Worst. Commute. Ever. February 22, 2008 ~ 12:28 pm
Posted by Julie in : Academic Office Monkey, In Da Hood , comments closedThis morning when I woke up, Brooklyn was blanketed with snow. I had been hitting snooze for at least a half hour, as per my usual, but when I actually opened my eyes and saw the fluffy whiteness? I jumped out of bed like I used to when I was in grade school. Unfortunately, much like my grade school never had a snow day unless there was a foot of snow (The superintendent was a dick. I still dislike Dr. Ross.), Some College was still open for business. Fuck.
I dressed for my battle with the elements. Merrells, which are waterproof and insulated. Lands End parka with hood. Handknit hat. Cashmere scarf my brother got me last Christmas. Furry gloves that I got at a flea market last fall which are as warm as can be. I was ready. The train came quickly, after only a few minutes of waiting. (My train, it is tricksy. Because it goes above ground two stops after my house, you can never be sure if it’s running or not.) I got off the train at the stop where I transfer to the bus that takes me to Some College, turned on my iPod to listen to the latest Knitters Uncensored podcast, and waited.
At first, it was fun. My gear was keeping me warm and dry, and it was funny that the snow was piling up on me and my backpack, covering my Captain Jack Sparrow and Obama ‘08 buttons. After a while, though, I was starting to get a little cold. I suppose I could have walked, but the thought of trudging miles through unshoveled sidewalks with four inches of snow on them? Not appealing. So I waited, squinting through the snow shower down the street in hopes of catching sight of the bus. Nothing. My toes in their insulated boots were starting to go numb, turning into little ice cubes that were hard to walk on. I am from Pennsylvania, people. I went to college where Lake Effect snow was just an accepted fact for seven months of the year. I am not a wus, but my feet were really freaking cold. Still no bus. I looked at my iPod and realized that I had been waiting at the bus stop for a solid hour and nothing was coming. I did what anyone would do. I called work.
I asked my boss how many people had showed up. Three, out of fifteen of us. The only people who had managed to make it to work either lived nearby or could take a train for the entire trip. I explained how I had been waiting for the bus for an hour, and how at this point walking wasn’t really an option because my feet were frozen. She told me to get back on the train and go home, and check my email because a professor was upset over something. I was okay with this decision, and after looking down the street for a couple more minutes, I got back on the train. And came home. And put my dripping parka and gloves on the radiator to dry.
I have to go back out in three hours for a meeting in Manhattan, but since that trip will not involve any busses, I think I’m fine. And afterwards, I’m getting a beer with Lori. Because if ever there was an earned Miller Time, it’s today.
Shady Gene has a new squirrel. January 31, 2008 ~ 5:00 pm
Posted by Julie in : In Da Hood, Urban Family , comments closedI have talked about my friend Eugene off and on here, mostly to describe why we call him Shady Gene - he disappears on trips for weeks at a time without telling us, and then comes back and says “Oh, I just got back from Geneva,” among other reasons. I mean, wtf? Who does that? Especially when they’re not independently wealthy? We think Gene has a sugarmama in Europe. Or he’s with the CIA. We’re not sure which.
Aaaanyway, several years back, he had a pet squirrel. And by pet, I mean, squirrel he trained to come into his house off the street. A New York City squirrel in his house. And in the course of time, Rocky disappeared and we all figured he’d gotten run down by a car or eaten some rat poison, or some other hideous fate that city squirrels can avoid for only so long.
Two weeks ago, Eugene emails me at work to tell me he has a new squirrel. Rocky II. And Rocky II has a girlfriend, and he brings the girlfriend to Gene’s window, but she won’t come in the apartment, only Rocky II, and…well, you see that this is another reason why we call him Shady Gene. I think he was one of those kids that just brought home every stray animal he found and he’s never outgrown it.
So without further ado, I present you with Rocky II (Eugene made these titles up, I had nothing to do with them. He’s twisted.)
The holidays revisited. January 2, 2008 ~ 12:30 pm
Posted by Julie in : Craftiness Is Next To Godliness, In Da Hood, Urban Family , comments closedThey’ve implemented a new phone system here at Some College that includes an integrated computer program. Basically, Big Brother is at my work place. I have to tell the computer every time I’m leaving my desk, even if it’s just to pee. All the stress that I felt leaving my body over the past five days that I had off? Back. Also, Maynard The World’s Oldest Cat (the 25 year old cat Rick inherited when his brother Jeffrey died last spring) has gone to meet his maker. We’re not sure exactly when, since we left Pittsfield on Monday afternoon and Rick just got back an hour ago, but I prefer to think of him as the last casualty of 2007 rather than the first of 2008. I just can’t deal with another clusterfuck of a year like 2007 was.
