I read recently that a woman named Leslie Harpold died. I love reading about people who did cool stuff on the World Wide Web when it was just a wee young internet, and she was one of them. She was evidently really genuine in her enthusiasm about virtual communities, blogging, and web production and was the coolest nerd around.
I've discovered that she was an amazing writer; I'm a sucker for personal essays -- many of hers are archived here. This one is my favorite of the archive. I've read it three times today.
There are nine pages of del.icio.us tags devoted to people writing about her death. Seems appropriate that she's inspiring all kinds of good web writing.
Anyway, when you Google "thank you," an article she wrote for The Morning News is the second of more than 3 million results. You should read her article on how to write a proper thank you note: you'll find it here.
-I just went to my neighborhood grocery store and I felt like I didn't get the memo about the apocalypse or something. It was SO BUSY, I waited in line to buy my homemade mac-n-cheese supplies (mmmmm) for almost 20 minutes. People looked like they were stocking up on non-perishables for the end of days. I also waited in line in front of a man who had NO CLUE how to speak to his toddler. He wasn't being inappropriate or anything, it was just like witnessing an awkward first date, only between a middle-aged man and his adorable towhead child.
-Having more friends in the neighborhood -- aside from my roommates and my super, Junior -- makes some of my bad habits down right embarassing sometimes. Today, I pretty much walked off the treadmill and into the grocery store, purple-faced and still wheezing from my run, only to run into a friend who asked me if my red, sweaty face was due to a sunburn. I still have never run into anyone while running to the bodega in my PJ's, though, which I do entirely too often.
-I've been watching The Golden Girls on DVD and I've decided that the theme song is one of the best ever. You know that part where it goes, "And if you threw a partayayayay aaaaand invited everyone you knew-who!!!!!"??? I like to sing aloud to that part.
-My body gets colder much faster the older I get it seems. I am super-cranky about the weather and the impending winter. Although, during wintertime I get to repeat one of my favorite lines from Reality Bites: "Hello, you've reached the winter of our discontent."
Every weekday I take the M train back to Brooklyn from the Broad Street station on Wall St., a few blocks away from my office. Often, when I walk down the stairs to wait by the platform, I walk past a man who give me the creeps -- we're talking serious heebie jeebies. We're talking if I ever disappear, this is the guy to interrogate.
He's middle-aged and looks like Groucho Marx, except his hair and moustache are dyed an odd shade of auburnish-magenta. It's exactly the shade of hair dye one would buy if he were trying to distance himself from his picture appearing on a WANTED poster. Also, he does not stand and wait for the train to arrive; instead, he sits, leaning up against one of the support beams running along the edge of the platform with his knees tucked into his chest. He is always wearing a suit -- sometimes 3 piece -- and looks perpetually downtrodden.
It was because of his forlorn demeanor that I think I smiled at him one day in passing. Just a curious, "I see you almost every day and you look so sad and tired and maybe I feel almost as sad and tired as you today, so I'll smile." Since then, he's smiled at me every time I've walked past him. The past few times I've seen him he's given a small wave.
Today, though, he waved at me so hard his arm almost fell off. I think I must have had a creepy dream about him, or my gut is just reacting, because as he was waving at me I felt my stomach lurch and felt this awful sense of deja vu/impending doom. He just has bad vibes written all over his droopy face.
Caitlin and I discussed the following things:
1. She
asked if he wears a wedding ring (he doesn't). The thing is, it totally
occurred to me to look before as though wearing a wedding ring makes
some of the bad vibes dissipate. Then we had a whole conversation about
rapists and serial killers who might wear wedding rings to throw off
their victims.
2. Since I just walk past him and don't stop so that he's in my vicinity during the wait for a train, I don't know if he waves to other people who are regulars to that station at that time.
Anyway, I haven't felt so creeped out since I was a kid, waiting in my mom's car in the parking lot of Dairy Queen while she went up to the window to get us ice cream and I was convinced the guy in the car next to me was going to abduct me so I got out of the car to meet my mom at the pick-up window and locked the keys in the car. Whew.
***This message has been brought to you by my newfound interest (thanks, roommates) in Law & Order: SVU***
This weekend has been my first without obligations (aside from dropping off my laundry and mopping my kitchen floor) in a long time, and yet I've still managed to stir up some trouble.
Stupid thing #1:
Last
night, Caitlin and I were playing Scrabble at a bar nearby (no, playing
Scrabble on a Saturday night is NOT the stupid thing). We had had a few
drinks between beers at the bar and working on the giant jug of sangria
in the fridge. At one point, I noticed that something smelled smoky.
"Smells like a campfire! Do you smell campfire?" I asked Caitlin. We
sniffed for another few seconds until Caitlin said, "Uh, Allison..."
and then we were both furiously trying to put out the fire on OUR
TABLE. That WE had set (and by "we" I mean "I") when the bag holding
all the Scrabble letter tiles had fallen into the table candle. I mean,
we put out the fire, obv., but there is a giant, singed hole in that
letters bag and some of the letter tiles are sort of weird looking. It
really did smell like a campfire.
Stupid thing #2:
Exhilarated by my weekend sans-obligations, I went to get my toenails painted this
afternoon. I had my phone on my lap because I was expecting a call.
