Christmas Card-Worthy

The snow in Wisconsin is nearly Christmas card-worthy. Notice I said nearly. What with the rain and the sun, it has melted into a slightly sub-par dollar store card version. It's still ten times prettier than the snow in New York City.
I have finally returned to the city, after a 14 hour journey back here. It was remarkably uneventful. We got home at 3 am and fell asleep so fast I woke up later to find all the blankets still on the floor from when we left six days ago.
I got such excellent presents this year and I hope the ones I gave were as good. Particularly wonderful--a blue suede blazer from my mom, a cooking class from Joe and all the CDs I got from various people. I ate until I was sick (I can still feel the sugar hardening my veins) and visited with my ever-slowing, slightly demented (not because they're old, they've always been that way) grandparents. Joe and I stayed in the little cabin a few nights. The first night we built a fire. It was wonderful--once we finally got it started. It took a half hour, a stack of newpaper and one small burn on my wrist before it would burn on it's own. Then we dragged the loveseat over in front of the fireplace and wrapped up in a blanket to watch.
And for the first time, Joe got to participate in the greatest Christmas tradition of all: playing Royale Rummy. Yes, my family gambles, but only on Christmas Eve. We deal dummy hands, stack pennies, yell at each other when we're too slow, and cackle over our loved ones loss of cash. I made 20 cents this year. Sweet.

Toys R Us Terror

Two days ago Joe tried to go to Toys R Us and the line was an hour long just to get INTO THE STORE. Can you imagine the pushing, the chaos, the pain that must have been going on inside? No thank you. We'll order our My Little Ponies online from now on.
So I have successfully finished moving into Joe's Apartment. This was by far the easiest move I have ever had, for many reasones. One, I didn't have to take any of my furniture with me. Two, I've been selling off furniture I have now (most of which I got for free in the first place) so the extra cash has put me in a good mood. And Three, Spike wanted to buy my futon from me, but I told him he could have it for free if he brought his minivan and helped me move. Sweet. It was a piece of junk anyways. So Saturday night, the only night Spike could be there, I ran home, threw everything into boxes in 4 hours (not to mention selling my desk, DVD player, taking the kitchen cart, etc.) and we moved all my stuff in one load. Traffic was killer and it took us over an hour each way, but hey, I wasn't paying for gas.
Joe and I (or should I say "I, while hassling Joe to help me") have managed to clear a huge amount of space in his apartment just by moving stuff around. Clean, condense, organize, I keep telling him. I have an entire closet upstairs to myself now.
The one great thing we acquired from my old apartment is the kitchen cart. Basically a cutting board on wheels. It fits under the stairs perfectly, then we can pull it out to have more space to make dinner.
Unfortunately, it looks like there's a chance that I mouse has been roaming Joe's kitchen. Shhh. Don't mention it. I just keep reminding him that I'm a bloodthirsty mousekiller and it can't hide for long. We're going to have to keep our kitchen psychotically, institutionally clean, though.
Soon I will "girly" the place up. I have curtains to hang over the barred window and a sheet to cover his super-nasty futon couch. I'm going to get a makeup mirror to do my makeup in the living room. Nice framed pictures will be hung next to the dusty SpongeBob (Don't worry, I won't take him down...) Bras and nylons will be hung out to dry in the bathroom. If I wore nylons. Or bras. The rug will be dragged outside and beaten. And I will, yes I WILL put up Christmas lights.

Saddam Hussein

How is a trial for Saddam Hussein even possible? I've been told they're modeling it after war crime trials from World War II. They pick certain events--jailing then torturing an entire village for instance--and try him for that. Then move onto the next heinous act. I just read that it is possible he will get the death sentance by hanging, which seems obvious. However someone suggested to me yesterday that they will never hang him. It would make him a martyr. Better to let him rot in jail for the rest of his life, suffering, becoming pathetically cowed and dying alone. Honestly, which is worse? But that would keep him around as a cause too--can't you see a suicide bomber screaming "Free Sadam"?
Just today he screamed at the judge to "go to hell" and that he would not return to "an unjust court." He also claims he's been denied access to "exercise facilities." Who does he think he is? An all-powerful tyrant? I was denied exercise facilities once too. They said, "This isn't your gym. Now put on some pants and get out." You don't see me complaining do you?
So again I ask: How to you hold a trial for evil? I can't even stand to watch.

Two steps forward...

