brunobaby

My Two New Blogs

2010-01-29T18:51:00.003-05:00

Enjoy yourself here, but I'm not here anymore.

I'm either at my desktop publishing blog, Desktop Icon, or my new personal blog, The Return of Brunobaby.

See you there!

Not All Efforts At Rebranding Are Successful

2009-06-18T14:35:00.003-04:00

Like this one, for example.

But I'm still working on mine. In fact, I'm working on two new brands: One personal and one professional.

Watch this space. Not that it'll be here, but you'll be directed to two new spaces.

Ablated and Avulsed, and Ready for Summer

2009-05-18T19:07:00.003-04:00

I went to the vein doctor for the follow-up and bandage removal, and I'm healing just fine if you like big purple bruises. I'm supposed to follow up again in a month.

I had a craving for a Hebrew National hot dog from the Mount Sinai cafeteria a couple of blocks away. They changed the stations around a little since the last time I was there. Also, they now have candy. Also since the last time I was there, I've lost 20 pounds and most of my varicose veins, and my job. But it's not like I've misplaced my job, and it's not even as if somebody else is doing it. The job was done, and now I'm searching for another one to do.

Update

2009-05-11T21:15:00.004-04:00

I haven't abandoned this blog; just posting updates to Facebook and figuring out what's next. Also trying to figure out the season finale of House (okay, so they didn't sleep together?)

At the moment, I'm recovering from the second, probably last, leg vein procedure--smaller bandage and I only have to wear it for a week.

Over at Ambiance, which Amba started because she was tired of Ambivablog, they've been blogging about "is blogging over?" No, it's just changing, like everything else. When I was interested in making sense out of politics, I followed political blogs. Now I'm following recession and job-hunting blogs. So either I'm a dilettante, or different blogs spring up at different times to fill different needs, like pop-up stores.

The next thing I'm going to do, both for income and for online presence, is taking shape. So if you're still reading this, thanks, and if you're not, then you're not reading this.

I Did A Word Cloud of My Resume In Wordle

2009-05-01T21:36:00.001-04:00

And this thumbnail should take you to a size you can read.

Some Genius Thought This Would Be A Good Idea

2009-04-27T21:27:00.001-04:00

A low-flying plane over Lower Manhattan.

They Need Java

2009-04-22T08:31:00.005-04:00

And so do I.

O'Reilly--the tech manual company, not the right-wing talk show host--has this snapshot of IT job market trends. It only goes up to last November, when the economy fell apart, but these trends are expected to continue for the two or three jobs that are still left.

The second most popular skill is SQL, which is database programming, which is the computer job thing I'm considering learning next. When I've told some people this, they've said, "Oh, you don't want to do that, you're creaaaaaaative!" which you'd think would be a compliment, but it's said in a tone of voice that indicates, "Oh, you're not smart, you're Giggles the Clown."

I've also had creative people say to me, "Computers, oh, you'd be good at that. You're smart." And you'd think that would be a compliment, too, but it's said in that tone of voice that means, "Oh please stop trying to be creative, you're an unimaginative geek and you're only causing painful embarrassment to everyone but yourself."

The work I've been doing for the past nineteen years, desktop publishing, was something I got into because there was a growing need for it in companies and a growing need for me to make a living other than trying to make drunks laugh at two in the morning and then getting up four hours later to temp at law firms. My college degree was in graphic design, and I'd already been working with computers since 1983. (Those articles telling Baby Boomers to acquaint themselves with that-there newfangled technology are bogus; most 50-ish people have been using computers for most, if not all, of their working lives.)

But over the past few years, desktop publishing has gotten, excuse the expression, dumbed down. Consumers who've never taken a graphic design class in their lives have a home computer, a desktop printer and a million fonts, and often try to use all of them in the same piece. One of the reasons that I'm currently unemployed is because the department I was working in was becoming obsolete. We found ways to automate the production process so that managers and their assistants could download pre-made presentations off the company intranet. It became apparent to me, although apparently not soon enough, that in order to stay employed, the next thing I would have to learn to do would be to program the company intranet. Either that or stay home and write that novel. And I've found from past experience that when I stay home to write that novel, I don't write...I go window-shopping every day for stuff I don't buy.

So here are some possibilities for me right now:

1. Sign up at temp agencies so I'll have something to make money from, even if it's a day of word processing;

2. Sign up for an IT certificate at a reputable place of higher learning;

3. Join some kind of writers' group so that I will have to show up with some printed matter once in a while and can listen to something other than the sound of my own voice babbling prose like a lunatic.

I've got plenty of fine whines about wanna-be writing workshops, but they'll have to wait for another post. Meanwhile, I think NYU has an open house next week for their data mining intensive. Time to wind up my propeller beanie.

My Favorite Carol Burnett Show Sketch

2009-04-20T18:49:00.004-04:00

The one with Madeline Kahn as an acting coach. It was worth years of therapy to me as an acting student when it first aired in 1976.

It contains one of my all-time favorite lines from anywhere: "Poor baby, she's failed again!"

My Day of Shopping and Death

2009-04-19T18:32:00.003-04:00

Today I read Everyman by Philip Roth, a book about death. It opens with the funeral of this seventy-something guy and then takes you through his life and his experiences with death. In between, there are the usual Roth themes of love, sex, and being a good son. It's a short book and you can read it in a day, especially if you like Philip Roth.

Then I bought this handbag on sale at Amazon to have something nice to carry at interviews. So that was my day: Death and this bag.

Tourist in My Own Town

2009-04-18T20:06:00.003-04:00

This New York Magazine's guide to Brooklyn's Brighton Beach neighborhood says:

Right now on Brighton Beach Avenue, the neighborhood’s trestle-shaded thoroughfare, you’re equally likely to bump into the aging eighties arrivals who’ve never left their apartments or upgraded to the pink Oceana complex right nearby; their designer-clad kids jabbering in an amazing mix of gutter Russian, Brooklynese, and teen uptalk; Dominicans and Puerto Ricans making inroads back into the area; Manhattan hipsters out for an ironic evening of vodka and chintzy stage shows at Rasputin or the National; and half-repulsed, half-misty-eyed Russo-Americans like yours truly who have moved on geographically but are still reeled back in from time to time by the siren call of thick ice cream, a dubious DVD, and a jar of really good pickles.

Who the article doesn't mention are third-generation American Jews who pick the first really warm day of the year to tell themselves, "My great-grandparents were from Russia, so I shouldn't have any trouble finding stuff in Brighton Beach." What I forgot was, "Gee, Russia has a different alphabet than the United States!" and I felt like the signs were in Martian.

I'd brought this article with the map and the places to eat, even though I felt like a tourist. Then I figured, let's face it, I'm going to check out a neighborhood I haven't seen in about 40 years and I'm not going there to work or to visit somebody, so I'm going there as a tourist. I was glad I'd brought the map.

I found the Varenichnaya place. It has the Russian equivalent of ravioli. I remembered varnishkes from childhood, with buckwheat groats. Kasha varnishkes. Then I remembered I hated kasha. But the place also had an assortment of dumplings and blintzes and other hearty peasant fare, and every table had this little bottle of condiment made from garlic, oil and paint thinner. There was a TV over the door playing what looked like a Vegas-y variety show in Russian. So I got to be a hipster ironically enjoying a chintzy show.

I carbo-loaded and then went out to plow the fields, but since there are no fields in South Brooklyn I just headed over to this store that had appetizers in bulk and collected a whole bunch of little bags of stuff I would never have thought of buying if I weren't in a store that had appetizers in bulk: Pounds of fruits and nuts and dried beans and grains.

Then I picked up a great deal of produce. The article doesn't tell you about this, but every block has a produce store with a great assortment and price, or at least a great price compared to the Village. Then I went home to the fruits and nuts.

I'll check out other neighborhoods as a tourist, too. It's one of those things you always mean to do when you have the time, and then when you have the time, all you can think is, "I'll do that after I get another job! I can't think of anything except getting another job!" And then you don't check it out after you get the other job. So I'm violating Normal Person Protocol and actually doing it now.

New Biz

2009-04-17T18:39:00.005-04:00

Okay, you should be able to see the business card design that I chose, here.

I was driving myself crazy looking to create something unique and cool: "Look, it's an extreme blow-up of a piece of the Bezier curve tool from Adobe Illustrator! How hip! She must be a real designer!"

Ultimately, I chose this one because it looks PowerPoint template-y, and at the end of the day, that's what I am...The PowerPoint Temp Lady.

End of Compression Stocking Hell

2009-04-17T18:35:00.002-04:00

And the leg is doing well.

