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Insert Obligatory Post Here

Filed Under: Deep Thoughts, In Da Hood by Julie — 3 Comments
September 10, 2011

I was looking through my archives, and I didn’t post last year for 9/11 so maybe it’s not obligatory. And yet I feel compelled to do so, to record my own history and feelings, and archive for myself about how this day makes me feel, a way to make sense out of the senseless.

It’s interesting when you can start to measure your life in decades (as I only have one full score under my belt, I don’t measure in those yet). And a decade since 9/11 means many things. It means a decade since I grew up in an instant. It contains the life of my goddaughter, who will only view that day as history. It means my pseudostepkids are not children anymore, but nearly adults. It means I’m getting fucking old.

I’m not going to revisit what 9/11 means to me. I don’t have to revisit it. I am going to sound like a heartless bitch here, but I think the rebroadcasts and retrospectives are meant for people who didn’t experience it firsthand. For those of us who lived through it, those of us who spent nine and a half years with a gaping hole in the skyline where the Towers used to be…we’ve had a reminder every single day of the past ten years. And even though being able to spot the Freedom Tower above the Manhattan skyline fills me with joy, it will always be a tangible reminder of what we lost that day, when part of our home was blown up and thousands of our neighbors disappeared. Even though I can watch the footage now (albeit with a lot of tears), I remember just fine without it. I was here, I lived it. And I still have a lot of rage directed at our ex-President about it, so maybe it’s best I don’t see his face tomorrow, because I don’t think he deserves to be at the ceremony. Weren’t here that day ten years ago when we needed you, buddy, but made it into a talking point for a good part of your career? You shouldn’t get to be here now.

Yep, still have a lot of rage. I’ll be working on a paper tomorrow, thanks.

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What I’ve Done on My Summer Vacation

Filed Under: Random Insanity, Skool, The Girls by Julie — 4 Comments
August 15, 2011

I always envied the kids that did cool things on their summer vacations. My back-to-school essays were more on the order of “We visited my cousins in Virginia, and I read a lot of books.” The PseudoStepkids, on the other hand, have a wealth of things to write about because they travel so much. Theirs from this summer, for instance, would read “We went to Paris, and London, and Austria, and Israel, and Turkey.” (I just combined several of their trips there, but still, no dearth of material for them. This year, I am somewhere in between my younger self and my kids. I did not leave the country, but I did do the following:

  • Went to Atlanta and met my best friend from high school’s baby daughter.
  • Went to Pittsburgh for a family reunion, where I was told by no less than three people “Wow, you look like a White!” (that’s my mother’s maiden name, not a commentary on my pasty appearance), met a lot of cousins I had never met before, and saw my high school band director and his wife. Also, went to my first casino.
  • Went to Philadelphia, stayed in a hostel, and did research in the American Philosophical Society where I got to examine the originals of letters from Benjamin Franklin’s wife, daughter, and sister. I also ate a cheesesteak while I was there.
  • Went to the Berkshires several times.
  • Went to the beach.
  • Started working out on a semi-regular basis.
  • Heard Foster the People live in Prospect Park. I didn’t see them because there was a barrier around the band shell and I was outside the barrier, but they sounded great!
  • Celebrated nine years of being with Rick.
  • Got into my first fender bender, which was really just an epic fail on my part while trying to parallel park Rick’s car–I don’t get a lot of practice and I cut it way too sharp. I scraped and dented the side of Rick’s car on someone’s bumper. Since this only happened on Friday, I still feel pretty awful about it, even though he has been amazingly nice about the whole thing.

There are also the things that I did that I wouldn’t write into an essay, like:

  • Drank a lot of wine.
  • Taught Charlie how to beg for food on his hind legs like a meerkat.
  • Knit a wee bit.
  • Did some thesis work, but not as much as I might have.
  • Watched a lot of True Blood and Torchwood, which is directly related to the bullet point just above this one.
  • Actually, the working out thing from above should probably go here, because it’s kind of mundane.
  • Was bitten by approximately five million bugs.
  • Made it halfway through my Invisalign treatment (so far, it’s not like I quit after I got there).
  • Wasted a ton of time on my iPad.
  • Read the entire Hunger Game series, some of the Game of Thrones series, and am still reading the latest Julia Grey mystery.

