Text Message in a Bottle

honey, honey

2012-01-27T13:15:00.012-05:00

I was in San Francisco last week, and, on one afternoon, my friend Andrew took me and our friend Sarah to this store in his neighborhood called Her Majesty's Secret Beekeeper, which calls itself "the only urban beekeeping store in America." Andrew had been talking this store up for hours beforehand, and, per usual, I was responding with skepticism. I asked if there were going to be any bee hives in the store; Andrew rolled his eyes and said, "Yes, so many."

Well, let me tell you now before I even launch into the tale: if you ever find yourself in San Francisco, you've got to hit up this place.

We walked in and were immediately greeted by four chickens who were scampering around the wooden floor. There was a fifty-something man - not to be all "New York" about it, but he looked like the kind of dude who'd be playing a ukulele in a top hat on the A train - carving something at a woodworking station set up in the middle of the store. He barely looked up at us.

Sarah went to pick up the chickens (both males were named "Edward," we were told; both females, "Henrietta") while Andrew and I approached the counter, where there were jars of three different kinds of honey sticks: blueberry, sage and a third kind I can't remember.

I asked the man which of the three flavors was his favorite, and he grimaced. "I don't have a favorite." He looked at us with apparent disdain. "By the way, 'blueberry' doesn't mean they taste like blueberries. It means that's what those bees ate..." Andrew bought three blueberry sticks for the three of us.

Because I was in that kind of mood and it was that kind of store, I asked the man if he had ever seen "Bee Movie." He smiled, I think; it was hard to tell because of his white beard.

"No, I don't see movies like that," he said. "So many factual errors. I wouldn't be able to stand it."

"Do you like bee puns?" I asked.

You would have thought I'd asked him if he was OK with murder. "No."

"There's so many though..." I said, almost tauntingly (I'm not really sure what I was going for). "'Honey, I shrunk the kids...,' 'Bee-utiful'..."

He looked up at me from his carving apparatus.

"Once someone lost a wallet here so two police officers showed up," he said. "They spent a good five minutes making bee puns before getting down to business..." He looked off into space.

We took some pictures with our iPhones of Sarah holding the chickens. (When I asked him why there were chickens in a honey store, he said, "they keep me company.")

We bought three more honey sticks -- this time, sage.

"These aren't as sweet," Andrew said, slurping the honey out of the plastic casing.

"Sage is really bringing me down," I said.

"Isn't that a Joni Mitchell song?" the storekeeper quipped. And this time I was certain he was smiling.

"who should go first?"

2012-01-11T15:02:00.005-05:00

Few things make me feel closer to a good friend - reaffirmed in our bond - than meeting a new person together at a party. I'll be standing with Kelly by the drinks table and someone will approach and make a rum & coke and then turn and ask us "how we know the birthday girl." Kelly and I will give each other this brief, smirk-y look - "who should go first?" - before answering in turn. Revealing our jobs and neighborhoods, we'll both talk in this exuberant, uncharacteristically friendly manner, like we're giving a tour at an art museum. As Kelly tells the stranger where she's from, I'll gaze at her proudly, maybe nod my head a few times. I'll chime in with a personal detail about her - "she's the only New Yorker who still has a flip phone!" - that adds an exclamation point to our evident closeness without overdoing it.

the new year

2012-01-06T11:12:00.014-05:00

This week has been rough. I'd imagine the first week of a new year is pretty crummy for everyone. We see it as this opportunity to set some lofty goals, "restart" our lives, "live strong" and all that. I'm going to exercise all the time and be sooooOOooooOOoo productive and work on being this really present/supportive friend and stop looking at Facebook profiles that make me feel sad and weird. But, inevitably, it's January 5th and you're slumped on your couch watching a "Kourtney and Kim Take New York" marathon and your iPhone screen starts inexplicably freezing so you throw it on your bed and you haven't been to the gym all week and, sure, this is like any number of 2011 evenings, but it stings more on January 5th. Everything was going to be different this year.

This was my mindset as I got on the subway Thursday night.

On New Year's Eve, last Saturday, my friend Marissa and I had taken the 3 train uptown to head to a party on the Upper West Side. We were sitting across from a group of four friends who looked like they were right out of ABC Family central casting. The one female was perky and pretty and wearing skinny jeans and several layers and a jaunty hat that would have looked ridiculous on any woman who did not have the face of a Neutrogena spokesmodel. The men were rugged and handsome and looked Australian (they weren't). The most striking of the three had unkempt shoulder-length hair and Jake Gyllenhaal facial scruff. He didn't say much to his three friends (he was standing even though there was an open seat next to his sitting companions); he seemed almost ill at ease, as if he were one of their cousins who was visiting for the weekend, tagging along for New Year's Eve revelry before heading back to Chicago on Monday. We got off the train right as they all broke out into laughter over some joke one of them made about either a streaker or a stickler, I couldn't quite hear (the former seems more likely). I told Marissa, "If the CW ever remakes 'Tarzan' in 'modern day NYC' where Tarzan is like undercover as a NYU undergrad when he's not swinging on vines, that guy's their guy."

Five nights later, Thursday night, after a distressingly lethargic day, I put on two different coats over a sweatshirt and left for my brother's apartment in the East Village to retrieve an air mattress. I got off the subway and power-walked through the cold to his place. I picked up the air mattress (which my brother had stuffed in a gift bag adorned with the logos of various NHL teams) and immediately turned around and walked back to the subway. I zoned out by the track as the 4 train approached, thinking about the e-mails I had to remember to write when I got home. The doors opened and... out walked Tarzan. The same guy. I did a double take as I moved into the car, hitting the woman behind me with the air mattress bag. And then the doors closed and the train lurched forward and everything felt different. What is this world in which you run into the same stranger twice in one week? In New York City, no less! I felt like I was on a J.J. Abrams TV show or in a prologue to a psychological thriller novel. The coincidence meant absolutely nothing and also everything. How can you feel self-pity and glumness when there is just so much strangeness out there - so much amusing, weird, bizarre happenstance all the time all around you? You don't need resolutions or expectations or rebirths; you just need to go outside.

reflex grimacing

2011-12-30T11:31:00.008-05:00

Returning home at 26 feels strange and uncomfortable, like you've swam back into the shallow end of the pool and there are flotation devices everywhere and the water suddenly feels too hot. There are reminders all around you of a former life: Airwalks in the closet, photographs of graduations and soccer teams seemingly at every turn, a "Little Miss Sunshine" ad ripped out from a magazine affixed to your bedroom wall (the bright yellow now a muted brown). It's suffocating.

Within hours, though, the rhythms begin to return. You share a glance with your mom as your dad launches into an overzealous defense of his latest favorite TV procedural. Your brother complains about having to sit in the middle in the back seat of the car ("Don't dwell in the sorrow," you say; he responds, "I don't even know what that means, but I know that's advice you've never taken.") You march into the living room to complain about the internet being slow and end up sitting down and eating 17 crackers and watching a half-hour of a football game and forgetting why you entered the room in the first place. You still feel like an impostor - like you're playing yourself in a play, kind of - but it all, at least, starts to feel familiar.

When it's time to leave, you pack up your stuff quickly (you never bothered taking your clothes out of the suitcase). Before your mom drives you to the train station, she asks if you want to take some bagels with you; you respond that you don't need them - "I'm going to go shopping when I get home" - and you look away from her immediately. You wonder if you'll ever stop reflex grimacing when you refer to your New York City apartment as "home" in her presence, and if you can really be considered an "adult," whatever that means, until you do.

"not sure if you remember me..."

2011-12-16T12:42:00.005-05:00

Recently I e-mailed someone whom I've never met before but with whom I exchanged e-mails a few years ago (we had become Facebook friends at the time, too). Even though this guy - let's call him Doug - has been floating at the top of my gchat list for about two years now, and even though I see Doug's updates all the time on Facebook (I could name his three most recent jobs, tell you what neighborhood in NYC he lives in now... and I'm pretty sure I could pick a guy he briefly dated last year out of a lineup), when it came to writing this e-mail, I began it with, "Hey Doug, Not sure if you remember me, but...."

Doug wrote a friendly e-mail back to me and included somewhere in his first paragraph "Of course I remember you!" And since then I've cringed like at least twice a week thinking about my "Not sure if you remember me..." opener. There should really be some sort of Gmail tool that prevents all e-mails including that phrase from being sent! It creates the opposite kind of uncomfortable strangeness as when some disaffected woman at a party whom you've met a bunch of times shakes your hand and pretends she's never met you before. It's self-deprecating to the point of nauseating. The response is always "Yes, uh, duh, I remember you, weirdo."

But the impulse makes sense to me. Somehow it's extremely easy to convince ourselves - even though we see so much online everyday about people we barely know - that our own online presences are somehow obscured, hidden, secret. That girl Macy from high school whose wedding pictures I looked at last month certainly never looks at my profile! Even though Caitlin and I follow each other on Twitter, I'm sure she just glazes over my tweets without reading them! Even though Doug's on my gchat list, he probably looks at my name on his and wonders who I am! Actually though, this willful ignorance is probably for the best: I'm pretty sure that if we didn't all think of our online selves as "invisible," in a certain way, none of would ever post anything at all.

BCCed

2011-12-08T09:45:00.006-05:00

It sometimes feels like a good number of my "friendships" subsist solely on party invites. A former co-worker I haven't seen in two years, but whom I still dutifully include on every invite for a birthday party or housewarming. A guy I got drinks with once seven months ago whose Facebook statuses I occasionally "like." A high school friend who lives in Chicago whom I add to the BCC field as a way of saying "hi," I guess, even though we've been in the midst of a nine-month long game of phone tag and I think I'm the one who's meant to call her back?

Of course, these people never come to your parties. (The people who come are the 20-40 people you actually see regularly, the ones you expect to show up.) But you keep including them out of habit. You copy and paste your BCCed list from last year's birthday party e-mail and, sure, you delete a few people - a friend's former boyfriend, a past subletter - but there are a few relics you leave on. There's something nice about the thought that your "birthday drinks!!!!" e-mail might remind that former co-worker of that time you sprinted to a cab together holding two boxes filled with party hats. Maybe she'll write back a quick hello ("Sooo sorry I can't make it that night. How are you???"), though she won't respond to your (probably too enthusiastic) response. Or maybe she'll just think to herself "Oh, Josh," before archiving the e-mail. But either way, your having included her in the BCC field - however inconsequential it may seem - reveals that there's some part of you that wants to hold on just a little bit longer.

behind her back

2011-11-17T11:53:00.006-05:00

There's this weird perverse thrill when you find yourself talking about a friend behind his or her back with another mutual friend. There's a sense of guilt, sure ("we're talking about Emily behind her back! she's our good friend! that's so fucked up!"). But there's also this catharsis in venting, in finally getting this stuff off your chest with someone who understands ("gahhh I didn't realize how much Emily annoyed me until talking it out with Rachel like this!"). And then there's also the comforting realization that if you and Rachel are talking about Emily like this, you and Rachel must be closer than Rachel and Emily are ("Rachel feels comfortable saying all this mean stuff about Emily to me! we are so close!").

Of course, as "fun" or therapeutic as these conversations may seem at the time, they almost always result, later, in your feeling super crummy. You get on the subway and you stand against the door instead of sitting in one of the open seats. You have a momentary paranoid flash of Rachel divulging to Emily all the awful things you said over a bottle of wine on some future Friday night, and you feel nauseous. Most of the time, Emily's great. You love Emily. And if you and Rachel fell into a Emily trash-talking conversation that easily, aren't the chances pretty good that the two of them have had a similar conversation about you at some point?

You get off the subway and immediately text Emily some stupid forced joke and ask if she's free for dinner later that week.

tom and kendall

2011-11-11T11:15:00.007-05:00

It's rare, I've noticed recently, that I have a conversation with someone (anyone: a best friend, someone I've just met...) in which one of us doesn't reference something specific we read/watched/listened to on the internet: a YouTube video, a New York Times article, a mashup of "Teenage Dream" and cats purring, whatever.

Usually, these conversations go something like this:

Tom: "Man, I feel like I'm more tired on the weekends than I am during the week... even though I sleep later on the weekends! Weird, right?"

(Tom is clearly a winning conversationalist.)

Kendall: "Oh, did you see that Slate article about that?"

Tom: "No, what did it say?"

Kendall: "Oh, uhhh, just what you're saying, sort of. You know, our bodies release more... or, like, on the weekends, our... you know what, I'll just e-mail you the article."

Tom: "Oh, cool, okay."

Like 90 percent of the time, Tom doesn't get an e-mail from Kendall. Kendall probably just forgets, or she looks up the article the next day and realizes it doesn't say anything close to what she told Tom it did, or she thinks it would be kind of weird to send it to him since they've only met like three times and she'd have to find his e-mail address on Facebook.

But, in the occasions when I've been a Tom and the Kendall has sent the article the next day ("Here's that sleeping article I was telling you about... xx"), I always find myself like weirdly and irrationally impressed. "Wow, what a competent person!" I think, "She followed through." I don't even click on the link and probably archive the e-mail immediately, but my whole perception of Kendall changes. "She must really have her shit together. I bet she's never late to dinners and has a super clean apartment."

"... and before you know it, the whole day sucks"

2011-11-02T13:49:00.005-04:00

I arrived in Boston a few weeks ago to find a bunch of large cardboard boxes stacked in my childhood bedroom. "We're going through all of this before you go back to New York," my mom said, glancing at the boxes, which I knew were filled with notebooks, papers and other memorabilia saved from the 18 years I lived in Boston.

I ended up parting ways with about 75 percent of the work and relics, to my mom's glee, but kept some choice artifacts that looked potentially interesting. I've been slowly working my way through them since, an undertaking which - though it's mainly resulted in lots of Facebook-ing of old teachers/classmates and plaintive staring out of windows - has garnered a few gems.

One of my favorites is this journal entry (?) I wrote on a piece of loose leaf paper on "2/13." ("Some thoughts" will follow.)

Some thoughts:

1. Originally I thought this was from, I dunno, fifth grade? NOPE. After some cursory investigating, I learned it's from ninth grade. I wrote this when I was in high school!! Yes, that was still over ten years ago, but this is not the conception of my ninth grade self that I've been working with. I guess I'm just happy that Twitter and Facebook weren't around then as I can only imagine what sorts of over-the-top emo statuses I'd have been posting.

2. Who keeps a journal on separate pieces of loose leaf paper like this instead of, you know, finding a book? Even a memo pad would have been more normal.

3. The content is so nonspecific! It's like the most dull Angsty Journal Entry possible in that there is absolutely nothing revealing about it. Isn't the point of a journal to let everything out and vent? I really want to know what had happened beforehand that worked me up enough to underline the word "always" and close with that emphatic "fine"!

4. "Often, I know not." ?!?!?!?!

5. The conclusion is so dramatic! I've "come to the point" where all I can do is "sit back" and wait for people to come to me? For one thing, I'm not even sure what this means. For another, knowing me, I probably wrote this defiant entry and then five minutes later couldn't help myself and fired off passive-aggressive e-mails to whichever friends had been irritating me.

10:38pm

2011-10-25T14:45:00.006-04:00

You're at a friend's apartment on a Friday night with two or three or four other people and you've finished dinner and you're on your second bottle of wine. Someone mentions Mark's party and a few replies are muttered (you're all aware, of course, that none of you are actually going to go). You realize you're picking furiously at something you'd never usually eat (onion-flavored chips, carrot cake). A laptop surfaces, either because someone wants to pull up the profile of a dude she went on a horrific date with ("No, he's actually cute... like, short though... oh, let me just show you") or because someone wants to play a song or a YouTube video or something.

Ten minutes later, everyone is crouched around the screen as Megan clicks through a Facebook album of a college acquaintance's vacation to Bermuda. You've already seen this album, embarrassingly, but you feign shock or disgust every ten pictures or so ("Again with that black top?!" "He really does look like Jesse Eisenberg, it's so weird!"). When the album's finished, Megan opens another one ("Oooh, it looks like she's wearing a bikini in this one, guys!"). You take out your iPhone even though you know you haven't gotten any texts... and then slide it back into your pocket. Someone mentions "Moneyball" and, though you've seen it, you remain silent as Megan's boyfriend delivers his somewhat inane critique.

on pete hornberger

2011-10-14T12:23:00.007-04:00

On Monday night I was loitering by the 14th St. ACE subway stop, on the phone with my mom, when I looked up and saw Pete Hornberger fast approaching (his real name is Scott Adsit, but obviously I'm not going to be referring to him as that). He was walking pretty briskly, with an attractive, European-looking woman trailing close behind him. I'm not exactly sure what came over me (and, let's be clear, I'm by no means a major Pete fan or anything like that), but I literally just hung up on my mom mid-sentence and followed him down into the subway.

It dawned on me as I galloped down the stairs that this was totally bizarre, almost inexplicable, behavior on my part. He was clearly in a great hurry with this girlfriend/wife/female friend and it's not like I had any great intention in mind. I was not going to stop him and whip out some "30 Rock" joke. I was not going to get up in his face with my iPhone. It was as if he was a magnet - a disheveled, marginally famous magnet - and I simply had no choice in the matter. (I guess I would have to be a magnet, too, here, for this metaphor to work.)

I got to the bottom of the stairs just in time to see Pete and Mrs. Pete unsuccessfully attempt to swipe through the turnstile. (Mrs. Pete's card didn't have enough money on it.) Pete gawkily run-shuffled toward the MetroCard machine and the madcap nature of their scramble actually did remind me of a frantic "30 Rock" hallway scene.

I was just standing there, a few yards away from them, making no attempt to hide my gawking. It struck me that I was surprisingly interested in "Scott." Did he get recognized often? Did this significant other of his proudly tell people at her salon, "Oh, you know the bald guy who works with Liz Lemon? That's my man"? Did Scott and Pete dress the same? Were they equally as ornery? Is Scott on text messaging/buddy terms with Alec Baldwin or are they merely work colleagues?

I watched as, reloaded card in hand, Pete and Mrs. Pete raced back through the turnstile and down the stairs to wait for an uptown train. I moseyed on down to wait for my downtown train and looked across the way at the departing uptown ride. They were gone. I wondered if anyone in his subway car would recognize him.

When I got back above ground, I didn't really feel compelled to text anyone about my "celeb sighting." It sort of felt like I had just been on a whale watch and caught a momentary glimpse of a dolphin or eel or something. Not that I've ever been on a whale watch: I never really understood what you were meant to do if you saw one.

my own private itunes

2011-10-06T14:29:00.008-04:00

I am fairly certain that I have not once answered the question "What kind of music are you into?" with anything that even resembles the truth.

Usually - not that this question comes up THAT often, but, you know, it comes up - I'll just mutter something like "Oh... I dunno... all different things" or "durrrrr, you know... Adele? And, uh, I've really been into the new... Bon Iver album?"

I'm not really sure why it's music that gets me all clammy and self-conscious. I've got no problem telling people I still watch "Gossip Girl" or that I saw "What's My Number?" on my birthday (though I did shamefully refer to it as "that Anna Faris movie" in one e-mail... as if it would somehow make it less "reprehensible" if I couldn't remember the actual title? I don't know what that was about). Anyway, yeah, for some reason music just brings out this weird insecurity complex in me (and, I think, in other people, too?). There is nothing that freezes me up like being asked to "control the radio" in a car of people I don't know that well. It doesn't matter what song comes on the station, I change it after a few seconds for fear of condoning a song I shouldn't be condoning.

But ever since the advent of this new, annoying Spotify synchronization thing on Facebook - which means I now see what like 25% of my friends are listening to at all times - I've started to realize most people's music tastes are not as "cool" as I'd always imagined them to be. I suppose it's been sort of comforting in a way? Even the most self-avowed music snob people - sure, they mostly have their Werewolf Sacrifice or M&@42 going on - but they also sneak in a LMFAO or Rihanna track every now and then! It's not that I thought that these people never listened to so-called guilty pleasure tracks on occasion, but having concrete proof of it streaming through my news feed every day has been oddly satisfying.