The next procedure will be on May 11th. They would have done it today, but they needed authorization from my insurance first.

Insurance...Fixing America's legs one vein at a time.

My Favorite Small Cool

2009-04-15T12:46:00.004-04:00

Here's my favorite entries for Apartment Therapy's Small Cool 2009 contest. Full disclosure: They're all long, narrow tenement apartments just under 300 square feet, like mine. So it's really Apartment Narcissism:

Megan's Changed Outlook

Grace's Efficiency of Mirrors (When you have a tiny apartment, mirrors are your friend)

Garrett's Repurposed Furnishings (Some of the apartments in my building have the three areas made into separate rooms like this...and only the front rooms have windows.)

You may say, "So if you like these so much, Bruno, how come you didn't enter your own apartment this year? Is it low self-esteem? Huh? Huh? I bet it's that, I bet it's low self-esteem."

Well, You, I'm waiting to hear if the building's owner will make certain necessary repairs. In other words, if I posted my pictures now, all of the comments would read, "Nice use of space, but fix your ceiling before it falls on your head."

Ah, teeny-tiny New York City apartments. It may not be much, but it's home.

"I Just Want My Pants Back"

2009-04-14T14:21:00.004-04:00

I've been catching up on my reading while recovering from The Leg. This week I read a great piece of Guy Lit: David J. Rosen's I Just Want My Pants Back. It's about a twentysomething named Jason Strider who lives in a tiny apartment in the West Village, has a suckass job and goes out every night partying and trying to get laid. One review says "It's as if Bright Lights, Big City had been given a polish by a young Woody Allen." It also reminded me of one of my all-time favorite novels, The Breaks. It's like, The Breaks: The Next Generation.

Besides: Tiny apartment in the West Village, partying, suckass job, trying to get laid? Been there, done that, albiet a good twenty years before Jason Strider. And I'm a girl, so it wasn't so much trying to get laid as looking for "a lump of clay I could mold into the Perfect Boyfriend." I could relate to the eventual "taking responsibility" part, though.

Girl on the Brink

2009-04-09T19:14:00.003-04:00

A friend just alerted me to yet another great Unemployment Blogger/One Woman Industry, "Girl on the Brink." Girl blogs under the name "Ann Powers," and she's a writer who's currently doing a stand-up act as well as blogging about her unemployment.

This is a blog and a blog-sona that can easily translate into a Not Just Unemployment Blog, once you're employed.

Now Here's a Good Question

2009-04-05T21:02:00.004-04:00

I've been telling myself, "Only spend money on what you need." Then I saw this book through a link from Recessionwire and I said, "I need this book!"

Okay, did you need this book before you knew it existed?

No.

So why do you need it now?

Because it validates a lot of stuff I already know about changing jobs and careers.

So now the question I'm asking myself is, "How do I make a potential client or employer who didn't even know I existed say about me, 'I need her'?"

Maybe that's in the book, too. Or maybe this compression thing is too damn tight and I'm not thinking straight. But taking the time--while you have the time--to correct a long-standing circulatory condition before you get crazy with job-hunting and career-changing sounds like a "must-do" in my book.

Publicity, and Other Mixed Blessings

2009-04-05T15:20:00.007-04:00

One of my favorite Layoff Bloggers was featured in a Times article today. There's a new term: Layoff Blogger. It's "in" now. It's a new subculture that I didn't realize existed until I myself was laid off.

So should I start a layoff blog dedicated just to my job/career-changing exploits, so I can link to the other Layoff Blogs and be a part of a community? Should I change the name of my existing blog? Should I just go along my merry (ha!) way documenting all of my transitions the way I've been for the past four years?

How about if I become part of a network, like BlogHer? Do I have any helpful hints to share? Yeah: Don't Be Me. Or...Be Me. It depends on what kind of a day I've had.

One of my all-time favorite bloggers is taking a hiatus from blogging, because she's reached an impasse with that particular blog; maybe that particular blog-sonna. I'm going through that right now with the cube, but not the blog. What it feels like right now is that I'm not doing enough with blogging, or not doing something focused. And certainly not marketing my blogging--or any other writing--enough, maybe because then I'd have to take the responsibility to make sure it's consistently good.

Brand Me: I'm A Fine Girl.

PS: More hiatuses. Hiati. Something going around, maybe?

Another Good Reason to Keep Blogging

2009-04-04T12:20:00.003-04:00

Ann Althouse is marrying one of her regular commenters, "Meade." He looks exactly the way I've pictured him...do you ever picture what people look like on blogs, e-mail, Twitter, whatever?

They had a long-distance romance: She's in Madison, Wisconsin and he's from Cincinnati, but he'll be moving to Madison. My romance with Jim started as a long-distance romance: I was here in New York and he was in Philly and would come up here to visit his sister, with whom I used to make the rounds of the comedy clubs. We met on one of those rounds. Eventually, he moved up here with me.

Considering that I spend at least as much time online as I used to spend in comedy clubs, it's not too far-fetched that my social life and eventually possibly my romantic life would be forged partially online. I've already made friends and frenemies alike through e-mail lists and blogs. I've been keeping in touch with people from various eras of my life through Facebook. In the words of my third-grade teacher, it's time to "make an effort," and kick my social networking media up a notch.

See This Leg?

2009-04-02T22:45:00.006-04:00

See this bandage running all the way up my leg? I have to wear it for the next two weeks so that I don't have to wear it every day when I'm 82. It's part of a laser surgery procedure to treat varicose veins in a doctor's office without checking into a hospital. It involves thirteen injections and the smell of burning flesh. And then this itchy bandage.

According to post-op instructions, I'm not to:

1. Sit in one place for too long;

2. Stand in one place for too long;

3. Lie in one place for too long.

Basically, I'm supposed to walk until I drop in my tracks.

I'd better live to be 82.

"She Hardly Updates This Anymore"

2009-03-31T12:42:00.006-04:00

That's what I'm imagining my audient is saying.

I'm okay, just shifting gears. The initial shock/liberation is wearing off, I'm getting things done, ducks in a row, irons in the fire, gorillas in the mist. I'm getting a few minor medical and dental problems treated while I still have the insurance, and settling in for what's going to be a pattern for the next six months or so.

I figure it'll take me at least that long to land something else, either freelance or staff. But unlike past layoffs, I don't feel like the thing I have to do before I start breathing again is to find something else. For one thing, the bodies are still falling. For another, I feel like the main thrust of my life isn't to land another job right away, but to integrate the experiences of the past five-six-seven years.

Sham-Ow!

2009-03-28T22:43:00.003-04:00

ShamWow guy Vince Shlomi charged with violent assault on a prostitute: report

"Fed officials hint recession in final stages"

2009-03-27T12:41:00.001-04:00

I love that headline. It makes the Fed officials sound coy.

I hope we're on the upswing. It'll be the first time I got laid off at the bottom of a recession instead of the top.

Women Who Make Me Laugh Out Loud in the Middle of the Night

2009-03-22T20:54:00.003-04:00

Here's the short list of what I've been reading lately:

The Nanny Diaries, by two ex-nannies, cathartic for anyone who's ever suffered through a Hell job;

Certain Girls, by Jennifer Weiner, who authored In Her Shoes and whose wit on family, sex and suburbia is impeccable;

Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels. Somebody contributed a bunch of them to the office paperback exchange. I got hooked on them over my vacation, reading four of them by the pool and the light of my Itty Bitty Book Light. Then I found a bunch more at Housing Works Thrift Shop, then a friend of mine gave me five more. By the time I've finished reading them, Janet Evanovich will have written another five.

Clothes Make the Job

2009-03-21T21:43:00.008-04:00

I almost bought a pair of shoes today that would have cost an entire unemployment check. In the job I've just left, this wouldn't have been unusual; women half my age were running around in heels that cost twice that much, and $3500 suits. What was unusual was that these shoes were a European comfort brand and the style would have been both too casual and too avant-garde for that office.

It wasn't the price of the shoes that deterred me, or the style, but the fact that somehow I'm between two sizes right now and the pair in the smaller size was a little too tight in the toe box and the pair in the larger size was like a couple of canal boats. Otherwise I would have bought those too-casual, too-avant-garde $400 shoes.

I've been doing stuff like that a lot lately. My practicality, which is as nervous and stammery as Leo Bloom, tells me to buy a suit and pumps. "You have to find another job in a large multi-national corporation," it advises. "You can't wear jeans and sneakers forever!" Then I go buy a new pair of jeans and a boyfriend jacket.