Things I’m going to try to cram into the remaining two weeks of vacation because I either haven’t done them or haven’t done them enough:

  • Go to Governor’s Island.
  • Hit the Rickshaw dumpling truck.
  • Go to the beach at least one more time.
  • Go to the Bronx Zoo with my goddaughter.
  • Back to school shopping and a haircut, because kids should not be the only ones who benefit from this time of year.
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Well, that was exciting

Filed Under: Random Insanity by Julie — 4 Comments
June 18, 2011

The dishwasher in our apartment is, as our landlady says “one hundred years old.” I’m not sure about that, but I’m pretty sure it’s as old as I am. It’s a Magic Chef, with fake wood laminate on the front so that it can blend in with our fake wood laminate cabinets. (Our kitchen, it looks mildly Germanic and Tudor at the same time.) Now, it’s old, but it’s served us in good stead since we moved here…um, I think that was five years ago on Thursday. Damn!

Today, however, I guess the dishwasher had had enough. I started the cycle (Energy Saver, mind you, because Con Ed already owns my soul in the summer) and all was going well. I retreated to my office space to work on my thesis download apps and songs from iTunes with the gift cards I just got from my credit card company. Rick had mildly mocked me for being on the laptop and the iPad at the same time. All was going well, I was playing a new game, and suddenly I smelled smoke. I figured it was from outside. Since I had headphones in, Rick had to come over to ask me if I smelled it, too. Nothing on the stove…and then we both saw it coming from the dishwasher.

Rick’s best guess is that it finally burned out its motor or its wiring. The smoke smell was kind of sweet, not exactly what I would have associated with an electrical fire, but what do I know? We’ve talked to our landlady and she’ll see what she can do about getting a new one for us. Worst comes to worst, hey, more storage for dishes! It will suck to have to wash everything by hand, tho, so I’m hoping not to go that route.

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Wha’ happened?

Filed Under: Random Insanity, Skool by Julie — 4 Comments
June 16, 2011

No, really, where did the first two weeks of June go? I slacked a little, knit a little, did very little thesis research, and did a lot of stuff in the office, and now here we are, past Flag Day (does anyone still celebrate Flag Day, or is it just a quaint reminder of my childhood?). Incredible. The rest of the summer had better not be like this, because I have a lot of stuff to cram in, and trips to Atlanta, the Berkshires, and Pittsburgh to work around. But really, for all this rushing around, I haven’t done a hell of a lot.

Fortunately, I’ve managed to do enough thesis research that I was able to send out my first progress report on my research to my adviser tonight and actually sound like I have a plan. Hopefully he will not catch to the fact that what I was writing about was really only three evenings of research out of the last three weeks.

I’ve also been working on a special gift for my BFF from high school’s baby girl who has been in the hospital this week because she had to have brain surgery. Now that I don’t have to worry about another thesis report for three weeks, attention will go over to that because it has to be finished, blocked, and dry by the time I get on the plane to Atlanta Thursday morning. Pictures will come when it’s done because I don’t want to ruin the surprise for Colleen.

Other than that, the only change is my new Invisaligns, which I will be wearing for the next five months. They’re not nearly as annoying or painful as metal braces were, but they are taking some getting used to. I brush my teeth about five times a day now, and I can’t talk as fast as I usually do or I sound like Stan’s sister on South Park. Rick finds this, along with the way I now hold my mouth, hysterical. I am not as amused.

And that’s about it from here. More as it happens, but it’s summer, so that might be relatively slowly.

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Ain’t Technology Grand?

Filed Under: Skool, Technobabble by Julie — 3 Comments
May 10, 2011

Thesis writing calls for tech, methinks. For my first thesis, I got a new PC. And then because I took so long to write the damn thing, it was on its way out, so I bought my first Mac. For this thesis, an iPad was essential. Ben Franklin made me do it. Now, hear me out.

My thesis adviser has told me that I will probably be spending the summer reading the Franklin Papers. My college library has them, there are 37 published volumes, and they’re pretty sizable books, as you can imagine. I really didn’t want to spend the summer hauling them around, so I checked out my other options. They aren’t best-sellers (my apologies, Dr. Franklin), probably because they’re $100 a volume. Not being a best-seller in print pretty much guarantees you a book won’t be available on Kindle. They’re not. But where they are available is online: all 37 published volumes and then a few they haven’t gotten out in print yet. And while the web design is a little 1999, they’re online. That’s pretty fucking amazing if you think about it.

So, I had the option of reading them all on my laptop. My laptop is lovely, I use it on a daily basis, and so far it hasn’t let me down (I am frantically knocking wood right now). It is, however, a 15″ MacBook Pro, and it’s a few years old, so it’s from before they started using lighter materials. The TARDIS (yes, that’s what I call my laptop, shut up) is heavy. I re-learned this when I took it to the Performing Arts Library twice and the weight of it in my messenger bag nearly threw my neck out. In the summer, I do not like to be stuck in my house. I like to migrate, into the park, to friends’ houses, to hang with the kids, to western Massachusetts…I needed portable. And the iPad, it’s shiny.

