things i am sick of (television edition!)

1) Character A: "Well, there's only one person stopping you from getting that job/promotion/girl/donut..."
Character B (squints and furrows his eyebrows): "Who?"
Character A (wise/knowing look): "..... You."

2) When a character is told a piece of information that is blatantly fabricated (i.e. her boyfriend is cheating on her with her cousin) and it comes from a totally unreliable source (i.e. her social arch-nemesis) but she STILL believes it blindly and wholly and acts as if it is true... instead of just, you know, double-checking with someone (her cousin? her boyfriend? anyone!).

3) TV shows about a down-on-his/her luck middle class parent who has a really messed up and morally questionable habit/addiction/profession but WHOM WE TOTALLY LOVE ANYWAY!

4) Whenever a character uses a search engine and it's some weirdo Google rip-off with an insanely large font and 1998 aesthetic. (This applies to e-mail and texting, too - why is it so hard for TV shows to get technology right?!)

5) Subplots involving clones, characters getting conned out of money, or daddy issues.

<3 thy neighbor

I had only heard things about my new neighbor.

These are the things I knew about her:
1) She has dogs. Lots of them. Maybe five? They bark.
2) She recently e-mailed my roommate asking if she could borrow her CDs ("....if you even have music that isn't just on your computer!") so that she could "fill up" her iPod.
3) In return for said CDs (which my roommate inexplicably did offer), we received a bag of really soft home-baked chocolate chip cookies.

I had kind of been envisioning a not-as-toned Kelly Ripa with bad roots.

**

Last night, at around 9:30pm, I barreled from the elevator to the door of my apartment, stomping and growling as I do, Whole Foods bag close to body.

The series of events that followed happened as a blur. I need to break out another list, you guys.

1) I looked up to see that Kelly Ripa/My Neighbor was emerging from her apartment, clad in cute black bike shorts and a neon pink tee (she did kind of look like The Ripa!), gabbing on her cell, with three dogs (!!) following behind her.
2) Startled by her emergence, I stopped short, only to notice that there was a small Duane Reade bag hanging on the doorknob of my apartment. My first thought was that the homeless chick who is always hanging near my doorstep had left me a poisoned pie.
3) I made eye contact with Kelly, who then unexpectedly reached for the bag from my doorknob. "Oh, that makes sense," I thought. "She must have just been leaving her cosmetic items hanging from my doorknob for a quick sec!"
4) She fumbled as she tried to take the bag off the doorknob (mind you, this whole time she is like SCREAMING into her phone about some party invitation she didn't get yet). Panicking awkwardly (as if I would panic any other way), I took the bag off for her and tried to hand it to her (assuming it was hers), but -- instead of taking it -- she motioned that it was FOR ME.
5) Befuddled, aroused and sleepy, I walked into my apartment and reached into the bag.

This is what the note said:

"Hi neighbor, I had to bake for someone and I kind of overcooked this batch of cookies. Please throw them away if they are too dark! xo..."

I took out one of the cookies. It looked like an 8th grade science project or the remains of a small squirrel (take your pick!).

I wasn't sure whether to be thankful or disgusted, if she had actually been trying to take the cookies away out in the hallway (maybe after we made eye contact, she felt totally awk about having left us twenty pieces of coal to dispose of?), or if she had been wanting to hand them to me herself and give me a welcoming kiss on the cheek. It was too much for me to make sense of and my DVR was getting antsy, so I just gave up and ate one.

**

This morning I slipped a CD under her door. The note: "I burned this just for you."

this alternate you

My high school had this really strange tradition where every senior was assigned one morning on which he or she had to speak to the whole school for 15 minutes. It was called "Chapel" because it happened in a (non-denominational) chapel. Yep. Most of the time, Chapels were kind of blah, forgettable affairs. Seniors would talk about the Summer That Changed My Life or the Relative Who Made Me Who I Am or the Life I Am Meant to Have. It was all a little too Perks of Being a Wallflower for a truly sophisticated gent like myself. (This is funny because Perks of Being a Wallflower is such a quirky thing to reference!)