They say "dress for the job you want," and my Inner Tim Gunn must know where I want to work next more than I do. And since start-ups may be doing better six months from now than any multi-national corporation in the news, perhaps I can trust him and listen.

Put on Your Winter Coat, It's the First Street Fair of Spring

2009-03-21T21:40:00.004-04:00

There's another one in the neighborhood tomorrow, same vendors. By three weeks from now I'll be like: "Ugh, a street fair."

Rent-A-Desk

2009-03-17T14:57:00.007-04:00

In the spring of 2004, I was getting burned out at my job and ready to make a move. One of my plans was, "I'll quit and stay home and write."

Fortunately, I've been blessed with common sense, and it said, "Bruno, if you quit, you will not stay home and write. You will go window-shopping every day for things you will never buy." Besides, my husband had been recently laid off from his advertising job and our apartment was 300 square feet, and Jim was, to put it mildly, a tireless conversationalist.

Although the idea of spending money when I don't know when I'll be making any causes me to break out in automatic writing, I briefly considered the idea of renting office space, or at least cubicle space. I would have a place where I could focus on whatever I needed to do, free from the distractions of listening, talking and shopping. "It's not you, honey," I'd tell my husband, "it's me. I'm undisciplined."As if I'd really get away with that from someone who'd lived with me long enough to know I alphabetized my socks.

Unfortunately, Jim was diagnosed with advanced cancer shortly after, and the same common sense said "you'd better hold onto this job until you see what's gonna happen."

Now, deposited gently on the shores of Layoff Land, I'm again considering renting a little space. For one thing, space in New York is considerably easier to get than it was in 2004. More importantly, it may help supply me with the structure I need, now that the one imposed by a 9 to 5 job has been yanked out from under me. I'd have a reason to get up at 6:30 and put on business casual instead of typing in my sweats watching "What Not To Wear."

It's definitely on the list, the one headed "The Economy Is Falling Apart Anyway, So It's Okay to Join the Circus." It remains to be seen whether I do it as an individual or a business, use it as a launching pad to search for another staff job or go out on my own. Or perhaps I'll just stop alphabetizing my socks and make the next move, and let things sort themselves out as they will.

Hey, If I'd Wanted To Support A Bunch of Irresponsible People, I Would Have Had Kids

2009-03-16T22:02:00.004-04:00

AIG says, "Maaaa, I've gotta have more money. I promised the guys."

"When You Lie About Your Age, The Terrorists Win"

2009-03-14T19:51:00.011-04:00

I treated myself to a spa pedicure this afternoon, even though I could hear my mother saying, "You don't have a job and you got a pedicure? Things cost money!" (I could also hear her when I was in the supermarket the other day saying "you're buying food and you don't have a job? Eating costs money!") While enjoying my unaccustomed pampering, I read the latest issue of "Oprah!" magazine. Comedienne Carol Leifer had a funny essay about how she "turned gay." (I'd wondered what she'd been doing since "Seinfeld."1)

The essay was promoting a book that's also coming out called "When You Lie About Your Age, The Terrorists Win." That's a relevant title for me right now, since I'm about Carol Leifer's age, and because, since losing my job...did I mention I lost my job?...I've gotten this advice: "Don't let people know how old you are!"

While I always take the time to touch up my roots and avoid the dreaded Mom Pants, and while I don't think it's necessary for my resume to reflect everything I've done to make money since disco, I think this mindset is way behind the times. A significant portion of the workforce is now over 40. If we're all going around claiming to be 35 for the rest of our lives, what are people going to think happened to all the 40- and 50-year-olds; that we all got made into Soylent Green?

"But Brunobaby," you might say to me, "and by the way, you should think about changing your e-mail address or employers won't take you seriously..." oh great, old and unserious, "you can just lie about your age until you get the job and then once you've fooled them, spring the real you on them! You know. . . just like marriage!"

Okay, assuming that I can lie my way past HR and past the hiring manager, do I really want to spend ten to twelve hours a day, five days a week, for possibly the next five six seven years, in a workplace where the corporate culture is geared to people under 30? First of all, somebody trying to act younger always makes a fool out of themselves, like the mother from The Partridge Family saying "groovy."2 You end up looking and feeling older than you are, not younger.

And the pressure caused by living a double life will sooner or later make you snap, and then you'll be in a bell tower shooting student nurses. Oops, '60s reference.

Getting older is a trade-off. Okay, sure, you lose your looks, your health, and the shining hope for a better future. But in return, the great thing is that you no longer have the energy to live a lie, whether it's about your sexuality, your age, your personality or your nickname (and if a prospective employer is wigged out by "brunobaby," do I really want to work for them?) And you realize that your life will have had a lot of phases and a lot of careers.

In my case, one of those phases and careers was stand-up comedy, and I saw Carol Leifer perform zillions of times in comedy clubs and she was really funny, so her book will probably be funny too and you should buy it.

1 Not that there's anything wrong with that.

2 Although I can't recall the mother from the Partridge Family actually saying "groovy," I do remember Florence Henderson singing "Come Together" on The Tonight Show. Thank God she changed some of the lyrics and didn't say the words "Holds you in his arms yeah you can feel his disease." She just repeated the verse, "One thing I can tell you is we've got to be free." It was potentially such a traumatic experience that I can still remember it.

I Actually Did This

2009-03-11T20:20:00.003-04:00

This was a list of things to do when you're unemployed, from a blog called "Recessioned."

Organize your itunes. Your music is all over the place! Get it together! Don’t you hate having over 100 genres? Doesn’t it annoy you just the teensiest bit that The Beatles also comes up as Beatles and Beatle? Remember what Steve (ahem) Jobs said, itunes organization is next to godliness.

That was my big project the last time I was between jobs, during the tech-bust recession of 2001. Not only did I organize my iTunes, but I overhauled my entire music collection: Digitized my audio cassettes and any vinyl that had a decent signal-to-noise ratio, got rid of stuff that seemed like a good idea when I was 17 but didn't hold up during adulthood, ripped all my existing CD's and went over every Billboard Top 100 list and the archives of every New York area Top 40 radio station of the '60s, '70s and '80s to fill in any gaps in my playlists.

I finally finished the project about a year ago, and that's including filling in all the data on the "Get Info" tab in iTunes so I could create playlists like "New Wave Stuff I liked in May of 1979 beginning with the Letter 'A'." What can I say; I'm obsessive.

So now here I am with time on my hands again and the price of multi-zigabyte hard drives falling considerably. Maybe for my next project, I can digitize all of my video. Then I can rip that to my iPod and finally catch up on everything I've time-shifted for the past 22 years.

Two Dreams

2009-03-09T19:14:00.004-04:00

Last last I had a dream that I was doing brain surgery. Some people I'd never seen before, presumably my co-workers at the brain surgery job, were saying, "Don't blow it, idiot!"

"Sure," I said obligingly. Then it occurred to me, "Hey, wait a minute...If I'm such an idiot, why are you trusting me to do brain surgery?"

The other dream was, Paul McCartney was playing in my high school cafeteria, but I woke up before he did "Band on the Run."

What I Did Today With One Less Hour

2009-03-08T19:50:00.003-04:00

For one thing, I slept one hour later, since my body thought it was the old time.

Then, laundry! Myself! Instead of giving it to the laundromat to do. I saved about six bucks.

Also, decluttered the refrigerator of stuff that, let's face it, I'm not going to finish. Now I have room for Trader Joe's shopping tomorrow. Me and the 50,000 other people in Manhattan who are saying to themselves right now, "okay, so I got laid off, but now I can go to Trader Joe's on a Monday morning when there's no lines."

Stuff I Did Today to Feel Like A Worthwhile Person

2009-03-07T21:31:00.001-05:00

Paid the Amex bill for my vacation
Looked for my Monster.com password from eight years ago
Vacuumed cat hair off the kitchen wall. How it got there, I do not know.

I Love You, Snakey

2009-03-06T22:26:00.002-05:00

The government is going to provide a partial subsidy for COBRA payments for people who've been laid off recently.

In other news, the government will be fully subsidizing Bernie Madoff's health care.

I Join The Club

2009-03-05T15:13:00.003-05:00

The 405 Club, that is; so called because the top unemployment benefit in New York is $405. Although I think that's about to go up, so we'll have to change the name to the $430 Club.

The Brokers With Hands on Their Faces Blog

2009-03-04T23:43:00.001-05:00

Right here.

Blustery Day

2009-03-03T17:18:00.003-05:00

I'm giving myself a little something to do every day just to keep the productivity going. Today's agenda was to get my Separation Agreement notarized and send it off to HR. There's a notary/copy center around the corner and the post office was uncrowded. So there are advantages to being free in the middle of the day.

