Eeewww!

There's something extremely disturbing about a fat, sweaty and balding middle aged man who answers his "I like the way you move" cellphone ring tone by saying "Speak". Gross. Doubly gross when he's pressed up against you on the crowded morning N train.


Also, Eeeww:

The mystery of my swelling disgusting feet. Last weekend I looked like I had club foot...or elephantitis. Either way it was pretty disgusting and I'm still not certain what caused it. Regardless, my feet are back to their ususal troll-like status.

My First Review

Courtesy of Natalie at Philobiblon and blogcritics.org, and now my crappy rants are posted on dozens of feminist blog sites. Great. Here's my one-liner...

"Friday femmes fatales No 20


Where are all the female bloggers? Here, in my weekly "top ten" collection.

The D Spot provides pithy anecdotes about life in New York, including its so-not-tactful ladies who shop."

Go See This Film

Grizzly Man...Werner Herzog's new doc about Timothy Treadwell. The comic, dark irony of it all is worth the price of admission. My favorite is the local coroner...he's super creepy.

The Trouble With Online Dating Part II

So I've pulled all the worthless chaff out of the big old online dating haystack (losers, drug dealers, meth addicts, musicians...well, I'm still working on that one) and now I'm faced with yet another problem: overload on quality boys. The handful of guys I've been out with (thus far) are all creative, gainfully employed (filmmakers, graphic designers, editors, literary agents, etc), very attractive, smart, funny, sarcastic...you get the point. I'm equally attracted to them all, but they're all so similiar I'm having difficulty remembering who's who. Each of them pass what Boy Roommate and I have come to call "the test"-- superior knowledge of and appreciation for The Office (And I'm throwing in the outdoors, Family Guy, and good/equal taste in music in there too)Now I guess I'm going to have to rely on some good old chemistry. Who knew that dating guys who are NOT total scum would be so tough? I'm not even looking for a boyfriend, even. Just a fun boy companion who will go do fun things with me and sometimes buy me food.

It's not what she said, but how she said it.

So old they're rich, so rich they're crazy, so crazy that they harass you in elevators....old hags at Lord and Taylor, that is. So yesterday I was being a bitch for my temp job and told to have a baby shower gift (purchased at Gap, mind you) giftwrapped at the upscale dept. store on 5th Ave Lord and Taylor. As I'm standing in the mirrored elevator (which really freaks me out) the entire thing fills up with rich old ladies who have nothing better to do on a Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m. than to waste their money on overpriced clothing. GAP shopping bag in hand, I wait for my floor when one of them turns to me and gasps "What's THAT bag doing in Lord and Taylor!" Give me a fucking break, lady. So I responded flatly (okay, perhaps a little sarcastically).."Uhm, I purchased it there?" This is why I don't go to 5th Ave. stores. Though I wasn't dressed like a hooker (or refused service for that matter), I still kind of felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman when she attempts to buy shit on Rodeo Drive. Fucking rich people....

In Target I Trust

Much like Clare's adoration for all things IKEA, the thought of actually going to a Target for the first time in 4 months had me going crazy when I discovered that Allison's apartment was very near one in Philadelphia. Despite the Target ad-centric issue of the last week's New Yorker, I think the closest store near me is in Brooklyn...or the Bronx. I don't want to go to the Bronx and I don't want to haul my shopping bags all the way to Queens from Brooklyn. Anyway, 2 pairs of cute (and ridiculously cheap) shoes later, I'm a very happy girl.

UPDATE**
Just came back from Times Square and there are Target billboards everywhere. I think there might be a nearby store in the future after all...

A Word to the Wise

Don't ever step foot inside Grand Central Station's gourmet foodcourt with an empty stomach so desperately aching for some grub that you'd almost eat your hand. First you'll be accosted with so many different choices and smells and flavors that you'll be temporarily blinded by it all and then you'll wind up noshing on a $12.50 plate (just one!) of subpar Indian food (great Nan though) cursing yourself with every bite and wishing that their Navatraan Korma was as good as Taj India's. $12.50 is TWICE as much as the all-you-can-scarf lunch buffet at Taj, mind you. This is what I get for being a glutton...and a girl who wants instant gratification...i think that all that food digesting in my belly this afternoon will be punishment enough for my stupidity. Ugh.

Chocolatey Goodness...