So to try to recapture some holiday zen, I will show you pictures. (Behind the cut, and there are a lot of them. Sorry, dial-up friends!) (more…)
The difference between men and women, #3,647,982 November 29, 2007 ~ 3:15 pm
Posted by Julie in : In Da Hood, Rants , comments closedMy plea to people of the male persuasion on public transportation: please do not feel like you have to share your rapping skillz with me while you listen to your iPod. You probably haven’t noticed that I do not feel compelled to share my Freddie Mercury imitations while I listen to my iPod, but you should be suitably grateful. You probably also haven’t noticed that no other woman on public transportation feels like she has to share anything that she’s listening to with the rest of the conveyance. I have no idea why this difference between the sexes has developed, why you males (especially those in their teens and twenties) feel like you have to show off for us, but whether it’s on my way to work in the morning or coming home from a long slog at the office, I think I speak for all women on the MTA when I say “Just keep it to yourself, okay, buddy?”. Thank you.
Lights on. November 26, 2007 ~ 10:55 am
Posted by Julie in : Da Cats, Daily Grind, In Da Hood , comments closedEveryone in my neighborhood had the same reaction to the day after Thanksgiving as I did: days too short, nights too long and dark, must decorate. Even if houses were only half decorated on Friday, some lights or decorations were put up. Neighbor Forrest outdid himself and managed to put three giant inflatable light-up things on his porch roof, besting his record of two from last year. When he is completely done, I’ll take a picture and post it, although anyone who happens to check out pictures taken from the space station can probably see it. It’s that bright.
My apartment is lit up pretty well itself, and I’ve discovered that LED lights are like laser beams. I have them on my tree for the first time this year (trying to save the planet through my Christmas decorations, Al Gore would be proud), and holy shit, they are little multicolored spotlights. I was so blown away by them the first night I had them up that I totally forgot to put the ornaments on the tree and just sat there mesmerized by the glow. Freddie was also transfixed, at least enough so that he forgot to try to chew the cord for a bit. That’s good, because I’m really tired of saying “No! Zap! Zap!” to him. I don’t think he’s going to understand electrocution except by experiencing it - telling him “Zap!” ain’t cutting it. And no, “Bzzzt!” doesn’t seem to make much of an impression, either.
The short days depress me, and the lights only help so much. The past few days have seemed endless, and I always think it’s much later than it actually is. Today might not be as bad since I’m back at work and that eats up a lot of hours, but then again, I’m back at work and that sucks. When we compare that to endless days spent watching my TiVo backlog…well, work does not offer me the entertainment of Tim Gunn or Ugly Betty, ya know?
Photo safari October 15, 2007 ~ 9:48 am
Posted by Julie in : In Da Hood, photo safari , comments closedMy urban family was all either out of town or busy yesterday, so I did something I haven’t done in years: I wandered around the city. I used to do this all the time when I first moved to New York, picking an area that interested me and then hiking around for hours on end, but that practice dropped off sharply as I got a social life. I think I missed it.
Photo safari behind the cut. If you’re still on dial-up, I’m sorry.
Ripping off the scab September 11, 2007 ~ 10:21 am
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, In Da Hood , comments closedI reread all of my previous 9/11 blog entries this morning, and through them I realized how much of a journey I’ve taken in these past six years, from completely raw and emotionally bleeding to today, when I’ve shed a few tears, but have been able to deal rather well on the whole. (The fact that it’s raining helps a great deal on the first anniversary to actually fall on a Tuesday. If there was a blue, sunny sky, I might not be dealing so well.)
I wonder how much of it is that I was so, so young when 9/11 happened. That seems odd to say, since I’m not that old now, but 23 seems a lifetime ago to me, probably because of all the growing up the attacks forced me to do. I do see 9/11 as a defining moment in my life, a day when a lot of my innocence was stripped from me as we watched the planes hit, the Towers collapse, and waited to hear from all of my friends, many of whom were around the World Trade Center that day for one reason or another. Six years isn’t that long in the span of a human life, but in the aftermath of a traumatic event, it seems like forever. And at some moments, no time at all.
I’ve gotten used to politicians using my pain and the pain of everyone else who experienced it, lost a loved one, still has nightmares about it, etc. for their gain. I’ve become almost numb to it, because if I think about it too much, I will rip off their fucking heads and shit down their throats. (Yeah, I still have a lot of rage from that day as well.) But I am still not ready to relive it, which is the theme of the day. When I saw that MSNBC was going to be re-broadcasting the Today show from September 11, 2001, I almost threw up. They were billing it as “living history” or some such shit, and all I could think was “It’s not far enough removed to be history yet. It’s still personal.” It’s bad enough to watch video clips of the planes hitting the Towers, but to relive it? No thank you. It’s like taking hold of someone else’s half-healed scab and just yanking it off.