Of course, this doesn't mean I'll be sharing my music anytime soon. And when some dude I'm talking to at a party dismissively says something like "Ugh, this, really?" when "Teenage Dream" comes on, I'm sure I'll continue to perform one of those foot-shuffle/look-at-the-ground sequences instead of responding, "Oh, this song? It's actually the fifth-most played in my iTunes."

weekend, 9/23-9/25

2011-09-27T13:34:00.004-04:00

Friday afternoon. At coffeeshop. I overhear a couple at the table next to me debating whether or not they want to meet up with the girlfriend's friend Jen at some park. The boyfriend is not really into it ("You're sure you don't just want to go to Whole Foods and then go home?"). "Lemme call Jen," the girlfriend says, as if this will solve everything. "Jen... hi..." she begins. She gossips with her for a minute, then asks about her location... and finally it comes, drenched in exaggerated nonchalance: "Who are you with?" The girlfriend gives her boyfriend a relenting smile while listening to Jen's answer. Dawns on me how many plans live or die on that question.

Saturday afternoon. Mom on Sarah Jessica Parker: "She's trying to hold on to something that just isn't hold-on-able."

Saturday afternoon, later. Family of four on the subway: mother, father and two young sons. One son is eating some sort of sticky candy on a stick (looks like something Katy Perry would put in her hair). "Travis, how did you get stuff on your cheek?!" his mom says, all exasperated, trying to wipe orange candy remnant off his face. "It's Travis," his brother says, "How did he get spaghetti sauce in his ear last night?" I realize that this type of name-based exclamation ("C'mon, it's Mary we're talking about..." etc.) always strikes me as the most poignant and affecting kind of description.

Sunday evening. It hits me for the first time ever just how strange it is that the Thai place I've been ordering from for the past year is called "35 Thai." Like, what???? Imagine "71 Italian" or "88 Mexican."

Sunday evening, later. Never feel more "of my generation" than when I catch myself, hardly even conscious of the action, lethargically dragging my mouse to open Photo Booth at 12:23am.

stepping out

2011-09-22T15:08:00.005-04:00

Surprisingly invigorating: You're at a family dinner in a hotel restaurant (or in some other "small group amongst a whole lot of strangers" setting). Something happens (not like something terrible, but rather a logistical development... like, your aunt cuts her finger and needs a Band-Aid) and you're entrusted with completing the task. So you do this half-run though the hotel lobby to ask the concierge for a Band-Aid and then you walk briskly back into the restaurant and exchange nods with the hostess and you have this sense for a split second that you're the protagonist in a CBS procedural or something.

Related, to me, somehow: I realized the other week during an especially boring meeting I had to sit in on that one of the qualities in a person I've always found most attractive is the ability to synthesize. I always found it weirdly appealing (hot even?) in high school/college when -- during one of those classes when the teacher would break us up into small groups for inane/unproductive discussions -- the chosen representative from my group would present our "conclusions" to the class in some unexpectedly sharp and articulate way. All the better if he hadn't really contributed much (or seemed like he were even paying attention) during the small group discussion.

"get some pants that fit"

2011-08-31T15:39:00.005-04:00

After tossing my suitcase into the trunk of my brother's car, I walked around to the front seat and gave my mom a hug goodbye. As I got in the car and my brother buckled his seat belt, my mother held the front door open and said - her parting words to me after a week-long family vacation on the Cape a few weeks ago - "Please Josh, get some pants that fit."

My mom has been on my case about what in her mind is an egregious "sagging" problem for years now. Every time I return home, within minutes of my arrival, she makes some pointed remark about my jeans (usually mid-sentence in a story she's telling about something completely unrelated). "Really, Josh? Do you see where those pants are falling on your waist?" "Josh, just being honest, you look completely ridiculous." (A common variant: the television will be on and she'll say something like, "Josh, do you see how Mario Lopez's pants look compared to yours?")

There's something about the clichéd nature of the complaint and her refusal to quit the campaign and the fact that my pants really don't sag that low (I swear!) that makes this ribbing mostly innocuous and charming to me. Sometimes I'll protest ("These aren't the kind of pants I wear out in New York!" "You have no idea how people dress," etc.) but most of the time, especially as of late, I'll just respond by rolling my eyes exaggeratedly or hiking my pants up to right below my chest ("Happy now?" "Yes.").

I imagine everyone has something like this with their mom - some weird, idiosyncratic, nitpicky thing that she just can't seem to let go of. In college, every time she brings whatever it is up (on Parents Weekend, at Thanksgiving, etc.) is so irritating; it only makes your parents seem crankier and more out-of-touch. But eventually their familiar, specific nagging feels as much a part of home as your childhood bed. You're 25 and so many aspects of your life seem like they're spiraling, but knowing your mom is out there worrying about the waist of your pants somehow keeps you from drifting out into orbit.

"media WORTHY justin BIEBER video"

2011-08-22T16:01:00.002-04:00

About two weeks ago, I got an e-mail from someone named "Kyle" with the subject line "Boy Asks Bieber To Prom." The e-mail was short - explaining that a guy had made a YouTube video in which he asked Justin Bieber to be his date to prom - and it ended with a link to said video. "OK," I thought to myself, "This dude must be spamming blogger types with a link to his video. And, while it seems a little early to be inviting someone to a springtime prom, this is probably harmless."

But the next day I got an e-mail from "Devon" called "Justin Bieber News" which included basically the same message (with a few minor changes to sentence structures). Since then, I have received the same e-mail every day, though each comes from a different sender (the most recent missives have come from "McKenzie," "Ciara" and "Jade") and has a different subject line ("Prom Fever," "This could potentially be a BIG story," "Justin Bieber's Popularity").

I had something of a panic attack a few mornings ago when I checked my phone after waking up and saw I had gotten one at 3am ("EPIC Justin Bieber story" from "Larissa") - I leaped out of bed and set up a spam filter for all e-mails with "Bieber" in the subject line and hoped that would be the end of it. But, as if this multiple personality disorder-inflicted spambot could read my mind, the next e-mail came into my inbox the following day (from "Morgan") with the subject line "Kim Kardashian News." Still the same content about the kid asking Justin Bieber to prom... but with a trickster-y Kim K. decoy subject line!

I must admit I've had a few daymares about being 70 years old and still getting these e-mails every day. I refuse to actually watch the video itself for fear of some "The Ring"-style repercussion. I've contemplated writing back to one of the addresses (they all come from AOL accounts, of course) demanding for the e-assault to end, but have restrained myself from engaging with the enemy.

Perhaps one day I will come to actually tolerate or welcome the e-mails - in what would be a sort of online version of Stockholm Syndrome, I guess - but for now, I will continue to cringe every time I see the red "(1)" on my iPhone, desperately hoping that "Laura" or "Tori" or "Nicki" won't be waiting for me on the other side of the click.

surreal interactions

2011-08-04T11:01:00.007-04:00

1. As I approached a volunteer for some nonprofit up ahead on the street Tuesday, she extended her arms (nearly whacking me with her clipboard) and looked me right in the eye. "If I was drowning in water, would you save me?" she pleaded. I looked down and kept walking past her. "No, sorry," I said.

2. After leaving a rooftop party in Brooklyn on Saturday afternoon (#megaswag), I was craving a sugary drink. I stopped in a nearby deli and settled on a Pomegranate Pear Nantucket Nectars drink. I looked to my left and noticed this guy sizing up the beverage options. He turned to me and asked, "If you had unlimited funds, which of these drinks would you buy?" "Uhhh," I responded, trying to work out the connection between the two clauses. "I just sold my bike, so I have all this money," he explained. "I figured I'd buy a drink." "Oh, uh, well, I'm getting this pomegranate pear thing!" I said, before turning around and shouting "Good luck!" as I bolted to the register.

3. I was in line at Duane Reade yesterday and the woman at the front of the line was loudly complaining about the fact that they only had one register open. "This is a disgrace," she shouted, along with some other unintelligible stuff about "vacations," "brain-dead employees" and "deodorant." She continued ranting even as the cashier rang her up. After she left, the man who had been behind her in line (and in front of me) went up to the register. He took his receipt and then put his hands down on the counter and said to the cashier, in an eerie drawl, "Hang in there. It gets better." He walked out and, as I approached, the cashier just shook her head and widened her eyes. I couldn't think of anything to say so I tried to smile "empathetically" (though I'm pretty sure I just looked like I was trying to hold off a sneeze).

the longest minutes

2011-07-28T15:14:00.004-04:00

1. You've arrived at a date 10-15 minutes early, so you stroll around the block at an absurdly slow pace or browse the Barnes & Noble next door, flipping through books without taking in any of the words. You keep checking your phone, waiting for it to be at least three minutes past the planned meeting time so you can head to the bar.

2. You recognize an old acquaintance sitting in a booth at a restaurant or in the lobby of the theater, but you make the initial, instinctive decision to look straight ahead and walk right by. For the rest of the meal/intermission, you keep your gaze locked on the face of the friend you're with as if you're taking an eye exam and the chart's on her forehead.

3. You've accompanied a friend to a party at which you don't really know anyone. Your friend starts talking to a co-worker or a college pal and you stand there and try to involve yourself in the conversation to limited success. Suddenly your friend says he has to go to the bathroom, leaving you with the co-worker/college pal. "Uh oh," you realize, "I've gotta turn it up from 20% to 85% now."

4. You're on the subway and it's late at night and there are only two people in your car: one is sleeping and the other is singing or repeatedly cracking his knuckles or not wearing pants.

5. You're sitting on an airplane and you're waiting for the flight attendant to come by to pick up your trash.

june 30-31

2011-07-19T17:14:00.004-04:00

Last week I accompanied a friend of mine to a poetry reading. It was the first poetry reading I had ever attended and it definitely aligned with the expectations I had had going in: one female performer took her shirt off mid-poem; another (who was wearing a skirt over jeans) introduced her poem as a "micro-lyric essay"; one guy shouted an angry rant about insomnia. Everyone in the audience (men and women) looked like they were going as Sufjan Stevens for Halloween.

Earlier, on our way into the reading, my friend had recognized this blond guy with a rattail who was smoking a cigarette by the door. We had stopped to chat with him and I learned he was a "gardener" from Philadelphia. He was the kind of guy who says things like "Facebook is going to be our generation's downfall" and who wears hiking boots and shorts in spite of their perceived aesthetic rather than because of it.

I asked him if he was going to be one of the participating poets and he explained that, though he did write poems, he would not be reading any that night. I said that that was too bad and he then presented two fliers for a poetry festival he was going to be reading at later this summer on Governors Island. "You guys should come," he said, and my friend and I nodded in the most disingenuous way humans can nod.

After a few seconds of scanning the flier though, my friend blurted out, "Hey wait, did this... already happen?" and she pointed to the top of the flier where "JUNE 30-31" was written in huge, bold letters. I mumbled, "But June 31 isn't...." (I was too bashful to outright suggest there had been a typo.)

Our green-thumbed, rat-tailed friend did not look fazed in the slightest. "Oh, yeah, weird," he shrugged. "It's supposed to say July 30-31. I should let them know... I've been putting these up everywhere."

He smiled goofily, tossed his cigarette on the sidewalk and stepped on it, and then turned toward the door. "Let's head inside," he said. Something about the way he tilted his head and bent his knees as he walked through the door made me feel utterly silly for ever taking anything that happens in my life too seriously.

what i've learned from living alone

2011-07-14T17:14:00.001-04:00

I wrote a piece for Thought Catalog about living alone that went up today! I think the tags they put on it sum it up pretty well: Childlike, gchat, Katherine Heigl, Living Alone, Lonely, Martha Stewart, New York City, Ownership, Personal Writing, Studio, Wine

Check it out here!

half-measures

2011-07-06T13:50:00.003-04:00

I watched all of "Breaking Bad" over the past few weeks (highly recommended) and there's this one quote that's stuck with me. This menacing "fixer" guy named Mike (don't worry, this isn't going to be a major spoiler or anything) tells Walt (Bryan Cranston, a.k.a. the dad from "Malcolm in the Middle") this long, super intense story about a time he was working as a cop and had the chance to kill this terrible guy who was abusive to his wife. Instead of killing the guy though, Mike threatened him and let him go; a few weeks later, the guy ended up murdering his wife. Says Mike, "The moral of the story is: I chose a half-measure when I should have gone all the way."

Obviously the specifics of his story are not applicable to my own life in any way, but the message really struck a chord. I feel like I'm almost always settling for half-measures and, when I started to think about it, they rarely pan out all that well. I'll get this idea for something I want to do (anything from sending an e-mail to a cute dude to moving to France for a few months) and then I'll get in my own head and talk to people about it and start feeling all self-conscious and come up with all these reasons I should scale back and go with a half-measure instead. ("Instead of an e-mail, I'll... friend him on Facebook and wait until I see him again in eight months!" "Instead of moving to France for a few months, I'll... take a weekend trip upstate!") The risk and, of course, the reward are both diminished.

I've also been thinking about how the internet is this great enabler of half-measures. There's this degree of separation that social networks provide that makes it so easy to hold back -- to end a terse e-mail with a "hope everything's well," to write a passionate blog post anonymously, to not say what you really want to be saying -- and that's, ultimately, completely numbing. It's enough to make you want to scream; but instead you gchat a ":-("

ezra and me

2011-06-24T10:51:00.002-04:00

Seems like this happens in every conversation I have lately:

- The person I'm talking to (let's call him Ezra) makes a statement about how something coming up for him is going to be exciting/fun/easy. ("I am so excited to get Summer Fridays starting next week...!")

- I respond positively, adding some sort of unsophisticated observation just to show that a) I'm listening and b) yeah, I agree, [whatever it is] does sound great! ("I'm so jealous! It'll be so nice having your weekends start early... especially if you're, like, going somewhere...")

- Ezra will look vaguely perturbed (not in a show-y way or anything) and come back with a kind of qualification, seemingly attempting to downplay the "awesomeness" of the news or caveat it in some way. ("Well, I'll probably end up having to stay in the office most Friday afternoons anyway...")

(Also, there's the inverse: Ezra brings up something frustrating/depressing/annoying; I shake my head and offer some kind of sympathetic comment; he responds after a moment with this different, more optimistic "well, it's not that bad" remark.)

behaviors I can't relate to

2011-06-17T14:14:00.003-04:00

1. Writing "I miss your face" in any forum (Facebook wall, text message, etc.).

2. Wanting to exercise in any capacity (especially running on treadmills side-by-side) with a friend/significant other.

3. Referring to anything (especially people and GIFs) as your "spirit animal."

4. Beginning an e-mail with a reference to a half-hearted/failed attempt to meet up in the past before getting into the actual question/subject of the e-mail. ("We still need to get that coffee sometime!," etc.).

5. Making a "joke" about the number of jokes being made about the "rapture"/Anthony Weiner/Charlie Sheen/whatever.

on seeing movies alone

2011-06-14T13:54:00.017-04:00

As I entered the movie theater late Friday afternoon to see "X-Men: First Class" by myself, it dawned on me that I could easily recall every movie I've ever seen alone: "Babel," "The Town," and "The Bourne Ultimatum." It's not because these movies were so memorable (with the exception of that one scene in "The Town" where Don Draper and Serena van der Woodsen flirt at a bar, they weren't), it's that the awkwardness I felt about seeing a movie by myself was, in each case, so all-consuming. I would self-consciously sit in the back or far to the side in order to attract as little attention to myself as possible. I would fake text in my seat before the movie started, looking past people when they walked by my row as if I were searching for a friend I was waiting for. I imagined everyone around me was whispering to each other "OMG, do you see that guy in the sweatshirt who's here by himself? What a geekwad."

But this time was different! Like a mutant who learns to be proud of his freakish abilities, I actually felt just fine about being on my own. In fact, I realized after the fact that there are some really nice aspects of seeing a movie by yourself:

1. I could sit wherever I wanted to! Usually, since I like to avoid confrontation at all costs, I will nod in agreement no matter where my movie-going companion suggests we sit. ("Sure, the front row for this two-and-a-half hour long gore-fest sounds great!") Not an issue when you're by yourself! Additionally, when two teenage girls sit near you who are yammering loudly and eating sandwiches they smuggled in their purses that smell like fish tanks (I dunno), you can get up and move without a second thought. (You can do this when you're with someone, too, I guess, but it causes more of a commotion and just seems more dramatic.)

2. One of my biggest irrational pet peeves is people I'm with texting during a movie. Aahh, it annoys me so much! To set an example or something, I always make a point of not even looking at my phone during movies (not that my friends probably ever notice/care). But - and this is something I should probably bring to a therapist - when I was watching "X-Men," I checked my phone all the time! I looked at every text, checked the time every 10 minutes, etc. It was kind of great, I must admit. It made me think of an imaginary mother who always makes everyone take off their shoes in her house returning to an empty home one day and like jumping on her couch and stomping on the carpet in her heels and just loving it.

3. It's nice to be able to evaluate a movie on your own. I feel like, half of the time, I leave a movie and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but the person I'm seeing it with is like "omg I loved it so much I'm actually tweeting a rhyming ode to it right now" or "well, thaaaat sucked" and I feel like I have to just nod along or equivocate if I disagreed ("yeah, I guess it was weird how they never told us why he didn't eat the pancakes..."). It was kind of nice to leave "X-Men" and be able to just come up with all of my conclusions and evaluations on my own. Oh, and it was also nice that there was no one around to interrupt my prolonged post-movie daydream about walking around Paris with Michael Fassbender.

weekend, 5/27-5/30

2011-05-31T14:11:00.006-04:00

Friday afternoon. On our way out of "The Tree of Life," we overhear a 50-year-old man practically shout at his wife, "That's the last time I see something that Terry recommends." He then half-heartedly tries to warn people waiting for the next showing to "save their money" and see something else.

Saturday morning. I attempt to text "Lol" to Amanda, but the iPhone auto corrects it to "lollipop." It dawns on me that it's somewhat surprising (?) that "LOL-lipop" has never been a thing/punchline/meme (as far as I know, at least). Actually, maybe it's not that surprising.

Saturday afternoon. Walking on the street by myself, I wail "nooooo!" kind of loudly after accidentally archiving an e-mail on my phone. Recognize that that response is exactly the kind of thing I only find myself doing when I'm in a good mood.

Sunday morning. Get in elevator with two parents and their tween daughter. "So I am going to have a little chat with the doorman on our way out," the mom says. The daughter and father don't say anything, and then the mother exclaims, "What? The machine ate my money!" The father and daughter briefly exchange a smile behind her back.

Sunday evening. Passing movie theater, it strikes me as odd that there's never been a quirky female character in an indie romantic comedy who buys popcorn in an oversized bucket from the concession stand on her way out of a movie and then takes it with her to the park or the roller derby or wherever she and the guy are going.

Monday afternoon. On a search for extra strength Tylenol, I stop in two different Duane Reades (and a CVS!), only to find that they're all out of it. Weirdly, I find this sort of comforting, imagining all of these zombie New Yorkers traipsing around the city on fruitless journeys for Tylenol.

Monday evening: A mother tries to say goodbye to her 10-year-old son outside of Whole Foods while a babysitter type stands a few feet away. The mother keeps repeating her goodbye while her son just makes robot noises and shuffles in place, clinging to her shirt. Somehow heartbreaking.

thoughts, two weeks after getting an iPhone

2011-05-26T15:28:00.004-04:00

1. So I finally got an iPhone two weekends ago after years of (somewhat inexplicable) resistance. My go-to "excuse" - whenever I would be asked with disdain why I still had a Blackberry - was that I had "fat thumbs" and was worried I wouldn't be able to type quickly on a touch screen, which for some reason I would always say as if it was this hilarious punchline, and which almost always resulted in either a thumb-width "contest" with the questioner or a confused nod (both disconcerting!). Anyway, one of the great things about my now having an iPhone is that I will (hopefully) never be tempted to embarrass myself with this weird "fat thumbs" riff ever again.