My favorite Chapel was when this super popular Abercrombie frat boy revealed that he was secretly this obsessive "Magic the Gathering" player. "Remember when I told you guys I was up visiting my cousin at UMass??!" he said with a grin, looking up at his Bro Posse, "Well, I was actually at a Magic the Gathering tournament in Philadelphia!" "Nooooo way!!" the Brody Jenners-in-training all howled in unison.

Sometimes when I'm feeling nostalgic, I want to re-read my Chapel. But I don't. I hate reading stuff I wrote in the past. It's like watching yourself in an old video. It's you alright, but it's this alternate you, who has all your worst features, relies on tired cliches and really has no idea how to dress.

futuresex/lovesounds

E-mail received last night from my friend, "Anonymanda"...

date Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 8:27 PM
subject you know whats weird?
mailed-by gmail.com

i was literally just thinking like two days ago that why michael jackson looks/is so weird/different is something that i didn't understand as a child but thought i would at some point understand when i was older, but i never actually did. i then tried to come up with other things like that, that befuddled me as a child but i figured eventually i would understand. the only other things i could think of were like, existential and epistemological questions.

new york in a nutshell

On my way into Jamba Juice yesterday afternoon, I took note of their prominent promotion (mainly because I was struck by the awkward neologism "blissdom") for a new blackberry infused-drink: BLACKBERRY BLISS!

New Yorkers are really taking it to heart. Pictured below is BLACKBERRY BLISS, New York-style, folks:

it makes me ill

There's always a conflicting impulse once you're "known" for being a certain way: to either embrace your label... or to defy it. If everyone thinks of you as a spoiled brat, you can either shout and scream when dinner gets moved from 7 to 8:30... or you can surprise your pals by being totally amenable. If you're one of those people who's always late, you can resolve to change your ways or... not.

To my good friends and family, my label is hypochondriac.

When I was 15, I developed three "facts" that I still say in my head to this day whenever I worry that I could potentially have "lost my memory" (only recently did I realize the irony inherent to this methodology). After I told my mom a few weeks ago that I thought I might have severe nerve damage because of an overwhelming numbness in my left middle fingertip, she responded blankly, after a long pause: "That's nice, honey."

It's hard for me to explain this particular neurosis I have - it's just always been this way. Generally, I will note something that seems off and then I will keep tabs on it (by which I mean "obsess over it") for a day before convincing myself - through Google searches and thought exercises and the like - that I have something serious. I will e-mail my friends and call my parents, who will all tell me I'm fine. This reaction somehow, inexplicably, only encourages me further, and often leads me to make a doctor's appointment. The minute I walk into the doctor's office though, I immediately feel foolish ("sporadic elbow pain, Josh? seriously?") and the doctor typically placates me with a few "tests" before telling me I'm A-OK.

This morning I purchased the most expensive thermometer Duane Reade offered because I was sure I had a fever. I ripped it out of its package and took my temperature on the street (of course?), only to find... it was 96.8. This led to the following BBM exchange with my brother:

Me: I'm going to ask kim to touch me this morning when I get into work
Me: hahaha
Me: just to double check
Sam: You don't have a fever Josh
Sam: Stop turning your psychosis into a party anecdote
Sam: Don't indulge yourself and just fight it

Well Sam, though I must admit I take issue with the low standard you seem to have for my party anecdotes and your liberal (?) definition of "psychosis," I hope you acknowledge that this post represents my "fighting it." Though, obviously, it doesn't. It's nice to think you can defy and change and we all talk about it all the time; but it's so much easier to embrace the label. The sofa's so comfy and you're waiting for your laundry to finish and you're pretty sure it's raining outside and you don't really feel like finding out.

twilight zone

I like to imagine the 82-year-old woman who walks into this Barnes & Noble looking for a cookbook. She saw an ad for it on TV. Or read about it in the newspaper? She can't remember (jokes about old people = soooo funny).