Somehow my new job is just as boring as my old job. Although the work has the potential to be more interesting, there is less of it. Which means I still find myself checking my email every 5 minutes and checking my work schedule to see if anything fun, like a radio tour, has been scheduled. I spend a lot of my time making and drinking tea and transferring all their old beta tapes to DVD, which feels like treading water. Also, although I see my roommates more (Woot.) somehow I don't seem to see Joe any more than before.
Though we did have a nice Thanksgiving. Out to Delaware to his sister's house, watching his brother-in-law deep fry a turkey, and seeing his neices dance in the Nutcracker (so cute!). Deep frying a turkey is a good time. You basically stick it on a hook, haul it out to the garage and immerse it in hot peanut oil cooking on an oversized burner. The garage smelled awesome all weekend.
I miss being near my family. I love New York, and I know I'll probably want to live in or near big cities my whole life, but I hate only seeing my family twice a year (sometimes less). It's even a hassle for Joe to get to his family. It was 5+ hours to his sister's and nearly 2 hours to get to his mom's...at least when she's not in Florida. Man, I can't wait for the day that Particle Transporter machines are acually invented. Just push a button and "Beam me up, Mom!"
Someone should really get on that.

Associate Producer

Here is what happens at my new job: one of our clients needs a copy of a video package my company did for them. They tell me, I make a dub and fedex it over. Or it's time to send out a copy of the project to every news station in the Phoenix, AZ area. I make ten dubs and send out ten fedexes.
That's been the main part so far. Today I learned how to put these video packages on our satellite feed: I record a copy into our satellite program, attach a copy of the PSA, and upload it into the satellite. From there any reporter at CNN or ABC can download it to do a story.
Why do I hate this job less than my last? Because there are full-time producers here, people I can someday be. I don't know how long it will take, but someday I can go out on shoots with them and assist in the satellite media tours (SMT).
Plus, I get paid more.

Busy all the time now

I feel like I just went from 0 to 60 in a day. I was working 2 days (barely) a week, writing, drinking coffee, watching TV and applying for jobs. That's it. Oh, and waiting around for Joe to get home. Now I'm working 56 hours a week and I don't have time to shower. Still, money is a wonderful thing.
My mom is coming in two weeks. We're going to the Chocolate Show, as I described before, to the Rockette Christmas Show, to Mario Battali's restaurant Babbo (where we got to meet Mario last time), and probably to see the Frick Collection. Oh the wonders of New York!
Last Monday, in fact, I got to see a free "play" all about coffee. We went in thinking it was a lecture, and it started out that way. Then a women kept interrupting the speaker and all kinds of things started to happen. People brought out TVs and then suddenly 5 different cups of coffee were set in front of each person. We learned all about the history of coffee and what makes it taste the way it does. We tried at least ten coffee samples by the end of the night, not to mention the perfect 28 second cup of espresso. Check out Joe's account of it too.
I really must say that New York has been good to me because to top it all off, last weekend I got a free ticket, front row to the World Sumo Wrestling Challenge!!!ARGH!!! How cool am I? Not as cool as they are.

Rain

It has been raining here for four solid days now. I love the rain. It makes it hard to wake up in the morning, but then it's so comforting to sit in the window and watch it while you drink your coffee. I can see my breath outside and I love bundling up in sweaters upon sweaters upon hoodies.
I have a strangely distinct memory from when I was very little about sitting in the rain. I could have been as young as 4 or as old as 8, though I suspect closer to the 4 end of the spectrum. I was outside in our backyard one summer when it began to sprinkle out. I ducked into the rows of corn in my mom's garden as it started to rain harder. I squatted in the dirt, now turning to mud, and saw a chicken pecking around under the cornstalks as well. We were so well protected in there that I felt safe and content to stay there all afternoon.
I suspect this memory is so distinct for two reasons: one, I realized you didn't need to be in a house to be protected. Something as flimsy as a cornstalk could suffice. Two, I had made a conscious decision not to go in the house. To not go inside during rain was unthinkable to most people, but suprisingly, I did not melt.
I remember being at the beach when it started to rain and when all the other kids ran out of the water and under the picnic shelter my mom said, "What, are you afraid of getting wet?" Only if it began to thunder and lighning in earnest would she call us out. So we had the water to ourselves.
I remember living in the little brown house, across the road from the big farm house with the garden, and waking my brother up in the middle of the night when there was a thunderstorm. We dragged blankets and pillows to the large front windows and settled there to watch the lightning until we fell asleep. In the morning my dad told us it wasn't a good idea to sit in front of windows during a storm, but it wasn't a real warning and we continued to do this until we were teenagers.
When I was 14 I went to Madison for a week for 4-H Art Team and one of the first days we were there, it rained all day while we had to troop up and down State Street. At the end of State Street is a fountain in Library Mall. The leader of our group reached in a hand as we walked by and splashed everyone. We were already soaked, so we all started splashing each other and of course, were soon IN the fountain which is terrifically illegal. The chaos ended when my friend Julia (whose friendship I still miss terribly) sat right on top of the jetting streams of water coming out the top of the fountain. Singing, "I'm Only Happy When It Rains," no less.
And I remember last Valentine's Day in Tarrytown, NY, standing with Joe in a beautiful misting rain in front of the church with the stained glass windows designed by Chagall. As we walked toward the restaurant where we were having dinner, which was supposedly just down the street, the rain became torrential. The sidewalk disappeared and soon we were walking on the muddy side of a highway. Sheep watched from behind a stone fence. I had a velvet skirt on that was getting heavier and heavier with every step and Joe was soaked from top to bottom. But when we started yelling at the sheep about how we were going to eat them soon, we just started laughing and didn't stop until we got to the roaring fireplace in the front room of Stone Barn. There's nothing like a fire and alcohol to warm you up.
So I have good feelings whenever it rains.

