Mini-Break

Gotta love a bar crawl in the middle of the day on a Thursday. KTB....Holla!!!

I'm going away for the weekend so I won't post until after Monday. I hope you all have a very happy New Year's.

Until we meet again.

The Best? Really??

Well, I hope all of you had a Merry Christmas, I know I did. Now it's time for one of my least favorite holidays, New Years. I like the idea of starting a new year with resolutions and the hope of turning over a new leaf, especially after the crappy year I had. However, I don't like all the hype over New Year's. If you don't have plans it's like you're a failure at life. It's almost as bad as Valentines day. However, I really do enjoy the week in between New Year's and Christmas when everyone looks back at the past 12 months. I like the lists people make as to the biggest events, or people, or ideas of the past year. This year I noticed Yahoo! had a whole big section on the year in review. My favorite list they made was one about the best websites of the year.

Including today there have been 362 days in 2005. I have no scientific data in front of me but I imagine that in that time people have created a great number of websites. Of all of them Yahoo! chose the best to represent the internet in their year end review. They included such gems as The Cloud Appreciation Society, Stuff on My Cat, and Sam's Mailbox Picture Collection. You have to wonder what standards they used to judge.

In the mix there were a few really interesting ones. One of my favorites was PostSecret. It's this website where you can write you deepest, darkest secret on a post card, send it in, and they will post it for you. Of course it's all anonymous and it is a pretty fascinating way to get some stuff off your chest. It never ceases to amaze me what people will do or how they think. I was also a fan of A Day in the Life of Miss McDonald. Finally a website that will shed some life about the family of Ronald McDonald. I have spent countless sleepless nights just wondering about the people behind Ronald. Sweet.

Finally I really enjoyed The Worst Jobs in History. While it showed that my previous job wasn't the most horrible thing ever, it gave me hope that my next job couldn't possibly be all that bad. It's nice to have something to believe in.

If you want to check out the rest of the list go here. This post would not have happened without the help of my dear friend, Angel.

Stupid Blogger

I have spent the past hour trying to write a post with all these links and then when I published it all the links were messed up. So then I tried to delete it and it won't delete. So if you're reading and there is a long post from 12/27 with a whole bunch of links that do not work and look all funny, please ignore it. I hate it when the computer is a dick.

Tis the Season

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Allow me to Elaborate

On Saturday night I met up with some friends in Manhattan. We went out in the East Village and it served as a good reminder as to why I never go out down there. I will get to that. We spent all night on 2nd avenue between fourth street and second street and our last stop was that karaoke bar. The only other times in my life I have sung at karaoke I have been too drunk to remember everything. However, on this night that was not the case.

Nick Lowe can be very convincing, especially when it comes to participating in karaoke. And he offered to pay for the song. Katie and I finally agreed to do it and I waited around until our name was called. It was a fabulous rendition of the theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. We totally rocked it out. Hard. It was all very hip hop. And it was a good song to do because we didn't actually have to sing and it was super short.

At this point it was one am and I had to be back at Grand Central for a 1:50 train. After our performance I went back to the subway but after 20 minutes a train still hadn't come and someone had discovered an unattended bag. Deciding not to wait for the train or to find out what happened with the bag I just ran back out onto the street in a frantic attempt to hail a cab. I think my worse nightmare would be calling my parents at 2 in the morning to tell them I had missed the last train home and I was stranded in Manhattan. Fortunately, I finally got a cab and told the driver my problem and he rushed me up town with enough time for me to get a hotdog before boarding the train. But, that is the exact reason why I never go downtown. No matter how fun the night was, it always gets clouded over by the aggravation of trying to get back to Grand Central to catch the train.

However, it was a fun night. I am happy that I now have a karaoke experience I can remember.

Sing it Sister

Nothing better than ending the night with a rousing karaoke rendition of the theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bell Air

Why Angel is my best friend

This is the Christmas gift I recieved from Angel. It is an Elvis throw blanket.

This is Elvis on my bed.

And this is me and Elvis in bed together.

I love Elvis and now I can be very close to him. Merry Christmas to that!!

Boy Cooties

Today I was sitting in the porch with my mom discussing our recent holiday decoration project. We had bought snowflake garland at Target, cut it up to make a bunch of individual snowflakes, and then taped them to the front bay window at all different heights. During the day it looks pretty neat. If you're far away it looks like stars, but that's cool too. Anyway, at night you can't even see them so I decided that we needed to light up the windows. I went back to Target and bought 18 feet of tube lighting that does the trick. However, my mom and I were talking about how my dad and brother are making things very difficult by insisting their suggestions as to how to hang the tube lighting are the only way to go. Hey, it was our project to begin with and we refuse to let their testosterone get in the way.