So after calling around last weekend and finding that no Verizon stores had them (I wanted a 3G because I didn’t want to be limited to wifi spots – I wanted to be able to read the Franklin papers on the top of Mt. Greylock, if I so desired), and the Apple stores had limited quantities, I flew into Manhattan and got one. 64 GB black Verizon 3G model, the priciest of the lot at $829, not counting the data plan. If I was going to get an iPad, I decided to take my friend Aimee’s advice and get the biggest one I could afford. It was only $100 more than the 32 GB, and I didn’t want to get a 32GB home and realize that I really needed more space (I had gone that route with a 16GB iPod touch a few years ago and learned my lesson from it). My friend Lori was with me and fell so much in love with mine that after three hours and a Texas sized margarita, we went back and got her one. Such is the power of the iPad.

Anyway, that night I stayed up until 3 AM, loading Eleven (yes, I named the iPad after the Eleventh Doctor, shut up) up with all my music. And all my episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood from iTunes. And several movies. And 150 pictures. And there was still plenty of room. I went into the App Store and downloaded Pages so I can take thesis notes. I downloaded a ton of social networking stuff. I downloaded several games. I downloaded a drawing program. I downloaded a few news apps. I downloaded about ten free e-books. Still plenty of room. I continued the App Store extravaganza last night, when I found out that there was a game for cats (they chase a mouse around the screen. My cats are mighty e-mouse hunters and love this game now). There are apps for journaling. There are apps for blogging (I was going to test one out tonight, but I updated the iPad OS and it ate my blog post when I did that). There are apps for student productivity. There are apps for the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, which came in handy for my class reading this week. There are freaking Doctor Who comic book apps. I still have like 19 GBs free on this thing.

Hi, my name is Julie, and I’m a Mac. And an app junkie. And oh my god, this thing is awesome. Big kids need nice toys, too, someone recently told me, and they were right. I love Eleven (the iPad. The character on Doctor Who is still growing on me.) But to keep it all thesis related, I set a background that is special to me:

ipad screen cap

That’s Benjamin Franklin’s grave. I’m keeping my eyes on the prize, baby. This time, I do right by Dr. Franklin. I do not write a half-assed thesis the week before it’s due like I did as an undergrad. I come up with something new and original that maybe, just maybe, could someday be part of a book. I owe it to him, and to me.

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The price of blogging

Filed Under: Deep Thoughts by Julie — 3 Comments
May 3, 2011

Sometimes, when I’m not busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest, I wonder if I should just give up the blog, not spend the cash to renew my hosting, and call it a day. How often do I post these days?

Other times, I realize that I do not post because I am busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest, and that this is directly attributable to my graduate degree. A degree which I should be just about finished with this time next year.

And then I remember that a lot of this next year is going to be spent writing a thesis, because after I swore I would never go through with that torture again? Yeah, I found a thesis advisor who will let me write about Ben Franklin, who pushes me to be a better writer and a better scholar, and, have I mentioned? Will totally let me write about Ben Franklin. In my head, this degree has always been about doing a better job with school than I did either as an undergrad or as an MFA student, when I gave into temptation and stress and just drifted. I don’t do half bad when I’m drifting (3.2 GPA as an undergrad, 3.6 GPA as an MFA student), but when I focus? I kick ass at this (currently have a 4.0 GPA after three semesters, and a 4.0 going into my final papers of the semester). This is about doing things right.

But I wonder, what does that mean for my blog? Since apparently it’s the easiest thing in the world to update the version of WordPress I’m on and all the plugins these days, since I’ve outlasted the pain in the ass days of having to know what the hell I was doing before I started tinkering with stuff…shouldn’t I just keep doing this? This blog represents six years of my life, even in dribs and drabs. If I gave it up, that would be a little painful. But what’s the point of paying for something I don’t use?

Still thinking about this.

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Yeah, it’s a list.

Filed Under: Random Insanity by Julie — 5 Comments
January 14, 2011

Sometimes, when the things are happening right and left and I should have a million things to blog about? That’s when I can’t blog to save my life because there are just too many things. I’m experiencing them fast and furious, and the only way I can even acknowledge that they’re happening is through quick tweets or status messages on Facebook. But there was a story behind each of them that I’m now wishing I had written it down. So the game plan, for now, is to write a list of things that have happened over break and expand upon them (or not) as I feel and as you all want. That’s write, audience participation! In the comments, if there’s something from the list you’re particularly interested in, let me know and I’ll try to tackle that soon. If no one says anything, I’ll take them as the mood hits me. Here, at least, I’m going to try to get them down in chronological order.

