Haha, I Forgot a Title

I was driving home one day when 107.1 The Peak started playing a Jack Johnson song I knew the words to, so I naturally sang along. "They say every man needs protection. They say every man must fall..." There was just one thing off. Sometimes I hear a song I hadn't heard in a long time and sing along gingerly, unsure about the words I'm saying and when the tune shifts. If I had known this song, I certainly didn't know it well since it sounded unfamiliar, but surprisingly, I knew all the words. I sat there singing and driving and questioning my sanity. About 1.6 minutes in, I finally realized that I know the words because it's Dylan/The Band. I happen to like Jack Johnson, but I thought his version was too chilled for the song. Another time while driving to or from work, I think what I heard was Trevor Hall's "Life is a Carnival" or Death Cab for Cutie's "Rocking Chair." In other words, I knew something was up.
You see, there is a new album called Endless Highway: Music of The Band and it includes covers by The Allman Brothers, Gov't Mule, Guster, Jakob Dylan, etc. I pre-ordered mine from Best Buy. Another thing about this album is that you can stream it here and that even though my copy hasn't arrived yet, I listened to it online and realized that--dum da dum--the LIVE version of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down was recorded on March 14, 2006 at the Beacon with me in attendance. That's right. Not only is The Allman Brothers Band amazing, but so am I.

I'm Going to the County

Sometimes you act a certain way and then realize that what you’ve done, if you had been male and less attractive, would have been considered borderline creepy. Then, of course, you end up getting confused about what’s what and who’s who and where the line that you so obviously crossed is. You see, I went to a friend’s half birthday party last night at his apartment on the Upper West Side. At the party was a very tall, dark-haired, hairy guy (signs he could definitely grow a beard). I glanced at him when I first noticed him because I tend to find tall, dark-haired, hairy guys pleasant to look at. After glancing a second time, his face registered somewhere in the ethers of my brain. Sparks went off and neurons connected to other neurons and suddenly, it was as though I had seen him somewhere before. I looked at him again to see if he really did look familiar. He really did look familiar.
I spent the rest of the night looking at him frequently to see if I could place where he looked familiar from. “Just go ask him why he looks familiar to you,” a friend said. It’s easy to approach someone you’ve glanced at once or twice and ask them that. It’s a lot harder to approach someone you’ve been obviously looking at for an hour.
It’s possible that at some point in the past I knew how to be discreet, but if there had ever been such a time, it was certainly in my past. Everytime I looked at said man, he looked at me. A couple of times we held each others’ gaze. I know it’s rude to just look at someone, but isn’t their looking back at you considered permission?
“I can’t tell if he keeps looking at me when I look at him because I look familiar to him as well or because he’s starting to get creeped out,” I told a guy I was talking to. (Which I could because he was engaged anyway so it wasn’t rude to talk about other guys. Although I would like to point out that I wasn't talking about this all night, I'm just only citing those two instances because the rest of the night is irrelevant to the story at hand.)
“Go ask him where you know him from,” he said. “That has to be the best pick-up line a girl can use on a guy because even if you don’t know each other, you can then get to know each other.”
And with that, my decision was made. There was no way I could approach tall, hairy man after blatantly staring at him for over an hour with a line that could be interpreted as a come on.
The moral of this story is, of course, that when you’re at a party on the Upper West Side and there’s a tall Jew, go over and make conversation whether he looks familiar or not.

Dunder-Mifflin, This Is Pam

When there's no deadline looming ahead, I tend not to get any writing done. This is a shame because I've been collecting essay ideas over the past two months and have yet to get any of them down. Another thing is that the spacebar of my family computer clicks loudly when you hit it and sometimes needs to be pressed more than once to do its job. I know it's annoying, but I never told anyone that it's because of me. One time the spacebar fell out and I'm the one who put it back and now it sounds terrible all the time. I don't know what I did wrong, but it's terribly noisy. Also, I just noticed because I was paying attn to it, that I only ever hit the spacebar with my right thumb. My poor left thumb just sits hovering around above it, but it never gets a chance because my right thumb is quicker. I see now that the rusty spacebar is a problem because I can type 68 wpm on my laptop and only 57 wpm on this computer. I just tested myself.
Have a good shabbos!