2. Related, an almost-as-great thing is that now I no longer have to put up with everyone lecturing me about how much I need an iPhone/offering me their iPhone to "try"/telling me that "if only I had an iPhone, then I could easily find the best Thai restaurant within a two-block radius of our current location that is cat-friendly and only plays rap music and serves imported ale."

3. Also great: I no longer have to feel inferior and sullen whenever I see an iPhone screen shot posted on Twitter or on someone's blog. (Seriously, I think "desire to finally be able to take screen shots of my text message convos" comprised about 78% of the "what motivated me to finally get an iPhone" pie chart.)

4. But - surprise, surprise - I have some complaints. For one thing, I still, some two weeks later, sort of feel like I am slapping on a cheese board when I try to text. Or, to attempt a different metaphor (I know, topping that cheese board one is going to be TOUGH), when I'm typing on the touch screen I feel like I'm a dolphin jabbing at typewriter keys with one of its fins.

5. I'm guessing this is probably a common source of frustration (and humor, I suppose) in the "iPhone community," but the auto correct function - while sometimes "smart" and helpful - is at other times terribly frustrating. Every "like" somehow becomes a "Luke," every "you" a "toy," etc. So far, almost all of the texts I've sent have ended up reading like Google Translate results.

6. I was given the choice at the store between a white or black iPhone and decided to get a white one, assuming that was the original iPhone color... only to find out later from my brother (and everyone else I've seen since) that, in fact, white iPhones were just recently released. So now I feel especially regretful about my choice to get a black case, which basically negated any "cool" points my accidental hip choice may have earned me. I also feel like this says a lot about my observation "skills" considering all my friends have had iPhones for like the past 15 years.

"wait and ditch"

2011-05-19T10:46:00.006-04:00

So there's this restaurant near my apartment that I've been going to pretty regularly (let's say, once or twice a month) for about a year now. It's a casual wine bar kind of place; they don't take reservations; you can get a small bowl of almonds for a few dollars, etc. A few months ago, I noticed that a new waiter had joined the stable who looked like a slightly more attractive Landry from "Friday Night Lights" (square jaw, cropped blond hair, thick glasses).

A few weeks ago, my friend and I were there for dinner and Landry was our waiter. He was polite but by no means chatty. (We asked him what his favorite sandwiches on the menu were and he answered with a series of what can only be described as shrugs.) After he cleared our entrees -- my friend and I in that "do we want that second glass of wine or not?" stage -- he returned to our table (keep it mind it was only like 8:45pm at this point) and announced, "I just wanted to let you guys know I have to leave the restaurant for the night. I'm going to give your table over to Joan... you'll be in good hands."

We both mumbled some variation of "Oh, okay, thanks" and looked at each other uncertainly.

About thirty minutes later (we had gone for that second glass), on my way back to our table from the bathroom, I bumped right into Landry in the back of the restaurant. He was carrying a few plates on his way into the kitchen.

"Oh.... um, you're still here?" I said.

"Yeah..."

"I thought you were leaving though...?" (The only explanation I have for my uncharacteristically confrontational behavior here is that I guess I felt sort of offended/perplexed that he had apparently lied to us about leaving for the night.)

He looked at me for a few seconds -- and for a moment I thought he might slap me (I wish I knew why my brain works as it does) -- but instead he just sort of shrugged and said, "What can I say? I just can't get myself to leave this place!"

My friend and I spent the next ten minutes at our table deliberating possible explanations for the mid-meal ditch. Had he just not liked us (we had, somewhat annoyingly, made a production of asking him how to correctly pronounce the restaurant's name)? Had we not ordered enough to make waiting around for the tip worth his while? Had he been planning to meet some girl/dude for a date, only to have received a "can't make it" text on his way out, at which point he felt too awkward to then return to our table?

After we signed the check, I asked Joan, who had been perfectly adequate, what had happened to "our first waiter."

"If only I knew," she said. My friend and I both nodded familiarly, as if Landry were a relative who, despite everyone's whispered hopes, was just never able to get his act together.

daydreamin'

2011-05-13T12:48:00.006-04:00

I've found there are a few daydreams that I return to with some frequency. There's one in which I'm sitting by a pool with Blake Lively and she gets some text message and she reads it out loud and we break out in a fit of giggles. And I have another one in which I'm doing really good skateboarding stuff: just like astoundingly coordinated maneuvers on one of those half-pipes.

But the one I return to the most often involves this spaceship-y control room with five monitors playing different video feeds: the kind of room where the goon security guard gets knocked out by the superhero's sidekick in a movie. Anyway, in this particular daydream, I get to sit in the chair and the five monitors in front of me are each playing a different scene, representing the five moments that would most rupture my understanding of my life, incidents that would force me to re-contextualize everything about my relationships. We're talking on the level of seeing a loved one in the midst of an ongoing affair, or seeing your best friend steal something valuable from your house five years ago. (For some reason I always imagine these scenes would be "negative" moments, but I suppose they could be "happy/sentimental" reveals, too, like seeing your mother's secret art studio where she's been painting landscapes for years without telling anyone about it.)

Sometimes I contemplate what would actually be playing on my feeds, but, truly, just the idea of this room is what gets me completely elated - and also frustrated, I guess (but in the "gahhhh I wish this were a real thing" good way). I imagine getting off a subway car one day and taking a wrong turn and ending up there. Some attendant in knight's armor will hand me a Capri-Sun and direct me to the chair and each screen will illuminate one by one. I'll cover my eyes and watch through a slit in my fingers at first, like I did throughout "No Country for Old Men," overcome with anticipation at how everything is about to change.

the wrong floor

2011-05-05T16:25:00.008-04:00

I returned to my apartment with a few bags the other afternoon, on one of those days when it's too hot to wear a winter coat but too cold to wear a fleecy thing so everyone outside is uncomfortable temperature-wise. I had just stopped by this cafe near my apartment where I once spotted butternut squash apple cider soup but which has mysteriously been out of said soup every time I've returned to look for it since. I got off the elevator and, as I walked to my door, a father and his baby son passed me going in the opposite direction.

The baby sort of squawked at me as it walked past and I said something like "hi baby" (I tend to treat small children as if they are farm animals -- "you're cute but stay at least two feet away from me"). I got to my door and turned to catch another glimpse of the baby and suddenly realized the door was not opening. I jammed the key repeatedly, trying not to make too much of a commotion, but had no luck. I looked up and, to my horror, realized I was on the 16th floor instead of the 11th and had therefore been trying desperately to get into the wrong apartment. Meanwhile, I was aware of Baby staring at me as Dad scrolled on his iPhone. And somehow Baby's glare made me feel infinitely more panicked and embarrassed.

I thought about explaining my error to them, but it seemed like I was too far gone at this point. I had tried to open this door about seven times. Who doesn't notice they're at the wrong door for seven tries? And this was a guy I could potentially be seeing in the elevator for years to come -- did I really want him thinking I was some space cadet who just moseys around trying his key in various doors and seeing what happens?

At that moment, the dad turned to look at me, probably having just come to the realization that I had been standing in front of this door for about a minute without having successfully entered the apartment.

At a loss, I whipped my Blackberry out of my pocket and held it to my ear (years of fake-texting to avoid awkward situations have clearly had an effect on my instincts)... but I couldn't bring myself to actually say anything. I just stared ahead at the door, holding my Blackberry to my ear with clenched fingers, waiting for Baby and Dad to get on the elevator. Thankfully this happened about ten, long seconds later, at which point I just dropped my bags on the carpet of the 16th floor and exhaled.

times i feel foreign to myself

2011-04-27T15:29:00.002-04:00

1) When, while sampling some new brand of pita chips I bought the other day, I find myself taking a picture of the bag with my phone and sending it to a few friends with the caption "these are AMAZING!"

2) When a taxi driver makes some sort of attempt at humor ("Well, that guy is clearly a tourist!") and I laugh in this breathy, staccato manner for a few seconds.

3) When I'm struck with an impulse to send a "it was so good to see you last night!!" text to a good friend the day after getting dinner with him/her.

4) When I'm crafting the Paragraphs of Questions ("So how are things with you??" etc.) in a long e-mail to a friend.

5) Whenever I have to describe "how work is going"/"how I like my new apartment" to an adult I don't know well.

no thank you, gmail

2011-04-22T11:00:00.002-04:00

This new gmail feature that suggests potential contacts based on addresses you've already entered in the "to" field is disconcerting in the same way as those Amazon.com "We think you'll like..." e-mails. Sure, if I've entered my mother's e-mail address, there's a good chance I'm going to add my father's next; and sure, if I bought Lauren Conrad's first book (obviously, we're talking about a hypothetical me here), I probably will think about buying her second one... but is this really the aspect of our internet life that most needed to be addressed with a flashy new feature?

There are a lot of things I'd love gmail to do for me: filter for passive-aggressive turns of phrase, remove people from party invites that I am going to regret having included later, auto-link relevant GIFs on certain key words. But this particular issue -- uncertainty as to who to include on an e-mail -- is not one I've ever felt impeded my e-mail efficiency or believed would benefit from a "helpful hand."

Sure, you could argue that having suggested contacts there "could come in handy" or something, but I'd argue, if anything, their inclusion adds time to your e-mailing process, either because it sends you down a tunnel of nostalgia ("Oh, yeah, I remember when I used to include Tim on these group e-mails....") or because it makes you feel more guilty about any sort of sketchy social maneuver you're pulling (i.e. consciously excluding Daisy from brunch while her name sits right there glaring at you).

Also, who wants to feel that their internet conduct is that predictable? Gmail, you've homogenized enough about how we interact/communicate -- give us at least the illusion of autonomy!

putting down the chewy stuff

2011-04-19T14:14:00.008-04:00

Don't feel like I'm hyperbolizing all that much in positing that my quitting gum about a month ago has majorly improved my overall mood and general quality of life.

There was a time, back in high school, when I was known amongst my group of friends for my gum supply. The top pouch of my monogrammed L.L. Bean backpack was at all times stuffed with packs of gum. My best friends felt it completely acceptable to use my backpack pouch as their personal vending machine, sometimes even coming up behind me without notice and withdrawing as I waited for the train or strolled across campus.

I chewed all the time: when I was nervous, when I was bored, after lunch, after coffee, after dinner, before a party, during a party, after a party, when I was feeling angsty, when I was feeling elated. It was disgusting. This behavior persisted throughout college and for my first few years in New York. (I sort of unwittingly fell back into my "gum dispenser" role at my old consulting job, which I'm sure made me seem so mature that it was almost intimidating for everyone else in the office.)

Anyway, a few months ago I decided that a true adult doesn't chew gum (please, someone submit that to inspirationalquotes.net) and that I would try to quit. And: so far, so good!

Here are some of the ways I feel my life has improved:

1) I am saving money. I would estimate, thanks to some extremely scientific calculations, that I've probably been spending upwards of $75/year on gum. Not this year!

2) I no longer have to worry that I'm inadvertently resembling a character from "Clueless" every time I talk.

3) I feel "healthier." When I have a craving for gum now, I try to subside it with a glass of water or a cup of tea or some raisins or carrots or Tic Tacs. This "diet" makes me feel like I'm a middle-aged duchess and it's great.

4) I feel saner? I think? Life seems quieter since I've gone gum-less (due in part to the absence of constant chomping, I suppose), like the aural equivalent of being able to actually see the stars in the sky when you're out in the country.

oh na na

2011-04-13T12:40:00.003-04:00

There is a fleet of six doormen who take turns manning the front desk in my new building. Having a doorman is a new phenomenon for me, and it's certainly taking some getting used to. There's something almost uncomfortable about having your comings and goings "monitored" by a vaguely parental figure, one who mutters "good luck out there" when it's raining or "good morning" as you leave the apartment in sweats at 2pm.

Anyway, there is one of the six who is younger than the others and, if he wasn't wearing a suit, he wouldn't look out of place at a Sleigh Bells concert or Central Park on a Saturday afternoon. Rather than doling out verbal greetings like his comrades, he seems to prefer a barely perceptible head-nod or an extremely controlled wave. As such, I've identified a pretty embarrassing desire within me to "impress" him. But I reached a major road block in this quest last week when he accompanied one of his waves with a "Hey, Josh," and I found that I couldn't reciprocate his friendly gesture because... I didn't remember his name.

Now, this guy does wear a name tag but, aligned with his overall brand, it droops in such a manner that it's basically impossible to make out what it says (even when you're standing right in front of him). I have made up a whole series of reasons to stop and talk to him over the past week, trying to slyly kneel and crane my neck at just the right time and at just the right angle while I "listen" to whatever he's saying. So far, I've been able to conclude his name starts with a "B"... and that's about it. I got one momentary direct glance and I saw "Bloiche," which a) cannot be correct and b) I wouldn't even DARE try to pronounce anyway.

I've attempted the ole "have a friend introduce herself" trick (she reported back: "I think 'Ben'? Or, like, 'Bizarre'?"). I've also contemplated just admitting to him I don't remember his name (but keep deciding that it would be too embarrassing after having had so many interactions with him). I have even mulled asking my mom to call the front desk when I know he's on duty to have her coax it out of him.

So I wait for two possible resolutions: the day I am no longer so self-conscious that I can't just ask someone to remind me what his name is, or the day "Bloiche" gets his name tag readjusted. I feel pretty confident I know which will happen first.

"will get to this in a bit!"

2011-04-08T16:18:00.005-04:00

The most frustrating response to an e-mail which is clearly looking for some kind of reply - a long story, a forwarded invitation accompanied with "thoughts?," etc. - is one in which the recipient just states his or her plans to get to your e-mail later. "Oh, hmm! More from me soon." Or: "Will look at this later." Same idea as when you send someone a YouTube link and they write back, "Oh, can't wait to check this out in a bit!" More often than not, in either case, you never get a subsequent e-mail from the person, as if they believe the mere act of having immediately responded somehow negates their not having actually reacted.

my favorite kind of lunch

2011-04-01T14:14:00.005-04:00

After a long morning spent with your mom or your friend doing errands or shopping or something, you find a place to get lunch that doesn’t look at all remarkable from the outside. It’s one of those places with a person’s name in its name (“Andy’s Deli,” “Helen’s Mediterranean Cuisine”), a buffet-style station characterized mainly by steam, lighting that recalls a hospital hallway...

But from the second you walk inside, a particular kind of fatigue-fueled, punch-drunk hyperbole kicks in.

“Oh, this place is so cute!”
“Can you believe how much stuff they have on this sandwich menu? Seriously, look at it.”
“They have egg salad, too?! Are you kidding me?!”

The charade lasts for the entirety of the meal, chowed down in the nondescript seating area. “I would come to this place every day if I lived near here,” your mom might say. “Ohmigod, I almost want to ask them if I can just buy a jar of this honey mustard,” you might exclaim. The cashier says you get a pickle with your meal and you both audibly cheer.

Both of you are aware that you’re being sort of disingenuous, that there’s some sort of hard-to-qualify “joke” going on here, but there’s something about the repartee that seems familiar and makes you feel close with the person, so you keep it up until you leave the deli, almost certainly never to return again.

three scenes from a strange week

2011-03-24T17:33:00.008-04:00

1) I was awoken on Tuesday morning by Amanda, my roommate, who was in hysterics because she could not find "Mr. Cat," her sister's cat which she had agreed to cat-sit for ten days while her sister vacations in California. My immediate reaction was one of amusement (something about our disheveled attire, Amanda's tearful cries of "Mr. Caaaaaat," and my having told a slew of bad sitcom-y jokes about hating the cat the previous night). Eventually our superintendent showed up and found the cat hiding behind the washing machine next to a serving of rat poison (!) that had been placed there a number of months ago. (So yes, it is safe to assume the cat was contemplating suicide.) A few hours later, I took a picture of the cat staring at a pineapple (what, you don't all use pineapples as doorstops in your apartments?). I put it on Facebook and it got nine "likes," three of which came from people I haven't seen or heard from in at least five years.

2) I arrived at a party I had been invited to for a new Cosmo iPad app Wednesday night where Pauly D of "Jersey Shore" fame was DJing. After entering the club (with the requisite austere/vague name -- "District 36"), I surveyed the crowded scene. Buff caterers were carrying around trays of mini-cupcakes. Vanna-Whites-in-training, adorned with gobs of makeup, circulated the room showcasing "display iPads." Meanwhile, the crowd of young professionals danced half-heartedly, blithely mouthing the words of Rihanna's "S&M" ("chains and whips excite me") while alternately shouting into the ears of their friends and checking their iPhones. "This is what being an extra in an establishing shot on 'Entourage' must feel like," I thought.

3) I asked Amanda where I should get lunch today, my last day in this apartment before I move out tomorrow. "Um, why don't you just go to the deli downstairs for a sandwich?" Now, in the 22 months I have lived in this apartment, I have probably hit up "the deli downstairs" at least once a week for water, snacks, soda, etc., but, for some reason, not even once did I consider that they probably made sandwiches. I felt totally shellshocked by Amanda's suggestion, like when someone teaches you a new application for a favorite condiment that you had never considered or tells you you've been pronouncing a person's name wrong for three years. "Yeah, go down and get a BLT or something," she said. And so I did. While I was paying for my sandwich, Amanda walked in. "This is my roommate," she said to the woman at the cashier. "Aahhhh," the cashier said, "He just asked me for a bag - he's causing me a lot of problems." Amanda and her laughed at this like old college friends. The cashier handed me my bag and I said "thanks" three times before walking out.

types I just can't understand

2011-03-18T11:21:00.004-04:00

1. The couple who enters a movie about 15 minutes after it started. They seem to be holding like five different coats and they're making no effort to whisper as they look around for a place to sit.

2. Your friend's friend's roommate who, when you ask him at the bar if he knows so-and-so who works at his company, responds: "Oh, yeah! Tim's good people."

3. A public figure who, while giving a speech or talking on a panel, notices someone in the audience has gotten up and left the room (probably just to go to the bathroom or something!) and decides to make note of it. "Uh oh. Am I boring everyone?" he "jokes," receiving a few unenthusiastic laughs.

4. The friend (who you see maybe once a month at best) who texts you on a Friday at 7pm: "Hey, know this is totally random but I'm like a block away from your apartment right now!! You around??? Wanna hang out??"

5. The person who uploads a Facebook album of pictures from middle school, titled "Look what I found!!!!!" or "MEMORIES :) :) :)"

comforting/distressing

2011-03-15T12:30:00.007-04:00

A great feeling: when a friend is chatting about someone (it's better if it's someone you both know as opposed to someone famous) and she notes something annoying/unappealing (aesthetic or otherwise) about the person that is something you sometimes worry people perceive about you. "Oh nice," you think to yourself, "There's no way she would go on for five minutes about Becky's gross acne if my acne was really all that noticeable. She would never be that callous!" I'm sure there's some psych principle about how really people are just looking for affirmation anywhere they can find it, but it still feels reassuring in the moment in a really base way.

The opposite, sort of: when you realize that a friend has blatantly ignored a piece of "counsel" you gave him, the first response is always to see that as a personal reflection on yourself. You notice while scrolling through his iPod that he didn't actually save that album you e-mailed him a few months ago (which he had written back he was "really into") and you get all quiet for a few seconds and contemplate whether you should make a "joke" about it or not.

at the table

2011-03-08T12:21:00.003-05:00

A moment I love:

When your whole family is home for the holidays or Thanksgiving or something and you're sitting at the dinner table (dinner ended like twenty minutes ago but no one's cleared their plates yet) and an argument has broken out. Everyone's getting riled up and more entrenched in their particular point of view and the debate is escalating. And then, at a certain point, a family member (while making some "serious" assertion) incorporates a ridiculous/oddly-chosen phrase (e.g. "popcorn dust," "Rihanna hair") and everyone, including the speaker, has to really struggle to not smile as the argument continues.