Oh, Cold Hot Chocolate where have you been all my life?! The City Bakery's delicious concoction was a pleasant discovery and a total guilty pleasure (at $5 a cup). Who fucking cares. Imagine a rich chocolate shake, but better (and over ice). As I have mentioned before, I am NOT a fan of iced coffee, but good lord, put some of that hot chocolate over some cubes! And their sugar cookies are soo buttery and good that they melt in your mouth...literally.

Creepy Men on Trains: What the Fuck, Part I

After getting off the escalator to the 6 train this morning, some random dude (In aviator glasses. At 8 a.m. in the morning. In a dark subway station, nonetheless) comes up to me and comments on some part of my body..though i'm not certain what. It was either "You have very nice eyes" (which i doubt because he was standing behind me) or "You have very nice legs" (which I'm still not certain is correct because, come on, you people have seen my legs...). Then, amid the hustle and bustle of the morning commuters he says "Wanna go get dinner some night?" WHAT? Uhm, no thanks Freak.

Overheard in Philadelphia...

"Tits are the new black..."--Allison Payne (God, love her).

"If I were black, I'd eat that shit every day!" --unidentified white fratty chatting to black man in Philly night club

"You can't hook up with my friend 'cause you're a male slut." --Infuriated Philly dancefloor-goer.

"Dance white girl, dance!" --unidentified voice on dancefloor

"Oh, wait. They're married...let's go fuck with them."--drunken dancer

CheezeWizzalicious!

Heading to Philly this weekend for some fun, drinks, a baseball game, and of course, cheesesteaks.

That's a first.

Last night (not late even) on my walk home from the train (the same route I take every day) a couple of guys in a car kinda pulled over to the side of the road and said the following: "Hey, baby, you need a ride? You workin' tonight?" They thought I was a prostitute. I am not a prostitute. Needless to say I was mortified but then after thinking about it, started laughing. I mean seriously, what the fuck? After telling Boy Roommate about it this morning, he looked at me and asked (in all seriousness) " Well, were you wearing high heels?" Like that would indicate that I am a hooker?! Maybe if paired with fishnet stockings and a partially visible cooch! Last time I checked, high heeled shoes were not restricted to hookers, tramps, or crack hos. But no, I was not wearing heels, nor was my cooch showing...

The Problem with Online Dating...

Is that it's almost too casual. After a weeklong email correspondence with a 33 year old photographer, we decided to meet up for a drink. However, yesterday he made an eleventh hour decision to bail (via email). Lame! After I emailed him back to point out how sketch and lame this was, he immediately changed his mind. You see, to me the appeal of online dating is that you don't have to put up with bullshit like this. You can pick and choose who you want to make the effort to get to know before you even meet them and so when someone plays "games" like this, it's nothing to tell them to just fuck off. Which is what I proceeded to do. I know, I'm a bitch. Whatever. As a very wise man recently told me (yesterday): You've got to maintain standards. You should only date guys who want to be with you all the time...and not some dude who just wants to see you at 4 in the morning when he's coming off a coke binge. Indeed. And for those of you who know my previous dating history--say Amen with me now! Anyway, hopefully the drink date I have tonight goes a little better...er, actually happens.

More Birminghamians to Visit NYC!

Clare and The Boys are coming to visit the weekend after the Crazy Bitches!! I'm excited. Plus my sweet baby Lee will be here all month working in Staten Island. He'll grab my boobs, we'll make out and go rub up against some gay boys at a nightclub somewhere. Ahh, I miss him dearly.

Here's to many awkward moments..

I have 2 post-work drink dates with two different guys I met through the online personals this week. Updates to come.

Defeat, again.

Well, I've offically been rejected for every FUCKING job I've applied for and interviewed for. Esquire... even Adoptive Families and ADDitude (yeah, ADD) magazines have all said that I'm talented, my editing skills are fab, etc. but that they're all "going with someone whose experience better suits their publications" WHAT? I write for one arts and entertainment mag and I've already been pigeonholed!!!!

I am Earth Mother and You Are All Flops

Watched Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe last night at Bryant Park. Good God. What a fucked up, drunken, and emotionally draining picture......so much so that I needed a drink after. After recently watching Butterfield 8 and this, I've come to believe that Elizabeth Taylor is my new favorite on-screen actress

It's how they suck you in

As much as I hate the corpo-publishing world (this morning there was a minor fuckup at a big sales meeting and the computers I requested for presentation use were NOT in the conference room as I was told they would be) and despite the fact that I'm a temp doing FAR more things with more responsibilities than I should have...there are some things I love about working for a big company. The first is that the bathroom is stocked with an endless supply of FREE tampons, if I should ever need them. Nice touch. Second, I just discovered that on Mondays and Wednesdays a long-haired hippie dude named Henry comes around each cubicle and asks if you need your shoes fixed. THEY HAVE AN IN-HOUSE SHOE GUY!!??! What the fuck. Very good to know, though my shoes are so cheap that when they start to fall apart that usually means they need to be thrown out.