One year and counting

This past weekend was my and Joe's one year anniversary. One year ago I came home one night with just enough tequila in me to feel brave enough to finally kiss that boy. We've been inseperable ever since.
Joe decided to plan a weekend of suprises for me. A long time ago we had talked about going to The Lion King, but tickets were just too expensive and too hard to get. Joe said he'd get tickets to something else, but wouldn't tell me what.
I knew he'd spent the week preparing to cook me dinner, and Friday night he presented me with a typed menu for the evening: Autumn Vegetables with Pumpkin Ricotta, Chicken Laarb, Planked Salmon, Pumpkin Orzo, a German Chocolate Brownie and more. I gave him two of his presents immediately--an apron and oven mitts. For months he's been using a towel as a potholder and I cringe every time he sticks it in the oven. I have started more than one towel on fire that way. The other problem is that Joe's tiny, ancient stove tends to send out clouds of smoke whenever he tries to cook anything. I spent the first half of the evening upstairs fanning the smoke alarm so the sprinklers wouldn't go off. About halfway through the meal, Joe put a cedar board, the "planked" part of the salmon, into the oven to heat. The apartment filled with the most delicious smell, like we were in a cabin in the woods, about to cook over an open fire. When Joe put the salmon on it, smoke began billowing again, even leaking out the top burners. I finally put the fan in front of the alarm to stop it from going off.
That's when the doorbell rang softly.
"I don't even think that was mine," Joe said, but I disagreed. I tiptoed to the door and peered out the peekhole. A man was there. He knocked hesistantly.
Finally Joe opened the door. It was his neighbor from across the hall.
"Is everything OK?" he asked, and that's when we noticed the hallway was full of cedar-scented smoke.
"I'm just cooking!" Joe said quickly, and explained about the planked salmon. They must have thought we were having a bonfire in there.
But the meal was delicious and our anniversary bonanza was off to a great start.
Day Two: Saturday morning I made coffee and my signature egg sandwiches and then we left for a hike in Inwood Hill Park. It's in the farthest northwest corner of Manhattan and, unlike Central Park, is completely natural. There are salt marshes and giant, ancient trees. Part of the park was fenced off to preserve "an endangered species" and we could see a black squirrel running up and down a tree inside. There are indian caves and evidence of glaciers, not to mention intensely steep trails. After a light picnic lunch, we were off to prepare for our fancy-shmancy dinner.
Daniel is considered one of the fanciest places in New York. Per Se is innovative and expensive and highly respected, but Daniel is where big-shot lawyers bring big-shot clients and is an institution that has been around for years. To name just a few things I had: eggplant cavier, rabbit porchetta with foie gras, black sea bass wrapped in potato and a dessert that I simply called chocolate explosion. It was a wonderful experience.
By then we had such warm fuzzy feelings towards the world that we couldn't stand to go home, so we decided to drop by Per Se for a drink. After all, Joe was wearing a tie, so we had to take advantage. It felt so cosmopolitan, so Sex in the City. There was a view of Central Park and the Columbus Circle fountain from our couch in the bar and afterwards we sat on a bench by the fountain and kissed, with Joe's jacket around my shoulders like we were in an old movie. It was the perfect day.
Day Three: Who though things could keep getting better? We got up early enough to watch CBS Sunday Morning and then hurried off to the Medieval Festival going on at Fort Tryon Park. That's right. It was a last minute addition to our intinerary, so we only had an hour to spare, but we made it count. With the Cloisters as a backdrop, and the sun getting hot, the festival was already in full swing when we arrived. There were wandering bards and fencing demonstrations, an axe tent (duh, where else would you go to buy a medieval axe?), a food stand selling blackened turkey legs and ale, a procession of a lord and lady and their full entourage, pewter dragons, and of course hundreds of renaissance dorks in full-on period costumes (no doubt sweating ye olde royale arses off). I loved it.
Then we hurried down to the Union Square Cafe to have delicous food that we ate entirely too much of, before jetting over to Jacque Torres Chocolate Factory for dessert. Great chocolate, especially the champagne flavored ones, but I was disappointed at their lack of a chocolate river. And they call themselves a chocolate factory...
In between all this, we stopped at the Moma Store. Joe had bought me a necklace, a very cool DNA chain necklace, but it was too short. We managed to exchange it for the same thing but a bit longer, and I had my present!
This whole time I bugged Joe to tell me what show we were going to. I was guessing Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, since he knew I really wanted to see that too. I guessed Chicago, because Brooke Shields is in it this year, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Beauty and the Beast, but he would NOT TELL ME! Until at last we got off the subway at Times Square and he said, "Oh. Since The Lion King theater is right here, let's just go to that."
The Liar.
Not only did he have tickets to see The Lion King, but we had good seats. See it turns out Joe knows the uncle of the little girl who plays Nala. They got us seats in the 14th row. On top of that, if Joe could manage to get ahold of the girl's mom after the show, there was a chance we could get a backstage tour.
The show was amazing. The opening song made me cry. It's neat enough in the movie, but to hear it live is awe-inspiring. A cheetah, antelopes, giraffes (on stilts), elephants, birds and lions crowded the stage. The woman who plays Rafiki (the blue-butted monkey) takes you by suprise. Her voice is incredible and she's very funny. At one point Alex, the little girl who plays Nala, got to ride around on a ten-foot tall ostrich. The closing scene of the first act, just after Mufasa dies, made me cry again. It features an intensely sad African dance and a sad song by Nala and Simba's mother.
When the show was over, Joe headed to a corner to call Alex's mom. It was just about then that I discovered my wallet was missing. Joe dug through his bag to find it and I crawled up and down the theater aisles. No luck. I was starting to panic. I couldn't have left it at the restaurant, because I had it when we got on the subway to get here. The bathroom? I left Joe to call while I ran upstairs to find it. The man running the elevator told me no one was allowed back up.
"But I lost my wallet and it might be up there and..." my voice had that edge that meant I was going to cry in a minute.
"You have to talk to...ah, get in," he said.
It wasn't in the bathroom. I had to pee, but there was no time. I found an usher on that floor to ask, and amazingly she turned around and was holding my wallet. I shrieked my thanks, ran downstairs and found Joe. We ran outside and around to the stage door where Nala herself met us and escorted us past security.
Alex is a 10 year old Phillipino girl with a brilliant smile and a beautiful voice and she was obviously delighted to give us a backstage tour.
"Here's the Pumbaa costume, up there is the elephant...here's where the floor opens up and Pride Rock comes up." She showed us her baby elephant costume for the opening scene and how her trunk hooks onto the big elephant to make sure she makes it up the stairs. We touched Rafiki's famous stick. We saw the wildebeast machine that makes it look like hundreds of wildebeasts are running at you. "That's the mask from the old Mufasa," she says, pointing to the wall. "I think he must've died or something because it says In Memory Of." We took a picture with her next to Pumbaa. She told us about going to school and how the boy who plays Simba took her up to the top balcony on a tour and then told her a boy fell of it and died once, completely unaware of the similarities between this adventure and the scene in the Elephant Graveyard in the show.
It was so much fun. I was giddy with excitement. It was the end of our great weekend, but I was too happy to be sad. I couldn't ask for more. I have an endlessly wonderful boyfriend, and we never stop having fun.