For some reason, I'm often reminded of this sort of tableau when it's raining at night.

weekend, 2/25-2/27

2011-03-01T09:47:00.008-05:00

Friday evening. It dawns on me at dinner that the difference between Your Best Friends and All Your Other Friends is that with best friends you don't have to widen your eyes and say "oh reaaally?" when they tell you something you can tell they think is particularly surprising/interesting.

Friday evening, later: I spot this "Mila Kunis is Bored" flier in the East Village, taped on Amanda Seyfried's head in a Red Riding Hood poster. Decide this is the best thing that has happened to me since I moved to New York.

Friday night, 1:05am. I get in a cab in the West Village.
Cab driver, after about a minute of driving: "You going home?"
Me: "... yeah."
Cab driver: "So early?"
Me: "Um, yeah.... I guess so."
(Two minutes pass)
Cab driver: "I can drop you off at Greenhouse if you want.... it's a club."
Me: "Ha. Ha. Thanks, but I think I'm OK."

Saturday afternoon. Finish Justin Bieber profile in Rolling Stone. The word "swag" is used probably 78 times in the piece (mostly in Bieber-attributed quotes), which makes me worried we're going to see a proliferation of TV/movie dad characters "comically" using the word "swag" to seem "with it" over the next few years.

Saturday early evening. Decide I'm at my least sincere when sending "yeah, you should totally stop by if you can make it!!" texts on Saturday nights.

Sunday afternoon. A man in his mid-50s, probably, wearing khakis and a windbreaker, asks for a bagel "scooped." He waits a few seconds and then adds, in a husky growl, "and cream cheese on the side, please." The whole interaction makes me wonder if he's been Freaky Friday-ed with some tween girl who is at the same time ordering a black coffee somewhere across town.

Sunday night. Here are a selection of the brief e-mails my mom sent me during the Oscars from her Blackberry:
(10:35pm) "They are terrible hosts."
(10:37pm) "Nothing has been young about this show other than the hosts."
(10:38pm) "Billy Crystal on for 10 seconds made you realize what a host couldd be."
(10:50pm) "If. Iam ready to turn it offthings are really bad"
(11:35pm) "Unbelievable to me that they put the Kings speech thru all the best films"
(11:40pm) "Worst ever"

the man who walked with sticks

2011-02-25T15:57:00.009-05:00

The "hottest" Halloween party when I was in college was this massive dance party thrown every year by the art and architecture graduate students. They had it in this building about halfway up some giant hill (though now I'm wondering if I'm just imagining that it was on a hill due to the "psychological height" I was forced to climb in mustering the courage to attend this party).

Senior year my roommate and I dressed as basketball players from High School Musical for Halloween (age appropriate as ever). We arrived at the art and architecture party and it was something of a mad house. We went outside for fresh air (I think? Actually more likely is that we wandered around inside for 45 minutes and didn't see anyone we knew) and while we were loitering we heard this guy calling at us from the window of an empty room. He asked us if we had a lighter (we didn't) but he was friendly and we were bored and we started chatting and a few minutes later we found ourselves inside his art studio.

His costume was really great. He was a Popsicle... which doesn't sound like it would be so impressive but it was like POPSICLE TO THE MAX (well-tailored one-piece red jumpsuit that I'm pretty sure he had sewn himself; red face paint; surprisingly "real-looking" Popsicle stick affixed to his back). As he sipped on tea, he informed us that he had won the art grad school costume contest earlier that evening.

He also told us about his senior project: a one-man "performance" he was planning in which he was going to carry about seven or eight giant sticks from New Haven to New York. Yes, he was going to walk the 80 or so miles, schlepping these giant eight foot sticks all the way. (I'm pretty sure he used some "artist-y" euphemism for "stick," btw, but I can't remember what it was.) My roommate and I were totally in awe. This guy was a smoking enthusiast/costuming champion/performance artist dude in his late 20s; we were college seniors dressed as Zac Efron for Halloween.

A few months later, I thought he might be a good subject for a profile I had to do for a writing class, so I e-mailed him about meeting up for coffee. He arrived wearing a gold spandex outfit (pants and matching top), which I decided must have been his version of "jeans and a t-shirt" considering the nonchalant way he sauntered into the coffee shop. He told me about The Walk (which had been completed successfully some months earlier) and I listened rapturously.

Even though I ended up writing the profile about a music teacher at a New Haven public school instead, and even though I don't remember a thing he told me about the walk itself other than that he wore the same shirt the whole time, I still find myself thinking about him now and then as if he were a character in a movie I saw a few years ago that I keep meaning to re-watch.

vaguely depressing

2011-02-17T15:40:00.006-05:00

1. When a musical act that was once super famous and that you were really into at the time just... keeps on releasing songs, even though no one pays any attention to them anymore. #maroon5 #ciara

2. When two of your friends from completely different eras in your life -- both of whom you've either fallen out of touch with or were never that close with to begin with -- become friends with each other on Facebook. They start writing on each other's walls ("OMG we HAVE to go back to Victor's next weekend") and you realize that they must have struck up a IRL friendship in Chicago or wherever it is they live.

3. After weeks of telling your best friend about how some new co-worker or roommate of yours (let's call her Charlotte) is mad irritating -- which, in turn, causes your best friend to scowl when Charlotte's name comes up and to make disparaging remarks about Charlotte even though she hasn't met her or anything -- your feelings about Charlotte start to change. Suddenly she isn't annoying you so much; you even start hanging out with her one-on-one now and then. You tell your best friend over lunch one day and she does a spit-take. "What?!" she says, "I thought you hated her." And then you find yourself adamantly defending Charlotte to your best friend (getting way more passionate about it than you actually feel) and contemplating how you got to this point.

4. When you realize you have inadvertently ended all of your text messages for the past week with the emoticon ":P"

5. When you have this long conversation with one of your good friends who is dealing with some sort of issue and you offer him all sorts of advice and you feel all satisfied afterwards (not because you're happy that your friend is sad but because you just feel especially close with him in that moment). Then, a day later, the friend sends an "update" e-mail or forwards some exchange about whatever you guys were talking about and there are seven people on the e-mail.

"catch what you hit"

2011-02-14T11:26:00.006-05:00

As if I were emulating a McAdams/Heigl character, I've recently taken to sleeping with my Blackberry next to my face. To be clear, it's a "I am too lazy to roll over and plug this into my charger" thing rather than a "OMG! What if the office needs me?" thing. But, as a result, I've adopted this bizarre habit of waking up in the middle of the night and - in a more-than-half-asleep stupor - typing things (usually related to my dreams) in my phone. It's like sleep-texting. Thankfully, I haven't actually sent any of these texts (yet); but I've been waking up in the morning with like three drafts in my inbox.

Last night was an especially "productive" night.

1:47 a.m. "Those dumplings were unreal, bro."

I really have no clue where this one came from. I think I must have been dreaming/thinking about this bro-y guy I was fixated on sitting across from me on the subway last night (... and embodying his spirit/taking on his vernacular?).

4:42 a.m. I actually gave this one a "title": "Dream - best Modern Family episode EVER." And then I wrote the following lines (I have absolutely no idea how I wrote so much text in my phone at this hour):

Guy says to Leslie Knope, "you look like Amy Poehler but a lesbian."

Meryl Streep and Will Smith have a cute romance (Mom says this is the least believable plotline)

Sofia Vergara standing by water fountain adjusting heels, like at a nice hotel

Sounds like a KILLER "Modern Family" episode, huh?

7:11 a.m. "Catch what you hit."

I sort of remember the dreaming behind this one. I was playing baseball (as I so often do in real life) and I hit this far shot (definitely what that's called) and then I ran into the outfield to catch the ball that I hit (there was no one else on the field). I awoke with a start and wrote these four words in my phone in quotation marks as if it was the most profound aphorism in the world. When I woke up for real about an hour later, I read it and just shook my head.

matt! hi!

2011-02-03T12:34:00.005-05:00

A new thing I've been trying ("new month, new things" = my mantra) is beginning my e-mails "PERSON'S NAME! Hi!" So if I was sending an e-mail to Matt, I'd write, "Matt! Hi!"... then hit "return" twice and get into the meat of my e-mail.

These are the issues I've had in the past with the ways people commonly address their e-mails:

"Matt," (variant: "Hi,")

Impersonal! Makes me feel like I'm a bank inviting you to try our new smartphone app.

"Hey!" (variants: "Hi!" "Yo!")

Too positive/cheery/that-girl-in-your-office-who-always-brings-in-baked-goods-y. And when the content of your e-mail is, like, a reminder to bring money to dinner tomorrow night, this kind of greeting seems especially gratuitous/disingenuous.

"Hey Matt!" (variant: "Hey Matt,")

Too much like a second grade teacher writing in a workbook to one of her students.

"Hiiiiiii"

I was so into this kind of greeting for a few months about a year ago and then one day I almost sent my landlord an e-mail that started this way and it was this really important reality check where I was like "Seriously, Josh? Relax."

No greeting

This is generally fine if you're e-mailing one of your very good friends, but if you're writing a so-so friend, it can be too personal, the equivalent of leaning in too close while talking to an acquaintance at a party.

So now I'm in a "Matt! Hi!" phase. It's kind of weird, I suppose, but I like the inversion of it and how it's (I think?) reflective of what people say when they greet people IRL. I mean, it's also sort of irritating and, thanks to the exclamation points, comes across as too friendly - and I'll probably be embarrassed when I see it in old e-mails a year or two from now - but, for now, it's light years ahead of "Hiiiiiiiiiiii" in my mind.

'poultry in motion'

2011-01-27T11:28:00.007-05:00

Every once in a while you'll be having a conversation and someone will ask "Do you remember what life was like before the internet?" (or a variation like "Remember when we had to CALL EACH OTHER to make plans?" or "Isn't it funny how, before Facebook, we didn't know anyone's birthday? LOL!"). I generally find that sort of "conversation starter" vaguely irritating because there's really no response you can give other than some form of "Yes! I do! Ha ha! Those times were before these times."

But for some reason whenever someone does evoke pre-internet days, I ALWAYS immediately recall the same memory from about ten years ago. My brother and I were staying up late on a Friday night watching "Chicken Run" on VHS in my parents' bedroom. I remember thinking the movie was going to be so lame (I was in the midst of my "ornery and discontented" phase). Yet Sam and I, improbably, ended up loving it so much that, as soon as it ended, we rewound it and watched the entire movie a second time, writing down our favorite lines on a pad of paper as it played. I remember presenting the eight or nine page document to my parents later as if it was a sculpture I had chiseled out of marble or something.

I guess the internet was sort of around in 2000 or 2001 or whenever this was, and I'm not entirely sure why THIS is the one anecdote I associate with the notion of a pre-internet life, but I suppose the whole thing - the repeat viewing, the handwritten list, the sense of embarking on a project with an utter lack of skepticism or self-consciousness - just strikes me as belonging to a completely different era.

thoughts re: friends

2011-01-20T14:30:00.006-05:00

1. I've noticed that whenever I'm in conversation with a "new" friend, I will almost always do one of the following: go on for too long about someone we both know in a way that makes me feel regretful when I think about it later; reveal an overly personal detail after a perceived lull (a lull which, in its multiple beats, seems "make-or-break" somehow); indicate strong feelings about an issue I really do not care about at all.

2. I rarely feel closer to a friend than when I call her because there's something I just desperately need to tell her, and she picks up and says "Hi, I'm actually at lunch with Fran right now so I can't talk" but I say "OK, but..." and I blurt out whatever the news is and she squeals in this muted way and says "Ohmigod, I'll call you later."

3. I realized the other day that, in a good number of my friendships (especially the more recently formed ones), there's often some sort of weird incident or circumstance between us - which occurred before we became close - that just always goes undiscussed, no matter how many times I see the person or how intimate the friendship becomes. Maybe I know she unfriended me on Facebook sophomore year only to re-friend me a year later (with a "how were we not friends before??" message); maybe we sat near each other in a lecture for a whole semester without ever talking before we were friends; whatever it is, I'll occasionally wonder if it's hidden away in her mental attic, too, or if this is something only I am aware of.

things that happened this weekend

2011-01-17T22:40:00.009-05:00

- I watched the music video for Jessica Simpson's "Take My Breath Away" twice.

- The coffee shop I go to changed its wireless password from "ilovesheepalot" to the (moderately disturbing, I feel) "sheeplove."

- I stared at this picture of Mila Kunis and Jon Hamm for about seven minutes (no exaggeration) at about 2 a.m. on Friday night. I then went to brush my teeth and managed to snap my toothbrush in half while brushing (note: I've never heard of that happening to anyone ever). It just snapped. I can only assume there was some sort of energy buildup/release going on there.

- My feet got so cold in my apartment Saturday afternoon that I put on athletic, white socks over dress socks. That night, at a bar, I remembered that I was wearing two pairs of socks and did this little widening smirk thing with the lower half of my face that thankfully no one noticed.

- A homeless man called out at me "Hey, Max, any change?" and I was so taken aback by his just, I dunno, taking a chance and calling me "Max" that I stopped walking for a second. In retrospect, I'm wondering if maybe he actually said "man" or "hombre" (?) or "snacks" or something.

- The place I had dinner Saturday night had a page in its menu titled "White Wine in a Box" which was just a written parody of "Dick in a Box" that for some reason was about Lindsay Lohan.

- I found myself at a 80s-themed dance party Saturday night at which this guy started talking to my friend Marissa (who is a dancer). After a minute or two, he turned to me (I was basically just standing there bobbing my head and swaying slightly, hunching over to seem less tall) and asked earnestly, "Oh, are you a dancer, too?" (oh also, I was holding a giant coat). I was so amused that I couldn't even form a response so I just half nodded as if I couldn't hear what he was saying.

insulation frustration

2011-01-12T10:58:00.004-05:00

When I got back from Boston after the holidays, I was informed by my roommate that, in my absence, the superintendent had "insulated" the windows in our bedrooms. Now, as best I could tell upon examination, this "insulating" had consisted of his hastily duct taping some plastic wrap in our window bays, but I was still pleased considering my bedroom had been awfully chilly since early December.

Well, it is now about a week since I returned to New York, and I ain't so pleased anymore.

Here's the thing: while it is marginally warmer in my bedroom post-insulation, the plastic wrap is taped in such a way that it makes this crinkly, popping noise in its natural resting state. The best way I can describe the noise is "dysfunctional popcorn machine." And there's no pattern to the "popping" whatsoever: five minutes of silence will be followed by 45 seconds of an origami bird having a seizure.

About three times a night, I have half-lucid fantasies of tearing off my bedsheets, standing up in bed, ripping off the plastic sheet triumphantly, and then happily dissipating into Alex Mack-style goo in my bed, finally able to fall asleep. Once I woke up in the morning so sure that I had torn down the "insulation" during the throes of my slumber that when I heard the popping as I got dressed I thought I had gone mad and was stuck with this noise for life.

I feel like I am trapped in a miserable "Would You Rather?" game: would you rather be freezing cold but able to sleep in silence or be comfortably warm but woken up about three times a night and driven to near-insanity by the grumbles of the plastic monster?

Of course, I could probably tear down the plastic and construct a makeshift "insulation" of stuffed animals or avocados or whatever, but the masochist in me is loving this continual source of agony.

boy with a beaded necklace

2011-01-04T11:37:00.005-05:00

When I was home in Boston for the holidays I found this necklace sitting in a ceramic bowl I made for my mother for Valentine's Day or something when I was like 12. When I was in middle school, I used to think this necklace was the "flyest" accessory imaginable. Whenever there was some kind of big event (like a dance or a party or one of those "winter festival" things), I would always be sure to "rock" this necklace (after applying a squirt, or seven, of Abercrombie "Fierce" cologne).

I put on the necklace last week when I found it and, sure, it was funny in the obvious "look at this idiotic thing I used to think was super cool" way. But, after providing that initial giggle, it struck me more profoundly as a reminder that probably everything I think is awesome now - the clothes, the slang, the neckwear - will seem utterly, laughably lame in ten or fifteen years time.

I actually found that thought sort of comforting though, freeing even. There's really no reason to take anything in our lives too seriously: in ten years, you'll come across it in a ceramic bowl and thank god you're not as young as you used to be.

new york vs. home

2010-12-29T12:51:00.005-05:00

In New York, I try to make snacks last as long as possible, carefully rationing my Wheat Thins intake and literally scotch-taping boxes and bags shut as an extra precaution against any potential stress-related or half-asleep binges. When I'm home for the holidays in Boston, however, I tear through all food in sight; I'll spend a day systematically working my way through the items in a neglected holiday gift basket on the kitchen counter or alternating between a name-brand and off-brand bag of pita chips (finishing both in less than a hour).

In New York, I have my phone by me at all times. And while I may not pick up ~~many~~ any calls, I am always - as they might say in a New York Times trend piece about teenagers - "plugged in." At home, though, I will abandon my phone in all sorts of locations, sometimes for hours (!) on end. It's almost like I get to shed my ankle bracelet when I'm home and roam free (you know what I mean).

In New York, colds/coughs/sore throats are serious hindrances: they make everything (going to work, traveling on the subway, interacting with humans, etc.) more trying and exhausting. At home, however, sicknesses are... indulged? It's like the minute I walk in the door I am coughing, breaking out in some rash and "feeling nauseous" all at the same time, as if my body just waits to break down until it knows it is within a 50 feet radius of someone who will dote on and cater to me.

In New York, I feel like I am constantly playing catch-up on e-mail and social media, starring things and scrolling furiously and opening new tabs to make sure I'm up-to-date. When I'm home, it's a completely inverse phenomenon: I feel like I am constantly refreshing, waiting, impatient. A watched inbox never boils, etc.

In New York, I (generally) wear different clothes every day. At home, I... do not.

re-gifted

2010-12-21T18:25:00.010-05:00

A few nights ago I was about to leave for a Christmas party when I checked the e-mail to find the address and realized I was meant to bring an ornament. I scanned my apartment for something that could pass as even vaguely ornamental and came up empty. (I briefly flirted with the idea of bringing the small stuffed gorilla which sits on my dresser... and, considering the unappealing display of beer cans and Duane Reade ornaments that would eventually adorn his tree, I kind of wish I had.)

I was muttering about my predicament when my roommate suggested I just bring a bottle of wine. I decided that would suffice, looked over to the countertop in my kitchen (where four unopened bottles of wine that were brought to my birthday party two months ago stood), grabbed one, and left.

When I left the holiday party after a few hours, I noticed my bottle of wine was just hanging out, untouched, near the refrigerator. Maybe it got opened up later... or maybe it did not and will end up getting brought along to a New Year's party or something ("Oh, I picked this up on the way! I thought you'd like a red... please tell me I'm right").

Something about this re-gifted bottle of wine left neglected amongst the half-empty bottles of mixers struck me as depressingly "New York": a totem of the faux-gentility of the city, reminiscent of holiday-themed Starbucks cups ("Stories are gifts to share" written across them in cursive) strewn about the floor of a subway car, or e-mails that end with proposals for drinks that both parties know will never happen.

this week, 12/13-12/17

2010-12-17T12:12:00.014-05:00

Monday evening. I overhear a twentysomething woman tell her friend - as they walk down into the subway at about 10:15 p.m. - that it's "past her bedtime," in the requisite resigned/sing-song-y voice. One of those "expressions" that just, for no reason, drives me crazy every time.

Monday evening, later. As I troll through Facebook, it dawns on me that the "like" button has created this strange construct/expectation where if you don't "like" a message or a link that someone posts on your wall, it's as if you're saying you don't appreciate/agree with it or that you just don't find it especially funny. There is nothing (ha!) that feels ickier than a "sympathy like."

