I was in the elevator up to my desk from the cafeteria when I heard some guy getting off on the 45th floor say “… probably bring his laptop with him …” followed by much hearty laughter from his colleague.

It reminded me of a girl I knew in college who, bless her heart, attended the JE Spider Ball one year (in a dress from RAVE no less) with her laptop. I remember floating around with a champagne glass in hand to the strawberries and chocolate fondue; there she was, huddled over the glowing screen of a laptop. It was the most ridiculous and pathetic and sad thing I’d ever seen. And even though I like the girl, always thought of her as sweet, I laughed out loud and rushed to find my date to point her out so he too could join in on the mockery.

I don’t know if it’s a liberal arts college graduation requirement to master the art of being a snarky jackass (some refer to these types as ‘clever’), but I’d like to unlearn this peculiar talent that I too possess. Gawker and most lit/TV/film critics are experts in crafting scathing reviews; troll through people’s Friendster’s profiles and you can see plenty of examples of people trying to impress upon a version of themself that essentially reads:

“I’m clever, mean, and bitchy, which equals cool, but I’m going to act like I don’t care about cool by inserting something aloof and distant and devil-may-care.”

For the past three and two-thirds year I have shared my world, my life, and my heart with a man who was not a liberal arts grad, who was not witty or charming or any of that, and who certainly was not clever. Which is to say he was warm and caring and selfless and unequivocally nice. I do not believe I heard him ever once utter a phrase that was snarky or insincere. His heart, his soul, his entire being was angelic and pristine.

Whether or not that was why our relationship filled me with a deep sense of unhappiness; whether or not his fearless love for me and unclever take on the world was what I found most attractive about him — possibly in an attempt to myself become less clever and more pure — none of these things I know.

But I do know that I am fatigued from an existence of clever verbal one-upmanship, where the parties are always trying to craft a more perfect and succinct insult loaded with fifty cent words and complex grammatical constructions. While out with some Yale buddies this past weekend, we mocked an average-looking girl with a large nose for deluding herself into thinking that she could go home with one of us (never mind that the man in question was definitively leading her on). I no longer think that’s cool. Mean is not funny and while I am guilty of finding snarky cynicism terribly amusing at times, there’s no place for it in that Jedediah Purdy world I’d like to create and inhabit.

I want to be funny in that Ellen way, loving in that JJC way, beautiful and pure in a Mormon way. Which isn’t to say that I’m interested in being naive or feel a need to have my Yale degree revoked, but it is to say that I don’t want to spend all day obsessing about whether or not my Friendster profile makes me seem appropriately hardened, edgy, and ironic.

There’s no law that says an honest, sincere life can’t be filled with breathtaking fun and passion at the same time, right?

I used to find those people who took taxis or car service or actually drove to work as wasteful indulgent slobs. Why bother with vehicles when public transit often gets you there faster, for exponentially less?

A decade ago, I also looked at anyone in a trench coat and business dress with deep disdain. Capitalist tools! I declared, scowling in my baggy curdoroys and angsty tee shirt and John Fluevogs, journal with which to capture a future zine rant firmly in hand.

Last night I got home late from a night on the town with my dad, starting with a tourist-y trip to the top of the Empire State Building and culminating in an incredible steak dinner. Pops really enjoyed himself, as did I. I was too exhausted to try and find alternate side street parking, so I did what a few months ago would be unthinkable:

I drove to work, instead of taking the subway two blocks from my apartment. And parked in a parking garage. ! And while en route, I’m stopped at a stop light, tapping my leather-wrapped steering wheel to the beat of that former Cubbies theme song (Jump? By Mike & The Mechanics?) when a dude wrapped head to toe in black — including requisite leather biker jacket with heavy zipper action and combat boots (ha! I remember my pair from high school) — walks in front of my car. I can only imagine what he thought of me in my German car and trench coat and general yuppie ooze.

It’s funny how easily people can change if they let themselves. Six months ago I would rather have lived in Indiana than dare drive to work instead of taking the subway; ten years ago I would have glared at the capitalist fuck behind the wheel of an import.