  • The Piss Crusader, Jesse, died as I was writing my term papers.
  • I got some weaving done, just in time to give it as Christmas presents.
  • We spent Christmas here, there, and the next place, with Rick’s family, Rick’s Ex, and by ourselves, and I got some pretty snazzy presents out of them.
  • We got 18″ of snow and then the entire city pretty much closed down and I had two unscheduled holidays because I couldn’t get to work (there is a rant about how the outer boroughs were treated like second-class citizens involved in this one).
  • I spent New Year’s Eve here, there, and the next place.
  • My godchild knows how to write her own name and can recognize her mother and father’s names on paper, which means she can spell them. She also gave me a Christmas card on which she wrote (with spelling help) my name and Rick’s. She is a genius at three and a half.
  • I maintained my 4.0 average with an A in Black America and an A+ in my Vietnam class.
  • I saw the HBO taping of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse on Broadway.
  • We had another snowfall of an inch, and the plows were out in force, unlike when we got 18″.
  • Our office’s heat went into overdrive and we hit 90* in here. Later that day, when they had “fixed” it by turning on the a/c, we were back in our normal 65* range. I now have sweaters and a t-shirt in here, just for the extremes.
  • We got more snow! Only 8″, yet half my office was still out, and I felt like a total chump for coming in.
  • The zodiac changed, and there is no way in hell I am a Virgo now.

That’s the past three weeks. Details on some to come, depending on your opinions and my inclinations.

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Only a porcupine will do…

Filed Under: Coupledom, Random Insanity, Rick, Skool by Julie — 7 Comments
December 15, 2010

It’s a little crazy around Casa de Julz y Rick right now. Probably not as much for Rick, but for me, yes, definitely. I have two 15-20 page papers due on the 23rd, which means two things: I don’t get to enjoy the Christmas season until it pretty much is Christmas, and I’m on the verge of having a nervous breakdown until then. This is when I try to get all the research done and neatly organized into notes, because I know that is the key to my writing style. If I can get those notes and an outline done, I will feel much better and be in good position to write. Until that happens, I’m a wreck. Never mind that I do, in fact, have a rough draft of one paper that means that 2/3 of it is basically written. I cannot focus on that, only how much I have left to do for the other one, and entire work days are spent in a state of panic because this is time I could be working! I have taken Friday and Monday off for this very reason, and I might take Tuesday off, too, although my bosses do not know this yet. Must keep 4.0 GPA!!!

Also, must find one more present for Amelia, who is the last person on my Christmas list that needs to be bought for. Feel free to comment with whatever you think a college freshman might like, bearing in mind that she has a lot of stuff. I could just get a gift card, I suppose, but because I got Sage two gifts (and no gift cards), that feels like a cop-out. Seriously, any ideas are welcome.

Finally, since I was completely panicked last night about my paper, I did the logical thing and watched Jeopardy with Rick (I have always been a procrastinator. You can ask my mom.) During that, this conversation happened, and I have no idea why.

Rick: What is a porcupine!

Me: What?

Rick: A porcupine! You would like a porcupine.

Me: Why would I like a porcupine?

Rick: Because you like all animals.

Me: So I would like a porcupine?

Rick: You would feel sorry for a porcupine out there in this cold.

Me: Well, yeah, actually I wou…wait a minute, why does this mean I would like a porcupine?

I seriously have no idea where this came from, and he never did answer me. It’s like the night before when I sat straight up and said “You know what would be a good Christmas present? E.L.O.!!!” Stuff like this happens all the time at our house. We must be at the vortex of random.

Now I go back to worrying about the paper and what to get Amelia. Perhaps a porcupine. She likes animals, after all.

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Not Dead Yet!

Filed Under: Da Cats by Julie — 4 Comments
December 1, 2010

My cats enjoy trying to give me a heart attack. This summer, Charlie bit into a glow stick, and before I discovered exactly what was making him drool like Old Yeller and googled it to make sure it wouldn’t kill him, I thought for sure he was dying and almost had a coronary myself. But no, glow sticks are non-toxic, just irritating to the mouth. As my vet tech said, “He’s going to be fine, kids eat those things all the time.”

