40 hours

How do you all regular folks get it done?

(By regular folks, I mean folks with 40+ hour work weeks).

I have been unemployed since May, and I have never been busier in my life. And no! It's NOT all time spent looking for a job (although I do that every day). I cook, I clean, I run errands, I make phone calls, I go to appointments... just the business of being me takes up all my time. I am not even finding time to work out, people. I am booked. (To be fair, I am running the kitchen for my roommate LAS and I. And I sometimes run errands for her too).

Of course, sooner or later, carpet bombing New York City with my resume is going to mean I'll get a job. But when I do, who will take out the trash and sweep the kitchen floor? Who will make the phone calls? Who will go to the post office, stop by the pharmacy, braise the chicken?

I just don't get it.



Other news: I am doing well. About ten times a day, I think of something new to feel grateful for. Feeling content, calm and happy is something I am not used to, but I would like it to last. The only way I know to make "it" last is to say gratitude prayers and make gratitude lists. Anyone else have a method of hanging onto happy?

What did I think would happen?

When I was 14 I made a BFF pact with a guy who went to a neighboring all boy school (I was in the all girl school; this all made so much sense at the time). We were very close - told each other everything, talked all night on the phone, went to each others proms, etc. Or did we? We can't remember, but there are pictures of us together all decked out for something.

Anyway some people have a friend like this one in high school and some don't. I have to say that I was the better for it.

Enter Facebook.

Yes, we are reconnected after 20 years and we are like OMG how fast can you tell me everything? We agreed that instead of trying to wade through it on chat we are going to summarize different bits of our lives and email them back and fourth until we get caught up.

Then I started trying to summarize college, and I realized these snippets would make good blog posts. Good news for us all, I guess. Check back tomorrow for installment one.

(hint: drinking, failing micro-economics, losing my virginity, sucking at sports, and majoring (finally) in English).

So I sold out.

I put ads on this blog. Why? Because I am fairly broke and because anything would help and because I trust that 99% of you come here to read my posts, not look at ads for anti0-aging remedies. (That does NOT mean you shouldn't click on those ads if you like what you see).

Let's see... other happenings... I threw away all the angry fat clothes I accumulated when I was several sizes larger due to extreme stress. Please note that this statement does not imply that I m now a size zero. It merely suggests that I am smaller than a baby rhino and am getting healthier. Take what you can get. I certainly have to.

HMMM. In other news, I joined APOCALYPSE! APOCALYPSE! Facebook this week after years of intense pressure. No, you can't find me on facebook because you don't know my real name. Maybe all this therapy will help me get over my internet anonymity issues and we can all be together, names, faces, and all.

To make up for all my perfidy, here is a picture of me naked. Too bad it does you so little good.

Love, love.

(Hides Face in SHAME)

I can't believe I showed you all three shots of my boobs in a lame attempt to get you to come back to my blog. How... tacky.

Let's see what's happening today. I got my wish. It snowed and the city looks beautiful, but I suspect it looks so lovely because I didn't have to leave the house today and have been curled up with books in my nightgown and slippers. Yes, I am drinking tea. Yes, a did a little needlework. And so yes, I am the most unsexy woman in the entire universe. (Later I am going to take a bath and read a book written in 1606. I rest my case).

Other news: I am going to be entering therapy next week in order to (hopefully) deal with my sleep issues. I am not optimistic, but then again these people did cure me of my fear of heights. The thing is, they cured my fear of heights by making me confront said fears over and over again. I don't see confronting sleep repeatedly as a viable strategy. Perhaps they'll just thump me over the head with blunt objects and yell "STAY DOWN."

Has anyone out there ever successfully gotten off seroquel? If you have, please, I beg you, comment and let me know how you did it. I need to know.

Help me decide

My brother has pissed me off by suggesting that my running days are over. That I can't handle it anymore. That my knees can't handle it anymore. Blah blah. In response I have decided to jog/walk/crawl, whatever it takes, another marathon.

I want a January marathon to mark my birthday. Top contenders are:

1) Miami Marathon - it's Miami, after all.

2) Carlsbad Marathon - San Diego is perfect weather and terrain.

3) Angel Marathon - Boulder City, NV (never been there - sounds cool).