Tomorrow I'm going to a free class at the Apple Store in Soho. They're doing "iWork," which I actually own. I bought it last year when it looked as if we were going to use it on the job, back when there was a job and a company and a pretend economy that hadn't popped yet. I still have iWork, and it can't hurt to know how to use it.

I also called the people who administer the cafeteria card for the employee cafeteria, and told them to put the money back in my bank. I'll miss that cafeteria. They'd just had Festival of Chicken.

I still have this feeling of "I did something bad and now I've been sent to my room." I've been looking for job loss support groups and part of me welcomes this chance to see what else is out there, since I never would have quit of my own volition in this economy. But then, in another economy, I wouldn't have been downsized.

Okay, I Feel Better Now

2009-03-02T21:33:00.003-05:00

I've given myself a good talking to and I've come to grips with the fact that I was by no means the only one who got the axe today, and it's not because I broke any rules like let people know how old I was by saying "groovy," and I'm not an incompetent or a mental defective.

I've been to a bunch of job hunting and networking sites and I'm re-working my resume. I'm also making a list of stuff I've been looking forward to doing, like volunteering, so I can feel like a worthwhile and productive person until the economy picks up a tad.

So now all I have to do is control the vomiting, and I'll be fine.

The Other Shoe Drops

2009-03-02T12:23:00.001-05:00

Just enough time to pack up my desk and cancel my fancy health club membership.

More later, when I have time to sort it out. In a way, it's a mercy killing...things have been glum since the layoffs last October.

Bookending My Month With Coughs

2009-02-28T09:23:00.003-05:00

I've been home since Tuesday night with a respiratory infection that makes the one I had at the beginning of the month look like the sniffles. It's finally on the way out, thanks to a prescription cough syrup officially listed as a "controlled substance," and some really good pizza.

Last night I actually felt well enough to look at my "to do" list, and one thing is to get boxes of pics scanned in. So I'll be going full tilt boogie with words and pictures soon.

Melindafish

2009-02-24T09:58:00.005-05:00

Getting a sunburn on my dorsal fin.

I read this today on the Lileks bleat:

A few weeks ago I found some slides of a 1950s Mexican vacation at the antique store. I sorted through the batch until I lost interest--why do people shoot the sea and the sky? we always think the pictures will bring the vacation back to life, but they never do.

This is why I didn't get a lot of pictures of the sea and the sky unless they had me in them. Because otherwise I'd be looking at the picture five years from now and thinking "Is that when I was visiting my relatives in Miami?" Whereas I'll look at these and say, "Oh yeah, I remember that bathing suit."

CozuMEL

2009-02-23T12:01:00.004-05:00

I'm back at work after a week in the sun. I'll post more about this later this week, including some pictures. I took one of those disposable cameras that takes pictures underwater, and all of the pictures look like "This is my hand, and fish."

The Doctor Said I Could Fly

2009-02-11T22:21:00.005-05:00

The virus infection that turned into a cough started turning into stuffy ears a couple of days ago. Then yesterday I opened my mouth to bite into a cookie and felt a sharp pain in my right jaw and into my ear.

After a few excruciating moments in which I saw God and the Beatles got back together, the pain went away, but came back again with alacrity when I bit into a sandwich this evening. I took a couple of Aleve and then, figuring it was a muscle spasm, I applied some capcaisin cream. Within seconds, the right side of my face turned bright red and swelled up so badly it looked as if I was packing a second chin under my ear.

To the emergency room at St. Vincents I ran, the place where I went a couple of years ago when I was drying my food processor blade and sliced off the end of my fingertip. They must have stories about me.

After about an hour of waiting, I was examined by a resident, who did a double-take when he saw my face. He checked the ears, nose and throat and then concluded that I had an "impingement of the jaw" and an allergic reaction to capcaisin. Prescription: Keep taking Aleve round the clock for the jaw, and don't put creams derived from hot peppers on your face.

"So I don't have an infection or an abscess and I can fly away on vacation?"

"Don't see why not."

I went up to the Discharge desk.

"Bruno."

"Diagnosis?"

"I can fly." Then I cracked myself up, realizing the implication was that not only was I not harboring any infectious diseases, but was now endowed with superpowers.

So I'm out a hundred bucks, but at least I know that the pesky virus has played itself out and the swollen face and aching jaw will run their courses, too. Meanwhile, I'll be taking smaller bites. Very small.

The Prez Pre-Empted a "House" Episode I Haven't Seen

2009-02-10T10:25:00.003-05:00

I've been keeping away from political blogs lately, but I almost posted to a conservative blog during Obama's speech on the stimulus last night. The meme on those blogs lately has been "the Democrats are trying to scare us in order to get what they want!" I was about to write, "As I sit across from so many empty cubicles in my office..."

Then I had a sense of deja vu and I remembered six years ago I'd posted to a liberal blog, "As I stand across the street from the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center..." when the US invaded Iraq.

So who knows whether or not this stuff will work if and when it's passed, but it was a teachable moment for me. It taught me, "Keep away from political blogs."

Obama thinks fast on his feet, but speaks in slow measures. You could drive a truck through some of his pauses. It was one of those times I wished Jim were MST3K-ing it with me:

Obama: I didn't just pull these numbers out of...

Me: My ass. No, too vulgar. The thin air.

Obama: ...a hat.

Me: Hat is good.

As Seth Meyers said on last Saturday's Weekend Update, "That's okay. The last guy broke the world."

Singing Spies

2009-02-05T13:58:00.003-05:00

Did you know that Barbara Feldon, who played Agent 99 on "Get Smart," cut a record back in 1965 called "99"? I didn't. (H/T I Heart Daily)

I do have "Secret Agent" and "Double-Oh-Soul" in my collection. I remember those because I'm old.

I keep getting tagged by my Facebook friends to do that "25 Things About Me" list. Can that count as three things?

PS: Ilya Kuryakin (David McCallum) sang with Nancy Sinatra, but didn't cut a record. Unless you know differently; in which case you can tell me.

Taking Two

2009-02-02T16:54:00.003-05:00

Two days off from work. Sometime during the second half of the Super Bowl last night, my fever went away and was replaced by a swollen throat and a shooting pain up my ear.

I went to my internist today and she did the usual tests, and then pronounced my ailment "viral...just have to let it run its course." That should take a couple of days. Meanwhile, I've been vacillating back and forth between "but I felt well enough to go take the subway to the doctor, so maybe I should go to work" and "I don't care if there is a big 'Sale!' sign in that window, I just want to crawl home into bed."

I feel gypped that I went through the hassle of getting the flu shot and ended up with the flu anyway. But apparently, there are different types of flu. This one is called, "that thing," because when I went up to the receptionist and described my symptoms, she replied, "Oh, you have that thing everybody's coming in with."

For next year, maybe they should develop a "Thing Vaccine."

Heat Wave

2009-01-31T13:02:00.003-05:00

Not the weather; just me.

I woke up with a temperature of 101-point-something, a flu that somehow slipped past the flu shot. So I'm at home right now bundled up with the windows closed, trying to scare the fever by making the room hotter than it is.

I may have to postpone the snorkeling class I was going to take on Tuesday night, preparation for the resort vacation I'm going to take if my renewed passport gets here in time. But I'm sure there will be people at the resort who never snorkeled before. Do I have to be so prepared for everything all the time? It's not as if I'm going to be Diver Dan. (How did Dan and Minerva the Mermaid, like, do it? He had to wear a diving suit and she was half-fish.)

At any rate, it'll be fun to see all these tropical fish and pet them, except they'll edge away from me and I'll feel rejected.

I think I'm delirious.

Still Here

2009-01-28T10:08:00.001-05:00

In fact, here all too often, which is in my office working overtime.

I'm planning a vacation, which seems to involve more equipment every day. As always, I will need a vacation from the vacation.

Where Are You Watching the Inauguration?

2009-01-20T11:10:00.007-05:00

I'm here in my cubicle, where I've got a semi-choppy feed coming in from C-span.com. Semi-choppy, because whenever I do something else on the computer, I lose the feed for a second or two.

I'd wanted to watch on CNN.com, where you can comment with all of your Facebook friends, but the Firewall equipment in my company has deemed that both CNN's live feeds and Facebook are too much fun and would distract us from being good boys and girls.

The former vice presidents just entered. I love this pomp and circumstance.

Update, 11:15 AM

There's the march of the former presidents. Poppy Bush looks like he's having trouble walking, and he's saying to Barb, "I thought they'd have a handrail here."