As my old man said last night, change is never a bad thing. It can be a bitch when you’re in the midst of it, but when you come out the other side, it’s always been good.

That which does not kill you … and all that jazz.

I just unpacked my first-ever shipment of FreshDirect, and there it was: my name in big bold black letters atop an address based in Brooklyn, New York. ! All three dozen eggs arrived, unbroken, to my delight. I was dismayed to see that the ‘best use by’ dates on a couple of items had already passed, but optimistically I’m assuming that FreshDirect’s standards of ‘best use by’ are just insanely aggressive. I’ve been known to dumpster dive, so I think I can ignore that pesky date. (In the meantime, note to self: must locate and unpack freezer bags.)

As it turns out, the private equity deal that I was doing menial grunt work for several weeks ago was being lead by my contact’s colleague’s colleague “Jeff” as she (my contact’s colleague, with whom I share one very special alma mater) introduced us. Jeff wore slightly baggy unflattering faded jeans with a polo and boat shoes, very 1987. He’s probably in his fifties and worked diligently at some model on his IBM ThinkPad, grunting occasionally but otherwise quite focussed peering over the edge of his glasses. Jeff, she informed me, was one of the original investors of FreshDirect. How nice for him! I thought. And how nice for my contact’s colleague with her gorgeous penthouse apartment and well-mannered private school kids being raised by a nice woman who speaks Spanish! And how nice that this deal was esssentially looking to take a publicly held company private! Isn’t nice that we are all so well-moneyed and well-degreed and can change people’s lives with an — oops! — manipulation of this one cell and — oh! — a modification of this formula!

Thanks to Gawker — which fortunately is not blocked by the firewall of the company for which I am currently consulting — I now know Jeff’s last name. And to think, I sat across from him at an expensive dining room table in a fabulous Upper East Side penthouse just a few weeks ago. I wonder if the cell phone call that he took and then scurried off to the balcony had anything to do with Radar, or if it was for yet another magnificent takeover of someone else’s passion.

And gawd, did I mention how dreadful the work that I had to do was? Truly, astoundingly dull. And I thought working for crackhead college flunkies was bad. (That was uncalled for, don’t you think?)

Found while unpacking a box that has sat sealed in my attic since May of 1999.

Small slip of paper with quotation scrawled in purple felt tip pen:

“THIS school is full of fucking whack jobs, and I’m eight of them.”
- me, to me, 6:08 a.m. 4/13/98 after a 6:06 a.m. hang up call

This whole process is much more difficult than I had imagined. It comes in waves, of course. I’ll go for long stretches, happily plodding along in my new job or unpacking boxes. And then something, generally mundane, will happen and jolt me into pangs of sadness, remorse, and guilt and I’ll be curled up in a bawl.

My new apartment is finally coming together. Days of it feeling cold and vast and echo-y with the hardwood floors are ending; I’ve turned the corner and as my best friend ALO insisted:

I’m sure you’ll turn it into a cozy tea-drinker’s paradise in no time.

(or something like that).

The gas man came today, so as soon as I unpack the teacups and tea there may actually be legitimate, I’m-a-grrl-in-Brooklyn tea-drinking underway.

Here’s what jolted me into writing this in the first place: I’m puttering around, unpacking things, wondering when the heck Mister High Speed Internet is going to arrive, listening to the Lazy Afternoon playlist, when I hear drums or pounding or something. I peek out the window and see bystanders looking at something. The noise is getting louder. It’s drums for sure.

I kill the iTunes and open my blinds. There they are, a drum corps, dressed smashingly, marching down the street. Right outside my window! I look across the street and see brownstones, a woman with a full afro leaning out of her window soaking it all in, the kids and families proudly trailing the corps as they make their way down the cobblestone sidewalk.

I’m really here. This is really my amazing three bedroom (glutton!!!) apartment with the hardwood floors and the wood trim and the friggin’ molding. I really did rip that protective, suffocating plastic off my iMac last night after ten months of safety. I really am playing my highly-rated songs rather than my least played songs for once. I really did have dinner at an amazing French bistro-type thing in my very own neighborhood !!! after work !!! with my dear friend Little 13 the other night!