Temperature Rising

Last night I went to the TriBeca Grand with the Alabama crew to take advantage of the open bar at a DVD release party of "Stripilates"--yes, it's exactly what you think it is.

In other news: It's going to be 100 degrees in the city today. I'm going to die. Is it September yet?

A Celebrity Spotting Amendment

A few weeks ago, I posted an entry commenting on how I thought I spotted Jocelyn Wildstein aka Catwoman in Chelsea. Well, after reading and viewing the pics from gawker.com's recent party-crash I discovered that my previous D-list celeb spotting was actually of Amanda LePore and this is what comes up when you google her name. "One of New York's most influential transvestite, drag, and transgendered performers." Huh! Who knew? She has a penis, too! Nasty pics of this tranny can also be found on www.awfulplasticsurgery.com. Enjoy.

A Few NY Eccentricities I Just Can't Get Used To...

Spotting big-ass rats on the subway tracks...people digging, er, scavaging through garbage in the middle of the day....being rejected for three jobs in one day...Times Square (ick)...$600 shoes.

Where the boys are....

I love New York because you can rely on the kindness of strangers (and their furnished bedrooms) for months on end. It is quite possible that after labor day I'll be residing in a VERY spacious and hipster hip apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with 2 very hipster hip and complete strangers (friends of friends who met on craigslist). Though I hate the fact that I don't truly feel settled, I realize I don't have the cashflow to be settled in the way I want (living by myself and sleeping on my own bed) so I'm just going to keep on packing up my 3 big-ass suitcases and moving from shared furnished room to shared furnished room (the rent is so much cheaper that way!) until I have a real fulltime gig and the money to support my dream of a cute studio in the city. Bleeeech. That will never happen. Damn you New York! You've turned me into a vagabond! See the love/hate relationship I have with this place already?! Anyway, the apartment is amazing and I hope this works out (even if it is for only 5 months).

I've got a problem...

A Dannon Frusion fruit smoothie problem. Every day I buy one at 3 pm to keep my mid-afternoon blood sugar levels from plummeting. This is not good.

The South is funny like that I guess

It seems that everyone one I meet in NY has some sort of Southern connection (of course because everyone is a transplant anyway) but I find it so amusing how people respond when the topic comes up. I recently spoke with a guy online and we were talking about the South. He said, "The South, huh? I spent 6 years in Richmond" and I responded "Birmingham, 2 years." It's like we're discussing our time spent in prison or something. Might as well have said "Fulsom, life plus 50. Shot a man so I could watch him die.."

In that big, deep huge expanse of the online dating world..

My name and profile now exists. I joined an online dating "service" today. Not sure how I feel about it. Kinda creepy in a way. We'll see. Everyone else seems to have luck with them so what the hell...

The Best Part of Waking Up...

Is knowing I'll be greeted by the big fat and jolly MTA worker at the Grand Central Station 6 train terminal as he shouts out "Good Morning Everyone! Have a great day!" It kinda feels good to hear when you're trudging along up the steps with hundreds of other work-weary commuters who are moving as if they were cows being herded to slaughter.

Oh my good Greekness!

Went to Cavo Lounge tonight, Astoria's own version of an uber-trendy restaurant/nightclub...but very Euro trashy...partiers grinding to Greek pop music and tons of yummy pita and slouvakia. But the service was terrible, the liquor watered down, the music was loud, and my dinner companions were gorgeous, tall (seriously model-worthy) Albanian fashionists who are colleagues of my new friend JS. I felt like an odd duck. And now it's only 1 a.m. and I'm at home, minus a buzz, watching a cheesy early 90s movie starring a very very very young Brad Pitt. It's kind of nice.....

This will be interesting....

On Monday I have an interview with Convenience Store Monthly. Yep. That's right.

OOOPPS!

I just got caught blogging...sort of. It was on the "your post has successfully uploaded" page. Dude said "oh, you have a blog? haha! We're gonna have to fire you!" Then I lied and said it was just a friend's blog and I was leaving a comment..I'm an idiot.