Unemployed-bored-bummed and useless blues

What is it about depression that makes one so endlessly tired? I knew a girl my freshman year of college who slept 16 hours a day. We eventually staged an intervention. Or maybe it's not always physical exhaustion but mental. I remember lying on the couch in my college house once, staring at the ceiling. My roommate came in.
"Oh, are you taking a nap?"
"No."
"Do you want me to turn the TV on?"
"No."
Eventually she covered me with a blanket and turned off all the lights. This amused me so much I was actually able to get up again 2 hours later.
Mostly it's the brain fuzz that bothers me. I picked up my phone tonight without knowing why. I stared at it for a full 10 seconds before I realized it was ringing. It's taken me 2 hours to write this.
There are two strategies I have when faced with depression.
#1 Distract yourself
Go drinking (not endorsed by this company), call someone, put on hideous makeup, eat nauseating amounts of chocolate. Yu Cheung, my wise Chinese mentor, calls these things "state modulators," a real term for dealing with the mentally ill. Often people with brain damage send themselves into fits. You cannot talk them out of it and if you wait it out, it sometimes gets worse. Even if you find what set them off and make it stop, it's too late, their mind is already in that fit. So you use a trigger: food, a smell, cherry chapstick, music, to literally modify their state. Works the same way with the depressed. We're going to Great America on Sunday. Riding roller coasters should do it for me.
#2 Ride it out (aka Give In)
Know that it will end someday. This is the most important part. Understand that you will not pay any bills, clean your house or function properly for the rest of the day and accept that. Get into bed. Turn off lights. Pull a blanket over your head. Cry, if necessary, or drink until you pass out. Often #2 is used only after #1 fails. It helps if you stop showering and answering your phone. You only eat food that is already in your fridge. Never mind cooking or scraping off the mold. At this point your sense of humor will dessert you entirely, as will your ability to, um...

