but I've noticed that I'm always excited for the traditions. Many of the so-called traditions I love aren't even recognized as such, but are mostly just tried and true ways of coping with family gatherings.

For instance: tequila. My grandmother's house is always well-stocked with alcohol, the most coveted bottle of which is some version of tequila blanco that we all beeline for. We keep a respectful distance for the first 2 hours or so, but after that Thanksgiving pretty much happens around the shot glasses. Tequila for me has since become a Fonseca holiday tradition that I look forward to equally as much, if not more, than the turkey. Especially so since I turned 21 and could wave away the disapproving/guilty looks of my aunts. This year marks the first year my younger brother could also drink legally and without guilt, and we celebrated with the first Family Shot.

Secondly: Second Thanksgiving. We love cooking and eating so much that after we all cook/eat at my grandmother's in Petaluma on the last Thursday of November, we follow it up with a Second Thanksgiving two days later on Saturday. First attempted as a follow-up to a disappointing First Thanksgiving culinary experience, my mother has since taken pride every year in re-cooking an entire multi-course Thanksgiving meal. As a lover of meal experiences (especially ones that take all day to make), the approach of Second Thanksgiving never fails to make me giddy with glee. This year is the first year it's been institutionalized and officially christened as a holiday, though we've been inviting friends to Second Thanksgiving for years.

I've come to expect certain things when I get home, if only to fulfill my lust for familiarity. It's difficult being the only one in my family to be two time zones away, and to be so far away that I have to wait until noon if I want to reach my mother on her morning commute. Consequently I'm a creature of habit when I get back home, expecting certain homages to family, food, and television. It reinforces my sense of foundation and belonging to come back to a system that has a place for me.

New York doesn't really have a place for me, other than the one I'm making now. I feel like one day I may belong in New York the way I belong here in the foothills of California, and I do enjoy the process of carving out a spot there for myself. But every once in a while I need to come back and drink tequila with the Fonsecas, instead of vodka sodas with Manhattanites.

Fashion + Espresso

2009-11-16T19:57:00.005-05:00

Wanted to share one of the new faces of Cole Haan: Jack's (and Jack, my favorite boss for whom I tweet occasionally). Also featured are the feet of my manager Chris.

In New York, everything is fashion.

Sarah 3.0 - The Release

2009-11-16T18:22:00.009-05:00

The Sarah vsn 1.0 era is broad, spanning the first years of relative self-awareness until the third year at college (circa 2002-2006). 1.0 was characterized by timidity, an indistinct visual style, and a pronounced naivete. In later years, Sarah 1.0 developed a predictable proclivity for excessive college-type drinking and an adeptness at flirtation, illuminating several possible future development paths.

Sarah 2.0 was introduced in 2007 with the advent of a serious (and local) boyfriend, a promising summer internship, and the acquisition of a new living space that included her own room. It featured more streamlined friendships, stronger levels of independence, confidence and awareness, and increased sexiness due to regular excercise. Vsn 2.0 also included a bonus extended international trip to South America with a boyfriend, showcasing a growing adventurism. The end of the Sarah 2.0 series was colored by a cross-coastal relocation, which directly contributed to the rise of Sarah 3.0 at the end of 2009 (also known as Sarah vsn ME).

Sarah 3.0, inaugurated and released in October 2009 in conjunction with an extended solo trip and our 23rd anniversary, is new and improved. Faster and more efficient, this Sarah no longer faces the bugs and baggage that troubled previous versions. The new upgrade features:
- A never-before-seen Single status, allowing Sarah ME to move with lighting-fast speeds through the streets of New York City
- Increased reliability as a result of full-time occupational accountability
- Smoother operating in social situations, balancing honesty and forthrightness with the sensitivity and political correctness valued in previous Sarah versions
- Higher decision-making efficiency, thanks to a singleness of Sarah-purpose and an absence of male influential figures
- Attractive and trendy new packaging in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn's South side.

Join us for the launch party of Sarah 3.0 (ME)
taking place for the first time on the East Coast
New Year's Eve, 2009
New York City

This Man is Eating a Coconut on the Subway.

2009-11-13T16:32:00.002-05:00

Very healthy.

A Compendium of Train Demographics

2009-11-13T15:35:00.006-05:00

Each train in the New York subway system (MTA - Metro Transit Authority) has its own distinct population and feeling. What follows is my attempt at an anthropological study.

Uptown 1 train: Seat sizes somewhat smaller than the average human ass. Clearly defined seat allocations encourage false illusions of capacity and ill-advised squishing. Orange- and red-colored interior color patterns reminiscent of the 70's. Trains built about ten years before that.

Usually filled to capacity at all hours of the day, except between 4am and 5am. Commuters include West-Bronx inhabitants, overwhelmingly Dominican residents of Washington Heights and Inwood, the occasional well-heeled Columbia student, and the benevolent Upper-West Sider donating their time to help the less fortunate at a school in Washington Heights.

Uptown 6 train: Advanced trains with digital readouts and automated announcements indicating next stop and final destinations. As the only East side train line, cars are often also crowded. Seats are blue benches, which though more practical than the orange and red seats of the red lines, produce equally inefficient seating results. Men tend to take up the space of two people in the interest of giving their package room to breath, and women mistakenly assume their purses have priority seating just behind the elderly and pregnant.

I don't ride the green lines, since I abhor the East side above 14th St in general. When I do, it seems to be full of young and obnoxiously self-absorbed NYU students or residents of the greater Bronx area. Residents of everywhere in between, the Upper East Side, eschew the subway entirely and I'm thus relieved of their company.

L train: Advanced, appropriately wide trains that can accommodate more hipsters than you'd think on first glance. In this way, operates much like a clown car during the rush hours. Hipsters make more socially conscious use of the blue benches. Digital readouts are simple to read, since the L train crosses Manhattan horizontally and thus is only required to stop 6 times to cover the whole of Manhattan. Also, commuters are much soothed with in-station readouts assuring them of the next train's arrival within X minutes.

The L train is the most advanced train of the MTA system. It connects all the uptown/downtown lines together across 14th St, thus making it the most convenient way to avoid walking anywhere below Central Park. The only downside being that as a direct shot from Manhattan to Williamsburg and Bushwick, you're often shamed by your lack of suspenders, fedoras, or neon purple hoodies.

The J-M-Z trains: Advanced trains rivaling the L train in digital convenience, unfortunately trapped and relegated to several smelly and forgotten underground subway stations and a lot of inconvenient above-ground stations in Brooklyn. Make a odd loop from north Brooklyn into lower Manhattan and back out to Brooklyn again.

The hipster's second choice for pilgramages to his homeland in Williamsburg. Alternatively, the main transportation venue for the hacidic Jew community of South-South Williamsburg. Usually every train car is populated by at least 3 beautiful young women dressed as aging overweight grandmas, toting discount-designer Century 21 shopping bags and small children that they're ignoring. (What are you buying at Century 21? You're obviously not wearing any of it.) The occasional ringlet-ed and super-fedora'd father accompanies.

The A-C-E trains: Alternatives to the red 123 trains. Though the same color code as the A and the C train, the E mystically veers off to Queens around midtown. Rickety-ass trains where I fear for my life whenever one of several track issues occurs. Lit with disturbingly fluorescent lights of the sort found in drug rehab hallways. Achingly wide, adding to the feeling of danger when the cars are sparsely populated. Oddly enough, a main transit for those wealthy folks living off Central Park West.

A mish-mash of people. Once the AC trains get into Brooklyn, any white people on their way the JFK airport will start to feel conspicuous.

I Make Inhuman Demands of My Internal Clock

2009-11-13T14:27:00.006-05:00

As I tell my roommate when he gives me shit for sleeping till 2pm on my day off: I spend my work life being up earlier than you can even conceive.

