*Cough * Cough

The only thing in my inbox is a box of surplus Angel Soft (standard office issue) tissue.

I’m sick again.

Can you believe it?

I can’t.

People are Nicer than the Sun

People at the office have been inquiring about my “tan.” Where could I have gone to get such a “tan.” Let me clarify, my face is red, looking straight at an apple red. I had to explain that out my front door is where I could have gone to get such a “tan”(or sun burn). The fair skinned do not color well, or too well.

My burn was the result of an afternoon snowboarding. The burn is centrally located on my fore head, cheeks and chin, much like a raccoon. It looks as though the sun forced me into a hat and sunglasses, sat me down in an intense solar chair and colored in the exposed skin with a red crayon. The sun and I are not friends.

Feed the Trees

It is ten days later later, an inch deeper in rain water, and I’ve been punched with a fist full of exhaustion. I returned from an extended weekend in Vermont where I enjoyed times with friends, snowboarding and counting sap spigots in Maple trees as we drove home through the woods.

Opening my eyes, still heavy with sleep, I hoped find snow covered mountains littered with evergreens peering through my morning window panes. Instead I got an eyeful of the cardboard art project I hung carelessly on my wall to cover up the holes left from a failed shelving experiment.

I’m back in New York and back on the subway before I can reflect any longer on tranquil vistas. I’m sharing a subway car with too many people and cringing at the overly boisterous conversations between two lightly accented women who work in healthcare. They’ve only just begun their audible tirade on the “Mexican plague” in NYC when I realize that the subway train is being powered solely on nervous, uncomfortably energy.
This would never happen if I commuted with sap spigoted (non-bigoted) Maple trees.

Addendum: Letter to Lady in the Elevator, dressed all in Black

When you say “My God it’s green in here,” I know you’re talking about me.

A Letter to the Man Standing too Close to Me on the Subway

You are standing too close. If I can smell what you ate for breakfast, you’re standing too close to me. You had an omelet with peppers and onions. You are standing too close.

I am not a pole. You cannot hang on me for support. The train does jostle us about and I am the closest thing to you. You cannot hang on me for support.

You are carrying a bag. When said bag feels lighter, it’s resting on something. It’s resting on me.

When disembarking please do not follow my steps in a body hugging fashion. If the entire front part of your body is not touching the complete back part of my body, you will get out of the train just as fast. I guarantee it.

There is a difference between being aggressive and just being a jerk. I’m afraid you are the latter.

I am not one to hold a grudge, so Happy Saint Patrick’s Day Man standing too close to me on the subway.

Green

After 4 subway transfers, an extremely close encounter with a crazy person with the touchies, and a stubbed toe I emerged from Grand Central. As I turned the corner a stranger handed me a fist full of daisies. My internal New Yorker shifted my gaze dead fast straight ahead while questioning this obvious funny business; my internal girl almost curtseyed while smiling a thanks. What is it about getting flowers? It can melt the coldest disposition and pull hard on both sides of the mouth. It turned out to be some silly promotion for a television show: John Stamos being John Stamos or something. Still, flowers are flowers and I was happy for them. Thank you John Stamos’s peoples’ people’s people.

I spent most of the afternoon sending myself test emails. The number of messages in my inbox would suggest a full network meltdown. Alas, my email was working fine; I just checked.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. But, what does that mean, really? An excuse for otherwise tightly tied ex-frat boy turned executives to get pissed and urinate in the streets? Or for the normally very mono-chromed to add a splash of color to their wardrobes? Does anyone remember what poor Saint Patrick did beside die from serosis of the liver?

Off to a work dinner, where I will try not to inappropriately enjoy too many passion fruit margaritas with co-workers. I must remember to eat lots of tortilla chips.

rhtl update: Friday night is alright.
Big party planned.