Then my mom went on to say that she "doesn't even want to deal with people who have a penis." Awesome. And, while I have a feeling this had more to do than with our holiday cheer, I totally agree. For my whole life I have lived in a house where the estrogen was dominant. Only in the last few months have we been on an even playing field. With my sister in San Francisco and my brother now living home, it's 2 to 2. However, for some reason, I feel overwhelmed by male hormones. Gross.

I can only hope to move out soon. Then I will pray for my mom and her ability to live with two men.

Have a seat, the doctor will be right with you.

So today I went to see another orthopedist about my ribs. I got there a little before my 10:30 appointment time so I could fill out all the paper work. After going through a million pages of diseases I am pretty sure I don't have, I took a seat. Two minutes later this woman in a red sweater came flying in, sat next to me, and unloaded her three bags onto the floor. Then she left for like seven minutes. Well, I don't know if that's exact but it was a pretty long time to leave your stuff on the floor of the waiting room.

At this point I should mention the rest of the ensemble sitting with me. There was a sweet old lady knitting two chairs to my left. She was there with her friend, she didn't actually have an appointment. There were two Uber-Westchesterites (you can tell by the way they were dressed) sitting across from me. They actually knew each other and were both there to see the Dr. about their tennis elbow. It probably happened at the country club courts which was a shame because they most likely had to give up their tee time for the next morning. There was also a middle aged man reading the New York Times.

Red sweater lady comes back in and proceeds to rummage through her bag. It took me a little while to figure out what she was doing but then I realized she was send out her Christmas cards. She had piles of stamps, envelopes, and address labels all over the place and she was being very loud about it. Actually, it seemed as though she was trying to draw attention to herself. She started talking to me about her stamps that had these ugly Santa Claus on them and I said just enough not to be rude but I was trying so hard to put out my best "leave me alone" vibe. I just wasn't in the mood. Well, the Westchester ladies were talking about how one of them was a nurse at Lenox Hill Hospital. When one of them got called into see the doctor the red sweater lady saw her opportunity and started talking to the remaining Westchester lady about being a nurse. I'm not going to go into it in as much detail as she did but I now know red sweater's husband is Chinese, they have two kids, and she is a nurse practitioner and lived all over the city before moving upstate. She just kept talking and talking very loudly. You could tell Westchester lady regretted getting roped into conversation.

It was a this point I realized the red sweater was a special one, it was a Christmas sweater. It might have even been a homemade Christmas sweater and upon closer inspection I noticed she had on giant Santa Claus earrings. Tennis elbow finally ended the conversation with Mrs. Christmas Cheer and the business man took this opportunity to talk about his former career as a tennis pro with Tennis elbow. I found out later that he has had seven surgeries on his knees alone. Then the knitting lady, who had exchanged her knitting for a book, chimed in and said she knew people at Lenox Hill and it turns out she is a professional dietician.

Enter red Christmas sweater. She actually asked the old lady if she had been obese when she was younger because every dietician she has dealt with had become a dietician because of their former obesity. When knitting lady told her no she just kept talking about this one lady she knew who had been really fat but got in shape and was now a dietician. Then she kept asking questions about the knitting lady's opinion of Weight Watchers and gave a not so brief history of her experience with Weight Watchers and how they refused to work with her while she was pregnant.

Had I not been called in to see the doctor I think I would have killed myself right there in front of all of them. But finally, after about an hour, they called my name. He is sending me for another MRI and a bone scan. Honestly, I would rather endure those tests than have to sit in that waiting room for one more second. Well, we'll see if I sing the same tune next week when I have to go have both of them done. Oh, he also gave me lidocane patches to put on my ribs when I run to numb the pain. That's pretty awesome. But I think if these tests reveal nothing I might just have to cut myself open to see for myself.

Best Chair Ever

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. I have been too busy sitting in my new chair. See how awesome it is. That's my chair, at my desk in my room. Those are my brother's legs to the right. You can also kind of see how it fills in all the free room inbetween my desk and my bed. I don't mind though.



This is me sitting in my chair. I am reading my 500 page biography of Elvis (please take note of my awesome Christmas socks). It's a great book and I love that all I have to do is spin my chair around and I can put my feet up on my bed. Also, since it's on wheels I can simply wheel myself around my room. I never have to get up. Actually, I could probably wheel myself around the entire upstairs of my house. Sweet.

Finally, this is my chair with a bunch of my stuff on it. The benefit of having a bigger desk chair is that less of my clothes will end up on the floor. This morning I woke up around 7am and was freezing. Luckily I had thrown my sweatpants on the chair (as seen here) and all I had to do was reach over and grab them. I never had to get out of bed. That's about as close to perfection as you can get.