Despite a natural proclivity for hoarding the night hours and sleeping through the day, I find myself coerced into following a totally opposite work schedule. Instead of (as is my wont) going to sleep at 4am and waking at noon, I'm waking up at 5am for work. Usually that accomplishment alone tends to tire me out so much that I fall asleep shortly after getting home in the afternoon. Actually, I usually pass out on my way home -- much to the amusement of the other J train passengers. (Once a not-so-sweet older man commented to me after I woke up on the uptown 1 train that I "wasn't very attractive when I slept like that." Thanks, New York City.)

I'll usually forget to set an alarm when I fall asleep after work, so I'll wake up at 6 or 7pm. That's about 3 hours before I should be going to bed again, if I want a full 7-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. And do I go promptly to bed again at 10pm? Nope. I've already had a 3 hour nap, so naturally I'm up until at least midnight. Which just exacerbates my initial problem of not having had enough sleep when I drag myself to work. [Cycle repeats.]

Life in the early morning hours is strange, too. Subways become completely different experiences in just a few hours. 2 am = drunk raucous kids. 5am = silent, tragic, pained and pale faces of the people that start the wheels of the city turning every morning. I like to think I see a different side of the city this way. I show up 4 mornings a week at 6am to a dark and empty street, where I spend an hour arranging pastries, tuning the espresso machine, and listening to Shakira and Shaggy at obscene volume levels. On the way there, I see the New York City that most people sleep through, the preparations for commuter inundation. For instance, I know the delivery schedule for both McDonalds that I pass by as I go to work.

And then two nights a week I work at a comedy club, from which I'm usually released around 11 or midnight. Reasons why this schedule wreaks havoc on my social life:
- Most friends like to start their nights around 9 or 10pm. That's a full 2 hours before I can join them if I'm working nights.
- Most friends like to stay out till 1 or 2am. That's 3 hours before I have to get up for work if I'm working mornings.
- I'm usually feeling drastically different levels of fatigue and/or alertness than my friends.

It's absurdly difficult to try and coordinate outings with friends in the midnight-4am or 6pm-11pm time slots. Lately I've given up, and I just hang out whenever there's something happening -- regardless of my own schedule. On Monday I was out at a bar until 2am, and successfully made it to work 4 hours later. Only twenty minutes late!

What kills me that is that I never imagined I had it in me to maintain a schedule like this. I assumed it was impossible for someone of my inclinations and constitution to survive regular am alarms. So there you go, universe: I defy you. What hasn't killed me has made me both slightly richer (thank you, morning commuters, for tipping more than afternoon tourists) and stronger.

Well technically it's made me weaker, since I'm constantly sleep-deprived, but you get the idea.

Echoing Elvis

2009-10-30T21:12:00.007-04:00

Last week I had a thoroughly Williamsburg, Brooklyn experience:

Watching the Yankees in Game 2 of the World Series, about 9pm. Bottle of pricey French wine. In a tiny South Side Vietnamese sandwich shop, a cheap and delicious "pho" sandwich grasped in my fist. With Fred, the owner, and local men who stopped in to watch the game and have conversations about the merits of Franzia with my roommate.

Eventually one of the men's son came in to check the score, say hi to dad. Another hipster kid who knew Fred came in for a sandwich, and to talk about his new "kicks" in Bay Area-cum-Brooklyn slang. Eventually, Fred closed the shop and sent Hipster out for beers. And we all sat around drinking some more.

As all this was happening around me, I was enveloped by a warm feeling of adoration for this place. It might be Brooklyn, it might be that the Phillies were up in the second inning, it might be everything. I'm beginning to love the East Coast feel. Sometimes it's stuffy, sometimes it's cold or curt, sometimes it's brassy...but I sense an appreciation now for this life. California is sunny and eco-conscious and beautiful, but New Yorkers, Philadelphians, Bostonites -- they survive winters. They know how to use public transportation. They have been here for longer than most of California has. They're rugged and loyal and fierce and know how to party. And there are so many of them. This side of the country is so densely populated, you can feel the possibilities and opportunities churning around you. It's just so much bigger than California.

And now after a little longer than a year, I'm finding that I just can't help falling in love with New York.

The NY Deli.

2009-10-30T20:25:00.005-04:00

The New York Deli is an experience unlike anywhere else.

Firstly, the New York Deli Sandwich experience is interesting in that you can get it anywhere. I've never seen an institution as ubiquitous as a the New York Deli. Unless it's Starbucks. There are delis on every corner. My corner has 3.

A Deli Sandwich also has very clearly defined parameters.
1) Roll, or hero?
2) Cheese?
3) Meat type? Alternatively, meat combination?
4) Lettuce/tomato/pickles?
5) Mayo or mustard?

I've never seen so many sandwich options that simply reincarnate multi-meat options. Do I want turkey/chicken/salami? Or turkey/roast beef/chicken? Or bacon/buffalo chicken/turkey? I'm not kidding, folks. As a Californian, I was at first shocked and overwhelmed by the primacy and importance New Yorkers place on meat in their sandwiches. Lettuce/tomato/pickles are merely afterthoughts, garnishes; you can infer their importance by the fact that they aren't even granted their own separate topping categories. L/T/P is one category.

Once you get the sandwich, if you didn't yet understand the importance of protein in a sandwich, you will once you view its glorious halves.

I am amused at the universal understanding of this Deli Sandwich Procedure, too. Wherever I go, they'll ask me the same questions, and the sandwiches end up with the same proportions. Ingredients vary in quality, deli owners vary in friendliness, but the interrogation is always the same.

New York's food staple: the meat sandwich. Close second: cheese pizza.

(I looked up the word deli on both Websters online and UrbanDictionary.com as 'research' for this post. I was amused to find out that the word "deli" is also a derogatory word for women, in reference to the name Delilah. It's also used, apparently, to refer to your marijuana dealer.)

Thank you to the Scanwiches blog, which seems to mostly sample the sandwiches of my new Williamsburg hood, for the visual aids in this post.

Absence [Sometimes] Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

2009-10-30T19:58:00.006-04:00

There's nothing better for making friendships than going away for a month.

Oh, that sounds crazy. But no. It's true.

I went away for the month of September with minimal goodbye drama, not knowing whether I would come back to either of my jobs here in New York. But when I did come back, suddenly I was part of the posse. People asked how my trip was, were excited to see me again, wanted to tell me about their lives...

I think it's because when you're only acquaintances with people, their ability to recognize your return after long absence makes them (and you) feel special. "Oh wow, I knew this girl before she left!" [Dramatic returns from Europe are good at making people interested.]

I also wonder if the fact that I actually came back to my jobs endeared me to other coworkers. Perhaps it made them feel like I actually was invested in these social circles, and now they trust me more. I think that's how I would feel.

Paradoxically, there's nothing like a long absence to alienate your good friends. While absence from acquaintances makes you more interesting, an absence from regular friendships interrupts habits, which are hard to pick back up again. And sometimes, it's overwhelming for friends to face the good-friend-duty of hearing in detail about your time away: "So, tell me about your trip!" Or in another context, "So...how's living in New York?" So reunions get put off in the interest of "having enough time to hear all of it!" and ta-da, 3 months later you realize you haven't seen That One Friend in a helluva long time.

I definitely came back to a different New York experience.

Momentum!

2009-10-30T19:40:00.006-04:00

A series of events have come together recently that convince me I need to find an actual job.

1) My increasing impatience with people coming into my coffeeshop and ordering cappucinos. I used to be able to last almost the whole week without resenting customers, and my days off were completely sufficient for recharging. Now though, I can only make it for 2 or 3 days. Sometimes one day is enough to make me hate everyone who pushes the door open.

2) Threats from my other job that I will have to work New Years. I have a friend visiting, and I absolutely refuse to spend our first New Year's in New York holed up in a coat check room or a box office. If I have to, I will quit. And then I will show up again for convenient rehire a couple months later.

3) Looming credit card limits. I seem to be good at spending within my income, but I can't seem to save anything for paying off credit cards. Sexy new jeans always outweigh any accomplishment I feel about paying off ten percent of my credit card debt. Thus, I need a job that pays me more.