There's Jimmeh and Rosalyn. There was a New York joke during the Carter Administration. It went "What do Jimmy Carter and the Long Island Railroad have in common?" "Every morning at 7:45 they both pull out of Rosalyn."

Gotta love those '70s.

Update, 11:30 AM

Damn. I'm getting kicked off every live feed in the universe. The whole world is watching...except for me!

Update, 11"45 AM

Ah! Just got CNN. For now, anyway.

BTW, did you know that at exactly 12 Noon, Obama becomes Prez? Nobody has to say the magic words or anything, he just automatically becomes Prez. Not just him, the president in general.

I did not know that.

It Would Have To Happen on the Coldest Day of the Year

2009-01-15T17:00:00.004-05:00

A plane landed in the Hudson near the Intrepid about an hour ago.

The passengers are basically okay. They're just really cold.

Put on Your Fudd Hat, Mama

2009-01-13T21:51:00.002-05:00

NY1's "Weather on the Ones" has been predicting temperatures of eight degrees for Thursday night, and they've been predicting it every ten minutes for the past three days, striking the fear of God in my heart. So when I saw this faux fur, faux leather hat in a little store on Bleecker for only twenty bucks, I happily made it my own. Even though I have other hats.

I also stopped into an outdoorsy clothing store where the guy sold me this fleece thing that goes over your nose like a bandana and makes me look like a ninja. And now on Thursday night I'll be nice and cozy warm and look like Elmer Fudd, Ninja.

I Was Going To Entitle This "President Bush's Final Press Conference"

2009-01-13T11:55:00.002-05:00

And then put a video from YouTube of Bart Simpson saying "I didn't do it." I'm so funny. I'm such a funny liberal.

But then, would you believe this...there is no video on YouTube of Bart Simpson saying "I didn't do it."

Yeah, it's hackneyed, but sometimes you gotta go with the hackneyed.

The Pipes, The Pipes Are Freezing

2009-01-10T21:03:00.005-05:00

The temperatures are expected to get into the single digits at night this week, which means it's time for the Annual Furnace Break-Down in my building. This time, it sends up heat for five minutes every five hours, and the cold water shuts down indiscriminately, or when you're in the shower and/or getting ready for work.

The Super keeps saying that he called "the man." The man claims never to have been called. Perhaps the super was simply, like Lou Reed, "Waiting For the Man."

Meanwhile, I gave in and bought an electric space heater. We never had them when I was a kid because my parents deemed them "too dangerous." My only experience with one was when I was first out of school and sharing an apartment. My roommate was spending the night at her boyfriend's and let me borrow her space heater. As I got dressed the next morning, I had this brilliant idea that I'd stay really, really warm if I draped my underwear over the heater before I put it on. My favorite brassiere disintegrated instantaneously.

This time, I got the little contraption pictured above, which comes with a little safety booklet that I read obediently before I turned the thing on. Within five minutes, it made the room toasty warm and comfortable for the first time in days. That, and the big pot of stew I put on the stove.

So here I sit, huddled by the fire: Primitive Woman. And when my Con Ed bill comes in, I'm sending it to The Man.

Truth or Fiction?

2009-01-06T09:36:00.004-05:00

I added another link to my "Useful Stuff" on the sidebar. This one is Truth or Fiction.com. It was passed on to me by a friend and it joins Snopes.com and The Straight Dope, proving that I'm either extremely naive or a raging paranoid.

It's them Comminists. Yep.

Hewwow!

2009-01-03T12:44:00.004-05:00

I get this e-mail newsletter from a "noted veterinarian" every week. It has advice on cat care and some funny cat videos from YouTube.

One of the videos this week was "Cat Saying Hello."

"When we played this for the clinic cats, they started howling!"

I think it sounds more like the noise Pongo used to make when he ate too fast and was about to hurl. But, in the interest of pure science, I played it for Chico and Ashley to see if they would howl. They were in a deep REM sleep on the bed, and suddenly sat up and swiveled around in alarm. After the track played out, they quickly decided the danger was past and the talking hurling cat had been attended to. They put their little fox heads down and went back to sleep.

If you have cats or dogs, do you ever play them videos or recordings of cats and dogs to see what they'll do?

Happy 2Dog

2009-01-01T22:06:00.002-05:00

I'm starting off the New Year with a cold, or, more specifically, half a cold. It's only affecting one side of my face, which feels like it's sliding off my head.

Last night, loaded with antihistamines, I went to the deli counter of my corner supermarket. The guy had a sloppily hand-lettered sign that said "Happy 2009," only the first "0" looked like a capital "D" and the "9" looked like a lower-case "g." In my brilliant state of mind, I started giggling.

"I thought your sign said 'Happy 2Dog.'"

The guy looked at me strangely.

"Which, of course, doesn't make any sense," I added, lest he think I was crazy. I knew 2Dog didn't make any sense, by golly! Can't fool me!

Meanwhile, I was repressing bursting out laughing until my lips were stretching like a balloon. The guy finished slicing my cold cuts and handed me the packages.

"Thanks! Happy 2Dog!" And I cracked up, while the two people on line behind me watched me walk away, obviously deciding I was starting my New Year's celebrating a tad too early.

I've been watching the Twilight Zone marathon most of the day, because it's not New Year's Day without it. And every year, it's..."Martian and the Diner, yeah, Talking Tina, yeah...wait a minute, I don't remember this one." Every year there's one I don't remember. Or sometimes, I don't remember whether or not I remember it. Maybe it's stress--Good riddance, 2008!--or old age. But I think right now it's just antihistamines.

Happy 2Dog.

Uncle Jay Explains the Year in Review

2008-12-31T11:39:00.003-05:00

Uncle Jay sings about 2008 for you.

He has a lot of other great videos, too.

Mistletoe, Menorah and Fan

2008-12-28T20:24:00.003-05:00

It's unseasonably warm, and the holidays are almost over.

I'm happy, yet sad.

Cats' Holiday

2008-12-26T23:03:00.006-05:00

Here's Chico in the new pet bed I got for the cats at IKEA tonight.

I got the basket and blanket from the people departments, because they were cheaper than the ones in the pet department.

PS: Okay, as I was posting the previous photo, Ashley jumped into the basket to double the cuteness quotient. This is working out just like I'd planned. Usually when I knock myself out getting them something nice, they ignore it and play with a cardboard box.

PPS:

My Christmas Gift To You

2008-12-24T12:52:00.004-05:00

If you played video games in the early '80s, you'll get a kick out of this. You'll be saying, "Why didn't I do this?" And if you're the one who did it, thanks.

It's called 8-Bit Jesus, and it's Christmas carols done in the style of early '80s video games.

Enjoy!

Slippage

2008-12-23T14:57:00.003-05:00

My least favorite weather: Bitter cold with patches of lumpy ice all over the ground. The natural inclination is to walk as quickly as you can to get out of the pain, but you have to take itty bitty steps to keep from slipping on the ice.

And if somebody gets in your face, or you have a slow-moving human in front of you, you can't swerve around them because you can't move that quickly. Also, because you'll step out of your semi-ice-free little groove in the sidewalk and hit a small embankment and lose your balance.

Rain tomorrow. Wet Christmas. My hair will pouf, but walking will be safer.

Menorah and Mistletoe

2008-12-21T19:06:00.002-05:00

I Dip Myself in the Mall

2008-12-20T19:26:00.004-05:00

I tell myself I'm going to leave before I get stressed, but I forget how quickly that happens. Just like it takes much, much less exposure to the sun than you think before you damage your skin, it only takes so many sales clerks who don't speak English or give you the wrong directions before you're ready to say "The hell with it."

Then I start getting the evil impulse to go up to a sales clerk and ask for the location of something I know, just so she can give the wrong answer and I can say, "Gotcha! No, it's not!" And leave smirking with indignation.

Today I wanted to leave a trail of Cinnabon crumbs between Women's fleece jackets and Petite fleece jackets, just to find my way back and forth between the two. I was actually splitting hairs over fleece.*

The easiest people to shop for are the ones who will accept a gift card. It's a token, right? It's the thought that counts. Although why we can't go one step further and just exchange good old American cash is beyond me. Cash is accepted everywhere stuff is sold.

The hardest people are the ones who say, "Oh, we don't have to exchange gifts, just, you know, a fun little something." Okay, but when does a little something go over the line and become a gift? And what if the other person goes over the line and you're still under the line? And what constitutes a "fun" something? As opposed to what, a sensible, serious something?