My name is Jasmine and I'm an addict

One cool November morning, almost a year ago now, I came into work almost an hour late. My eyes were bloodshot and my hands were shaking so hard I couldn't hold a book. Nothing I said made any sense. My boss leaned in to smell my breath. "Are you...? Is that..? You have chocolate on your face!" That's right. I was tweaked out on chocolate and didn't care who knew about it. I had been to the chocolate festival.
It's almost that time again, ladies and gentlemen. The 8th Annual New York Chocolate Festival is coming to town. Be still my beating heart. No seriously. Calm down. You've had too much chocolate again. There were sharply dressed men on every corner holding plates of chocolate. Sellers extolled the virtues of 83% cocao chocolate versus 79% and FORCED you to try both. There was alcohol. There were cooking demonstrations. There was chocolate art: dresses, houses, paintings. And there was, if you can even imagine the joy without fainting, thick, syrupy chocolate coffee. It's November 10-13. For details, click HERE. To read Joe's report of last year's experience, click HERE. For the pictures he took, click HERE.
In fact, doesn't that seem like a fantastic weekend all around to visit New York? Imagine: cold enough for a jacket, but no snow. Most of the tourists are gone. The Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center is already up, but no holiday shopping crowds yet. Sounds like heaven, doesn't it?

I wish I was a witch

I just finished the 6th Harry Potter book and I want to worship the ground J.K. Rowling walks on. She still peaked with number 4 story- and writing-wise, but none have been more earth shattering than this book. I'm sure she'll do more than 7. She show's no sign of slowing down. Maybe I'll move to Scotland.
I'm also intensely excited for the Fourth Movie, because of reasons mentioned above. I feel emotionally drained. I read number 6 in 2 and a half days, no matter how hard I tried to slow down.

Hurricanes

As I read aloud articles about Hurricane Katrina in the New York Times, Joe frantically tries to keep the website that his company hosts online and running smoothly. He is in charge of maintaining it, and it has crashed about a dozen times a day for the last three days. It is the home site of the United Jewish Federation and has a donation page on it for hurricane relief. There is simply too much traffic to handle. Donations have reached 1.2 million and are climbing. Every time it shuts down, Joe says, "I'm killing people."
Would someone give up the first time a donation didn't work? If just entering your credit card number on a website failed to send your donation through, would you try again tomorrow, or write a check, or do something else? They need money just as badly a month from now as they do today, but by then many people will have lost interest. I've read the paper three days in a row now, unheard of for me. We want to read the shocking stories, how police have quit and how babies are starving and women are being raped in the Superdome so we can all tut-tut and swear it wouldn't happen in our city. It's like the end of the world down there. I'm sure it'll make for a good movie someday.

Roomie Ruminations

I have had plenty of roommates over the years. In college, I first roomed with a perky cheerleader type who I got along great with. Then I roomed with a rocker girl: she played bass in a band, took karate, watched The Highlander, and was gone every single weekend. We got along fine, though she would chat on the internet, click-clacking her keyboard, all night long. Fine. I bought earplugs. Then came the challenge. I lived with five other girls in a house with one bathroom. With our combined efforts, we managed to make the place homey enough: we had a full set of dishes, a nice couch, flower pictures on the walls. There were tensions, as you can imagine. We posted a shower schedule on the door and if you wanted a morning slot you only got fifteen minutes. People got angry about dirty dishes and loud shoes. But we remained friends and for the most part were pretty happy.
For six months I lived with a Taiwanese girl. She cooked for me. I proofread her papers. There was a puke-colored stain on my carpet, but my room was the size of a football stadium.
Then I moved to NYC, and the rotations really began. There was a house full of Jersey girls in Hoboken. When the floor got dirty they wanted to hire a maid. Profuse eye rolling commenced on my part. Then I subletted from a 40 year old man named Zorik. He was going to work at 6 Flags for the summer, and left me with his cat, a full jousting outfit, and a lifetime of books, movies, buttons and filth. My roommates were Fred, a creepy bald man that I avoided at all costs; Paco, a gay set designer who was never home; and Boogie, the Belgian stripper/dominatrix/witch. She too was forty years old, had long blond dreads and once brought me out to Brighton Beach where she proceeded to sunbathe topless. Her nipples were pierced with hunks of metal the size of keychains, creating a parade of teenaged boys past our towels. At least they kept the seagulls away.
After that summer, I moved to Manhattan in a six room apartment with seven, or sometimes more, people. Kim, who was from Texas and could open beer bottles with her front teeth; Joe, who gave me a black sesame seed doughnut the first time I met him and later became my boyfriend; Ali, the crack whore who had run off to Sweden when I moved in; thus Sunny and Christian, a punk couple also from TX moved into her room until she came back; Spike, the computer/video games genius; and of course, Oriana, my bohemian friend; Zad, her toothless Iranian boyfriend and their two dogs. It was the happiest place I ever lived. Sure Ali would get hopped up on crack and fall asleep in the bathtub. And Spike dated a string of slutty girls from craigslist who eventually gave him herpes. And don't forget how I could hear Zad and Oriana fight from halfway across the apartment.
It didn't matter. We had a ROOFTOP, strung with Christmas lights. You could see the Empire State building. The fridge was always filled with beer, so even if someone ate your cheese you couldn't complain. Friends from far and wide would come to sit on this rooftop. And every Wednesday night we'd pile into Joe's room to watch South Park and the Daily Show.
But good things don't last forever. When the lease was up in December, we split up. Oriana and I picked up Jen and moved to Brooklyn. Soon it was apparent that Zad was living with us too. Joe moved to the Upper West side. Spike moved in with his dad in Jersey. I don't even know where everyone else is. I live an hour away from my boyfriend, who I used to live with. Now I feel like I live in two different places. Still, our apartment in Brooklyn is very nice. We have a dining room, which we painted mint green. My room is tiny, but my rent is fairly low. We'll see what happens December 31st, when my lease is up, and my wanderings begin again.