4) Increased confidence has been doing a lot to motivate me. I'm itching to start thinking again, to do work that matters. I'm even throwing around the idea of grad school, cherishing a delusional hope that I could actually earn a degree with the word "Economics" in it.

And in preparation for the GRE/GMAT/GeneralWhateverTest, I'll brush up on my vocabulary with this Fucking Word of the Day. Because everyone knows it's easier to learn with sex, drugs, and fucking swearing.

5) I'm looking to expand my social circle. New York is a town that runs on networking, who you know, etc etc. and I've gotten to know everyone in my current circles. Now I'm ready for more.

For these reasons, I'm now embarking on a job-hunting mission. Wish me luck.

Not So Wild After All

2009-10-23T23:08:00.006-04:00

I saw Spike Jonez' new movie Where the Wild Things Are a few days ago, and I was just as wowed as the rest of the American populace has been. It's a gorgeously depicted movie, and the feelings you experience watching it are as intense and unexplainable as you remember your childhood emotions to be. Without having an exceptionally complicated storyline, I still found myself lost and carried along by Max's romp through the Land of the WT's.

I could probably write an extended piece all about the multiple themes the movie touched on, which I found fascinating: violence, childhood, security, loneliness. What struck me most though was how the movie specifically told the story of a boy.

Maurice Sendak wrote a book about a little boy who coped with the solitude of his room by imagining a world where he was king. Of large, scary, Wild Things, who when angered would gnash their teeth and break things. The book, and the movie adaptation (written together by Dave Eggers and Spike Jonez), could only have been written by men -- who had once been boys.

Firstly, the movie is eminently male by the simple fact that its premise, the wildness within, is a boy thing. Girls are much less likely to take out anger by smashing or destroying things. While they may, like me, have the urge to smash vases or slap faces out of anger, it’s rare that women will ever do anything irreparable or serious. Men are much more likely to punch holes in walls or, like Max, to destroy sisters’ bedrooms with snow and fury. Max’s whole experience in the movie has to do with assuaging pain with violence, and its limitations. Girls rarely need that lesson.

During the movie I also had flashbacks to many of my life's conversations with men. It seemed to be expressing with heavy, resounding clarity all the things I'd heard loved ones try to tell me in the past. I'd listened to my father, my brother, my friends, and my lovers all try earnestly to express to me the same deepset male needs and motivations that Max innocently and childishly expressed through the entire movie.

We need you to love us.
We need you to be on our side.
We trust those we love.
When that trust is betrayed, it rocks our foundation.
Our reward for your love is unquestioning loyalty.
We need to feel strongly independent;
But that independence is only worthwhile when someone is there to hug us when we are hurt.

It's really quite simple, what men want. Every man I've ever known has told me this. And they outline these things that make them feel secure to me time and time again. What it really comes down to is this: men want to feel like every woman will support them, in a way vaguely reminiscent of early childhood. They’ll make violence unnecessary. Whether you're sleeping with them or not, men wish women to be nurturers, eternally supportive of adventures that take them far away or close to home. For some reason unknown to me, women have more complicated needs that encompass all this and more. But men really ride a fascinating line between independence and the dangers that accompany it, and a deep desire for nurturing.

Max comes back to his mother in the end of the story, and she's been up waiting for him all night. She's obviously been terrified for him. She has dinner for him, hot soup, and she is all too happy to sit and watch him eat it -- elated that he's home. Max, in true male form, eats his food contentedly. We know that it's a big moment for him, because he's returned home where someone cares for him, even though he’s not king of Wild Things everywhere anymore. We know he's excited to be home; he ran all the way there. But he doesn't say a word to her. No, "thanks so much for dinner mom." No, "I'm sorry I ran away mom. I know I was out of control. I realized so much in the last few hours [or fictional days], and I know you have it hard." He just eats his dinner silently, ignoring her presence. And I know the fact that he came back is his return gesture. Perhaps that's a large gesture. But as a woman, all I can see is the fact that his mom did stuff for him. That her world is all about him. That she wants to take care of him, and he doesn't even say thank you. In return for creating a loving space of safety for him, he gives her his presence. And the occasional hug.

See, women are way more complicated.

But Max also gives his mom his loyalty. That's what his return means. And that's a man's greatest gift, I think. Women would never define their greatest gift, the thing they value most and give to men, as loyalty. For them, I think it's more devotion, which is a slightly different thing.

My question is, who cares for moms? They are everybody's caretaker. Women in general start to fill this role...because who really gives your girlfriend the soft, comforting, womb-like support you want from her? Only her own mother. And her mother will never be as motherlike to her as she will to a son, either.

I’m thinking it’s nice to be a boy. You can break things guilt-free, and women will still cook for you.

Coffeeshop Hate

2009-10-20T00:17:00.007-04:00

H#1: People who want to "grab" something from me.
Hi, I'm going to grab a small coffee with milk, and a bagel toasted with cream cheese.
Actually, I'M the one grabbing it for you. You sound obnoxious and self-centered. Or threatening.

H#2: People who order cappuccinos. And then drink them through a lid.
[Tips head back and sucks down the liquid through a tiny hole.] Is that all there was? Can I have another one? There wasn't much coffee in there.
There was 2 oz. of espresso in there, topped with milk foam. Milk foam doesn't flow through a half-centimeter hole in a cup lid. If you want to chug your coffee in a pretentious way, get a latte.
[Picks up cappuccino, sips the foam.] This isn't very hot. Can you redo it?
Milk foam is 75% air. It's hard to keep air hot for longer than 3 seconds. Your espresso below, however, is very hot. Try drinking that part of your drink as well. Or, ask for a latte. Because that's what you really want.
I know I asked for it dry, but could you put a little milk in here? I couldn't get to the coffee at the bottom.
It's not coffee, it's espresso. Cappuccinos aren't meant to be chugged like coffee. And don't ask for a dry cappuccino if you want some milk in there. Ask for a wet cappuccino. Or ask for a latte.

This is a cappuccino.

This is a latte.

Moral of H#2 -- People order cappuccinos to be trendy and pretentious. Coincidentally, these people are also usually high maintenance. Few customers actually want true cappuccinos. Take a lesson from me, folks. You want a latte.

H#3: People who want me to "scoop out" their bagels.
Hi, I'd like a big skim latte with 4 Splendas, and a whole wheat bagel, scooped out, toasted with cream cheese.
You're trying to make up for drinking a half quart of milk every morning by making it skim, and using fake sugar instead of real sugar. And a whole wheat bagel is still the equivalent of 6 slices of bread, your choice is only marginally more healthy. Scooping the insides of your bagel out is just as ridiculous as your actual breakfast choices. And it's your job. I refuse to dig my hands into your bread for you and mangle it into a different product for ten minutes, just so you can feel better about your diet. Get toast instead. Or here's an idea: just eat half your bagel.

The Dude Mansion

2009-10-14T22:31:00.006-04:00

I live with 2 guys now. They say "dude" and "bro" -- and sometimes even the cringe-inducing "brah" -- all the time. To each other, to me, and even occasionally to our male cat.

As a girl who has always lived with other girls, I have no doubt that this is an experience that will offer up innumerable opportunities for amusing blog postings. The first of which being, that it seems I will never be allowed to forget I am in The Dude Mansion by the simple fact that all the shelves are about a foot too high for me.

I am a petite girl, it's true. I measure in at a modest 5'4", which occasionally prevents me from storing select favorite dishware on the top shelf. But in this new apartment, where my roommates are feverishly installing shelving units, ripping out fixtures, and asserting their male dominance over all things interior design, I find pretty much everything to be hopelessly unreachable. They even drilled in a bathroom shelf above the doorjamb, obliging me to clamber onto the tub if I ever have need for toilet paper or tampons. Upon hearing my skeptical observation that it was a "bit high," I received the playful reply: "Oh, so it's gonna be like that, huh?" I've dubbed a footstool belonging to one of them the "Sarah Stool" in an effort to draw attention to my plight, though I think the owner didn't appreciate nor recognize my annexation.