Dave Barry's said in his Annual Holiday Gift Guide that women will buy gifts all year round, like two ceramic turtles that say "Best" on one and "Friends" on the other. Men will walk right past the friendship turtles.

Whereas many women (you know who you are) will buy the turtles, not because they know of anybody who needs friendship turtles, but because the turtles are, quote, ''cute.'' Then the woman will start shopping for a cute card to go with the turtles, or maybe several cards, since she's not sure which specific one of her numerous best friends will be getting them. While she's at it she might buy some cute little scented candles that would go with the turtles, and maybe a few other cute things. By the time she leaves the store, she will have as many as eight gifts for people who have yet to be identified. She may have totally forgotten why she went into the store in the first place (to get an extension cord).

By the way, I would love it if somebody got me an extension cord...or a set of A/V cables. Those cables are expensive! Better yet, pay my cable bill for a month.

Meanwhile, I'm going back to the Mall and asking the nearest clerk for the "fun little something" department, just to see what happens.

*This isn't as crazy as it sounds. They make the sleeves on most jackets too long, and who's going to take a ten dollar fleece jacket to the tailor?

They're Turning on Me

2008-12-19T13:28:00.003-05:00

The cats were chasing each other last night and Chico banked himself on my face, making two big scratches around my left eye and one right on my eyelid. The first thing I thought as I shot out of bed was, “He poked out my eye and I’m gonna have to go to the Emergency Room and I want to sleeeeep!” I turned on the bathroom light and got out the peroxide and cotton balls. You never realize how much blood is in your face until it’s on the outside. Once I wiped it off I could see it was only flesh wounds. My eyelid is puffy today, but not infected puffy. More like somebody gave me a black eye.

Considering how many times the cats have chased each other in the middle of the night and how many times Chico’s grabbed or pushed at some part of my anatomy with his claws out, the first order of business is going to be to trim his claws constantly, since I can only get one or two of them at a time when he’s asleep. Then, I want to do something about the distance between the bed and the top of the wardrobe, since Chico tends to gain mass the higher up he falls from and my pillow is right under the top of the wardrobe.

So why don’t you move your pillow? Because he grabs the other end of the bed to get onto the bed, and sometimes sinks his claws into my toes.

I also have to give Ashley ear drops again, Baytril this week and then Epi-otic for the next three. So part of my days off will be spent on catly problems, being in a constant state of claw-trimming and ear-dropping. And as far as giving them something to grab onto, maybe I can buy some shelves and get somebody to help me do what this guy did.

I Live Near Famous Crimes

2008-12-18T11:49:00.004-05:00

I actually went to this Community Council meeting last night that the 6th Precinct has once a month in a church basement. I wanted to hear the cops talk about the spate of muggings that have been happening within a five-block radius of my home for the past few weeks.

The inspector led with a speech about how they believe they've apprehended the perpetrators and have linked them to at least two of the muggings. Our City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who sounds like a sane Rosie O'Donnell, was the guest speaker. She said that even though the cops had caught the suspects, you should still exercise all the caution she told you to exercise in her e-mail. She was welcomed with a slew of complaints from community leaders about how, even though the cops had caught the suspects, it wasn't going to make any difference in the quality of life in the West Village until somebody does something about the insane transvestite crack ho's. Drug dealers see the ho's and they figure, the cops are letting them get away with it, and then other criminals see the ho's and the drug dealers and they figure it's a good location to set up shop.

This isn't the first time I've lived in the middle of famous crimes. In 1977 I was just out of school and still living with my parents in Queens, and Son of Sam did two murders within ten minutes of their house. And most of the victims were girls around my age with long brown hair. I would come home late from the City with my hair under a hat and walk ten blocks from the subway to my parents' house. I was full of guerrilla vigilance and expected that at any moment, "Sunna" was going to leap from a car, or out of the bushes, or suddenly break up from the ground like Jaws.

On one such night I got in and was sitting at the kitchen table when my mother ran out of her room in a frenzy. I was ready to say, "What? You said I could stay out until two!"

"They caught Son of Sam! His name is David Berkowitz." And my first response was to crack up. The shark from Jaws, and he turns out to be some creepy nerd that I would have turned down for a date. Who knows--maybe I did and that's why he shot all those girls.

The Summer of Sam...that time when every New Yorker looked nervously over their shoulders and said, "Oh thank God...It's a black guy."

Not the Revolution Kind

2008-12-16T15:12:00.004-05:00

I stopped in this store Uniqlo yesterday. They had a big sale on fleece jackets and puffer coats like what the kids are wearing. I tried on a Sherpa jacket and a vest...

I looked like Sonny Bono.

(Self-portrait.)

Things and Stuff and Stuff and Things and...Stuff

2008-12-16T10:48:00.001-05:00

Okay, just took a little walk around the office looking for discarded office supplies from the cubicles of the downsized, and scored a couple of magazine holders. Then I got back to my cubicle and reorganized my quarterly file folders. All of this took a whopping eleven minutes.

At lunchtime I want to return a necklace I’d bought on Saturday at the GAP because I needed gray beads to go with the purple blouse I’d bought there. The purple blouse looked good on Saturday and will be worn again, perhaps even to the office. The gray beads were unnecessary but for some reason on Saturday afternoon they were a matter of life and death.

Then to the bank for a checkbook register. Then I still have this $20 credit slip at The Rose shoe store and I feel as if somehow I’m destined to have a credit slip there for the rest of my life or until they go out of business. If I go there and get a pair of Merrell sneakers for $60 plus my $20 credit, I can guarantee you that for some strange reason known only to God, those sneakers will be totally wrong for me in three days and I will be back there to get an $80 credit slip.

Also, I feel like, “You already have two pairs of sneakers! Save that credit slip for a necessity!” But when necessity comes along, it can never be filled by whatever the store with the credit slip has on hand when you need it. So I may as well get more sneakers.

I'm adopting this as my new mission statement in life: I may as well get more sneakers.

Apartment Therapy Moment

2008-12-12T12:43:00.005-05:00

I went to my fancy-schmancy gym yesterday, the one I have a discount at through my company. There was a three-legged stool in front of my locker.

Instead of sitting on it, I immediately flipped it over to see if it said "Aalto."

PS: It didn't say anything, but I strongly suspect IKEA rather than Aalto.

Re-Weavement

2008-12-11T10:09:00.003-05:00

I'd said here last August that what I needed was a re-weavement group, for people who are putting their lives back together again.

I haven't found a group like that, even in New York, where there are support groups for people who can't get over the re-branding of Diet Coke. But there's re-weavement to be found on the Internet on a one-by-one basis:

Wende, who recently split from her hubby and went back to Phoenix, and

Above Average Joe, whose Mrs. moved out this year leaving joint visitation of Peanut and the Champ.

Wende uses at least part of her real name, or what I'm assuming is her real name. Above Average Joe makes me wonder if I should have been using a pseudonym all along, since I'd then have the ability to be as touchingly honest and vulnerable as possible without getting sued.

What with getting more hits lately on Facebook in one day than on my blog in a month, I know this sure the hell needs something. If you have any idea what, let me know.

The REAL "Girls Behaving Badly"

2008-12-05T14:40:00.002-05:00

"I went to one of these scrapbooking retreats, and it's all these women in their pajamas with snacks -- Hostess Twinkies everywhere! There's something about junk food being part of this. It's like, no husbands, I'm going to let myself go and look at pictures of my family and eat Twinkies."

Jessica Helfand has written a book on the history of scrapbooking. She's interviewed about it here in Salon. Check out the Amazon link for cool videos of vintage scrapbooks.

Happy Breakfast

2008-12-05T11:28:00.004-05:00

The fishy art of Anne-Catherine Becker-Echivard. (Courtesy of Shelterrific)

One and One-Half Wandering Jews

2008-12-03T12:58:00.003-05:00

I always thought that should be the theme song for me and Jim. Paul Simon wrote it about his marriage to Carrie Fisher.

Carrie Fisher has a new autobiography that I'm planning to read. She grew up in Hollywood at the same time that I was growing up in the Bronx, her parents and Liz Taylor were the Jen-Brad-Angelina of their day, and she was Princess Leia when I was an office temp. She writes about all of those things. Okay, not about me being an office temp, but about her parents and Paul Simon and Star Wars:

"I tell my younger friends that one day they'll be at a bar playing pool and they'll look up at the television set and there will be a picture of Princess Leia with two dates underneath, and they'll say, 'awww -- she said that would happen.'"

And like that.

And A Blouse Made of Ampicillin

2008-12-03T09:43:00.003-05:00

I was checking out a site for discounted designer clothing that advertised a jacket made from "40% cypro."