Tuesday evening. At a post-screening Q&A with a movie director, an audience member asks a question about how the director chose a child actor in the film. The director tells a brief anecdote about how he saw this 5-year-old actress' audition tape - in which she described a funny, nonsensical dream she had had - and was immediately smitten. As soon as the director was finished with his response, this dude in the front row immediately raised his hand and was called on next. What was his question for the director? What was the one thing this guy just had to know about the film? "What was the dream about?!" he shouted. That kind of person - the kind who just asks that immediate follow-up without a second thought (the director reiterated that the dream hadn't followed any sort of linear plot and promptly called on the next hand) - is a kind of person I just cannot understand.

Wednesday afternoon. iTunes recommended, presumably based on my previous purchases, that I buy a Jessica Simpson album. Her country album.

Thursday afternoon. A guy tells me he "literally always has HBO on, you know, just in the background while I'm doing whatever," a concept which seems to me as foreign and bizarre as if he had said he "literally always has his feet in a bucket of a jelly."

Thursday evening. I ask the woman working at a coffee shop what "kinds" of coffee they have which, admittedly, is kind of an annoying question. She says something about Brazil and Peru and "special drinks." "I'll just have the peach tea," I say. "What?" she says. "Peach. Tea." She looks at me as if I am deranged: "P. H. T.?!" "Peach... Tea," I say again, and she finally understands. "I'm so sorry," she apologizes. "Oh, it's OK... it's so cold that my lips are probably half-frozen," I say, as if that is a perfectly sensible explanation for why she wouldn't be able to understand me.

e-mail-related musings

2010-12-13T13:24:00.011-05:00

1. Lately I've noticed a shift in my e-mail behavior: if I click on a new e-mail and it's some five paragraph-long thing or it begins with the sentence "Sorrrrrry I've been so MIA" or it's an e-mail from my landlord, I'll just "star" it immediately without actually reading the e-mail. Sometimes it will be DAYS later when I'm scrolling through my "Starreds" that I'll take the time to read the e-mail, in which I'll learn my college roommate is now dating that girl who was in our art history section or that there will be no water in my apartment the next morning. (After re-reading this paragraph, I am now more sure than ever that they wrote "Like a G6" about my lifestyle.)

2. Have started dropping question marks and abbreviating idiotically ("ur" "2" etc.) with increasing frequency and to a wider swath of people, which I feel like is the opposite of what's supposed to happen as you get older.

3. One of the most disconcerting e-mail-related phenomenons is when you send Sasha an e-mail and, while you're still waiting for her to respond, a mutual friend (James) mentions the e-mail to you over gchat or something. James will type "so I hear you're not going to make it to the birthday dinner..." and you'll write "ohhh, yeah, i meant to tell you" and then "where did u hear that?" and James will respond "sasha mentioned it at brunch yesterday." And then you start feeling all weird and panicky, wondering if Sasha is mad at you and worrying about why she isn't responding to your e-mail but yet talking to all these other people about it. You notice Sasha is signed on to gchat and contemplate gchatting her, or even texting her, just to make sure she's not mad... but then decide to just do nothing about it.

4. I've noticed that when I'm nervous about how a friend is going to respond to a particularly important/emotional/formal e-mail, I'll follow it up almost immediately with a really silly/short/meaningless e-mail (like a link to a "funny article" or a pasted Facebook status of someone we both can't stand). I'll write "LOL" in the body, as if the average of this e-mail and the previous one comes out to something totally normal and nondramatic.

platform surprise

2010-12-07T15:48:00.014-05:00

My world was completely shaken up this weekend. No, I'm not talking about the Facebook profile page redesign (though it should come as no surprise that I have decided to hold out until the last possible minute to "upgrade" to the new profile) and I'm not talking about the fact that I tried the legendary Four Loko for the first time this weekend (when I texted my friend Sarah to inform her of my "achievement," all she wrote back was "is that last text a joke"). No, I'm talking about the installation of this display at the City Hall subway platform.

For almost two years now, this has been my subway stop. Excluding the months I was working nights, there has rarely been a day I haven't at some point waited for a subway there. Whereas my days are typically scheduled so rigidly that moments of inertia or slothliness (inadvertent neologism but I'm keeping it) stand out glaringly, the time spent on the subway platform existed in this sort of grimy, dream-like world where time just did not exist. Sometimes the train would arrive and I'd realize that I had finished reading a profile on the platform, even though it had felt like it had been only a minute. Other times I would arrive on the platform out of breath, hurtling through the closing doors, coffee spilling all over me. Occasionally I'd be standing there looking through text message histories on my phone and get transported to an awful fight from two months ago or find myself meditating on a disintegrated college friendship; the train would arrive and I'd feel like I had been on the platform for hours.

Now, it's all different. The instant I arrive on the platform, I know if I have 60 seconds or eight minutes before the train arrives. Questions like "Do I have time to finish these chips before the train gets here?" or "Should I bother cleaning out my bag?" now have answers. While you would think that this would be comforting to someone as neurotic as myself, I actually feel kind of mournful. I feel like I'm in The Jetsons now, like I'm being conveyed around the city by this computerized, all-knowing system.

We all live these extremely controlled lives in New York, Gcal-ing our existences, mapping our pathways, resolving bar arguments by deferring to our smartphones; there was something serene about those uncertain moments of utter powerlessness on the platform, reminiscent of the moments when your alarm clock goes off in the morning during which you're aware of being awake and of dreaming at the same time.

$98 saks

2010-12-02T14:39:00.005-05:00

For almost a year now, there has been a hot pink Post-it affixed to my desk, to the right of my laptop, that has "$98 Saks" written on it.

Last winter I was given a sweater, which had been purchased at Saks, that I decided to return (I honestly can't remember what it looked like or what the "problem" with it was). It took me about 30 minutes to find the "sweater department" and another 30 to find someone who actually worked there to process the return. When I asked if I could get cash back, the salesperson explained that that was not their policy -- store credit it was.

Now, one year later, the holidays are upon us yet again (ugh, wish they'd give us some WARNING or something) and I still haven't gone in to Saks to spend the $98. About once a month, when I'm trying to come up with any feasible excuse to not go to the gym on a Wednesday night or I'm laying in bed reading magazines on a Sunday afternoon, I'll consider walking over (yes, WALKING... that's how easy of an "errand" this is!). But I just never do.

I'll imagine what I could buy with the $98, but my ideas always seem too dull (i.e. enough socks so that I never have to buy socks again for the rest of my life) or too unrealistic ("um, you think you are going to find a sports jacket at Saks for under $100? what is wrong with you?" a friend once berated me). A "nice" t-shirt? A "cool" tie? A present for someone else? "No," "definitely no," and "srsly?"

The hot pink Post-it has accrued all sorts of strange emotional connotations. It sometimes makes me think about how miserable I always felt during free periods in middle school, other times about the unopened The Wire Season 1 DVD on my bookshelf or the Microsoft Word files on my computer of e-mails I never ended up sending. I decided last night to tear up the Post-it, figuring I didn't need it (I would just know intuitively when the day to spend the $98 had arrived, I concluded)... but instead I rewrote "$98 Saks" in neater handwriting on a new green Post-it and replaced pink with green.

sinking feelings

2010-11-29T11:53:00.004-05:00

1. Those seemingly eternal moments after you've concluded a one-on-one side conversation with someone at a dinner/party and the two of you are trying to fold yourselves back into the main conversation are the absolute worst. You're both silent, avoiding eye contact with one another, listening intently to your companions' conversation to try and figure out what they're talking about so you can work yourselves back in.

2. The more emphatically your friend expresses her enthusiasm at the beginning of the evening about spending the night out with you ("I seriously am so excited that we're hanging out right now," "After this week, I am so ready to get wasted tonight"), the more likely she will apologize profusely at like 10pm that she is just so tired and needs to check in early and it was so good to see you and she wishes she wasn't feeling so out of it.

3. One of your good friends is telling a story at a party to a small audience about something that happened to the two of you, and you notice that she is altering the details of the story in a minor, but notable, way. She's exaggerating the harrowing circumstances, making the funny parts funnier, leaving out a few key context-setting facts. You wonder how she would tell the story if you weren't there.

things that have been ruined for me

2010-11-19T10:14:00.008-05:00

1. Movie trailers. I remember when I was about 12 years old and like 65% of the fun of going to the movies was the trailers. Watching the trailers was like opening the five smaller Christmas presents before the big one that you already knew was going to be an iPod because your mom had told you the week before that's what you were getting. I would sit in the theater in wonder as each trailer unfolded: "Oh, it's a romance... or a period piece?... Nicole Kidman AND Jude Law?!?... oh wait, no, it's a war movie?... are you serious?!... IS THAT RENEE ZELLWEGER?!?" (Yep, my inner monologue has the cadence of a Kristen Wiig SNL character.) But nowadays, in the midst of what your cool uncle calls the "digital age," I can't even remember the last time I saw a trailer in a theater that I hadn't already seen online. Now when I'm watching a trailer and have a funny observation, instead of whispering it into my friend's ear and being rewarded with a Sour Patch Kid-scented snicker, I type it into my Blackberry to remember for later and feel like an idiot.

2. The summer. I don't think I was ever necessarily IN LOVE with the summer, so saying it "got ruined" for me is maybe a touch melodramatic. But, I suppose, summers did used to be lovely breaks from that MIDDLE SCHOOL DAILY GRIND and I got to go to camp and eat a lot of candy on benches and gossip about all the counselors with my friends -- so I guess summers were sort of great. But now I absolutely detest the summer. For all the obvious reasons that everyone always mentions, like the subway being really hot and there not being new episodes of One Tree Hill. But there's also just this terrible, still, sluggish feeling in the air, reminiscent of the inconsistently paced, montage-laden middle third of a movie during which nothing actually happens.

3. The Cosi on 6th Avenue. This one is raw, you guys. I was all excited two weeks ago because I found a Cosi near my new office in Chelsea. At about 1pm, I went in, walked up to the counter, flashed a smile and waited for the cashier to finish her conversation with another employee. "Oh, hi, ma'am," she said as she turned to face me. Quickly catching herself, she proceeded to HOWL with laughter as I just stood there like a mute dunce. "Oh, I am so sorry, sir. I just wasn't paying attention. I cannot believe I called you 'ma'am.' Oh my god." She then turned to the friend she had just been talking to and said, "Did you hear I just called him 'ma'am'?" Smooth as ever, I stammered, voice nearly cracking, "You can call me whatever you want, I don't mind!" (Cast me in the new Superman movie ASAP, Warner Bros.!)

She laughed while I looked away, mortified. I ordered a chicken Caesar salad, but she paused before ringing it up. "You're sure you don't want shrimp or... steak instead?" she asked, inexplicably shuddering when she said the word "steak." "Um, no, why?" I asked, "Is the chicken, like, bad or something? Are you warning me?" "Omigod, NO," she said, "I just, you know, wanted you to be sure." I fumbled with my change and said, "Uh, well, you're kind of making me feel less sure, but I think I'll stick with chicken... I guess?"

The next day I walked to Cosi, looked in the door, saw that she was at the register and... I decided to keep walking and go to Chipotle.

recent developments

2010-11-16T10:59:00.007-05:00

1) Last week I achieved two feats which made me severely depressed about the amount of time I spend on the internet: a) I was able to fully detail the plot of last Tuesday's episode of Glee via gchat BEFORE I watched it (an excerpt: "kurt gets bullied hardcore by this big meathead / and then at the end the meathead kisses him / it gets better, all bullies are actually gay, etc.") and b) After digging myself into a giant hole on a date by lying that I "sometimes watch" The Vampire Diaries (holes don't get more giant, right?) I was able to successfully have a five-minute conversation about the show without letting on I had never seen an episode ("Oh, totally agree... nothing is worse than a dual identity story line," "Are they serious with the werewolves plot this season?," etc.).

2) I wore the same button-down shirt as an overshirt on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights last week. REAL LIFE GOSSIP GIRL OVER HERE

3) Sunday night I scrolled through a 78-picture Facebook album that I had already clicked through at least twice exclusively to see if there had been any untaggings since I had last checked.

on friendship & the outdoors

2010-11-11T09:22:00.009-05:00

My brother had just moved to New York City for the summer and I was on the subway to meet him for dinner (we ended up going to Cosi for some fine dining). As happens every so often, I was struck with a surge of 'emo' feelings that night, annoyed with my stable of friends, no doubt imagining some sort of alternate life in Berlin or Paris. After zoning out for a few moments, I took out my Blackberry and, naturally, crafted a list of the four qualities I value most in a friend.

This list has now been on my phone for about 18 months and I'll look at it every once in a while and just... roll my eyes. Three of the four bullet points – while signifying attributes most everyone would agree are perfectly nice qualities to have in a friend – are totally basic. They are the sort of things Charlotte on Sex and the City would probably list if she was asked "What are the qualities you most admire in your friends?" in some magazine questionnaire. But the fourth bullet - "knows me well enough to not invite me to an outdoor activity" - not only still rings true but has become something I think about a lot.

When I shared the list with my brother at Cosi, I spent a while explaining what I meant by this last trait. "It's a metaphor... sort of," I explained. "The absolute worst thing in the world is when you have this best friend and you think she knows you inside and out... and then she goes and suggests you go somewhere or do something - as if it's this great idea that she just assumes you will be totally into - and you have to find some awkward way to get out of it because it in fact sounds like the least desirable way to spend time you could ever imagine."

"But isn't it good for friends to force you to do things out of your comfort zone?" Sam asked (though I'm sure he said it in a much less stilted/weird way).

"No," I answered. "It's not that she suggested we do the ‘outdoor activity’ that's the problem. It's that she truly believed it would be something I'd enjoy."

I realize this metric sets a kind of high bar, with the built in expectation that your best friends have this deeply intuitive understanding of your desires. It's also arguably narcissistic ("I only wanna do things I wanna do!"). But there are really few things I find more depressing/distressing than when a friend asks me to go see a movie I clearly would never want to see, when a friend sends me a video with the subject line: "you will love this" that I find totally inane, or when a friend forwards me an e-mail about an outdoor music festival with the message "Immediately thought of you when I saw this! Let's go!"

keeping up with the kardashians, literally

2010-11-06T14:19:00.016-04:00

From: Josh

Date: Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 5:02 PM

Subject: Fwd: IMG00599.jpg

KIM RIGHT

KOURTNEY LEFT

(Clearly)

I was walking from this coffeeshop to my apartment and in my own WORLD (I am wearing an outfit that can only be described as "not for public consumption") and all of a sudden I hear SHRIEKING and see MASSES OF PEOPLE RUNNING AROUND the streets. I thought there had been a terrorist attack and got all panicked and then I realize that, no, it is just Kim and Kourtney Kardashian strolling through Tribeca surrounded by throngs of paparazzi and people just HOWLING AND SHRIEKING at them.

In my quest to figure out what's going on, I somehow find myself RIGHT BEHIND Kim and Kourtney. I shout "KIM!" (that is ALL I could think of to say in the moment... which is just... ugh) and she barely flinches.

I RUN around to the other side of the street to try and intercept them (snapping a quick side profile shot along the way, attached) in an attempt to get a better picture (I know, I know) but, alas, they were escorted into this little restaurant Kitchenette. I run in front of the window and one of their handlers says to me "What are you doing, kid? Move along."

Feel like I just got off the best roller coaster of my life.

costumes optional

2010-11-02T22:05:00.010-04:00

On Friday night I was getting ready for my first-ever "costumes optional" Halloween party. Due to general Halloween apathy and also lack of time (as dangerous as combinations get, basically), I was thinking I would just go in "normal clothes." But then as I was getting ready to leave my apartment in a button-down shirt and jeans, I decided that going without a costume to a Halloween party - even one that was "costumes optional" - was like going to Paris and actively avoiding the Eiffel Tower or something. So I came up with a simple idea that only took a few minutes to execute: a "Myself in 8th Grade" costume consisting of my baggiest jeans, sneakers, a dark zip-up hoodie and a backwards hat.

On my way out the door, I asked my roommate what she thought of my get-up. "Uh, you look just like you always look except with a backwards hat," she said. I put on a show of acting insulted ("Have you ever seen me wear pants this baggy out??") and actually was sort of insulted, but there was no time to change or alter my costume. (I briefly flirted with the idea of drawing "pimples" on my face with a red marker, but I was worried if I did that people would think I was going as a smallpox victim...?)

I probably would have been better off costume-less. About 25 percent of the attendees weren't wearing costumes and the whole time I was at the party, NOT ONE PERSON asked me what I was dressed as. People would sort of consider me for a second, ask my more-obviously-costumed friends about their outfits, and just... avoid my gaze. I thinkkkk no one asked because they weren't sure whether I was wearing a costume... and they didn't want to risk offending me in the event that I just normally dressed like a Pacific Sunwear catalog model. And because there is nothing I would detest more than a stranger I will never see again believing that I typically look like the dorkiest member of Avril Lavigne's band, I made a point of blurting out "I'm myself-as-an-eighth-grader!" to anyone I met at the party (even before introductions), adding, "This isn't how I normally dress!" People would laugh politely or smile and look away. One person said, "Yeah, I heard you tell someone else already," which made me feel uncomfortable and unsure what to say (KIND OF LIKE I FELT ALL THE TIME IN EIGHTH GRADE).

Saturday night, I went to a party as Justin Bieber. Nobody knew who I was in that costume either, but at least that night they asked.

plus one

2010-10-28T10:33:00.005-04:00

Few things are as harrowing as bringing a friend to a party where he isn't going to know anyone.

Showing up by yourself to this event isn't ideal, so you've invited your friend or roommate or date. Beforehand, you totally overdo the precautionary warnings ("Now don't be mad at me if it's really lame," "It's entirely possible like only two people from my office I know will be there"). "I'll be fine!" your friend persists and suddenly you feel like a parent taking their unhappy child to a family friend's house for a long dinner party or something.

The whole time you're at the bar you're anxious that your friend might be feeling bored or uncomfortable. You're talking with your coworkers but you keep contextualizing everything for your friend so he's not lost ("This woman seriously wears the exact same cardigan every day"). And when each conversation ends, you get paranoid and weird and whisper some sort of excuse to your friend ("I think Mark was kind of tired tonight," "Kate doesn't usually talk about her boyfriend so much") and your friend will say something like "No, she seemed really nice!" and you think about how you don't even really like Kate and now you're ready to leave the party even though you've only been there for like ten minutes.

You go to the bathroom and return to find your friend talking to the one coworker who always acts sort of weird to you and you don't want to go over to them because then it's like you're relying on your friend to survive socially at your thing, so instead you read old texts on your phone for a minute and finally, left with no other options, you uncomfortably insert yourself in a conversation Kate is having with some guy wearing a scarf.

recovering vampire

2010-10-25T10:59:00.008-04:00

At a party a couple of weeks ago - after telling some people that I was going to be "returning to the daylight," leaving my night job for a "normal" 9-to-6 gig - a friend quipped, "So basically you're turning from Robert Pattinson into Taylor Lautner?"

In February, I took a job which required me to work evenings (with Friday and Saturday nights off). From that point on, nearly every conversation I had with others about work went like this:

Random Guy: Whoa. You work at night? That's just, like... so crazy.

Me: Yeah.

Random Guy: So... what are your hours?

Me: Usually I get to my computer around 6 or 6:30... and then I usually finish up by 3 a.m. or so.

(At this point, Random Guy and any of his friends who may have been standing around would look at me in this kind of stunned/pitying way, as if I had just told them I'm not able to digest chocolate or something. In an attempt to lighten the mood, I would then deliver my go-to line.)

Me: Yeah, sometimes I feel like I am turning into the world's most boring vampire.

Random Guy's Friend (after polite laughter): So when do you sleep?