Me and me mum

Say, I see somewhat of a resemblance there, don't you? Yes, I'm taller, but I am also wearing heels.
Look at those perfect eyebrows.

You can't buy those, no not even in Manhattan.

Insurance is legalized extortion

I am in insurance hell. I have submitted my claim by mail and by fax, a claim that should never have even gotten to me in the first place. Now one letter tells me they need more information, while the guy on the phone says I submitted it to the wrong place. I can't find the number to the doctor's office, and all of this is for a stupid physical I had in JANUARY. The worst part is that through all this the realization is growing, in the pit of my stomach, that this is never, ever, ever going to end. I will die fighting insurance companies for money. My children will fight for money to bury me with and end up secretly dumping me in the compost file because by the time the claim goes through my body will be decomposed and smelly.
All this while I don't have a real job. I'm lucky I have insurance at all (technically I think I'm stealing it, but it's extortion anyways, right?). My job consists of two days of typing until my hands swell up. They'd give me full time work, but my hands would hurt so bad I couldn't brush my teeth or wipe my butt and then who would give me a real job?
Sometimes I wish I was at a different level of ambition. If I had less, I could work in a decently paying dead-end job with excellent insurance and be perfectly content the rest of my life. I could move into middle management. If I had more ambition, I could start my own business, freelance, and finish my novel by the time my unemployment ran out and be perfectly happy. It's just that I like TV enough to watch it all day, but not enough to go out and make it for fun. Plus, I'm a whiner.

Out of the Woods

Joe met my grandparents on three different occasions and they managed to tell him the same story three times. All about how they met and married. Then my brother (lucky) went there once and got to hear a story about a three-titted cow that later ripped one off on a fence and became a two-titted cow. A neighbor had to come stitch it up. Sweet.
Beer and cheese and old friends. Wisconsin is always a trip. We went tubing, four-wheeling, blueberry picking, and drank all the while. We made s'mores around a campfire, shot beer bottles off a woodpile, and toured the Steven's Point brewery. How did we fit it all in? Magic stationwagon.
The wedding was nice. Joe and I helped put together the wedding favors--trees in birchbark. I drank champagne with the girls at the beauty salon while we got our hair done and dug through the salon's makeup and nail polish to beautify ourselves. The weather was perfect and beautiful. Jaime, Karen and I sang "Goin to the Chapel" before the ceremony to amuse the bride because we were all ready too early. We were supposed to be early so the photographer could take pictures, but we only got the photographer's assistant, her chunky, zitty, seventeen year old son who wasn't able to figure out how to frame the pictures so the "Toilets" sign wasn't in it. My mom had to sew all our dresses to our bras so they didn't show and Joe had to cut me out again at 1 am, both of us drunk and sleepy.

Home, where my thoughts are racing...

Do other people get as tense about going home as I do? They must, or half the crappy comedies in this world would never get made. There's no specific reason, I just get what I call the pre-Wisconsin crazies. This time had a potential to be worse because there's a wedding involved (luckily a pretty low stress wedding) that has the potential for my entire graduating class to attend and/or crash. It's been easier because Joe keeps me calm. I think it's just that it's so calm at my parents' house. There's no rent to pay, no meals to cook, no unrealistically God-awful baking hot subways to have to sit in. Just trees and air and more cars than I can drive.

Huuuuaaaawwww

I spent all day yesterday throwing up. Today it was 91 degrees out. That's all I have the energy to write.

One Weird Picture

We're pretty darn cute sometimes.