"What the Hell is that," I said, Googling. The only cypro I've ever heard of was the antibiotic they gave people who thought they were going to get attacked by anthrax seven years ago.

Google asked me, "Did you mean cupro?" Several sites told me cupro was similar to rayon.

"Oh,' I replied. "Thank you. Rayon I know."

In other news, everyone I know is on Facebook and we keep sending each other stuff, but I can't figure out how the "Requests" thing works. So I'm behind by 87 trees and a snowman.

Update: And now I just signed up with Twitter. Aaagghhhh! Just what I needed for the holidays...a new learning curve.

Stuff I Saw in Amish Country on Saturday

2008-12-01T11:30:00.001-05:00

Cows, cows, cows, horses, cows.
Lots of guys driving buggies on the highway between SUV's.
A farmhouse museum about as old as my apartment building, and as simply furnished as my apartment.

A young woman gave us a guided tour of the farmhouse, and filled us in on the history and customs of the Old Order Amish. The Amish broke away from the Mennonites in the 17th century because they didn't think the Mennonites were strict enough.

We learned about the custom of Rumspringa, where Amish teenagers run around in the modern world sewing their wild oats. Then they either come back and settle down or they get shunned. And you thought your parents disapproved of your lifestyle!

My friends and I had lunch at a smorgasbord the size of a football field. Since the Amish, unlike the Hasidim, have no dietary restrictions, they go to restaurants frequented by outsiders. So when you're lining up at the buffet you see a bunch of regular suburban families in fleece hoodies and baseball caps, and then a bunch of Amish people in the hats or the bonnets. The line looked like a casting call for Witness.

There were also a lot of Mennonites at the smorgasbord. The women had skirts above their ankles. Those hussies!

I enjoyed a meal that included creamed dried corn, bratwurst and shoo-fly pie.

I realized that all ethnic cuisine, including Pennsylvania Dutch, was invented by people who pushed a plow all day instead of sitting on their fat behinds in a cubicle.

I realized that I could be Amish, maybe: The black clothes and the minimalism, yes; the shunning, not so much.

It's been a while since I've had news from the land of Intercourse.

Bruno the Vindicated Tightwad

2008-11-28T12:37:00.002-05:00

Heard this report on NY1 this Black Friday morning: More New Yorkers are planning on spending less on gifts this year, sticking to a budget and doing comparison shopping.

In other words, more New Yorkers are going to be like Meeeeeeeee!

Go to the link for video of real New Yorkers shopping in a mall.

Gettin' Ready

2008-11-26T22:21:00.005-05:00

Tree getting ready.

Balloons getting ready.

Parade getting ready.

Vatican Pardons Lennon

2008-11-23T17:52:00.002-05:00

The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano had an article forgiving John Lennon for saying that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus back in 1966:

The paper described the remark as "showing off, bragging by a young English working-class musician who had grown up in the age of Elvis Presley and rock and roll and had enjoyed unexpected success". [...]
The newspaper said The Beatles's songs had shown an extraordinary capacity for survival and the White Album album remained a "magical musical anthology".

The Vatican also compared the Aeolian cadences at the end of "Not a Second Time" favorably to Mahler's "Song of the Earth."

The Tree!

2008-11-22T11:10:00.003-05:00

It's behind the thing, but people are taking pictures of it anyway.

Saks' windows are behind a thing, too.

I Always Like To Plan in Advance

2008-11-21T10:42:00.001-05:00

Now, when somebody tells me to go to Hell, I can make a reservation. (H/T EconoWhiner)

The Beau Brummelstones

2008-11-20T13:17:00.002-05:00

Extra points if you know who produced this record.

How To Prepare Your Home To Be Uninhabitable

2008-11-19T14:13:00.002-05:00

I've been getting estimates from contractors for the replastering-receiling-recabinet work, not just for cost but for how long it's going to take. The ballpark figure is that my apartment is going to be unlivable for woman or beast for four or five days.

Then again, the last time a contractor said this, we all stayed and managed all right in one little section for the week. And that was some unholy mess! It was an explosion of 150-year-old building smell in the middle of my apartment, and I'm still finding grime in odd corners of the place.

All the furniture will have to be moved into the middle of the room. This would have been impossible a couple of years ago, since there was so much stuff that there was no middle of the room. But it still gives me an excuse to declutter even further and maybe sell some of my things on eBay, if anyone still has a job and money to buy them...like, the contractor.

They Even Have Ballroom Dancing. I'm Serious.

2008-11-17T21:35:00.003-05:00

I've been on the waiting list for months for the fancy-shmancy health club that my company has some kind of deal with, and today a space opened up. The membership doesn't become effective until the day after Thanksgiving, but that's excellent timing right there.

Wow, so many things to go to enthusiastically for the first couple of months before losing interest, so little time.

My Life Revolves Around the Commercials

2008-11-16T19:41:00.005-05:00

For the past couple of months, my new favorite show has been "House," which I hadn't watched until a couple of months ago. USA's been running Season Three over and over again, and first-run episodes on FOX are up to Season Five. So as my obsession grows, I've been left with a gap in my all-important series development knowledge, leading to a bunch of questions like: "What happened to Wilson's girlfriend?" "Why aren't House and Wilson friends anymore?" and most importantly, "Is this show gonna jump the shark now that I've started getting into it?"

I had some free credits at Kim's Video, so I rented Season Four, eschewing the disdain the film geek clerk showed me for preferring pop culture to obscure independent Czechoslovakian cult classics. I cleared up a couple of hours over the weekend to catch up, which is when I noticed that I was getting annoyed that there were no commercials. Really annoyed.

You think you get annoyed when your favorite show gets interrupted every twenty-two seconds by a commercial, but you don't realize how much you pace yourself and your evening or afternoon by, "I'll do this at the next commercial."

Okay, I tried to be self-disciplined and create my own breaks. "After this episode, I'll vacuum." "When I get to the spot where the commercial would be if this were being televised, I'll do the dishes." (By the way, an hour-long drama without the commercials is about 40 minutes.) But you get on a roll, and you think, maybe I should try to watch all of them really fast and get it over with all at once. And there's always the part where you have to determine, "How long should I break for?"

I have the same problem with HBO and Turner Classic Movies. "I'll wait until the next commercial...oh, that's right, it's HBO/Turner Classic Movies. Damn." And you can't hit "Pause" and run to the bathroom, because it really is being televised.

Perhaps it's time for TIVO.

Meanwhile, my questions have been answered about the missing episodes of "House," except for the one about jumping the shark. I know that in the Season Four finale, it jumps the bus.

And I still have store credit at Kim's, where there is a lot of obscure film I haven't viewed. So many opportunities to practice self-discipline, so little time.

Carnival of the Contractors

2008-11-15T11:24:00.004-05:00

I've started auditioning contractors to do some stuff to the apartment that the landlord isn't going to pay for; mainly, to remove some fugly acoustic tile from the ceiling put up by a previous tenant and replace it with nice smooth sheetrock.

This was something that got interrupted two years ago at this time when Jim's cancer took a turn for the worse. I was planning massive changes to the apartment as a way to stay sane and feel productive. Little by little over the past year, many of those changes have been made without the pressure I felt back then. The pressure was because I felt like I had to do it all at once, mostly because I thought I'd procrastinate and not do it at all, and also because I was going to sail to the edge of the earth and fall off.

But there has been life after the unthinkable, and there have been renovations, most of which I haven't had to pay for. When I think about what I was willing to do and pay for a couple of years ago in order to forestall the inevitable, I feel like taking a nap. Or maybe it's just this gloomy rainy day, and the thought of a bunch of guys who don't speak English trying to convince me to fix things that don't need fixing. One sheetrock at a time, please.

PS: Here's a guy who's been in his Village apartment as long as I've been in mine. I remember that Live Poultry market!

Reality Check on the Left

2008-11-14T19:29:00.003-05:00

When Dubya was (re?)-elected in 2004, Marc Cooper spoke to Democrats the way P.J. O'Rourke's column this week spoke to Republicans.

In his last column for the LA Weekly, he again takes libs to task, this time for grumbling over new appointees that aren't progressive enough:

Obama is obviously an extremely intelligent, liberal politician and social leader whose objective is to build a liberal governing majority that can actually initiate and pass significant reform legislation. Sorry to break this news to you, but self-styled progressives, socialists and even liberals do not — even remotely — constitute an organized electoral majority in this country. So to pass that legislation, Obama must build working coalitions and alliances, and even, gasp, make deals with and compromise with a whole lot of unsavory people whom you or I might not want to sit in the same room with. That’s just one reason why he’s the president. And why the rest of us are arguing about this over Chardonnay and finger food

Read the whole thing. Or just read that piece I quoted there; that was a good one. And read Marc's blog, too, because now you can't read his column anymore.