Me: Usually from 3 a.m. 'til about 9 or 10 the next morning. So, you know, it's like six or seven hours of sleep. Not that crazy.

(Random Guy and Random Guy's Friend would consider this point carefully and nod, as if I had just solved a tricky math problem.)

Me: It gets weird though when it's like 2 p.m. on a Tuesday and I'm lying on my couch watching 'Glee' while everyone else in the world is, you know, at work.

Random Guy: Yeah. It must have felt sort of like you were back at... college.

Me: Yeah... sort of.

There were lots of other weird things about working at night which I wouldn't generally talk about with friends-of-friends at bars. Since I couldn't see any of my friends during the week, I started to feel on weekends like Katherine Heigl in '27 Dresses' when she had to go to like 17 different weddings in 17 different outfits in one day. There was also the time I realized I had gone two full days without saying a single world out loud. And there was the havoc it wreaked on my eating schedule (let's just say that most of my eating during the week took place after 6pm and leave it at that).

But there were some not-so-bad aspects, too! I got to see movies by myself during the day. I could schedule doctor's appointments for WHENEVER I WANTED. I had a built-in excuse for missing all sorts of social engagements that I probably would have had to begrudgingly attend if I had had a normal day job.

But now it's... over. When I think about how I've felt these past three weeks since I stopped working nights as compared to the prior eight months, it feels sort of like I got in a really bad accident eight months ago and lost feeling in my legs... but there's just been a medical breakthrough and suddenly I can walk again.

The job itself was wonderful, but I certainly won't miss walking into Starbucks at 6 p.m. each night, exchanging resigned looks with the barista as he would hand me my iced coffee, the day over but also just beginning.

shades of 'grey'

2010-10-19T17:09:00.007-04:00

I have a really, really hard time quitting things. Rituals, friendships, outmoded e-mail platforms. And this has always been especially true when it comes to TV shows. I mean, it took me SEVEN YEARS to quit "Smallville." That's over 140 hours I've spent watching "Smallville" over the course of my lifetime, everyone.

This is what made last Thursday so remarkable.

My relationship with "Grey's Anatomy" began like a lot of my good friendships have, actually. Everyone's all "you would really love this person/show" and I'm like "really? eh" and then I actually make the effort to watch the show/talk to the person and I'm like "OK, this show/person isn't all that bad"... and then three days later I have a new BFF.

This was, of course, back when it was "cool" and culturally acceptable to watch "Grey's." There was that shower scene with Heigl/Sandra Oh/Ellen Pompeo that everyone was talking about, and all the college kids were saying 'vajajay' and adding 'Mc' before names (no one ever said either of those things, but you know what I mean).

Somehow (just thinking about this BOGGLES MY MIND) I kept watching the show for the next four years. As pretty much everyone knows, the show got real bad circa season three (at the same time it became culturally irrelevant). But for some reason I just couldn't stop, inexplicably believing it would eventually return to its former "glory." I mean, it's just beyond embarrassing that I was watching for that long. "Grey's" was/is way past the point of being a "guilty pleasure"... it's like the TV equivalent of still reading People Magazine. If I try to understand what was behind my steadfast commitment to the show, I guess it's because the thought of these characters going on and living their "lives" without me being around to witness them seemed... almost more unthinkable/strange to me than, like, the idea of losing touch with some of my actual friends? (Yep, you read that right. I dunno...)

Good news, though! After hate-watching this season's first three episodes, I have officially quit. It was after an episode with a particularly saccharine closing voice over and a particularly boring "featured medical case" (which the three of you out there still watching the show will know is really saying something!). And now I feel totally awesome, consumed with the same kind of feeling as when you first step onto one of those moving walkway things at the airport.

Now I just need someone to conduct a "Weeds" intervention.

traveling

2010-10-14T12:06:00.014-04:00

1. In Newark airport. A clean-shaven man in a button-down shirt (who looks vaguely like the guy in Lonestar) is sitting near one of those "power outlet hubs" (which always strike me as sorta 2003-ish). He is reading a book (appears to be The Things They Carried... which is really too fitting), but he continually looks up at his charging Blackberry. Finally, he stands, takes the charger out of the outlet, and walks over to a woman (probably in her late 20s) who has clearly not been reading the magazine lying on her lap. "Thanks so much," he says, handing her the charger. She flashes a quick smile (she seems like one of those girls who sat with the chatty gossips at lunch in high school, visibly anxious about making sure she was laughing at the right jokes and making fun of the right people). "No problem," she says, standing (!!!) to shake his hand, "I'm Brianna, by the way." "Oh, uh, I'm Jake," he says. He shakes her hand, then immediately pivots and makes a beeline to the food court. Brianna sits back down, expressionless, and puts the magazine into her bag.

2. On flight to San Francisco. The flight attendant is this overly jolly, theatrical guy with a shaved head and an Anna Paquin gap between his front teeth. He makes grand pronouncements like "Coming through the aisle with a cart! Watch your arms! Coming through the aisle... with a cart!" and "Tell me exactly what you want! Whatever you want. If you want five Sprites, that's fine! Just tell me! I've got nothing else to do for the next five hours..." When he comes to my aisle for our drink orders, I ask for a Diet Coke. The woman next to me asks for coffee with milk and sugar. The man by the window asks for tea with hot water and then a separate glass of cold water. The flight attendant makes this clown-ish face, pats my back and exclaims, "Why can't you two be more like this guy?" before letting out a huge howl of laughter (he then mutters a strained "just kidding"). When the mother in the aisle in front of us asks for a small orange juice with a straw for her son, he bellows, "This isn't a restaurant!" And then laughter. And then "just kidding."

3. In the San Francisco airport. Husband and wife are sitting in waiting area at gate. They've just spoken to the husband's mother on the wife's cell phone. Wife is wearing what appears to be four layers of clothing. Husband is on his smartphone throughout this conversation (wasn't able to actually verify this with my eyes, but I'm, like, sure).

Wife: She sounded tired.

Husband: Yeah.

Wife: I feel bad. We were gone a long time.

Husband: Yeah, we were.

Wife: It'll be easier when they're older. I mean, in five years, they'll be... what?... 8 and 6? They'd be in school then. She could just, you know, give them breakfast, send them to school, give them dinner. So... we can take our next trip in, uh, five years.

Husband: Right.

Long pause. Wife gets up and throws out some trash. She returns and sits.

Wife: It was a fun trip, right?

Husband: Yeah.... I think I took over 800 pictures.

birthday-related

2010-10-06T11:14:00.003-04:00

1. It's much weirder/more uncomfortable to actually pick up a call you receive on your birthday than to just let it go to voicemail. People expect to leave voicemails when they call on your birthday... to "sing," to say "I bet you're... uh... out celebrating," to end their message with a "I'm sure we'll talk... soon." If you do pick up, there's this weird kind of "How does... 25 feel?" and "What are you doing... later?" banter that's even more stilted than the usual phone call conversation (which is, of course, saying something).

2. As you get older, the just-past-midnight "omg it's officially your birthday!" texts become much less common.

3. There are some people who without fail write on my Facebook wall every year on my birthday. They are, almost without exception, people a) whom I haven't seen in person in five years b) whom I've never met IRL c) who are friends of my siblings.

4. There is almost always one TOTALLY UNEXPECTED person who comes out of the woodwork to wish you happy birthday. Either it's a longtime crush who stopped responding to your e-mails a while ago who comes at you with a Facebook message. Or an old friend who sends a five paragraph e-mail three days later (subject line: "belated"). This is (in some ways) the most awesome part of birthdays.

5. Birthday parties are weird for so many reasons, one of which, I've found, is that when you're floating around your own birthday party there ends up being one (usually awful) line or question that you regurgitate to EVERYONE ("There's something about 25 that just feels serious, you know?").

on facebook messages

2010-09-29T17:04:00.004-04:00

No one likes Facebook messages. More often than not, when people are forced to write one, they will go out of their way to dismiss the form of communication completely. ("Oh, sorry it took me seven months to respond to this lunch request... I really just never check these.") Everyone just acts like they're such an awful hassle... which is, I suppose, sort of understandable. It is irritating that every Facebook message is accompanied with an e-mail (which, by the way, makes the weirdly common "I always forget to check these" excuse dubious). Also, there's something about them that just feels cumbersome, as if the Facebook message is the voicemail to e-mail's text message.

This all being said, there are three occasions I can think of where Facebook messages are considered acceptable:

1) The quick dashed off observation or instruction (almost always Facebook-related) to a BFF ("check kim's new album now. lol. 36 and 40 especially.").

2) The "hey, check it out, this is a casual but flirty message" to someone you met at a bar or whom you notice has just updated his status to "back in nyc!" or whatever. These are the kinds of messages that cause you to squirm and shudder if you come across them months later (especially the ones that never got a response), but which - thankfully! - are pretty easy to block out completely once they've been sent.

3) The brief, friendly message to a potential new friend whose e-mail address you can't find/don't know. These are OK, sort of, as long as they are of the "lunch next wednesday?"/"here's my phone number" variety, and not the "blah blah blah"/"how are things at work going?" variety.

signs a friendship has reached the "next level"

2010-09-23T17:39:00.004-04:00

1. You don't think twice about sending him an immediate second e-mail (subject line: "also") after realizing you left out something clarifying/notable/funny in the first.

2. You feel comfortable expressing annoyance about a vague plan that doesn't come to fruition. You had talked about seeing 'Scott Pilgrim' together at Nick's party. A few days later, he texts to let you know he ended up seeing it with someone else ("It was the only movie she hadn't seen!"). And instead of responding to the text with "No problem :)" you find yourself writing back "Ah, OK."

3. You stop ever listening to his voicemails.

4. You occasionally send him e-mails with no subject line that include only a link in the body and no other context.

5. You'd rather stay in bed and watch 'Friday Night Lights' than go to that crowded brunch place, but instead of texting him "Not feeling well" or whatever, you text "I'm in bed right now watching 'Friday Night Lights' so..."

weekend, sept. 17-19

2010-09-20T11:50:00.008-04:00

Friday, 8:45 p.m. In cab after fancy dinner with parents (who are in town for the weekend). Send out a mass text and then follow up with friends who respond - reminds me of the kind of fireworks that explode immediately but then just droop and take so long to fully disappear.

Friday, 11:35 p.m. Outside movie theater with Sam, Liz and Lauren.
Me: Weren't those trailers great?
Lauren: It seemed like you guys had seen all of them before. . . You, like, screamed at the beginning of each one.
Me: *LOL*
Sam: Yeah, it's like we were responding to each trailer the way you would to a song you love coming on at the club.

Saturday, 5:30 p.m.: Intense family argument concerning the question of who "seems" older: Katherine Heigl or Christina Hendricks.

Saturday, 8:00pm.: Two glasses of wine down. Text Sarah "Plz make sure I never turn into a 50something with a mustache who makes exasperated noises when clinking glasses for a toast."

Saturday, 10:30 p.m.: Notice there is chocolate on my dress shirt (the placement is unfortunate - when I remark it looks like blood, Liz notes that it does sort of look like I "had an Andy Bernard situation"). I change into Liz's bright orange Reese's Peanut Butter Cups t-shirt which I later get complimented on by a girl I meet at a party. "What a fun 'change of pace' shirt," she says.

Saturday, 11:23 p.m. Text from Sarah: "note to self: stop using 'get it in' and 'smush' as verbs."

Sunday 5:00 p.m. Credits roll on "Never Let Me Go." I turn to my friend and say "Should we wait around to see if there's a blooper reel?"

Sunday 9:30 p.m. Group e-mail thread devolves into discussion of mutual dislike of Abbie Cornish. I write a list titled "reasons to hate cornish" including the points "she was not NEARLY hot enough to be dating ryan phillippe yet she had this bitchy entitled expression every time she was photographed with him" and "she has no personality and has never done anything interesting."

Sunday 11:55 p.m. Google the lyrics to Fergie's "Paradise" just to make sure I'm not mishearing the line "c'mon everybody, put down your latte."

bon appetit

2010-09-14T14:26:00.014-04:00

Meals in New York with co-workers/semi-friends/family friends (i.e. people you don't know super well) are as predictable as rush hour subway rides or Lower East Side birthday parties. I honestly can't remember having such a meal that wasn't marked by the five following moments, which occur, pretty much without fail, in sequence.

1. You both sit down and immediately begin a languid review of the menu, during which one of you asks the other "Have you been here before?" If the answer is "Yes," the questioner will then ask "Oh... so what's good here?" and, oddly, continue with unnecessary follow-up questions ("So... you're saying the salmon was just OK?") If the initial answer is "No," however, both parties will slump and return their gazes to the menu.

2. A minute or so later, one of you (usually the one who asked the "Have you been here before?" question) asks "So what are you gonna get?" This sparks a tepid back-and-forth that lasts roughly a minute. "I can't deciiiide between the Cobb salad and the burger..." ".... Oh, yeah, those both sound really good."

3. Once the food arrives, it's obligatory that both parties immediately comment on the attractiveness of the other person's meal. "Wow... I should have gone with that turkey wrap, huh?" "... Your fries look amazing."

4. During an awkward pause a few minutes later, mid-chomping, one of you asks how the other person's food tastes. "Good... good... I really need some more water though." (Interestingly, I've noticed that this is a question that isn't always reciprocated.)

5. The meal ends with a half-hearted promise to "do it again soon." "I've been really wanting to try this sushi place down in the East Village..." "Yeah..." "And don't forget to send me the link to that Kevin Kline article you were talking about!"

i've got mail

2010-09-10T13:58:00.007-04:00

The first e-mail account I used with any sort of regularity was my AOL address. I wish I could remember what kinds of e-mails I sent back in middle school, but it's mostly just a blur of bright neon text, chain mail which I took very seriously ("Add the names of three of your crushes and then forward this to seven of your dearest friends") and "please be my friend!!!" e-mails masked as questions about homework ("did you understand question #3? hahahaha").

Even though I eventually started using other addresses, I kept my AOL account active, mainly for the purposes of signing up for or buying things on the internet. (I think we all have one of these probably, the e-mail equivalent of a shirt you would wear to, uh, paint in, but wouldn't wear in public, or something.) Nowadays, some ten years later (which makes me feel older than Dakota Fanning), my AOL inbox consists of 70% spam, 15% e-mails from Ticketmaster, 10% e-mails from J. Crew and 5% CNN breaking news alerts.

In the same way that some people call their parents every Sunday afternoon or take out the trash every Tuesday night, I weed through my AOL mail every Friday afternoon. It's a chore I mostly dread, but yet I persist: I suppose I like how it functions in the rhythm of my week, a turnstile of 80 or so e-mails that I must pass through to get to the weekend. Sure, I could stop checking it or just cancel the account altogether, but I know that, were I to do that, every once in a while I would be reminded of the giant heap of unread, accumulated AOL e-mails, sitting like a mountain of trash in a dump, and I just wouldn't be able to bear the smell.

rear-view mirror

2010-09-07T12:04:00.003-04:00

There are few feelings as great as waking up in the morning, getting out of bed and into the shower, and realizing that whatever it was that was stressing you out the night before - causing you to write spastic e-mails, or listen to a song you used to love (or hate) on repeat, or toss and turn in bed - is just nothing. It was so silly, you'll think as you brush your teeth, that I devoted any amount of thought at all to that.

Related feelings: walking down the street past a construction site and remembering that week earlier in the summer when you were SURE you had an "irregular heartbeat"; reading a journal entry from 6th grade describing how you had "hadn't been eating" after asking Alison on the phone if she wanted to "be a couple" and suffering the blow of her response (laughter and a sympathetic "aww, that's cute").

love the way you lie

2010-08-31T11:32:00.012-04:00

I generally have no problem with lying, fibbing, embellishing. I'll say I "need to get ready for dinner" to end a phone conversation; I'll tell the dude with the clipboard on the sidewalk that I'm "on my way to a doctor's appointment"; I'll tell my doctor I eat three meals a day. This is pretty standard stuff, I think/hope. Recently I've noticed though that, when I'm prompted to lie, I almost always inexplicably clam up.

A few months ago, when I was buying a new laptop with my brother, the Mac "genius" (you know him: shaved head, goatee, strange teeth) asked if I was a student.

"No," I said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm not a student. I graduated from college two years ago."

"I am going to ask you again," he said.

I turned to my brother, who was looking at me the way everyone looks at that oldest daughter on Modern Family: half-pitying, half-incredulous. I got it.

"Oh... yeah... I am a student!" I exclaimed, a little too loudly, causing the genius to make some sort of ostrich-like movement with his hands. And then, to really show him that I got it (?), I added: "Yeah, I study history."

A few days ago I found myself in a very similar situation at Starbucks. In for my daily venti iced coffee (watch out for my "healthy lifestyle" diet book in stores this fall), this dude who isn't even my usual Starbucks guy recognized me and started to make my coffee (are there other things to be achieved in life once ALL the baristas have memorized your coffee order?). When he went to ring me up, he said, "This is a refill, right?"

"Uh, no."

"You didn't come in earlier?" he asked with this devilish grin.

"No... I - "

"I'LL RING YOU UP for the refill price of 37 cents then."

It dawned on me, ten seconds later than it should have, that not only was this dude doing me the pretty awesome favor of saving me three dollars, he was doing it in spite of the fact that I was actively working against him.

"Oh, thank you so much," I said. "I will... enjoy this refill." (You would think I live in that weird-looking Ricky Gervais movie where no one can lie.)

I guess there a few things I've learned here: (1) I am always going to be innately distrustful of people who want to just cheerily hand over free iPod touches and student discounts and iced coffees, (2) once you're removed from it, the charms of the caffeine-addicted, college student life become much more evident and (3) lying is so much easier when you're the only one who knows you're doing it.

confessions

2010-08-25T17:08:00.006-04:00

1) Every once in a while, usually somewhere in the 1 a.m.-3 a.m. range, I'll search for a BUNCH of my elementary/middle school teachers on Facebook to see if they've joined.

2) When reading profiles of celebrities, I'll often just skip the "childhood/family background" section that typically comes two-thirds of the way through.

3) After binging on almonds, I bought Jewel's "Who Will Save Your Soul" on iTunes at 1:39 a.m. Tuesday night.

4) Occasionally, even though I've already seen a certain trailer running before a movie, I'll act like I'm seeing it for the first time and comment broadly to my companion: "Wow, she looks so different than she did in Doubt!" or "Wow, we need to see that together" or sometimes I'll just say "That... didn't look..." and trail off.

5) I'll respond to a text immediately only to save it as a draft and actually send it 23 minutes later.

philosophy of the hat pan

2010-08-20T18:17:00.004-04:00

I was playing hangman with my 8-year-old cousin Julia at dinner earlier this week while we waited for our entrees to arrive. (I suppose it says something about my maturity level that I will ALWAYS pick hangman and tic-tac-toe with 8-year-olds over discussing the weather outlook and what good books everyone's read lately with the adults.) Julia had stumped me twice, employing a smart strategy of choosing three or four-letter words ("May," "five"), and she managed to solve my two ("pineapple," "firefly") without too much difficulty. But I took my game to the next level for round three: Julia wrote down six blanks separated by a space and I got it to "_at _an" within four guesses. It had to be "bat man." When I guessed "b" though, Julia twitched and laughed nervously, shaking her head as she avoided making eye contact. When I eventually ran out of guesses and faced the guillotine, she filled in the words as "hat pan."

"That's not a thing," I said.

She paused. "Yeah, it is," she said. And, just like that, she drew a top hat with a protruding handle. "See."

It was, unequivocally, a hat pan.