It's in the Frosting

I’m a great big stress ball wound up in rubber bands bouncing off walls.
I have too much to do list and not enough red checks.
Everything was grating deeply into my nerves this morning. I wanted to poke the man in the shiny loafers who insisted on pushing the elevator call button as each new person approached. He chose to do this repeatedly with his middle finger. Was he an angry man who is used to extending his middle finger? Or was he just trying to impress the ladies he thought he was rescuing from an elevatorless lobby? Either way he was annoying.

I finally got upstairs after hateful weather chit chat and sat down to complication after complication, problem after problem. The day exploded into a brain melting headache.

The smallest gestures can turn an afternoon around. A playful gesture from a neighbor, a green frosted cupcake special delivery, free candy in the vending machine made 5pm arrive with grace sending complicated problems and shiny, pokey man right down the elevator shaft.

rhtl Update: Reunited!

Guinness Speaks

Please enjoy World's Smallest Cat, only three pounds.



Mr. Peebles

A Dull Day in Dullsville

A celebratory dinner centric weekend has landed me back into the work week a few dollars lighter and few pounds heavier.

Riding off an incredible caffeine tidal wave into a large pile of filing has me grumpy and back at the caffeine dispenser once again. Everything is pulsing here at the office. With shoulders thrusted uncomfortably erect and faces shot downward, drones hum to and fro, gurgling at desks and slamming down phones. I’m nervously staring down the clock, challenging the digital numbers to change to 5:00 and praying I don’t here heavy foot steps behind my chair. I can’t concentrate on anything but what it would be like not to be here. If it were not for the delicious cupcake I ate early this afternoon, I would be hiding under my desk humming Pulp songs.

In an attempt to be productive, I tried to make a doctor’s appointment for this week. The receptionist told me that my Doctor was not available; ironically, Journey’s Open Arms was playing when she pressed hold.

It’s already Tuesday and my only plans for the week included cleaning my apartment and making a Doctors appointment. My new plan is to go home and dance around my messy apartment to Pulp and reevaluate my planning abilities.



Rhtl update: Alpha please come home.

Free Music Sounds Better

Interpol at Radio City Music Hall

From the mezzanine, Dana & I watched silhouettes losing themselves on a colossal stage, but witnessed a sound that swallowed the auditorium’s every inch. Everyone sat next to a song. I chose to saddle up next to Specialist, the first encore, sitting breathless until the bass progression toward the end. After which, in poor form, I pumped my fist in the air like I had just won the three-legged race on field day. I was at radio city; I lost myself in the velvet seat cushions and billowing upholstery; my decorum followed.

We missed the intimacy we experienced at smaller venues previously this year, but one can not complain about a free show without sounding bawdy. I’m not complaining, nor am I bawdy (I don’t think). The band grew in the venue’s enormity, introducing choreographed lighting and increasing fog machine production. In the lights, oversize Interpol shadow puppets played against the wall. It was delightfully hypnotic.

Post show we headed to Brooklyn on what Dana cleverly referred to as the Interpol Express, otherwise known as the F train. We followed a mysterious, delicious food scent toward a hipster packed subway car, vowing to raid the refrigerator when we returned our homes respectively.

A small box of Ritz Bits later I went to sleep and dreamed about Interpol shadow puppets.

The Sun Shines on a Girl in Brooklyn

I stepped out my front door into a Brooklyn covered in white. The streets, trees and sidewalks were white washed clean and full of promise. The kind morning sent my favorite music through me headphones and raised my steps a full inch into a skip. I imagined my two dollar bag was a sled and we were bound for the tallest hill the park. As I cut a path through the soft, cold snow I felt as though I was whistling down the slope. I love the snow like a child loves ice cream on the carpet. I was so elated that even the Jamaican woman who evangelizes in the Fulton street stop thought I deserved to be saved. She handed me a prayer pamphlet and a little wink. (She never offers me the literature.)

I won tickets. I won Interpol tickets. I never win. I never win anything I love. I love Interpol and winning so imagine my delight. If I smiled any broader, my smile would literally leap from my face and dance.

What a delightful day.


rhtl update: "Look it stop snowing"