Obsolete?

2008-11-13T10:08:00.003-05:00

Not Chico; he's always needed. I mean the little TV. After next February, there won't be any broadcast television, just cable. So what do I do with my faithful little battery-operated Watchman that's been my lifesaver during two blackouts and whenever the cable is out and when I'm between "regular" TV's?

Loyal Opposition of Yuks

2008-11-12T13:02:00.010-05:00

Now that the country may be moving a little bit to the left, expect a resurgence in right-wing humor.

Lileks has resurrected The Screedblog:

Conservatives cannot help but be saddened and left out – the only possible event that could lift their spirits right now would be a headline that said REAGAN, BACK FROM THE DEAD, EATS BIN LADEN AND CRAPS TAX CUT

And here's a new one in the Weekly Standard from P.J. O'Rourke: (Link courtesy of The Moderate Voice)

No Child Left Behind? What if they deserve to be left behind? What if they deserve a smack on the behind? A nationwide program to test whether kids are what? Stupid? You've got kids. Kids are stupid.

These are guys I enjoyed even while I was yelling stuff at Karl Rove on my teevee, and I'll keep on enjoying them and keeping myself honest.

Life In The Fast Lane

2008-11-12T12:50:00.002-05:00

This week, my company cafeteria has Thanksgiving dinner.

Next week, it will have Christmas dinner.

The week after that, I will go from being 54 to being 82.

"This time we are not victims, but winners."

2008-11-11T10:23:00.003-05:00

For the past week, here in New York we've been acting like an occupied country that just got liberated by the Allies.

This article in New York describes what's inside many New Yorkers pretty well:

Victimhood, at least, was a familiar part of New Yorkers’ repertoire. Now we have no choice but to be both cheerfully pro-American and earnestly optimistic, which are not exactly our default positions. Around 2003, most of us became highly invested in loathing a national regime that we know is wired to loathe people like us. A symbiosis was established. We’ve been shouting and pounding on a locked door with mounting fury for three, four, five, six years—and now that it’s suddenly swung wide open, all of us outsiders welcomed right inside, we’re sweaty and breathless and a little unsure exactly what to do next without someone to demonize and blame. New Yorkers enjoyed being prophets without honor in their own land. Righteous political umbrage felt good. An Obama-loving friend admits that now he actually feels slightly let down without his beleagueredness and anti-Republican rage to energize him. A majority of Americans … agrees with us?

And this Borowitz Report describes it even better:

Failure to Blow Election Stuns Democrats

Yippee! I Can Eat Again!

2008-11-10T13:39:00.003-05:00

My test was A-Okay!

Repeat again in 3 to 5 years.

I can eat again! Solid food! Yaaayyyyy!

"This Must Be What Evil Tastes Like!"

2008-11-09T18:17:00.004-05:00

The stuff I had to drink tonight.

This makes the rest of my life seem so, so good.

Off to a Good Start

2008-11-09T13:48:00.005-05:00

Ashley helps me file.

I'm at home all day today preparing for a routine medical screening tomorrow, the one where you have nothing but liquids the day before and then a big beverage that tastes like pond scum for dinner and then the next morning, up your nose with a rubber hose. You other old people will know which one I mean.

So what am I doing while I'm housebound? Am I getting caught up on my chores, my reading, my correspondence? Yeah, sort of. But mostly my brain is still set on "political junkie" mode, so I'm reading blogs and watching CNN all the livelong day, with shows like "Yes, Even More Stuff About the Obama Presidency!"

The Conventional Wisdom right now is that Obama will govern from the center. This makes me smile, because centrist Democrats are about where I'm at as far as what I think will be good for the country right now, so listen to me 'cause I'm one of those liberal elitists who know what's good for ya.

Amba was also watching CNN, Rahm Emanuel on This Week, and said that Emanuel kept hammering the message of helping the middle class. That should bring a smile to my mother's face, because she watches This Week too and she likes it when the Democrats say that.

What I liked was that he said that the auto industry should look for ways to use the money they've already received and look for a way to turn the crisis into an opportunity. This is in line with my philosophy of "Before you go shopping, use what you have."

So I'm happy, and optimistic. Or just hallucinating from lack of solid food.

Here's Where You Get To Solve My Problems

2008-11-08T11:50:00.003-05:00

I've been falling asleep in meetings at work. This is not due to a boring speaker, but to the white noise in the conference room.

And it doesn't matter if I've had a full night of sleep, or how energetic I feel that day. I sit down in the conference room and bam, my eyelids start getting heavy and I go into this alpha state. And then instead of the IT Department showing us new software, the Pope is singing "Cool Jerk" and he's got six cardinals for a back-up group.

And the last time, my boss caught me at it, which you really don't want when there are big-time layoffs going on. Usually I try to position a few bulky people between me and her, or I try to force the eye open that's facing her. But during the last meeting I was suddenly jolted out of my reverie by "Wake up, Melinda, this applies to you."

The positive thing is that the next time I do suffer from insomnia, I could always sneak into the conference room and grab forty winks.

I could also mention this problem to co-workers and see if anyone else has had this experience. We'd still have to have our meetings there, but at least I wouldn't feel so weird about my seeming narcolepsy.

Happy Smiling People Cereal

2008-11-06T22:48:00.006-05:00

Accept no substitutes:

All I Have to Say on This Historic Occasion Is...

2008-11-05T14:13:00.001-05:00

AAAaaaaaaaaaggggghhhhhh!

I'm older than the President!

I'm older than the President!

I'm older than the President!

Finally.

2008-11-04T17:34:00.005-05:00

Anybody going to an Election Day party tonight? I'll be having a one-woman bash in my easy chair, flipping back and forth between CNN, Fox, NY1 and a mini-marathon of "House."

I'll also be checking in on the live-blogging festivities here, here and here, while having "a glass of win." Hopefully.

Update, 11 PM EST: It sounds like New Year's Eve outside my window. I don't even know where it's coming from. It's like the whole neighborhood is cheering.

11:20 PM: I stepped outside and it was the whole neighborhood cheering--people walking down the street cheering, stumbling out of bars cheering, leaning out windows cheering. Especially young black people. Especially young black gay people. (Hey, it's the Village.) Car horns are honking.

McCain is giving a very classy concession speech. My country is very classy tonight.

In An Ideal World...

2008-11-03T10:22:00.003-05:00

The McCain of 2000 would be running against the Obama of 2004.

And I would be me when I was younger, thinner and cuter.

Shots

2008-11-01T20:14:00.004-04:00

Ashley, sleeping off her vet visit. We're looking into the extra tail thing.

Ashley and I had our shots this week. Ashley had her distemper vaccination, and I had my company-sponsored flu shot. I figured I'd get all the perks while they lasted.

IKEA Halloween Pumpkin

2008-10-29T11:32:00.003-04:00

Packed flat and ready for assembly.

The Axe Falls...

2008-10-22T22:16:00.004-04:00

...but not on me. At least not this round.

My company had "unprecedented" layoffs today. The management is calling a big meeting first thing tomorrow morning for the survivors. I'm going to try to get a good night's sleep; this is one time I don't want to push my luck being late.

P.S. The guy upstairs sounds like he's bowling.

Cabinet Selection

2008-10-15T09:50:00.003-04:00

Not the next president's, but mine.

I finally, finally heard back from the landlord about installing new kitchen cabinets. He said I'd have to sign a rider increasing my rent each month by a fraction of the cost of the cabinets. This increase would be in place for as long as I would be in the apartment. Since I'm a New Yorker, let's face it: It means this would be in place for the rest of my life.

I did some basic math and discovered that by the time they cart me off to the home for the aged, I will have laid out the price of a Mercedes for some fecockteh cabinets.

I can, however, hire somebody and buy the cabinets myself. It's a small wall and the cabinets themselves would be under two thousand bucks, then another couple of thousand for the labor. The drawback to this is that you're liable for any damages that occur to the building while the cabinets are being installed. It's an old building, and if you hammer something in 5B, the ceiling cracks in 2C.

I can rig something up with free-standing cabinets. It's the one over the sink that bugs me. It's solid wood, which is great, but due to the warpage that you get in an old tenement, the door no longer closes and the shelves sag. So one alternative that I'll work on in the next few days is finding a carpenter to at least take that cabinet down, and maybe build another one conforming to the warpage. Or just take it down, and be really minimalistic.