So in the meantime, I've resorted to my own stubborn tactics. Don't think those tampons are going to hide modestly in a cupboard somewhere, boys. If I'm forced to climb towers for my stemware and toilet paper, I refuse to be cowed into hiding my girl products from your 6' tall eyeline.

Growing Some Balls

2009-10-14T21:07:00.009-04:00

I walked home today feeling eminently badass. I think most of it had to do with the fact that I had a new nose piercing, which both mirrored the much hipper neighborhood I am still adjusting to calling "home," and imbued me with a sense of (probably unfounded) edginess.

So far I've been broken up with twice in my life, and I made a connection today. After each stunned reaction/acceptance period, I've submitted myself to a tattooed stranger wielding a needle and asked for more pain. Yes, they've been mild backlashes: in college I put a small ring through my ear cartilage, and this month I put a tiny stud in my nose. Still, despite their relative innocence in the tattoo parlor world, I made the impulsive decisions because they were cathardic. They represent a test, and then an immediate confirmation that I can withstand pain. And then there's the sense of control I regain afterwards. I feel once again that I am in control of my own future, and that I can trust myself in new, uncharted territory.

And these days I am generally a happy, confident, optimistic person. When I see acquaintances again and gush in response to questions about my trip, they even remark (only somewhat facetiously) on the aura shift they perceive: "Yeah Sarah, you seem really good! And tan. I can tell, you've been travelling." Now I can say that the three best things that have happened to me in the last couple months are 1) launching myself into a solo adventure and coming out the other side, 2) getting some sun, and 3) piercing my nose.

Look at This Fucking Hipster

2009-10-09T18:20:00.004-04:00

Most of the ironically styled people featured on this blog are photographed in Williamsburg.

I will probably end up posting my own pictures of unbelievably skinny jeans and heavy glasses and furry vests on a semi-regular basis, as I begin to adjust to a new scene.

Don't You Wish Your Neighborhood Was Hott Like Mine

2009-10-07T21:02:00.003-04:00

I landed a sublet in South Williamsburg. I'm moving in tomorrow. Soon I will be a Brooklyn girl.

I feel like I'm moving to a different city, but not. And actually, it was recently pointed out to me that Brooklyn and New York used to be "twin cities". Now though, Brooklyn is maybe even more New York than Manhattan is. My place is in Williamsburg too: the hippest of all Brooklyn neighborhoods, home to 90% of NYC's hipsters and packed with restaurants and bars spanning the gamut of "divey" to "ultra-ironic-chic". It's like the West Village maybe used to be, 30 years ago. Or the East Village, 20 years ago. It's still shabby enough to feel real, but not enough to be uncomfortable. And Williamsburg is an area served by the L train, the sweetest and most convenient cross-town subway line in New York. I can be anywhere that matters in Manhattan within twenty minutes. Living uptown on the West side, the fastest I could make it to St. Marks Place was probably closer to an hour, making anything east of 7th Ave an unrealistic destination.

I will have reason to own a bicycle again, which warms my eco-aspirational heart.

I am now living with two cat-approving dudes. I've never lived with guys before, having been always vaguely afraid of getting jumped after a drunken night out, but I think this is going to be a successful experiment. Sometimes I'm much less insecure with men; I know better how I like guy-girl interactions to go, but girl-girl interactions still trip me up and make apartment living difficult.

Looking forward to eating better, paying less rent, being closer to everything, and learning to be more hip. Who knows. Maybe I'll even get a fedora.

Home.

2009-10-07T20:02:00.003-04:00

After wending my way through my last destinations -- Paris and Dublin -- I finally slumped into the airport for my flight back to New York, after 4 weeks of backpacking through Europe. (It was actually a dramatic "slump," that occurred at 5am on my way back from a nightclub. No, I didn't sleep that night.) Sadly, the last couple stops on my trip were somewhat overshadowed by looming shift schedules and remote apartment searching. There's nothing that kills a romantically aimless backpacking trip like trying to nail down an income and a roof.

Nonetheless, I got goosebumps as I drifted closer to the Manhattan skyline and stared out the airplane window. I felt like I was reuniting with a man I used to be friends with, only to find that absence had made my heart grow fonder. I discovered that I maybe, kinda, perhaps, liked Manhattan. Maybe I even loved it, a little. I looked forward to walking the streets, getting shampoo at Duane Reed, and overhearing New Yorkers' surprisingly personal phone conversations. I even felt a little of that nervous/giddy feeling you have every time you see a loved one for the first time in months. Does Manhattan still have room for me? Will I still know how to align my life with it's heartbeat? Has Manhattan moved on, since I've been away?

And with that, I peacefully reinserted myself into my old "life before Europe." I went to work the next day, perfected an elevator speech summing up my incredibly wonderful experiences, and made jokes about my massive debt/need for cash to deflect questions regarding my future. I also assured everyone that I very nearly didn't come back...even though I'm probably not brave enough to defy airline tickets with dates and times printed on them.

Except that I am slightly different now. Benignly, I could say that it cleared my head. More powerfully, I could say that it freed me (however fleetingly) from growing layers of obligation, guilt, hopelessness, superficiality, and life-writer's block. Some of the obstacles that used to seem daunting no longer even occur to me as problems anymore. I suddenly discovered I could get over my recent breakup; I thought about how I actually wanted to spend my hours every day; it occurred to me that I like myself as a person, and that's all that matters; and I realized that most everything making me unhappy was easily fixable by ME. I came back clutter-free, and incredibly empowered.

I'm by no means a different person. I may even start to feel crushed by the same things again within a few weeks. But I am taking advantage of these first weeks back to upend my life, hoping I can actually pull off a reset. And I'm tickled that I find myself happy to be back in New York: home.

-brief intermission-

2009-10-06T01:38:00.003-04:00

Returning to New York reminded me that I need a place to live.

So I found one.

Am currently drowning in New Apartment errands/missions, so will wrap up the Eurotrip sessions once I settle down again later this week.

On the plus side, my new place is in an area that has infinitely more interesting shit I can write about, so there's that to look forward to.

Gastronomic Epiphany

2009-09-25T12:11:00.005-04:00

I realized today that for me, finding a favorite food is easy. If you can describe any food with the words "bready" AND "toasty," I will undoubtedly love it. Put sugar on it, and it's now my new favorite dessert.

This goes for all my favorite foods, including toast itself: french toast, waffles, fries, samosas, certain doughnuts my grandmother makes, croissants, and especially Portuguese repanadas. I'd even class some really crispy gyoza in there as well.

This is the reason I dont like tiramisu or flan or marzipan, and also the reason why I don't faint for chocolate as most girls do.

I discovered this while munching a Belgian waffle this afternoon, pondering what kind of french fries I was getting next.

In Brugges.

2009-09-25T11:56:00.003-04:00

I was tackyly (is that a word?) greeted with advertisements in the Brugges, Belgium train station that encouraged me to buy Colin Farrel's movie of the same title for €15.

I seem to have spent my last 24 hours in a similarly hazy understanding of my surroundings, though. I arrived in Brussels at 10pm as a result of extreme laziness in Munich, only to find that all hostels were apparently full. Since when is Brussels so popular?! After trudging around for an hour last night with my increasingly heavy pack and the shopping back holding a stein I stole from one of Munich's beer gardens, I finally got the last bed in the shittiest hostel. I found out why all the Brussels hostels were full when the entire population of mine returned at 4am and collapsed into the bunk beds around me.

With a shake of my fist at Brussels in general, I left the comfort of a tri-lingual city this morning to come Brugges, where I once again fumbled with public transport. Today I was less sucessful, and ended up riding the wrong bus in a circle for an hour before I got off and found the right one. Which, as it turned out, dropped me off at my destination about a quarter mile away. Blerg.