4) Disney World Marathon - magic kingdom??

5) Ocala Marathon - again, Florida is great for running (crawling, too).


Anyone have an opinion on this? Oh and to be clear, I will stomp my brother on this issue. Nothing pisses me off more than people who don't believe in me.

Love,

Nina

While I Wait

I have about $200 worth of prescription medication being filled right now, and gosh I don't know whether to feel grateful that such medication exists or melancholy because the reality is I need all that stuff to keep me... alive. Well, let's go with gratitude, since gratitude is more attractive than self loathing.

Speaking of attraction, suddenly I am questioning my "celibate for life" policy based on nothing but the fact that celibacy now seems somewhat severe. Sometimes (often... always) when I am at the gym, I look at the men in the pool and consider whether they are my type or not. People, I haven't had a type since Bill Clinton was president. What to do about this? Should I start applying lipstick again? Should I try to get into my skinny jeans and attempt to be attractive? I really don't know. More on this later.

Oh! I moved. A block away from my job. Two days ago I got the worst performance review in the history of my career, but since I am focusing on the positive, we'll just not talk about that. Well, not today.

Caution! Here is what could happen to your apartment if you go to graduate school a whole lot:



Oh and I bought a dresser that fit perfectly into my apartment. (Please note that I had to buy children's furniture in order to accomplish this.)



One more! My bed matches the dresser. Maybe if I fit into my skinny jeans and start wearing lipstick again I will meet a man person who will tolerate a full size bed. Full beds are kind of small for two people. (What the hell am I talking about? Celibate! Forever!)





See you... next time.

Love,

Nina

Dig if you will...

OK.

It's a drawing.




This is where I am moving on Saturday. It has been a long time coming. (Don't be sad if you can't quite understand the floor plan. It confuses me too.

Since you are here, go give a big kiss to Adam, who recently moved also. Times are a' changin' for him, too.

Love,

Nina

Place Holder

In order to maintain my "back" status, I am posting this uselessness.

Is it useless?

It depends.

Have you heard of Joseph Arthur?

....

Good heavens.

....

Get you some.

Welcome to Latvia!

I was in the airport last week for six hours. And while I was there, I had a moment of pure ______________. It occurred to me that I had my passport and enough funds on my person to get out of the country. Options: Casablanca, Lima, Sydney, Riga, Hong Kong, Ulan Bator.

Seriously. I could have been gone. Just gone. Deferring problems so great and terrible that the very wizard himself would have fled the curtain and run screaming from the set. I could have been drinking fermented horse milk (and stuff like that). In Ulan Bator. (Latvia, I hear, is also an excellent option. Someday I will go).

I did not board a flight for some foreign land. I exited the airport and took my passport and my small accumulation of cash (some of which isn't even mine) and went... home.

Instead I am going to try to make my life work. Fix up the broken pieces and toss out that which cannot be fixed. All from right here: New York City.

Latvia will have to wait, but when I do make it there, I sincerely hope that I am wearing a set of raggedy overalls.

And how are you?

Love,

Nina

PS Photo from some recent decade when overalls were fashionable (at least among us Target dwellers). I still wear those sometimes...)

Air

Love is in air, or at least the air between my ears.

His name was (is?) Torrey. I could just go for it and embarrass myself, but the post would confuse us all.

But I will divulge that there was a man named Torrey and though I have not spoken with him in years, I loved him like I have never loved anyone else, ever.. He brought me back to myself and made me feel again. In that sense, he saved my life.

Of course, that is not the whole story.

But oh, Torrey, Oh lord. I loved Torrey. Writer, poet, lover, vagabond, boy of no fixed address. My darling.

The relationship is over. But the love, the innocent good intentioned kind, is forever. I have never stopped missing him.

What about the rest of you? Who rearranged the workings of your heart, forever? Who do you miss?

Come on, tell. I did, after all.

Love,

Nina

Sweating in the Oldies

Kate returned from Sweden two days ago.

(I know I made a quasi-promise to post every day while she was gone, but I found myself the accidental participant in a medical experiment that required me to do nothing harder than take a few pills, try with all physical, moral, and spiritual resources applied, NOT to take some other pill, and the observe my behavior carefully to ensure I wouldn't throw myself off the roof. I am out of the woods. Thank you for your concern).