My Biggest Piss Peeve EVER!

Why, ladies, why! I'm going to admit it. I don't understand females. Why are they so afraid of the toilet seat? Most women freak out over toilets at bars (in some cases, this is warranted) and I never touch port-o-lets. However, it only makes the piss splatters worse when you hover over, well...basically stand over it to pee. It gets everywhere and it's completely icky. Girls do this. I've seen it. I however don't do it and like the idiot I am, I usually just plop myself right on down and after it's too late...I've got nastiness on my behind. Ick. Now my SUPER pet-peeve when it comes to girly toilet behavior is putting down a paper toilet seat cover in a very nice, clean office bathroom that gets cleaned at least 3 times a day. Other girls aren't hovering and creating splatters in an office toilet! So what the fuck, girls. Your ass is not going to get a disease, you won't catch and STD...just sit on the goddamn toilet!!!! Ironic that nearly half of the girls I hear pulling off at paper toilet seat before peeing don't even wash their hands before they leave the bathroom....yeah, that makes sense.

Wow. This Very Well Could've Been Me Saying This...

I think someone might have overheard me in NY (www.overheardinnewyork.com) regarding my recent experience with the unbloggable NY Boy Freak #1. Found this entry on the site-- " Woman: He's a good friend, but the sex is pretty awful. He a good kisser, but he has trouble further than that. I'm just not his type. I don't have a penis." Haha. Scary...

Anxiety is a Bitch

So I don't think they're inviting me back to work for another week here. Kinda need the cash though...like bad. I've got 2 months to find a place to live and a full-time gig to support my rent. Every little tip on apts friends have given me have all fallen through and I'm starting to freak out. Just a little. Craigslist sucks (today at least). Manhattan is expensive. I don't want to live with another boy. I can't afford shit. I have no job. I have no money. And to top it all off, student loan payments kick in again in October. Boo.

Mitch Hedberg is NOT dead...

He's just hanging out on the 6 train. Cause if the dude I saw this morning WASN'T Mitch, then he's got a twin. Seriously. Glasses and all. Then again, there are tons of stoned, longhaired, sunglass-sporting, flannel-wearing (in the SUMMER!) freaks in NY. Still, wish I could've heard him talk...

A Night at ROXY baby, Oh yeah!!

Yet another subsect of NY freakness brought to life at Roxy's Wednesday night old school Roller Derby. So much fun, but seriously...these people need to chill out, put away the skates for a minute, come into the new millenium for a minute, and get a life. After about a million rounds around the rink, I was pooped and was absolutely amazed by all of the old folks, (well not that old but with all the coke and other shit they did in the 70s they look fucking OLD!) rollin' till the early morning hours. My bones hurt for them.

Before that, dinner at The Trailer Park....I feasted on a Sloppy Joe, chili cheese tater tots and a couple PBRs hugged by my 'Dega koosie....it was fab. They even played Loretta's Harper Valley PTA.

They're EVERYWHERE!!!!

Oh my god. Just had a brief personal convo with one of the VP of marketing here and found out that he's a fellow Mizzou J-school grad. BIZAARE. Yeah. We bonded. Now maybe they'll actually offer me this job instead of just talking about it.

Complete Irrational Thought of the Morning Hours..

My new haircut (i'm growing it out) makes me look like a 5 year old. Ick. And thick. That's what I get for choosing to pay only $20 at an Astoria salon rather than $100 or more at a trendy, hip, blehbleh Manhattan one. Oh well.

Another day, another interview...

This time a pt ed. assistant position at Metropolitan Home magazine. It went well. I hope it works out, really. Now on to Esquire!

We Don't Need No Stinking Catch Phrases!

Spent another Monday evening watching couples smooch at the Bryant Park movie. Bleh. But my favorite line in "Treasures of the Sierra Madre" is NOT the Mexican bandit scoffing "Badges!? We don't don't need no stinking badges!" Noo..noo...no. It's when Mr. Bogart exclaims "Now that's the sugar daddy likes!" after realizing he's won a lottery. It's much better though when taken out of context.

Rejected (again)

Popular Science magazine just rejected me for a paying 5 week gig helping out the edit staff..but i made nice with the interviewer/associate editor and he's passing my resume along to HR. BUT, I have an interview on Wednesday for the Esquire (unpaid) internship!!!!

Another Week

being a marketing schlep...though now they want me to apply for the gig fulltime. Eh. Don't know about that.