Currently enjoying a lovely medieval city, full of clueless looking young men who seem to have backpacked here on a personal quest to also be Colin Farrel.

Oktoberfest Highlights

2009-09-23T22:38:00.004-04:00

1) Seeing far too many bums.

2) Losing my dirndle apron on the first day.

3) Meeting Moby and Gerard Butler look-alikes.

4) Resisting persuasive arguments to decorate tent chandeliers with my underwear.

5) Meeting someone named Jukebox, and his rugby teammate Barack Obama.

6) Accidentally thinking a leiderhosen flap was someone's pocket.

7) An elbow to the nose resulting in a brief but ferocious nosebleed, followed by an Australian's chivalrous fight for my honor.

8) Being a casualty of a mobile-puke at 12:30pm on opening day.

9) Devouring half a chicken in under 5 min.

10) Hat theft/kleptomania.

Introduction to Bavaria

2009-09-23T21:18:00.010-04:00

Bavarians apparently wear dirndles and leiderhosen like they're everyday clothing. When my friend Melissa took me dirndle shopping on my second day in Munich, I was stunned to find that there were entire shops, vintage stores, and department store floors devoted to the Bavarian clothing trade. And, they are open year-round. Women get extra-nice dirndles for their birthdays and for Christmas. Men sport leiderhosen as their regular Sunday attire. And here I was, stupidly thinking that Oktoberfest was going to be just one big costume party.

Germans are also extremely pushy. Getting on and off metro trains can be somewhat of a sport, as you have to be aggressive in order to make your way on before the doors close. Melissa tells me that if you wait patiently in line in Germany, you'll never get to the front -- Germans will just step in front of you. During my week in Munich, I embraced this culture and gleefully shoved my way in front of people everywhere I went.

The oddity of the pushy German is that while they may be line-blind, they don't seem to appreciate it when Americans abandon their own queuing culture. I seem to have pissed off several middle aged women during my sojourn, for reasons unfathomable to me. In fact, I think German women love to be loudly grumbly about most other human beings. I even passed a woman going the opposite direction up an escalator who was grimacing and shaking her head at an invisible person several steps above her.

What presumably relieves this irrational grumpiness is the ubiquitous presence of the biergarten in Munich. Wherever one could concieve of, say, a coffeeshop, the Germans put a beer garden instead. A farmer's market, a large central park, a carnival -- it all works. They literally live on chicken, pork, and beer.

Another lesson I learned from my friend: German guys always call. While giving your number to someone in the states usually guarantees you about a 50% chance that they'll call, the same statistic for German men approaches something like 95%. Thus, I assume German girls must be more discerning about who they actually toss their digits to.

German women are usually giant. Being a petite 5'4," I found myself eclipsed in their shadows in most bars.

And listening to Germans speak does not scare me nearly as much as I had thought it would. While German is not my favorite language, I do enjoy their prolific usage of the funky letter ß and their propensity to lump sentences together into one impressively long word.

Birthday at the Wiesn

2009-09-20T21:43:00.003-04:00

True to my own tradition, I spent my birthday this year being unspeakably drunk and making terrible/awesome decisions. This year though, I got to do all that in company with the entirety of Europe (and Australia), which converged on Munich for this year's Oktoberfest.

People tell stories about Oktoberfest their entire lives, and I see why now. It's said to be Europe's biggest party. Imagine, if you will, tens of thousands of rowdy drunkards packed into 6-8 "tents" (which are really extra humongous portable buildings erected especially for that occasion), and given the entire day to drink beer, available in cup sizes up to 1 liter: a maß. I myself took down 3 shots of plum-flavored vodka (why I thought that was ok, I don't know) and 2 maß of some sort of light beer. So, from 10am until 10pm people just drink beer. Oh, and sometimes they take a break to board a ride the flings them into the sky and back for 6 euros. It's like a gigantic state fair, where you can both publicly pre-party on the train and where there are large benches dedicated to your ongoing drunkenness.

That's right, I said publicly pre-party. Because in Germany, you can drink beer on the trains. Or on the sidewalks. Or in the grocery store, for that matter. I did find, however, that the freedom to drink publicly doesn't exempt you from the judgemental stares of old women.

Needless to say, crazy shit goes down at Oktoberfest. It's sortof like a giant lovefest, where everyone is friends and there's always opportunity for romance -- however far-fetched. It makes for good, ADD-like stories. My friend/host Melissa is extremely good at moving through the crowds, stopping when a man interests her and moving on when they cease. Sometimes even abrubtly, and wthout warning her unfortunate conversation/(other) partners. And all this is done with a huge maß of beer in hand...

And as one of the most perfect birthday presents I've ever recieved, Melissa got me a dirndle! I was ever so appropriately dressed, in true Bavarian form, for opening day of Oktoberfest. As was the rest of Bavaria, and Bavarian wanna-bes.

The Joys of CouchSurfing!

2009-09-15T07:51:00.004-04:00

Showing up at a stranger's place, ringing their doorbell, and confidently shouting broken French/English/whatever through their intercom from the street below is never very easy. And it's a little awkward to set up shop and shower in this strangers' apartment before setting off on an ill-concieved night adventure in a strange town. And it's especially odd to waltz into that same apartment again 6 hours later, drunk and exhausted, and attempt to bond with this stranger whose extra bed or couch you're planning on sleeping in for the next 2 nights. Good thing he's up at 2am, able to help you unlock the ancient door, and drinking absinthe-smelling liquor.

Oh, the joys of Couchsurfing. I really think that my favorite cities have been those where I had the opportunity to couchsurf with someone, where I could talk to someone who [for once] wasn't an Australian or British backpacker, and who actually knew and loved the town I was visiting.

It's always awkward at first because you're thrown into intimate domicile-sharing (and in some cases, bed-sharing) circumstances without the benefit of having known the person...at all, really. You may not even really speak the same language. But in reality it changes your travelling experience into one approaching...i think 'surreal contentment' is how I would describe it. You aren't constantly reminded that you're a stranger in a new place because you have an apartment to go back to, friends to talk with, and favorite local spots to frequent. For a few nights, you can feel like you belong somewhere. And that is what makes travelling through couchsurfing light years better even than travelling through hostels and backpacker mansions. And the best part is, you can meet the best friends of your life this way too.

It may not stop being awkward in terms of shower usage, learning how to unlock the door, and whether or not you can take some of that delicious cheese you both bought yesterday with you when you leave...but even with those social hitches, couchsurfing will always give you an intensely memorable experience wherever you do it.

Any couchsurfers in Berlin want to take me?

Idiotic Français

2009-09-15T07:29:00.005-04:00

A guy told me in Portugal, with strong judgement in his eyes, that if I've taken 7 years of French I should know French. This beautiful Portuguese man apparently knew English, Spanish, French, and a little Italian without the benefit of any formal classes.

And my attempts to talk French with French people confirmed that no, I don't really speak French.

I did succeed in fooling a French guy for about 5 min on my first train through France...he asked me things and I gave soft-spoken one-word answers that sufficiently disguised my tourist-ness. What bothers me the most is that I can understand a lot of French. If people have any conversations in front of me, I will usually know most of what is going on. What's problematic is trying to respond in a way that doesn't sound like I'm a 3 yr old. Because while I can recognize vocabulary just fine in conversations, I can't pull it out of my head when someone is looking at me. And I'm especially lost when it comes to future/conditional/anything other than "I want this croissant now - please."

But I muddled along for the last 4 or 5 days, and I am getting better. Just in time to land in Germany, where I will be hopelessly lost re: language, and completely reliant on my friend Melissa for getting me around a country where it sounds like everyone is yelling at me.

A Whirlwind Tour of France

2009-09-15T07:05:00.005-04:00

I didn't really try to see all of Portugal, and I made no effort whatsoever to see much more than ONE beach in ONE city in Spain. But I happened to decide to pack 4 cities into 4 days while I rode the train through the south of France. Thus, my lack of blog activity.