"Oh, C'mon--Don't Be Such a Girl!"

I had a few extra minutes this morning, so I stopped at Starbucks to get a coffee (I stopped doing caffeine so I just had a tea, but I was very tired and needed a boost). I pulled into a spot, crossed Queens Blvd., and got a latte. The light was turning green when I was ready to cross, but I ran across the first part of the blvd. anyway because there was only one car waiting. As I ran in front of the car, the driver started honking to me. I turned to look at the car and saw him waving manically. I halfway turned away and then turned back and gave him an, "I don't think I know who you are look" so he rolled down his window to tell me, I guess, but the girl sitting next to him was either embarrassed or laughing--I couldn't tell--and she made him drive off because cars were coming up behind him. It was probably a case of mistaken identity, but it's killing me to figure out who he was.

For Sale: LAND

'Til the Wheels Fall Off and Burn

Tomorrow will be a high of 20*, Monday will be 23*, and Tuesday will be 35* up in Vermont. And I care because tomorrow, I'm heading up there for a three day skiing trip. Also, my brother brought his science book home for winterbreak to do some recreational reading. He decided he wants to be a cardiologist. When I was his age, I thought I'd be living in an apt. in the city by the time I was 18. I never really thought about what I'd be doing, but I knew that I'd always wear cream colored suits with pearls and my hair loosely in a bun near my neck. I also never thought of myself as having curves or any bit of mushiness on my body. The apt. would be my own as well--with expansive shiny wood floors and marble columns. And eventually, I'd marry the president of Citibank. It's funny, actually, because aside from none of that resembling the truth in any way at all, I've always been baby obsessed and yet, in my image of me from the future, everything was always spotless and quiet. Oh boy.

You Ruined a Funny Joke, Get Out of My Offive

Good morning, snow. Good morning, birds I hear chirping. Everything's up and around backwards. Whooo ooooh office depot ooh ooh we will lend you a hand and for all that you do, we hand it to you whooo ooooh office depot oooh ooh we will lend you a hand...
Well, yesterday, anyway, I went to get a manicure at the new place around the corner from my office. As I was picking out a color, this woman came up to me and in a heavily-accented voice asked if I wanted a massage. I told her I didn't. "I'll give it to you while you're getting the manicure so you don't waste time," she said in other words. I told her again that I wasn't interested. "Okay," she said, "I'll give it to you for free and you just tip me."
I sat down for the manicure and after taking off my coat the massage lady and another lady said something in a language I didn't understand (or recognize).
"They just said you have a very nice figure," the manicurist told me.
I thanked the manicurist and she asked me what I do.
"I work around the corner."
"Oh, in that big building?"
"Yes."
"But what do you do?"
"Um...I trade."
"OH REALLY? Oh, wow, I thought you were a belly-dancer or dance teacher the way you dress and that you're so slim."
That, folks, was a first. And the manicurist continued with the manicure and the masseuse continued banging me on the back with hot stones.

I Like My Pigtails

I walked into the gas station straight from the gym to purchase a car wash. There was an elderly looking black man standing near the cashier. Noticing me as I walked toward the cashier, the man asked who did my braids.
"What?"
"Who braided your hair?"
"Oh, I did."
"Really?" He laughed, "I thought only black people can braid!"
"Surprise!"
And he threw his head back and let out a belly-laugh at that.

But I Have a Few Theories

Recently, I've been going to bed at 10:30 or 11:30 and still, with eight hours of sleep, walking around with bags under my eyes. I tried make-up. I tried more sleep. Then I tried baking a cake.
You see, sometimes you're just down and you can't break out of it because you wake up at 6:30 every morning. Then yesterday I was having a bad morning so I didn't want to talk to anyone. I left work early and instead of going straight home, went to Stop & Shop. I bought cocoa powder and Reese's peanut butter and a bar of chocolate. Then I went home and baked a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting. My brother kept asking me if he could have a piece before I frosted it, but it doesn't work that way. You can't stack layers without first putting a layer of frosting. I told him no. Then I gave him all the cake I cut off the sides to even it out. He was happy and I felt a lot better after making the cake.
I don't know why baking always makes me feel better, but I have a few theories. One theory is that I'm good at it. When something comes easily to you and you do it well, you always feel better after having done it. Another theory is that it's a quick task. All it takes is 30 minutes and I've accomplished something! And it tastes delicious, too! That's always good because I rarely finish tasks I set out to complete. That's for an essay some other time when I'm not writing in stupid sentences like these.
Another thing that I like doing is wearing clothes that don't match. I don't do it often, but when I do, I do it with vengeance. Today I'm not matching and I feel happy. Perhaps if you're nice about it, I'll let you have a piece of cake.