She aimlessly wanders around the store touching things, you know how it is. Then she looks up and sees this sign. "Vampire Romance?" she thinks to herself, "What in the name of...?" She looks at the other placards around her: "New Nonfiction," "Self-Help," "Father's Day Ideas." And then her gaze returns to "Vampire Romance." She sighs, and then readjusts her glasses. "Oh Louise, you really have lost it. Harold, if only you could see me now!" And then she lurches out of the store like a caterpillar.

channel your inner megan fox!

Considering I have never seen a movie featuring Megan Fox and couldn't even tell you what the chick sounds like (I'm imagining a kind of husky growl... yes?) it's weird that this is going to be my second post in the recent months focusing on the newly-appointed Empress of Sex.

It all starts, as so many stories about Megan Fox do, with a book recommendation. A friend of mine (let's call her Friendly Flora) whom I haven't known for that long but whom dresses really well (= sign of knowledge) recently recommended a book that she said "was really something I needed to read." I scribbled it down on a post-it note and then sort of forgot about it; I mean, only girls with bad skin who ride the subway and carry woven bags read books nowadays, riiiight??? Right.

But then, this past Saturday, I was in the MOMA Design Store looking for a Father's Day present (these are the details you must know) and there was the book, minding its own business on the white table as if placed there by a higher being. I picked it up, saw it was only $7, and bought that sucker.

I took it out on the subway only to find... my new friend had recommended me a SELF-HELP BOOK that purports to help you "develop a vision of where and who you want to be." This is sort of like me telling you that you just need to go spend some time at Canyon Ranch ("I hear they have carb-sniffing dogs there") or buying you a gift certificate for a nose job (because that's totally possible). When I got home, I flipped open to a page with the header "You can achieve the unachievable" and I tossed the book on the floor. What was it about me that screamed to Flora: "Dude needs a self-help book!"?!?

Later in the day, I was hanging with sum friendz, discussing Ms. Fox's recent interview in Entertainment Weekly. I recounted my favorite part for the group:

Entertainment Weekly: Do you think you're good-looking?
Megan Fox: Well, I'm clearly not ugly.

I love it. Unlike all the other pretty girls in Hollywood who go on and on about how they are such dorks or how they wake up in the morning with bad hair like the rest of us or how THEY HAVE CELLULITE TOO, GODDAMMIT, Fox doesn't front. Girl knows she's hot and she owns it. She doesn't fish for compliments or play the whole self-deprecating game we all play (you play it, I play it, your friend Megan plays it).

At this point in the conversation, my murderous friend mused, "I would kill to look like her."

Just like that, I was struck with a revelation. Who needs this "achieve the unachievable" nonsense?! Let's break it down in terms we can understand.

"Of course not all of us look like Megan Fox," I started, suddenly stirred to stand. "In fact, none of us do! But we all just gotta find that one thing we've got - insane trombone skills, a really good eye for style, awesome comic timing, whatever, and FUCKING OWN IT."

My friends looked at me, eager, elated, expectant. I needed to coin my theory. I needed a rallying cry.

"CHANNEL YOUR INNER MEGAN FOX!" I shouted, triumphant.

The next time I see "Friendly" Flora, I am gonna march up to her and sassily sneer, "Thanks so much for recommending me that self-help book, but I actually subscribe to the Tao of Megan Fox, thank you very much. Go develop a vision of that." That'll show her.

"are you suuure, man?? i don't even remember *talking* to her"

Two nuggets – one courtesy of my roommate; the other, my brother – that surfaced in one of those "Anything Goes, Late Afternoon Gmail Chains," those frivolous but lovely affairs that spiral rapidly before sputtering out.

-- "I hate ppl that lie about their level of drunkenness...in the words of the guy on the bachelorette it's a very 'cheese-ass' move"

-- "i hate when sunday mornings people recount each drink they had to you as if it's interesting--'so i had three shots, two screwdrivers, five beers....' it always takes them a long time to remember, is never interesting, and is always annoying."