First stop was Nice: capital of the French Riviera and longtime object of my fascination. As a sophomore in college I once reserved a ticket there for spring break, which I had resolved I was going to enjoy in wonderful français-filled solitude. I never got approval from the parentals, so the ticket reservation expired. But I finally made it, and it was just the experience I needed. I stayed in a posh hostel (apparently one of the top ten hostel famous destinations in Europe!), spent the day on the beach, and ate mussels. Oddly, I realized it was a town reminiscent of Florida...full of sexy young people looking for a good time, and the other half older retirees looking for warm weather.

Then I spent a few hours in Avignon, met some French soldiers on their weekend and muddled through 3 hours of broken French with one of them who was from Côte d'Ivoire. You've never felt dumber at French till you talk to someone with African accented French...I didn't understand a word.

My favorite city was Lyon. I couchsurfed with some amazing French hippies, tasted the best cheese of my life, and crisscrossed pont after pont over the Saône and Rhône Rivers.

And then on my way to Münich I got stuck in Strasbourg for a night. While I stayed in perhaps what is one of my least favorite hostels ever, I feel lucky I got stranded because this Alsacian town looks like the setting of Sleeping Beauty. Plus, I had the interesting experience of being here while the EU Parliament is in session. And it was a good segue into Germany because I could still talk and understand French in a very German-looking setting.

The Travelling Amateur Sartorialist

2009-09-10T17:27:00.004-04:00

Every nomadic traveller I've seen seems to have a collection of bracelets proudly worn at all times, in and out of the shower/beach/punch bowl. I've learned to look at it as sortof a collage of people's experiences. Everyone has a different combination of metals, leathers, plastics, and braids. They all symbolize experiences of some sort, even if it's just "I don't know what this is. I got it in Lisbon, at that one plaza. It was ONE EURO!"

I have a few of my own that I put on when I left home, and while I didn't think it was the most original idea in the world, I had no idea it was such a thing.

A City of Beautiful Shoes, and Experiences Thereafter

2009-09-10T17:14:00.005-04:00

Barcelonians know shoes. Even the frumpiest of girls could dazzle me with their sandal wardrobe. And that's my main impression of Barcelona.

I spent today on a train to Nice, France...a last minute decision I made while drunk last night in my hostel. I slept through most of the beautiful French Riviera countryside, tired and sortof still reeling from the night at pour-your-own-booze-for-3-Euro bar.

I've realized that as far as sightseeing and city-wandering goes, I love a day on my own. It's so much easier to experience the city when you're not embroiled in English conversations on a constant basis: "Ooooh, look at those Spanish women! What are they doing?!" "Churros! OMG I LOVE CHURROS!" "Where are we going guys. What are we doing today? It's already 2pm." Instead, I just say all that stuff to myself, and I can do that at the same time as I walk.

But the one thing I do hate is eating on my own. I was ecstatic to finally meet up with friends in Barcelona, for the simple reason that I could cook with them and finish multiple bottles of wine. I ate so much more in Barcelona than in Portugal. Also, I suppose going out to bars is much easier when you have people to go with...assuming for some inexplicable reason you didn't end up talking to someone, anyone, at the hostel.

All in all, I think travelling with a low maintenance friend would be the best plan: where silence is ok, and splitting up is ok, but they're always your partner when you need someone to cut the onions or stare at over a plate of sardines.

Jimmy Paula Sarah Barcelona

2009-09-08T17:51:00.003-04:00

Barcelona is everything the movies tell us it is. It´s sortof like visiting New York after seeing it in the movies, and actually accomplishing everything the movies tell you happens to everyday people in New York. Or, perhaps a better metaphor is Malibu. Use your imagination.

Because within the first 24 hours of arriving in Barcelona, I´ve done most of the things you´re supposed to do when you´re 23 years old and staying in a hostel with friends in Spain´s coastal party city. I´m really quite a cliché.

The only thing I haven´t yet done is see Gaudí´s buildings. Which should be tomorrow...with some sangria as my fuel.

Obrigada, Being My Only Vocabulary

2009-09-05T20:29:00.005-04:00

An uncanny thing Ive noticed is that it seems my grandfather was able to exactly recreate his homeland in his Petaluma, CA backyard. Im here and all I see are stucco houses with red tile roofs, and land that is vaguely overgrown but still sprouting produce. My grandmother added to the interior image with rooster figurines and blue and white china pieces, and ta-da: Portugal. Porto looks like about a million of my grandfathers houses, all piled on top of each other across a hill, with a few medieval churches sprinkled throughout. Its one of the most beautiful things Ive ever seen.

Everyone Ive ever known who is at least partly Portuguese has nominal representation. Fonseca, Sousa, Silva, all are common names thrown up over ever shop sign and on every street.

Yesterdays observation was that I seem to be throwing away money simply because its in coins. Im so used to thinking of coins as being worth less than a dollar. The other day I gave a panhandler a coin, thinking it was change. It was only afterwards that I realized a 2E coin is the equivalent of $3. Oops.

Ive been eating nothing but pastries and pears, because those purchases require the least interaction with shop owners. I cant speak Portuguese, and Im embarassed about it. But Im ok with these consequences, because these are the best pastries Ive ever had.

And last but not least, Ive confirmed that I greatly dislike port wine.

Today I made it alive out of Porto and down to Lisbon on a sexy Intercidades train (3hrs). Currently using the computer of someone Im couchsurfing with, and leaving for Barcelona tomorrow on a 14 hour train adventure.

Por Favor, Dont Go Into Strange House Parties

2009-09-05T19:54:00.006-04:00

I landed in Porto with a combined total of 10 hours of sleep over 3 days. It was also my equivalent of 9am when I landed, local time being 1pm. My thinking skills were understandably fuzzy, and Id looked better.

This being the case, I decided to spend my first day in a leisurely and somewhat undirected stroll in search of my friends hostel, which was on the other side of town. After a 2 hour walk along the Duoro river (with a brief doze on an especially inviting bench), I finally found my friends hostel and wandered in with the vague idea that perhaps hed be just hanging out outside, waiting for me. I hadnt heard from him, so I thought hed been busy having a good time in Porto.

When I asked the receptionist about him, thinking that perhaps I could leave him a message, I was surprised by a suddenly long face. The receptionist double checked his name with me, and then told me that as of the day before my friend had been in the hospital...and that it was "very bad."

Welcome to Portugal, where your friends get stabbed in the neck. When does this ever happen? Nonresponse to emails actually being the result of a serious catastrophe?

The event made my adrenaline rush enough to brave a city bus on the first day, which took me to a huge and imposing castle-like hospital. There I wrestled with Portuguese receptionists, who finally let me into the cuidados intensivos for "just one minute" after visiting hours. My friend told me his story, and I tried not to cry with the shock of it all. He had apparently wandered into a house party to make sure that a girl he saw from the street was ok, and gotten in the middle of a fight. Thankfully, the doctors had patched him up enough that he was out of danger by the time I got there.

The rest of my first day in Portugal was spent scuttling back to my hostel so I wouldnt be out after dark...my new impression being that the Portuguese were out to get me. Then I slept for 14 hours, to catch up on my week of sleeplessness.

I spent more time at the hospital the next day, checking on my friend and generally annoying the hospital staff with my ignorance of their language.

Im told that what happened to my friend is a very rare thing in Porto. People at my hostel were shocked that such a thing had happened, so I tried not to let it scare me from going out the next day. And on the upside, it was an interesting introduction to the city. An hour in a Portuguese hospital waiting room is very culturally informative.

Welcome, Bienvenue, Wikkomen...and Bemvinda.