When I switched positions, my phone slid into the bubbling, hot foot
bath. Of course, there were women on either side of me and they, along
with the pedicurists, looked at me like I was the dumbest person ever.
That is my weekend in a nutshell, my friends. This is what happens when I don't have a jam-packed schedule. At least my toes look totally cute.
On my way home from work today I had to stop off to pick up two items from the dry cleaner's and then pick up my laundry. The guy who runs the laundromat where I get my laundry done, Roberto I think his name is (HUGE soccer fan, incidentally), is so nice it hurts. So nice, in fact, I almost can't tell if he's mocking me.
Anyway, I felt like I was cheating on him when I walked in there with my dry cleaned items. I felt like he was going to ask me in his cute Mexican/Argentinian/Columbian/Peruvian accent, "What? You don't think my machines good enough for your white pants?" They are not, in fact, good enough, but that in no way demeans Roberto's tenderness.
But THEN when I got home I was unpacking my laundry bag and I noticed a smell - a smell which SHOULD NOT be there because I am allergic to most regular detergents and I always request in English and Spanish that they use allergen-free suds.
"ALLERGY FREE?!" I shout, pointing to my face or arm or whatever part of my body has broken out in a rash on that given day. "JABON CLARO?!" I say in Spanish, continuing to gesture like an itchy madwoman.
Alas, for this round of laundry things seem to have been lost in translation. Either that, or I mistakenly said "JAMON CLARO," which transaltes to "CLEAR HAM."
The gym is not a place for couples.
I'll say it again.
The gym is not a place for couples.
Yesterday while I waited outside the studio for my yoga class to begin, there was a couple doing couple-y things (talking gross cutesy talk, MAKING OUT) waiting as well. It made me angry, and I realized I've come to feel extremely possessive about my neighborhood NYSC. There are plenty of normal (it's a relative term) people like me (semi-motivated/semi-lazy) who really value the alone time they get at the gym and most likely find it extremely irritating when they see a couple who is totally unable to just be by themselves and take advantage of the A/C.
Whatever. They were totally yoga-disabled and the girl was wearing a LEOTARD and had a ponytail sitting on the very very tip top of her head, spouting a fountain of shiny, brunette, ANNOYINGNESS in every direction.
In other news, I found some mix CDs last week. We're talking circa 2001-2002. We're talking heavy on the Alkaline Trio. What's funny is that at the time, encased in my little studded belt, I really thought that the perfect boy for me would write lyrics like, "I've got it now/like a thorn in my side/the size of a Cadillac." Sheesh. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty nostalgic and missing Boston a bit until I remembered that those were the years that I shared 100 sq. feet with two other girls and, well, wore a studded belt.
But man, could I go for some Deli Haus right now.
1. I'm pretty pissed that Lauren Whatsername has the market cornered on former-assistant memoirs (i.e. she cornered that market like, 6 years ago) because I could write a doozy. I would frame it by basically just making a list of all the things that remind me of my old job and my former employer and cause me to twitch. Case in point:
Last week, I received a work-related email using the word "currently." As in "Currently, Sally Whoozywhat is a student at..." As I read that sentence, the twitching began because my former boss once berated me for using the word "currently" in a mass email to about 50 clients and colleagues. As in, "Currently, Said Employer's soul is hitting new karmic lows, but here's hoping..."
The berating session of that day (that hour?) began with him lecturing me on the use of overly formal and redundant language in email correspondence. "Allison. If you're saying he IS DOING something, that's in the present, therefore 'currently' is redundant**," and ended with him huffing the standard beratement summary: "You're NOT a stupid woman, Allison, but WHY DO YOU DO THESE STUPID THINGS?"
**he is correct in that it's redundant, but it's one of those transition words that makes no sense but it's acceptable anyway. See also: "hopefully."
I dunno. Maybe I'll give it a whirl.
2. While watching Jeopardy on the treadmill earlier tonight, I was able to answer all the questions in the T.S. Eliot category. I'm not even that much of a fan, but somehow I've absorbed this information. One of the clues did quote my favorite line from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and that was cool.
3. Backyard wedding parties are officially the way to go. I went to a party for my friends who eloped three or so months ago and it was great. They had tents up and the rain rushing down on the tents created this crazy, dramatic atmosphere that was nicely balanced with their good humor and overall hilarious-ness. The party was in Connecticut and surprisingly, I only had an extreme physical aversion (allergies) to the state rather than the spiritual aversion I've always experienced while driving through. Also, I got to hang out with tons of dogs, so that probably enhanced the pleasant Connecticut experience.
I'm on Amanda's computer because my Powerbook and I are fighting, big time. While Applecare and I (we're a team!) have not yet fixed the computer, I commend the way in which they DO NOT make me feel like a small child and actually assume that Mac users are familiar with basic tech terms.
This time next week I'll be up at the beach and that couldn't make me happier.
Oh, oh! Also, I watched this movie last night and it totally ruled. If you've seen it and you'd like to have a debate, my official position is that he was totally right in doing what he did.
Seriously.
That is all.
okay, fine, she was toothless and babbling to herself while smoking the cigarette and everyone looked too stunned to say anything.
it reminded me of that experiment Craig and Jim wanted to do a long time ago where they would walk around the mall in Salem smoking butts to see what people would do.