She made an incredibly apt illustration over dinner, describing her impending breakup with her boyfriend of eight years. (What the heck am I crying about, then? Eight years!) She crossed her arms over her chest, and then flung them out like wings, letting out a huge breath of air. You are an eagle, and eagles are meant to soar, my old coworker LaxChica once said.

But the removal of the training wheels, the safety net, the plastic covering. While mostly liberating and invigorating and exciting, there are times when I tumble into the unbearable darkness of what-the-fuck-have-I-done.

For now, with the drummers replaced by the gentle distant wail of police sirens, I am just going to distract myself with: where the fuck is the cable guy?

American Heart Assocation sez: Gym Class Thru Senior Year

The American Heart Association has issued a statement encouraging schools to join in on the fight against obesity. According to the article linked above, one of the specific recommendations is as follows:

Physical education should be required a minimum of three times a week from kindergarten through twelfth grade

On the clock right now, but this is the kind of dangerous recommendation that morons misinterpret, run with, and then wreak havoc with. My beef with this:

• My older sister is disabled and got enough crap from Miz Osowski the gym teacher for not being able to participate in phys ed. Imagine the b/s that similarly disabled students would have to endure, three times a week through HS graduation, at the hands of a friggin’ PE major from a barely accredited university.
• Schools would have to hire more PE instructors to accommodate the forced classes. Because more money for PE instructors vs. physics teachers is a brilliant use of funds.
• Hello, what about jocks? The dumb jocks take weightlifting so they’d meet these asinine requirements, but the smart jocks (like me) who don’t have a study hall but are physically active — hello, ten varsity letters — actually use all their class times for academic work. So they can take calculus with all the seniors or world history and physics with all the juniors. So some bozos at the AHA think that I should take PE instead of calculus? Even though I’m busy setting records for track? What a crock.

That’s the end of my ranting for today. I can only hope that the statement issued spells out in greater detail caveats that can assuage my fears detailed above.

JJC is passed out on the futon after a hard day of heavy lifting. Little sister is puttering around taking a last look at the apartment. I’m sitting in front of my iMac listening to the Goooood Morning mix on iTunes, sunshine pouring in from the window which no longer has any curtains. My shoulders are sore, my back is sore, the skin on my hands is raw, etc.

The sky is a brilliant crisp autumn blue. It’s time to wrap up the story of Port Chester and start a new one.

Soon as the cable dudes hook me up, I’ll see ya soon as 11238 Grrl. Until then, consider this: ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ by Deep Blue Something and Friendster both insist there’s something to be said about a connection over a movie. Isn’t that also something that, like, freshmen in college bond over?

My friend John decried the use of mass media in the Friendster profile. His tagline, as it were, is “For that which makes us human.”

Of course, in my human weakness, I can’t help but feel a li’l bit giddy when someone else drives a Jetta, uses an iMac, came from the Midwest, and has big feet. =)

5.5 years later, I’m moving out. There are demarcations in the carpet that I installed silhouetting the ghosts of furniture. Shadows in the walls I painted highlight the former haunts of pictures that I had framed. It’s hard to believe.

Last week, I ran into a guy I knew at the bread store, and I ran into my next door neighbor at the diner. This kind of thing has never happened to me before. Today, three of the people that I was in line with at the post office then went straight to the bread store. We all laughed about it together. I’ve never met these people before in my life, yet suddenly it feels like a small town.

My neighbor gave me a big bear hug this afternoon. Her son was ten when I moved in. One of the first parties I threw, I imagined him sidling up to the keg when no one was looking and then passing out bloated in his backyard. Now he’s a sophomore in high school, always practicing the drums when he’s not skateboarding with his buddies. He has the angsty punk rock black tee shirts and baggy pants and long hair. And a girrrrrrlfriend, reports his mom. Tonight’s even his homecoming.

Can you imagine? Homecoming?

Homegoing is more like it for me. The neighbors across the street — who I have felt nothing but elitist disregard for with their yelling and horn-honking and seasonal colorful nylon flags — chatted up my little sister about The Apprentice. God, you appear in the town newspaper and suddenly the people that haven’t said two words to you want to get all up in your business.