2009-09-05T19:24:00.007-04:00

Moving out was hard. Luckily, I live around the corner from a very affordable storage company, and a few trips with the Tuck-it-Away trolley sufficed to haul my boxes into their second floor 5x5 cubby. I had a couple of friends I convinced to help me move my mattress, as well, and voila. Sarah no longer lives on 135th and Broadway in New York City. Im officially homeless!

A few hours later, I arrived at Newark Airport and boarded my flight to Portugal. Well, more accurately, my flight was to Brussels. So around 8am the next day I had the treat of a couple hours in the Brussels airport, people watching and marvelling at the Belgian inability to decide on a single language. The entire airport was forced to translate every communication in 2 other languages. I got every announcement and posting in French, German, and English. Youd think after a while, the tiresomeness of it all would convince someone important to just make a decision, already.

When me and a planeful of German futball players landed in Porto a few hours later, I stepped off the plane to find that the Portuguese are charmingly dismissive of the need for jetway bridges. Thus, disembarking the plane became a dramatic entrance into the foreign sunlight, where I regally descended the stairs to the tarmac and greeted the country that my grandparents came from.

I like observing the people who work at airports, because they will give you an accurate prediction of what the world outside the international airport bubble looks like. For instance, in Brussels everyone at the airport looked like theyd just graduated from a prestigious university that they paid for by modelling on the side. Thus, I assumed that Belgians are all young and sexy. The first guy I saw in Porto was small and dark haired, with olive skin. The rest of the country seems to look somewhere along those lines.

I made it through the airport and through the metro system and to my hostel with surprising ease, getting a free lesson in pronounciation along the way: the metro system announces each stop, and after being constantly surprised at the incoherence of the station name that I was reading, I knew that Portuguese was going to be a problem. I enjoy the language more than any other though -- its cadence has the soothing quality of a dryer humming in the background.

And from there, my life went briefly batshit crazy.

So Long Folks

2009-09-01T13:22:00.003-04:00

I'm off. Leaving in a few hours. Have much to say on the subject of Manhattan storage, men who are kind enough to help you move, and the impracticality of hand made wooden beds.

Also I'm such a lazy cleaner.

But I'm taking off now for better shores, and will be updating as much as I have time for. I will be alone for parts of it, so I assume I won't know how else to keep myself company.

Did I mention that when you're moving you have no more food? First stop, Subway Sandwiches.

Next stop: Newark Liberty Airport.

The Amateur Sartorialist

2009-08-31T18:45:00.008-04:00

Today was a day that felt like Fall in New York -- breezy, crisp, and faintly sunny. As a result, it seems like everyone broke out their dashing fall-weather layers at once. I was able to surreptitiously take not one, but TWO pictures of men who's tailoring I found particularly fascinating. I'd suggest clicking on these photos to get the full, close-up effect of their attention to detail.

This guy was standing, along with two hundred other unfortunate souls (and me) outside of the Time Warner sales outpost on E 23rd St. We were all trying to return our leased cable boxes and internet routers en mass, on the last day of the month. The above gentleman came dressed to impress, even going the extra mile with a slick and stylish murse to tote his dusty cable box. And just look at that pose. Vogue photographers couldn't have inspired a better one.

This guy brought the fashion HARD today...I wish I'd caught a picture of his front. This gentleman seemed like he'd stocked up at some sort of Lincoln Center Cocaine Costco the day before, but was wearing his fucked-up-ness with style. I'm impressed with his presence of mind: he had a very classy pair of linen shorts, a trim collared button-up, and an exquisite coat. All he forgot was his shoes.

Close to Fame - It Finally Happened

2009-08-24T23:58:00.005-04:00

I've been waiting to see someone like Mariska Hargitay or Sarah Jessica Parker in a random street-viewing for a long time now...the closest I've gotten is seeing a locked set truck with the words "Law & Order" printed on its back, abandoned at around midnight. You can bet I went up there to investigate...see if any of the cast members decided to take a nap in the back or something...

But I've finally touched fame. Yesterday a woman came into the coffee shop who I suspected, but wasn't entirely certain, was in USA Network's Royal Pains. I probably freaked her out a bit by staring at her as I served her her iced coffee. I was trying to convince myself that she was indeed moving and talking just like one of the main characters I'd just watched in last week's episode of Royal Pains. I took note of what she was wearing, the tattoo on her back shoulder, and what her boyfriend-type-thing looked like, so I could do some deep Googling when I got home.

And tonight I confirmed that I totally exchanged words with Jill Flint, from Royal Pains! Only I feel sortof like a TV geek now for recognizing someone from a newbie show. (Also from Gossip Girl, I hear, for all you GG fans out there.)

A Haiku Guide to Hipster Travels

2009-08-24T22:35:00.005-04:00

When I'm feeling especially poetic, I will read this blog for tips on my upcoming Europe adventure.

Bennet can read.

A dude I worked with over the summer, who's now studying more glamorously in Paris for the semester. Who knew college could get more glam than New York City.

Coney Island: Everything They Said It Wasn't.

2009-08-24T21:42:00.004-04:00

Coney Island is disgusting, for the record.

It's also not an island, but a peninsula-type land protrusion at the SE end of Brooklyn.

Picture your state fair...or for my homepeeps, the Placerville County Fair. Then add 85% humidity, a Nathan's Famous, and a greater selection of Freak Shows. Mix it all together with some Russians and a Corona, and you've got Coney Island on a weekday afternoon in August.

Corona-peddling beach entrepreneurs did make our grimy afternoon a little bit sunnier, though.

Abandoning Ship

2009-08-24T20:18:00.007-04:00

I'm definitely not coming back to this apartment. As the summer drags on, it seems to be getting more and more cosy for various creepy-crawly/Jurassic things -- no matter how much I clean. I check the floors on my way to the bathroom when I wake up in the morning, and hope they don't decide to feed on my while I sleep.

Not even my bed is safe. I witnessed a large cockroach unabashedly explore the outer domains of my mattress last night, in absolute, paralyzed horror.

I thought it was best not to put readers off my blog with nauseous cockroach images. This picture is of my other, much cuter, pest problem.

I'm attributing this problem to three causes:

My summer roommate previously enjoyed, among other things, making confetti out of food and regularly celebrating New Years all over the apartment.
I live on the ground floor of my apartment building, and have consequently become a sort of base camp for every insect and rodent whose fond aspiration is to Make It To the Top of 510.
It's hot and humid, so they're breeding. But it also rains every other day, so they must flee inside or else...they will melt?

For the next week I'm resigning myself to the inevitability of co-existence, knowing that my only hope is to jump ship as they take it over behind me. I will leave the infestation problem to my landlord. So long, Harlem. No longer must I tolerate your infernal all-night block parties, your loitering men who accost me daily, or your inclination to hosting insects still living from the Stone Age.

RESET > Life.

2009-08-24T19:45:00.007-04:00

In exactly a week I will be conveniently adrift. My job(s) won't expect me back for a month. I won't have an apartment. I won't probably even have a working cell phone. The only thing tying me to this earth will be a storage unit somewhere in Manhattan that will contain a luxurious mattress and some of my less favorite clothing items.

Me, my passport, and my nifty new Birkenstocks will be fleeing reality and setting sail for the European continent. I don't really even have concrete dates for my travels, once I land on Portuguese territory. I think I like it that way, too. I have a train pass good for 5 countries, and I guess I'll just hop on trains when I feel like it. All I know is, I have to be in Dublin on October 1st -- if I want to come back.

I've lined up several people I'd like to meet up with whilst adrift, but thus far avoided commitment. You know, just in case my solitary mood kicks in. My list amuses me, though:

First meeting will be with a college dorm-mate I haven't seen in 2 years. A man of few words, but great European-ness.
Second, my surly Grandpa Fonseca is going to drive me around Portugal. It conveniently turns out that he happens to be visiting his home country the same week I am, and I'm delivering myself into the possibility of awkward familial silences for the sake of future story-telling.
Third: fun-loving New York friends I made last year are going to Barcelona, so I guess I am too.
Fourth will be one of my darling college roommates, who is hosting me for Oktoberfest in Munich.
Fifth: a coworker I had at the coffeeshop in NYC happens to be studying abroad in Paris this semester. Don't mind if I do...
Sixth will be a group of gentlemen from the Nederlands I met while they were visiting New York this summer. I will have to deliver news that the potted plan they gifted me is now dead.
And last, an excellent Irishman I worked with this summer will be hosting me at his new pad in Dublin. With any luck, I might meet up with the high school friend I have pictured above, currently (obviously) enjoying his own yearlong jaunt in Europe.