Cacao

Yesterday I had hot chocolate and dark solid chocolate for lunch. I'm saying this now because I'm finishing the chocolate for breakfast. Milk chocolate is too sweet for me. Or maybe it's too sweet for me now because I always have dark chocolate.
It took me a while to find a good dark chocolate because they always make them either too hard or far too bitter for me to handle yet. Hershey's Special Dark is good and Cadbury's is also very creamy.
Have a great day.

I Can Do It Too, Punchanello Funny Fellow

No, because by "Happy Hippie" I am not referring to myself. I was just demonstrating a happy hippie's dance for Mir and Doni when we went hiking and Mir thought it was funny.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

I was sitting on my bedroom floor dividing my newly purchased beads into my newly purchased bead organizer (a great investment since I usually end up keeping my beads in baggies) when I put my hand down hard on a curler that I must've forgotten to put back with the other curlers. When the pinching pains in my palm (HAHA!) subsided, it occurred to me that maybe my room was a bit too cluttered with girly things.
Aside from the actual blue and purple design of my room, here's what I have too much of: books, beads, shoe boxes of shoes, clothing, hair products, yarn. When I say "too much of," I don't mean "too many;" I mean that I don't have enough storage spaces to fit these things.
My book collection ranges from Shakespeare and Milton to Didion and Updike, Austen and Wollstonecraft to Sedaris and Bellow, anthologies of famous essays to textbooks on flim-making, and a number of cookbooks in between. Obviously, I would never entertain the thought of getting rid of any of them.
I can't make a million necklaces at once, so until I have more free time those beads are going to occupy two-three shelves of space.
I like my shoes to be in nice shape, so I keep them in their boxes. Unfortunately, there isn't enough room at the bottom of my closet for all the boxes.
The clothing I'm not going to start on because I've already outsourced my coats to the hall closet and my brother's been giving me flak for that.
Recently, I realized that the difference between me and most girls my age is that they look like women and I treat myself like a girl. So I started putting effort into how I look and now my blowdryer, curlers, straightening iron, brushes, and hair products are all over the place.
And the yarn is for all those scarves I've started but never ended up completing.
All I'm saying is that I need an office...preferably one with a vase that replenishes itself with fresh flowers.

Obviously, I Gave Myself an A

Today, the WSJ.com's survey question was How would you grade your fashion sense? They don't usually give the "men" and "women" options, but today they did. I viewed both the men and women's results and noted how great the difference was in the amount of votes garnered for each category. The number were 394 and 832.
That is, only 394 women voted while a whopping 832 men did. I was surprised. I was also surprised that most people gave themselves Bs. I thought the women would because there's always that, "I think I dress pretty well, but I'm no Vogue cover," but I was (once again) surprised by the men. I thought most would give themselves A.

Guten Morgen

I went to bed early last night, readying myself for the 6:20 wake-up I do when I have work. After two weeks off (one for finals, one for vacation), I was afraid I'd oversleep. But by 7:01, I was in my car and listening to the traffic report. By 7:20, I was approching the Tappan Zee. And by 8:02, I had just crossed the Whitestone. I had been listening to the radio the whole drive, but for some reason it wasn't until 8:02 that I happened to be on a station that happened to be saying that since today is being observed as the national mourning day for President Ford there is no mail and the NYSE is closed. I called my father.
"Daddy, today is being observed as a day of mourning so the NYSE is closed. Should I not be going to work?"
"GASP! I'm so sorry that I forgot to tell you! Please don't tell me you're on your way to work."
"I'm on my way to work."
"GASP! I hope you didn't get very far."
"Well, I just crossed over the Whitestone, but I'll turn around at the next exit."
It doesn't matter that I woke early and drove about two hours this morning for no reason; I have a surprise extra day of vacation!