Flesh Eating Diseases

There can be something quite wonderful about vacationing in the city you live in. You know the language and how to get around. Your own bed is waiting for you at home each night. If you miss something, there's always next weekend.
But when Christy came to visit me over the fourth of July weekend, she destroyed me. I was exhausted and sunburned and completely and totally out of money. And all this by Sunday.
Friday was the best. We rented a rowboat on the pond in Central Park, which is only ten bucks and hour. We saw turtles and ducks and a couple get engaged. For dinner that night, we met Joe at Devi, a fancy Indian food restaurant that was excellent, though I accidently ate a red pepper and declared I was going to die. No, that I was already dead. Then I decided it would be a good idea to go to the Russian Vodka Room and order their specialty, a "rack" of six kinds of iced vodka. The Peach wasn't so bad, but the Blueberry tasted like rotten fruit laced with lighter fluid. Everything else fell somewhere in between. They came in giant test tube-like shot glasses. By the time the three of us were halfway through, we weren't even that drunk; just sick. Around us Russian men leaned on the piano player, shouting songs that sounded rather passionate and angry--though I suspect everything sounds passionate and angry in Russian. Eventually Jen showed up, took one sip of Citrus Bitters Vodka and asked us why we hated her. We left without finishing.
This was the theme of the weekend. I get sunburned and dehydrated. I spend money on alcohol I can't drink. I get too little sleep.
We went to Coney Island the next day. The Cyclone, the famous wooden roller coaster, was a lot of fun. We had Nathan's famous hot dogs and ice cream. And then Christy talked me into going onto a ride that made me scream just looking at it. I dubbed it the Puke-o-Matic. I decided was just being a baby and I couldn't go on just one ride on Coney Island. But after we bought our tickets, I watched the people being flipped upside down over and overandoverandoverandover. I got tears in my eyes, but it was too late now. Once I spend money on something, that's it. It's a done deal. The beginning wasn't so bad. It was kind of fun when they hung us upside down forty feet above the ground (the harnesses were actually comfortable). But then they began to spin us. Even Joe and Christy thought it was for too long. When we got off, I staggered into some shade and someone got me a ginger ale. But I could see the shadow of the spinning ride and my stomach started to heave. They brought me into a gazebo by the beach, where I sat for about twenty minutes before the color actually returned to my face. Cold ice cream helped. From now on, I declare, I will not go on any ride that spins me around or flips me upside down. Period. I'm not scared. I have nothing to prove. I just don't want to puke. This also leads to thoughts of, what happens if you puke on the ride, forty feet in the air and upside down? Would it run into my hair before splattering to the ground? And would they stop the ride immediately? I hope so.
Sunday we saw "Sweet Charity" on Broadway with Christina Applegate. Cute enough. Then we went to Harlem to Dinosaur BBQ and ate some really superb meat. There were fried green tomatoes, grilled shrimp, potatoes, collard greens, brisket, and of course, the star, pulled pork. Definitely worth the trip up there.
The next day we rode the tram to Roosevelt Island and wandered around not really knowing where to go. It was used to quarantine smallpox patients in 1854 and had a lunatic asylum starting in 1829 because it was an island. The ruins are hard to see, but have a fun history. There is still more than one hospital on the island, and one out of every ten people you see is in a wheelchair. There's one bus that loops the island, and apparently the whole town turns out to go fishing on the Fourth of July. Yet it's technically part of Manhattan. Absolutely surreal.
Of course, it had to be upwards of ninety degrees that day. My equilibrium had not entirely returned and of course, I sprouted a nasty case of flesh eating disease, a painful heat rash I get all over my arms, chest, and anywhere else exposed to the sun (except, interestingly enough, my face). But I couldn't go home. We had to stake out a spot for fireworks on the FDR highway. It was shut down and thousands of people hurried up the exit ramps to get the best spot. There was plenty of room and everywhere on the highway had the most beautiful view of three sets of Macy's fireworks being shot from barges in the river. It's a half hour long and the finale makes the sky look like a solid sheet of sparkles.
And still we weren't done. I didn't have to work until 4 pm the next day, but I was actually looking forward to it. That morning we went to Governor's Island and Christy is pretty sure, and I don't doubt her, that the newest Amazing Race was there while we were, probably resting between challenges. She was having spasms of joy. I was having flesh eating disease.
It's hard to have someone with you all the time for days. And I didn't have that "WOW! I'm in New York City!" feeling because "Hey! I'm in New York City every day." So I kept wanting to go home, thinking I could do these things in the fall, when my face wasn't melting off. But I have such limited time with Christy that it's worth it all just to hang out with her. I hope she had fun.

Monsters in my Closet

Joe stayed at my house last night, despite the fact that we still have mice, and it nearly killed him. And me. We were up until almost four in the morning. For some reason, his fear of mice triggers every fear he's ever had and it comes crashing down on him. I understand being scared of things, or creeped out, but he puts such weight, such anxiety, into one little creature. I think we must all have a creature, it just isn't so obvious or so unavoidable. No one forces you to sleep with yours (possibly) under the bed. My own fears are pushed into my nightmares, dreams so vivid they color the way I look at the world for days. For years I dreamt I was being sent back to high school whenever I was anxious about anything. Sometimes I wasn't even aware I was anxious until the dreams showed up and I had to look for what was wrong. I'm very good at pushing things down and away, or at least I used to be. I try not to do it so much now, but old habits are hard to break. Joe has to pry things out of me half the time. The only physical fear I have that I can think of is of crowds. They don't always bother me, but that's probably because I often just simply avoid being anywhere they are. The sidewalks of New York are enough to make me twitch. Concerts I can only do on a good day, and only if I'm really determined. And just what would happen if I stayed?