With any luck, this adventure will be everything I want and need it to be. I'm getting more cynical and impatient the more time I spend in New York, and I think a month left to my own devices will be refreshing, and perhaps enlightening. Better yet if I can come back and start life over.

RESET > Life.

I Haven't Forgotten You, Blog.

2009-08-24T01:41:00.003-04:00

Every day I say to myself, "I'm going home and writing another blog post." I even have different things that I want to write about every day.

But I'm just so damn tired. I'm stealing 5 minutes from my allotted sleep time (btw, that's 2 hours tonight) to post something to prove that I'm still thinking about this Blog every day. I haven't forgotten you, Blog.

Soon, Upcoming, Imminent:

Craigslisting in NYC, and why the internet is so much better here
How to pack for Europe when you've never packed a gigantic backpack before
How to clean an apartment, including a bonus rant at people who use bleach as a substitute for actually cleaning things
Why I sometimes hate my gender, their purses, and their conception of physical fitness. Optional definition of "hero"
Probably some depressing personal ruminations on relationships - who am I kidding, that's basically all I think about these days anyways.

Why It's Probably Sunnier in Philadelphia

2009-08-14T00:57:00.004-04:00

1) It's terminally rainy in New York City. Seriously. It's rained for 7 out of 13 days in August, I think.

2) One of my favorite TV show that insists that it's sunny "always" in Philadelphia.

3) Rocky made his movies in Philly.

4) Up to 3 friends of mine have lived/visited Philadelphia and come back with rave reviews.

5) I love Benjamin Franklin.

Favorite quote of any TV show: "You know what happens with Tokyo drifting...it leads to bickering. Which of course, leads to karate." -- It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Season 3 E8

Technical Obstacles

2009-08-07T19:25:00.002-04:00

Dog Days of Summer: Defined

2009-08-01T21:09:00.005-04:00

Summertime in New York City sounds romantic, but it's really not. I think "summer in the city" is hyped so much for the simple reason that people are so ecstatic that it's not wintertime anymore. This week I learned the definition of "dog day". It includes the word "sultry" as a description, which I found amusing and weirdly fitting.

New York City's weather is undeniably shitty most of the year. If it's not snowing and 10 degrees out, it's 90 degrees and 80 percent humidity. Those are the two extremes, and there's only maybe 4-6 weeks out of the year when the weather subsides into relative neutrality. I'm now one week shy of a year-long habitation, and I've theoretically experienced every side of the weather's personality by now.

On these, the dog days of summer (from mid-July through mid-August), New York City is simultaneously charming and horrific. The city is full of happy people who've totally forgotten the misery of wintertime, frolicking in shorts, tanks, and in some cases simply a bikini top. There are free events everywhere, and everyone takes full advantage of the sun in a way that only non-Californians who starve for good weather can. But at the same time, the air is so oppressive and heavy sometimes that you can't walk from your subway stop to the park without losing hope in your life's continuation. On some days I emerge from the shower fresh and clean, and by the time I've managed to get dressed I'm all sticky again. "Swampass" is a good descriptive term for the New York summertime. You can tell how bad a day it will be by how rank your subway car smells on your way to work.

And the most shitty thing about New York's summertime is that it seems to rain more in the summer than it does in the fall. It rained 6 out of 7 days last week, and the same is forecast for next week. How unfair is that?

The kids on my block spend all day around this broken fire hydrant.

Re: Addictions

2009-07-27T20:58:00.017-04:00

Concerning similarities between relationships and meth addictions:

1) When you're in Them, you're always jonesing for the next fix. But it's never quite as good as when you first picked up the habit...

2) For months after you quit a Relationship, you can't help thinking about how much more fun everything was when you were still doing It.

3) After quitting, the only way to stay sober and in control is to eliminate all temptations. Flush your stash and/or internet bookmarks. Don't hang out with people that still use Relationships.

4) When you feel weak, it's encouraged for you to call a friend/support group to remind you what a twisted sicko you were when you were in the Relationship. Have them walk you through the 12 Steps of Why You Did the Right Thing.

5) If you fear a relapse, it's important to remember: even though you think it will be everything you've been craving, all you'll ultimately experience afterwards is a colossal sense of shame.

6) Picking up a different habit is useful. As a replacement for the Relationship, try loving something else: a plant, or a cat. Anything that doesn't talk, but loves you unconditionally.

7) Though a controversial solution, depressive substances take the edge off a speed high. TV, movies, and beer can help.

Look up "drug needle" on google images sometime. It's scary how many excellent photographs there are.

The NYPD Frathouse

2009-07-23T19:26:00.006-04:00

Yesterday I had my fourth (4th) direct encounter with the NYPD. I think I'll submit my final, studied conclusion that: they suck. I'm not a fan.

The first time I met an NYPD officer, he stopped me at the Columbus Circle subway station and attempted to ticket me ($100!) for bypassing the subway turnstile. When I didn't have a New York ID on me, I think he became overwhelmed by the prospect of extra paperwork and just decided to let me go with a warning. Throughout the entire discussion, he made little to no eye contact with me, and his tone was impatient and dismissive. At the time, I took it as my due; I'd broken the law, after all. At the time, I'd been in NYC for 6 months, and he rightly pointed out that I should know better.

The second time I was lucky enough to hang out with some of New York's finest was when my phone was stolen from me. Out of my hand. As I was talking to someone. Though this time the boys in blue were extremely understanding and attentive to me and responded within minutes, they took out all their evil in racistly-tinged comments about the neighborhood as they drove me around to look for suspicious "jokesters."

The third time was a distant but equally distasteful experience: I placed a couple phone calls to an NYPD precinct of some sort to inquire after a lost wallet (as several websites directed me to do), and the officer at that particular phone all but hung up on me after I told him my purpose. Thanks, pal.

And this, the most recent encounter, was the most offensive. I once again had left my wallet somewhere, and was lucky enough that someone dropped it off at a police station for me within minutes. When I showed up to claim in later that night, I got 1) a lecture for not having a NY ID, 2) a gaggle of men sitting around staring at me disapprovingly despite my contriteness and profuse thanks, and 3) the impression that these men loved being In The Right, turning to each other to reinforce that Rightness, and having 6-against-1 conversations where they prove to you by sheer numbers and stubbornness that you matter not-at-all to the likes of them.

It's like they were all in a fraternity...only this frat has power over the entire city's population, and the right to use guns. It was obvious that they took pleasure in sharing this knowledge of power amongst themselves, from the fact that they had a shallow, bro-like discussion in front of me about why it's necessary to have a NY ID, and daring me to do something illegal without one on my person.

COP: You visiting here?
ME: No, I've lived here for about a year now.
COP: [As he stares at my California ID] You gotta have a NY ID.
ME: [Concerned] Oh, really? That's the law?
COP: Yeah, if you're driving you gotta have a NY ID.
ME: Oh! Well I don't drive, so I'm good.
COP: ...If we caught you jumping that turnstile without a NY ID, we'd probably just [vague threat I couldn't make out] right there.
ME: OK, well I guess I better be good then! [Flash a smile, hopes for a lighter, less threatening mood]
COP: [No smile. Turns to buddies to confirm that yes, we'd all be very upset if she doesn't get a NY ID. Buddies flash stern looks in my direction as they hypothesize what other bad things could happen]
ME: ...OK thanks so much guys, I really appreciate your help!