There's something about this Philosophy of The Hat Pan that's stayed with me. It's about creation and imagination, for sure, and about expunging limits, all of that. But it's also about flexibility: when you've had your sights set on "bat man" all along - so much so that it's all you believe exists out there - it can be depressingly easy to forget that you're capable of making your own "hat pan." All you have to do is draw it.

moments that are awful

2010-08-17T15:24:00.014-04:00

1. You're driving with your friend and you're in the middle of telling a story that you've been building up for a while now ("let's save it for dinner tonight" you gchatted earlier that day) and for whatever reasons (maybe it's the heightened expectations you've created?) the story isn't popping like you thought it would; you find yourself adding in a few adjectives here and there and embellishing some details. Suddenly your friend interrupts you with a "Wait, which street are we looking for?" and you say "Oh, I'm not sure" and offer to look it up on your phone. So you do that and then there's about a minute of silence while you figure out where you are. And then, once you've found the right street, you say "So, should I... finish the story?" and your friend says "Oh, yeah, sure."

2. You're waiting on a street corner to meet a casual acquaintance. Neither of you was bold enough to suggest an actual restaurant or bar for drinks, so instead you're just meeting at Broadway and Spring and "finding a place." You're there a few minutes early, and you feel especially unsure about the snug fit of your t-shirt as you hover near a mailbox.

3. You've just left your apartment, on your way to do some errands on a Saturday afternoon. You catch yourself in the reflection of the dry cleaners and realize that it's only when you're meeting up with other people that you bother to wear sunglasses.

4. An old friend has sent you a long e-mail which, while a generally enjoyable read, is also, woefully, peppered with enough questions to necessitate a response. You put off responding until a few weeks later, on a Sunday afternoon when your other options consist of calling your parents or dealing with the pile at the bottom of your closet. You churn out this awful, stale e-mail - with sentences like "I'm slowly adjusting to it though!" and "How are things with the new roommates?" - and you click "send" without even re-reading the e-mail once.

STOP CHANGING

2010-08-12T12:46:00.004-04:00

Logging into Gmail or Facebook or Twitter and noticing there has been a change to the layout or the addition of a new feature is like returning to your bedroom and finding everything has been strewn all over the place so you can't find anything AND AT THE SAME TIME realizing all your stuff has been dipped in strange-colored paint. Just like that. I know, I know, I'm resigned to the fact that in three years Gmail as it is now will look positively archaic and I've just got to get with the program or whatever, and I know I've written about this kind of thing a hundred times before, but I just gotta VENT for a moment.

Twitter, believe me, I've been long aware of all of these people whom you are suggesting I follow (in fact, I'll tell you a secret: I check many of their feeds on the regular!); the effect of having them watch over me at all times is that of being continually judged by the snarkiest panel of internet-famous people ever. Don't want! Facebook, I am probably the only person in the world who LIVED for the "View all Photo Comments Made On This Album" feature, and now that you've removed it, I have, consequently, ceased to live. And Gmail, Gmail, Gmail.... I don't even know where to START with this redesign. I have been accidentally clicking on the "Contacts" tab for two days now and, every time, I feel the visceral panic and anguish of a guinea pig trapped in a confined cardboard box.

goofus and gallant

2010-08-09T14:37:00.013-04:00

Two times in the past few months I have found myself in the undesirable position of arriving to a group dinner first. In both cases I have told the hostess, "I'll just, uh, wait... here," and then moved to stand to the side. The hostess will occasionally glance at me with bored condescension that makes me feel like I'm waiting for my mom to pick me up in the carpool line at elementary school. I'll take out my Blackberry and send out completely unnecessary texts ("Can't relate 2 people who don't know who Joan Rivers is"). I'll fidget and (alert: Kardashian-esque style tip coming up) try to discreetly check how I look in the reflection on the wall.

Now, the first time I was in this position, a few months ago, it was for a birthday dinner of 14 people, some of whom I didn't know. Standing a few feet from the hostess' station, I watched as a girl in a black dress entered and told the hostess she was there for the party that I was. I couldn't quite hear what the hostess said next, but I saw the girl turn to look at me and shake her head. She then turned away from me somewhat abruptly and took out her iPhone. I debated approaching her to introduce myself, but her head-shake and back-turn had frozen me in place. A few minutes later, the birthday girl arrived and we were introduced. "Oh, god," the girl said to me, "How rude of me. The hostess asked if I was with you... but I thought you were a waiter." I nodded and smiled. This was clearly the kind of girl who is just able to get away with delivering excuses that make absolutely no logical sense. "Oh, of course," I responded. Needless to say, a Facebook friendship was not in our future.

Meanwhile, the Gallant example to Black Dress' Goofus occurred this past weekend. I was early for a dinner with a visiting college friend and one of her friends I had never met before. I was waiting outside the restaurant when I got a text from the college friend ("On my way - should be there in five"). A few seconds later, a girl seemingly appeared from out of nowhere and tapped me on my shoulder. "You must be Josh," she said. "Yeah!" I responded, "Wait, how did you know it was me?" "Oh, I saw you pull out and check your phone at the same time I got a text from Cari," she said. I was immediately infatuated with this Modern Day Nancy Drew. "Damn, that was smart," I said. And by the time Cari arrived, the two of us were already past jobs/neighborhoods/roommates and on to making fun of the bickering couple sitting on the bench near us. No surprise, we became Facebook friends the next day.

i'd buy you a green dress

2010-08-05T11:08:00.010-04:00

When my brother and I were in elementary school, this college student named Maura used to pick us up from school and drive us to our various after-school activities and obligations. Maura had short blond hair, a lacrosse player's build, and she was essentially my archetype for female beauty ("She could totally be on 'Friends,'" I remember thinking). She always played Barenaked Ladies CDs in the car, which seemed just inconceivably cool to me, especially in comparison to my mom's usual rotation of Mary Chapin Carpenter, Sheryl Crow and Bonnie Raitt.

After a few months of driving us to our weekly tennis lessons, it eventually became evident to me that Maura had struck up a "close friendship" with Bob, one of the "pros" at the club. (In my mind, this "close friendship" entailed lots of spaghetti-eating and long drives together... and potentially some hand-holding when it was dark outside.) Bob was probably in his mid-to-late 30s, one of those warm up pants-clad, tragic, slow-moving tennis pros who give lessons exclusively to older women and young children. He would slap me on the back whenever I walked by and ask me "how it was hanging." I remember going home one day and telling my mom that Maura had come inside the tennis bubble to watch me play (instead of waiting in the car) and that Bob had hovered around her the whole time. In retrospect, my mom's unnerved expression makes a lot more sense.

The Maura-Bob relationship fascinated me: it was like a conversation I could just barely make out the words to but wasn't able to fully grasp. I was old enough to understand that Bob wasn't right for her, that the weight in his step rendered him unworthy somehow, but I couldn't quite articulate why. I completely missed things like the inflection in Maura's voice when she told me one day about the slice of chocolate cake she and Bob had shared at dinner the night before or the way she glanced in the overhead mirror before getting out of the car. I would watch, transfixed, as she leaned to whisper him something over the water fountain, and then look away the moment they remembered I was there and turned around.

ilovesheepalot

2010-07-30T13:08:00.006-04:00

Lately I've been spending most of my afternoons at this coffee shop a few blocks from my apartment (the site of the infamous "cookie incident"). My first time there, after my misguided order of hot black tea (it was like 95 degrees outside, but my "throat hurt"), the barista informed me that the wireless password there was "ilovesheepalot," information he was barely able to deliver with a straight face. Used to the typical "STARBUCKS1" or "joesnetwork" or whatever, I must admit that I was pretty amused, and I immediately texted my go-to roster to share the finding.

As I attempted to find an electrical outlet with the grace of a international ballet champion, I considered the password further... and imagined how much FUN the baristas probably had when they got off their shifts. They're the kind of people who go bowling on a Tuesday night spontaneously, I thought. They're the sort who could take or leave the internet, probably only venturing online to check recipes and get directions, maybe to post some photos on Facebook. When they were tasked one day with picking the wireless password, they probably broke out in smirks and asides. One of them (maybe the guy who looks like Ryan Gosling's huskier brother) brought up that hilarious story of Jeremy's awkward interaction with that businessman customer on his first day. And then another one (maybe the girl with the tattoos who told me "every tea is her favorite") suggested they choose the password "in his honor." And then they probably laughed more and drank sweet tea vodka and played charades in their loft filled with bales of hay.

But then last week... I noticed THESE SHEEP sitting on the divider, which I had somehow neglected to note over the course of two months. "Oh," I processed. "I guess sheep are like the theme here." I looked over at the three baristas currently working. One was sending text messages; Gosling's brother was wiping down the counter; one I hadn't seen before appeared to be undressing their cookie selection with her eyes. I looked back at my laptop and reached into the paper bag to see if there were any crumbs remaining. I felt the same way you do when you click the "Photos" tab on Facebook and it becomes evident the person's profile picture was telling a different story.

kim and mike

2010-07-27T11:55:00.007-04:00

Sometimes you'll find yourself talking to two people at a party - Kim and Mike, let's say - and, because of whatever social factors are at play, one of the two (Mike) really wants you to know how amazingly, fantastically tight the two of them are. Maybe Mike feels threatened, maybe he wants to impress you because he knows Kim's a hot property, maybe he just really loves Kim so much that he can't help himself from displaying mad affection on a constant basis. Whatever the motivation, there seem to be five key tactics these Mikes of the world utilize for making such a BFF-ship clear to the third party.

1. Thrusting phone in face. This one seems to be the most common. You'll be talking to Kim and having this great conversation and Mike will sort of just be leering - he's not saying much. Then, all of a sudden, usually when your conversation with Kim is gaining steam, Mike will take out his phone, make this exaggerated "OMG, seriously?" face and just up and thrust his phone in front of Kim's face without saying a word. She'll pause - maybe even shoot you a quick sympathetic look - and then give him a half-hearted "oh, wow" or "wait, which guy is that?" (it's never quite what he wants her to say!).

2. Referencing something they did together. You'll be talking about bars that give free snacks and out of nowhere Mike will blurt out "Hey Kim, remember that amazing Italian place we went to with the bread? We need to go back there." This kind of comment is typically met with about three seconds of silence.

3. Revealing an embarrassing - but intimate! - detail. Kim will be telling a story about some drunken hookup she had and Mike will interject "She is gone after like one glass of wine" and then shift his weight to the other foot.

4. Referring to a mutual friend you don't know. After Kim says she really likes your iPhone skin and wants to know where you got it, Mike will ask if he can look at it. "Oh, you know who would love this, Kim?" he'll say, "Megan."

5. Using "we" in an uncomfortable/unnecessary way. Maybe when the conversation's reaching its end, or at a high point ("Wait, you want to see 'Salt,' too?!"), you'll start discussing the possibility of meeting up in the future. This is where Mikes pounce. Before you can even get to the actual logistical details, Mike is marking his territory. "Oh yeah" he'll tell you, "we'll just text you the next time we're there" or he'll turn to Kim and say "Maybe we can fit that in after we go to Megan's dinner?"

cookie conundrum

2010-07-22T11:53:00.010-04:00

I was sitting in a coffeeshop the other day trying to work -- and by "trying" I mean spending 15 minutes trying to will myself to close my browser ("...but this video of a little boy rapping over 'California Gurls' is so short!") followed by 15 minutes of making a playlist of "writing music" followed by giving up entirely and re-logging in to Twitter -- when I noticed the woman sitting next to me was trying to get my attention. She was wearing army green shorts, her hair was unbrushed, and she was looking up at me as if she had just been accused of stealing my iPod or something and knew she had no viable excuse. I took out my headphones.

"Do you want... this?" she muttered. She gestured to the table, where a lovely-looking chocolate chip cookie sat in front of her. "I got it... and... I just, can't. I don't. I can't. I don't want it."

My general distrust of others - especially those who appear to be on the verge of tears and suspiciously don't want delicious-looking things - was nearly overtaken by my very specific and very real love for cookies.

"Wait, you don't want it?"

"No. I got it, and I just... I'm sitting here, and I don't. So: have it."

She didn't wait for my response and thrust it next to my laptop. Apparently I didn't have a choice. Her eyes widened as if now, now that she had unloaded this burden of a baked good, she would finally be able to get on with her life.

"Oh, uh, thanks." I said.

And with that she jumped out of her seat and scurried out of the coffeeshop. Just like that. As mysteriously as she had appeared. I wondered if she often did this sort of thing: walking into coffeeshops, impulsively purchasing fattening snacks, then freaking out when it came to actually ingesting them. What a mystery woman! Had she laced the cookie with something? Was there a wire tap embedded inside its crevices? Was she on a Fatten the Underfed Twentysomethings of New York City tour? Who purchases a MOIST, DECENT-SIZED, BEAUTIFUL COOKIE and then just hands it off like that?!

My hand hovered over the cookie.... and... in the spirit of "Inception," I will tantalize you all and leave the ending a mystery. How you will go on with your lives not knowing if I ate it or not I do not know. But! I want to know what all of you would do so I can either feel better about my decision... or feel even more self-loathing than I do normally. How would you respond if handed a cookie from a stranger? Would you devour the treat... or toss it into the trash? Cast your vote below in this poll for the ages.

What would you do in this scenario?customer surveys

the oral news feed

2010-07-19T16:09:00.004-04:00

One of the things I find strangest about "friendships" when I spend time really thinking about them (which typically only happens when I'm alone in a taxi or watching Gossip Girl) is how much time is spent talking about other people. It's rare I'll see one of my good friends and not ask about a certain, familiar roster of characters. "So any updates with Brad? What's the latest with your brother?" I'll ask "How's Katherine?" even though Katherine is my friend's college roommate who I met maybe twice and who I probably will never see again (or if I do, the interaction will consist of a gloriously phony exchange at a bar where we can't really even hear each other over the blaring music). But, nevertheless, I know everything there is to know about Katherine's life! I know about her relationships and breakups (and that night she spent with her ex that even her boyfriend doesn't know about!). I know about her biking accident and semester abroad in India and where she's applying to grad school. I ask questions like "Do you think she's going to marry him?" and say things that are just ridiculously unfounded based only on the two brief conversations I've ever had with her. ("Oh, yeah, well she did seem pretty flighty at that party four years ago.")

And considering there are siblings, roommates, exes, old college friends and the like related to the narratives of nearly all my good friendships, I sometimes feel like that's what holds good friendships together, weirdly enough - this oral version of a Facebook news feed (though with juicier information and snarkier commentary) that gets revisited, updated and critiqued whenever you see each other.

anything but direct

2010-07-14T15:06:00.010-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to send a Twitter "direct message" to an acquaintance. This is not something I am really in the habit of doing, but I had a question for him and chose the medium based solely on the tabs open in my browser at that moment, in the way you'll eat the kinda gross "chicken thing" in the refrigerator for dinner rather than make something good.

I clicked "send"... but when I refreshed the page, there was no sign of the sent message. Perturbed, I impulsively cranked out a new message. I refreshed Twitter again and, of course, both messages were now appearing as sent. And it was in this instant that I realized I had two things to be horrified about: (1) I had just sent this guy I don't even know all that well two messages with the same vaguely personal question and (2) crucially, the language of the two messages was noticeably different. What would he think?! Would he intuit the foolish logic that had governed my actions? Or would he conclude I was just some kind of spastic internet freak and unfollow me in a huff? I took the only course of action that made sense in my state of panic: I sent a third direct message, explaining why I had sent the back-to-back variations on the same question. I also made a really weak attempt at ending the message with "humor" that is too embarrassing to share here. (Somehow I managed to fit this all in within the 140 character limit.)

I never heard back from him, but then - this past weekend - I ran into the recipient of my assault at a party. "Oh, those Twitter DMs..." he started. (I nodded imperceptibly as if I didn't know what he was talking about - ha!) "Sorry I didn't respond," he continued, "I thought your Twitter had been taken over by a virus."

shouting out loud

2010-07-08T15:05:00.006-04:00

When I was a sophomore in college, my roommate and I planned a trip into New York City to see this band we liked at the time called the Shout Out Louds. We were at that stage where "smuggling vodka" on the MetroNorth train is an idea discussed for days beforehand and sleeping on a sofa is not only acceptable but expected.

We arrived at Hammerstein Ballroom on a Friday night wildly out of place amongst a sea of Skarsgard/Bosworth-esque couples and scarlet-haired waifs. We had arrived a few minutes late and I was immediately racked with anxiety: my generalized nerves were compounded by nerves about my height (Am I blocking the fedora-topped scruffy dude's view?) and nerves about my blatantly not-skinny-enough jeans. Buzzed off of what couldn't have been more than a poorly-mixed vodka tonic apiece, we quickly realized there was no way we were going to be able to blend in as just another set of Stereogum groupies who could pull off aviator sunglasses indoors. So we, uh, took a different route, channeling the loopy spirits of kids just released from a standardized test. We flailed our arms, sang along even though we didn't know the lyrics, shouted things ("We Love You, Cold-Hearted Swedish Back-Up Singer!" "Shout Out Loud For The Shout Out Louds, People!"). Just totally awful, embarrassing behavior. Like if it had been 2010, people would have tweeting about us with all sorts of mean-spirited hashtags.

And then, right before the last song, the band we had assumed was the Shout Out Louds for an hour - this was a band, keep in mind, whose mp3s we had been listening to for a year and whose t-shirt I had bought earlier in the evening (I told you: totally embarrassing stuff!): this very same band - announced "Stick around for the Shout Out Louds, guys, they'll be coming out after a brief intermission."

I think about this night often, especially when I start taking anything in life too seriously.

lemonade and leo

2010-07-01T12:08:00.008-04:00

I was scampering across the East Village on Sunday, late for brunch, when I was struck by a table set up on the sidewalk on E. 11th St., the kind of table that was just asking for a plate of stale cookies and some neon pamphlets. There were two small children, no older than 8 or 9, sitting on chairs at the table, and it took me a few seconds to realize that this was a lemonade stand. Having lived in city after city after city since I was born, lemonade stands are in the same bucket in my mind as typewriters and pay phones.

Even though I was running late and never really spend money on the street (?), I decided I would buy some lemonade. "It's really hot," I announced. (I always forget that my methods for ingratiating myself to strangers aren't necessary when talking to young children and are instead just kind of creepy.) "Yeah," the girl said. I asked for one lemonade. As she filled a plastic cup from the pitcher, the boy bounced around like a horse in the gate before a race. "You wanna see something?" he asked me. "Sure," I said.

He pointed at the ground. "That's my name," he said. "I carved that five years ago." Leo flashed a toothy smile and the girl rolled her eyes (so over it). "That's amazing," I said, making a show of overdoing my enthusiasm. I gave them a dollar and lingered for a second before walking away. As I turned the corner, I felt kind of inspired by the fact that Leo was still proud of something he had created five years earlier (I had seen Toy Story 3 a few days earlier is my excuse), but then I felt... deflated, imagining Teenage Leo feeling embarrassed by the carving, Adult Leo living somewhere else and forgetting it was there, and then Old Leo remembering the days when he used to run a lemonade stand with his sister and she would scold him for playing with the bills instead of putting them in the lunchbox.

video!

2010-06-28T13:29:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago, I mentioned I was going to be reading a story I wrote at a reading series in the West Village. For those of you who weren't able to make it, here's a video my kind friends Amanda and David took (a joint effort!) of me reading my tale. The theme of the night was "pranks."

stranger times

2010-06-24T15:22:00.007-04:00

I have found in my two years living in New York that if I want to have a conversation with a stranger, I am generally going to have to be the one to initiate it. Unlike in Minnesota or Mississippi or wherever, where people just accost you on the street to say hi (love how easy/acceptable it is to generalize like that on the internet...), New Yorkers just aren't friendly. This has been written about, parodied and championed elsewhere, of course, but this fundamental element of New York is what made yesterday such a weird day for me! So weird. From the time I left my friend Sarah's apartment to the time I got back to my own yesterday afternoon, three different total and complete strangers initiated (or at least tried to initiate) conversations with me. In a 45-minute time period! It was amazing.