Since TV is obviously not safe to watch today, Julie will go home and spend the evening with a bit of wine, some Rock Hudson/Doris Day movies, and the spinning wheel, and leave my thin scab where it is. I’ll leave off with a video for the song that I will forever associate with the aftermath of September 11, since the classic rock radio station I listen to played it so often. This song has done more to heal me since that day than any other piece of music, and that’s saying something, since I relied heavily on music to get me through everything. John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Thank you, John.
A shining example of ineptitude August 31, 2007 ~ 12:21 pm
Posted by Julie in : In Da Hood , comments closedMy post office blows. I know I’ve complained about this before, but the Kensington Post Office blows. So much so that there was even a town meeting with our councilman to complain. Judging by what happened today, however, this didn’t accomplish anything.
Yesterday the postman left a slip saying that he had attempted to deliver an express mail envelope from my mom, but since no one was home, he couldn’t. (I think my postman is full of shit because the damn envelope would have fit through the mail slot if his lazy ass had felt like putting it there, but that’s another gripe.) So this morning I asked my darling boy if he could go to the post office for me, since I am trying to get out of work early so we can take the girls to Coney Island and couldn’t be late to work and expect to leave early. He went. And then he called me.
Apparently, he had spent fifteen minutes in line, a line that stretched almost out the door and moved slower than molasses in January. (Rick was amazed by that, since it’s such a small post office, but I was not. Par for the course at this bass-ackwards place.) Then, when he was just about to give up, they opened the window for people with package pickup slips. One man was given grief about his ID, which was an expired Iowa drivers license. He was told that the ID didn’t verify anything, since it was expired - never mind the fact that it was obviously his name and his face on the license. (Welcome to the Bush regime.) When it came time for Rick’s turn, he gave the guy the slip, the guy checked around for it and coming up empty, said “It must have gone back out for delivery. It should be delivered by 2 PM.” Rick pointed out that the slip said the envelope would be available for pick-up on August 31, after 9:30 AM, at the Kensington Post Office. And the counter guy, in a stellar display of bureaucracy, said “That’s just what it says on the slip. It went back out.”
“That’s just what it says on the slip.” Wow. Now if that is not fan-fucking-tastic customer service, I don’t know what is. Don’t tell me that I can pick something up at a post office when in reality, you intend to re-deliver it to me at the same time you said it was at the post office. Because waiting in line at the Kensington Post Office (and yes, I have used the actual branch name three times in this post in the hopes that Google will catch it and note my dissatisfaction) is right up there on my “list of favorite things to do” with “walking on broken glass” and “being disemboweled by a dull object.” I am glad I could share that pain with my boyfriend today. Thank you, Kensington Post Office! Now let’s see if your people actually did their job and delivered it today.
Does anyone else find this odd? August 22, 2007 ~ 1:36 pm
Posted by Julie in : In Da Hood , comments closedFarm-Aid is happening in New York City this year. On Randall’s Island. In the middle of the East River. It’s joined to Ward Island by a landfill. My friends, the only way it could get more urban was if they plopped Farm-Aid down in the middle of Harlem.
On the other hand, the inmates over at Riker’s Island will have a nice concert to listen to. I bet a lot of them just love Willie Nelson.
Hmmm. August 14, 2007 ~ 4:16 pm
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, In Da Hood, Random Insanity , comments closedRick does not like the idea of me having Sting’s face tattooed on my skin (note that Andy and Stewart’s faces don’t seem to bother him). I would scoff at this and go through with it anyway, but since I want to have it tattooed on my back and Rick might occasionally have to look at it while we’re…how to put this…in more than a “casual” embrace, I am taking his opinion into consideration. We will see what my final decision is.
In other news, it was four years ago today that NYC and much of the northeast blew a ginormous fuse and we plunged into two days of darkness, heat, high humidity, and having to eat all the food in the refrigerators before it rotted. I spent the first night at my (then) apartment in Bensonhurst, then biked the whole way to Chelsea the next morning where I was cat-sitting. Chelsea, coincidentally, was one of the last areas to get power back in the city. Rick’s (then) neighborhood, the Upper West Side, had power back after a few hours. Because we all know yuppies can’t cope and they want to keep the gays and cat-sitters down. Wow, that was a good time.
