Tag: observations

And Dusty Potpourri

Sarah and I are shopping when we see a necklace fashioned of afghan squares and bits of chain. We wonder at its hideousness, its ability to pull attractive things from the surroundings and make them ugly by sheer proximity. Sarah shakes her head, “The person who made this has a house that smells like cats.”

Cravings

-We could not locate a decent banana split anywhere.
-That’s the thing about New York. It’s like the world is at your fingertips, but sometimes it’s hard to find just the basic things.
-Like a decent apartment.
-Or someone to love.

Robbing You Kind

While we were away, someone stole the radio out of our car. The thief gingerly picked the door lock with a bobby pin, nudged out the radio, unplugged it (leaving no damage to the dash), and then re-locked the doors before leaving.

You know you’ve been in the city too long when you feel grateful to the person who robbed you.

A Sence of Community

M: Did you read that article on Wikipedia?
J: I did!
M: It was totally fascinating. Like, how there are different types of people who work on the site? Gnomes who just go around correcting small errors and people who just revert other people’s changes? I feel like I could get lost in that whole thing if I ever had a few extra hours on my hands. I’d never come back up.
J: Just go around correcting all the errors and then watching people revert your corrections.
B: And you know exactly who it is who keeps messing with your work.
M: You’re hitting refresh every few seconds because that one asshole keeps inserting the hyphens you removed.
B: And then ultimately you realize you’ve just misunderstood one another, and actually you’re perfect for each other and you fall in love. Like a real, live version of You’ve Got Mail
M: It never works like that in real life when it comes to grammar. It would end up being like a real, live version of The Professional where you hire someone to take him out.
B: This time it’s personal.
M: Hyphen? Hyphen?! This ends in L-Y, motherfucker!

Blogher

Blogher knocked me flat. I have been asleep for thirty of the last forty-eight hours. If I’d been allowed to drink, I probably would have slipped into a coma.

This year’s Blogher was a lot like SxSW, but with better shoes and a shameful dearth of free booze. Also, an inhumanly long line for the bathroom between sessions. This is how I discovered that the public men’s rooms were blissfully empty, with stall after stall of sparkly clean toilets.

The overabundance of hip moms made me feel smug. There wasn’t a pair of sweatpants or an unpedicured toe for miles. And if you find yourself “calling Ralph on the big white phone” in the bathroom of a greasy spoon, no one will make you feel more dignified than five other women who’ve been through the morning sickness routine.

My panel went better than I ever could have expected, thanks to an amazing group of speakers who really knew their stuff. Again, many thanks to Marnie MacLean, Gayla Trail, Andrea Scher, and Pim Techamuanvivit. I’ll post a podcast as soon as it’s up.

Observant

We’ve lived in this apartment for four years. The walls are thin and we can often hear our upstairs neighbor. I’ve often noticed a sound that I took to be the vibration of her cell phone.

Today I realized that I was mistaken. From our apartment, you can hear foghorns of the ships looking for port.