The upshot seems to be: unless you want to be severely (and silently) judged, you don't want to have Hungover Sunday Brunch with my crew.

lovefool

My usual salad place was super crowded today for some reason (rain causing roughage cravings?) so they had some new guy helping the usual duo. The new guy was all serious and wasn't wearing a baseball cap and I wasn't feeling it. As I started listing my components, he aggravated me by preemptively barking "whatellllse?" before he had even tossed in the ingredient I had just said! But, as he put together my salad with no passion whatsoever, my usual guy (who was standing next to him and making another salad) gathered a handful of cranberries and tossed them into my salad in one swoop, without saying a word or making eye contact with me or No Hat. Cranberries are always my last ingredient.

Now, even though Usual Guy makes my salad every day, we have a mostly wordless relationship of nods and "thank yous" and not much else. No Hat looked at Usual Guy briefly after the cranberry toss, and then back at me. I just nodded, stunned by the loving gesture. And then my heart skipped a cranberry beat.

what's UP

Towards the end of Pixar's "Up," I had to nudge my glasses up so I could wipe the tears out of my eyes (I am used to this maneuver by now; I mean, I famously cried during the final scenes of "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" - tears during "Up" were a foregone conclusion). I had to nudge extra forcefully in this instance though. I was wearing two pairs of glasses.

Yep, I was wearing the fancy 3D glasses, mandatory for watching this animated film, over the normal glasses I wear to see faraway things (sort of like how I never know if it's "affect" or "effect," I can never remember which is which between "near-sighted" and "far-sighted," so I avoid the nomenclature altogether).

When we first walked into the film, I was typically cynical about the whole thing, and disturbed (offended even!) by the idea that this movie had been intentionally created so that the only way you could see it was by spending more money than your average ticket costs.

"Also," I complained, "It's kinda annoying that they probably changed the plot and made stuff more visual or whatever just because they knew it was 3D, don't you think?"

My brother didn't respond.

My cynicism was tempered slightly by the profoundly strange sight of seeing a theater full of adults staring blankly ahead wearing ridiculous oversized glasses. It was like Walt Disney World meets the subway (metaphor report card: B+ for effort, C+ for execution). And then, five minutes into the movie, I was literally bawling (if you see it, you will understand) so I forgot all about my effort to convince myself that 3D movies were so annoying.

Of course when the movie was over and my brother was crowing about how cool the 3D was and how the grass really stood out or whatever, I dismissed him entirely. I had dug myself into a hole, you see; I didn't have a choice.

"I don't think it really made a difference at all," I said, flippantly.

As I audibly shrugged waiting in the logjam to return glasses outside the theater, I decided I was way more Carl Fredricksen than I would care to admit. By which I mean, of course, that I have a fetishistic obsession with balloons.

"The dog had some really funny lines," I offered, as we dropped our glasses off in the box.

charles in charge

I actually kind of like it when I call an 800-number and the machine asks me to say "yes" or "no" in an attempt to get my information and direct my call. It's like that old, famous saying: "Saying things to a machine is more fun than pressing numbers." (It's famous because it applies to life.)

But earlier today when I had to call a credit card company to change my mailing information (don't fall asleep on me now), the robot man (who sounded like a Charles) "said":

"If you know your account number, please say it now. If not, say 'I don't know.'"

I paused for a second, walking down Park Avenue. I felt uncomfortable. Unsure. Un...normal. "I don't know!" I shouted into my phone. Charles was barking about something but I was long gone. Just like that, Charles had become my high school physics teacher. Charles was that kid at summer camp who called me names. Someone call Meryl Streep, because Charles was DOUBT. Flustered, I just hung up the phone.

Then I got back to my computer and, in an attempt to look up tickets online, was slapped in the face with this uncharacteristically scrutable Ticketmaster "code."
I couldn't help but hear Charles' hearty, menacing laugh as I quickly closed my Firefox window.

four things i realized today packing up my room

1) I have been transporting about 5 pairs of pants, 20 t-shirts and a whole family of sweatshirts with me for about the past eight years, none of which I think I have worn once in that whole time period. Yet, somehow, every time, I make the decision to bring them all on to the next place.

2) My wall mirror has been propped up leaning against the wall since September. "Hang mirror" was on my to-do list for about five months before I took it off in February when I finally acknowledged to myself it was just never happening.