But despite my annoyance, it’s kind of nice that Port Chester’s feeling like a small town. Things are comfortable, I’ve got a little nest, life is good.

Then again, I do have a knack for upsetting the comfortable, fleeing the nest, restlessly seeking something better than good.

No sleep ’til Brooklyn!

Just happened upon this blog when surfing blogspot:

An intelligent blog covering the Presidential race of 2004

and also:

Hilarious, straight-shootin’ blog covering the race

Did some investigating on the FactCheck.com thing mentioned in the latter, and although it redirects to GeorgeSoros.com (mwahahahahhaa) it is apparently not owned by him. According to whois:

Administration, Inc.
Box 10518 A.P.O.
Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

is the registrant of said URL. Naturally, admin@nameadmininc.com is also registered in the Cayman Islands.

Whoever they are, I love them. Wouldn’t it be amusing if they had shell offices right next to the shell offices of the Iran and Libya-lovin’ Halliburton subsidiary?

I’m feeing more confident with each debate about the chances for K&E to beat B&C. Yalie for President! Oh, wait …

I was in the middle of packing up my study in anticipation of my move this afternoon when I happened upon the Literary Magazine for The Ulysses S. Grant Foundation. U.S. Grant was an amazing summer and afterschool program with which I was involved my entire undergraduate career, primarily in a capacity of math instructor but I also ran the program for a year. (Frankly, I prefer teaching … I love kids.)

Anyhoo, while reading through I remembered the great students that I had. We served middle schoolers in the awkward midst of puberty; kids just beginning to get stinky armpits when they sweat and the painful experience of recognizing the opposite sex. Many of our students were misfits in one way or another; the white kids stuck out like a sore thumb, the short kid was just a little bit taller than his bookpack, one shy fellow had boobies. Reading through their essays and poems and whatnot, I was warmed by the memory of their spirit and enthusiasm and energy and irrepressible life force. I love those kids.

My mind wandered a bit and I began thinking of other awkward moments. I remember the first formal dance-type thing in college. It was a dance in JE, and many of the underclassmen had flown their high school sweethearts in for the event. How exciting for these girls to see ther boyfriend in his exciting Yale life! How proud their mothers were, I’m sure, for being the girlfriend of a Yale man! You could see the way their sparkling eyes soaked it all in, the wood-panelled walls, the rich leather reading chairs, the slate entryways. Wow! they surely thought. This is so cool! What an amazing, incredible world!

I know what their eyes saw, because I remember how my eyes felt too when I first moved in.

But I was now a wisened freshman with several weeks of being a Yalie firmly under my belt, and I knew enough to know that the outfits they donned for the exciting Yale dance were entirely inappropriate. Their hairstyles were reminiscent of the Indiana flatlands I’d left behind; properly curled bangs solidly Aqua-netted into place. Poufy sleeves. Perhaps a large satiny bow innapropriately placed. Bright colors.

I felt embarrassed for their ignorance at what the appropriate attire for a proper Yale event might be. I wanted them to run and find a simple black shell and some pearls and coat them in understated elegance. Their dresses were too loud and ruffly; their hair too big and poufy. Most of them wore makeup that was obvious rather than subtle. It pained me, but at the same time, I felt superior to them. You foolish girls stealing our Yale men, what on earth are you thinking in that dress from RAVE?

It was the same feeling I had when I accompanied Jeremy to the Stony Brook Engineering Ball. The kids were wearing truly unsophisticated attire and everyone looked on the balance quite sloppy. The ball itself was held in a gymnasium-type room with — egads — cinder block walls and chairs made of metal and industrial-strength fabric. (As opposed to wood and leather.) I felt terrible at noticing the shabbiness of it all, and wished for a moment that I could erase the kind of knowledge that Yale had bequeathed me.

Sometimes I wish I did not know that there are alternate lives out there, that there are kids with trust funds and summer homes on the coast, that people do have libraries within their homes with reading lamps and $3,000 leather chairs and first editions of the classics. When you’re in Peoria and it plays well, the last thing you want is to realize that it sounds like shit everywhere else.