So Kate came home a few days ago; in fact, she came home twenty four hours before I expected her, so I was unprepared with the flowers and wine and fine foods I had planned to have ready for her. She did not seem to notice.

I thought we could use an outing, so I suggested we got to Lord & Taylor and buy work out clothes. Fun, healthy activity, no?

No.

She did not want to go. But if it's work out clothes I want, why not just go through the boxes of old clothing that belonged to her husband and wear his? He doesn't need them anymore. And I need something to sweat in. Fashionable considerations unimportant. So, I, uh, have a box of work out clothing recently belonging to a man who used to live two floors down and who is now dead.

Please someone tell me how to feel about this.

Love,

Nina


ps Next post I will explain the medical experiment in full detail.

Time

Kate left today for Sweden, which means I am on my own in an enormous house for 12 days. To most people, such circumstances would translate: horray! or party on! or naked time! Bah. I'd rather she had just stayed home. Being on my own means no one to talk to and masses of time I normally spend puttering around with her that I can now spend checking myself for suspicious moles or calculating the number of seconds that have passed since the last time I flossed my teeth. Being alone is not what it is cracked up to be.

Kate left today for Sweden so between 10 and 2 on this fine day, I ran all her errands, which were: drug store, eyeglasses place, hardware store, cleaners, shoe repairman. I did all those things and then somewhere on the west side I got confused about where my train station should be and because I felt in no particular rush to figure it out, I witnessed the following.



Another look:



That is Times Square. With blocks closed for the purpose of allowing people to sit in lawn chairs and just... be.

One person I asked explained that it was a symbol of a deep rooted New York City civility; tourists could come there and be seated and experience Times Square without being run over by bicycle messengers, and oh, the rest of us who will mow down a disoriented Ohioan just for breathing too slowly in that neighborhood. Another bystander claimed it was a conspiracy to keep traffic out of Times Square and that those dirty Republican bastards who run the Mayor's office were to blame. To blame! For lawn chairs!.

One more picture:




In case that is unclear, it is a bicycle adorned stem to stern with Metrocards. Someone must have spent a good deal of money on subway fare before buying a bike. And then had a sense of humor about himself.

Such is New York. And since I will be all alone in it while Kate is gone, you, internet, will be my company. I plan and promise and really do intend to post every day until Kate returns.

Love,

Nina

Daisy

Today I was walking to the Cooper Square Post Office and I was breathing the delicious new summer air and feeling just excellent. I thought it could get no better. But then it did.

About ten paces ahead of me was a kid, black variety, about 14 or 15 years old. T-shirt so big the sleeves ran on past his elbows. He was carrying a big bouquet of flowers - many peonies and roses and daisies. Just excellent.

So I walked about ten paces behind him for a few blocks, and then as happens often in New York, the traffic light stopped us at the corner of 6th and Bowery. There were three of us on the corner: me, kid, and woman, white variety, who had to be 100 years old sporting a sassy straw hat and pulling a wheeled back pack.

Of course, normally when people stop at corners to wait for the light to change, nothing happens between the stranded pedestrians except maybe eaves-dropping or shoe examinations.

This was so much more excellent.

The kid, standing between me and the sassy hat lady, surveyed his enormous bouquet, selected a beautiful, perfect daisy, and handed it to Sassy Hat, and said. "This one is for you, beautiful lady."

Sassy Hat was so delighted. She giggled. She threaded the stem into her hat and strutted across the street with her wheely pack as if she were the most beautiful creature in the world. And it made my day, which was already excellent, much more excellent.




How was your day?


Love,

Nina

PS I am little bit racist maybe to identify their varieties. I think. Maybe? I can't tell. If I am a little bit racist you can tell me and I won't get mad.

How 'bout

I haven't made the drawings yet. I am not yet organized. Rest assured that I am tucked into my new place and when I find myself able, I will write about the move process and talk more about what it is like to live here. Meanwhile, let me say only that I feel immensely better. (In case you missed it, I was feeling unwell, recently). In the interest of maintaining something like interest, I post herewith a picture of... well, it's not my neighborhood. But it's New York City, which is everyone's neighborhood if you know which way to turn your feet.