Now for a little background on today’s situation. When we had Urban Family Thanksgiving on Saturday, Rick hung the wishbone up over the sink to dry out. I had a feeling that this was a bad idea, since Charlie thinks the sink is a fun place to hang out, but forgot about it until last night when I caught sight of it. But because I was in the middle of hanging Christmas decorations, I forgot about it again. Until I stepped on a piece of it in my bare feet this morning. I say “a piece” because it was in pieces. And I could only find enough pieces to make up about half of the wishbone. I panicked a little. The cats seemed fine, but you always hear that animals will die if they eat cooked poultry bones, and for all I knew both cats had eaten some. All I could think of was the time my old dog ate a brillo pad, and the vet told us to feed her bread and butter so the steel wool would adhere to it on its way through her digestive tract. Problem: cats do not like bread and butter, so I gave them wet food instead, felt their tummies to see if it caused them discomfort, and when it didn’t, head off to work.

I spent a large portion of the day convinced that I would come home to find one or both of them lying dead in a puddle of blood caused by the wishbone piece that had punctured their GI tract, so I left early. When I got home, both of them were absolutely fine and happy to see me home at that unaccustomed hour. However, this begs the question, how do we get our wish? Was the wish used when I spent the whole bus ride home thinking “Please let them be all right!”? Or do we have to rip Charlie apart by the front legs?

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Adventures with Four Loko

Filed Under: Reviews by Julie — 4 Comments
November 24, 2010

I am going to ignore the fact that people are leaving early for the holiday and I am stuck on campus until 8:35 tonight because I have class by posting. Except we all know that I’ll still be dwelling on it while I’m writing this post, so we’ll just pretend that I’m not.

Recently, New York has decided to ban a caffeinated alcoholic beverage called Four Loko. I do not respond well to people telling me that I cannot have something (it’s really a good thing I didn’t live during Prohibition), so in the face of the impending Four Loko shortage, I set out to find some. The first bodega in my neighborhood did not have any, so I went to a seedier one that was a little farther away. Bingo! Although they didn’t have it out in the fridge cases, when I asked about it, they said “Oh, we have it in the back.” Thanking my stars for sketchy bodegas, I told the man behind the counter that I would take a can.

He came back out a few minutes later with a 24 oz. can of Fruit Punch flavored Four Loko, and apologized for only having that flavor. I had no idea why he would do this at the time (it became very clear later), but I plopped down my $2.75 as the other guy behind the counter gave a cheer. I like to think he was cheering for me joining the Four Loko club, but probably it was because they’d sold another can and wouldn’t be taking a loss on that one.

I took it home, and the next day I took it to Lori’s house, because there was no way in hell I was drinking that entire thing by myself. If I’m going to be drinking something that’s illegal and possibly can cause death, I want a friend by my side. (You know you want to be my friend now.) Lori took several pictures. I only took two.

Four Loko Madness

(Notice the ghetto pint glasses that say “Slut” and “Ho.” I gave Lori both of these, one for last Christmas, one as an opening night gift for her last play, Deep Throat: The Sex Scandal. Again, you know you want to be my friend now.)

Please note that the cans say “Contains Alcohol.” 12% ABV, my friends, about the same as wine. The can also says “We ID” on it, but I didn’t get a picture of that. This is one klassy drink! We poured it, and we took a sip. This is Lori’s reaction:

Tastes like cough medicine.

She said it was like drinking cough medicine. I agreed. The sip itself wasn’t bad, it was the aftertaste that got us, and now we knew why the bodega guy apologized for having Fruit Punch flavor. We can only hope that the other flavors are better. But, we pushed on, and after three sips, the aftertaste was less noticeable. After four sips, I was definitely feeling buzzed. The problem is that because you get used to the aftertaste, and because it’s cold, fruity, and fizzy, you are tempted to chug it like a wine cooler. This is a mistake, because as I said before, it’s got the basic alcohol content of wine. Imagine what chugging wine would do to you. Exactly.

So, we sipped at it and finished it in about 15 minutes, and that’s when we noticed a few things. 1.) We were definitely drunk. 2.) We were definitely amped up on the caffeine. 3.) We definitely had gas. I don’t know if it’s the taurine, the guarana, or what, but after drinking it we could’ve gagged a maggot with the stench emanating from our bodies.

So we did the only logical thing: we left Lori’s house and went Christmas shopping to spread the stench through the Time Warner building. Except, per our usual, after the first store it became less about Christmas shopping and more about just shopping.

My review of Four Loko: do not get the Fruit Punch flavor. The end result isn’t bad, I had energy for hours and had a nice buzz for the low-low price of $2.75 (actually, less than that since I only drank half the can). However, caveat emptor, you will have gas. And it will smell like your dog’s gas does. You’ve been warned.

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