3) I had a picture of Chris Brown and Rihanna torn out from a magazine displayed on my bookshelf FOR THE PAST YEAR and had totally not realized it until today. I am utterly disgusted in myself. I watched this immediately to try to make amends to Her Royal Majesty. And then I ripped up the picture and BURNED THE SHREDS.

4) Packing up all of your stuff takes way less time than you feel like it should.

aim and fire

The other day, feeling nostalgic (bored), I logged onto AIM for probably the first time in the past eighteen months.

There was a time when I lived and breathed AIM, a time when my life was basically like: wake up, school, TRL, AIM, homework, AIM. I remember, back in middle school, when you scored the screen name of your crush or one of the cool cats, it was a major coup. Making it on someone's buddy list was totally the Facebook friend request of 1999. Of course, I grouped my screen names into carefully deliberated categories ("High School," "Family," "Weirdos," etc.). Back then, no one's screen name was actually their name: unlike today's transparent gchat world of full names and green dots, everyone could hide behind some bizarre fabricated octopusXX or pesimist22. And I guess you theoretically could make yourself invisible in AIM world, but no one ever did. When you strolled into AIMville, you wanted to see and be seen. You wanted to awkwardly flirt ("u goin to the dance?"), score some gossip ("do u know if dave heard from dartmouth yet??!?!") or trade sarcastic put-downs with your BFFs (*create your own example*).

AIM was kind of a shitshow. We were middle/high schoolers trying to be funny and sexy and smooth in a way that we just couldn't be in person. Somehow, sending Maddie a "whats up" IM was so much easier than talking to her in person. If you were pissed at Mickey for leaving the party without you, AIM made it oh so easy to let him know how you felt, in a way you just wouldn't face-to-face. The screen name was empowering.

So I logged off the other day after a few seconds when I realized I couldn't remember who actually belonged to any of the screen names on my buddy list. And then, in an impulsive flourish, I actually removed the shortcut from my desktop. It was a superficial move, though, let's be honest: I still conduct all my social business online; I wish I still had a made-up handle to hide behind (oh, wait...); and sometimes (all the time) I really, really miss TRL.

u can't touch this

Sad news, y'all. "Touch This" has gone out of business. I know, right? Start filming your YouTube reaction video NOW.

I became aware of this devastating turn of events as I made my nightly three-minute subway-to-apartment walk the other night. As I whipped out my trusty 'berry to snap this shot, I realized that I actually had no idea what this store which I had loved for so long from afar (what?) actually sold. What was "Touch This"?!?!

Option #1: Maybe it sold nothing at all but was instead a kind of tactile experience facility, a place for New Yorkers to take a break from the numbing grind of crowded subways and grating co-workers and TOUCH THINGS. You could touch ANYTHING here: wet sponges, the smooth skin of a frog, cookie batter. (Those are the first three things that came to mind; no idea why they read like the ingredients of a witch's stew.)

Reasons to Believe: As this store wouldn't actually sell anything, it would have trouble staying afloat, hence making it quite likely it would go out of business.
Reasons to Doubt: Um, all of it?

Option #2: If you read the store's name as a sassy kiss-off (as in "touch this," followed by an implied "bitch") it could have been a really helpful makeup/accessories store for women (and men, too, I guess). Basically this would have been your go-to stop if you were about to go confront your boyfriend's new honey or finally go get those drinks with your ex.

Reasons to Believe: You just know those red manicured hands on the sign are ready to bitch slap. Also, the font of the store name.
Reasons to Doubt: Store's focus is a bit too broad. Also, store name would maybe be an over promise? How could they ensure they could make you look fabulous?

Option #3: A place to buy touch screen devices! Touch screen microwaves! Touch screen digital cameras! Touch screen shower faucets! Touch screen friends!

Reasons to Believe: Um, hello?? This is so obviously right it's not even funny.
Reasons to Doubt: Almost seems too obvious?

(Fun Fact: "Touch This" was located two stores down from this! Best block ever, am I right? The closing of "Touch This" clearly marks the end of a dynasty.)