I am on the road tomorrow, but I will post from there.

Cool

Everything is cool. I am okay. Will post tomorrow including drawings of my new place. Maybe also I'll describe the new neighborhood.

Love,

Nina

Memo to Jesus

To: Jesus Christ 

From: Nina, swears-a-lot

Re: Jewishness 

Today, Jesus Christ, I write to thank you for being your lovely perfect self, but also for being Jewish and for making Judaism such an integral part of world culture.  While I realize that after your torturous and unmerited execution, others created a new religion (or, like, hundreds) based on your teachings, if it were not for Judaism and its lovely importance, there would be no such thing as Yom Kippur - and I would not have the night off from teaching, and I would be cramming my face to with Xanax to finish the other work I have to do for my other jobs, work that is so very pressing that I am literally shaking in my chair.  

Regarding other matters, events, and unpleasantness related to myself and my ever shrinking circle of loved ones, I think you know I have some opinions and beliefs that need careful reflection and possible modification before we can speak of them.  (Read: I am pissed.   Why did you let this happen to my family?)  Expect further official communication regarding same at a later date, when my spiritual situation is more suitable for discussion of these matters.

Sincerely (we'll get to love issue later.  Probably much.),

Nina

Thanks, Maggie

Your result for How geeky are you?...

Cool Introvert

50% Geeky, 74% Cranial and 57% Introverted!

You scored 50% Geeky, 74% Cranial and 57% Introverted! Brilliant! This is so very exciting because you have managed to maintain your intelligence yet steer clear of the path to geekiness. You are the rarest of the rare, not many people score in this category. I don't know if you realize the delicate balance between smarts and geekiness, yet you have overcome!!

You most likely have a strong passion for reading or some other hobby you can cultivate on your own, and this can be a wonderful creative outlet. Make sure you take the time to develop strong interpersonal relationships as they may not come as easily to you, though they are vital for a fulfilling life. It takes much effort to mantain them at times, but their benefits far outweight their draw backs.

I truly hope you enjoyed the test as much as I enjoyed making it! I always welcome email comments/suggestions! Thanks for taking it!

Take How geeky are you? at HelloQuizzy

Anything

Break my comment record.

If you could have anything - I mean anything at all, what would it be? A Lincoln Towncar? A brownstone in Gramercy? A carton of Twinkies? A hundred bashful virgins? A cure for cancer? A monument to your greatness?

What would you choose if you could have absolutely anything. Genie in the lamp.. but only one thing.

What would it be?

The sweetness of the twisted apple

Once in a while I have days - yesterday was one of them. For the duration of these days I see nothing but beauty. It happens on the train most often: everywhere I look and in every face I see, there is something to notice and whatever the detail, it is always beautiful. I see a child in a stroller and the particular lift of the child's eyebrows or the wonderful perfect roundness of his fingers has me enraptured. Then there are the others. Teenage boys, awkward and too thin and yet something about them - perhaps in the awkward, not yet grown face there is a color unlike any I have ever seen. Or in the haggard, old men, the evidence remains of their own youthful prosperity and they look handsome to me. And don't get me started on the women. Even the most misshapen* and miserable woman has about her the air of a queen.

I seldom have days like this - when everyone and all around me presents an opportunity to be delighted by whatever is best to see. Yesterday was one of them. I loved it.

* 100 points to anyone who knows (without looking it up) what is meant by the apple title.

Eden

Saw this quiz over at Mrs. Who's place, and I fell for it. It was fun. You should take it, too.

Your result for Reincarnation Placement Exam...

Garden of Eden

34% Intrigue, 34% Civilization, 47% Humanity, 42% Urbanization.

It's the Garden of Eden for you!

Well, this is about as cozy and simple as life can get. We hope you like it here. The real estate is not well developed, but the garden is top-flight.

Your answers indicate that you basically want to just coast through life. You don't want any trouble, and you don't want any special privileges either. That's fine with us. It's entirely possible to live a pleasant life without trouble or strife, and Eden is the perfect spot for it, as long as you don't... well...

Just try to behave better than the previous tenants. Evictions can be rough.

Take Reincarnation Placement Exam at HelloQuizzy