1) In the elevator of Sarah's building on the Upper East Side, a woman with a long sleek braid and wearing a white pantsuit (Kathy Bates meets Raquel Welch, kind of) gave me a bemused glance. (I was wearing a V-neck and sunglasses, slurping down Diet Dr. Pepper.)

Pantsuit: "Dr. Pepper... how Southern of you."

Me: "Oh, yeah, uh... they were out of Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi at the deli..."

Pantsuit: "Well that's a deli to be avoided, isn't it?"

2) On the subway back to my apartment, I was standing up against the door when this little businessman - who was standing dangerously close to me (pretty common subway occurrence) - yawned loudly (slightly less common) and then looked at me, shifted his stance slightly and announced in this low-pitched drawl: "I'm tired" (doesn't happen ever).

3) On the walk from the subway to my apartment, I noticed this large group of people gathered on the street. I stopped to figure out what was going on and this woman standing there who was eating something that looked like a protein bar said to me, "It's not, like, a celebrity or Gossip Girl... there was a bomb scare so they evacuated the building." "Oh, thanks," I responded, wondering if my "OMG IS THERE A FAMOUS PERSON NEARBY?!?" face was really that obvious.

things i find awful

2010-06-22T17:23:00.011-04:00

1. Blueberries: Grapes' bland and overly sentimental cousin whom you always get stuck talking to at family events.

2. The expression "cleans up good" and any related variation ("Damn, Kylie, you clean up real nice!," etc.)

3. E-mails with no subject. Sure, when a friendship is in its beginning stages, these can be moderately charming and affirming, I admit ("Hey look, I'm just shooting you a quick missive without even bothering to abide by the societal convention of naming the e-mail... because we're so past that...") but when every e-mail comes through without a subject, the gmail-related ramifications (fragmented chains, hindrances to searching) become daunting, and all your e-mails from the person start to blend together into one gelatinous e-blob. Besides, there are few things I enjoy more than a long e-mail exchange that takes place underneath a completely unrelated subject line. (Once I had a prolonged back-and-forth with the subject "big brother through, really?" - the typo was mine - and that bobbing in my inbox for about a month evoked the same feeling as that guy at the corner cubicle you always walk by who plays surprisingly good music and once offered you some of his leftover candy.)

4. Kate Hudson

5. Drinking games. Mainly because there is absolutely nothing worse than being at a party and having everyone you know there decide they are going to play flip cup or beer pong or whatever, leaving you with the decision between (keep in mind, actually playing flip cup is out) leering over the proceedings like some sort of sexual predator, or leering by the wall by yourself like you're Paul Dano.

missing the signs

2010-06-18T14:19:00.012-04:00

About a month ago, I decided I would go meet my friend who I hadn't seen in a while at this bar near my apartment. It was one of those Saturday nights where I didn't even bother to change out of the Josh-Hartnett-on-a-bad-day outfit I had been lounging in all afternoon. I just sort of schlepped to the bar, didn't bother getting a drink, and moseyed on over to where my friend was sitting. She was squeezed on a chair next to her new boyfriend (who gave me a barely perceptible head nod) at a table with four other girls. I had talked to one of these girls, let's call her Amber, a number of times, but we are by no means friends, on Facebook or otherwise. (We wouldn't make each other's BCCed party invite lists is what I'm saying.)

Amber and I were on opposite ends of the table, so trading pleasant smiles was the extent of our interaction. About ten minutes later though, this girl (who I am just going to assume was named Becky and who wouldn't stop talking about some "hockey player" standing at the bar) managed to drop her beer glass, and we were all forced to stand as two waiters descended upon the table to mop up the shattered glass. At this point, Amber and I were suddenly standing next to each other. "It's so good to see you!" I said and I gave her this overly warm bear hug. (I was pretty shaken up from the dropped glass incident.)

We caught up for about five minutes and I was whipping out some of my go-to talking points when she stopped me mid-sentence in the middle of my rant about subletters or whatever.

Amber: "Hey, what's your sign?"

Me: "What?"

Amber: "Your sign..."

(uncomfortable, five-second pause)

Me: "Like, astrological?"

Amber: "Yeah."

My excuse for what followed is that the combination of my sluggish mood, Hockey Groupie's accident, this just really odd reunion with Amber and her SUPER UNEXPECTED interjected question (who asks barely-even-casual acquaintances about their astrological signs?!) was enough to render anyone almost completely nonfunctional, lest of all me, who, of course, was in a mindset where it was taking me a good five seconds to come up with the word "astrological."

As the response came out of my mouth, I knew it was just awful, but there was no turning back: "I can't remember," I said. She made this sad/confused face, the kind of face Naomi Watts would make in a movie when she realizes her son has a learning disability or something. Like a first grade teacher might, she asked for my birthday. And when I said it, I immediately remembered my sign (Libra!) and told her. But it was too late; the damage had been done.

I saw Amber at a party last weekend and we walked past each other and smiled but neither of us stopped. It was just understood that we wouldn't be speaking.

apple picking

2010-06-15T17:22:00.008-04:00

I did something last week that has been on my Mental To Do List since I moved to New York two years ago: I bought an Apple laptop. While I have used Macs a whole bunch (at my last job, whenever I needed to print something from my college roommate's computer, etc.), I always remained attached (literally, if not emotionally) to my HP. Of course, before long, everyone I knew had hopped on the Mac Bandwagon. My brother got a Mac, my history teacher got a Mac, my mom got a Mac, the little guy who sang that "Paparazzi" cover got a Mac. Sometimes if I was feeling especially insecure I would tell people I had the "most Mac-like of non-Macs" as if that somehow would make me seem cool enough to be allowed to sit with them at Cosi. But I remained stuck in a world of Windows. What finally pushed me over the edge though was when, a few weeks ago, this computer consultant guy was in our apartment fixing our router (surprise, surprise, I am completely helpless when it comes to all tasks technical or practical) and he picked up my laptop and exclaimed, "This thing is running a fever," which was his "cute" way of telling me my computer was overheating and in the "post-retirement, pre-nursing home" stage of its life. I decided it was time.

Now that I have a MacBook Pro and am no longer a disgrace to Young People, a disgrace to New York City and a disgrace to Bloggers, I feel sort of excited and also sort of despondent. Excited because everything is sleek and pretty and precise and who doesn't want to be just like Justin Long? But also sad, as I sit in this coffee shop in Tribeca amongst a sea of aluminum MacBooks, because, as I open the same files and listen to the same mp3s and browse through the same photos - all of which are now housed in this new, sexy machine that looks just like everyone else's - I feel like I've just traded in my Lauren Conrad - boring, but durable and with quirks - for one of those nameless blondes who tries to get on the show by flirting with Spencer at a bar.

julia and jeanette

2010-06-11T11:02:00.014-04:00

Last weekend my youngest brother graduated high school, an occasion which brought my two cousins (10-year-old Jack and 8-year-old Julia) to Boston (they walked by themselves from Washington D.C.). Julia, as tween girls do, became immediately attached to this small stuffed bear wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with my brother's school's logo that she found lying around the house. She carried this bear around with her all weekend, to each dinner, each photo op, each dull speech. Of course, she named it (Jeanette, which i think was a sweet homage to my mother, Janet), "groomed" it with her hand, and attributed wildly diverse emotions to it ("Jeanette's not happy right now," "Jeanette wants candy!"). I found myself growing kind of fond of Jeanette, to be honest. I imagined her having the tomboy spunk of Clarissa Darling but with enough charm to run in the popular crowd with the Selena Gomez-y bears.

Then, Sunday night, after the last graduation-related event was over, Julia came into my room to chat, grasping Jeanette by the head in her left hand. We were talking about something or other when Julia squealed: "Look!" She pointed at another bear, identical to Jeanette, lying on the floor beside my desk. She picked it up and dropped Jeanette to the ground in one swift movement. "I like this one's fur better," Julia said, already petting the new bear's head in the same way she had once doted on Jeanette. And with that she turned around and walked out of the room.

times I've said things I wish I hadn't

2010-06-08T15:20:00.013-04:00

1) Whenever I divulge some information or offer up some constructive feedback to a friend of mine and she begins her response with a "Listen, thanks so much for being honest" or puts her hand on my shoulder all phonily and says "You know, I really appreciate your telling me that," I immediately feel like I said too much and should have just kept my mouth shut.

2) Recently I've been doing this thing where I kind of zone out during trivial conversations and just say things to feed the conversation and - surprise - it often backfires on me. A few weeks ago I was chatting with my friend Andrew about this Lady Gaga article we had both read, and he was yammering about how the profile just fed into the perceptions of her he already had. I think I was busy devising a Twitter @ reply to Lindsay Lohan in my head or like trying hard to remember the name of someone I had wanted to Facebook stalk and I just absent-mindedly said something like, "Oh, yeah, totally... I didn't learn anything about her I didn't already know." THEN, I'd say about a week later, Andrew and I were with our friend Sarah when the article came up again (basically the only things I talk about with my friends are Lady Gaga and the internet). Sarah said something about how much she loved the piece and I just chimed right in with a "Yeah, it just totally changed the way I think about her," at which point Andrew perked up and called me out for the totally blatant about face. I got real jittery and muttered something indeterminable... but Andrew and Sarah, thankfully, just tuned me out and probably opened up Hulu on a laptop, easily forgetting about my faux pas. On the other hand, unsurprisingly, I still get sharp pangs of anxiety about this incident two months later.

3) Anything I have ever said to a celebrity I have instantly regretted, most notably when I asked Gwyneth Paltrow "What is your favorite vegetable?" when I was 10 years old sitting in the "Tonight Show" green room while my parents were in the audience.

gchat between two people without daytime jobs

2010-06-04T13:10:00.002-04:00

Friday, 12:45 pm

me: yooooo

on hold with go daddy

Sarah: hahahaha

sexxxxxy

me: totally
go daddy makes me wait soooo long

12:45 PM Sarah: hahahaha

gets you all wound up

me: i know how to push go daddy's buttons though

so in a way i have the upper hand

Sarah: ur also the one paying

me: dayum

you just changed the game

12:46 PM Sarah: ive been doing that a bunch today

me: really?

what have you been doing today?

Sarah: well

i changed my twitter handle and now im drinking wine on my bed

outdoors and internets

2010-06-01T14:03:00.007-04:00

In fourth grade, I got the lead role in the school play and was real jazzed about it. I approached the part quite studiously, highlighting my lines and forcing my little brother to test me on them all the time, telling my mom I was so over karate and rollerblading and just wanted to act (I think this is also how Peter Sarsgaard got his start). The play was called "Outdoors and Internets" and it was this original work by our drama teacher about a guy and a girl who met on the internet and IMed a whole bunch. The first two-thirds of the play literally just had me and Blair (the lead girl) sitting in chairs on opposite sides of the stage, what we said out loud representing whatever it was we were typing to each other. I think our characters fell in love at the end of the play, but it also could have just been that we needed to solve a mystery or something.

Anyway, I find myself thinking about this play A LOT. Sometimes, I guess, it comes up when I'm regaling someone with the tale of how I used to fancy myself an actor (which generally leads to my asking if they want to see a video of me in 8th grade playing a 70-year old man - they gave me a cane and ascot but didn't dye my hair gray - followed by the other person finding a polite way to say "Um, I'd actually rather alphabetize my text messages" or whatever).

But I actually think the reason the play remains one of those memories that just can't be shaken is that it was so egregiously ahead of its time! I mean, it was the mid-nineties then! No one knew a thang 'bout the internet: it was like the first season of 'Lost' when they were just awe-struck by polar bears and trying to find fruit. If we were even "online" then in any capacity, it was solely to check our AOL mail for five minutes before our dad yelled at us to get off the computer... maybe we were allowed to visit Ask Jeeves if it was a "homework emergency." Our drama teacher might as well have asked Blair and I to talk in Shakespearean English: "where r u?" was basically just as foreign to us as "where art thou?" "ROTFL" was nothing but a meaningless string of letters. I mean, I wish I could remember what the dialogue in this play actually was like, given that there wasn't any commonly understood internet vocabulary then. Like Britney's "I'm a Slave 4 U" (released five years too early) or Monica Lewinsky (who, nowadays, would have been able to land a "Betrayed by Bill" Us Weekly cover and "Dancing with the Stars" spot), "Outdoors and Internets" was tragically ahead of its time... undoubtedly going right over the heads of us fourth graders, our clueless parents and even the thirty-something Mr. Schue-esque "cool teachers." Hopefully my drama teacher, whatever he ended up doing, managed to eventually pull off his "Toxic."

story time

2010-05-25T22:00:00.004-04:00

For those of you who will be in NYC tomorrow night (and also, I suppose, for those of you who are into making last-minute interstate road trips to see what bloggers look like in person), I will be reading a story I wrote in the West Village Wednesday night as part of the next installment of the Papercone reading series. The theme is "pranks" (spoiler alert: I'll be reading a story about high school). It should be a fun time, and at least (hopefully?) more enjoyable than whatever else you'd be doing on a Wednesday night (watching DVRed 'Glee'? Getting dinner with that former co-worker you've been blowing off? Eating peanut butter in bed?). Check out the poster here, and hope to see y'all tomorrow night!

the tagged lives of others

2010-05-25T12:58:00.009-04:00

So at first I was like "Awww, this is actually kind of nice. Facebook is reminding me of awesome moments from my past." (And then I colored in a coloring book for a bit and munched on some oatmeal raisin cookies.) It was as if the site was aware of how numbing and dull the daily news feed grind has become and was offering a nice little jolt of nostalgia so you could casually reminisce about that Halloween sophomore year where you dressed as a ninja turtle with a group of six people you didn't really know, or that uneventful BBQ which for some reason was photographed as thoroughly as if it was a movie premiere.

But then, upon closer examination, I realized that these "Photo Memories" that have been rotating through the top right of my screen for the past two weeks are... actually from other people's albums and have nothing to do with me at all! As I rapidly clicked refresh last night and took in the cavalcade of Facebook-selected "memories" being offered up to me, instead of taking me on a pleasant trip down a memory lane of photo tags, all they served to do was make me question my life choices ("Would my life be better if I lived in the black-and-white world of Jackie's London? Would I be more relaxed if that 'LA Summer Lovin' album was my life? Would things be different if I spent my weekends with Benny, who seems to live primarily at themed parties and outdoor concerts?"). As if my Facebook sessions weren't masochistic enough spent clicking through the pictures of pretty randos I'll never meet and checking up on the happenings of former BFFs, now they've delivered me this internet scrapbook of other people's "memories," seemingly only to remind me of all the places I'm not.

pondering a reply

2010-05-20T11:46:00.003-04:00

Group e-mails, while often a rip-roaring gas and a wonderful way to while away the afternoon at work, can at times pose a serious quandary. Sometimes you send a link to the new Ke$ha vid to your three besties which organically involves into an easy-breezy ten e-mail exchange, with everyone adding in their 2¢. But, OTHER TIMES, someone boldly e-mails out a link or a story or some pictures (you get the idea!) - the kind of message you'd normally respond to without really thinking much about it - but sends it to a group of like 12 people, some of whom you don't really know! All of a sudden, rather than a quick quippy casual response to your buds, your thoughts on That Unexpected Facebook Discovery or That Awesome 'Lost' Theory, have become this strange performative essay. You think too hard about what you're typing, delete an Evangeline Lilly joke that doesn't really make sense, add in an emoticon and then erase it. You finish your response and then you read it over and wonder if it's even worth replying all! Do you really need to deal with Aaron judging your thoughts on a Funny or Die video? So you end up just replying sender and feeling kind of sheepish about it. Or, if you're in one of those moods and just need to tell it like it is, you reply all but take off a few names. My friend actually did that last week and I found the blatant e-bitchiness of it kind of inspiring.

behaviors that have become commonly accepted

2010-05-13T17:39:00.009-04:00

1. Placing your phone on the table. When I was a mere 20-year-old, it was kind of transgressive to take your phone out in the middle of a dinner to respond to a text or check to see who called. You had to kind of look away from the person you were eating with and effusively apologize before putting the phone back in your pocket. Now, and I am definitely as guilty of doing this as the next overcaffeinated freak, not only is checking and texting as normal as someone getting up to go to the bathroom or asking you what you're gonna order ("I dunno! Everything looks good!"), taking your phone out at the beginning of the meal and placing it next to your plate is really the standard move. Your phones just sit there throughout the entire meal, expectantly, as if you're both Kellan Lutz or whatever and waiting for the call that they need you on set.

2. Using the word 'stalker' in all contexts. I'm pretty sure it's because of our collective Facebook addiction or the fact that we all learned how to interact with each other from watching "Gossip Girl" that the word "stalker" somehow got incorporated into our everyday parlance. But it's kind of great how it has now become the default word for knowing basically any information at all about anyone. Enjoy these breathtakingly realistic example convos:

"Oh, didn't you have that doctor's appointment this week?"
"OMG, stalker!"

"Yeah, I saw that you guys became Facebook friends, like, the day after the party."
"Haha. Um, stalker alert!"

3. Responding to a call with a text. This one represents real progress in my eyes. Even though texts have totally overtaken actual phone calls as the preferred means of communication, there are still those one or two friends who insist on calling you to figure out when to meet or (stalker alert!) just to talk. But (and maybe this isn't like universally accepted behavior yet?) while I used to feel qualms about doing this, I no longer feel any guilt at all about letting their calls go to voice mail and then responding with a text. Most of the time I don't even listen to the voice mail! I just text "So what's up?" or "Where do you want to meet?" and, sure enough, they'll text right back and I can get back to reading random people's twitters or watching another video of an a cappella group covering "Single Ladies."

blogging about my feelings

2010-05-10T16:37:00.008-04:00

I'm pretty sure that since they introduced tagging people in pictures, there hasn't been a change to Facebook that hasn't been met with initial frustration followed by tepid, begrudging acceptance. Unveiled without warning and adding needless complication to a pretty simplistic site (99% of Facebook users are like "make it as easy as possible for me to stalk people" and the other 1% are old), Facebook makeovers are annoying, sure, but ultimately harmless: they give everyone something to vent about... until the next thing to vent about (like the shortcomings of "Glee" or Bristol Palin or whatever). More than anything, the changes just make me think about bored Facebook dudes with indeterminable facial hair sitting around some fun wheely table eating burritos and being like "Uhhh, whaddya guys wanna do today? U wanna mess around with the site?"

But this latest change is one I just can't accept. I clicked on my profile the other day to check out what was going on with me lately and was asked if I wanted to "link" my interests and such to pages. There was no button for "Decline" or "No, thanks, I actually don't want to be a fan of a page called 'Writing About My Feelings,' as awesome as that sounds." And the worst part is, as far as I can tell, you can no longer write in text for any of the profile "favorites" fields, which is just, ya know, crushing to my psyche. It took me a good five years to come up with "I break the ice with people I don't know by telling them I cried at 'Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants'" for my "Favorite Movies." Now how will people know I'm super irreverent and fun?!

This is bad for everyone: for me, for you, for people who use Facebook to get a quick read on if someone is "normal" or "lame," "funny" or "awful." It's bad for that girl with the blurry Facebook picture, the scarcity of wall posts and the interests field of "reading. thinking. being. feeling. emoting." who now might actually start getting friendly messages from people no longer able to immediately discern she's a surly genius or whatever (though it's fun to imagine her accidentally linking to the "fan page" for "feeling"). And it's bad for the guy who tries to be ironic about his love for "The Vampire Diaries," but now that you come across his profile and see that he's linked to the page for it... it's like, Is he actually being ironic? Why didn't he just select to remove the link?... Wait, does he really like the show? Ugh. This change basically killed any sense of irony or fun in Facebook. The only people it's good for, as far as I can tell? The Facebook employees who can link to "Team Coco" and "24" and "Facebook" and "burritos" or whatever it is they ♥, and feel awesome about how many "fans" all their pages have.