Before ending this post I would just like to respond to a few of your comments. My new blogger friend Sara said I should try to avoid defective chairs. Touche. Two of the chair breakings occurred at work and since I have written tirelessly about the conditions at work I think we all know those chairs were most likely not up to par with other chairs. The one that happened on Sunday previously belonged to my Great Aunt who died when I was in first grade. I probably shouldn't have been sitting on it in the first place, it was practically an antique.

The only other time this happened was when I sat in Angel's directors chair. Clair, while I do take some offense to your comment about my "ladylike tendencies" I think in this instance you are probably right. I was probably drinking beer and eating Milano cookies after a long day at class and just flopped down into the chair a little too hard.

I am going to go now. I have to roll over to my dresser and put my clothes away.

My Fat Ass

Earlier today I was sitting at my desk checking my e-mail. The chair I was sitting in was possibly the most uncomfortable thing ever. It was really old and ugly and had no padding on the seat. So, when I sat back in it I wasn't too surprised to feel the back part give way and crack. I wasn't too sad about it because I figured I could take the opportunity to get a nice new chair. However, this incident did force me to realize I seem to have developed a habit of breaking chairs.

When I first began working at the theater there were two stools that lived in the front part of the office so when there were two people working the window they could both sit. However, one of the stools came to an unfortunate end when I broke it. I'm not sure how it even happened but one of the legs was no longer attached to the ring that held it all together and it was very unstable to sit on. Then, just a few months ago I broke a chair in the back room of the office. It wasn't the best chair to begin with and I was sitting with my feet up, as I tend to do. But I guess I shifted my weight and I felt the plastic on the bottom of the seat crack forcing the front part of the seat to slope towards the floor. It was almost like the chair was trying to push me off.

Perhaps my most famous chair breaking incident came in 2000 when I ripped Angel's directors chair. In this picture you can see her sitting in the broken chair. The part in her hand is what I ripped simply by sitting down. I ended up buying her new canvas pieces to go on her chair.

Well, after breaking the crappy chair I was using today I decided to go to staples to buy myself a nice office chair so I can be comfortable while working at my computer. I found a nice one for only forty dollars but when I went to check out it rang up as $75. I told the lady that it had a sign that said $40 and after figuring out that the sign was outdated and shouldn't have been there she gave me the chair for $40. Sweet.

Anyway, I sit here now in my nice big comfortable chair. It kind of takes over all the free space in my room but I don't mind so much. I can only hope this one doesn't meet the same fate as the others.

Powdered White Stuff

My first week of unemployment has come to an end. I think I was busier all throughout this week than I ever was while employed.

Between my own doctors appointments (my MRI was completely normal which means they still don't know what's wrong) my mom's doctors appointments (she hurt her leg and needs to be driven everywhere) and the seven inches of snow we got today, this week has been full of excitement. Let me just say right now that I only like snow in a certain context. If it involves sitting in my house, wearing fleece pajamas, and watching it fall slowly to the ground, count me in. If it means a fabulous ski vacation, I'm game. Even if it mean sledding on the first big hill I can find, I can deal. However, if it means several trips outside in the early morning to shovel it, I damn it to hell.

After my morning workout I am so sore. My ribs hurt (partially from the snow partially from my recent sprint down 42nd street and all through Grand Central to catch the 11:40 train home, which I did) my arm is going to hurt and probably my back. I'm only 25, none of this sounds right.

Well, seeing as how I haven't been to work in a week I don't have much to rant about. I considered showing some incriminating pictures of my former office and former co-workers but I may refrain from that for a while. I also considered reporting on some juicy rumors I heard from my remaining source at the theater. However, I am going to avoid that too. At least for the time being.

There is nothing like a late night job through the train station to get me ready for bed.

Good night

Good Times

This is me after leaving my job on Saturday night. As you can see I partied pretty hard and am planning to spend the rest of the week sleeping it off. I promise to update again by Friday.

Finally, The End

So, my last day. I have been dreaming about this day for the past month. I didn't expect it to be any different than any other day here and so far it hasn't been. I have been yelled at by customers, I am freezing due to lack of heat (typing with gloves on is not very easy) and I really can't wait to get the hell out of here.

I have worked here for two years and I have been thinking about things I might miss when I am gone. There aren't many but I managed to scrape together a small list.

First, the pizzeria across the street. Tarentellas has provided me with a great deal of pizza and other delicious food and the guys that work there are all really nice. I am very particular about my pizza so the praise I am giving is a really big deal.

Saturday morning waffles from the Skylark diner. That's some good eatin.

My few remaining co-workers who I actually like. You know who you are and I wish you luck should you remain at your job much longer.

Well, as I sit here dealing with angry customers I think that's it. After being yelled at all morning I think the relief of leaving this hell hole with supersede any sad feelings I have about the things listed above. Sorry guys.

Tommorrow brings bigger and better things. Anything is better than this.