Don't Touch My Frog

Last weekend Joe and I went to Jersey, where he grew up, and stayed at his mom's house. His mom now lives in an over 55 retirement community, with rows and rows of one story white houses and perfect tiny lawns where you expect little boys to come out and bounce a ball in unison (or old men to come out and mow their lawn in synchronized patterns). We had a cookout on the patio and I grilled the meat (Yeah! Huah!). And there's nothing like drinking beer with Joe's 94 year old grandpa.
We went to the driving lane later. I had never hit a golfball in my life. I tend to try and hit it like a softball, which means I miss it by about 3 feet. So Joe played the golf instructor and showed me how and I actually managed to hit it pretty good by the end. There were beavers roaming across the range, but I never hit it far enough to even get close. I saw his childhood home, and we pretended we were in high school and made out by the lake.
The next day we went to the Jersey shore. It was COLD. I had to wear a sweatshirt, but it was actually very nice. We walked along the beach and on the boardwalk and, yes, made out under the boardwalk. We ate pizza, funnel cakes, and orange and vanilla twisted ice cream (which is apparently pretty old school). Check out Joe's post on the ice cream. And, of course, we played ski ball. I kicked Joe's butt 2 out of 3, but somehow he got more tickets than me. I think he played another game than I did. With our precious points we scored a bouncing ball, a plastic bracelet, and a frog on a keychain who sticks out his tongue when you squeeze him. Yeah, I know. Totally worth $6.
So I bring my frog to work to sit on my desk. My desk I have to share with another person. My desk I don't get to have until I've been at work for 2 hours trying to look busy. The next day, my frog is turned backwards, facing the wall. Poor blue froggy. I turn him back. Then next day he's turned again. So I figure maybe his googley eyes freak her out, so I left him. The next day he was GONE. Death and destruction. Anger. Yanking of cords and moving of TV sets. Eventually I found him on another girl's desk. WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE TOUCHING MY FROG? So now I have to take him home. That was the point of my story, basically. How I am mistreated at work.

The Rodent Saga

Let me begin by telling you the tale of our mice. I live in a 3 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. Jen and Oriana are my roommates. In addition, Oriana's roommate Zad (short for Farzad. He has no front teeth) basically lives with us as well. We've just started charging him utilities. Anyways, a few months ago, we saw a mouse. We set out glue traps, with no luck. Jen decided that the mouse was sick and dying anyways, since it sort of gimped when it ran and seemed a little desperate. A few weeks later, we found out she wasn't sick. Nope. She was pregnant. Soon, we had hordes of tiny mice running everywhere. Even I was grossed out, and I have a high tolerance for grossness. My boyfriend, Joe, who's greatest fear is mice, has not been to my house in five weeks.
Eventually one of these mice did get caught in one of our glue traps. It began to squeak it's little heart out in fear. Fortunately (for the mouse) Zad was home. And fortunately (for both Zad and the mouse) I was not. Because he then proceeded to take the creature outside, still stuck in the glue trap, and rub it's feet with Goo-gone for hours, painstakingly freeing it from the trap.
When I told my mom this story, she laughed so hard she dropped the phone. Mice are lower than mosquitoes to my parents. True, they don't bite you, but they do poop everywhere and the aversion to cleaning is nearly a disease in my family. Why on earth would you free a mouse? "Put a paper towel over it's head and smack it with a hammer," she told me. Ah, the life lessons to be learned. So Zad and Oriana insisted that glue traps were barbaric and they bought a bunch of live traps.
That weekend I was alone in the apartment. Two mice (on separate occasions) got into the bathtub and couldn't get out again when I yanked out the shower curtain away. I drowned them. I found one mouse mired in a glue trap, already dead. And I found one in a live trap. I opened the trap, dumped him in the tub, and drowned him too.
The mother hasn't appeared in some time and there only seems to be one baby left. He's laying low these days. He must have heard what happened.
Jasmine Smith: Mouse Killer Extraordinare.

In the Beginning, Boredom Ruled

I have decided to create a blog out of sheer desparate boredom at work. This is, I suspect, the motivation behind most blogs. Either that, or some people are under the impression that they actually have something to tell the world. OK, maybe I do too. Mostly it will be a chronicle of life in New York, and a tiny peek into my head. If anyone writes to me about it, I will certainly post it. Even if it's mean. Heck, maybe I won't even tell anyone the address...